I made a little interactive that updates the CDC's tally of vaccinations to determine how close the country is to getting a free beer. The fuller the mug, the sooner Anheuser-Busch gives out 200,000 free brews. https://t.co/2OmydGZptX pic.twitter.com/nPYVYN8RCw
— Philip Bump (@pbump) June 4, 2021
In the official tally (which is a significant undercount) the USA #COVID19 death toll now equals the estimated number of deaths in the 1918-19 Influenza.
When adjusted for undercount, far more Americans have succumbed to COVID than did to flu.https://t.co/44SAdPhA2a— Laurie Garrett (@Laurie_Garrett) June 4, 2021
63.2% of all American adults have received at least one vaccine shot; 52.3% are now fully vaccinated. pic.twitter.com/Yv0ql1Uw0j
— Patrick Chovanec (@prchovanec) June 5, 2021
Pressure on China about a Covid ‘lab leak’ could backfire on those who keep pushing it. Political heat about lab malfeasance could make a definitive answer less likely. In the US, the lab leak notion grew out of right-wing arsenal of attacks on science https://t.co/yKns3AoxGQ pic.twitter.com/dZ06iLTNWH
— delthia ricks ? (@DelthiaRicks) June 4, 2021
The US had +16,925 new confirmed cases of COVID-19 today, bringing the total closer to 34.2 million. The 7-day moving average declined to 14,711 new cases per day, its lowest level since March 27, 2020. pic.twitter.com/hyKGAn5W6R
— Patrick Chovanec (@prchovanec) June 5, 2021
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Covid vaccine decisions at G7 summit will 'define 21st Century' https://t.co/2weV3LuyKY
— BBC News (UK) (@BBCNews) June 4, 2021
South and SE Asian nations are running out of oxygen for #COVID19 treatment. The situation is dire.https://t.co/VyXKBNlKK2
— Laurie Garrett (@Laurie_Garrett) June 4, 2021
India posts daily rise of 120,529 new COVID-19 cases https://t.co/eyjblKHqI1 pic.twitter.com/RlY0ca3tNs
— Reuters (@Reuters) June 5, 2021
India's capital preparing to deal with COVID-19 peak of 37,000 cases – minister https://t.co/oRYx53PYwP pic.twitter.com/bbyjVrJ1Fw
— Reuters (@Reuters) June 5, 2021
The India Covid patients whose lonely deaths went viral https://t.co/8W7ipORrkp
— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) June 5, 2021
… The video was shot on the night of 30 April at an intensive care unit in Kriti hospital in Gurugram, a Delhi suburb.
Relatives of the dead say they barged into the ICU after they were unable to find doctors in the hallways, only to find the ICU also deserted. They have accused the doctors of abandoning the patients after the hospital ran out of oxygen.
The doctors, who were hiding elsewhere in the hospital, say they fled fearing violence from the families. The families say they never made any threats.
One month on, an internal inquiry is yet to confirm the cause of the deaths. No charges have been filed. The Gurugram Deputy Commissioner Yash Garg was unable to say when the investigation will be completed…
By April in India, the oxygen crunch was a nationwide concern, as the second wave of coronavirus was bringing India’s healthcare system to its knees. Patients died on stretchers outside overwhelmed hospitals while crematoriums overflowed with the dead.
Patients died even as hospitals and families scrambled to arrange for oxygen supplies. Social media was awash with desperate pleas from doctors and relatives of sufferers alike.
The death of the six unattended patients was one of many tragedies, but the shocking nature of the video footage sent it careening around the world…
As Nepal experiences a devastating Covid second wave, families are forced to say goodbye through the crematorium gates https://t.co/uDrOaeEbzw pic.twitter.com/pvPC0fbsNG
— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) June 4, 2021
Sinovac’s COVID-19 vaccine gains China nod for emergency use in kids, adolescents https://t.co/OQT23aEZIO pic.twitter.com/xwJe4ofWuD
— Reuters (@Reuters) June 5, 2021
Taiwan reports more than 500 new domestic COVID-19 cases https://t.co/uu8gKbpCVs pic.twitter.com/G2bUBQBU0D
— Reuters (@Reuters) June 5, 2021
Japan eyes sending coronavirus vaccines to Vietnam – NHK https://t.co/7lNXtHDHaB pic.twitter.com/Q56qBnyBW8
— Reuters (@Reuters) June 5, 2021
“15mnths after Indonesia reported its first case of COVID-19, testing for the coronavirus remains among the lowest in Asia. Perhaps because it is not free, testing has reachd only around 40 per 1,000 ppl, comp with 115 in the Philippines, 373 in Malaysia, &more than 2,000 in Sing https://t.co/3vXqGdfjhI
— Greg Barton (@gregjamesbarton) June 3, 2021
Brutal surge: Afghanistan is struggling to fight a new wave of COVID infections. As new cases reach as high as 1,500 a day, officials are frustrated with the inequities of global vaccine distribution. By @Kathygannon. https://t.co/90pZUj3ilY
— AP Middle East (@APMiddleEast) June 5, 2021
NEW: Russia's excess death toll hits 475k, according to @MoscowTimes calculations of latest official figures.
