Spate Of Global Lockdowns As Countries Scramble To Contain Delta Varianthttps://t.co/J4K1Rmu4WD
— Global Health Observ (@GlobalPHObserv) June 29, 2021
The US administered nearly 1.1 million vaccine shots yesterday, bringing the total to 324 million, or 97.7 doses per 100 people. The 7-day moving average rose back to 875,000 shots per day. pic.twitter.com/dIRtrx4MCW
— Patrick Chovanec (@prchovanec) June 29, 2021
Public health officials struggle to convince the vaccine hesitant, as variant looms https://t.co/CxEUxZWJhj
— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) June 29, 2021
The US had +10,754 new confirmed cases of COVID-19 yesterday, raising the total further above 34.5 million. The 7-day moving average rose slightly to 12,605 new cases per day. pic.twitter.com/QXpER0oKSS
— Patrick Chovanec (@prchovanec) June 29, 2021
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India reports 45,951 new COVID-19 cases, 817 deaths https://t.co/w0FB9pOCrR pic.twitter.com/doNmCRwRcL
— Reuters (@Reuters) June 30, 2021
India reported +907 new coronavirus deaths yesterday, its lowest figure since April 12, bringing the official death toll to 397,967, thought the real number is suspected to be a great deal higher. The 7-day moving average declined to 1,200 deaths per day. pic.twitter.com/hbAQMD0wfY
— Patrick Chovanec (@prchovanec) June 29, 2021
20.3% of people in India have received at least one vaccine shot; 4.3% are now fully vaccinated.
In terms of absolute numbers, India now has administered more vaccine shots than the US. pic.twitter.com/YI76CJUcFF
— Patrick Chovanec (@prchovanec) June 29, 2021
N.K. leader says 'grave incident' has happened due to lapses in anti-epidemic efforts https://t.co/ONmIm5v2mF
— Yonhap News Agency (@YonhapNews) June 29, 2021
… Kim made the remarks as he presided over an extended politburo meeting of the ruling Workers’ Party on Tuesday, accusing senior officials of neglecting their duties in carrying out measures needed to fight the global pandemic, according to the Korean Central News Agency.
“By neglecting important decisions of the party in its national emergency antivirus fight in preparations for a global health crisis, officials in charge have caused a grave incident that poses a huge crisis to the safety of the nation and its people,” the KCNA said.
The KCNA did not elaborate on what the grave incident was.
North Korea has claimed to be coronavirus-free but has enforced tight border controls and other antivirus measures since the beginning to ward off an outbreak on its soil.
Indonesia's COVID-19 situation nears 'catastrophe' – Red Cross https://t.co/LKohjzG3u7 pic.twitter.com/yqA0JhDius
— Reuters (@Reuters) June 29, 2021
Bali reopening to foreign tourists delayed as COVID surges -minister https://t.co/6u3XRSsUMV pic.twitter.com/TYZWG9W2NY
— Reuters (@Reuters) June 29, 2021
Thailand’s tourism industry has been devastated by the pandemic: Nowhere more so than Phuket where a plan known as the Phuket sandbox is set to reopen the resort island to fully vaccinated travelers even as virus cases rise elsewhere in the country. https://t.co/lIsRa8pDas
— The Associated Press (@AP) June 30, 2021
focusing on vaccination numbers is a good strategy https://t.co/mY5JfQHrRR
— Gerry Doyle (@mgerrydoyle) June 30, 2021
Australia Covid: Seventh city locks down amid case spread and vaccine chaos https://t.co/t3D8HySwYd
— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) June 30, 2021
if the endpoint of your covid policy seems to be something like "we don't need foreigners," your covid policy is borked, I'm sorry
— Gerry Doyle (@mgerrydoyle) June 30, 2021
Russia reports the highest number of daily deaths from coronavirus since Dec. 24 as the Delta variant sweeps the country.https://t.co/0eFDvM7h9S
— The Moscow Times (@MoscowTimes) June 29, 2021
Russian’s health minister has approved coronavirus booster shots six months after the first vaccination. Russia registered 20,616 cases and 652 deaths — the nation’s highest confirmed daily death toll in the pandemic. https://t.co/CPCe7KsS6D
— The Associated Press (@AP) June 29, 2021
Russia is facing an unfamiliar problem in its vaccination drive: jab shortages.
