Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

“I was told there would be no fact checking.”

Today in our ongoing national embarrassment…

He really is that stupid.

Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.

When tyranny becomes law, rebellion becomes duty. ~Thomas Jefferson

I like political parties that aren’t owned by foreign adversaries.

Roe is not about choice. It is about freedom.

The republican caucus is covering themselves with something, and it is not glory.

Republicans got rid of McCarthy. Democrats chose not to save him.

Dear elected officials: Trump is temporary, dishonor is forever.

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

If you still can’t see these things even now, maybe politics isn’t your forte and you should stop writing about it.

One way or another, he’s a liar.

Balloon Juice, where there is always someone who will say you’re doing it wrong.

Not so fun when the rabbit gets the gun, is it?

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

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

“Loving your country does not mean lying about its history.”

All hail the time of the bunny!

Not rolling over. fuck you, make me.

Baby steps, because the Republican Party is full of angry babies.

He wakes up lying, and he lies all day.

You are here: Home / Healthcare / COVID-19 / COVID-19 Coronavirus Updates: Monday / Tuesday, June 28-29

COVID-19 Coronavirus Updates: Monday / Tuesday, June 28-29

by | 62 Comments

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When You are not the boss of me works in our favor:

… Increasingly, frustrated teenagers are searching for ways to be vaccinated without their parents’ consent. Some have found their way to VaxTeen.org, a vaccine information site run by Kelly Danielpour, a Los Angeles teenager.

The site offers guides to state consent laws, links to clinics, resources on straightforward information about Covid-19 and advice for how teenagers can engage parents.

“Someone will ask me, ‘I need to be able to consent at a vaccine clinic that is open on weekends and that is on my bus route. Can you help?’” said Ms. Danielpour, 18, who will begin her freshman year at Stanford in the fall.

She started the site two years ago, well before Covid. The daughter of a pediatric neurosurgeon and an intellectual property lawyer, she realized that most adolescents know neither the recommended vaccine schedule nor their rights.

“We automatically talk about parents but not about teens as having opinions on this issue,” she said. “I decided I needed to help.” Ms. Danielpour wrangled experts to help her understand vaccination and consent laws, and she recruited teenagers to be “VaxTeen ambassadors.”

“I want teenagers to be able to say to pediatricians, ‘Hey, I have this right,’” added Ms. Danielpour, who gives talks at conferences to physicians and health department officials…

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‘Nearly 100’ new cases (so far) at a summer camp in Illinois:

Reader Interactions

62Comments

  1. 1.

    NeenerNeener

    Monroe County, NY stats:

    Vaccinations in Monroe County:

    59.9% with at least 1 jab
    56.3% totally vaccinated

    New COVID cases:

    72 new cases – I don’t know if that includes all of last week when the stats weren’t updated at all, or just yesterday. I’m hoping that includes all of last week because otherwise that many cases in a single day again is horrific. Children 0-19, 20 year olds, 30 year olds and 40 year olds all had 14 cases each.

    .5% test positivity

    Deaths now at 1332. We obviously aren’t getting all the drugs here that TFG got.

    35 people in the hospital, 10 in the ICU

  2. 2.

    Matt McIrvin

    I am exceedingly annoyed at the way coverage of the Delta variant obsesses on breakthrough infections, which is giving the public the false idea that vaccinations are useless against it, when the most important and destructive thing it does is increase the number of people you are likely to infect if you are UN-vaccinated. The moment any expert tries to tell people that the way to fight it is to get vaccinated, they get these people coming back with “but you can still get it if you’re vaxxed” and the message is lost.

    People see outbreaks in countries with a lot of vaccination and assume this is primarily because vaccinated people are transmitting the virus, when it’s more likely that the R value for the unvaccinated got jacked up so high that it can spread rapidly even if the unvaccinated are a minority–with the breakthrough infections happening as splash damage from that.

  3. 3.

    germy

    I feel like I’m getting mixed messages.
    I’m told I have nothing to worry about now that I’m fully vaccinated.
    But then I’m told fully vaccinated people need to wear masks.

  5. 5.

    Soprano2

    @Matt McIrvin: ITA, it’s making me crazy because they don’t explain what’s happening! They have a responsibility to get this right, and they’re mostly failing.

  6. 6.

    Matt McIrvin

    @germy: For my money, it depends on where you are.