In an encouraging sign, the increase in fatalities during April 2021 was at its lowest level since last summerhttps://t.co/GV3Hj1soff
— Jake Cordell (@JakeCordell) June 4, 2021
For ~3 weeks Belgium's leading virologist has been living in a safehouse w/ his wife & 12 y/o son, guarded by security agents. Prof. Marc Van Ranst has been targeted by a right-wing anti-science idiot who's armed w/ a rocket launcher & trained as a sniper https://t.co/jLUWQKItAe
— delthia ricks ? (@DelthiaRicks) June 5, 2021
… Belgian authorities have described Jürgen Conings as a very dangerous man who wants to use violence.
He was already on a terrorist watch list in Belgium because of his extreme right-wing political beliefs. When he disappeared from his barracks, a note left no doubt that virologists were his target…
In a time when it is easy to blame the bearers of bad news, Prof Van Ranst sees some inevitability to his surreal situation.
“If you’re on television a couple of times every day for months on end, people get sick and tired of you. That’s unavoidable,” he says. “There are a group of people that hate science and hate scientists. Very often they are scared and uncertain.”
In the days that followed Jürgen Conings’ disappearance, a support group was created for the ex-soldier on Facebook. Before being closed down, it had attracted nearly 50,000 members. It’s this group that worries Prof Van Ranst more than his assailant…
“These are real people, who really think this man is a hero and that I deserve to die. They are people, living in your neighbourhood, who wage bets on exactly when and with how many bullets he will murder me,” he told me…
Best current estimate for B.1.617.2 (delta) variant is 60% transmission increase over B.1.1.7(alpha) https://t.co/A17QSTP9WC
from @neil_ferguson @guardianscience
Latest on cases increased in parts of UK, by @mroliverbarnes @FT pic.twitter.com/jMgGjairYS— Eric Topol (@EricTopol) June 4, 2021
Australia's Victoria state reports five new COVID-19 cases, Delta cluster grows https://t.co/e7JRGNc8dg pic.twitter.com/W9918guhTL
— Reuters (@Reuters) June 5, 2021
As vaccine delays grind on across Africa, the coronavirus surges. The WHO said test positivity had risen in 14 countries on the African continent over the last 7 days & 8 report a surge of over 30% in new cases https://t.co/32MeZc4TKc
— delthia ricks ? (@DelthiaRicks) June 5, 2021
Brazil registers 1,454 new COVID-19 deaths, total rises above 470,000 -Health Ministry https://t.co/7TojPxD4PL pic.twitter.com/HqW733y2mk
— Reuters (@Reuters) June 5, 2021
Why are so many children in Brazil dying of Covid? Children there are especially vulnerable to catastrophic viral diseases. When dengue struck in 2007 & 08, children accounted for more than 1/2 of fatalities. 2015's Zika outbreak? ~1600 newborns affected https://t.co/O6yJfmUUpH
— delthia ricks ? (@DelthiaRicks) June 4, 2021
Mexico reports 2,809 new coronavirus cases, 206 more deaths https://t.co/VjK9IiexZ3 pic.twitter.com/ow7Tx8j0EC
— Reuters (@Reuters) June 5, 2021
Want to mix 2 different Covid vaccines? Canada is fine with that. The country's public health agency says people can mix vaccines if they want to, citing cases of local supply shortages & concerns when it's difficult to complete a 2-dose regimen w/ 1 brand https://t.co/oWqJeZpRkg
— delthia ricks ? (@DelthiaRicks) June 4, 2021
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Masks have stopped disease spread for centuries. Here’s why they may catch on in the U.S. https://t.co/tWoobryyTw
— delthia ricks ? (@DelthiaRicks) June 5, 2021
New development: A rapid, at-home blood test can confirm Covid vaccination status in minutes. Dr. Robert Kruse, of Johns Hopkins Univ, creator of the test, says it also can be used to confirm a person's vaccination instead of having to show a vaccine card. https://t.co/96hmIwH17b
— delthia ricks ? (@DelthiaRicks) June 4, 2021
In the lab: New drug prevents severe Covid in animal models infected w/ SARSCoV2. Experimental drug activates the innate immune response. Study is the 1st to show that therapeutically activating the innate response w/ a single dose is a promising strategy https://t.co/raERUcmpuK pic.twitter.com/WsJfD2y5ay
— delthia ricks ? (@DelthiaRicks) June 3, 2021
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This week, misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines spread online, including bogus claims that airlines met to discuss the risk of carrying vaccinated passengers. Get all the facts from @AP’s Not Real News. https://t.co/8YNFBeNLYL
— AP Fact Check (@APFactCheck) June 4, 2021
Gov. Newsom knows how to politick:
i think this is good but just objectively how is this real life pic.twitter.com/BX7MXxauJz
— World Famous Art Thief (@CalmSporting) June 4, 2021
satby
I mentioned my friend in Delhi who passed away May 11 from Covid. He was a 30- something healthy guy who would likely be alive today had there been oxygen and other treatment available.
