Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

A lot of Dems talk about what the media tells them to talk about. Not helpful.

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

Do not shrug your shoulders and accept the normalization of untruths.

Republican obstruction dressed up as bipartisanship. Again.

The next time the wall street journal editorial board speaks the truth will be the first.

But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

Take your GOP plan out of the witness protection program.

Meanwhile over at truth Social, the former president is busy confessing to crimes.

Wow, I can’t imagine what it was like to comment in morse code.

Happy indictment week to all who celebrate!

You can’t love your country only when you win.

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

Not all heroes wear capes.

Hot air and ill-informed banter

Republicans do not pay their debts.

This blog will pay for itself.

Is it negotiation when the other party actually wants to shoot the hostage?

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

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.

They love authoritarianism, but only when they get to be the authoritarians.

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

You are here: Home / Healthcare / COVID-19 Coronavirus / COVID-19 Coronavirus Updates: Saturday / Sunday, April 10-11

COVID-19 Coronavirus Updates: Saturday / Sunday, April 10-11

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(Thank you, Mary G)

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Under cover of darkness…

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29Comments

  1. 1.

    YY_Sima Qian

    On 4/10 China reported 0 new domestic confirmed & 0 new domestic asymptomatic cases. There are currently 84 domestic confirmed & 25 domestic asymptomatic cases in Yunnan Province.

    • Ruili in Dehong Prefecture reported 0 new domestic positive cases. There are currently 84 domestic confirmed & 24 domestic asymptomatic cases there. 3 communities remain at High Risk. 3 residential compounds, 1 factory & 2 villages remain at Medium Risk.
    • Gengma County in Lincang City did not report any new positive cases. There is 1 domestic asymptomatic case there.

    Imported Cases

    On 4/10 China reported 10 new imported confirmed cases, 22 imported asymptomatic cases:

    • Guangxi Province (location not specified) – 3 confirmed cases, all Chinese nationals returning from overseas, no further information released
    • Shanghai Municipality – 2 confirmed cases, 1 Chinese national each returning from Togo (via France) & Germany
    • Beijing Municipality – 1 confirmed case, a Chinese national returning from Sweden
    • Tianjin Municipality – 1 confirmed case, no information released, yet; 3 asymptomatic cases, 1 Chinese national each returning from Senegal & Guinea (both via Paris CdG) & a French national coming from France
    • Taiyuan in Shanxi Province – 1 confirmed case, coming from Serbia, off a flight diverted from Beijing
    • Chengdu in Sichuan Province – 1 confirmed case, a Chinese national returning from Germany; 1 asymptomatic case, a Chinese national returning from Slovenia (via Germany)
    • Guangzhou in Guangdong Province – 1 confirmed case, a Chinese national returning from Bangladesh; 3 asymptomatic cases, 1 Chinese national each returning from Japan, Djibouti (via Istanbul) & Senegal (via Istanbul)
    • Hangzhou in Zhejiang Province – 7 asymptomatic cases, 4 coming from Indonesia, 2 from Nigeria & 1 from Mexico
    • Fuzhou in Fujian Province – 2 asymptomatic cases, 1 Chinese national each returning from Japan & Brazil
    • Xiamen in Fujian Province – 1 asymptomatic case, a Chinese national returning from Hungary
    • No sure where the remaining 5 imported asymptomatic cases are located.

     

    Overall in China, 7 confirmed cases recovered, 11 asymptomatic cases were released from isolation & none was reclassified as confirmed case, and 487 individuals were released from quarantine. Currently, there are 286 active confirmed cases in the country (202 imported), 4 in critical/serious condition (3 imported), 296 asymptomatic cases (271 imported), 1 suspect cases (imported). 7,649 traced contacts are currently under centralized quarantine.

    As of 4/10, 164.471M vaccine doses have been injected in Mainland China, an increase of 3.35M doses in the past 24 hrs.

    On 4/11, Hong Kong reported 13 new cases, 11 imported & 2 domestic (both of whom have sources of infection identified).

  2. 2.

    NeenerNeener

    Monroe County, NY stats:

    New cases = 298
    Confirmed active cases = 3164.

    3% test positivity now. It’s not getting any better.
    Deaths at 1210 now

    40.7% of Monroe County has had at least 1 vaccine dose.
    27.6% are totally vaccinated.

