Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. let’s win this.

They traffic in fear. it is their only currency. if we are fearful, they are winning.

The most dangerous place for a black man in America is in a white man’s imagination.

Maybe you would prefer that we take Joelle’s side in ALL CAPS?

It’s a doggy dog world.

American History and Black History can not be separated.

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

Prediction: the gop will rethink its strategy of boycotting future committees.

The revolution will be supervised.

Roe isn’t about choice, it’s about freedom.

We’re not going back!

Fight for a just cause, love your fellow man, live a good life.

Trump makes a mockery of the legal system and cowardly judges just sit back and let him.

The choice is between normal and crazy.

…and a burning sense of injustice to juice the soul.

This year has been the longest three days of putin’s life.

Not all heroes wear capes.

People are weird.

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

Many life forms that would benefit from greater intelligence, sadly, do not have it.

with the Kraken taking a plea, the Cheese stands alone.

The problem people have with Biden’s age is the color of the VPs skin.

It’s easier to kill a dangerous animal than a man who just happens to have different thoughts/values than one’s own.

It’s pointless to bring up problems that can only be solved with a time machine.

You are here: Home / Healthcare / COVID-19 / COVID-19 Coronavirus Updates: Saturday / Sunday, April 24-25

COVID-19 Coronavirus Updates: Saturday / Sunday, April 24-25

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… For the fourth straight day, India on Sunday set a global daily record of new infections, spurred by an insidious, new variant that emerged here, undermining the government’s premature claims of victory over the pandemic.

The 349,691 confirmed cases over the past day brought India’s total to more than 16.9 million, behind only the United States. The Health Ministry reported another 2,767 deaths in the past 24 hours, pushing India’s COVID-19 fatalities to 192,311.

Experts say that toll could be a huge undercount, as suspected cases are not included, and many deaths from the infection are being attributed to underlying conditions…

Health officials are scrambling to expand critical care units and stock up on dwindling supplies of oxygen. Hospitals and patients alike are struggling to procure scarce medical equipment that is being sold at an exponential markup.

The crisis is in direct contrast with government claims that “nobody in the country was left without oxygen,” in a statement made Saturday by India’s Solicitor General Tushar Mehta before Delhi High Court.

The breakdown is a stark failure for a country whose prime minister only in January had declared victory over COVID-19, and which boasted of being the “world’s pharmacy,” a global producer of vaccines and a model for other developing nations.

Caught off-guard by the latest deadly spike, the federal government has asked industrialists to increase the production of oxygen and other life-saving drugs in short supply. But health experts say India had an entire year to prepare for the inevitable — and it didn’t…

rime Minister Narendra Modi is facing mounting criticism for allowing Hindu festivals and attending mammoth election rallies that experts suspect accelerated the spread of infections.

His Hindu nationalist government is trying to quell critical voices.

On Saturday, Twitter complied with the government’s request and prevented people in India from viewing more than 50 tweets that appeared to criticize the administration’s handling of the pandemic. The targeted posts include tweets from opposition ministers critical of Modi, journalists and ordinary Indians…

Lest we forget:

======

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As has been true since ‘social media’ meant gossip over the back fence: People who make MOM (or, far more rarely, DAD) their public brand are never to be completely trusted…

IMO, this is borderline child abuse — this woman is terrorizing her own daughter:


Sometimes six-year-olds also complain about wearing shoes. Or about not being allowed to wear their favorite t-shirt seven days a week, even once it’s outgrown and faded. Inciting them to believe that shoe-wearing is a nefarious plot by the government to destroy their health would not be applauded by Mommy’s peers… or would it?

Reader Interactions

56Comments

  2. 2.

    opiejeanne

    Kids are disease vectors, full stop. I know this from personal experience, from watching something like impetigo or the flu or, before there were vaccines for them, measles and chickenpox racing through various populations, including my freshman year of college in the dorms, the neighborhood kids, and my kids’ schools. Mine were vaccinated for everything available at the time, but there was no chickenpox vaccine then.