sab
Re: masks. I hadn’t had a cold in 15 years. Then one of my much younger co-workers got married and had babies, who went into daycare. I had four colds in 2019. Then Covid, and our Governor’s mask mandate. I haven’t had a cold since, nor did I get Covid.
I took the dogs for a walk yesterday, maskless. Sneezed my head off. Oh yeah, pollen. Mask up.
We went out for lunch yesterday. Seated outside. Suburban restaurant. In the my little city everyone who isn’t a young male is still pretty much masked although the mandates are gone. In this suburban restaurant yesterday the white woman at the next table stared at me relentlessly until I took off my mask when the food arrived. My husband, facing me, said the Black women behind him kept their masks on until their food arrived.
If we all have to wear our politics on our faces all the time, I am glad I am in my camp and not the other camp.
Dorothy A. Winsor
In my building, fully vaccinated residents (which is everyone) haven’t had to wear masks for a couple of weeks now, but staff has had to no matter what their vaccination status was. Starting a week from yesterday, fully vaccinated staff can remove their masks. Last I heard, 70% of them were vaccinated. That’s probably higher now, but it will be interesting to see who still has masks.
OzarkHillbilly
@sab: I feel like getting a mask that says, “Fuck You”.
sab
@OzarkHillbilly: I feel like getting a mask that says “I have allergies. What is your problem?
Or maybe ” I might be contagious. Want to stand next to me unmasked?”
Spanky
The failure to have a flu season last year (totally predictable once the mask mandate went into effect) is going to make it tough for vaccine manufacturers to guess which strains are going to pop up in this now maskless society come winter.
So expect a nasty flu season on top of the (hopefully) tail of the pandemic.
Spanky
@sab: I feel like getting a mask that says “You don’t know what I’ve got.”
sab
@Spanky: I want one of those.
sab
I spent last summer sewing necessary masks. I am really tempted to spend this summer sewing protest/disgruntled masks.
Uncle Cosmo
Laurie Garrett’s OMGOMGOMG comment on COVID deaths (“When adjusted for undercount, far more Americans have succumbed to COVID than did to flu”) needs to be taken in context.
“The number of deaths [in the 1918-20 influenza pandemic] was estimated to be at least 50 million worldwide with about 675,000 occurring in the United States.” (source)
The US population in 1920 was 106,021,537. The US population in 2020 was 331,449,281. (Source)
Were SARS-CoV-2 to be as deadly as the earlier flu, we would be looking at a US death told on the order of 2.1 million, and no one is claiming anything close to that.
sab
@Spanky: Well aren’t you the chipper little optomist. ( Not saying you aren’t right.)
Spanky
@Uncle Cosmo: I had the same problem with that tweet. Plus, she may or may not have accounted for the inevitable undercount back then.
Spanky
@sab: Yet another reason to stay masked up, is all.
sab
@Uncle Cosmo: Point taken, but still Covid has been very bad. Our hospitals are a lot better now. Who had oxygen supplements back then?
