Coronavirus / COVID-19

[ReluctantSamurai]

[...]and their new cases have plummeted to a tenth of their early-March level.

I don't think you can take one example and extrapolate to elsewhere. Social factors such as racial diversity, amount of incoming travelers, work conditions, urban density, and pre-disposition to higher vulnerability (crucial), factor in IMO. Using my own state of Michigan as an example (AGAIN), about 30% of the population is vaccinated...about 3,000,000. Yet cases, infection rate, and positivity, continue to rise....alarmingly. In four days since my last post of MI numbers, cases per 100,000 has gone from 53.7 to 64.5, positivity rate is about 14%, and both hospitalizations and ICU case loads have increased drastically. The case numbers in SE Michigan where the bulk of the population is, is well over 100/100k.

Michigan has a higher vulnerability than many states, for various reasons. This site explains what CCVI is and why it's important:

https://covidactnow.org/covid-explai...erability-data

And an interactive map:

https://www.precisionforcoviddata.org/

We are also seeing the B117 variant taking over as dominant in most of the new cases. Counters the vaccine, somewhat.... So I would guess, that some areas/countries can calm the pandemic significantly in a 60-70% vaccination range, others are going to have to be much higher than 70%, probably in the vacinity of 85-90%.

[Montmorency]

Variables like underlying levels of acquired or latent immunity will especially affect vulnerability in the final stretch, but if we were extrapolating solely from Israel's experience (which, to be fair, has had firmer regulation in place throughout 2021 than most or all of the United States), then Michigan, with a population similar to Israel's, more than half the population should have undergone inoculation to sustain caseload reductions.

Even thus far, vaccination in Michigan has contributed to minimizing the growth in hospitalizations among the elderly, also as in Israel; when Israel had a similar level of inoculation as Michigan does now through late January, it experienced a small but brief spike with an average daily case rate only about 25% down from the all-time peak.

Much of that growth is "occurring among younger age groups," the Michigan Health and Hospital Association reported last week. The age group 30-39 has seen a 633% increase in hospitalizations, while hospitalizations for those in the 40-49 bracket have exploded by 800%.

But among adults 80 and older, hospitalizations only climbed 37%. That's despite elderly people having a tougher time weathering COVID-19's most severe symptoms.

Doctors say the disparity of these numbers is evidence that vaccines are working.

Regardless, within 3 months the large majority of the whole adult population in Michigan and the US should have protection, so the summer is when we'll be able to characterize the effect.



A little surprisingly, US suicides in 2020 were on the low side of baseline, with overall excess deaths over half a million.

[Montmorency]

Apparently the EU's vaccine administration is finally on rails. Although the figures provided in the article only indicate 80+ million doses administered, not over 100 million (unless "distributed" in the excerpt refers to national local health authorities rather than from those to patients).

As the shots roll in, the speed of the EU’s vaccination programme is likely to increase significantly. The average daily vaccination rate is set to double, to the U.S. equivalent of 2 million a day, by the middle of April, and then increase by another million a day in May. It’s not for nothing that European health ministers are starting to sound increasingly confident about getting the entire adult population vaccinated at least once by early July.

At the start of the year, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen introduced an EU-wide target: 70 percent of the adult population vaccinated “by the summer.” The bloc was always likely to meet that target. Simple math now shows it’s basically guaranteed.

Some 100 million vaccines have already been distributed by the end of March. Add the 380 million to come in the second quarter and that means that by the middle of July, around 270 million EU citizens can be fully vaccinated — or roughly 70 percent of the EU’s 380 million adults. (This calculation assumes we’ll get just 80 million shots from AstraZeneca but also includes the 55 million of single-dose Johnson & Johnson jabs). Any additional production would speed this up significantly. The most likely candidate here is German biotech firm CureVac’s mRNA vaccine, whose clinical trial data is already under review with the EMA.

[Hooahguy]

Had my second shot of the Moderna vaccine yesterday. I was bracing for the high fever and nausea that many people reported after the Moderna shot, but the worst I had was a sore arm. Its been almost 24 hours so I think I might be in the clear.

[spmetla]

Got my second shot of moderna on Saturday. Had a slight headache on Sunday then all good Monday. I was at the extreme limit of when to get the second shot so maybe that made the side effects less potent.

[Hooahguy]

The CDC is now saying that fully vaccinated folk can go outside with no masks on. Ive been mostly maskless outside the past day or so and wow is it a weird feeling. If I see that Im going to come across more than one person on a sidewalk Ill put my mask back on, but otherwise its off and its something that I will definitely have to get used to again. Also convenient that this comes when the weather gets hot- those masks are brutal in the heat and humidity. Things in the DMV area are looking up though! Cases are dropping, people are getting vaccinated, and the reproduction rate is well below 1. The big question is if this can be sustained, especially as the region looks to ease more restrictions in just a few days. Personally I think we should be waiting another month but we will see.

