Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Consistently wrong since 2002

Authoritarian republicans are opposed to freedom for the rest of us.

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

The willow is too close to the house.

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

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

T R E 4 5 O N

Conservatism: there are some people the law protects but does not bind and others who the law binds but does not protect.

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

… pundit janitors mopping up after the GOP

Good lord, these people are nuts.

The revolution will be supervised.

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

Let there be snark.

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

Accountability, motherfuckers.

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

When someone says they “love freedom”, rest assured they don’t mean yours.

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

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

Let us savor the impending downfall of lawless scoundrels who richly deserve the trouble barreling their way.

You are here: Home / Healthcare / COVID-19 Coronavirus / COVID-19 Coronavirus Updates: Saturday / Sunday, June 12-13

COVID-19 Coronavirus Updates: Saturday / Sunday, June 12-13

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There’s gonna be a lot of pandemic-inspired books, some of which will actually be worth reading. If you prefer words to moving pictures, here’s a Washington Post interview:


We’re number one (maybe)!

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For proof of concept, Laconia Bike Week began Saturday. (Tourism is NH’s biggest industry, and the ‘Live Free or Die Trying’ state has achieved a commendably high vaccination rate, so… )

Reader Interactions

35Comments

  1. 1.

    Cermet

    So in Red States most people are not getting vaccinated (through I bet the subgroup that is getting the vaccine were people that voted Democrat.) While I’ll have no issue with the stupid that die or get complications, children, poor workers who can’t get time off and immune compromised will all suffer thanks to these morons. While you can’t fix stupid it amazes me now the media mostly overlooks these facts.

  2. 2.

    Arclite

    Took my 14 year old son for his second dose today, he’s the last in our family to get vaccinated. Half a dozen protesters with signs outside the school where the vaccine was being given (Punahou, same one Obama attended): something-something fetal cells. “Nutjobs” my son says. Smart kid. “The air you breathe is clean!” they scream. Yeah, no shit the air outside is safe, but my mask is a pain to put on so I’ll wear it throughout the vaccine administration and take it off when I get home, thank you very much asshole. Luckily those kind are pretty rare here. My state is 55% vaccinated, and will fully open up at 70%. All stores and indoor areas still require masks and everyone here follows the rules for the most part. It’s nice living in a place where I don’t have to deal with many selfish “freedumb” lovers. The vaccine sight was staffed entirely by volunteers working on a Saturday, and I expressed my gratitude often. It gives me hope for humanity.

  3. 3.

    Arclite

    Speaking of gratitude, let me express my eternal gratitude to Anne Laurie who tirelessly compiles and publishes these, as well as any who help her. They have been extremely useful, and I often take pieces to post elsewhere to spread the word. I’m on a couple of military blogs where there are a lot of red staters, and have tried my best to convince them to vaccinate and take things seriously. Surprisingly a lot more do than I would have expected, despite the low rates of vaccinations in red states in general. This too give me some hope.

  6. 6.

    Amir Khalid

    Malaysia’s Director-General of Heath Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah reports 5,304 new Covid-19 cases today in his media statement, for a cumulative reported total of 657,508 cases. He also reports 64 new deaths today, for a cumulative total of 3,908 deaths — 0.60% of the cumulative reported total, 0.67% of resolved cases.

    There are currently 73,324 active and contagious cases; 917 are in ICU, 452 of them intubated. Meanwhile, 8,163 more patients have recovered, for a cumulative total of 580,276 patients recovered – 88.25% of the cumulative reported total.

    15 new clusters were reported today.

    5,299 new cases today are local infections. Selangor reports 1,972 local cases: 417 in clusters, 1,036 close-contact screenings, and 519 other screenings. Sarawak reports 542 local cases: 85 in clusters, 343 close-contact screenings, and 114 other screenings.

    Kuala Lumpur reports 461 local cases: 45 in clusters, 296 close-contact screenings, and 120 other screenings.

