Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

And we’re all out of bubblegum.

They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.

Days Since JD Vance Insulted Women Across America: Zero

People are complicated. Love is not.

The current Supreme Court is a rogue court. Very dangerous.

DeSantis transforming Florida into 1930s Germany with gators and theme parks.

Republicans firmly believe having an abortion is a very personal, very private decision between a woman and J.D. Vance.

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

When the time comes to make an endorsement, the pain of NYT editors will be palpable as they reluctantly whisper “Biden.”

Books are my comfort food!

Donald Jessica Trump found guilty as fuck – May 30, 2024!

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

“Why isn’t this Snickers bar only a nickel?”

The choice is between normal and crazy.

Someone should tell Republicans that violence is the last refuge of the incompetent, or possibly the first.

The revolution will be supervised.

Democrats have delivered the Square Deal, the New Deal, the Fair Deal, and now… the Big Joe Biden Deal.

There are no moderate republicans – only extremists and cowards.

Republicans: “Abortion is murder but you can take a bus to get one.” Easy peasy.

In after Baud. Damn.

Fani Willis claps back at Trump chihuahua, Jim Jordan.

Putting aside our relentless self-interest because the moral imperative is crystal clear.

Nothing says ‘pro-life’ like letting children go hungry.

Bad news for Ron DeSantis is great news for America.

You are here: Home / Healthcare / COVID-19 / COVID-19 Coronavirus Updates: Thursday / Friday, June 3-4

COVID-19 Coronavirus Updates: Thursday / Friday, June 3-4

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Further research shuts down VERY SERIOUS ‘Chinese bioweapon!!!’ hypothesis:


(Because wiley ChiCom scientists, if they *were* planning to infect all of humanity through future generations — yes, this is a theory among the ‘zoonosis skeptics — would presumably not have missed this key weaponization step.)

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Reader Interactions

53Comments

  2. 2.

    Cermet

    We are acting as if all is well when over 500 people die every day due to a virus that a vaccine is essentially 100% effective in preventing and just 62% of us have it? Also, while the world is still burning from it?

    That the virus can’t incorporate into our DNA isn’t very surprising but good to know. People want fake vaccine cards and pay $$$ for them but the vaccine is free, available just about anywhere, and any time – only in the US of A/O’s.

    We spent trillions on mass murder yet to vaccinate the entire world would cost less than 50 billion and we give 4 billion … wow, this is certainly a the christian nation of A/O’s.

  3. 3.

    YY_Sima Qian

    On 6/3 China reported 9 new domestic confirmed (2 previously asymptomatic) & 1 new domestic asymptomatic cases.

    Guangdong Province reported 9 new domestic confirmed (2 previously asymptomatic) & 1 domestic asymptomatic cases. There currently are 70 domestic confirmed & 26 domestic asymptomatic cases in the province.

    • Guangzhou reported 8 new domestic confirmed (2 previously asymptomaticall at Liwan District) & 1 new domestic asymptomatic cases (all but 1 at Liwan District, 1 new confirmed case at Haizhu District). 5 of the new confirmed cases & the new asymptomatic cases are traced close contacts, 1 of the new confirmed cases was identified via screening of all residents. There currently are 63 domestic confirmed & 10 domestic asymptomatic cases. There are 2 sub-districts at High Risk, as well as 2 sub-districts & 3 residential compounds at Medium Risk.
    • Maoming did not reported any new positive cases. There currently is 1 domestic asymptomatic case there, connected to the cluster at Liwan District in Guangzhou.
    • Foshan reported 1 new domestic confirmed case, a traced close contact under centralized quarantine since 5/28. There currently are 7 domestic confirmed cases in the city. 2 residential compounds remain at Medium Risk.
    • Shenzhen did not report any new domestic positive cases. There currently are 15 domestic asymptomatic cases in the city.

    Anhui Province did not report any new domestic positive cases. There are 1 domestic confirmed & 3 domestic asymptomatic cases in the province.

    • At Liu’an, there currently are 1 domestic confirmed & 3 domestic asymptomatic cases there. 1 residential compound remains at Medium Risk.

    Liaoning Province did not report any new domestic positive cases. There are 4 domestic confirmed & 3 domestic asymptomatic cases in the province.

