Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Why did Dr. Oz lose? well, according to the exit polls, it’s because Fetterman won.

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

Republicans in disarray!

All your base are belong to Tunch.

Just because you believe it, that doesn’t make it true.

A democracy can’t function when people can’t distinguish facts from lies.

John Fetterman: Too Manly for Pennsylvania.  Paid for by the Oz for Senator campaign.

“Squeaker” McCarthy

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

Speaking of republicans, is there a way for a political party to declare intellectual bankruptcy?

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

And we’re all out of bubblegum.

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

I was promised a recession.

Their freedom requires your slavery.

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

You can’t attract Republican voters. You can only out organize them.

The republican caucus is already covering themselves with something, and it’s not glory.

I’m pretty sure there’s only one Jack Smith.

You are here: Home / Healthcare / COVID-19 Coronavirus / COVID-19 Coronavirus Updates: Sunday/Monday, Dec. 13-14

COVID-19 Coronavirus Updates: Sunday/Monday, Dec. 13-14

by | 22 Comments

This post is in: ,

(Trump tweets that he’s changed his mind about that, but then: Who trusts Trump tweets? I think it’s safe to assume his cronies and coat-holders will get vaccinated, if and when they want it. And that the WH staffers who really need to be protected — the people who clean & cook & guard — will get vaccinated once the Biden administration gets the WH keys. Call me a Cynic!)

======

======

======

Question: Is DeathSantis trying to destroy public faith in the new vaccines?

Reader Interactions

22Comments

  1. 1.

    Sloane Ranger

    Looks like I’m first up for a change!

    Here are yesterday’s figures from the UK. We had 18,447 new cases on Sunday. This is about 3000 down from Saturday but both figures are subject to the usual weekend health warning. The rolling 7-day average shows an increase of 19.1%. Cases by home nation,
    England – 17,164 (down @300)
    Northern Ireland – 483 (up 7)
    Scotland – 800 (down @250)
    Wales – 0 (down 2494).

    I suspect that Wales did not submit it’s figures for some reason so the figures are more problematic than usual.

    Deaths – There were 144 deaths within 28 days of a positive test reported yesterday, 138 in England, 4 in Northern Ireland, 2 in Scotland and 0 in Wales (please see comment above)

    Testing – Not updated at weekends.

    Hospitalisations – On Thursday, 10 December there were 16,531 people in hospital and there were 1275 people on ventilators on Friday, 11th. The rolling 7-day average for hospital admissions is up by 12.8%.

  2. 2.

    opiejeanne

    WA had a disturbing number of new cases on Saturday, nearly 5,000. That’s nearly double the number we’ve been seeing recently. The Sunday numbers were 2382 new cases, a total of 207,945. The last seat total is 3013 dead, but that number was reported on Friday

    Washington is a small state, only about  7.5 million people live here. The positivity rate is scary for the whole state right now.

  4. 4.

    NeenerNeener

    Monroe County, NY yesterday:

    605 new cases, 639 people hospitalized, 121 in the ICU, positivity has gone up to 8.7%.

    Ugh.

  5. 5.

    a thousand flouncing lurkers was fidelio

    For December 13, Tennessee reports 11,352 new cases. We have a little over 1700 regular hospital beds available and a little over 200 ICU beds open. Positive test rate is 12.95%, which is down a bit.

  6. 6.

    Brachiator

    Los Angeles County has again broken a record for coronavirus hospitalizations, officials said Sunday, fulfilling the county public health director’s dire predictions in just days.

    More than 4,000 people were hospitalized for COVID-19 in the nation’s most populous county — 21% of whom are in intensive care units — according to figures released Sunday afternoon. That breaks the previous record set only the day before, with 3,850 patients in a hospital, and follows the trend of hospitalizations increasing nearly every day since Nov. 1.

    LA County Health Director Barbara Ferrer warned on Monday — when hospitalizations were 2,988 — that the county could see the statistic to climb to 4,000 within two weeks. It happened in six days.

    The county also on Sunday reported 12,731 new confirmed coronavirus cases, bringing the total to 525,486 cases to date.

    On Saturday, the number of available ICU beds in San Joaquin Valley plummeted to zero for the first time and San Francisco reported 323 new cases, the highest since the pandemic began. Millions of Californians in the majority of the state are under stay-at-home orders.

  9. 9.