    Johor reports 363 cases: 105 in clusters, 173 close-contact screenings, and 85 other screenings. Sabah reports 335 cases: 109 in clusters, 163 close-contact screenings, and 63 other screenings. Negeri Sembilan reports 331 cases: 51 in clusters, 190 close-contact screenings, and 90 other screenings. Kedah reports 301 cases: 159 in clusters, 91 close-contact screenings, and 51 other screenings.

    Penang reports 256 cases: 95 in clusters, 77 close-contact screenings, and 84 other screenings.

    Kelantan reports 179 cases: nine in clusters, 141 close-contact screenings, and 29 other screenings. Labuan reports 157 local cases: 26 in clusters, 78 close-contact screenings, and 53 other screenings. Melaka reports 145 cases: 45 in clusters, 83 close-contact screenings, and 17 other screenings. Perak reports 121 cases: 22 in clusters, 46 close-contact screenings, and 53 other screenings.

    Pahang reports 78 cases: 45 in clusters, 26 close-contact screenings, and seven other screenings.

    Terengganu reports 46 cases: four in clusters, 38 close-contact screenings, and four other screenings. Putrajaya reports seven cases: five close-contact screenings, and two other screenings. Perlis reports five cases: two close-contact screenings, and three other screenings.

    Five new cases today are imported: two in Sarawak, one in Kuala Lumpur, one in Selangor, one in Labuan.

  8. 8.

    Amir Khalid

    Other news: the Malaysian Government will consider easing Movement Control Order 3.0 (i.e. the current nationwide lockdown, in force through 28th June but subject to further extension) if/when the daily new-cases number drops below 4,000, Senior Defence Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob told a media briefing today.

  9. 9.

    PeakVT

    The US has overtaken the UK as the worst hit G7 country in terms of pandemic excess deaths

    Embarrassing. Shameful. Reprehensible. Disgusting.

    Nobody will be held accountable because Freedum.

  10. 10.

    sab

    @PeakVT: Tired of being angry so I am just not going to bother. I will continue to wear my mask until my youngest granddaughter is vaccinated. After that it is not my problem.

    I don’t much like my Governor on many issues, but he saved us on Covid, despite  his entire base wanting us to get it.

  11. 11.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Cermet: They’ll understand when Variant Delta rips through these idiots like a tsunami, the hospitals fill up again, and they start infecting 15 or 20% of the fully vaccinated (until we can get a Delta-tailored booster rolled out, which the fools won’t take either). But it’ll be too late for prevention at that point.

    Enjoy the little respite we’re having now, it’s not going to last forever.

  12. 12.

    Sloane Ranger

    Saturday in the UK we had 7738 new cases. This is an increase of 52.5% in the rolling 7-day average. Weekend warning applies. New cases by nation,

    England – 6601 (down 181)

    Northern Ireland – 107 (down 14)

    Scotland – 1030 (down 74)

    Wales – Does not report on Saturdays.

    Deaths – There were 12 deaths within 28 days of a positive test yesterday. This is actually a decrease in the rolling 7-day average of 1.6%, but this may be due to weekend administrative delays. 10 of the deaths were in England and 2 in Scotland.

    Testing – Not updated at weekends.

    Hospitalisations – not updated at weekends.

    Vaccinations – As of 11 June, 41,291,331 people had received the 1st shot of a vaccine and 29,450,653 had had both. In percentage terms this means that 78.4% of all adults in the UK have had 1 shot and 55.9% were fully vaccinated.

  13. 13.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Arclite:

    Speaking of gratitude, let me express my eternal gratitude to Anne Laurie who tirelessly compiles and publishes these, as well as any who help her. They have been extremely useful, and I often take pieces to post elsewhere to spread the word.

    Nothing to add here except my thanks to AL for this monumental run on these COVID-19 posts.

    I often take pieces to post elsewhere to spread the word. I’m on a couple of military blogs where there are a lot of red staters, and have tried my best to convince them to vaccinate and take things seriously.

    And thank you, Arclite, for doing this.

  17. 17.

    charon

    Piece at Post about a gene that affects both the sense of taste and the immune system.

