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You are here: Home / Healthcare / COVID-19 / COVID-19 Coronavirus Updates: Sunday / Monday, June 13-14

COVID-19 Coronavirus Updates: Sunday / Monday, June 13-14

by Anne Laurie|  June 14, 20214:55 am| 23 Comments

This post is in: COVID-19, Foreign Affairs

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Activists in the UK sketched the G7 leaders in the sand in Newquay, England, calling on the leaders to waive patents on vaccine pic.twitter.com/12VZLDkSc4

— Reuters (@Reuters) June 11, 2021


More than 309 million Covid-19 vaccine doses have been administered in the US, according to the CDC

About 64.4% of adults in the US have received at least one Covid-19 vaccine dose and 54.1% are fully vaccinated.

— David P Gelles (@gelles) June 14, 2021

The U.S. has administered over 309 million doses of Covid-19 vaccines, according to the CDC. The figures were up from the more than 308,000,000 doses of vaccine that the CDC said had been administered as of Saturday, out of over 374,000,000 doses delivered https://t.co/772g1E2czU

— delthia ricks ? (@DelthiaRicks) June 13, 2021

In the United States, there are fewer than 20,000 people in the hospital for COVID-19 today.

This is the first time that has happened since March 30, 2020 — two days after we started counting

Get vaccinated.

— Judd Legum (@JuddLegum) June 12, 2021

Some 2% of Covid-19 tests in the U.S. are coming back positive, the lowest positivity rate since the pandemic took hold in the country https://t.co/9FTIp7BlsJ

— The Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) June 13, 2021

We could do that, but it would be wrong, that’s for sure…

Consider: dart guns

— Zan (@Zanzanar) June 14, 2021

======

BREAKING: Biden and leaders of world’s six wealthiest nations call for fresh probe of coronavirus origins.

G7 communique also calls on China to respect human rights, confirms donations of 1 billion vaccines.

— Jennifer Jacobs (@JenniferJJacobs) June 13, 2021

There are many other potential explanations including:
Tight border control of Israel
Higher fully vaccinated rate (60+ vs 43%) and rate of rise
Exclusive use of @BioNTech_Group vaccine in Israel

— Eric Topol (@EricTopol) June 13, 2021

sometimes I have to remind myself that China locked down in *late January* 2020 because my brain keeps wanting to push it forward to February. the rest of the world couldn't have had so much warning and yet still been failing dramatically by March, surely. but they did.

— James Palmer (@BeijingPalmer) June 13, 2021

Coronavirus: In Guangzhou China, patients ‘thought they had the flu,' delayed seeking treatment. About 60% of cases in the city’s newest outbreak self-medicated, but the actual diagnosis turned out to be much more serious https://t.co/uicHbHkUBd

— delthia ricks ? (@DelthiaRicks) June 13, 2021

Taiwan reports 185 new domestic COVID-19 cases https://t.co/L5PCU2vksx pic.twitter.com/ZV2PdjnhJP

— Reuters (@Reuters) June 14, 2021

India reports 70,421 new COVID-19 infections, 3,921 deaths https://t.co/CMkEqV1BId pic.twitter.com/mW3hfcAN4P

— Reuters (@Reuters) June 14, 2021

India coronavirus: 'I lost my father and pregnant wife to Covid' https://t.co/N1Amftwlm2

— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) June 13, 2021

"Over 300,000 students across Singapore have registered for their vaccination appointments thus far, of whom over 101,000 have taken their first dose.

About 345,000 SMSes and invites had been sent to eligible students."

Very encouraging take-up rate. ?? https://t.co/iExknZZcbS

— Septian Hartono ن ??? (@septian) June 14, 2021

ICYMI: #SaudiArabia will bar people from entering its shopping malls unless they have been vaccinated against COVID-19, state TV reports, citing a decision by the trade ministry that will come into effect on August 1.https://t.co/8AonAcsmu4

— Al Arabiya English (@AlArabiya_Eng) June 14, 2021

Russia on Monday confirmed 13,721 new coronavirus cases and 371 deaths. Of today's cases, 6,590 are in Moscowhttps://t.co/oQLwPUHL0p

— The Moscow Times (@MoscowTimes) June 14, 2021

Authorities in Saint Petersburg, which is hosting a series of Euro 2020 matches, said Monday they were tightening anti-coronavirus restrictions in an effort to curb a new spike in infectionshttps://t.co/4KR4OiuUOw