  4. 4.

    rikyrah

    We gotta get these vaccines out of “emergency” status so that the employers can start mandating the COVID vaccine as a requirement for employment.

  6. 6.

    Cermet

    Considering that the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines have been given to well over 100 million people and there have been many millions vaccinated for over five months, I’d say NIH needs to simply declare these vaccines proven safe and given ‘regular’ status. I mean really, in the old method, a few tens of thousands must be followed for 6 months. The statistics for many 10’s of millions proves these vaccines are utterly safe and extremely effective. Please – this is proven beyond any doubt.

    On my front, got my second Pfizer dose yesterday and no real side effects except arm is a bit sore. This differs a great deal from the first dose – flu like issues and weakness for a day and three weeks of bad arm pain. World of a difference.

  7. 7.

    Amir Khalid

    Malaysia’s Director-General of Heath Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah reports 1,739 new Covid-19 cases today in his media statement, for a cumulative reported total of 360,856 cases. He also reports eight new deaths today, for a cumulative total of 1,329 deaths — 0.37% of the cumulative reported total, 0.38% of resolved cases.

    There are currently 15,574 active and contagious cases; 183 are in ICU, 81 of them intubated. Meanwhile, 1,216 patients recovered and were discharged, for a cumulative total of 343,953 patients recovered – 95.31% of the cumulative reported total.

    Eight new clusters were reported today: Jalan Kasawari and Jalan Desaria in Selangor; Jalan Bambangan, Jalan Badarudin, Nanga Kelangas, and Abak Bon in Sarawak; Jalan Zainab in Kelantan; and Meruntum in Sabah.

    Nanga Kelangas, Abak Bon, and Meruntum are community clusters. The rest are workplace clusters.

    1,731 new cases today are local infections. Selangor tops the list, reporting 534 local cases: 200 in older clusters, 51 in Jalan Kasawari and Jalan Desaria clusters, 190 close-contact screenings, and 93 other screenings. Next is Sarawak with 442 local cases: 44 in older clusters; 57 in Jalan Bambangan, Jalan Badarudin, Nanga Kelangas, and Abak Bon clusters; 244 close-contact screenings; and 97 other screenings.

    Sabah reports 127 cases: 41 in older clusters, two in Meruntum cluster, 57 close-contact screenings, and 27 other screenings. Penang reports 113 cases: 40 in existing clusters, 22 close-contact screenings, and 51 other screenings.

    Kelantan reports 98 cases: five in older clusters, four in Jalan Zainab cluster, 68 close-contact screenings, and 21 other screenings. Kuala Lumpur reports 90 local cases: two in existing clusters, 51 close-contact screenings, and 37 other screenings. Johor reports 67 cases: 14 in existing clusters, 27 close-contact screenings, and 26 other screenings. Melaka reports 59 cases: 49 in existing clusters, and 10 close-contact screenings. Perak reports 50 cases: six in existing clusters, 36 close-contact screenings, and eight other screenings.

    Negeri Sembilan reports 40 cases: two in existing clusters, 36 close-contact screenings, and two other screenings. Kedah also reports 40 cases: eight in existing clusters, 24 close-contact screenings, and eight other screenings. Terengganu reports 34 cases: 32 in existing clusters, one close-contact screening, and one other screening. Pahang reports 22 cases: two in existing clusters, 19 close-contact screenings, and one other screening.

    Putrajaya reports 11 cases: nine close-contact screenings, and two other screenings. And Labuan reports four cases, all in existing clusters.

    Perlis reports no new cases today.

    Eight new cases today are imported: six in Kuala Lumpur, one in Selangor, and one in Sarawak.

    The deaths reported today are a 76-year-old man in Selangor with hypertension and chronic lung disease; a 70-year-old woman in Kuala Lumpur with diabetes, hypertension, and dyslipidaemia; a 77-year-old man in Selangor with hypertension, chronic lung disease, dyslipidaemia and stroke; a 67-year-old man in Selangor with diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, chronic kidney disease, and gout; a 67-year-old man in Sabah with hypertension and asthma; a 78-year-old woman in Selangor with diabetes, hypertension, and stroke; a 69-year-old woman in Kuala Lumpur with fiabetes, hypertension, and a blood-borne disease; and a 57-year-old man in Johor, DOA with no co-morbidities listed.