    With 2 copies of the gene, coffee tastes very bitter and you are unlikely to get severely ill with COVID- about 25% of people. With 1 copy, about 50% of people, coffee is sort of bitter and you get COVID but usually mild. The 25% for whom coffee isn’t bitter are the people likely to get hospitalized or die.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/research-coronavirus-taste-predict-covid-severity/2021/06/11/635a366e-c7b1-11eb-81b1-34796c7393af_story.html

    Nontasters were also far more likely to be hospitalized. Of the 55 study participants hospitalized, 47 (85.5 percent) were nontasters. Of the supertasters who tested positive, none needed to be hospitalized. These results indicated the accuracy rate for predicting severity of the disease based on a person’s taster status was 94.2 percent. Barham says the 5.8 percent discrepancy can be explained by the age of some of the participants. The mean age of tasters requiring hospitalization was 74 (the mean age of all participants was 45.5.), and supertasters’ ability to taste diminishes over time.

    As with most scientific research, the implications of this work will require more time and study to be completely understood, as the researchers point out in their conclusion. Experts have varying opinions of what the results mean as pieces of the coronavirus puzzle are assembled.

  18. 18.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Matt McIrvin: They’ll understand when Variant Delta rips through these idiots like a tsunami, the hospitals fill up again, and they start infecting 15 or 20% of the fully vaccinated (until we can get a Delta-tailored booster rolled out, which the fools won’t take either). But it’ll be too late for prevention at that point

    They won’t, remember they are truly stupid people.  Look how South Dakota has blown off it has the worst per capita infection and death rates because the numbers aren’t like New York.

  19. 19.

    Citizen_X

     

    @Matt McIrvin:

    when Variant Delta rips through these idiots like a tsunami, the hospitals fill up again, and they start infecting 15 or 20% of the fully vaccinated

    Where the hell do you get those numbers? If there’s some research showing that, has it been reproduced?

    Christ. Don’t spread alarm needlessly.

  20. 20.

    smith

    In regards to the red-blue divide in vaccination rates, I was curious to see if we are yet seeing differences in case numbers in states with high and low vaccination rates. I pooled the number of cases in low  vs high vaccination states, and used their pooled population numbers to determine cases per 100K. States that had less than 40% of their population fully vaxxed (n=21 as of Thursday) had a daily new case rate of 5.67/100K. States with 40%+ of the population vaxxed had a rate of 3.27/100K.  Of course, most of the former were red, and most of the latter were blue, so there are a multitude of other factors that distinguish the groups.

    I also looked at the trend over about a month and found that the two groups started to diverge just about 10 days ago, with the low-vax states’ cases increasing somewhat and the high-vax states declining. The differences are not very large compared to regional differences we’ve seen in various surges, and the divergence is so recent it may just be random noise, but I plan to redo the comparison in a couple weeks and see if the trends hold.

  21. 21.

    Soprano2

    @Citizen_X: I agree, I haven’t seen anything that indicates current vaccines aren’t protective against this variant. I do think that the “my immune system is just fine so I don’t need the shot” people may rethink that when there is a big wave in their community.

  22. 22.

    Robert Sneddon

    Scotland — 1,036 new cases of COVID-19 reported, zero deaths. 5.0% test positivity rate. These are weekend numbers and the data reporting problem with the Glasgow Lighthouse lab (a large central testing facility operated by the UK government) may not yet be fixed so take these numbers with a pinch of salt. As always I will wait until Tuesday for stable numbers which can be trusted as indicative. There’s no published update of hospitalisation numbers at the weekend and these are the critical numbers the government is using to base any lockdown decisions on, at least for now. The boffins at COVID-19 HQ are talking up the third wave and its possible consequences if we open things up too soon. We’ll see.

     

    The vaccination program in Scotland continues with about 43,000 jabs carried out yesterday, about half and half first and second doses. Scotland should exceed 80% of adults having had their first vaccination by the end of this week assuming they can keep up this tempo. The supply chain is getting stretched a bit according to various well-sourced reports as the surge in vaccinations is reducing buffer stocks and emptying pipelines.