With promises to deliver billions of Sputnik V doses around the world, can domestic production keep pace with rising demand?https://t.co/7IBP5i2s2t
— Jake Cordell (@JakeCordell) June 29, 2021
⚡ Germany will ban Russian travelers from entering the country starting Tuesday to prevent the importation of mutated Covid-19 strains, the Germany Embassy in Moscow announced https://t.co/4EYDOpVxjq
— The Moscow Times (@MoscowTimes) June 29, 2021
France likely to have fourth wave of COVID – government adviser https://t.co/hWTuJK8MrD pic.twitter.com/17tuzUU1wY
— Reuters (@Reuters) June 30, 2021
Vaxx up before the autumn rush, citizens!
… “I think we will have a fourth wave, but it will be much more moderate than the previous three waves because the level of vaccinations is different compared to before,” Delfraissy told France Info radio.
French epidemiologist Arnaud Fontanet, who also advises the French government on scientific matters, told BFM TV on Wednesday that he expected France’s COVID-19 infection numbers to rise again in September or October.
French Health Minister Olivier Veran said earlier this week that the COVID Delta variant, whose rapid spread around the world has led some countries to reimpose travel restrictions, now represented around 20% of France’s COVID cases.
Guatemala has asked Russia for a refund over its failure to deliver doses of the Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine on time, Reuters reported amid widespread reports of shortages across Latin America https://t.co/m59mkHaR9U
— The Moscow Times (@MoscowTimes) June 30, 2021
Covid-19 caused a significant decline in life expectancy in Brazil https://t.co/FLpYq0G9mm
— delthia ricks ? (@DelthiaRicks) June 30, 2021
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An analysis of 58 studies finds that male sex and obesity are not associated with Covid ICU mortality, but many other factors are https://t.co/gVLM9rAu2h via @medical_xpress
— delthia ricks ? (@DelthiaRicks) June 30, 2021
… Patients with COVID-19 in ICU were 40% more likely to die with a history of smoking, 54% more likely with high blood pressure, 41% more likely with diabetes, 75% more likely with respiratory disease, around twice as likely with cardiovascular disease or cancer, and 2.4 times more likely to die with kidney disease, than patients without these risk factors. Other factors associated with an increased risk of death were the severity of organ failure, needing mechanical ventilation (by 2.5 times compared to non-ventilated ICU patients), and also elevated white blood cell counts and other markers of inflammation.
Analysing the reasons for the associations, the authors say age may effectively represent frailty in COVID-19 patients which impacts on a person’s physiological reserve to overcome a critical illness. The risk factors of hypertension, smoking and respiratory disease may be linked by their association with angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) receptors in the body, as seen by the increased expression of ACE-2 receptors amongst smokers and patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. The association between hypertension and cardiovascular disease and increased mortality may be linked to the risk of cardiac injury associated with the systemic inflammatory response to COVID-19 infection…
Where are the anti-vaxxers? The Institute for Health Metrics & Evaluation has developed a visualization tool in collaboration w/ @TheCOVIDCollab. It shows data on vaccine hesitancy for the entire United States. #DataViz #VaccineHesitancy @IHME_UW pic.twitter.com/YJPJnoRgmK
— delthia ricks ? (@DelthiaRicks) June 29, 2021
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US counties w/ state prisons had 11% more 1st-wave Covid cases than counties w/out penitentiaries. Many cases were likely due to spread w/in prisons. It's estimated that 95k cases & ~3.3k deaths in the US were due to spillover from prisons into communities https://t.co/lKo5zXRUKS
— delthia ricks ? (@DelthiaRicks) June 29, 2021
In 4 of these 5 states there has been a notable increase in hospitalizations over the past 2 weeks. Nevada's case rate has climbed 93% in that time frame.
