Thursday just in: +864K doses reported administered over yesterdays total, including 585K newly vaccinated. Highest single day numbers in over a month! Unlike prior waves, we have safe and effective vaccines that can minimize the impacts of COVID-19. Let's get everyone protected!
— Cyrus Shahpar (@cyrusshahpar46) August 5, 2021
Are vaccine mandates lawful and ethical? The short answer is emphatically yes. And there is strong behavioral science evidence that mandates will be highly effective. | Analysis by @LawrenceGostin https://t.co/eCCQ4EpCH3
— Scientific American (@sciam) August 5, 2021
The US had +112,279 new confirmed cases of COVID-19 yesterday, the highest numbers since February 5, bringing the total to over 36.1 million. The 7-day moving average rose to 96,472 new cases per day. pic.twitter.com/lv9WeMGjSf
— Patrick Chovanec (@prchovanec) August 5, 2021
Shortages of ICU beds are being reported at hospitals in Louisiana, Texas and Missouri as the Delta COVID variant continues to fuel a surge of cases nationwide. About 83% of U.S. counties now have substantial or high transmission of COVID. pic.twitter.com/tX8hRxHHp4
— CBS Evening News (@CBSEveningNews) August 5, 2021
======
Worth keeping in perspective, globally, Covid infections in 2021 are on track to be much worse than in 2020 despite the vaccines https://t.co/YR5y9MQYX6
— Shannon Pettypiece (@spettypi) August 5, 2021
Excellent long read, IMO, even if the BBC seems to be enjoying a little too much schadenfreude:
China's battling its widest outbreak since Wuhan – how long can it keep Covid out?https://t.co/ufZMU5ptsv
— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) August 6, 2021
Chinese President Xi Jinping pledged 2 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccines would be supplied to the world through this year, increasing China’s commitment as the largest exporter of the shots. https://t.co/j9JEkb5bP0
— The Associated Press (@AP) August 6, 2021
India reported 44,643 new cases of the coronavirus in the last 24 hours, the health ministry said, taking its tally to 31.86 million cases https://t.co/Ib3gzdaox7
— Reuters (@Reuters) August 6, 2021
Explainer: As COVID-19 cases surge, Japan sticks to "lockdown-lite" https://t.co/ryC8OVgUtY pic.twitter.com/lapAPYGUej
— Reuters (@Reuters) August 6, 2021
Organisers report 29 new Games-related COVID-19 cases https://t.co/m8UAJBw9Yv pic.twitter.com/fBB6EjKNMo
— Reuters (@Reuters) August 6, 2021
S.Korea extends social distancing curbs to reduce COVID-19 cases https://t.co/QtiAbjQhaV pic.twitter.com/oJmveWQgCQ
— Reuters (@Reuters) August 6, 2021
Thousands of people have jammed coronavirus vaccination centers in the Philippine capital after false news spread that unvaccinated residents would be deprived of cash aid or barred from leaving home during a two-week lockdown. https://t.co/7MjQqilgJ4
— The Associated Press (@AP) August 6, 2021
Thailand reports record 21,379 COVID-19 cases and 191 deaths https://t.co/nMc0jTc2CK pic.twitter.com/Ntd4YxaVGg
— Reuters (@Reuters) August 6, 2021
Vietnam's capital to extend COVID-19 curbs as new clusters emerge https://t.co/lq1ruXwkMb pic.twitter.com/FhuCgTZnjf
— Reuters (@Reuters) August 6, 2021
Australian citizens living overseas could be "trapped" if they return home https://t.co/livIql5TIa
— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) August 6, 2021
A French court is set to decide the constitutionality of a law that would allow only people with passes indicating their COVID-19 status to enter cafes, restaurants and hospitals in non-urgent cases. https://t.co/1oEfMfDO2a
— AP Europe (@AP_Europe) August 5, 2021
Brazil reports 40,054 COVID cases and 1,099 deaths in 24 hours -ministry https://t.co/XJ13ljVM2y pic.twitter.com/8Ej4XZTB47
— Reuters (@Reuters) August 6, 2021
Mexico posts 21,569 new COVID-19 cases, 618 more deaths https://t.co/V5r27WgkPW pic.twitter.com/rav3fUJxnf
— Reuters (@Reuters) August 6, 2021