Robert Sneddon
@Uncle Cosmo:
On the other hand medical science and the treatment of respiratory diseases is much, MUCH improved over the state of the art a century ago. Without ventilators, drugs, oxygen therapy and a host of other interventions a death toll of over 2 million in the US from COVID-19 would be a lot more likely and of course people are still dying from this disease, it’s not a historical footnote quite yet.
Amir Khalid
Malaysia’s Director-General of Heath Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah reports 7,452 new Covid-19 cases today in his media statement, for a cumulative reported total of 610,574 cases. He also reports 109 new deaths today, for a cumulative total of 3,291 deaths — 0.54% of the cumulative reported total, 0.63% of resolved cases.
There are currently 85,607 active and contagious cases; 886 are in ICU, 446 of them intubated. Meanwhile, 6,105 patients recovered and were discharged, for a cumulative total of 521,676 patients recovered – 85.44% of the cumulative reported total.
24 new clusters were reported today.
7,444 new cases today are local infections. Selangor reports 2,507 local cases: 93 in clusters, 1,950 close-contact screenings, and 464 other screenings. Negeri Sembilan reports 843 cases: 284 in clusters, 356 close-contact screenings, and 203 other screenings.
Kuala Lumpur reports 673 local cases: 43 in clusters, 404 close-contact screenings, and 226 other screenings. Sarawak reports 651 cases: 118 in clusters, 404 close-contact screenings, and 129 other screenings.
Johor reports 412 cases: 123 in clusters, 186 close-contact screenings, and 103 other screenings.
Penang reports 370 cases: 144 in clusters, 139 close-contact screenings, and 87 other screenings. Kelantan reports 312 cases: 20 in clusters, 234 close-contact screenings, and 58 other screenings.
Pahang reports 286 cases: 173 in clusters, 92 close-contact screenings, and 21 other screenings. Kedah reports 263 cases: nine in clusters, 157 close-contact screenings, and 97 other screenings. Sabah reports 259 cases: 47 in clusters, 156 close-contact screenings, and 56 other screenings. Perak reports 251 local cases: 79 in clusters, 107 close-contact screenings, and 65 other screenings. Melaka reports 206 cases: 28 in clusters, 109 close-contact screenings, and 69 other screenings. Labuan reports 205 cases: 94 in clusters, 51 close-contact screenings, and 60 other screenings.
Terengganu reports 190 cases: 46 in clusters, 119 close-contact screenings, and 25 other screenings.
Putrajaya reports 12 cases: four in clusters, three close-contact screenings, and five other screenings. Perlis reports four cases: three close-contact screenings, and one other screening.
Eight new cases today are imported: five in Kuala Lumpur, two in Selangor, one in Perak.
sab
@Uncle Cosmo: My parents’ elderly next door neighbor lost both of her parents in the 1918 flu pandemic when she was 12. The relatives shipped her off from San Francisco to the snooty Boston family her parents had fled. She ended up in NE Ohio. where she went to law school and married a law professor. She was a wonderful person, but she never got over that loss and transition.
debbie
@Spanky:
NPR reported a couple of days ago that some flu strains may have become extinct because of masking, etc. FIne with me.
Kay
My son and and daughter in law are coming in from Denmark to Chicago Sunday. They haven’t been able to get a vaccination in Denmark – even in Copenhagen where they live now- so they’re doing a J and J in Chicago. Denmark tests more and they’re using a de facto testing “passport” to board an international flight so they’re tested frequently but they’re thrilled they’re able to get the vaccine here. Really grateful.
OzarkHillbilly
@Spanky: “You want my cooties?”
sab
@Kay: Jeez. Good luck to them and you.
My sister from Ohio got “stuck” in California (LaJolla, har har, how she suffered) during the pandemic shutdown and California vaccinated the Ohio professor because her husband is a California resident and she is an educator ( but not in California.) All these weird rules and restrictions.
I am so glad we are sending our doses off to countries that don’t have to have lotteries to get folks vaccinated. Although I am sympathetic to the guy working three jobs who didn’t have time to be vacinated until the lottery incentive
ETA I commend our governor who let Pennsylvanians and Michiganders get vaxed here regardless of residence.
Uncle Cosmo
I was about to post the same thing. Well played.
An older lady who lived in our upstairs apartment a couple of generations back came down with the flu, which worsened into pneumonia which fatally overstrained her heart. Did she die of a heart attack, or did she die from the flu? Yes.
Buckeye
@Spanky:
Or not:
But an unexpected upside of the Covid-19 pandemic may have solved this problem for us — or at least made flu’s diversity more manageable.