— The Moscow Times (@MoscowTimes) June 14, 2021

UK’s Johnson set to announce delay to end of COVID restrictions https://t.co/9CxjdQo8tT pic.twitter.com/eioExoOhgN

— Reuters (@Reuters) June 14, 2021

ICYMI: Given the high rates of vaccination in the U.S. and the U.K., and rebounding economies on both sides of the Atlantic, bosses of all airlines flying passenger services between the two countries made the financial case for lifting the restrictions https://t.co/JIxMVbT6Xv pic.twitter.com/VLcIvO74uD

— Reuters (@Reuters) June 14, 2021

Brazil reports 1,129 new COVID-19 deaths, nearly 40,000 cases https://t.co/ZmRxawWKLv pic.twitter.com/ZSAC4wYo0x

— Reuters (@Reuters) June 14, 2021

======

Pfizer, AstraZeneca … or both? a mixed approach may hold promise. https://t.co/aAKEezp2Bd

— delthia ricks ? (@DelthiaRicks) June 14, 2021

Latest from @ScottGottliebMD on SARS-CoV-2 variant B.1.617.2 (delta):
1) It's about 60% more transmissible than the previous extra-transmissible variant, B.1.1.7.
2) It's causing about 10% of US infections.
3) That percentage is "doubling every two weeks." https://t.co/Ftmf5N797b pic.twitter.com/Dh6ME3tSpf

— Will Saletan (@saletan) June 14, 2021

Here's the good news from Gottlieb: The virus probably can't escape our vaccines, because the vaccines target the protein that lets the virus attach to the human respiratory tract.

It's a nasty dilemma for the virus, and a crucial advantage for humans and our vaccine developers. pic.twitter.com/V2amPnJr9m

— Will Saletan (@saletan) June 14, 2021

Preliminary data—but interesting: Antihistamines may be effective in the treatment of long-Covid, according to scientists in the UK https://t.co/SiRKnjiRIp

— delthia ricks ? (@DelthiaRicks) June 13, 2021

the odds have always been near 100 percent that the virus arose in nature and spread to people through an intermediary the way it always does. the fact that more people are *discussing* a lab leak doesn't change that

— Gerry Doyle (@mgerrydoyle) June 14, 2021

A novel vaccine—an inactivated coronavirus vax—is being developed in China and so far is considered safe and capable of inducing antibody production https://t.co/zIwv4bYDOX pic.twitter.com/lyi6e0kDa0

— delthia ricks ? (@DelthiaRicks) June 13, 2021

Efforts to explain the coronavirus have produced more than 475,000 research studies in 198 countries https://t.co/5RiA8wgRnt

— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) June 13, 2021

======

Southern states have a ‘real vulnerability’ to the delta variant this summer. Vaccination rates are the lowest in the country—hovering around 40%. These states are also brimming w/ anti-vaxxers & conspiracy theorists https://t.co/KRqZS4aGeZ

— delthia ricks ? (@DelthiaRicks) June 13, 2021

Your friendly reminder that:

A) Texas is a "right to work" state

B) termination for violation of company policy (ie not getting vaccinated) usually renders you ineligible for unemployment. https://t.co/gA3WsmhpVe

— STEMtheBleeding (@STEMthebleeding) June 13, 2021

A shopper who gouged a man's eye and spat in his face gets 10-year sentence for COVID-19 mask-rage violence https://t.co/eHi3KX26Ra via @Yahoo

— Don Winslow (@donwinslow) June 14, 2021

This is about as good as Twitter responses get. pic.twitter.com/Vih3IZU5yd

— Seth Masket (@smotus) June 12, 2021

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Reader Interactions

23Comments

  1. 1.

    Mary G

    June 14, 2021 at 5:54 am

    Orange County CA is only going to report Mon-Fri through the rest of June and starting July1 will report only once a week, on Tuesdays. There were only 18 new cases on Friday

    ETA:  Approximately 2 million of 3.3 total population vaccinated with at least one shot.

  2. 2.

    NotMax

    June 14, 2021 at 6:22 am

    While I suspect it’s due to gaps/lags in reporting over the weekend, U.S. COVID deaths logged over 24 hours dipped below 100.

    Locally,

    The state Department of Health reports that there were 104 additional COVID-19 cases in Hawai‘i on Saturday.