    • In Yingkou, there currently has 4 domestic confirmed & 2 domestic asymptomatic cases there.
    • In Shenyang, there currently is 1 domestic asymptomatic case there.

    In Yunnan Province, 2 domestic asymptomatic cases were released from isolation. There currently are 4 domestic confirmed cases.

    Imported Cases

    On 6/3 China reported 15 new imported confirmed cases, 20 imported asymptomatic cases:

    • Shanghai Municipality – 5 confirmed cases, 2 Chinese nationals returning from the UAE & 1 each from Cambodia, Zimbabwe (via Addis Ababa) & the US
    • Guangzhou in Guangdong Province – 2 confirmed cases, 1 Chinese national each returning from Cambodia & the Philippines; 2 asymptomatic cases, 1 Chinese national returning from Cambodia & 1 Turkey
    • Zhaoqing in Guangdong Province – 1 asymptomatic case, a Chinese national returning from the US, off a flight that landed at Guangzhou
    • Chengdu in Sichuan Province – 2 confirmed cases, 1 Chinese national each returning from Cambodia & Ghana (via Amsterdam Schiphol); 2 asymptomatic cases, 1 Chinese national each returning from Algeria & Ghana (via Amsterdam Schiphol)
    • Yunnan Province (location not specified) – 2 confirmed cases, both Chinese nationals returning from Myanmar via land border crossing; 1 asymptomatic case, a Chinese national returning from Laos via land border crossing
    • Beijing Municipality – 1 confirmed case, a Chinese national returning from Canada; 1 asymptomatic case, no information released
    • Erenhot in Inner Mongolia “Autonomous” Region – 1 confirmed case (previously asymptomatic), coming from Mongolia
    • Hangzhou in Zhejiang Province – 1 confirmed case, coming from Egypt; 8 asymptomatic cases, 3 coming from Gabon, 2 from Egypt, & 1 each from Cameroon, Nigeria & Chad
    • Xi’an in Shaanxi Province – 1 confirmed case, a Chinese national returning from Uzbekistan, off a flight diverted from Beijing
    • Fuzhou in Fujian Province – 1 asymptomatic case, a Chinese national returning from Japan
    • Jiangsu Province (location not specified) – 1 asymptomatic case, no information released
    • Zhengzhou in Henan Province – 1 asymptomatic case, no information released
    • Weihai Port in Shandong Province – 1 asymptomatic case, a Filipino crew member off a cargo ship
    • Tianjin Municipality – 1 asymptomatic case, no information released, yet

    Overall in China, 17 confirmed cases recovered, 16 asymptomatic cases were released from isolation & 3 were reclassified as confirmed cases, and 988 individuals were released from quarantine. Currently, there are 371 active confirmed cases in the country (292 imported), 8 in serious condition (2 imported), 375 asymptomatic cases (341 imported), 2 suspect case (both imported). 8,286 traced contacts are currently 

    As of 6/3, 723.486M vaccine doses have been injected in Mainland China, an increase of 18.66M doses in the past 24 hrs.

    On 6/4, Hong Kong reported 1 new positive case, imported (from Austria).

  6. 6.

    NeenerNeener

    Monroe County, NY stats:

    53 new cases – 60.3% were people under 40, including 22 children between 0 and 19. Kids 10-19 had the highest number of cases.

    Deaths are now at 1303.

    1.6% test positivity

    57.4% with at least 1 shot
    50.5% totally vaccinated

  7. 7.

    Baud

    An international cable of evil was just able to defeat Hillary, and the media blamed her alone.  But they are still looking for excuses to explain how Trump lost.

  9. 9.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Cermet: The earlier paper’s idea was that although SARS-CoV-2 lacks reverse transcriptase genes, reverse transcriptase already present in human cells because of viral sequences incorporated into our genome could (rarely) do the trick. But this paper finds no evidence for that and possible ways the other team could have been misled.

  10. 10.

    Robert Sneddon

    Scotland — There were 992 positive cases of Covid-19 reported yesterday with a test positivity rate (TPR) of 3.9%. Two more deaths were reported yesterday. The case numbers and TPR are demonstrating a significant upwards climb over the recent few days but hospitalisations, although increasing slightly are not following the trend. There are concerns that the Delta variant of the disease which appears to be the most widespread variant in the UK at the moment might result in more hospitalisations than previous variants though.