Biden administration to offer vaccine to migrants in U.S. custody along Mexico border https://t.co/6eLiIxm1H0
— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) August 3, 2021
======
Novavax is struggling to produce its vaccine & announced that production problems would delay the vaccine’s use until year's end. In clinical trials, Novavax's booster produced higher levels of antibodies against SARSCoV2 than its original 2-dose shot https://t.co/KaslosWz6f pic.twitter.com/c4ucdscEn5
— delthia ricks ? (@DelthiaRicks) August 5, 2021
Can I get 'long COVID' if I'm infected after vaccination? Several large research groups are trying to answer that question. However, a small Israeli study described long Covid in several health workers w/ breakthrough infections https://t.co/INJx8qoFmE via @medical_xpress
— delthia ricks ? (@DelthiaRicks) August 5, 2021
TL, DR: So far, Lambda’s a variant of interest, but not yet of concern:
Hello, the unroll you asked for: 1/ What do we know about the LAMBDA SARS-CoV-2 variant that emerged… https://t.co/zoF5cpMWJu See you soon. ?
— Thread Reader App (@threadreaderapp) August 5, 2021
And let’s not forget post-polio syndrome…
Subacute sclerosing panencephalitis can happen 2-10 yrs after having measles. The long term potential for badness from COVID-19 is quite high.
People's shoddy risk calculus around vaccines causing unknown future side effects is maddening.
— David Cox (@neurobongo) August 5, 2021
======
Office staff only, of course. The current situation seems to be that companies whose employees’ skills are in high demand are not willing to risk losing them by demanding in-person attendance:
Amazon delays office return until 2022 as Covid spreads https://t.co/JMxIRXHhqr
— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) August 6, 2021
With Houston going to code Red and Austin moving to
Stage 5 today, each of Texas' four largest cities have elevated their COVID-19 threat levels in the past 24 hours. https://t.co/1NccazD5ey— Phil Jankowski ?? (@PhilJankowski) August 5, 2021
Vaccinations rise in Louisiana fueled by the #DeltaVariant, which is driving a surge in cases. Demand for vaccinations has nearly quadrupled in recent weeks, providing hope that reality may be breaking through a logjam of misunderstanding & misinformation https://t.co/DOazXhVIfw
— delthia ricks ? (@DelthiaRicks) August 6, 2021
California will require all of its roughly 2.2 million health care and long term care workers to be fully vaccinated against the coronavirus by Sept. 30, a change from an earlier mandate that gave workers a choice between vaccination and weekly testing. https://t.co/Q2QSguvqUa
— The Associated Press (@AP) August 5, 2021
New York City will be the first major U.S. city to require anyone dining indoors at a restaurant, working out at a gym or grabbing a cocktail at a bar to show proof they’ve been inoculated from COVID-19, renewing uncertainty among some business owners. https://t.co/NwyFhSqwJE
— The Associated Press (@AP) August 6, 2021
"There are only so many beds, so many doctors, only so many nurses." A South Florida hospital chain is suspending elective surgeries and putting beds in conference rooms, an auditorium and even a cafeteria as many more patients seek treatment for COVID-19. https://t.co/7tVSwaYV5w
— The Associated Press (@AP) August 5, 2021
SARS-CoV-2 lobbyist brings you "COVID season" https://t.co/3x3WugPLIz
— ProofOfBurden (@ProofofBurden) August 5, 2021
Health officials have identified nearly 500 coronavirus cases statewide that could be linked to the large crowds that gathered in downtown Milwaukee as fans cheered on the Bucks’ run to the NBA championship.pic.twitter.com/sAU1FVAi4T
— Cleavon MD ?? (@Cleavon_MD) August 4, 2021
Don't you have to show your papers to get on a flight to Cancun, and check into a luxury hotel? https://t.co/2ZxEzP5OUS
— Dan Rather (@DanRather) August 5, 2021
Patricia Kayden
Wvng
If I was as regular in other things as I am in reading Anne’s covid posts life would be better.