  8. 8.

    Cermet

    Also, we must absolutely send any extra doses we have to Brazil ASAP. Besides the humanitarian aspects, they are creating new strains that could undermine current vaccines.

  10. 10.

    Cermet

    Good that China is admitting its vaccine isn’t as good as most – this proves one can trust their results because they will tell the truth. Even if their vaccine is not as effective as Pfizer, Moderna or J&J it obviously offers good protection (see their very low infection rate) and any working vaccine is vastly better than none.

  11. 11.

    Mousebumples

    @rikyrah: I agree, but i think it’s a time thing. Eg need X months of safety follow up or something.

    If you had told me a year ago, shortly after we started locking down, that we’d have multiple very effective vaccines, i would have been super impressed. I agree that we need to move to the next step of things, but I’m not sure that we’re running out of arms along willing to get the vaccine without an employer mandate yet. 

    Hopefully we’ll get full authorization soon… ??

  12. 12.

    Mousebumples

    @Cermet: do they have the administrative capacity with their overtaxed health care system to give those shots? I’d think we may need to send vaccines + people to distribute and give the shots too…?

  14. 14.

    Suzanne

    @Cermet:

    On my front, got my second Pfizer dose yesterday and no real side effects except arm is a bit sore. This differs a great deal from the first dose – flu like issues and weakness for a day and three weeks of bad arm pain. World of a difference. 

    Sounds like you had Covid already.

  17. 17.

    YY_Sima Qian

    @Cermet: Since all of the Phase III trials of all of the Chinese vaccines are conducted in other countries, it is not about whether to trust Chinese data or claims, but whether to trust Brazilian, Turkish, UAE, Pakistani, Chilean, Indonesian data and claims. The fact that none of the Chinese vaccine vendors have published Phase III trial data in peered reviewed journals does not help alleviate concerns. However, Chinese vaccine vendors essentially allowed their partner institutions to decide trial protocol, unlike Moderna/Pfizer/J&J/Novavax. Reconciling the discrepancies in trial protocol, participant demographics and dominant strains across countries running trials on the same vaccines may be impossible. This is the issue that AstraZeneca ran into with the Oxford vaccine. Some of trials in individual countries (such as Sinovac in Indonesia) are too small to draw statistically meaningful conclusions, more like sanity checks by the health authorities before proceeding with emergency use.

    As for the comments by Gao Fu, director of Chinese CDC, I think his point was actually much more nuanced. He raised the points of need to look for ways to increase efficacy during Q&A session. When he said the efficacies of currently approved Chinese vaccines (3 inactivated whole virus ones, a viral vector one and a molecular protein one) are not high, in context I think he meant “not high enough”, rather than “low”. The important context is compared to what. Reading his comments in full, I think he is comparing the Chinese inactivated whole virus vaccines against the demonstrated efficacies of the mRNA vaccines (specifically Moderna & Pfizer/BioNTech), not the other competitors (especially the viral vector ones). He is also comparing against what is need to to truly achieve herd immunity in a Chinese population that is essentially 100% naive due to very low infection. 60 – 70% immunity rate (from infection and immunization) was estimated to be required for herd immunity, but that was for the strains with the D416G spike protein mutation. With the more infectious B.1.1.7, B.1.351 & P.1 strains, required immunity rates have gone while, at the same time as efficacies of current vaccines against these new strains are reduced. Therefore, herd immunity is unlikely to be achievable with current crop of vaccines, with the possible exception of the mRNA ones, maybe. We have to anticipate that Moderna & Pfizer/BioNTech vaccines have reduced efficacies against the new strains, too, but their efficacies are so high to begin with, and supported by real life mass data out of Israel for the Pfizer/BioNtech one, they may still suffice. Time will tell. Gao’s point (implied) is that China cannot afford to wait for Fosun Pharmaceutical to expand the licensing contract with BioNTech beyond the 100M doses, or for the Chinese mRNA vaccine(s). The existing NPI measures taken by China, while extremely effectively, sustaining them indefinitely is undesirable from economic/social/political perspectives. That is why he encouraged studies of mixing vaccines, which is also being investigated in the UK & Russia. He was not saying the current vaccines are of limited utility. Any vaccine that has high efficacy against hospitalization is very useful.