    My son shared impetigo with me, after a neglected little boy shared it with all of the other kids on the street. .

  6. 6.

    NeenerNeener

    Monroe County, NY stats:

    238 new cases
    1226 deaths

    2.8% test positivity
    210 people in the hospital, 49 people in the ICU.

    No updates to the vaccination stats yesterday.

  9. 9.

    Martin

    That PNAS paper is interesting. I’ll run some numbers tomorrow, but my initial reading of it is that my estimates for transmission in large lecture hall settings, which seemed apocalyptic was if anything too low. While students usually only spend 50 or 80 minutes in such a space at a stretch, the rooms effectively never empty. And so with a virus that can remain airborne for a long enough period of time, you just end up with a continually infected space. Ventilation requirements for such rooms have changed over time but the newer spaces we build have substantial artificial air circulation, but not a ton of filtration. This is because as we’ve moved to more energy efficient construction, we’ve reduced the use of artificial heat/cooling and rely more on moving air between naturally heating and cooling zones.

  10. 10.

    Martin

    @rikyrah: We will. But we still have a lot of work to do here yet. NY got their test positivity rate below 1% last summer, but it spiked back up in Jan to nearly 10% and 4 months later they still haven’t gotten back under 1%.

    While we have this headed the right way, we need to not let up. If your cases are spiking, it’s already too late to act through something like vaccinations. You have to just quarantine everyone as best as you can. That shuts it down much faster than vaccinating can. If your infection rate is high, then efforts like vaccinations can actually make the problem worse because you push people into public contact and they end up getting infected before the vaccine can protect them. This is why the CDC didn’t want to surge to Michigan – it was too late to help them.

  11. 11.

    SectionH

    Or sometimes 9 yr olds melt down (only on their Mom) because they can’t get vaxed.

    Yes, I’m talking about my granddaughter. She’s very OK so far, but damn.

    She’s had her Pod for a year now, and all that, but it goes on. And, not much opening yet

    For kids. Her Dad was an early volunteer for Moderna, so she’s knows from that stuff. And her Mom at UCSD kinda organized some early stuff.

    So yeah, she’ll be fine but damn. Kids aren’t stupid.

    My kids were absolutely willing to let her be a kid for trials. At least given the same ppl working on the vaccine.

    My take is, vaccinate, vaccinate, and do vaccinate rag.

  12. 12.

    mrmoshpotato

    Is Jonah going to write a sequel to Liberal Fascism about mask mandates? If so, he can shove all of those books up his ass too.

  13. 13.

    YY_Sima Qian

    On 4/24 China reported 0 new domestic confirmed & 0 new domestic asymptomatic cases. 2 domestic confirmed cases recovered, both at Ruili in Dehong Prefecture, Yunnan Province. There are currently 46 domestic confirmed & 11 domestic asymptomatic cases in Yunnan Province. 3 communities remain at High Risk. 3 residential compounds, 1 factory & 2 villages remain at Medium Risk.

    Imported Cases

    On 4/24 China reported 13 new imported confirmed cases, 14 imported asymptomatic cases, 2 imported suspect cases:

    • Shanghai Municipality – 9 confirmed cases, 2 Chinese nationals returning from Russia & 1 each from Serbia (via Germany), France, Burkina Faso (via France), Ethiopia (via Germany), Israel & Cambodia, & a French national coming from France; 2 suspect cases, no information released
    • Xiamen in Fujian Province – 3 confirmed cases, 1 Chinese national each returning from Ghana, Timor Leste & the US; 3 asymptomatic cases, 1 Chinese national each returning from Ghana, Canada & the US
    • Fuzhou in Fujian Province – 1 asymptomatic case, a Chinese national returning from Indonesia
    • Tianjin Municipality – 1 confirmed case, a Chinese national returning from France
    • Guangzhou in Guangdong Province – 3 asymptomatic cases, 2 Chinese nationals returning from Malaysia & 1 from Myanmar
    • Foshan in Guangdong Province – 2 asymptomatic cases, 1 Chinese national each returning from Chad & Nigeria, off flights that landed at Guangzhou
    • Xi’an in Shaanxi Province- 3 asymptomatic cases, all Chinese nationals returning from the UAE, off a flight diverted from Beijing
    • Yunnan Province (location not specified) – 1 asymptomatic case, a Chinese national returning from Laos, via land border crossing
    • Harbin in Heilingjiang Province – 1 asymptomatic case, a Chinese national returning from Japan