    Here in New England, where the amount of virus about is at a record low since March 2020 and still dropping, I personally feel comfortable as a vaccinated person doing a lot of things I wouldn’t do if I were in an area where the infections are starting to pop again. We just went to a live concert! (Outdoors, but still.)

    But I’m still wearing a mask at the supermarket.

  7. 7.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Soprano2: There are articles that DO make a game effort at explaining what’s happening, but then the headline will be some clickbait thing like “why so many infected people are fully vaccinated”, and a hundred antivaxxers immediately just screenshot the headline and spray it around.

  9. 9.

    Erin

    @germy: ​Vaccinated asymptomatic people are extremely unlikely to spread the virus. Even if it can be detected in the nose, it has too low of a viral load. The WHO is saying it because too many selfish unvaccinated people have ditched their masks, so they feel like they have to paint with a broad brush.

  10. 10.

    Matt McIrvin

    It’s famously difficult for human beings to think rationally about probability–even if you’ve been trained in the subject, subtle illusions like the base rate fallacy can get you–but I’m starting to think there’s a substantial number of people who can’t conceive of a probability AT ALL. As in, they can’t imagine a thing that is more likely than 0% but less likely than 100%.

  12. 12.

    germy

    @Matt McIrvin:

    Here in upstate ny, the majority of supermarket shoppers are maskless now.  Most of the cashiers and store employees are maskless at an Aldi near me.  Other supermarkets, some of the employees are still masked.

  13. 13.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @germy: Most places around here (Philadelphia / PA in general) say that unvaccinated people don’t need to mask.

    Nevertheless, I’m wearing one most of the time in stores and restaurant takeout counters, to set an example. I suppose that’s what is called virtue signalling. But nearly everybody else is doing the same.

    I’ve done a gym workout with the mask on. That is admittedly annoying as hell, but the mask-holes need to know they won’t die if they do that.

    Or they could get a shot.

  14. 14.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Erin: I do wonder if it depends on the vaccine–with some of the less-effective vaccines in wide use internationally, maybe some significant number of vaccinated people do have enough of a viral load to transmit.

    But I seriously doubt that’s what’s happening in Israel or the UK.

  15. 15.

    germy

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym:  Nevertheless, I’m wearing one most of the time in stores and restaurant takeout counters, to set an example.

    I’ve done the same thing.  Funny thing is, the sign on the door says “unvaccinated people please wear masks” so people look at me and assume I’m a refusenik.

  16. 16.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    I would find the VaxTeen info on PA a little confusing if I were a teen trying to sort this out.

    It says this:

    A person between the ages of 11 and 18 may authorize his or her own immunization, without the approval or consent of another person, to prevent occurrence of a reportable disease, infection, or condition, provided such person is capable of providing informed consent.

    and it also says this:

    What this means: While minors cannot currently receive vaccines without parental consent in this state,

  17. 17.

    Matt McIrvin

    @germy: At Market Basket (northern MA) on Sunday, I was one of maybe 10% of customers still wearing a mask. The staff were still masked, but I saw several of the teenage restockers with their noses sticking out–I suspect it’s an employer mandate they’re chafing against.

  18. 18.

    Amir Khalid

    Malaysia’s Director-General of Heath Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah reports 6,437 new Covid-19 cases today in his media statement, for a cumulative reported total of 745,703 cases. He also reports 107 new deaths today, for a cumulative total of 5,108 deaths — 0.68% of the cumulative reported total, 0.75% of resolved cases.

    There are currently 62,844 active and contagious cases; 905 are in ICU, 455 of them intubated. Meanwhile, 5,298 more patients have recovered, for a cumulative total of 677,751 patients recovered – 90.89% of the cumulative reported total.

    27 new clusters were reported today. Of the cumulative total of 2,821 clusters, 887 clusters are currently active; 1,934 clusters are now inactive.

    6,423 new cases today are local infections. Selangor reports 2,287 local cases: 96 in clusters, 1,341 close-contact screenings, and 850 other screenings. Kuala Lumpur reports 1,359 local cases: 716 in clusters, 363 close-contact screenings, and 280 other screenings. Negeri Sembilan reports 700 cases: 305 in clusters, 233 close-contact screenings, and 162 other screenings.