The absolute numbers are low, but this is an early indicator for vulnerable places that combine high Delta +low vaccination % pic.twitter.com/EJHoJzG9BJ— Eric Topol (@EricTopol) June 29, 2021
I'm suggesting that the name of Delta variant be changed to Darwin Variant: pic.twitter.com/hNuqIIDWUJ
— Frozen Alchemy ? (@FrozenAlchemy) June 30, 2021
NeenerNeener
It looks like my neck of the woods is only doing weekly case reporting now, instead of daily.
I’m hoping we don’t need to go back to daily case counts.
Cermet
Really good news that India is finally getting its vaccination rates up to speed; however, the real challenge will be vaccinating the vast rural and medically under served segment of that population. So Covid will continue to be a serious issue till that population (the majority of India’s pop) gets vaccinated. Also, while Russian vaccine shortage isn’t good for them or other countries needing vaccine, conversely, it is good that so many Russians want shots that there is now a run on shots.
The US really MUST get more vaccine to South America – this should be priority #1 even if one just views the self interest aspect.
The Delta variant will certainly bite a lot of the stupid US people in their collective ass’s. The tragic aspect is the innocent that will suffer thanks to ass wipe rump and his enablers that have created the majority of this mess.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
On the tweets about Australia, I’ve been watching the devolution of a society into a xenophobic, authoritarian police state via its media, comments and reports of destroyed tourist industry. Looks like there’s roughly 70-75 percent of the populace that’s content to never see a foreign person from any destination ever again, don’t care about the notion that ScottyfromMarketing has no plan or goal for reopening with the world and are perfectly happy to accept prohibitions on public gatherings, commerce and even local movement for normal activities of daily living in order to achieve this goal. Can’t leave the country, can’t leave your state, can’t go more than a few kilometers from your home, can’t have gatherings, can’t work, etc.
The people who have invested in resort properties, tour vending and the like (as well as those skilled, wonderful and welcoming people who work in those fields there) have taken notice and are shifting away from notions of resuming those activities in the indefinite future. Fact is, the travel industry and people with heavy money to spend have noticed it too, and are looking elsewhere to spend money in 2022 and beyond. Don’t know what they’ll do there about the massive losses; some will quit the country altogether if they can.
Steeplejack
Here’s the IHME “vaccine hesitancy” visualization tool mentioned in Delthia Ricks’s tweet. A bit hard to track down.
YY_Sima Qian
On 6/29 China reported 0 new domestic confirmed & 0 new domestic asymptomatic cases.
Guangdong Province did not report any new domestic confirmed cases.
Imported Cases
On 6/29, China reported 9 new imported confirmed cases, 9 imported asymptomatic cases:
Overall in China, 13 confirmed cases recovered, 21 asymptomatic cases were released from isolation & 1 was reclassified as confirmed case, and 1,863 individuals were released from quarantine. Currently, there are 455 active confirmed cases in the country (393 imported), 11 in serious condition (10 imported), 481 asymptomatic cases (469 imported), no suspect cases. 15,044 traced contacts are currently under quarantine.
As of 6/29, 1,225.734M vaccine doses have been injected in Mainland China, an increase of 19.02M doses in the past 24 hrs.
On 6/30, Hong Kong reported 2 new positive cases, both imported (from the UK, Namibia & Indonesia). As of 6/29, 1.4565M individuals have received both shots of vaccines in the city, & 2.2123M individuals have taken the 1st shot.
YY_Sima Qian
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
Until vaccination rates are high enough, elimination strategy makes sense, as Australia has demonstrated several times before. After containing COVID-19 for 1.5 years of the pandemic, it would be tragic to suffer a wave right before mass vaccination campaign. (See Taiwan, Vietnam, Thailand, etc.) In any case, NPI measures are decided by state governments, not federal government, correct?
What is very puzzling is why has Australia’s vaccination been slow? Along with Taiwan, Australia is a wealthy country, w/ plenty of funds to purchase vaccines.
OzarkHillbilly
Nevada and Arkansas #s are both climbing faster than Misery’s but they’ve got a long ways to go before they catch up with us. Nyah nah na nyah nah…..