    The vaccination program is continuing at the accelerated pace of recent days with over 53,000 doses given yesterday, mostly second doses. A self-congratulatory report on the BBC suggests that the UK leads the world in voluntary uptake of vaccines but this may be a little bit distorted by the initial concentration on vaccinating older folks who have personal memories of epidemic diseases like polio which were comprehensively dealt with by vaccines. The UK is unfortunately the country that produced Andrew Fucking Wakefield though, never forget.

    In other vaccination news the BBC is reporting that the UK’s MHRA has approved the use of the Pfizer vaccine for 12-15 year old teenagers after trials were completed.

    The data is based on more than 2,000 children aged 12-15 years old who took part in trials of the Pfizer vaccine. There were no cases of Covid from a week after the second dose – compared to 16 cases in the placebo group, and the vaccine appeared to work as well in adolescents as in young adults aged 16-25.

    The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) must now advise government on whether this age group should be vaccinated as part of the UK rollout.

  11. 11.

    Matt McIrvin

    Yesterday’s weekly report for Massachusetts showed continuing improvement: for the first time in a very long time, no cities or towns are in the “red” condition according to the state’s arcane criteria, and my own city finally got to “green”. Statewide numbers look pretty good considering that it was probably the equivalent of a Wednesday given the long weekend. So things are looking up here. The drop in cases actually looks superexponential–it’s curving downward on a logarithmic plot, as one might expect with increasing vaccination driving down the R value. That was not the case with any previous wave here–it seemed like dropping case counts would drive reopenings which would blunt the drop.

    If the further relaxation of restrictions causes any new bump, though, we might not see it in the numbers for another week or two. I went back to the grocery store last weekend and noticed that mask-wearing in there actually had declined, as a result of the store announcing that the fully vaccinated could go unmasked. But it’s too early to say whether that will have any effect.

  12. 12.

    mrmoshpotato

    I think if he COVID-hawked early when the prevalent narrative from the Blue Checks was that it was paranoid fearmongering to wear a mask and take COVID seriously, he would have won, and if Mitch let him keep mailing checks, he would have won, but as it is, he lost on easy mode.

    Or, to put it another way, the Soviet shitpile mobster conman never wanted to do the presidenting part of the job that he “won.”  The whiny ass Kremlin’s bitch baby.

  13. 13.

    WereBear

    @Robert Sneddon:

    The UK is unfortunately the country that produced Andrew Fucking Wakefield though, never forget.

     
    And I understand he’s riding the anti-vaxx/con artist wave and doing well financially as a result.

    We have to bring back prosecutions for white collar crime. We MUST.

  14. 14.

    YY_Sima Qian

    Uhh, WaPo’s reporting on Chinese vaccines have been consistently atrocious! Seychelles gets trotted out every few days as evidence poor efficacy of the Sinovac vaccines, but the fact that 47% of vaccines used there have been the AZ-Oxford one is rarely mentioned, or the fact that the not fully vaccinated (~ 40% of the population) account for 80% of the cases there. Data out of the islands have been very inconsistently reported, with case data updated in only 5 days of the past 20, totaling ~ 3500 cases over that span, or ~ 175 cases / day. This is down from the > 300 cases / day in early to mid-May. Active cases have also declined by ~ 60% since mid-May peak. This is all right there on Worldometer.

    As for Bahrain, 90% of those being hospitalized are those unvaccinated. In Chile, there has been a surge in cases (with a couple of peaks) since late Feb., but deaths remained flat. Those filling hospitals are the younger unvaccinated, rather than the elderly vaccinated.

    I think it is fair to say that the inactivated whole virus vaccines (SinoPharm & Sinovac) produce  lower immune responses compared to the mRNA vaccines, lower sterilizing immunity, and immunity possibly wanes more quickly. However, their efficacies against hospitalization and death are not far off from the mRNA vaccines. The bigger issue facing countries relying upon Sinovac/SinoPharm vaccines while experiencing surges is the fact that these vaccines seem to take longer to induce adequate immuno-response, the 1st shot alone is not enough. This should be accounted for in public health policy and clearly communicated to the populations. Unfortunately, that is not always done, and many people stopped taking precautions after the 1st shot.