    There were 102 cases identified as confirmed, three probable case were added to the count, and one probable case was removed.

    The confirmed cases included: 46 on Hawai‘i Island; 33 on O‘ahu; 15 on Maui (+3 probable); one on Kaua‘i; and seven in Hawai‘i residents diagnosed while out of state (-1 probable).

    There were a total of 788 cases logged over the past two weeks in the state of Hawaiʻi, 148 of them in Maui County.

    Maui’s 14-day average for new COVID-19 cases is 13 and test positivity rate over the same period is 1.8%.
    [snip]
    There are 18 ICU beds being used in Maui County at this time (out of 31 currently available). Three of the ICU beds are being used by COVID-19 patients. Ten ventilators (out of 38 available) are being used in Maui County, with two being used by COVID-19 patients. Source

  3. 3.

    Soprano2

    June 14, 2021 at 7:33 am

    I’m happy that my stepson finally got his first shot last week!

  4. 4.

    Amir Khalid

    June 14, 2021 at 7:43 am

    Malaysia’s Director-General of Heath Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah reports 4,949 new Covid-19 cases today in his media statement, for a cumulative reported total of 662,457 cases. He also reports 60 new deaths today, for a cumulative total of 3,968 deaths — 0.60% of the cumulative reported total, 0.67% of resolved cases.

    There are currently 71,625 active and contagious cases; 921 are in ICU, 459 of them intubated. Meanwhile, 6,588 more patients have recovered, for a cumulative total of 586,864 patients recovered – 88.59% of the cumulative reported total.

    17 new clusters were reported today.

    4,943 new cases today are local infections. Selangor reports 1,523 cases: 199 in clusters, 998 close-contact screenings, and 326 other screenings. Sarawak reports 744 cases: 146 in clusters, 440 close-contact screenings, and 158 other screenings.

    Kuala Lumpur reports 501 local cases: 125 in clusters, 252 close-contact screenings, and 124 other screenings.

    Johor reports 428 local cases: 197 in clusters, 148 close-contact screenings, and 83 other screenings.
    Negeri Sembilan reports 321 local cases: 78 in clusters, 127 close-contact screenings, and 116 other screenings.

    Sabah reports 273 cases: 79 in clusters, 145 close-contact screenings, and 49 other screenings. Penang reports 214 cases: 132 in clusters, 49 close-contact screenings, and 33 other screenings. Kelantan also reports 214 cases: 27 in clusters, 148 close-contact screenings, and 39 other screenings.

    Kedah reports 199 cases: 49 in clusters, 95 close-contact screenings, and 55 other screenings. Perak reports 136 cases: 35 in clusters, 58 close-contact screenings, and 43 other screenings. Melaka reports 119 cases: 22 in clusters, 67 close-contact screenings, and 30 other screenings. Labuan reports 113 cases: 14 in clusters, 59 close-contact screenings, and 40 other screenings.

    Terengganu reports 86 cases: six in clusters, 67 close-contact screenings, and 13 other screenings. Pahang reports 61 cases: 25 in clusters, 33 close-contact screenings, and three other screenings.

    Putrajaya reports 10 cases: seven close-contact screenings, and three other screenings. Perlis reports one case, a close-contact screening.

    Six new cases today are imported: two in Kuala Lumpur, two in Johor, two in Negeri Sembilan.

  5. 5.

    Sloane Ranger

    June 14, 2021 at 7:44 am

    Sunday in the UK we had 7490 new cases. This is an increase of 49.3% in the rolling 7-day average. The usual weekend warnings apply. New cases by nation,

    England – 6269 (down 332)

    Northern Ireland – 70 (down 37)

    Scotland – 1036 (up 6)

    Wales – 115 (does not report on Saturday’s.).

    Deaths – There were 8 deaths within 28 days of a positive test reported yesterday. This is an increase of 8.5% in the rolling 7-day average but weekend warnings apply. 7 of the deaths were in England and 1 in Wales.

    Testing – Not updated at weekends.

    Hospitalisations – not updated at weekends.

    Vaccinations – As of 12 June, 41,551,201 people had received 1 shot of a vaccine and 29,792,658 had received both. In percentage terms this means that 78.9% of all adults in the UK have had 1 shot and 56.6% were fully vaccinated.