A redditor on the DC subreddit does a really nifty weekly update with all the statistics in the region and it definitely looks good.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Im not sure if there are similar efforts in other regions in the US, but it would be interesting to see that data.

[Montmorency]

Tbh, I'm going to have to relearn how to keep a straight face without a mask...

[spmetla]

I'll be happy recognizing people faster, some folks I only see a few times a year were a bit insulted I couldn't recognize them with the mask on.

[edyzmedieval]

Despite being vaccinated, I will keep my mask on particularly for health reasons (season allergies). Having a mask on filters a lot of the dust that comes through.

[spmetla]

The masks do make sense, being in Hawaii I've seen a lot of Asian travelers over the years and they regularly wear masks at airports or when sick to protect themselves and not spread flus to others. I'd hope that not having to work when sick ( a very US thing) and wearing a mask when you're on the cusp of a cold or flu would catch on as being socially responsible. Unfortunately, that change is unlikely to happen as masks were so stupidly politized.

[Shaka_Khan]

This was uploaded on March 28, 2020.

[ReluctantSamurai]

Unfortunately, that change is unlikely to happen as masks were so stupidly politized.

Not just "were", but still:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...asks-biden-cdc

Regardless, in primetime on Monday night the Fox News host Tucker Carlson claimed requiring children to wear masks outdoors was “child abuse”. Carlson also said “the only people who wear masks outside are zealots and neurotics” and said seeing a vaccinated person wear a mask outdoors was like “watching a grown man expose himself in public”.

“Your response when you see children wearing masks as they play should be no different from your response to seeing someone beat a kid in Walmart,” he said. “Call the police immediately, contact child protective services. Keep calling until someone arrives. What you’re looking at is abuse, it’s child abuse and you are morally obligated to attempt to prevent it.”

The man's stupidity knows no bounds. But of course he doesn't really give a shit whether anyone wears a mask or not, he's just stirring up controversy to boost ratings since Fox lost their cash cow in Jan.

Funny how right-wing zealots have loved to quote the First Amendment when refusing to wear a mask during this whole pandemic, but now want to take away those same rights for those who still wish to wear them.

So we go from Dr. Seuss, to Mr. Potato Head, to Hunter Biden's "discovered" laptop, to MLB's "cancel culture", to Kamela Harris' supposed book handout to immigrants, to call the cops on your neighbor. Not a single word about anything that really matters to Americans....

[Seamus Fermanagh]

...So we go from Dr. Seuss, to Mr. Potato Head, to Hunter Biden's "discovered" laptop, to MLB's "cancel culture", to Kamela Harris' supposed book handout to immigrants, to call the cops on your neighbor. Not a single word about anything that really matters to Americans....

You do remember that we are a nation that has local news at 1800, national news at 1830, and then follow this hour of news with an hour of celebrity gossip shows...and the ratings go up as each half hour show comes on. You really aren't surprised that lots of folks are distracted from things of importance are you? That's practically critical theory 101.

[Montmorency]

You do remember that we are a nation that has local news at 1800, national news at 1830, and then follow this hour of news with an hour of celebrity gossip shows...and the ratings go up as each half hour show comes on. You really aren't surprised that lots of folks are distracted from things of importance are you? That's practically critical theory 101.

I've become aware of a steady beat of stories about how local journalism, paper and TV, has diminished-to-disappeared across most of the country over the past 20 years, because there's no more money in it for conceivable reasons.

[ReluctantSamurai]

You really aren't surprised that lots of folks are distracted from things of importance are you? That's practically critical theory 101.

I ration the amount of "news" I consume so that my head doesn't explode. I would imagine there are plenty of other folks who do the same...

What I'm getting at is the culture war propaganda being promoted by conservative media outlets......because the people promoting such crap have no real agenda on how to fix problems here in the US. Back during the election campaign days, it was pointed out that the RNC was so lazy they didn't even bother to come up with a party platform for their 2020 convention. They simply cut-and-pasted the 2016 platform without even bothering to edit out the text that derided the current president (Trump)....

The GOP and other conservatives have no agenda other than voter suppression and "owning the libs". They have to do this precisely because they have no real plan for the American people, and would not get elected to office if "fair" elections were the norm. So instead they talk about how Biden's infrastructure plan includes restricting the amount of meat Americans will be able to eat (notwithstanding that that actually would be more healthy for them) even though the report they use as a source for that claim was actually written when Trump was still president, and that such wording exists nowhere in Biden's proposals.