    Bahrain and the UAE providing booster shots to vulnerable populations 6 months after the 2nd SinoPharm shot is sound public health policy. China will possibly follow this strategy, as well. SinoPharm along has claimed to be building up capacity toward 5B doses per year (w/ 1B available for export by end of this year), plus Sinovac, the CanSino viral vector vaccine, a molecular protein already available under EUA and an mRNA vaccine expected to be approved for general use by EOY. Plus Fosun Pharma has formed a joint venture w/ BioNTech to produce 1B doses of its vaccine in China, in addition to the order for 100M doses of German made vaccines for distribution in Greater China. China has already built infrastructure to apply > 20M doses / day, which can give booster shots to ~ 80% of the population in < 2 months. I am not worried if we all need to take booster shots by the end of the year.

  15. 15.

    Matt McIrvin

    @YY_Sima Qian: I’ve been assuming that the Seychelles story is a lot like Martha’s Vineyard: the unvaccinated are socially connected to a greater degree than you’d expect if they were homogeneously distributed.

  17. 17.

    YY_Sima Qian

    @Matt McIrvin: Yes, uneven distribution of vaccination are likely factors, as well. Hell, even Israel experienced a rapid surge while mass vaccination was underway with the BioNTech vaccine, and lock downs had to be imposed. Case incidence rate did not peak until the country reached > 60 doses / 100 persons, with the strict distancing measures.

  18. 18.

    Matt McIrvin

    @rikyrah: As a fraction of the whole population, we are at 66% wholly or partially vaccinated, 54% fully vaccinated. The one state at 70% is Vermont.

    But vaccination is very unevenly distributed. In our poorest, most minority-heavy towns the vaccinated fraction is lower, and I’m in a blue-collar area that has had a rough time of it.

  19. 19.

    Amir Khalid

    Malaysia’s Director-General of Heath Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah reports 7,748 new Covid-19 cases today in his media statement, for a cumulative reported total of 603,122 cases. He also reports 86 new deaths today, for a cumulative total of 3,182 deaths — 0.53% of the cumulative reported total, 0.61% of resolved cases.

    There are currently 84,369 active and contagious cases; 883 are in ICU, 459 of them intubated. Meanwhile, 6,624 patients recovered and were discharged, for a cumulative total of 515,571 patients recovered – 85.48% of the cumulative reported total.

    23 new clusters were reported today.

    7,746 new cases today are local infections. Selangor reports 2,612 cases: 201 in clusters, 1,773 close-contact screenings, and 638 other screenings. Kuala Lumpur reports 850 local cases: 64 in clusters, 501 close-contact screenings, and 285 other screenings.

    Negeri Sembilan reports 709 cases: 282 in clusters, 261 close-contact screenings, and 166 other screenings. Sarawak reports 706 cases: 39 in clusters, 557 close-contact screenings, and 110 other screenings.

    Johor reports 445 local cases: 130 in clusters, 244 close-contact screenings, and 71 other screenings.

    Penang reports 376 cases: 115 in clusters, 120 close-contact screenings, and 141 other screenings. Perak reports 371 cases: 142 in clusters, 197 close-contact screenings, and 32 other screenings.

    Sabah reports 287 local cases: 18 in clusters, 152 close-contact screenings, and 117 other screenings. Kelantan reports 286 cases: 36 in clusters, 180 close-contact screenings, and 70 other screenings. Kedah reports 263 cases: nine in clusters, 184 close-contact screenings, and 70 other screenings. Melaka reports 234 cases: 57 in clusters, 114 close-contact screenings, and 63 other screenings. Labuan reports 230 cases: 63 in clusters, 58 close-contact screenings, and 109 other screenings. Terengganu reports 203 cases: 42 in clusters, 140 close-contact screenings, and 21 other screenings.

    Pahang reports 146 cases: 46 in clusters, 78 close-contact screenings, and 22 other screenings.

    Putrajaya reports 20 cases: seven in clusters, 12 close-contact screenings, and one other screening. Perlis reports eight cases: five close-contact screenings, and three other screenings.