    General – Boris will speak to the nation at 6pm (UK time) today. He is widely expected to announce that the full re-opening of England will be delayed for 1 month to allow for more data to be collected. As expected, a number of Tory backbenchers are apoplectic. I am actually listening to one at the moment, whining about the damage to the UK economy the delay will cause, especially as only a handful of people a day are actually dying! Of course, it’s not Tory voters who are most in danger of catching the disease.

  6. 6.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    June 14, 2021 at 7:57 am

    I have been idly wondering whether all the people writing about “adjusting their priors” about a lab leak will re-adjust them as more information comes to light

    “It would be irresponsible not to speculate” as the NYT says.

  7. 7.

    Cermet

    June 14, 2021 at 7:58 am

    Again, thanks for going to the trouble of doing these updates! I always read them!

    And always glad to hear about someone getting vaccinated!

  8. 8.

    YY_Sima Qian

    June 14, 2021 at 8:17 am

    On 6/13 China reported 4 new domestic confirmed & 0 new domestic asymptomatic cases.

    Guangdong Province reported 4 new domestic confirmed & 0 new domestic asymptomatic cases.

    • Guangzhou reported 4 new domestic confirmed cases, 3 at the epicenter sub-district in Liwan District & 1 at Baiyun District, all are traced close contracts already under centralized quarantine. 2 sub-districts remain at High Risk, 5 sub-districts & 8 residential compounds remain at Medium Risk.
    • Zhanjiang did not report any new domestic positive case. 1 residential compound remains Medium Risk.
    • Maoming did not reported any new domestic positive cases.
    • Foshan did not report any new domestic positive cases. 3 residential compounds remain at Medium Risk.
    • Shenzhen did not report any new domestic positive cases.

    Guangzhou Municipal Health Commission reported that there were 2 cases of nosocomial transmission at a designated COVID-19 hospital over the past several days, a doctor & a technician. After the 1st wave in Jan. – Mar. 2020, I can only recall a couple of instances of nosocomial transmission in designated COVID-19 hospitals in all of China, both times at Qingdao in Shandong Province, only once where medical staff became infected. There were several other instances of nosocomial transmission at designated non-COVID-19 hospitals. To have medical staff at a designated COVID-19 hospital be infected, with all of their training/equipment/practices, in the middle of an outbreak (but not a large one that would stress health care systems) when everyone should be on high alert, again speaks to the higher infectiousness of the Delta variant.

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

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

    In Yunnan Province, 1 domestic confirmed case recovered. There currently is 1 domestic confirmed case remaining at Ruili in Dehong Prefecture.

    Imported Cases

    On 6/13 China reported 19 new imported confirmed cases, 24 imported asymptomatic cases:

    • Shanghai Municipality – 5 confirmed cases, 3 Chinese nationals returning from Russia & 1 each from Georgia (via Amsterdam Schiphol) & Chile (via Paris CdG)
    • Chengdu in Sichuan Province – 4 confirmed cases (3 previously asymptomatic), 1 Chinese national each returning from Mongolia (via Frankfurt), Nigeria (via Frankfurt), Ghana (via Amsterdam Schiphol) & Cambodia)
    • Hohhot in Inner Mongolia “Autonomous” Region – 3 confirmed cases, all off a flight diverted from Beijing, no further information released
    • Guangzhou in Guangdong Province – 2 confirmed cases, 1 Chinese national each returning from Cambodia & Malaysia; 10 asymptomatic cases, 2 Chinese nationals each returning from France & the UAE & 1 each from Canada, Oman, Zambia (via Dubai), the Ukraine (via Amsterdam Schiphol), Malaysia & Japan
    • Shenzhen in Guangdong Province – 1 confirmed case, a Chinese national returning from Indonesia; 1 asymptomatic case, a Chinese national returning from the DRC
    • Zhaoqing in Guangdong Province – 2 asymptomatic cases, both coming from Japan, off a flight that landed at Guangzhou
    • Dongguan in Guangdong Province – 1 asymptomatic case, coming from Saudi Arabia, off a flight that landed at Guangzhou
    • Yunnan Province (locations not specified) – 2 confirmed cases, both Chinese national returning from Myanmar via land border crossing
    • Beijing Municipality – 1 confirmed case, a Chinese national returning from Zimbabwe
    • Nanjing in Jiangsu Province – 1 confirmed case, coming from Russia; 2 asymptomatic cases, no information released
    • Hangzhou in Zhejiang Province – 4 asymptomatic cases, 2 from Cameroon & 1 each from Yemen & the Sudan
    • Xi’an in Shanxi Province – 2 asymptomatic cases, 1 Chinese national each returning from Pakistan & Uzbekistan, off flights diverted from Beijing
    • Ankang in Shanxi Province – 1 asymptomatic case, a Chinese crew member off a cargo ship with last port of call in Vladivostok; the case landed at Nantong in Jiangsu Province on 5/23, went through the 14 days of centralized quarantine & tested negative on RT-PCR 4 times, upon release from quarantine one 6/7 the case took train to Ankang (w/ transfer at Xi’an) & entered home quarantine, the case tested positive on 6/9, negative one 6/10 & 6/11, & positive again on 6/12 & 6/13
    • Xiamen in Fujian Province – 1 asymptomatic case, a Taiwanese resident coming from Taiwan