    Kedah reports 284 cases: 135 in clusters, 113 close-contact screenings, and 36 other screenings. Johor reports 271 cases: 58 in clusters, 120 close-contact screenings, and 93 other screenings. Melaka reports 252 cases: 109 in clusters, 109 close-contact screenings, and 34 other screenings. Pahang reports 250 cases: 165 in clusters, 72 close-contact screenings, and 13 other screenings. Sarawak reports 242 cases: 36 in clusters, 155 close-contact screenings, and 51 other screenings.

    Perak reports 184 cases: 160 in clusters, 21 close-contact screenings, and three other screenings. Sabah reports 178 cases: 46 in clusters, 96 close-contact screenings, and 36 other screenings. Kelantan reports 131 cases: 32 in clusters, 73 close-contact screenings, and 26 other screenings. Labuan reports 117 cases: nine in clusters, 76 close-contact screenings, and 32 other screenings. Penang reports 115 cases: 18 in clusters, 58 close-contact screenings, and 39 other screenings.

    Putrajaya reports 32 cases: seven in clusters, 19 close-contact screenings, and six other screenings. Terengganu reports 21 cases: nine in clusters, four close-contact screenings, and eight other screenings. Perlis reports no new cases today.

    14 new cases today are imported: 12 in Selangor, two in Kuala Lumpur.

  19. 19.

    Matt McIrvin

    @germy:

    I’ve done the same thing.  Funny thing is, the sign on the door says “unvaccinated people please wear masks” so people look at me and assume I’m a refusenik.

    I’ve been assuming that it’s mostly the opposite, regardless of what the signs say–any adult still wearing a mask in public probably IS vaccinated.

    That said, maybe that’s wrong. There’s this friend of a friend on Facebook who is an antivaxxer of the “alternative health nut” type–won’t get vaccinated because he persistently thinks of vaccines as, somehow, an inferior substitute for his keto diet and exercise program. And one thing he keeps saying is that you don’t have to worry about him infecting other people because he always wears masks.

  20. 20.

    germy

    @Matt McIrvin:  The staff were still masked, but I saw several of the teenage restockers with their noses sticking out–I suspect it’s an employer mandate they’re chafing against.

    Hell, I saw that at a Price Chopper six months ago.  An older dude stocking the shelves with his American flag bandana down over his neck, face exposed.  I asked him why he wasn’t wearing it properly and he wanted to fight.

    I used to visit that Price Chopper once, maybe twice a week.  I haven’t been there in months, that guy was just the last straw.  Their culture, their pricing, their tricky coupons…  just rotten.

  21. 21.

    YY_Sima Qian

    On 6/28 China reported 0 new domestic confirmed & 0 new domestic asymptomatic cases.

    Guangdong Province did not report any new domestic confirmed cases.

    • Foshan did not reported any new domestic positive cases. 1 residential building remains at Medium Risk.
    • Shenzhen did not report any new domestic positive cases. 1 residential compound remains at Medium Risk.
    • Dongguan did not report any new domestic positive cases. 1 residential building & a college campus remain at Medium Risk.

    Imported Cases

    On 6/28, China reported 18 new imported confirmed cases, 30 imported asymptomatic cases:

    • Yunnan Province (locations not specified) – 4 confirmed cases, all Chinese nationals returning from Myanmar, via land border crossings
    • Xiamen in Fujian Province – 3 confirmed, 2 Chinese nationals returning from the UK (via Amsterdam Schiphol) & a Taiwanese resident coming from Taiwan
    • Guangzhou in Guangdong Province – 1 confirmed case, a Chinese national returning from Cambodia; 7 asymptomatic cases, 3 Chinese nationals returning from Myanmar & 1 each from the DRC (via Nairobi), the UAE & Bangladesh, & a foreign national coming from Panama (via Paris CdG)
    • Shenzhen in Guangdong Province – 1 confirmed case, a Chinese national returning from Indonesia
    • Zhaoqing in Guangdong Province – 1 confirmed case, a Chinese national returning from Bahrain; 2 asymptomatic cases, both Chinese nationals returning from Jordan, all off flights that landed at Guangzhou
    • Foshan in Guangdong Province – 2 asymptomatic cases, 1 Chinese national each returning from Cambodia & Saudi Arabia, off flights that landed at Guangzhou 
    • Zhongshan in Guangdong Province – 2 asymptomatic cases, both Chinese nationals returning from Gabon, off a flight that landed at Guangzhou 
    • Jiangmen  in Guangdong Province – 1 asymptomatic case, a Chinese national returning from Saudi Arabia, off a flight that landed at Guangzhou
    • Chengdu in Sichuan Province – 2 confirmed cases, 1 Chinese national each returning from Cambodia & Algeria; 4 asymptomatic cases, 2 Chinese nationals returning from Ghana (via Amsterdam Schiphol) & 1 each from Cambodia & Nigeria (via Frankfurt)
    • Hefei in Anhui Province – 2 confirmed & 1 asymptomatic cases, no information released
    • Xi’an in Shaanxi Province – 2 confirmed cases, 1 Chinese national each returning from Nigeria & the UK (both via Frankfurt); 4 asymptomatic cases, 2 Chinese nationals returning from Nigeria (via Frankfurt) & 1 each from the UK (via Frankfurt) & Pakistan
    • Shanghai Municipality – 1 confirmed case, a Chinese national returning from Sri Lanka
    • Hangzhou in Zhejiang Province – 1 confirmed case, coming from the UK; 1 asymptomatic case, coming from Cambodia
    • Jiangsu Province (location not specified) – 5 asymptomatic cases, no information released
    • Changsha in Hunan Province – 1 asymptomatic case, no information released