    Two new cases today are imported: one in Kuala Lumpur, one in Johor.

  20. 20.

    YY_Sima Qian

    By the way, after 95% of eligible adults were vaccinated with the Sinovac shots at Serrana in the Sao Paolo State, Brazil, deaths fell by 95%, hospitalization by 86% & symptomatic infections by 80%. This is against a wave of the Gamma (P.1) variant, surrounding towns are still suffering from surging infection. A similar study is ongoing at another town in the Sao Paolo State.

    Whole inactivated virus vaccines are also safer for those with potential allergies to materials used for mRNA or viral vectors vaccines, due to their much lower side effects. This is what Singapore is doing.

  22. 22.

    Taken4Granite

    @Bluegirlfromwyo: I’m with you and rikyrah on this. Package tourism, which cruise lines take to an extreme, has never been my thing, and cruises add to that the inability to walk away.

    Taking an overnight ferry to get somewhere that is otherwise only accessible by air is one thing. Spending however many nights in a floating hotel to visit places I can get to by other means simply doesn’t appeal to me.

  23. 23.

    Soprano2

    At this point, at least where I live, I don’t understand workers in places like grocery stores saying they are “sitting ducks” for Covid. Why aren’t they vaccinated? Where I live, in a conservative city in a conservative state, everyone has been eligible for vaccination since the second week of April. Starting at the beginning of May pretty much every pharmacy that has vaccine opened for walk-in vaccinations. Every Walgreens, CVS, WalMart Supercenter, HyVee, and pretty much all pharmacies that have vaccine are advertising it heavily. You can get a free ride there and back. My city is having clinics at public libraries and public parks. They’ve had events at the Cardinal games. I saw a sign at a brew pub downtown that they’re having an event! Where I live at this point if you aren’t at least partially vaccinated it’s because you’ve made no effort to do it at all, or you don’t intend to. Every WalMart and Aldi clerk I’ve talked to about it is vaccinated, some of them before I was! All of my employees are vaccinated (except my manager, anyone want to talk to her? Ggggrrrr…….!!!). If these people feel like “sitting ducks”, then they need to get vaccinated!

  24. 24.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Soprano2: I think even a lot of vaccinated people don’t necessarily trust the vaccine to protect them on its own. But as case counts go down, and there’s generally less virus about, breakthrough infections also become less of a concern.

  25. 25.

    Robert Sneddon

    @YY_Sima Qian: The SinoPharm and Sinovac vaccines are less effective than the miraculous mRNA vaccines (as is the adenovirus-based AstraZeneca vaccine) but they’re still well above anything like the 50% efficacy figure the epidemiology community was willing to accept back in March last year. Hell, even the baling-wire and duct-tape Sputnik V from Russia meets that low barrier, just about.

     

    Right now and for the next few months the aim should be to get as many needles into as many arms everywhere as possible and if the better vaccines are in short supply and the lesser vaccines can be delivered to the front lines right now then there’s no reason to hold back and wait. The virus won’t wait.

  26. 26.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Robert Sneddon: Also, these efficacy numbers are generally taken a couple of weeks after vaccination, and there’s increasing evidence that for at least some of the vaccines, immune response increases for several weeks after that. So the published numbers may actually be lowballing how good they are. That probably is the case with the J&J and AstraZeneca vaccines.

  27. 27.

    YY_Sima Qian

    @Robert Sneddon: Completely agree, but western MSM coverage of non-western vaccines are not helping that cause. Sometimes I wonder what is the aim of such coverage from WaPo. OK, Sinovac & SinoPharm vaccines suck, so what should the Seychelles, Chile. Uruguay, and Brazil do? Refuse the Chinese vaccines and wait for unknown months more for BioNTech and Moderna vaccines, whenever it is that the US and the EU make them available?

    The vast majority of the vaccines that the US and Japan plan to donate is made up by the AZ-Oxford shots that are either not approved or shunned domestically. The AZ-Oxford vaccine has an advantage over the Sinovac & SinoPharm ones in terms of inducing faster immuno-response, with decent efficacy after the 1st shot. Other than that, the overall efficacy figures are fairly similar.

  28. 28.