     

    Overall in China, 10 confirmed cases recovered, 16 asymptomatic cases were released from isolation & none were reclassified as confirmed cases, and 973 individuals were released from quarantine. Currently, there are 308 active confirmed cases in the country (262 imported), 4 in critical/serious condition (all imported), 322 asymptomatic cases (311 imported), 6 suspect cases (all imported). 9,167 traced contacts are currently under centralized quarantine.

    As of 4/24, 220.309M vaccine doses have been injected in Mainland China, an increase of 4.225M doses in the past 24 hrs.

    On 4/24, Hong Kong reported 6 new case, 4 imported & 2 domestic (both have sources of infection identified).

  14. 14.

    Amir Khalid

    Malaysia’s Director-General of Heath Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah reports 2,690 new Covid-19 cases today in his media statement, for a cumulative reported total of 392,942 cases. He also reports 10 new deaths today, for a cumulative total of 1,436 deaths — 0.37% of the cumulative reported total, 0.39% of resolved cases.

    There are currently 23,753 active and contagious cases; 283 are in ICU, 121 of them intubated. Meanwhile, 1,853 patients recovered and were discharged, for a cumulative total of 367,753 patients recovered – 93.59% of the cumulative reported total.

    Eight new clusters were reported today: Putai and Rayang in Sarawak; LadangParis Dua in Sabah; Jalan Melaka Raya in Melaka; Jalan Bukit Naga and Jalan Kuala Garing in Selangor; Halban Dua in Kelantan; and Pagar Sri Lalang in Johor.

    Putai, Ladang Paris Dua and Jalan Melaka Raya are workplace clusters. Jalan Bukit Naga and Jalan Kuala Garing are education clusters at Ministry of Education schools. Halban Dua is also an education cluster. Pagar Sri Lalang is a prison cluster. Rayang is a community cluster.

    2,680 new cases today are local infections. Selangor reports 750 local cases: 65 in older clusters, six in Jalan Bukit Naga and Jalan Kuala Garing clusters, 542 close-contact screenings, and 137 other screenings. Sarawak reports 594 local cases: 58 in older clusters, 209 in Putai and Rayang clusters, 231 close-contact screenings, and 96 other screenings. Kelantan reports 424 cases: 116 in older clusters, 32 in Halban Dua cluster, 207 close-contact screenings, and 69 other screenings.

    Kuala Lumpur reports 209 local cases: four in existing clusters, 136 close-contact screenings, and 69 other screenings. Johor reports 159 cases: 26 in older clusters, 15 in Pagar Sri Lalang cluster, 67 close-contact screenings, and 51 other screenings. Sabah reports 121 cases: 25 in older clusters, 10 in Ladang Paris Dua cluster, 62 close-contact screenings, and 24 other screenings. Penang reports 117 cases: 20 in existing clusters, 47 close-contact screenings, and 50 other screenings.

    Kedah reports 76 cases: 37 in existing clusters, 24 close-contact screenings, and 15 other screenings. Perak reports 64 cases: 25 in existing clusters, 24 close-contact screenings, and 15 other screenings. Negeri Sembilan reports 57 cases: 22 in existing clusters, 22 close-contact screenings, and 13 other screenings. Melaka reports 42 cases: 11 in older clusters, one in Jalan Melaka Raya cluster, 22 close-contact screenings, and eight other screenings.