    Overall in China, 21 confirmed cases recovered, 13 asymptomatic cases were released from isolation & 4 were reclassified as confirmed cases, and 1,461 individuals were released from quarantine. Currently, there are 459 active confirmed cases in the country (393 imported), 12 in serious condition (11 imported), 494 asymptomatic cases (478 imported), 1 suspect case (imported). 16,072 traced contacts are currently  under quarantine.

    As of 6/28, 1,206.714M vaccine doses have been injected in Mainland China, an increase of 20.927M doses in the past 24 hrs.

    On 6/29, Hong Kong reported 3 new positive cases, all imported (from the UK, Namibia & Indonesia).

  22. 22.

    YY_Sima Qian

    In quarantine news, the AC in my room failed, so quarantine hotel management moved me to another room at a higher floor,  w/ an unblocked window & a view to outside! Yay!

    Had my first direct glimpse of sunshine in over a week.

  23. 23.

    Robert Sneddon

    @Matt McIrvin: ​
      I’ve said it before, an epidemic like this one is statistical, not personal.

    Vaccinated people are much less likely to contract this disease, to infect others, suffer severe effects from it or die from it. Any vaccinated individual is not 100% guaranteed to be totally protected from this disease, AND NO RESPECTABLE MEDICAL PRACTITIONER WOULD EVER CLAIM THIS TO BE OTHERWISE. Continuing to take precautions like social distancing, hygiene and wearing medical-grade masks is a good idea even for fully vaccinated individuals.

    There is a lot of number-bashing and statistics-abuse going on by people who should really stop doing it, or at least making their data torture public.

  24. 24.

    Spanky

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym: Same here, in Confederate Southern MD. We aren’t past it so long as variants keep popping up and moving across the world. Delta and Delta+ are bad, but I’m just as concerned about Epsilon, and how well the vaccine fares against it and later variants.

    Masking may be performative atm, but there’s a good chance it’ll be a necessity again. That’s why I choose to serve as a reminder.

  25. 25.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @Matt McIrvin:

    “In this Ohio diner, none are vaccinated but all are convinced that Trump is still President and that Hillary Clinton, Hunter Biden and George Soros are soon headed for prison. How did we get to this point in our national life?”

    – by Ken Vogel

  28. 28.

    Suzanne

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym: Allegheny County is absolutely doing a great job in terms of bringing new cases down (on the edge of green and yellow on CovidActNow), and we are at 65% fully vaccinated, so I am not masking except when in public indoor places with Spawn the Youngest (because it’s hard to make her wear one if I’m not).

    Once the kids are vaccinated, I’m fucking done for a while. Like, I am increasingly unsympathetic to the unvaccinated. I know that there are people with mobility challenges, and cost challenges, but there are options if you are motivated. And if you aren’t motivated to save your own life and your family’s lives, I only have so much motivation for that effort myself.

    We have changed so much of our lives for this. We went out to eat last night (outdoors on a balcony, distanced, beach town with very low case rates) and it was so nice. Mr. Suzanne and I were commenting on how nice it was to people-watch and feel the breeze. We are trying so hard to be responsible and socially minded, and it just feels like pissing all over the social contract to have so many people refuse to do their part. Almost every single choice we have made in the last fifteen months has been impacted by this plague. My kids need to play with friends and go to real school and go into stores and restaurants and live.