    Overall in China, 11 confirmed cases recovered, 12 asymptomatic cases were released from isolation & 3 were reclassified as confirmed cases, and 376 individuals were released from quarantine. Currently, there are 471 active confirmed cases in the country (322 imported), 13 in serious condition (2 imported), 391 asymptomatic cases (369 imported), 2 suspect case (both imported). 12,855 traced contacts are currently 

    As of 6/13, 892.77M vaccine doses have been injected in Mainland China, an increase of 14.247M doses in the past 24 hrs.

    On 6/14, Hong Kong reported 1 new positive case, imported (from Indonesia).

  9. 9.

    Robert Sneddon

    June 14, 2021 at 8:38 am

    This is wild-assed internet-expert speculation but…

    The UK is now reporting over 90% of new cases of COVID-19 as the Delta variant. The result is a large upswing of case numbers over the past month as verified by testing but without the “normal” big increase in hospitalisations and deaths. This could be due to high first vaccination rates but it could also be that the Delta variant is less harmful than other variants thus fewer people get really sick from it (Delta symptoms apparently include a runny nose, headache and sore throat, different to previous COVID-19 symptoms which start with lung damage and escalate). This weakening has evolutionary advantages in improving the ability of the virus variants to spread and find new victims to infect and replicate since the sufferers aren’t under medical supervision quite as much. Generally the boffins say that the Delta variant is 60% more communicable than previous variants and the original virus.

     

    The US is seeing case numbers, hospitalisations and deaths falling but right now the reports suggest that only 10% of US COVID-19 cases are the Delta variant. The doubling time for this variant is about ten days to two weeks, apparently so it’s possible (wild-eyed speculation here) the US will start on its exponential third wave right about July 4, a superspreader event second only to Thanksgiving in intensity and concentration.

     

    I really hope I’m just being alarmist here but I’m still hiding under the bed and wrapping myself in clingfilm. We’ll see.

  10. 10.

    Betty

    June 14, 2021 at 8:55 am

    What wonderful news if antihistamines really can help relieve long-Covid symptoms. Inexpensive and readily available!

  11. 11.

    Robert Sneddon

    June 14, 2021 at 9:23 am

    Scotland — 761 new cases of COVID-19 reported, zero deaths. Test positivity was 5.2%, an increase over the past week’s rates even with fewer tests being carried out. All these numbers have big error bars due to weekend reporting limitations. The numbers published on Tuesday should be more trustworthy as always.

    There were 41,000 vaccinations carried out yesterday, split about half and half between first and second doses. Scotland is on track to have 80% of its population vaccinated first-dose by the end of this week. Whether this high vaccination rate will help to slow down or reverse the rise in case numbers due to the Delta variant of COVID-19 is still to be discovered.

    The Scottish government will make an announcement on Tuesday regarding the schedule to reopen parts of Scotland still under level 2 restrictions. It’s likely that the hoped-for reopening of a lot of facilities at the end of the month is going to be delayed in line with the predicted statement from the PM of Englandshire later today. This could affect me personally as I am signed up to work during a international Rugby match on the 26th of June here in Edinburgh (British Lions vs. Japan). The match will go ahead but it’s possible spectators won’t be permitted within the stadium. The intention at the moment is to have 25% capacity with widely spaced seating, this may not happen now.

  12. 12.