Thanks Anne.
YY_Sima Qian
On 8/5 China reported 80 new domestic confirmed & 21 new domestic asymptomatic cases.
Yunnan Province reported 1 new domestic confirmed case (mild, a Chinese national), at Ruili in Dehong Prefecture. 1 domestic confirmed case recovered. There currently are 57 domestic confirmed & 1 domestic asymptomatic cases there. Given that sporadic cases continue to show up, Ruili will conduct another 3 rounds of mass screening from 8/4. 1 community at Ruili remains at High Risk. 1 village at Ruili has been re-designated as Low Risk, 3 areas have been elevated to Medium Risk. 1 village at Longchuan County remains at Medium Risk.
Jiangsu Province
Anhui Province did not reported at new domestic positive cases. There currently are 2 domestic asymptomatic cases in the province, both traced to the outbreak in Nanjing.
Liaoning Province did not reported at new domestic positive cases. There currently are 5 domestic confirmed & 3 domestic asymptomatic cases in the province, all traced to the outbreak in Nanjing.
Guangdong Province did not reported at new domestic positive cases. There currently are 1 domestic confirmed & 1 domestic asymptomatic cases in the province, both traced to the outbreak in Nanjing.
Hunan Province
Sichuan Province did not reported at new domestic positive cases. There currently are 8 domestic confirmed & 2 domestic asymptomatic cases in the province, all traced to the outbreaks in Nanjing & Zhangjiajie.
Henan Province
Hubei Province
At Chongqing Municipality there are currently 2 domestic confirmed & 1 domestic asymptomatic cases, 2 had traveled to Xi’an in Shaanxi Province & 1 connected to the construction site cluster at Wuhan. The Chongqing municipal authorities shared that they believe the 2 domestic confirmed cases reported on 7/30 were likely infected at Xi’an by one of the cases at Macau (who had flown from Zhuhai in Guangdong Province to Xi’an on 7/19 on a possibly contaminated aircraft) while all 3 cases visited the Terracotta Warriors Museum at the same time on 7/23.
At Beijing Municipality there currently are 8 domestic confirmed & 1 domestic asymptomatic cases in the city, all connected to the outbreak at Zhangjiajie in late Jul. 2 residential compounds remain at Medium Risk.
At Yantai in Shandong Province there currently are 11 domestic confirmed & 3 domestic asymptomatic cases in the city, all likely traced to the outbreak in Nanjing. 3 sites remain at Medium Risk.
At Yinchuan in Ningxia “Autonomous” Region there currently is 1 domestic confirmed case in the city, a person who had traveled from Changde in Hunan Province on 7/28, & a traced close contact w/ the boat cruise super-spreading event there.
Hulun Buir in Inner Mongolia “Autonomous” Region reported 1 new domestic confirmed case (at Hailar), who had traveled from Yinchuan in Ningxia “Autonomous” Region on 7/29 (via Beijing & Harbin). The case had stayed at the same floor in same hotel as the confirmed case reported by Yinchuan.
Haikou in Hainan Province reported 1 new domestic confirmed case, a luggage handler at the airport there, who had tested negative 3 times between 7/28 & 8/3. There currently are 2 domestic confirmed cases in the city, a person who had crossed paths w/ the party from Huai’an in Jiangsu Province on company outing at Jingzhou high speed rail station & a worker at the airport. The two are unlikely to be connected. 1 residential compound remains at Medium Risk.
At Xiamen in Fujian Province there currently are 4 domestic confirmed & 1 domestic asymptomatic cases in the city, all of whom are close contacts of the imported confirmed case (cargo flight crew) reported on 7/30. 2 residential compounds remain at Medium Risk.
At Shanghai Municipality there currently is 1 domestic asymptomatic case, an airport ground staff & unlikely to be connected to other domestic outbreaks. 1 residential compound remains at Medium Risk.