  29. 29.

    MomSense

    @Soprano2:

    It turns out the media desire for sensationalism to drive clicks and views doesn’t work well at informing the public.  HOOCOODANODE

  30. 30.

    Cermet

    Extremely glade India has finally started to get ahead on vaccine supply; and that the US is helping Central America. Now if Brazil could just get ahead of the game that would be a major victory.

  31. 31.

    MomSense

    @Matt McIrvin:

    I’ve stopped caring what people think.  This pandemic has revealed how many of us are selfish jerks. I don’t trust people to do the right thing so I wear my mask inside and if the outside is crowded.

    fuckem

  33. 33.

    Ken

    @Spanky: I haven’t heard anything special about Epsilon. It was a surprise for me scanning AL’s collected tweets above and seeing there’s a Lambda now.

  35. 35.

    rikyrah

    What the MSM needs to be pointing out is what Dr. Gupta did on Nicole Wallace.

    Of those in the hospital due to COVID at the moment

     

    99.9% of them were UNVACCINATED.

    That is what they should be shouting from the rooftops.

  37. 37.

    Obvious Russian Troll

    @YY_Sima Qian: I am self-isolating myself right now (having returned to Canada from a trip to the US) and I feel very fortunate that I can do it at home.

    Apparently Canada will be removing the self-isolation requirement for vaccinated travelers on the 5th, which of course is nearly the end of our 14-day period. No word on whether or not they’ll release us early.

  39. 39.

    VOR

    @germy:  Funny thing is, the sign on the door says “unvaccinated people please wear masks” so people look at me and assume I’m a refusenik.

    The real refuseniks wouldn’t wear masks because of their freedumbs.

  40. 40.

    mrmoshpotato

    @YY_Sima Qian:

    In quarantine news, the AC in my room failed 

    Oh no!

    so quarantine hotel management moved me to another room at a higher floor,  w/ an unblocked window & a view to outside! Yay!

    Oh yes!

  41. 41.

    Soprano2

    @MomSense: That’s true, but I also think there’s a non-zero chance that the people writing about this just don’t understand it. I think it’s hard for people to wrap their minds around the fact that vaccinated people can still get Covid, but it doesn’t generally make them sick or kill them; instead it’s just a minor annoyance for most of the vaccinated who even have symptoms. For all I know, I could have had it again!

    Some MAGA posted a list on our bulletin board this morning titled “40 reasons not to get vaccinated”. I guess that’s a reaction to the postings I have on my door about how Covid is bad around here, so people should get the shot. Plus I posted an article about wastewater monitoring for Covid in MO. I can’t wait to look at it later this morning to see what idiocies are on it. *sigh

  42. 42.

    Soprano2

    @rikyrah: What the MSM needs to be pointing out is what Dr. Gupta did on Nicole Wallace.

    Of those in the hospital due to COVID at the moment

    99% of them were UNVACCINATED.

    Pretty much every health professional interviewed here in the epicenter of the outbreak makes this point, over and over again. It doesn’t have any effect on the MAGA resisters, but I think it helps with the waverers or those who still find getting the shot inconvenient.

  44. 44.

    New Deal democrat

    @rikyrah: The problem is that the CDC has not been publishing this as an official statistic. So the evidence is all “anecdotal.”

     

    This has been the one big mistake in how the Biden administration has handled the pandemic.

  45. 45.

    Sloane Ranger

    @YY_Sima Qian: Great news!

    I am now in Day 3 of my self isolation. I took a PCR test yesterday and the result came in this morning. I am negative but still have to self isolate until 6 July.

    Now, for Monday’s figures from the UK where we had 22,868 new cases, which is an increase of 69.9% in the rolling 7-day average. New cases by nation,

    England – 18,702 (up 7142, but there were known issues with Sunday’s figures due to several data centres not reporting)

    Northern Ireland – 211 (down 50)

    Scotland – 3285 (up 646)

    Wales – 670 (up 254).

    Deaths – There were 3 deaths within 28 days of a positive test reported yesterday. There may still be a processing delay due to the weekend. This is an increase of 64.9% in the rolling 7-day average. All the deaths were in England.

    Testing – On Sunday 27 June, 1,216,682 tests were conducted. This is an increase of 5.9% in the rolling 7-day average. The PCR testing capacity reported by labs on that date was 598,073.