Lots of flash and trash about what's happening with immigrants and how it's all the Dems fault (looking at you Ted Cruz) but not a peep about what to do about it, or even why so many Latin Americans want to risk their lives to migrate here. This kind litany is repeated over and over and over (pick your topic) until many people believe it's all true [Terry Goodkind's Wizards First Rule applies here]. That's the one thing Republicans are good at...keep repeating lies or partial truth until enough people believe it.

So Tucker Carlson going on national TV and saying that wearing a mask is a criminal offense, especially for kids, will likely result in someone getting accused of child abuse and having their children taken from them as a result when some zealot calls the police on a neighbor they despise (probably Asian, LGBT, or Black) and some local LEO will gladly do it because THEY despise those very same people, as well.

[Montmorency]

I ration the amount of "news" I consume so that my head doesn't explode. I would imagine there are plenty of other folks who do the same...

What I'm getting at is the culture war propaganda being promoted by conservative media outlets......because the people promoting such crap have no real agenda on how to fix problems here in the US. Back during the election campaign days, it was pointed out that the RNC was so lazy they didn't even bother to come up with a party platform for their 2020 convention. They simply cut-and-pasted the 2016 platform without even bothering to edit out the text that derided the current president (Trump)....

The GOP and other conservatives have no agenda other than voter suppression and "owning the libs". They have to do this precisely because they have no real plan for the American people, and would not get elected to office if "fair" elections were the norm. So instead they talk about how Biden's infrastructure plan includes restricting the amount of meat Americans will be able to eat (notwithstanding that that actually would be more healthy for them) even though the report they use as a source for that claim was actually written when Trump was still president, and that such wording exists nowhere in Biden's proposals.

Lots of flash and trash about what's happening with immigrants and how it's all the Dems fault (looking at you Ted Cruz) but not a peep about what to do about it, or even why so many Latin Americans want to risk their lives to migrate here. This kind litany is repeated over and over and over (pick your topic) until many people believe it's all true [Terry Goodkind's Wizards First Rule applies here]. That's the one thing Republicans are good at...keep repeating lies or partial truth until enough people believe it.

So Tucker Carlson going on national TV and saying that wearing a mask is a criminal offense, especially for kids, will likely result in someone getting accused of child abuse and having their children taken from them as a result when some zealot calls the police on a neighbor they despise (probably Asian, LGBT, or Black) and some local LEO will gladly do it because THEY despise those very same people, as well.

You should have seen the sign out front, RS.

The Republicans are the Party of Despair. Morgoth may be on the donor rolls somewhere.



Even though they're DOA, Biden pulling out a $2 trillion family/employee care proposal on the heels of a $2 trillion infrastructure proposal is genuinely exceeding expectations.

[spmetla]

The GOP and other conservatives have no agenda other than voter suppression and "owning the libs".

It's so pathetic that this is absolutely true, they prefer saying things to doing things. Social issues and reactionary attitudes is pretty much the core of the party now, everything of substance I used to support them for is now in the trash bin. I can only hope they sustain more seat losses next year, the growth of population in 'the south' is a lot of democrats moving to republican states which will likely put more states into the purple zone. This fringe thinking that's completely taken over the republican party needs suffer definitive losses at the ballot box so that the few conservative centrists left in the party can finally split and form a new party to challenge the democrats for the center.

The Republicans are the Party of Despair. Morgoth may be on the donor rolls somewhere.

A lot of truth in it. Biden made it clear he wanted to work on issues bi-partisan but the expectation of republicans that he should concede everything to them in order to pass legislation is insane. I'm glad Biden's just plowing ahead, if the republicans aren't serious about working together then continue on with your agenda.

[ReluctantSamurai]

I know this really belongs in a different thread, but I'd just like to put an exclamation point on the last several posts:

https://www.msnbc.com/stephanie-ruhl...l-111117381621

Yep, we got nothin', so let's just go with culture war.....

[Shaka_Khan]

[ReluctantSamurai]

We're about to find out whether President Biden's popular "folksy" self-projection holds up when pressured by big business:

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/23/o...e-patents.html

Last July, during the presidential campaign, Joe Biden promised the universal health care advocate Ady Barkan that he wouldn’t let intellectual property laws stand in the way of worldwide access to coronavirus vaccines.

Biden was unequivocal. “This is the only humane thing in the world to do,” he said. “It lacks any human dignity, what we’re doing,” he said of Trump’s vaccine isolationism. “So the answer is yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. And it’s not only a good thing to do, it’s overwhelmingly in our interest to do.”