    Robert Sneddon

    @Matt McIrvin: It doesn’t really matter as long as the efficacy is above 50% — below that the effort to roll out a vaccine and get it into peoples arms becomes less useful and the resulting low levels of immunity in the population make vaccination appear to be useless which leads to less willingness to get revaccinated in the future.

    The UK is already carrying out trials for a third booster vaccination program in case it’s needed, to fill in the gaps and catch the cases where the first round of vaccinations didn’t work for some people. There will be a sub-trial of a mix-and-match protocol, giving people who got the AstraZeneca two-dose vaccine something else like Pfizer or J&J as a booster to see if that performs better or worse or the same. The bad news is that if a booster vaccination program is launched it’s going to eat up manufacturing capacity for all vaccines worldwide because the UK has a bigger checkbook than countries like Senegal or the DRC. We’ll see.

  29. 29.

    YY_Sima Qian

    I also don’t know why WaPo continues to focus on the WHO’s statement that there is not enough safety data data for > 60 cohort for the SinoPharm vaccine. The WHO assessment is based on Stage III trials, which indeed did not have enough > 60 participants. However, by now many millions of elderly have taken the SinoPharm shots in Latin America, SE Europe & the Middle East. If there are safety issues, they would have emerged by now. Yes, those countries were taking a calculated risk by using the SinoPharm vaccine on the elderly population, but there is an abundance of real life data now.

  30. 30.

    WaterGirl

    The way I read that study is that 66% of people in the US think we should play a leading or major role in distributing the vaccine to the rest of the world.  That 66% of people strongly believe in the vaccine, so I imagine those people would definitely get vaccinated.

    The additional 19% still think we should be distributing the vaccines, so those people are not covid deniers, either.  66 + 19 = 85.

    The 14% who think we should play no role at all could well be covid deniers.

    So it seems like we should definitely be able to get 70-80% vaccinated here in the US.

    Where is the flaw in my logic?

  31. 31.

    Just Chuck

    People who forge vaccination certificates should be given Covid. If they’re already vaccinated, ebola will do

  32. 32.

    Sloane Ranger

    Thursday in the UK we had 5274 new cases. This is an increase of 38.9% in the rolling 7-day average. New cases by nation,

    England – 4310 (up 824)

    Northern Ireland – 80 (down 4)

    Scotland – 835 (up 158) but see updated information from Robert Sneddon above.

    Wales – 49 (down 35)

    Deaths – There were 18 deaths within 28 days of a positive test yesterday. This is a decrease in the rolling 7-day average of 5.3%. Deaths by nation, England – 13, Northern Ireland – 1, Scotland – 4 and Wales – 0.

    Testing – 854,697 tests were administered on Wednesday, 2 June. This is a decrease of 21.2% in the rolling 7-day average. The PCR testing capacity reported by labs on this date was 577,633.

    Hospitalisations – There were 919 people in hospital on Tuesday, 1 June and 129 people on ventilators on Wednesday, 2nd. As of 30 May, the rolling 7-day average for hospital admissions had increased by 3%.

    Vaccinations – As of 2 June, 39,758,428 people had received 1 shot of a vaccine and 26,422,303 had received both. In percentage terms this means that 75.5% of all adults in the UK have had 1 jab and 50.2% were fully vaccinated on that date.

    General – Robert Sneddon may have a point about the initial UK vaccine roll-out targeting older people who remember polio etc. but, when I went for my 2nd shot last Saturday there was a queue a mile long comprising people from all demographics, young, old, male, female, white and Black and Minority Ethnic people. When I left after getting my shot, the queue was just as long and diverse. I think that, even if British people don’t trust politicians, they DO trust the National Health Service and that means they also trust the vaccines the NHS is administering.

    As for the growth in case numbers here in the UK, a friend of mine who spent her career in Public Health told me that she expected to see an increase in case numbers as the country opened up but the vaccination programme would keep hospitalisations and deaths down. Of course this was before the Delta variant became the dominant strain here, but currently this seems to be the case. Although, as we’ve learned to our cost, hospitalisations and deaths lag behind cases so I think it will take another few weeks before we see how it’s shaking out.

  33. 33.

    Sloane Ranger

    @Just Chuck:

     

    People who forge vaccination certificates should be given Covid. If they’re already vaccinated, ebola will do

    If they’re already vaccinated, why would they need to forge a certificate?