     

    The Euro 2020 Fan Zone in Glasgow is going ahead but the Scottish government is being wary. At the moment the outdoors-only area is limited to 3,000 ticket-holders who are all being mailed a lateral-flow test kit and asked (but not required) to test themselves for COVID-19 even if they are fully vaccinated already. If things turn bad, given how infectious the Delta variant seems to be then the Fan Zone will be closed at zero notice.

     

    Personal observation — the weather was nice today so I took a trip out to the local beach which was crowded, way more people in one place than I’ve seen in over a year. I bailed after an hour and came home to hide under the bed again. It may be that agoraphobia will come to be listed as a common side-effect of COVID-19 in the history books.

  23. 23.

    smith

    @Soprano2: I don’t know of any real-world clinical studies, but tests of antibodies suggest less protection against Delta:

    The team compared the concentrations of the neutralizing antibodies among the variants. They found that people who had been fully vaccinated with two Pfizer doses had antibodies that were 6 times lower against the B.1.617.2 [Delta] variant, 5 times lower against the B.1.351 variant, and 2.6 times lower against the B.1.1.7 variant when compared to the original strain.

  24. 24.

    Robert Sneddon

    @Citizen_X: ​
    The UK is now seeing about 90% Delta variant in cases where tests are carried out. Britain sequences about half its lab-confirmed positive samples, reportedly the highest rate in the world so that 90% estimate is pretty solid.

    Some scientists here are claiming that a single dose of vaccine only provides 60% or so protection against the Delta variant, a lot less protection than against the previously common Alpha variant and original COVID-19 virus. The UK has a lot more people partially vaccinated than the US per capita but our COVID-19 caseloads are much higher, again per capita. Saying that our hospitalisation and death rates are a lot lower than the US at the moment indicating that even if a single dose doesn’t make someone immune it does reduce the severity of the disease and its progression. Two doses are a lot more effective but again even two doses are not a perfect defence and the Delta variant is definitely more transmissible and infectious than its predecessors.

  25. 25.

    Soprano2

    To me that article about putting sensors in sewer manholes to detect Covid levels was fascinating. I know they’ve been doing wastewater testing since early on, which makes sense to me since I know they can detect drug levels in wastewater, among other things.  I wonder if they can read the meters remotely and what it costs. The system they’re talking about is small; my city’s system, which serves about 250,000 – 300,000 people, has 1,216 miles of pipe and over 28,000 manholes! What would the utility of it be other than research? I understood the utility of testing the sewage from dorms, but I’m not sure what the practical application would be on a city-wide basis.

    I also want to thank Annie for these continuing posts; I find that I know a lot more about Covid than most people thanks to them, and knowledge saves lives. In March 2020 when my hair was on fire about Covid people here kept telling me I was being an alarmist because it would never get bad here, it was only bad in the places where it was crowded and people “lived on top of each other”. Unfortunately, I was proved fucking right.

  26. 26.

    Soprano2

    Speaking of pandemic books, I find myself wondering how much pandemic-themed music is being composed. My bet is “a lot”.

    As for the danger of the Delta variant, it may be easier for a vaccinated person to catch it, but again the most important thing is protection against serious illness and death, and I haven’t seen anything yet indicating that Delta is killing vaccinated people. I suspect that, just like there are a lot more cases than we know due to asymptomatic Covid, a lot more vaccinated people probably have had it since vaccination and don’t know it for the same reason.

  27. 27.

    Chief Oshkosh

    @Cermet:

    While you can’t fix stupid it amazes me now the media mostly overlooks these facts.

    I think that the media are scared as corps and as individuals about the political and actual physical abuse the rightwing thugs will bring if they ever pointed out that the rightwing thugs are selfish, whiny-ass titty babies that, at this point, are the cause of all the deaths and economic duress.

    If we started treating them as they deserve to be treated, calling them out as scum, truly shaming them, firing their unvaccinated asses, blocking them from attending sporting events and concerts, then they would get the message.