    Pahang reports 33 cases: eight in existing clusters, 16 close-contact screenings, and nine other screenings. Terengganu reports 25 cases: 14 in existing clusters, nine close-contact screenings, and two other screenings.

    Putrajaya reports five cases: two close-contact screenings, and three other screenings. Labuan reports three cases: two close-contact screenings, and one other screening. And Perlis reports one case, found in other screening.

    10 new cases today are imported: eight in Kuala Lumpur, one in Selangor, and one in Sarawak.

    The deaths reported today are a 75-year-old woman in Kuala Lumpur with diabetes, hypertension, and dyslipidaemia; a 67-year-old man in Sabah, also with diabetes, hypertension, and dyslipidaemia; an 86-year-old man in Sarawak with diabetes, hypertension, and stroke; a 60-year old man in Selangor with diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, and dyslipidaemia; a 91-year-old woman in Kuala Lumpur with hypertension and kidney disease; a 68-year-old woman in Sabah with diabetes, hypertension, and dyslipidaemia; a 66-year-old man in Sarawak with hypertension and lung disease; a 67-year-old woman in Kuala Lumpur with diabetes, hypertension, asthma, kidney disease, and stroke; and an 81-year-old man in Penang with hypertension and stroke.

  15. 15.

    Geo Wilcox

    Kids who are infected can kill older folks. It happened in my neighborhood in January. The whole stupid family got together for Thanksgiving. Sure enough 2 weeks later, the patriarch (81 year old obese white guy with congestive heart problems) got sick. He went into the hospital a week before Christmas and died Jan 3rd 2021.
    His grandkids were infected with the virus and gave it to grandpa, eventually killing him. I do not blame the kids, I blame the whole adult contingent of that family for killing a really nice older man who was a decent human being, and i do not say that about a lot of people.

  16. 16.

    David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch

    Florida had 7,411 new cases yesterday.

    California, which has twice the population of Florida, only had 1,284 new cases, yesterday.

  17. 17.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Law firm takes up case of nurse fined £10,000 for 1% pay protest

    One of the UK’s biggest police forces is refusing to back down after being accused of wrongly issuing a £10,000 fine to a nurse who was protesting over the government’s 1% pay rise for NHS workers, reigniting concern over new powers to inhibit protest.

    Karen Reissmann, 61, who has worked as a frontline nurse throughout the pandemic, was handed the fine in March despite offering a risk assessment of her protest to Greater Manchester police (GMP) and ensuring it was Covid-safe. On 1 April, London law firm Bindmans, acting on Reissmann’s behalf, wrote to GMP saying that the way the force had interpreted the law was wrong, that the protest should have been allowed to proceed, and that it should also withdraw the fine.
    …………………………
    “I just really don’t understand why they are pursuing me after all that has happened. Why are they doing this? It’s very odd for the police not to have realised their position.”

    The force’s determination to prosecute comes against the backdrop of the government’s police, crime, sentencing and courts bill, which will leave police to use their own discretion, and potentially criminalise protests.

    Legal documents show that Reissmann, who has seen her caseload surge because of anxiety induced by the pandemic, was the first among her colleagues to suggest the “necessity for the wearing of face masks by staff and patients when they had not yet been made compulsory”.

    Reissmann organised the protest on 7 March after the government’s decision to recommend a 1% pay rise – a move Labour predicted could help to make new nurses £300 worse off. About 40 people attended her rally in St Peter’s Square, Manchester, after she requested a limit of protesters to guarantee social distancing.

    Reissmann believes the force’s desire to prosecute was meant to intimidate other nurses from organising protests.

    “It’s so punitive, clearly designed to stop others. I know people who stepped back from protesting because they were afraid of the £10,000 fine,” she said.

  19. 19.

    David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch

    The problem with India is they’re not using the miracle drug hydroxychloroquine.