With Covid suppression measures like mask wearing, school closures, and travel restrictions driving flu transmission rates to historically low levels around the world, it appears that one of the H3N2 clades may have disappeared — gone extinct. The same phenomenon may also have occurred with one of the two lineages of influenza B viruses, known as B/Yamagata..
https://www.statnews.com/2021/06/02/pandemic-upside-flu-virus-became-less-diverse-simplifying-task-of-making-flu-shots/https://www.statnews.com/2021/06/02/pandemic-upside-flu-virus-became-less-diverse-simplifying-task-of-making-flu-shots/
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
Kay
@sab:
I’m so happy they’re coming. I have really missed him – her too of course but I haven’t known her as long. There’s a really militant anti-vacc group in Copenhagen and they have the same overlap they have here- Right wing nationalists adding anti-vacc to their ever-growing roster of resentments and grievances. Miserable people. My youngest has still not “confirmed” he’s coming with to Chicago because he’s a jerk who says things like “I can’t confirm yet” to his mother :)
Uncle Cosmo
@Robert Sneddon: On another hand, we are in the process of finding out what the lack of such interventions means in terms of the death rate in South and Southeast Asia, where supplies of items like oxygen are at critically low levels. And on yet another hand, FWIW, we may note that the 1918-20 death rate in India was 7-8x that of the USA, roughly 5% of the population IIRC, which translated into ~30% of fatalities worldwide, in ~13% of the global population.
And on yet another hand, we may note that How to Lie with Statistics, Daryl Huff’s classic little tome, is still cited, quoted, and very much in print 67 years after its first appearance. Because “figures don’t lie, but liars sure can figure.” (NB I am most definitely not accusing Ms Garrett of this, merely noting, as you, that there are a number of perspectives from which these numbers may be viewed.)
O/t – talked to Charlie Stross recently? Eagerly awaiting Invisible Sun, which IIRC is finally set to conclude the Empire Games trilogy come September…
Ken
@Buckeye: Huh. I was under the impression we would never be rid of flu because of the animal reservoirs. I’m glad to find I was wrong, at least for a couple of strains.
Sloane Ranger
Friday in the UK we had 6238 new cases. This is an increase of 39.8% in the rolling 7-day average. New cases by nation,
England – 5102 (up 792)
Northern Ireland – 73 (down 7)
Scotland – 992 (up 157)
Wales – 71 (up 22).
Deaths – There were 11 deaths within 28 days of a positive test yesterday. This is a decrease of 5.2% in the rolling 7-day average. New deaths by nation, England – 9, Scotland – 2.
Testing – 806,272 tests were administered on Thursday, 3 June. This is a decrease in the rolling 7-day average of 23.4%. The PCR testing capacity reported by labs on that date was 578,759.
Hospitalisations – There were 954 people in hospital on Wednesday 2 June and 134 people on ventilators on Thursday, 3rd. The rolling 7-day average for hospital admissions was down by 2.2% as of 31 May.
Vaccinations – As of 3 June, a total of 39,949,694 people had received 1 shot of a vaccine and 26,799,944 had received both. In percentage terms this means that 75.8% of all adults in the UK had had 1 shot as of that date and 50.9% were fully vaccinated.
General – It’s been 1 week since I had my 2nd shot and the weather here is beautiful so, although I know it takes at least 2 weeks to reach full strength, I took a risk and went out and visited a pub for the 1st time in over a year. I stayed outside and chose a table well away from everyone else and wore my mask until my drink arrived so, hopefully, I will be OK. It was a very strange experience. For anyone who doesn’t know British pub culture, prior to COVID, waiter service is unknown here. You had to go to the bar to order a drink, yet now there is an app on your phone where you order and pay and then someone comes out with your drink. It was almost like being on the Continent!
Also, for what it’s worth, since the start of the pandemic, I have been part of a study involving about 1 million people who report on their health daily using a phone app. It’s being led by a Dr. Tim Spector, a British epidemiologist at King’s College, London. He does a weekly YouTube update and he is saying that the recent uptick in cases is involving mainly younger people who are not yet vaccinated (at least fully). He was saying that of those reporting who were fully vaccinated, less that a thousand had caught COVID and they had had mild cases. He thinks, bases on the data, that the current increase will be a “ripple” rather than the start of a new wave. I hope he’s right.
trnc
The people pushing the idea aren’t actually looking for an answer, so it actually works out perfectly for them.