    There is no percentage in continuing to pretend that they are not the problem.

  28. 28.

    YY_Sima Qian

    On 6/12 China reported 6 new domestic confirmed & 0 new domestic cases.

    Guangdong Province reported 6 new domestic confirmed & 0 new domestic asymptomatic cases.

    • Guangzhou reported 6 new domestic confirmed cases, 4 at the epicenter sub-district in Liwan District & 2 at Baiyun District, 3 are traced close contracts already under centralized quarantine & 3 are incentivized via mass screening of individuals deemed at risk. 1 residential compound was elevated to Medium Risk. 2 sub-districts remain at High Risk, 5 sub-districts & 8 residential compounds are at Medium Risk.

    Zhejiang Province did not report any new domestic positive cases. There currently are 2 domestic asymptomatic cases at Wenzhou.

    Liaoning Province did not report any new domestic positive cases. There are 3 domestic confirmed & 2 domestic asymptomatic cases at Yingkou.

    In Yunnan Province, there currently are 2 domestic confirmed cases, both at Ruili in Dehong Prefecture.

    Imported Cases

    On 6/12 China reported 28 new imported confirmed cases, 18 imported asymptomatic cases, 1 imported suspect case:

    • Guangzhou in Guangdong Province – 6 confirmed cases (2 previously asymptomatic), 4 Chinese nationals returning from Cambodia & 1 each from Zambia (via Addis Ababa) & Qatar (via Muscat); 2 asymptomatic cases, 1 Chinese national each returning from Cambodia & Kuwait
    • Foshan in Guangdong Province – 1 confirmed case, a Chinese national returning from France, off a flight that landed at Guangzhou 
    • Zhuhai in Guangdong Province – 1 asymptomatic case, a Chinese national returning from Saudi Arabia, off a flight that landed at Guangzhou
    • Zhaoqing in Guangdong Province – 1 asymptomatic case, a Chinese national returning from Nigeria (via Nairobi), off a flight that landed at Guangzhou
    • Shanghai Municipality – 6 confirmed cases, 2 Chinese nationals returning from Spain & 1 each from the US, the Maldives (via Colombo), Cambodia & Ethiopia; 1 suspect case, no information released
    • Yunnan Province (locations not specified) – 5 confirmed cases, all Chinese national returning from Myanmar via land border crossing
    • Chengdu in Sichuan Province – 3 confirmed cases (2 previously asymptomatic), 2 Chinese national returning from Algeria & 1 from Nigeria (via Frankfurt); 3 asymptomatic case, 1 Chinese national each returning from Cambodia, Mongolia (via Frankfurt) & Nigeria (via Frankfurt)
    • Tianjin Municipality – 2 confirmed cases, 1 Chinese national each returning from the US & Senegal (via Paris CdG); 4 asymptomatic cases, 2 Chinese nationals returning from Guinea (via Paris CdG), France & the US
    • Hangzhou in Zhejiang Province – 2 confirmed cases (both previously asymptomatic), both Chinese nationals returning from Cameroon; 2 asymptomatic cases, 1 Chinese national each returning from the UK & Nigeria
    • Nanjing in Jiangsu Province – 1 confirmed case (previously asymptomatic), coming from the Philippines; 1 asymptomatic case, no information released
    • Xiamen in Fujian Province – 1 confirmed case, a Chinese national returning from Malaysia
    • Fuzhou in Fujian Province – 1 asymptomatic cases, coming from Japan
    • Xi’an in Shanxi Province – 1 confirmed case, a Chinese national returning from Uzbekistan, off a flight diverted from Beijing
    • Beijing Municipality – 1 asymptomatic case, no information released
    • Zhengzhou in Henan Province – 1 asymptomatic case, no information released
    • Taiyuan in Shanxi Province – 1 asymptomatic case, coming from Poland

    Overall in China, 21 confirmed cases recovered, 12 asymptomatic cases were released from isolation & 7 were reclassified as confirmed cases, and 643 individuals were released from quarantine. Currently, there are 459 active confirmed cases in the country (313 imported), 13 in serious condition (2 imported), 382 asymptomatic cases (360 imported), 2 suspect case (both imported). 11,411 traced contacts are currently 

    As of 6/12, 878.523M vaccine doses have been injected in Mainland China, an increase of 15.01M doses in the past 24 hrs.