  21. 21.

    opiejeanne

    @SectionH: Rickets isn’t contagious. It’s caused by a Vitamin D deficiency. My 3 kids were born between 1970 and 1982; the youngest came down with chickenpox in kindergarten, 2 weeks later her older sister had it, and 2 weeks later my son came home from college after Finals, and he had it.

    The older sister had scarlet fever when she was 3. An older friend, in his 70s then, told me that his son was put into a “Pest Hospital” in Oklahoma when he had it. It’s a bit of nastiness that sometimes accompanies strep throat, but it’s no more infectious than strep. Penicillin clears it up in 24 hours.

    My mother was from Missouree, born in the Ozarks.

  23. 23.

    Cermet

    So the new variant, besides being more contagious and deadlier, is more likely to cause 20 – 60 year old’s to get very sick. The NYT reports that hospitals in Michigan are being overwhelmed and they are seeing twice the number of young people now. People in their 30’s are dying. This non-vaccinated shit needs to stop and no matter your age, get vaccinated!

    As for India and Brazil, we need to modify the law (used by Biden to increase critical supplies) and allow the export of essential primary components to make vaccines and critical protection devices. While we still have major issues we must do this both for our humanitarian reasons and our own self interest

    I will post part of the article:

    The B.1.1.7 variant — first identified in Britain and now the most common source of new infection in the United States — is believed to be about 60 percent more contagious and 67 percent more deadly than the original form of the coronavirus. A federal estimate of Covid-19 hospitalizations based on a sample of counties in 14 states, including Michigan, showed more patients between the ages of 18 and 49 hospitalized in mid-April than those over age 65.

  24. 24.

    Suzanne

    That woman makes me sick.

    I am in no way thrilled that I have been teaching my toddler how to wear a face mask, but one lesson that I hope she remembers is that small sacrifices of resources or comfort in order to make her community stronger and safer are worth it.

    Doughy Pantload should be embarrassed.

  25. 25.

    Nicole

    Jonah Goldberg thinks that watching that video will persuade those of us on the left that people on the Right aren’t crazy or delusional?  What are the right-wingers like in the videos he doesn’t want the reality-based community to watch?

  26. 26.

    trnc

    Does anyone know at what point the vaccines will change from emergency use authorization to full FDA approval? I found a chart earlier that I can’t find now, but they showed 2 tracks without any indication that a vaccine can move from EUA to full approval. I suspect that means that the manufacturers have to apply for full approval, even if they’re submitting new data for the same vaccine that has already been approved under the EUA.

    Ah, I just saw something that says Pfizer and BioNtech are filing for full approval soon. I guess they wanted to see how a significant number of people did after 6 months, and they have at least 12,000 recipients for that time period.

    https://www.fiercepharma.com/pharma/pfizer-biontech-eye-official-covid-19-vaccine-nod-as-efficacy-stands-strong-including

  27. 27.

    debbie

    @Suzanne:

    I’ve heard the more recent variants are impacting kids too. Now this newest one that can resist antibodies? It would be irresponsible to lift mask mandates.

  28. 28.

    oldster

    Dr. Zoe Hyde tweet:

    “New modelling showing that the minimum amount of virus typically needed to become infected is only 10 virus particles. This is an order of magnitude greater than SARS.”

    I think she’s put her point backwards: 10 virons is an order of magnitude *less than* the number of virons needed for SARS transmission, not “greater than”.

    So the infectiousness is an order of magnitude greater. But that’s not what her prose says.

    There’s a lesson for all writers: make sure that your pronouns refer to what you want them to refer to.

  29. 29.

    Starfish

    First, thank you to Anne Laurie, for making the section on India huge.

    Second, the thing where people who spread medical disinformation prey on parents who want to believe that they can control medical outcomes for their kids makes me deeply afraid.

    We are going to have full day schooling in the fall, and I am here with all these anti-vax people who were anti-vax before this.

    There was someone being super confidentially anti-mask in the park yesterday and we don’t have to wear masks outside anymore, but he was gloating about being an ass to his child’s medical professionals.