Imported Cases
On 8/5, China reported 44 new imported confirmed cases, 37 imported asymptomatic cases, 3 imported suspect cases:
Overall in China, 39 confirmed cases recovered, 22 asymptomatic cases were released from isolation & 6 were reclassified as confirmed cases, and 946 individuals were released from quarantine. Currently, there are 1,370 active confirmed cases in the country (718 imported), 34 in serious condition (13 imported), 557 asymptomatic cases (391 imported), 2 suspect case (both imported). 40,990 traced contacts are currently under centralized quarantine.
As of 8/5, 1,741.812M vaccine doses have been injected in Mainland China, an increase of 15.579M doses in the past 24 hrs.
On 8/6, Hong Kong reported 2 new positive cases, both (1 each from Russia & the US).
NotMax
Idiocy.
Not naming names without hard data but strongly suspect most the the “hundreds” represent a particular evangelical church, one whose own church high school (although not the school named in the snippet) competes in interscholastic league football.
germy
PAM Dirac
From the Scientific American Article:
and
But I was told that the only thing holding up mandates was the spineless bureaucrats at FDA who won’t just sign off on full approval.
satby
@PAM Dirac: Legal doesn’t mean litigation-proof. A mandate might be legal, but an employer can count on having to defend against putting one in place even though they are likely to win. Very few want to waste money on defending nuisance lawsuits if they can avoid it.
spelling isn’t going to be my thing today.
PAM Dirac
@satby: How does full approval prevent nuisance lawsuits? You’ve seen how many lawsuits were filed regarding the big lie that had no basis in fact. And even if it did, if the FDA violates their established rules concerning full approval why wouldn’t the lawsuits just claim that the full approval was invalid?
satby
@PAM Dirac: Full approval wouldn’t prevent them, but it would cut down a bit on bottom-feeding lawyers willing to take those cases, given the low odds of prevailing. But there’s always an Orly Taitz around, and some sucker willing to throw away money on a quest.
Baud
@NotMax:
Their freedom is our slavery.
grandmaBear
@NotMax: so they want their son to play football but not get a vaccine because they’re worried about his health? Uh huh.
Baud
@PAM Dirac:
Some mandates are being challenged now. If the courts uphold them, that’ll encourage more businesses to adopt them.
debbie
@Patricia Kayden:
Wish I remember where I saw it so I could link, but a couple of the larger banks have now delayed employees’ going back to work until 2022. I think Wells Fargo was one of them.
NotMax
@PAM Dirac
1) It provides firmer legal footing for business policy (as well as gives time to negotiate before the fact with unions).
2) Accelerating the bureaucratic process (within statutory limitations) is not anywhere near the same as violating established rules.
.
Spanky
@Wvng: Have you tried increasing your fiber intake?
Spanky
@grandmaBear: “New rule: No vaccine, no helmet.”
NotMax
@NotMax
Let me slightly amend # 2 above.
2) Accelerating the bureaucratic process (within statutory limitations and applicable clinical data) is not anywhere near the same as violating established rules.
John S.
Ron Deathsantis may have to reverse course on some of his moronic policies now that he is personally at risk…
No, not of COVID — but of terminally low poll numbers which may result in loss of election.
New Deal democrat
Florida’s data dump later today is going to be a doozy. It will probably boost daily new case totals to over 100,000 nationwide. It will be especially interesting to see what it does to the nationwide total of average deaths.
Deaths nationwide were reported at 451 yesterday, up 80% in the past two weeks. The US is on target to reach my forecast of 1000 deaths per day by the end of August.
With cases now 9x what they were only 5 weeks ago, If deaths follow suit, by mid-September that could mean 2000 deaths per day.
Biggest question: will Delta have burned through all of the dry tinder by then and have reversed, just as it did in India and the U.K.? And if so, what is the *real* number of cases as evidenced by random blood samples in the general population? Scott Gottlieb thinks the real number of cases might be 1 million per day, and I think he might be right.