    On 6/13, Hong Kong did not report any new positive cases.

  29. 29.

    smith

    @Robert Sneddon:  I think there is a real potential for a major outbreak of Delta here just as you’ve seen in the UK. Just a little more than 3 weeks ago, the number of new cases per 100k in the UK was 2.22;  now it’s  10.1. As I understand it, the Delta variant took hold in a pocket of unvaccinated people, and now it’s pretty much the dominant strain.

    In the US, we have massive pockets of unvaccinated people, and not coincidentally, they are also largely people unwilling to take any other precautions against spreading covid. We will be lucky if we escape another serious wave.

  30. 30.

    Cermet

    @smith: Thanks for doing that – if the new variant hits, non-vaccinated will certainly get hit harder and the difference between Red and Blue State will be more noticeable.

  32. 32.

    Another Scott

    [rant] That Reuters tweet, “provides 1 billion doses” is almost criminally bad.

    “Group of Seven countries will provide 1 billion COVID-19 vaccine doses over the next year and work with the private sector, the G20 and other countries to increase the contribution over months to come, according to an almost finalised draft of the communique.”

    is =/= will

    now =/= over the next year

    Reuters knows that many, many people won’t even read the first paragraph of a story. Getting the tense right in a tweet or a headline is not hard.

    Someone who reads that will get the impression that the vaccines are going out the door now, and is working on more, so what else can the G7 do? So what’s the big deal? Why can’t the rest of the world get their act together and quit whining and wanting stuff for free??!

    The framing matters. Accuracy matters. Reuters should get heat over this, as should other lazy news outlets that continually do this.

    [/rant]

    Thanks AL!

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  33. 33.

    Another Scott

    @Cermet: Last night I was looking at the state data on Worldometers.info. Sort by deaths per million.

    As one expects, the states hit hardest early on are at the top. But then…

    1 New Jersey
    2 New York
    3 Massachusetts
    4 Rhode Island
    5 Mississippi
    6 Arizona
    7 Connecticut
    8 South Dakota
    9 Alabama
    10 Louisiana

    Mississippi has falling cases and infection rates like the rest of the country, but vaccination rates are abysmal (~ 38% last I looked). Similarly with Alabama.

    It’s hard to see those trends continuing come Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. :-( Maybe they’ll get lucky, but “hope is not a strategy”…

    There’s grinding poverty in too much of the US and that is working to keep vaccination rates too low. But the GQP governments are making the situation worse by not going out and finding those who cannot get out and about, politicizing masks, forcing re-openings, and all the rest.

    Grr…

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  34. 34.

    charon

    @Ruckus:

     

    Various reasons include traditional black distrust of organized medicine, fear of missing work from shot reactions, lack of transportation and access etc.

     

    there are lower pct of blacks vaccinated than any other race or ethnic demographic.

  35. 35.

    LongHairedWeirdo

    Russia is scrambling to contain a new #coronavirus surge amid most of its people now appearing to avoid the Sputnik vaccine https://t.co/A4H6Br5Jak

    I just had this crazy thought of a covert op where the US sends J&J vaccines to Russian black market distributors. (The mRNA ones’ storage needs make covert distribution impossible.)
    I like to imagine J&J’s availability making people more resistant to the Russian vaccines, and if evidence of their efficacy became clear, increase distrust of their government. Russia would probably have to divert major resources to keep it secret. And we’d be doing all that, while saving lives.
    Yeah, it’s a fairy tale… but the stories we cherish are the ones that touch on our values. And I kind of like imagining the “weird” branch of the CIA gleefully pestering their contacts about “a *really* good score, practically a money printing press, and I think we can get as much as we can sell!”​ [ed: “weird,” as in, they think of crazy ops that don’t involve killing people and stuff.]

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