    @OzarkHillbilly: I just finished reading the book Conflict Is Not Abuse. One of the main takeaways from this book was that imprisoning people for having HIV was not right. In a lot of cases, you don’t know if people are spreading things intentionally or unintentionally, but most of the people who will end up in jail for a long time for this stuff will be people of color.

  30. 30.

    Fair Economist

    Right now cases are declining slowly. That’s an tolerable situation to be in – with cases and deaths still so high they should be declining faster, but still tolerable – but we can’t currently relax restrictions at all. If cases start declining rapidly, then we could start relaxing. But until then lifting mask restrictions or pushing vaccines less is homicidal.

  31. 31.

    Suzanne

    @debbie: I agree with you.

    What kills me is that Jonah Goldberg thinks that this insane dumbass lady is reasonable and that she is an example of people on the right needing to be taken seriously. She’s not. She’s wrong on the facts, which makes her conclusion ludicrous.

    STAAAAAHP making stupid people famous, even if it’s just internet famous/viral.

  32. 32.

    Butter emails

    @rikyrah:

    I think this will start happening relatively soon. It can’t happen now, because it wouldn’t be politically feasible plus a good chunk of current vaccine production is still contracted under operation warp speed which prohibits export. I don’t believe this applies to the additional vaccines the Biden administration procured so we should be able to export them.

  33. 33.

    Sloane Ranger

    @opiejeanne:

     

    The older sister had scarlet fever when she was 3. An older friend, in his 70s then, told me that his son was put into a “Pest Hospital” in Oklahoma when he had it. It’s a bit of nastiness that sometimes accompanies strep throat, but it’s no more infectious than strep. Penicillin clears it up in 24 hours.

    That happened to my Dad here in the UK as well. It was in the 1930’s when he was in his early teens.

    Anyway, here are Saturday’s numbers from the UK, where we had 2061 new cases (usual weekend warning applies to these and subsequent figures). This is a 2.8% redurction in the rolling 7-day average. New cases by nation,

    England – 1804 (down 473)
    Northern Ireland – 80 (down 8)
    Scotland – 177 (down 78)
    Wales – No longer reports at weekends.

    Deaths – There were 32 deaths within 28 days of a positive test yesterday. This is a 11.7% reduction in the rolling 7-day average. Deaths by nation, England – 27, Northern Ireland – 1, Scotland – 4.

    Testing – Not updated at weekends.

    Hospitalisiations – Not updated at weekends.

    Vaccinations – As of 23 April, a total of 33,508,590 people had received 1 shot of a vaccine and 12,071,810 had received both. In percentage terms this means that 63.6% of all adults in the UK had received 1 shot of a vaccine and 22.9% were fully vaccinated.

  36. 36.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    As the pandemic surges anew, global envy and anger are mounting over U.S. vaccine abundance

    Meh, even though though it was the CCP who let the virus get lose in a fit of covering their ars and it was the Italians who spread it with their party at all costs mentality, they blame the US for it already. So what’s new?

  37. 37.

    Starfish

    @Butter emails: We have already sent AstraZeneca doses that have not been approved in the US to Canada and Mexico. This was a “loan.” Some of them were made in that plant in Baltimore that keeps screwing up.

    I see @debbie is discussing this too.

  38. 38.

    sdhays

    @Suzanne: For what it’s worth, my toddler started wearing his mask outside just before his 2nd birthday. Just like mommy and daddy. It gets soaked with drool pretty quickly and sometimes he doesn’t want to wear it (I expect that to increase as the weather gets warmer), but it wasn’t really that big of a deal, especially since he doesn’t need to wear it inside (the only buildings he goes into are our house and our neighbor’s with a little girl his age and we’re essentially a “pod”).

    That woman enrages me. “We KNOW that this virus doesn’t affect children!!” How is it possible to go through life “knowing things” which are manifestly the opposite of true just because it sure would be nice if it were true.