    Amir Khalid

    Malaysia’s daily Covid-19 numbers. Director-General of Health Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah reports 1,371 new cases today at his media briefing, for a cumulative reported total of 84,846 cases. Dr Noor Hisham also reports four new deaths today, for a total of 419 deaths — 0.49% of the cumulative reported total, 0.59% of resolved cases.

    13,830 active and contagious cases are currently in hospital; 114 are in ICU, 62 of them on respirators. Meanwhile, 1,204 patients recovered and were discharged, for a total of 70,507 patients recovered — 83.2% of the cumulative reported total.

    Dr Noor Hisham reports that Malaysia’s R0 is currently just under 1.1.

    Two new clusters were reported today, both at workplaces: Solar Ria in Selangor and Senu Setia in KL.

    1,370 new cases today are local infections. Selangor has the most cases, 531: 303 in older clusters, eight in Solar Ria cluster, 109 close-contact screenings, and 111 other screenings. Sabah has 283 cases: 65 in existing clusters, 155 close-contact screenings, and 63 other screenings. Negeri Sembilan has 260 cases: 252 in existing clusters, one close-contact screening, and seven other screenings. KL has 109 cases: 71 in older clusters, five in Senu Setia cluster, and 33 other screenings. 

    Perak has 62 cases: 58 in existing clusters, and four other screenings. Johor has 45 cases: 17 in existing clusters, 18 close-contact screenings, and 10 other screenings. Penang has 31 cases: three in existing clusters, 19 close-contact screenings, and nine other screenings. Labuan has 16 cases: eight in existing clusters, and eight other screenings. Terengganu has nine cases, all in existing clusters. Kedah has five cases: four close-contact screenings, and one other screening.

    Kelantan has two cases, both found in other screenings. Melaka has one case, a close-contact screening. And Putrajaya has one case, found in other screening.

    Sarawak, Pahang, and Perlis reported no new local cases today.

    One new case is imported, an arrival from the United Arab Emirates, reported in Selangor.

    The four deaths today are a 40-year-old woman in Sabah with diabetes; a 50–year-old woman in Perak with diabetes, hypertension, and dyslipidaemia; a 46-year-old woman in Sabah with diabetes, dyslipidaemia, and obesity; and a 54-year-old non-Malaysian man in Sabah.

    In other news, Dr Noor Hisham said the mandatory quarantine period is cut from 14 days to 10 days effective today. Quarantined persons get their second screening on the eighth or ninth day.

    In yet other news, three Members of Parliament showed up to vote today on the annual budget in full PPE. They are supposed to be in home quarantine, but the Speaker let them in provided they wore the whole thing and sat apart from everyone else. (Apparently, MPs here don’t get to vote by Zoom.) Opposition MPs protested this, saying they were being put in danger, and walked out of the session.

    The Top Glove employee who died, reported by Reuters, is a 29-year-old Nepalese security guard.

  10. 10.

    YY_Sima Qian

    Yesterday, China reported 2 new domestic confirmed and 0 new domestic asymptomatic cases.
     
    Mudanjiang in Heilongjiang Province reported 2 confirmed cases, both at Suifenhe, both are traced close contacts already under quarantine. There are currently 8 confirmed (6 at Suifenhe and 2 at Dongning) and 2 asymptomatic cases (both at Suifenhe) in Mudanjiang. 1,879 contacts of various categories have been traced. 2 residential compounds and an office building at Suifenhe, and 1 sub-district at Dongning, remain designated as Medium Risk.
     
    Chengdu in Sichuan Province did not report any new positive cases. There are currently 11 confirmed and 2 asymptomatic cases there. 2 villages and 3 residential compounds are designated as Medium Risk.
     
    Turfan in Xinjiang “Autonomous” Region did not report any new positive cases. There are currently 4 domestic asymptomatic cases in the city. As of 8 PM on 12/13, 297,025 residents in the city have been swabbed, 203,975 results have obtained so far, all negative. 1 residential compound, the one with active cases, has been designated as Medium Risk.
     
    At Manzhouli in Inner Mongolia “Autonomous” Region, there are 23 confirmed and 2 asymptomatic cases in the city. 166 close contacts remain under quarantine. 5 sub-districts remain at Medium Risk.
     