    Unsurprisingly, Gao’s comments have not had any coverage on Chinese media, and very limited discussion on Chinese social media. The CCP regime is paranoid about controlling the narrative, and any comments that might cause doubt about Chinese vaccines and China’s vaccination strategy will not be allowed to make waves. In contrast, Gao’s comments in early Dec. raising the point that mRNA vaccines are untested (at the time) on healthy individuals at a massive scale, and thus represent some unknowns, got a lot of play.

  19. 19.

    sdhays

    @Cermet: They’re admitting this now, but their previous claims suggest very shoddy, if not fraudulent, trials, and they used data that we should now consider completely suspect to sell their crappy vaccines to other countries.

    Better than Sputnik V, where Russia is throwing a hissy fit since Slovakia had the audacity to do its own tests and found very different results from the ones Russia made up, but still not very good. I also wonder what this means for China’s stupid mandate for people entering China to be vaccinated with a crappy Chinese vaccine.

  20. 20.

    sdhays

    @YY_Sima Qian: … whether to trust Brazilian, Turkish, UAE, Pakistani, Chilean, Indonesian data and claims. The fact that none of the Chinese vaccine vendors have published Phase III trial data in peered reviewed journals does not help alleviate concerns. However, Chinese vaccine vendors essentially allowed their partner institutions to decide trial protocol, unlike Moderna/Pfizer/J&J/Novavax. Reconciling the discrepancies in trial protocol, participant demographics and dominant strains across countries running trials on the same vaccines may be impossible. This is the issue that AstraZeneca ran into with the Oxford vaccine.

    I wondered if this might be the case. I don’t trust the CCP, but I always expected that they would take the pandemic and vaccine development seriously since they have the capacity to see how that would be beneficial to them in the long run. I never had that expectation with Russia. I don’t doubt Russia’s ability to develop a vaccine, but I don’t think there’s anyone in the government there (with the power to actually make any decisions) who cares whether or not the vaccines they develop actually work.

  21. 21.

    Sloane Ranger

    Saturday in the UK we had 2589 new cases. This is a reduction of about 500 from the day before and a decrease of 32% in the rolling 7-day average. As usual, caution must be exercised with any information coming out over weekends due to potential reporting delays. New cases by nation,

    England – 2032 (down @600)

    Northern Ireland – 146 (up 33)

    Scotland – 281 (down 4)

    Wales – 130 (up 16).

    Deaths – There were 40 deaths within 28 days of a positive test yesterday. There was no change in the rolling 7-day average. Deaths by nation, England – 33, Northern Ireland – 3, Scotland – 4 and none in Wales.

    Testing – Not updated at weekends.

    Hospitalisations – Not updated at weekends.

    Vaccinations – As of 9 April, a total of 32,010,244 had received the 1st shot of a vaccine and 6,991,310 had received both shots. This means that 60.8% of all adults in the UK have had 1 shot and 13.3% were fully vaccinated.

  22. 22.

    J R in WV

    @sdhays: ​
     

    I don’t doubt Russia’s ability to develop a vaccine, but I don’t think there’s anyone in the government there (with the power to actually make any decisions) who cares whether or not the vaccines they develop actually work.

    Harsh! but true.

    No more than TFG cared about the diff between Hydroxychloroquine (or bleach!) and actual curative drugs, nor real vaccines. Common among actual criminals, why they become criminals, no empathy, no morals.

    Putin and little TFG.

  23. 23.

    YY_Sima Qian

    @sdhays:

    Better than Sputnik V, where Russia is throwing a hissy fit since Slovakia had the audacity to do its own tests and found very different results from the ones Russia made up, but still not very good. I also wonder what this means for China’s stupid mandate for people entering China to be vaccinated with a crappy Chinese vaccine.

    The vaccine requirement has been misrepresented and misunderstood. It just means streamlined visa approval process, and higher probability of visa being granted, if the applicant has been fully vaccinated by one of the Chinese vaccines. Quarantines and tests upon arrival are still required, whether the persons has been vaccinated or not, and if yes, with a Chinese vaccine or not. That is the policy for the time being.