  39. 39.

    Starfish

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques: This feeling of persecution over a global pandemic is not a good look.

    People in other countries *are* jealous that we are getting vaccines, and they are not. My cousin in Canada gave me a vacation in the US because he is not vaccinated and cannot be here to use it. I thought it was really nice of him.

    People in the US are asking people in India which vaccine they would prefer Pfizer or Moderna, and people in India are saying that the vaccine options they have there are neither of those and are generally unavailable.

    Our blissful ignorance around this adds to the general feeling that people in the US are monolingual folks who have their heads firmly up their own rears.

  40. 40.

    Citizen_X

    God, shut the fuck up, shouty lady.

    Guess what? For similar reasons, we’ll expect your daughter to cover her coughs and sneezes, too—FOR HER ENTIRE LIFE! gasp!

  42. 42.

    Barbara

    @Starfish: ​
     India has vaccinated an impressive number of people but they stopped protective measures faster than they could possibly vaccinate hundreds of millions of people. They cannot vaccinate their way out of the current crisis.

    It was vitally important for Biden to demonstrate that the U.S. can carry out public health interventions. As supply starts to exceed demand I feel sure they will help other nations. I assume they are laying the groundwork already.

  43. 43.

    Suzanne

    @sdhays: Spawn the Youngest is almost exactly the same age — she turns 2 at the end of June — and we have been working on masking with her. She does pretty well with it, up to about an hour. When we take them off, they are really gross, totally soaked with drool. I bought some of the paper ones in the smallest size I could find, because they’re more comfortable than the fabric, but they’re still too big for her face.

    Pre-pandemic, she went to an in-home daycare, but since the pandemic started, she has been home with Grandma (while Mr. Suzanne and I WFH upstairs). At this point, since it looks like there won’t be a vaccine for the littles until next year, she is not likely to go back to daycare ever, and we will probably wait until preschool to send her back to any group setting.

  44. 44.

    Cermet

    China did not cause this any more than the US caused the 1918 pandemic – which, is where the 1918 flu likely started. China has done an outstanding job getting under control. Yes, they were blind sided but so were we and are not willing to admit their failings.

    As for world wide envy, yes they are (and for good reason – its envy not hatred) but no one is blaming the US for the virus nor its spread.

  45. 45.

    debbie

    @Suzanne:

    They’re out of stock at the moment, but I think these would work for her.

    This site’s paper masks have worked out really well for me. They’re usually running specials too. If you get on their email list, you’ll get the special codes. I haven’t been inundated with emails from them.

  46. 46.

    matt

    Huh. I do think shoes all the time are unhealthy for kids, as do most podiatrists. But go vaccines!

    (American on Canada here, only just vaccinated, no thanks to Pfizer.)

  47. 47.

    Sloane Ranger

    @debbie:

     

    Apparently, there’s a large stockpile of AstraZenica, which no one is even using. I think it should be released now.

    Yes, and I think it would be gratefully received because they’re desperate but, when things get back under control, people will start thinking that, while this vaccine wasn’t good enough for Americans, they thought it was plenty good enough for the likes of us and I’m not sure that’s a good look.

    What they really need urgently is oxygen. US figures are still quite high (but going down). I think we here in the UK should do more. We are a fellow Commonwealth country and our figures are currrently low enough for us to be able to send spare oxygen to India. I just heard that Germany is doing so, despite having high figures themselves still, but I haven’t heard we’re doing anything similar – and we could.

  48. 48.

    Barbara

    @Sloane Ranger: Transporting oxygen is difficult, but I think that supplies, like tanks and hoses and valves could be quickly transported.  That’s probably the kind of thing that other countries are going to send.  Apparently, India converted a lot of its industrial supply of oxygen to medical uses last year, but stopped, along with stopping a lot of other measures that had been taken to lessen the spread and boost the medical response.

  49. 49.