Robert Sneddon
I’ve only seen Charlie a couple of times since this fustercluck kicked off, we’ve both been hiding under the bed (separate beds that is) wrapped in clingfilm basically.
He’s working on a Laundry offshoot series (tentative series title which isn’t going to be on the books, “The Lost Boys” which has an Oliver Twist-slash-Peter Pan cast of super-powered kids in the time of the Mandate). This is a distraction from him sitting down and finishing the original Bob and Mo mainline Laundry story. Lost Boys is a trilogy as of right now, that may change.
There’s a Laundry novella ready to go which was originally entitled “Escape From Puroland” but the legal department of his publisher has taken exception since “Three Apples” is known to be ligitious to protect its no-mouth cat-faced intellectual properties. Bob has to defuse a haunted Japanese theme park with extreme prejudice, basically. Expect that from Tor.com some time, eventually.
Shakti
I attended a FB Live funeral for a 46 year old man on Tuesday. He’s the son of a family friend. We’re not sure how he died (just suddenly), but everyone who attended in person is masked. His 10 year old son is beside himself.
I just keep thinking everything is COVID.
trnc
Yup. I see the daily Ohio vaccine numbers are way down this past week. Sigh.
Robert Sneddon
Scotland — 860 new cases of COVID-19 reported overnight, test positivity rate of 3.4% and one death of someone who tested positive. The numbers are remaining high, three times what they were at the beginning of last month. The UK has been sequencing about half of the positive tests recorded and the increasingly common Delta variant is making up perhaps 75% of all cases. The boffins back at COVID HQ are saying this indicates the Delta variant is about 50-60% more contagious than the Alpha variant that appeared in England last year and led to the big over-winter spike in case numbers and deaths.
Vaccinations continue apace with about 53,000 injections since yesterday in Scotland. Over 90% of all adults aged over 40 have now received their first vaccination. There’s still no confirmation that 12-15 year olds in Scotland will be able to receive vaccinations just yet although the MHRA has announced the results of a UK-wide double-blind trial of 2,000 volunteers which indicated no problems and good preventative results from the vaccinated cohort.
YY_Sima Qian
On 6/4 China reported 11 new domestic confirmed (3 previously asymptomatic) & 3 new domestic asymptomatic cases.
Guangdong Province reported 11 new domestic confirmed (3 previously asymptomatic) & 3 new domestic asymptomatic cases. There currently are 81 domestic confirmed & 26 domestic asymptomatic cases in the province.
Anhui Province did not report any new domestic positive cases. 1 domestic confirmed case recovered & 3 domestic asymptomatic cases were released from isolation.
Liaoning Province did not report any new domestic positive cases. 1 domestic confirmed case recovered & 1 domestic asymptomatic case was released from isolation. There are 3 domestic confirmed & 2 domestic asymptomatic cases in the province.
In Yunnan Province, there currently are 4 domestic confirmed cases.
Imported Cases
On 6/4 China reported 13 new imported confirmed cases, 25 imported asymptomatic cases, 1 imported suspect case:
Overall in China, 10 confirmed cases recovered, 17 asymptomatic cases were released from isolation & 6 were reclassified as confirmed cases, and 886 individuals were released from quarantine. Currently, there are 385 active confirmed cases in the country (294 imported), 9 in serious condition (2 imported), 380 asymptomatic cases (349 imported), 3 suspect case (both imported). 8,191 traced contacts are currently
As of 6/4, 744.483M vaccine doses have been injected in Mainland China, an increase of 20.997M doses in the past 24 hrs.
On 6/5, Hong Kong reported 1 new positive case, domestic (source of transmission not yet identified).
Matt McIrvin
@sab: Here in northern Mass., outdoor masking is essentially extinct now in the areas where I’ve been walking around today. But there are not many people out in the heat. I didn’t go downtown, don’t know what it’s like on the main drag there today.
There’s still some pollen about, and our best masks (essentially a double mask–there’s a paper filter that goes inside) definitely helped with it during the worst times. But it’s hot enough now on the sunny days that wearing one is relatively uncomfortable, and I’m going without most of the time when I’m outdoors. I still wear one in indoor public establishments, though I’m fully vaxxed.
My regular supermarket changed its mask policy and now says vaccinated people can go unmasked (on the honor system, of course). I’d say about half of the people in there were wearing masks. Do I trust the unmasked to be vaccinated? Of course not, but case counts in town are way down, I’m vaxxed and at this point the risk to me is pretty low.