    Hospitalisations – Not updated since Thursday, 24 June.

    Vaccinations – On 27 June, 44,454,511 people had received 1 shot of a vaccine and 32,583,746 people had had both. In percentage terms this means that 84.4% of all people in the UK aged 18 and over have had 1 shot and 61.9% were fully vaccinated.

  46. 46.

    Percysowner

    @germy: I’m fully vaccinated, but I’m still wearing my mask indoors. I have a 3 year old granddaughter that I take care of. I would hate to get an asymptomatic infection and then pass it on to her. I still see some people wearing masks when shopping, so I suspect a lot of us are being extra cautious. Plus I just got used to pulling out my mask before entering a store. Now I need to remember to pull out my reusable shopping bags.

  47. 47.

    New Deal democrat

    It’s pretty clear to me that the “delta wave” in the US has begun.

    The 7 day average in new cases in the US has been rising for 6 days. 10 States have rising numbers for the past 2 weeks. The decline in about half a dozen more has stalled.

    The only important question in my mind is whether or not there will be a significant rise in the highly vaccinated States and if so how much. May G*d help the others. Within 2 to 4 weeks they will be right back where they were last year.

  49. 49.

    Miki

    I’ve been taking my animals to the same vet clinic for 36+ years, and have a solid relationship with both the long-term vets there and one vet tech in particular. (Had an Addisonian standard poodle with additional immune issues and spent over a decade, between the 3 of us, providing him stellar care). My current doggo – Sully, 14 y.o. rescue miniature poodle – was diagnosed with chronic kidney disease (aka kidney failure) in April, and once again my lil’ guy is getting stellar care. He’s a nasty fella sometimes, and won’t let me give him his daily sub q fluids, so I pack him up and take him into my vets office where it takes 2 of us and a muzzle to get the fluids in – every single day.

    How is this Covid related? I learned yesterday that the 60 y.o. vet tech I’m working with, whom I’ve known forever, refuses to get vaccinated until after July 4 because she doesn’t want to give President Biden a “win.” WT everlasting F?

    Yes – she’s masked, as am I. I am also vaccinated (since March). I am going to turn 66 next month and have more than one co-morbidity so I feel somewhat at risk as we stand 3 inches away from each other while Sully gets a poke and 100 ml fluids – every single day. I would ask for a different tech but they’re having a hard time keeping techs on staff (because they don’t pay enough for the stressful environment). IOW, I’m kind of stuck right now (heh).

    But I’m also flabbergasted, again, by the extent to which otherwise intelligent, caring people are willing to ride some weird hobby horse toward a destination I am incapable of imagining (with props to Mr. Chovanec ).

    Sigh.

  50. 50.

    Robert Sneddon

    Scotland — 3,118 new cases of COVID-19 reported, one new death. The test positivity rate is 11.6%. Hospitalisations and ICU bed occupancy remain low, well down from the winter peaks but rising slowly from the big dip in late spring.

    The Scottish First Minister and health secretary are doing a presentation and answering questions at the moment. They’re saying there will be no new lockdowns unless the new case rates get very high, like 100,000 a week as some worst-case modelling suggests. The biggest cohort of new cases is younger men. Some of this might be attributable to the Euro football events including a lot of younger men travelling down to London together for the Scotland vs. England match in coaches and trains. Other identified spreading events are weddings, schools and workplaces according to the briefing.

    Vaccinations — there were 26,000 vaccinations carried out yesterday, about 60% of those first-dose. This is down on previous vaccination rates of 35-40,000 doses a day, no explanation for the drop given. Vaccine supply doesn’t appear to be constrained at the moment. Scotland will reach 85% of adults first-dose by the end of the month, it seems. We’re already well over 60% of adults fully vaccinated. The Scottish figures are a little under the collected figures for the entire UK, but not by much.

  51. 51.