Matt McIrvin
@YY_Sima Qian: It seems like they’ve got a huge fight going on in Australia about WHICH vaccine everyone gets. They’ve got a copious supply of the AstraZeneca vaccine and a limited supply of the Pfizer, and everyone’s decided on the basis of clotting scares and stories about relative efficacy that Pfizer is the one to get, and the government made matters worse by putting some sort of age-based rationing system in place for a while. And there are huge numbers of people just not getting vaccinated at all because they don’t want the AstraZeneca and are holding out for the Pfizer. It’s a big mess.
satby
@YY_Sima Qian: The lack of any vaccination reporting out of Australia made me wonder too. With so much early success in handling covid outbreaks, a mass vaccination campaign would have put them far ahead of almost every other country in controlling the pandemic.
satby
@Matt McIrvin: ah, that explains some of it.
Matt McIrvin
@satby: My understanding of it is really limited but I follow a few people on Australian Twitter and get these confused glimpses of it.
Australia has done remarkably well so far at suppressing the virus through draconian social control measures that would never fly here, but with vaccination they seem stuck at the starting gate for stupid reasons. I’ve noticed that in general there seems to be little correlation between who does well at vaccination and who does well with COVID otherwise.
Amir Khalid
Malaysia’s Director-General of Heath Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah reports 6,276 new Covid-19 cases today in his media statement, for a cumulative reported total of 751,979 cases. He also reports 62 new deaths today, for a cumulative total of 5,170 deaths — 0.69% of the cumulative reported total, 0.75% of resolved cases.
There are currently 64,129 active and contagious cases; 905 are in ICU, 452 of them intubated. Meanwhile, 4,929 more patients have recovered, for a cumulative total of 682,680 patients recovered – 90.78% of the cumulative reported total.
23 new clusters were reported today. Of the cumulative total of 2,844 clusters, 886 clusters are currently active; 1,958 clusters are now inactive.
6,260 new cases today are local infections. Selangor reports 2,827 local cases: 242 in clusters, 1,595 close-contact screenings, and 990 other screenings. Negeri Sembilan reports 644 cases: 124 in clusters, 331 close-contact screenings, and 189 other screenings. Kuala Lumpur reports 618 local cases: 146 in clusters, 269 close-contact screenings, and 203 other screenings.
Sarawak reports 376 cases: 61 in clusters, 254 close-contact screenings, and 61 other screenings.
Johor reports 299 cases: 124 in clusters, 115 close-contact screenings, and 60 other screenings. Sabah reports 242 cases: 90 in clusters, 119 close-contact screenings, and 33 other screenings. Kedah reports 226 cases: 37 in clusters, 143 close-contact screenings, and 46 other screenings. Melaka reports 223 cases: 92 in clusters, 101 close-contact screenings, and 30 other screenings. Pahang reports 210 cases: 143 in clusters, 58 close-contact screenings, and nine other screenings.
Kelantan reports 159 cases: 82 in clusters, 50 close-contact screenings, and 27 other screenings. Perak reports 137 cases: 76 in clusters, 51 close-contact screenings, and 10 other screenings. Labuan reports 132 cases: 21 in clusters, 55 close-contact screenings, and 56 other screenings. Penang reports 131 cases: 72 in clusters, 37 close-contact screenings, and 22 other screenings.
Terengganu reports 20 cases: nine in clusters, nine close-contact screenings, and two other screenings. Putrajaya reports 11 cases: five close-contact screenings and six other screenings. Perlis reports five cases, all close-contact screenings.
16 new cases today are imported: nine in Selangor, seven in Kuala Lumpur.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@satby:
The big problem there, as I gather, is that the place is loaded with rednecks that get their news from Rupert and Lachlan, who are very happy to roll out appearances from anti-vaxxers and “lock ‘em down” advocates.
Also keep in mind that none of the people who advocate for sealed internal borders and snap lockdowns get their pay stopped during a lockdown.
Take, for instance, Zoe Hyde, a professor from Perth. She spent most of the year advocating ever more stringent population controls while shitposting about the alleged calamitous effects of AZ and diminished efficacy, advocating for people to hold out for the Pfizer doses that Australia doesn’t have. She gets prominent space in newspapers and on broadcast TV.