The House letter on the matter to Biden is both puzzling and predictable:

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/democ...b05af50dc72e98

The puzzling part:

There are some puzzling absences as well. Of the 93 members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, 22 did not sign the letter.

The predictable part:

Plenty of Democrats are wary of lifting the intellectual property rules. Many of them are among Congress’ top-25 recipients of campaign contributions from pharmaceutical industry political action committees.

Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.), a Biden confidant and the 16th-largest recipient of pharmaceutical industry PAC donations last election cycle, has been outspoken in defense of the patents.

This just goes to show that the GOP hasn't cornered the market on corruption:

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/pharm...b02e74d22aba89

All of the Democrats who are among Congress’s top recipients of pharmaceutical industry cash have yet to endorse waiving the rules on intellectual property rights for the COVID-19 vaccines that many experts say stand in the way of needed production.

A total of 110 of the 218 House Democrats, including Schakowsky, have signed the letter, ensuring it will have the support of a majority of the House Democratic Caucus.

But none of the nine House Democrats among Congress’s top 25 recipients of donations from pharmaceutical industry PACs in the 2020 election cycle have signed the letter.

And the US wonders why many in the world see capitalism as evil....

[Hooahguy]

Literally a few hours after you posted lol

President Joe Biden on Wednesday threw his support behind waiving intellectual property rights for COVID-19 vaccines, bowing to mounting pressure from Democratic lawmakers and more than 100 other countries, but angering pharmaceutical companies.

Biden voiced his support for a temporary waiver - a sharp reversal of the previous U.S. position - after a speech at the White House, followed swiftly by an official statement from his chief trade negotiator, Katherine Tai.

[Montmorency]

Literally a few hours after you posted lol

Just like with the refugee cap, the pressure works and is necessary.

[ReluctantSamurai]

Literally a few hours after you posted lol

Kudos to the President for doing the right thing My post was more about the corporate Dems catering to their donors....

Just like with the refugee cap, the pressure works and is necessary.

Amen. Would never have worked under Trump...

[ReluctantSamurai]

And the debate rages on:

https://www.reuters.com/business/hea...sj-2021-05-23/

The newspaper said the previously undisclosed report - which provides fresh details on the number of researchers affected, the timing of their illnesses, and their hospital visits - may add weight to calls for a broader investigation into whether the COVID-19 virus could have escaped from the laboratory.

Chinese scientists and officials have consistently rejected the lab leak hypothesis, saying SARS-CoV-2 could have been circulating in other regions before it hit Wuhan, and might have even entered China from another country via imported frozen food shipments or wildlife trading.

A joint study into the origins of COVID-19 by the WHO and China published at the end of March said it was "extremely unlikely" that it had escaped from a lab. read more

At this point, does it really matter to anyone but China? The political fallout from the lab escape theory would harm noone else but China, so it's highly unlikely they will be forthcoming with raw data and other information concerning the outbreak. While I understand the "need-to-know" where/how SARS-Cov-2 got started, the whole effort seems doomed to failure as China under no circumstances, short of someone in the know turning on the government, will allow any outside access to raw data that would suggest a lab accident in Wuhan...

[Montmorency]

‘Lions Led by Donkeys’: Cummings Unloads on Johnson Government
LONDON — He suggested that a doctor inject him with the coronavirus live on television to play down the dangers to a nervous public. He modeled himself after the small-town mayor in the movie “Jaws,” who ignored warnings to close the beaches even though there was a marauding shark offshore. As the pandemic closed in on Britain, he was distracted by an unflattering story about his fiancée and her dog.

That was the portrait of Prime Minister Boris Johnson painted by his disaffected former chief adviser, Dominic Cummings, in parliamentary testimony on Wednesday. While Mr. Johnson flatly rejected several of the assertions in his own appearance in Parliament on Wednesday, they nevertheless landed with a thud in a country still struggling to understand how the early days of the pandemic were botched so badly.

“When the public needed us most, the government failed,” said Mr. Cummings, the political strategist who masterminded Britain’s campaign to leave the European Union and engineered Mr. Johnson’s rise to power before falling out bitterly with his boss and emerging as a self-styled whistle-blower.

In more than seven hours of testimony that veered from the clinically technical to the ripely personal, Mr. Cummings described a government paralyzed by chaos, confusion and incompetence, which he said crippled Britain’s handling of the pandemic and contributed to tens of thousands of needless deaths.

At its heart, Mr. Cummings’ testimony was about his poisoned relationship with his former boss. Relations between the two had deteriorated by July, he said, but “took a terrible dive after the lockdown in October.” By this point, Mr. Cummings said he regarded the prime minister “as unfit for the job” and was trying to create a structure around him to limit poor decision-making.