    Taken4Granite

    June 14, 2021 at 9:27 am

    Regarding the James Palmer tweet:

    One of the things that still astounds me is that so many governments failed to realize that locking down Wuhan just a few days before the Chinese New Year was an absolute panic move on the part of Chinese authorities. Some of that was due to incompetence at the top (Trump, BoJo, Bolsonaro, etc.), but I would expect any significant national government to have people on its payroll who understand the significance of the New Year holiday in Chinese culture.

    Of course, by the time the Chinese government took that step it was too late. One of the drawbacks of the Chinese governmental system is that it discourages the propagation of bad news up the hierarchy to the people who need to hear it.

  13. 13.

    smith

    June 14, 2021 at 9:28 am

    @Robert Sneddon:  Actually,case rates in the US have pretty much leveled off in the last 9 days. Hospitalization rates, however, have continued to fall. The Legum quote above is maybe out of date, at least according to CDC — their figures show we now have fewer than 15,000 people hospitalized with covid, and the number of new hospitalizations has continued to drop. Perhaps this reflects the phenomenon you observed in the UK, with more cases but no concomitant increase in hospitalizations. I agree with you that the Delta variant is a time bomb about to explode, at least in some parts of the country.

  14. 14.

    MontyTheClipArtMongoose

    June 14, 2021 at 10:09 am

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques: in this five thirty eight slack, prior still means should have been great cubs hurler mark, not falsely premised accusations of chicom malice in the runup of the plandemic. but they do know this: adjusting your projections in the face of doctored evidence from the lugenpresse is the greatest human weakness.

  15. 15.

    Matt McIrvin

    June 14, 2021 at 10:34 am

    @Robert Sneddon:

    This could be due to high first vaccination rates but it could also be that the Delta variant is less harmful than other variants thus fewer people get really sick from it

    This seems inconsistent with the situation on the ground in India, though, which suggests that Delta is more harmful. It’s hard to make direct comparisons, of course.

  16. 16.

    Matt McIrvin

    June 14, 2021 at 10:45 am

    Cases and deaths in Massachusetts and in the rest of New England have continued to drop, which is clearer now that the reporting effect of Memorial Day weekend is out of the 7-day averages. Mass. just had a zero-reported-deaths day, though it was a Sunday and it’s always hard to tell what that really means. At any rate, the continued drop in general prevalence of COVID is clear.

    This isn’t so unambiguously true of the rest of the country.

    I don’t for a moment believe there’s any sense in which we’re permanently out of the woods–we’re booking tickets to go do things in the fall, but I don’t have a lot of confidence that they’ll really happen or, if so, that we will feel safe doing them. We may have a replay of spring 2020 when we were making all these fraught calls to bail on concerts and meetings. But the alternative to even making speculative plans for post-pandemic activities is to insist on staying hunkered down forever.

  17. 17.

    Matt McIrvin

    June 14, 2021 at 10:56 am

    …I also think it’s interesting that I have heard zero talk of a vaccine tailored specifically to Delta, but I can only assume that it’s too early for anyone to speak of that publicly. Manufacturers are still going on about immunity to Beta, which is a major concern in some places but seems to have not been able to compete with Alpha around here.

  18. 18.

    Robert Sneddon

    June 14, 2021 at 11:19 am

    @Matt McIrvin: The situation in India is so badly documented it’s difficult to say that the Delta variant is really worse than any of its predecessors in terms of effects. It’s even debatable that most of the recent Indian cases and deaths were actually due to the Delta variant since not that many samples were actually sequenced.

    Where there is good recording and sample sequencing, such as in the UK, what we’re seeing is a lot of detected cases but those cases are mild, mostly. The daily case numbers are five times greater than before the Delta variant took hold here back in late April but hospitalisations and ICU bed occupancies are still well under twice the more recent low numbers. Deaths are way down on what they should be if the Delta variant was making a lot of people really seriously ill.

     

    To compare, the US with about 10% Delta variant cases has a figure of 16 new cases per million population while the UK with 90% Delta variant cases has currently about 110 new cases per million population. However the US has reported 8 deaths a week per million population while the UK has reported a per million figure of 0.9 deaths a week. So, lots more cases per capita in high Delta variant Britain but a lot fewer deaths than low-Delta variant US. The vaccination levels, again well-documented, in the UK and the US are similar so that’s not a factor.

     

    My semi-informed internet-expert take from those numbers is that the Delta variant is significantly more infectious and transmissable than its predecessors, even among a highly vaccinated population but its overall threat to health is lower on average. Sucks to be the far-end-of-the-bell-curve folks who get it bad though.