Thanks to the amplification of voices like hers, the populace is no so strangled by fear, they do snap lock downs of millions of people for weeks over an easily managed handful of cases – something not only meekly accepted, but fairly well-approved. In order to have the freedom to not take the AZ jab, they’re accepting being confined to a no trade, no gathering zone within a few kilometers of home.
Matt McIrvin
Meanwhile, in Massachusetts, case rates and positivity are STILL dropping with daily new cases in the double digits, but eyeballing the 7-day-averaged cases on a logarithmic scale, I’m wondering if I might be able to see signs of the drop starting to bottom out. There seem to be little clusters still sporadically happening in places where vaccination is lower. Massachusetts has vaccinated just over 70% of the entire population, but that is not evenly distributed and new vaccinations have slowed almost to a standstill–I think we won’t get significantly more until it’s possible to vaccinate kids under 12. And, of course, the Delta strain is already around here like it is everywhere.
Online, every official pronouncement about how effective the vaccines are gets some yahoo touting the numbers out of Israel (usually via the same Wall Street Journal story) as proof the vaccines do nothing, and I don’t know how to counter it. You can explain the statistics until you’re blue in the face but they just keep coming.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Matt McIrvin:
The roughly 20% of Australian voters who are normal, forward looking, kind and welcoming people like the rest of the world and are really in a bad spot. Without any semblance of a reopening plan, they’re well-fucked through the end of 2022 (and into 2023), as arrangements for big travel and big sporting and entertainment events are being made now.
Matt McIrvin
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: The thing that makes it odd from an American perspective is how differently all the battle lines are drawn. Here, of course, opposition to any kind of pandemic restrictions and opposition to vaccination are coming from the same people on the political right, and the vaccines we consider the “best” (Pfizer and Moderna) have been available in copious supply for months so that’s not really an issue. But it’s completely different there.
I wonder if our antivaxxers would also decide a certain vaccine was actually wonderful if it wasn’t widely available. I wouldn’t be surprised–the contrarianism is strong in them.
Brachiator
@OzarkHillbilly:
Sadly, we shall soon see how the July 4 holiday changes things.
Fester Addams
Have we tried telling them the vaccine is target practice for your immune system? Target practice is good, right?
Matt McIrvin
@Fester Addams: For people who like cops, you could say that your immune system is the cops but a vaccine is like an APB or a WANTED poster. You want your body cops to have all the information they need to get the bad guys, don’t you? Why would you want the virus to be able to get the jump on them?
Stephen
@YY_Sima Qian:
Because our PM isn’t real fond of governing competently. He’s been shielded by the strength of some of our institutions, but is occasionally exposed. If we’d had some people with the strength of logistical expertise that Biden has, we’d be a lot better off.
WaterGirl
@Steeplejack: Thank you. I clicked on that three times, trying to figure out what I was missing.
Sloane Ranger
Tuesday in the UK we had 20,479 new cases. This is an increase of 72.8% in the rolling 7-day average. New cases by nation,
England – 16,802 (down 1900)
Northern Ireland – 278 (up 67)
Scotland – 3118 (down 167)
Wales – 281 (down 389).
Deaths – There were 23 deaths within 28 days of a positive test yesterday. This is an increase of 29.7% in the rolling 7-day average. 22 of the deaths were in England and 1 in Scotland.
Testing – 1,095,973 tests were conducted on Monday, 28 June. This is an increase of 5.6% in the rolling 7-day average. The testing capacity reported by labs on this date was 579,150.
Hospitalisations – There were 1585 people in hospital on Sunday, 27 June and 297 people on ventilators on Monday, 28th. The rolling 7-day average for hospital admissions was up by 10.7% on 23 June.
Vaccinations – As at 28 June, 44,581,771 people had received 1 shot of a vaccine and 32,721,762 had had both. In percentage terms this means that 84.6% of all adults in the UK had received 1 jab and 62.1% were fully vaccinated.