Spanky
Back to AL’s post, and specifically to the question of whether vaccinated people can get long covid, that MedicalXpress article doesn’t really add any more info than is in the tweet. Too early to tell, I guess. My greater fear now is long covid, now that I’m vaccinated and would almost certainly have a survivable mild case if infected.
NotMax
@John S.
Luckily Florida law does not include a recall process which would allow Dolt 45 or Jared to sneak in.
//
satby
@Spanky: Interesting question, because anecdotal evidence so far is that some long covid symptoms are relived or entirely abated by vaccination. I hope some research group is studying it.
Spanky
@satby: I know that lung damage is mitigated, but I’ll be interested to know if long covid affects the vaccinated brain. “Iirc” is going to have a fraught meaning around here if the worst comes to pass.
JMG
Random observation: Walking around downtown Brooklyn yesterday, at least 50 percent of pedestrians were masked. Same thing this morning in the line for coffee at my hotel. Another random observation. Massachusetts had its first daily case report of over 1000 new cases of covid in a long time, months anyhow. But only two deaths were reported. Hospitalizations are up, but nowhere near the rate of increase of new cases.
Nicole
@satby:
It’s anecdotal now, but it could mean better treatments for people who have had immune responses to not just Covid but other viruses; the immune system not settling down for some people after viral infection isn’t limited to Covid and it’s been known for years; I guess it’s just it’s not been “enough” people suffering lingering effects after other viruses to really study (I imagine the financial effects of so many experiencing long Covid will make it worth the research dollars).
satby
@Spanky: TaMara wrote about how her long covid symptoms improved here, and it wasn’t just respiratory effects. I’m sure research in underway, but a long term tracking study like that won’t release findings for years.
RSA
@Spanky:
Speaking of which, two school districts in Arkansas are going to court to challenge the state’s prohibition of masks (Act 1002). I read through the filing, which made it obvious how dumb and rushed Arkansas legislators were when they pushed through the act. Here’s one line:
Nicole
Also- first hand look at how different media sources spin things. The headline from the AP article, above: “In New York City, Impending Vaccination Rules Prompt Concern” vs. local paper Gothamist: “With Details Still Pending, Restaurant Industry Accepts City’s New Vaccine Mandate to Avoid Another Shutdown.”
https://gothamist.com/food/with-details-still-pending-restaurant-industry-accepts-citys-new-vaccine-mandate-to-avoid-another-shutdown
The funny thing with that AP article is that the only person expressing “concern” is a restaurant owner from Staten Island (OF COURSE he’s from Staten Island). Everyone else is like, “Great!” other than one person who said, “I don’t like but I’ll do it.” I did not see much concern being prompted.
Kay
@RSA:
The schools will win. Public schools have broad leeway under “safety” or “order”. The schools will threaten to cancel welding and chemistry classes and they will win.
Sports and extracurriculars are a different category- schools have even more power there. You’re entitled to a free public education. There’s no right to play football. Civil rights categories (obviously) apply, so they can’t exclude on that basis and schools have special legal obligations on students with disabilities but courts will be really reluctant to start micro-managing public schools.
NeenerNeener
Monroe County, NY:
69 new cases on 8/4, 2.9% test positivity.
Not great, but better than the 100+ we had the day before.
NeenerNeener
@John S.: Unfortunately, terminally low poll numbers haven’t hurt McConnell at all so they may have no effect on DeSantis either.
CCL
@Wvng:
AL has saved lives with these posts. Thank you, AL.
YY_Sima Qian
On thing that I am not sure international media understands (they should if they had done any research) is that China’s vaccination roll out start in the 18 – 60 demographic, because the Phase III trials focused on that demographic. People 60 – 70 were only allowed to take the shots starting from May, & people > 70 some time after. (Children > 3 were only approved to take the Sinovac shots from Jun.) They did so after data from mass vaccination campaigns in Latin American came in, where they often started w/ the oldest demographics 1st. These data showed comparable effectiveness in the elderly as the younger demographics, as well as negligible safety incidents reported. What this means is that the population most vulnerable to the Delta Variant are also the least vaccinated. See the contrast in severe/critical cases between Yangzhou & Nanjing.