    J R in WV

    Shouty Mom in the twitter video is literally nuts. Wrong on facts, wrong on morality, wrong on her decisions about her kids. She’s teaching them to be hostile to others, not to care about society, oh, wait, she’s teaching them to be Republicans~!~

    So that will work well for her.

  51. 51.

    Bill Arnold

    Jonah: “You can disagree with her arguments — I don’t “
    So Jonah Goldberg has been huffing anti-masker propaganda, and believes it, and believes other counterfactuals like children don’t suffer damage or even die from COVID-19. The “breath” bit is pure anti-maxker propaganda. and as noted by others, a nutcase tell of somebody who is believing the crafted anti-masker propaganda. What it really means is loud shouty people like the women in the video demand the right to kill random people through virus particles projected by their (unmasked) shouting. (I do wonder if she wore a mask and just took it off to speak.) Her screeches about the CDC were another loony-right-wing tell. The CDC has been very conservative, and didn’t even recommend mask usage by the general public until there was clear evidence of asymptomatic spread (early April 2020), a decision that in the short run killed 10s of thousands and in the long run, by giving anti-masker propaganda an extra couple of months to launch, killed at least hundreds of thousands around the world. (They should also have focused on indoor precautions, but that’s was second order for the first several months at least.)
    Johah probably believes that we shouldn’t require that children be vaccinated against Rubella because fetuses carried by adult pregnant women aren’t important to unvaccinated children or their selfish parents (unless their mom is pregnant, but she probably has unvaccinated kids who would carry Rubella home with them, because that hypothetical she is probably an anti-vaxxer).

  52. 52.

    Soprano2

    @opiejeanne: Did your mom think everything could be fixed with the red stuff that stings like fire and black salve? My dad did, and he was raised poor on a farm in the Ozarks. They only went to a doctor for a broken bone or worse. I was lucky, my mom made sure we had regular medical, dental and eye care.

  53. 53.

    opiejeanne

    @Soprano2: The red stuff, yes. She wouldn’t buy Bactine because she couldn’t tell if it did anything, because it didn’t sting like mad.

    Her dad lost the farm when she was little and her paternal grandpa got most of his adult kids to move to Montana with him because there was lots of free land to be homesteaded (but very little water). When she was about six they moved back to MO, to Independence so she got a fair education. During the Depression, they had the kids skip one of the middle school grades, 7th or 8th, for some inane reason. I assumed that the stuff she didn’t know as an adult was what she would have gotten if she’d had that one extra year.

  54. 54.

    J R in WV

    @Barbara:

    Apparently, India converted a lot of its industrial supply of oxygen to medical uses last year, but stopped,

    I’m pretty sure a steel mill’s blast furnace uses more oxygen in 5 minutes than al the hospitals in the world uses today. When they shoot the oxygen into the bottom of a huge vat of molten steel it looks like a volcano erupting.

    Google and the Steel Industry helps me out on this comment which was started an hour ago…

    BOFs [Basic Oxygen Furnaces] include conventional top-blown furnaces, bottom blown furnaces, and various mixed blowing configurations and inert gas bottom stirring modifications. The top blown basic oxygen furnace is equipped with the water cooled oxygen for blowing oxygen into the melt through 4-6 nozzles. Oxygen flow commonly reaches 200-280 ft3/(min*t) (6-8 m3/(min*t)). The oxygen pressure is 150-220 psi. Service life of oxygen lance is about 400 heats.

    Between the very high pressure, the very high volumes, and the long time they blast a blast furnace, that’s one huge amount of industrial oxygen. The problems include contaminants in blast furnace oxygen that don’t hurt in steel production, but which could be fatal to a hospitalized patient. Like oil mist content, for ex.

  55. 55.

    Chris T.

    @J R in WV:

    The problems include contaminants in blast furnace oxygen that don’t hurt in steel production, but which could be fatal to a hospitalized patient. Like oil mist content, for ex.

    I was going to say … that’s like the difference between a scuba-rated air compressor, and your generic shop compressor.

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