    Yesterday, China reported 14 new imported confirmed cases, 9 imported asymptomatic cases:
     

    • Shanghai Municipality – 7 confirmed cases, 2 Chinese nationals returning from Russia, 1 each returning from the UK, Spain and Germany, and 2 Russian nationals coming from Russia
    • Chengdu in Sichuan Province – 3 confirmed cases, 2 Chinese nationals returning from Germany and 1 from Ethiopia; 4 asymptomatic cases, 1 Chinese national each returning from Egypt, Côte d’Ivoire (via Cairo) and Ghana (via Cairo), and a German National coming from Germany
    • Beijing Municipality – 1 confirmed case, a Polish national coming from Poland
    • Hohhot in Inner Mongolia “Autonomous “ Region – 1 confirmed case, off a flight diverted from Beijing, no information released
    • Guangzhou in Guangdong Province – 1 confirmed case, a Chinese national returning from the Sudan (via Cairo); 3 asymptomatic cases, 1 Chinese national each returning from Egypt and Tanzania (via Cairo), and a foreign national coming from Iraq (via Istanbul)
    • Shenzhen in Guangdong Province – 2 asymptomatic cases, 1 Chinese national each returning from Russia and Kenya


    Yesterday, Hong Kong reported 95 new cases, 3 imported (from the UK and the US) and 92 local (41 of whom without clear sources of infection). Another 70 cases are preliminarily positive, awaiting retesting and confirmation.

  11. 11.

    terben

    In Australia today there were 8 new cases, all in quarantined travellers. New cases are averaging less than 10 per day, although this may rise with increasing numbers of travellers returning. There are less than 50 active cases in the country, nearly all in quarantine. This number doesn’t include NSW, which don’t count quarantine cases as active. It probably makes their numbers look bad.

    The last locally acquired case was 10 days ago and the last death was 14 days ago. There are 29 Covid patients in hospital, a number which is trending downwards, albeit slowly. There was a single patient admitted to an ICU today, the first in Australia for ca. 9 weeks. This patient is not currently ventilated.

    The news about an Oz-NZ travel bubble is welcome. Currently, people from NZ can fly to Oz and don’t need to quarantine, but not the reverse.

    Locally, in SA, restrictions have been relaxed so that ‘From this morning, the maximum number of people who can gather at a home has increased from 10 to 50, and patrons can stand up with a drink at the state’s hospitality venues.
    In addition, a maximum of 200 guests are now allowed to attend weddings, up from 150, and 200 mourners can attend funerals
    The limit on people at private functions at licensed venues has also increased from 150 to 200.’
    Other changes are:

    Increasing capacity in cinemas from 50 per cent to 75 per cent, with a requirement for people to wear masks at indoor cinemas

    Increasing density at gyms, from one person per 4 square metres to one person per 2 square metres

    Allowing play gyms to reopen

    This last is significant as the summer holiday break at schools began today.

  13. 13.

    Amir Khalid

    So Ron DeSantis wants to cheap out on vaccines. He is apparently of an ilk with Kayleigh McEneny, who said a few months back that the science shouldn’t stand in the way of Trump’s push to reopen schools.

  14. 14.

    Chris T.

    Suggesting that everyone just get a single dose of the Pfizer vaccine is irresponsible since we don’t have good studies on it, but over time, we will find out what happens with this because some people just won’t ever get their second shot. Chances are that a single dose is fairly effective. We just don’t yet know how effective.

    (If I had the opportunity to get a single dose, or nothing, I’d probably go for the single dose myself.)

  15. 15.

    Amir Khalid

    @Chris T.:

    Yes, some will miss their second dose, and if they can be traced we will indeed find out how effective a single dose is. But for DeSantis to say that a single dose may be enough, based on something he read in the paper, is reckless. It encourages people to not take seriously the need to get the second dose.

  16. 16.

    mrmoshpotato

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    The #1 roadblock being an MIA president. a traitorous orange Soviet shitpile mobster conman and the rest of his traitorous Trump trash mobster crime family.

    Fixed.

  17. 17.

    Geminid

    Yesterday the Washington Post had a good article on the relatively low spread of Covid-19 in Africa. A more youthful population that spends less time indoors, exposure to more pathogens, and other factors might contribute to this outcome. But Congolese epidemiologist Ngoy Nsenga, African emergency response manager for the WHO, says what distinguishes Africa from, say Brazil, “are our human interventions” like early lockdowns, bans on social activities like bar going, and curfews. In some places these measures were taken before the first cases were recorded. The article also credits the base of experience African countries have built combating other deadly viruses like Ebola.                                                 This is a good article, and hopefully is not paywalled.

  18. 18.

    YY_Sima Qian

    Looking at the local data out of the US, it appears the consequences of Thanksgiving is being fully felt now in terms of cases, as universally predicted, with hospitalization and deaths to follow. Given how high hospitalization levels already are across the country, that is a frightening prospect.