  19. 19.

    YY_Sima Qian

    June 14, 2021 at 12:12 pm

    @Robert Sneddon:

    @Matt McIrvin:

    Anecdotal data out of Guangzhou suggests that the Delta variant is actually somewhat more virulent.
    In China’s latest outbreak, doctors say the infected get sicker, faster

    Key sections:

    Patients are becoming sicker and their conditions are worsening much more quickly, doctors told state-run television on Thursday and Friday. Four-fifths of symptomatic cases developed fevers, they said, although it was not clear how that compared with earlier cases. The virus concentrations that are detected in their bodies climb to levels higher than previously seen, and then decline only slowly, the doctors said.
    Up to 12 percent of patients become severely or critically ill within three to four days of the onset of symptoms, said Guan Xiangdong, director of critical care medicine at Sun Yat-sen University in the city of Guangzhou, where the outbreak has been centered. In the past, the proportion had been 2 percent or 3 percent, although occasionally up to 10 percent, he said.
    Doctors in Britain and Brazil have reported similar trends with the variants that circulated in those countries, but the severity of those variants has not yet been confirmed.

    The testimonies from China are the latest indication of the dangers posed by Delta, which the World Health Organization last month labeled a “variant of concern.” First identified this spring in India, where it was blamed for widespread suffering and death, Delta has since become the dominant variant in Britain, where doctors suggest that it is more contagious and may infect some people who have received only one of two doses of a Covid-19 vaccine.
    China has uniquely detailed data, however, because it has essentially universal testing in the vicinity of outbreaks, allowing officials to gather detailed information on the extent of cases.

  20. 20.

    Matt McIrvin

    June 14, 2021 at 12:26 pm

    @Robert Sneddon: I suspect that at least some of that difference is from the extremely high level of COVID testing in the UK. There are large parts of the US where very little testing is happening, and the cases that get noticed are mostly severe ones, so you’d expect a much higher CFR.

    I live in one of the rare corners of the US where we have actually been testing about as much as the UK, but the test numbers have been dropping off over the past couple of months as vaccination increases and cases drop.

  21. 21.

    J R in WV

    June 14, 2021 at 12:59 pm

    From the original post:

    Given the high rates of vaccination in the U.S. and the U.K., and rebounding economies on both sides of the Atlantic, bosses of all airlines flying passenger services between the two countries made the financial case for lifting the restrictions…Reuters (now owned by RT IIRC?)

    Actually, the US is hovering just over 50% vaccinated, depending upon how inclusive your denominator is, which is not nearly big enough for me to be comfortable with.

  22. 22.

    J R in WV

    June 14, 2021 at 1:12 pm

    @Robert Sneddon:

    I really hope I’m just being alarmist here but I’m still hiding under the bed and wrapping myself in clingfilm. We’ll see.

    While I still wear masks in town, I find there are too many wooly-bears under the bed, and the clingfilm makes it really hard to breathe.

    Do you think it helps prevent infection by a whole lot?

    ;~)

    Anne Laurie, thanks again for this daily update, it has been important for our household keeping healthy. We have become real hermits, which may have saved lives!

  23. 23.

    Robert Sneddon

    June 14, 2021 at 3:12 pm

    @Matt McIrvin: The testing and sequencing in the UK shows the Delta variant to be sweeping the field here having out-evolved its predecessor variants. It’s more transmissible, between 40 to 80% better at spreading itself around according to our tame boffins (big error bars but I’ve not done a deep dive into the numbers). That virulence is what has driven our big recent increase in case numbers as recorded. However…

     

    Some more spelunking in various corners of the internet including the CDC reveal that the low-Delta-variant USA has about 50 hospitalised COVID-19 cases per million population, well down from a couple of months ago. All-Delta-variant Britain, with a much higher new case rate than the US has about 15 hospitalised cases per million population. My (perhaps erroneous) takeaway from that comparison is that the Delta variant is spreading more quickly but it’s less dangerous to individuals. This speculation is not corrected for age in any way though and that might be a factor. The UK has, as a matter of policy, aimed to vaccinate older people first to the point where over-60s are 98% fully vaccinated by this time (vaccine hesitancy is not noticeable in the older generations here). I don’t know what the corresponding age-related numbers are for the US.

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