Oh, forgot to mention yesterday that there was a lot of outrage about Professor Chris Whitty (the Government’s senior COVID-19 advisor, who often appears at press conferences with BoJo et al) being harassed and manhandled by a couple of yobs while walking in the street. This is the 2nd time this has happened to him but, this time there didn’t seem to be any explicit “political” motive, they seemed more intent on getting a selfie of themselves abusing a man twice their age. The 1st time it happened, the man was trying to get him to admit that COVID was a hoax. A discussion on whether Prof. Whitty needs police protection is now underway.
Matt McIrvin
@Cermet: My coworkers in Pune are all vaccinated and describe vaccine availability in the city as pretty good. But I’m sure it’s not anything like that everywhere.
Jeffery
Fourth of July get togethers should give the US a good idea how things are going. If there is a big uptick in Delta case by August the prevention methods will be back. I have no intention of relaxing wearing a mask until August.
Suzanne
@Matt McIrvin: Allegheny County is the same. We have anywhere from 10-15 cases per day on average for the last three weeks (right on the edge of green and yellow on CovidActNow), over 65% first shot, and deaths and hospitalizations are way down and not climbing. Yet.
Need to get the kids.
Brachiator
WTF Australia? From BBC News stories.
I remember reading about how the country had tamed the virus, and everyone was having a good time being able to go to restaurants and bars. They should have been able to use this time to mount an effective vaccine campaign. I had erroneously assumed that they were on top of this. Instead…
This is just crazy, as is this forecast…
And I thought that things were screwed up here in the US.
New Deal democrat
@OzarkHillbilly: Actually, Nevada is now worse than Missouri, both in terms of the rate of new cases, and their rate of growth, and is only about 9 days behind the U.K.
MO, UT, and AR are about 2 weeks behind the U.K., and WY is behind them.
By mid-July, these States will be in full-fledged new outbreak and by the end of July, the entire Deep South and everywhere West of the Mississippi except for CA, HI, and AK is likely to be fully engulfed in the delta wave as well.
rikyrah
@Cermet:
ICAM about the USA sending vaccines to countries in this hemisphere
burnspbesq
@Steeplejack:
One glance at this map and you’ll understand why Texas is permanently and irretrievably fucked.
Zzyzx
@New Deal democrat: why will the massively vaccinated Oregon and Washington have issues?
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Brachiator:
They have voices like Zoe Hyde (Perth), Deepta Gurdasani (London) and Eric Ding (US) amplifying anti-AZ shitposters across Australian media to thank for that.
Brachiator
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
What a mess. And some authorities think they just need a good marketing plan to make everything all right.
New Deal democrat
@Zzyzx:
Washington, Oregon, and Colorado all have high vaccination rates, but have persisted in having a high number of new cases compared with other highly vaccinated States. Only Oregon is still showing a declining trend. Washington and Colorado have stalled out over about the last 10 days.
I don’t really know why those 3 States have such (again, relatively) poor records for highly vaccinated States. But if their progress has stalled out now, then in 1 month it’s hard to see how they avoid the onslaught of new infections from nearby poorly vaccinated States.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
Australia has had one of the best pandemic responses, what are you talking about?
Betsy
@Fester Addams:
@Matt McIrvin:
You’re so right. After the past year, I’m convinced most people are just monkeys, and think with their brain stem, or, at best, in pictures.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
Oh, they’ve totally botched their vaccination campaign, nvm
Matt McIrvin
@Suzanne: Since vaccination rates for teenagers and young adults are still relatively low, Massachusetts may get several hundred thousand more vaccinations just from school mandates in the fall (and here, I do expect school mandates to be a thing). But I’d like to see a way to extend it to the younger kids.
arrieve
Continuing the slow process of reinserting myself into life outside my apartment, I went to see Bruce Springsteen on Broadway last night. It feels like it was too soon, despite the precautions — proof of vaccination required so I finally got to use the Excelsior pass on my phone, new filters on the theatre ventilation — and a positivity rate of less than one half of one percent in New York at the moment.
But it was Bruce, and I’d missed the show the first time around, so I went. And it was just wonderful, so much much better than watching it on Netflix. But most people in the audience were maskless. I wore a mask, as did my friend, and didn’t enjoy the show any less with it. In a theatre, for close to three hours, with 1700 strangers, I didn’t care how good the ventilation allegedly was. I know we all have to go by what makes us comfortable, but I couldn’t help feeling that it’s just too soon.