    This just goes to show how far some idiots will go to “own the libs”.

  34. 34.

    Matt McIrvin

    @YY_Sima Qian: A friend in Australia has mentioned that there are a lot of people there who are not getting vaccinated because they are “waiting for Pfizer” in preference to the AstraZeneca vaccine. Supplies of the Pfizer vaccine exist there but are limited and restricted to only some people, whereas anyone can get the AZ.

    “Waiting for Pfizer” seems counterproductive–the very low case counts in Australia because of the success of other control measures are probably inducing a lack of urgency, but the experience of other countries tells us that there’s no predicting when a large outbreak will hit in a population where there is neither much vaccination nor a lot of prior infection. Surely the benefit of being vaccinated earlier in such a situation outweighs the advantage of having a vaccine with a higher posted efficacy.

  35. 35.

    Soprano2

    @Matt McIrvin: I think even a lot of vaccinated people don’t necessarily trust the vaccine to protect them on its own. But as case counts go down, and there’s generally less virus about, breakthrough infections also become less of a concern.

    To me this is crazy, they trust a face mask but not these vaccines which have proven to be amazingly effective at preventing covid infections and preventing people who are vaccinated from spreading covid if they do happen to get it, as well as preventing serious illness and death. I think the truth is that these people just like the visual signal of a face mask; it doesn’t have much of anything to do with what’s actually most effective at protecting them from Covid, or they’d be getting vaccinated so that they don’t have to feel like they’re “sitting ducks” for Covid!

  38. 38.

    YY_Sima Qian

    @Matt McIrvin: I have acquaintances in Wuhan that were waiting for the BioNTech (commonly referred to as the “Pfizer” vaccine in the US) vaccine, whether distributed by or produced under license by Fosun. Regulatory approval in China is expected by end of Jun., or some time in Jul. The latest mini-outbreaks in Guangdong, Anhui and Liaoning Provinces motivated most of them to get vaccinated ASAP.

  39. 39.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Soprano2: The media have really understated how effective the vaccines are, in part because they lean so much on top-line numbers from field trials which could easily be misinterpreted to mean your chances of getting very sick when vaccinated are still fairly substantial.

    Face masks don’t do a lot by comparison, but there’s no harm in wearing them. I know that when I see unmasked people around in public places, I have no confidence that they’re actually vaccinated, and wearing one means that other people aren’t all going through that mental calculation.

  40. 40.

    Matt McIrvin

    …There’s also a maddeningly persistent folk belief here that the vaccines do absolutely nothing to prevent asymptomatic transmission.

    I think this is a misinterpretation of articles from many months ago stating that the early field trials had not measured efficacy at preventing asymptomatic transmission. It’s very easy to confuse absence of evidence with evidence of absence, and then that belief just persisted. In fact the vaccines are impressively effective at squelching transmission–they don’t need to be 100% effective at this to cause outbreaks to die.

  41. 41.

    Robert Sneddon

    @YY_Sima Qian: ​
      Safety data derived from studying a widely-deployed treatment is messy and uncoordinated and it can hide intrinsic issues with the treatment for a long time. A trial properly tracks each test subject with interviews, health checks, blood samples etc. and it double-blinds the cohort. This means any important factors can be delineated more promptly and corrective action taken quickly.

    It’s the difference between anecdata and data. The big things an after-deployment data analysis provides is in revealing the one-in-a-million oopsies like the blood clots ascribed to the AstraZeneca vaccine, myocarditis from the Pfizer (and probably the Moderna too) and some others we haven’t found out about yet. They’re not show-stoppers though the way a one-in-a-thousand serious aftereffect that would be revealed in a trial would be.

  42. 42.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Robert Sneddon: The Pfizer myocarditis effect actually seems to be at the one-in-several-thousand level if you’re a kid under 20.

    Fortunately most of the cases are not serious and easily treated, so the advantages of vaccination for these kids still clearly outweigh the risks. But I’m wondering if a dose adjustment for younger patients is in the cards sooner or later–their immune response to the vaccine is extremely strong.

  43. 43.

    Ramiah Ariya

    It is interesting that covid is no more referred to as originating in China (or the China virus) – which is correct.