    The relatively rural county where my parents live in Upstate NY has also seen a step change daily case counts: from high teens in Oct., to low 20s in early Nov., to low 30s in late Nov./early Dec., suddenly to 50+ in the past few days. They are hunkering down, have not seen a soul socially since they returned to the States in end of Jan./early Feb. They have been going to Walmart every 10 days or so to stock up, picking the least crowded times. Hopefully, it will be their turn to get vaccinated some time in Feb.

  19. 19.

    Robert Sneddon

    Scotland — the number of new cases of COVID-19 since Sunday has been reported today as 734, with the usual caveat that Monday’s announced figures are usually lower than the rolling average since offices are closed at the weekends. For the same reason the number of deaths reported is zero although this will be updated later in the week.

     

    The R0 figure is believed to now be in the range 0.7 – 0.9, a promising move below exponential replication figure but we’ve got Christmas coming which will do a lot of damage, unfortunately.

     

    Scotland has reportedly vaccinated 18,000 people already since the start of the Pfizer vaccine rollout last week. Nearly all of these have been health workers and vaccinators who will be front-line operatives in the ongoing vaccination program as it rolls out to the general public. The first care home residents in Scotland have started receiving vaccinations now under this program. It will be interesting to see how the critical second dose vaccination operation proceeds in a couple of weeks time given the record-keeping necessities, contact requirements and scheduling, especially over the New Year period which is a major holiday here in Scotland.

  20. 20.

    Another Scott

    I’ve been kinda watching reports on Remdesivir and whether it works or doesn’t.

    Reuters:

    LONDON (Reuters) – A single-patient study conducted by British scientists has found that Gilead’s antiviral drug remdesivir could be highly effective against COVID-19, raising questions about previous studies that found it had no impact on death rates from the disease.

    […]

    But the drug’s effectiveness against the pandemic disease has been hotly disputed since a large World Health Organization-led trial found in October that it failed to improve COVID-19 survival rates.

    An editorial in the influential New England Journal of Medicine earlier this month cited problems with the WHO-led Solidarity Trial’s and said they did not refute other trials that have demonstrated benefits of the drug.

    “There have been different studies supporting or questioning remdesivir’s effectiveness, but some of those conducted during the first wave of infection may not be optimal for assessing its antiviral properties,” said Cambridge’s James Thaventhiran, who also worked on the case.

    To address that, the team focused on a case of a 31-year-old man who became severely ill with COVID-19 and who also had a rare genetic condition called XLA that affects the body’s ability to produce antibodies to fight infection.

    Over a period of more than 2 months, the man was first treated with hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin, which had little effect, and was subsequently given two separate courses of treatment with remdesivir, the doctors wrote.

    The patient’s virus levels fell and his symptoms improved during his first course of remdesivir, they said. And while his virus levels and symptoms increased again after the first remdesivir course, a second course of treatment was even more effective, and by day 64, he no longer tested positive COVID-19.

    “All of this suggests that treatments will need to be tailored for individual patients, depending on their underlying condition,” said Matthew Buckland, a doctor at London’s Barts department of clinical immunology who worked with Matheson.

    tl;dr – bodies are complicated. There’s still a lot we don’t know.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  21. 21.

    Fair Economist

    @Chris T.:Because the Pfizer recommendation was for a second shot at 3 weeks and a fair number of people got it late or not at all, we *do* have some decent info on one-shot with the Pfizer, and it looks about as good as the two-shot. New cases basically stop by 2 weeks after the first injection. Presumably the Moderna will be similar. The mRNA vaccines are probably driving immunity much more effectively than traditional killed virus vaccines.

    If we can double the 100 million targeted for inoculation by the end of spring to 200 million, plus the 30 million + who’ve already had it (far more cases than positives), the epidemic will be over by summer. With just the 100 million on the approved protocol, we’re in it until fall

    @Another Scott: It’s very possible that Remdesivir *can* be helpful for people with severe immune deficiencies without doing much good for most people. *One* immunodeficient patient benefitting in an uncontrolled trial does not cast doubt on a well-controlled randomized trial.

  22. 22.

    Brachiator

    @Fair Economist:

    If we can double the 100 million targeted for inoculation by the end of spring to 200 million, plus the 30 million + who’ve already had it (far more cases than positives), the epidemic will be over by summer. With just the 100 million on the approved protocol, we’re in it until fall

    Has the CDC officially changed its recommendation to “one shot” or is this just the snap judgement of the Internets?

Comments are closed.