    China’s defense against COVID-19 introduction is multi-layered: highly restrictive visa policy (for foreigners), very limited (and very expensive) flights into the country (affecting foreigners and citizens abroad alike), mandatory negative RT-PCR & IgM antibody test results from labs approved by Chinese health authorities within 48 hrs of boarding (to obtain a green health code to get on a China-bound flight), mandatory 2 week centralized quarantine at port of entry w/ multiple RT-PCR swabs and antibody tests, additional 1 – 2 week quarantine and additional tests at final destination (either centralized or supervised home quarantine) depending on the location.

    Getting inoculated with a Chinese vaccine only helps with one of the obstacles. These obstacles have reduced inbound traffic to a trickle, and vast majority of whom are Chinese citizens returning from overseas (so at least visa is not an issue). The large American company I work for has had to reorganize our China organization because most expat upper management not already in China have been unable to obtain a green health code, even though they have granted work visas. The combination of requiring result from a list of approved labs, and within 48 hrs of boarding, makes it really difficult in a continent sized nation like the US, unless you reside in a metropolitan area.

    Chinese health authorities have openly discussed the need to ultimately recognize all approved vaccines (possibly by the WHO) to return international travel to near pre-pandemic levels. As I mentioned elsewhere, Fosun Pharmaceuticals in Shanghai has exclusive rights to distribute the BioNTech vaccine in Greater China, as well as license to produce 100M doses. The company actually invested into the vaccine development back in Mar. 2020. So I would expect China’s recognition of at least the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine to be a formality. I would have also added the AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine, for which Taikang Pharmaceuticals in Shenzhen has exclusive rights to distribute in Mainland China, as well as license to produce for the market. However, the bad press from the blood clotting issue has hurt its reputation (perhaps unfairly). Taiwan received ~ 200K doses of the AZ/Oxford vaccine a couple of weeks ago via COVAX. Despite being desperate for access to vaccines, people in Taiwan (including HCWs) have been unwilling to take the vaccine, resulting in the prospect of a large portion of the shipment expiring in May.

  24. 24.

    JaneE

    The Bible study ruling was almost mute anyway, the state is relaxing all kinds of restrictions as vaccinations go up and incidence goes down, under 2% now.  Now if there were only some way to make sure the only people they infected were also members of their church, I would be happy to let them gather, but that has never been the case.

  25. 25.

    Bill Arnold

    @rikyrah:

    The excess death tweet – the Russian numbers don’t make sense

    I am quite surprised that the Russian government thought that they could get away with lying about COVID-19-caused mortality, or gaslight, essentially asserting that numbers in all other countries are lies. (Switzerland’s near-precise match between excess deaths and COVID-19 deaths is also interesting. :-) The excess deaths would be impossible to hide except perhaps in the most authoritarian states, e.g. North Korea. So what was the Russian government attempting to do? This sort of thing strongly reinforces their reputation as liars.

  26. 26.

    Fair Economist

    @WaterGirl: I had it and the first (Moderna) shot is really kicking my ass the day after. Given that 1 mRNA + actual infection produces similar levels of neutralizing antibodies as 2 shots in naive individuals, I am seriously considering delaying my second shot until there are variant targeted boosters.

  27. 27.

    Matt McIrvin

    I’m not sure you can conclude much about the effectiveness of the Sputnik vaccine from Hungary’s COVID wave. Their overall vaccination levels are roughly where we were a month ago, and that’s just not enough to expect it to get case rates down if you’re doing nothing else to control the virus (and it sure looks like they’re just letting it roll otherwise).

  28. 28.

    Matt McIrvin

    @rikyrah:

    The excess death tweet – the Russian numbers don’t make sense??

    Russia’s official COVID tallies never made sense. This… makes it all too clear what was happening.

    What does impress me is that for the UK, COVID deaths are actually greater than excess deaths, which suggests to me that (a) they really counted them all and (b) the lockdown might have saved some lives from other causes.

  29. 29.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Bill Arnold: For what it’s worth, Kieran Healy’s chart suggests that several US states were about as bad as Russia in this regard:

    https://twitter.com/kjhealy/status/1372899017974239238/photo/1

    including some of the states with the lowest reported COVID rates, like Maine and Vermont. Unless I’m missing something here

    (Which I may be, because if you combined them all it would imply a much larger discrepancy between excess and COVID deaths for the US as a whole than the above table implies.)

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