Matt McIrvin
@New Deal democrat: WA, OR and CO are all states whose vaccination rates look OK because of liberal cities that are very highly vaxxed, but whose rural areas are deep, deep, hardcore right-wingnut and include regions where almost nobody is vaxxed. That’s where the outbreaks are happening.
Matt McIrvin
@Betsy: People are social animals and think in stories, with characters and morals. Statistics are alien to us, stories are native. So it’s probably important to construct good stories. But there are subtleties that good stories can have a hard time encapsulating.
Wag
@New Deal democrat: Colorado is well positioned with high rates of vaccination to avoid a significant statewide outbreak. There are Trumpian areas around Colorado Springs, on on the eastern plains, and in far western Colorado that lag in vaccination rates, but the area around Denver and the mountain resort communities are well positioned for the Delta variant.
Suzanne
@Matt McIrvin: I would not be surprised if Delta was causing more problems in the fall. I really – REALLY – want my younger kids back in school and activities in the fall, but if they aren’t vaccinated and community transmission is problematic…. UGHHHH.
Matt McIrvin
@Suzanne: The bright side, to me, is that it’s really looking like some protection from the vaccines will last a long time–years–especially for young people with strong immune systems. That’s way better than we thought might be the case a year ago. So just requiring vaccinations for kids in school will probably have excellent long-term effects.
The stories about myocarditis in young men do make me wonder if they could even reduce the dose for teenagers. Fortunately these cases don’t seem to be serious.
Viva BrisVegas
You probably didn’t take into account that we have a conservative, do nothing, responsibility allergic, incompetent, corrupt, mendacious, malignant Federal government.
The states have been managing the pandemic so far, by default. The Feds were following their Climate Change strategy, which is to put their fingers in their ears and hum loudly.
After some favourable election results during the pandemic for incumbent state governments, the Feds woke up and decided they needed to actually look like they gave enough of a shit to try and manage the vaccine rollout. The result is a complete clusterfuck.
This is what you get when a country is run by a collection of grey talentless pricks with all of the ignorance and mendacity of a Trump, but with none of the P.T. Barnum chutzpah.
Matt McIrvin
@Viva BrisVegas: Because of how this has played out in the US (and in some other places like the UK and Brazil), we think of the right-wing position on COVID-19 as “just let it rip/don’t tell me what to do”, and that’s not quite how it played out in Australia, so it’s a bit surprising from a US perspective.
Uncle Cosmo
Czech Republic of summer 2020 would like to take Oz aside for a few pungent words. They’d stomped Thuh Varss so flat they ran tables along the Charles Bridge and had a beerguzzlin’ pork/sauerkraut/dumplingsfressin’ victory party. Oops!
New Deal democrat
@Matt McIrvin: Thanks. For the explanation.
New Deal democrat
@Matt McIrvin: Thanks for the explanation.
Matt McIrvin
My God, the scary “are the vaccines worthless?” tweets constructed on the base rate fallacy are multiplying. Was cases in Israel, now it’s deaths in Britain
As more and more people are vaccinated, the intensity of this statistical illusion will only get worse. If everyone were vaccinated, 100% of the people who still die of COVID would be vaccinated!
gvg
It seems to me there is an inverse relationship to countries that screwed up controlling covid/countries that did a good job compared to how they do getting vaccinations done. The fail to control countries rushed to get vaccinated and the we have this under control countries are being lacksidasical about getting shots and then finding out how hard it is to just keep it up long term.
Other factors like money and infrastructure also play parts.
Matt McIrvin
@gvg: There are countries that are good at neither! (Brazil, Russia)
mazareth
Link to the COVID Hesitancy by Zip Code tool: https://vaccine-hesitancy.healthdata.org/
WhatsMyNym
@Matt McIrvin: WA is getting increasing cases of the gamma variant
Most of the nearby cases have been related to group gatherings (church, etc) of unvaccinated adults