I would say he's coming hard with that John Bolton energy, but as far as I know Cummings isn't holding out for book deals.

Mr. Cummings said he was not qualified to have held such a powerful position. He said he was not fluent enough in math and science to engage constructively with top scientists. And he said that he lost every major debate over reforming the bureaucracy. By September, he said, when Mr. Johnson was resisting a second lockdown, he should have threatened to quit to force his hand.

“If I had acted earlier,” Mr. Cummings said, “then lots of people might still be alive.”

Fair cop.

The chaos, Mr. Cummings said, was like “a scene from ‘Independence Day,’ with Jeff Goldblum saying the aliens are here and your whole plan is broken.” Mr. Johnson’s preferred movie reference was “Jaws,” he said, because he saw it as an analogy to his reluctance to impose lockdowns. Even after he survived a near-death experience with Covid, Mr. Cummings said, Mr. Johnson remained a skeptic.

The mayor of Jaws town was like the whole villain of the movie, or at least the human villain. Then again, contemporary politicians have compared themselves to Darth Vader or the Death Star, so it shouldn't be long before movie Hitler from Downfall becomes a positive reference for his passion or something. Chisulieren!

Mr. Cummings also confirmed that he had heard Mr. Johnson say he would rather see “bodies pile high” than take the country into a third lockdown — comments reported by the BBC but denied by Downing Street.

Meeting between PM Johnson and Mr. Cummings, 2020, colorized

[Montmorency]

Apparently the UK's tracking app did alright after all.

The research comes from Christophe Fraser, Oxford University, and his colleagues in the U.K. The team studied the NHS COVID-19 app, the National Health Service’s digital tracing smart phone app for England and Wales. Launched in September 2020, the app has been downloaded onto 21 million devices and used regularly by about half of eligible smart phone users, ages 16 and older. That’s 16.5 million of 33.7 million people, or more than a quarter of the total population of England and Wales.

From the end of September through December 2020, the app sent about 1.7 million exposure notifications. That’s 4.4 on average for every person with COVID-19 who opted-in to the digital tracing app.

The researchers estimate that around 6 percent of app users who received notifications of close contact with a positive case went on to test positive themselves. That’s similar to what’s been observed in traditional contact tracing.

Next, they used two different approaches to construct mathematical and statistical models to determine how likely it was that a notified contact, if infected, would quarantine in a timely manner. Though the two approaches arrived at somewhat different answers, their combined outputs suggest that the app may have stopped anywhere from 200,000 to 900,000 infections in just three months. This means that roughly one case was averted for each COVID-19 case that consented to having their contacts notified through the app.

Of course, these apps are only as good as the total number of people who download and use them faithfully. They estimate that for every 1 percent increase in app users, the number of COVID-19 cases could be reduced by another 1 or 2 percent.

[Montmorency]

While you weren't looking, Italy, Germany, and France have caught up to the US in vaccination rates (all above 50%). The new waves in the UK and - potentially - Israel are concerning though.

[Pannonian]

While you weren't looking, Italy, Germany, and France have caught up to the US in vaccination rates (all above 50%). The new waves in the UK and - potentially - Israel are concerning though.

Johnson was desperate for a headline-grabbing trade deal with India and delayed putting India on the red list until the talks were over. Neighbouring countries with a lower infection rate who weren't engaged in trade talks were put on the red list before India.

[rory_20_uk]

While you weren't looking, Italy, Germany, and France have caught up to the US in vaccination rates (all above 50%). The new waves in the UK and - potentially - Israel are concerning though.

Vaccines are supposed to be an adjunct to the other measures, not a magical "get out of any responsibility" jab.

Everyone altering one's behaviour in relatively minor ways would really have helped - as Asians countries that a short hard lockdown followed by sensible measures really helps.

But freedom, right?

[spmetla]

The culture of hyper-individualism puts one's desires before that of the community. While I prefer the individual over the cult of the State too, I'd say the 'west' should try and put some consideration back for the common good somehow. How does one guide culture and values anyhow?

In my arguments with friends about this I keep bringing up Sweden vs Norway/Denmark combined. 14,000 plus deaths in Sweden for a population of about 10 million while Denmark 2,500 deaths and Norway 790 with a combined population of about 11 million. Similar lifestyles, geography, economy, governance with the only real difference being how the government dealt with the virus. About four times the deaths and virus spread with zero government action.

Sadly the common response to the above is "I don't trust those numbers" which allows for zero debate, just emotional gut responses.