    But the above reuters story on Australia refers to the “variant originating in India” and that is just fine.

    The WHO came up with Greek names for the variants so that western press would be persuaded to not use the term “Indian variant” – but it is clearly not enough. “Originating in India” nicely covers it.

    The thing is, when the Government of India tried to object to this, some of the Western press referred to it as “threats by the nationalist govt of India” to remove references to the Indian variant. That is, references to the China virus is racist, but attempts to remove the term “Indian variant” is inherently nationalistic.

    It is amazing how closely tuned with Western liberal priorities your national press is. I think YY_Sima Qian has done a great job above documenting this.

  44. 44.

    Just Chuck

    @Ramiah Ariya: There are Brazillian variants and UK variants too.  But at some point it’ll probably be like influenza where it never becomes a household name unless it’s a particularly nasty strain.

  45. 45.

    Ken

    @Taken4Granite: “Floating hotel” is if anything an understatement. I always have a moment of shock when I see a picture like the one above, with the Imperial Battle Cruiser cruise ship looming over nearby buildings.

  46. 46.

    Fair Economist

    @Matt McIrvin: What’s bizarre about the (nonsense) integration theory is that if it were true (which it’s not) vaccines would be IMPERATIVE. Because if mRNA could integrate then viral infection could turn you into a lifetime carrier of the virus – you’d never be able to get well, and anybody around you could be infected.

  47. 47.

    Fair Economist

    @YY_Sima Qian: IMO the best option for somebody with only access to inferior vaccines is to take the inferior vaccine, and then get a single-shot booster of an mRNA when it becomes available.  A poor vaccine is better than none (other than maybe a bogus Sputnik) and a single shot of the mRNAs is apparently sufficient post-COVID, so I think it would suffice after another vaccines.

  48. 48.

    Ken

    @Just Chuck: I’m not sure how well the WHO’s Greek letter system is going to work out.  The few times I’ve seen it used in news articles, it’s been followed by the country of origin anyway: “the Alpha variant, which appeared in the UK, …”  Even this Times of India article is headlined “COVID-19 Delta variant first found in India…”.

  49. 49.

    J R in WV

    Since the newly evolved strains of Sars2-Covid-19 virus can occur repeatedly anywhere, I think using a nation’s name for a variant strain depending upon where it is first IDed is fundamentally incorrect and unscientific.

    I do have trouble with the b.1.4.3.7.5.9.5 naming convention, impossible for me to recall a random number series.

  50. 50.

    YY_Sima Qian

    @Fair Economist: Agree that using mRNA vaccine as a booster shot later may be the best strategy for those without access to them in the short to medium term. However, I am not confident mRNA vaccines would be readily available around the world when the boosters are required. There are only the Moderna & BioNTech ones. The Chinese one won’t be available until end of this year, and domestic demand will likely take priority if proven highly effective.

    Lack of availability is especially true in the developing world. By the time the US is considering boosters, most of Africa may still be waiting for their 1st shot. I expect using the best available vaccine will remain the most practical strategy for boosters.

  51. 51.

    bluefoot

    It weirds me out that India has essentially vanished from the news even though things there are still horrific. What the hell?
    And the IOC insisting on holding the Olympics even though hospital systems in Japan are completely stretched?

    It all makes me so exhausted.

    In my own little world, just found out my workplace is lifting mask and social distancing mandates on site as long as people are vaccinated BUT is not requiring proof of vaccination. Nor will the company share site-level stats on vaccination rates. We are required to answer COVID screening questions before coming on site, including whether or not we’re vaccinated, so the data exists. They could easily publish this on our intranet, but won’t.

  52. 52.

    Brachiator

     

    @J R in WV:

    Since the newly evolved strains of Sars2-Covid-19 virus can occur repeatedly anywhere, I think using a nation’s name for a variant strain depending upon where it is first IDed is fundamentally incorrect and unscientific.

    We should name variants like we name hurricanes.

    Covid Strain Hilda. Covid Strain Ignacio.

  53. 53.

    Shana

    Way late to the thread I know, but yesterday in Fairfax County VA, population 1.2 million, there were 8 new cases yesterday. It’s been trending down lately but that number was very surprising.

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