    Taken4Granite

    @Suzanne: I agree with your last paragraph. Vaccine refuseniks are not just endangering themselves and their families (which is bad enough), they are also endangering people who for medical reasons cannot or should not get the vaccine. People like your youngest child, or the woman in my neighborhood who can’t get the vaccine because she has an autoimmune condition that would likely be made worse if she did. Not to mention the people who did get the vaccine but for whatever reason did not produce antibodies–no vaccine is 100% effective.
    I am lucky to live in one of the bluest towns in New Hampshire; except for the woman mentioned above, everybody I know here who is not vaccinated is under 12. Were I in a place like Missouri or South Dakota (I have relatives in both states), I would have to worry so much more about the unvaccinated masses.
    Thursday night will be my first dinner out, a retirement gathering for one of my co-workers. The restaurant has outdoor seating right next to a river; I assume that’s where our tables would be. There were a couple other co-workers who didn’t get this because they retired during the pandemic. We need to be able to get on with our lives, but a large contingent of selfish jerks is making this difficult or impossible.

  52. 52.

    Suzanne

    @Taken4Granite:  I am exhausted. My family and I spent so much energy during this pandemic doing things to keep one another and society safe, at great personal sacrifice. If society is going to squander it, then, well, fuck it.

  53. 53.

    YY_Sima Qian

    @Spanky: Another benefit of moving to a higher floor is that I now have much stronger mobile signal, 4 bars of 5G as opposed to 1 bar of 3G!

    I still do not understand why they had to completely block the windows on the lower floors. If they wanted to prevent escape, put a metal cage over the windows.

  54. 54.

    Chacal Charles Calthrop

    @YY_Sima Qian: fantastic… get those circadian rhythms reset!

    Here in NY quarantine consisted, in its entirety, of a single text message a day telling anyone who’d gotten off a plane to self-quarantine, and you had to reply or they’d call you.

    Of course, rich New Yorkers did so, but it’s pretty easy if you live alone – or if you had rich friends who’d let you stay in their empty place for free.  A woman in my building who’d moved back in with her parents allowed a friend of hers to quarantine in her otherwise-empty studio apartment, and since I had a copy of her keys, my job was to get them to the person coming from the plane via an envelope carefully taped to the inside of a mail slot in a nearby door so that the traveler could pick them up without being exposed to anyone in the building.

    But if you didn’t want to quarantine, there was absolutely nothing that prevented you from just texting back that you were in compliance & then just going about your usual life.

  55. 55.

    Fair Economist

    @germy: What we are seeing in the UK and Israel is that the personal risk for vaccines, even with the contagious variants,  is low, maybe similar to that of the flu (haven’t seen statistics yet but they should be available soon). But we are seeing more symptomatic infection among vaccines. So transmission by vaccinees is possibly enough to be significant epidemiologically and we should all mask up when reasonable to protect those who haven’t been able to be vaccinated yet.

  56. 56.

    Fair Economist

    @New Deal democrat: Delta can absolutely explode, even in widely vaccinated countries, if they used the less effective vaccines. It will do the same in our less vaccinated areas – a few rural areas are already back to crisis levels of strain in their medical systems. We are just going to have to see how it spreads in better vaccinated areas in the States using the mRNA vaccines. Keep your eye on Israel for some guidance, but we will get bad before they do because our ongoing rates are so much higher.

  57. 57.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Spanky:

    Delta and Delta+ are bad, but I’m just as concerned about Epsilon

    Back when I was a math perfesser, my calculus students were scared of Delta and Epsilon.

  59. 59.

    Robert Sneddon

    @Fair Economist: What we are seeing in the UK and Israel is that the personal risk for vaccines, even with the contagious variants, is low, maybe similar to that of the flu (haven’t seen statistics yet but they should be available soon).

    The briefing by the First Minister today here in Scotland included the statistic that 80% of new cases, almost all of them of the Delta variant, are in people under the age of 45. Conversely over 95% of adults over 50 in Scotland and the UK generally have received two doses of vaccine, mostly Pfizer or AstraZeneca.

  60. 60.

    J R in WV

    From the post:

    The US reported +93 new coronavirus deaths yesterday, bringing the total to 619,424. Several states did not report.

    Guess which states don’t report Covid-19 data any more? Maybe the states which lag the rest of the country for vaccinations, MS, AL, LA, FL, GA, AR, TX… just guessing, but an edumacated guess.

  61. 61.

    J R in WV

    @YY_Sima Qian:

    Congratulations on your new Window~!!~

    Must be like breaking our of jail, almost. Short sentence, better food… glad for you, though. And thanks for passing on all that information, also too!

  62. 62.

    Chris T.

    @lowtechcyclist:

    Back when I was a math perfesser, my calculus students were scared of Delta and Epsilon.

    I’m only scared of them when they’re unlimited.

    (Dead thread, I know, but I had to do it!)

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