China has to maintain the zero COVID strategy until the most vulnerable populations are fully vaccinated, possibly after high efficacy booster shots. To change strategy now, ahead of the schools opening in a couple of weeks, when most of the children are not yet vaccinated, is courting disaster. With the Delta Variant especially, there is no middle ground between elimination & exponential growth toward calamity.
In any case, the population expects elimination, all the criticisms of local governments are for not acting fast enough & hard enough. The UK’s “success” through the Delta induced wave w/ “only” dozens of deaths / day would result in the dismissal of entire provincial administrations in China, & cause population discontent against the regime.
There is no sign of population fatigue, yet. The cities currently under relatively strict movement restrictions (Nanjing, Yangzhou, Zhangjiejie, Zhengzhou), these are their first lock downs since the 1st wave in winter/spring 2020, & even then only select areas in these cities are people prohibited from leaving their homes or residential compounds. As long as the NPI measures are still effective against Delta, they can be sustained for quite a while longer.
Soprano2
I would look at concentrations in monitored wastewater. Everyone pees and poops. That’s probably the best way to estimate Covid levels in the general population.
Soprano2
I sure do hope you’re right. The state legislature here seems to want to run all the cities in Missouri now; their alleged worship of “local control” went out the window the minute the mayors of St. Louis and KC decided to reimpose a mask mandate in their cities. I’m convinced the reason our city government won’t do it is because they don’t want the hassle of being sued by our stupid attorney general.
Kay
@Soprano2:
Agree. “Local control” is just more bullshit from the Right. They never meant it.
It would be really radical to start creating new “rights” in public schools though- the right not to wear a hood while welding or the right not to wear safety glasses in chemistry class is new ground.
It’s kind of fascinating legally. It occurred to me early on that half the people who come into my office bitching about masks about at work easily accepted wearing safety glasses or helmets or boots with a hardened toe at work. Employers have to have the ability to impose safety rules.
I was on a public school council and about two years into it I started questioning the Sacred Rule that “parents know best”. It was unpopular but I feel like it’s one of those things people say because they think they have to. Nope. A lot of parents are idiots. That’s why we hire superintendents- to run schools. My neighbor cannot, in fact, run the school. She’s a lunatic. We wouldn’t have hired her for that and we did not in fact hire her for that.
Mary G
OC numbers up again, 777 new cases. Hospitalizations up another 26.5% in three days, but ICU not up as much and there is still plenty of capacity.
Goodish vaccination numbers for the week, though still frustrating that only 56% of total population are fully vaxxed and 64% have had at least one shot. If Martin’s figure from the other day that 17% are too young to get a shot, the fully vaxxed goes up to 70%, which is better. I hope that approval for younger children comes soon.
The mandate on healthcare and LTC workers is welcome.
Robert Sneddon
@YY_Sima Qian: The paramount aim of the British approach to vaccination and regulations around COVID-19 has been to attempt to minimise the load imposed on hospitals and especially ICU beds. The uncomfortable fact that’s often elided in reporting about COVID-19 is that pretty much everyone in the world will be exposed to it eventually and repreatedly. The window of opportunity to successfully contain it and stop it spreading worldwide closed over a year ago.
The containment efforts of the Chinese government are laudatory but they’re not stopping multiple outbreaks which originate from one infectious person after another getting through the Red Wall at airports and border crossings. Chasing after them though poker parlours and train stations and tourist attractions reduces the size of the outbreaks but doesn’t stop them. Buying the time to get vaccination needles in arms to push the R-nought figure down is the only way it can be realistically be kept low and this is a worthy effort of course.
Britain has done most of the things needed to contain this disease (mandatory masking, restrictions on events, a big push for vaccination) and we still endured a third wave this summer which resulted in many illnesses and deaths, much of them due to the superior infectivity of the Delta variant. Our only saving grace was that we already had a good vaccination rate by the time it hit in June and the medical establishment did not collapse under the strain in the succeeding months. We had lots of infections, only a small increase in hospital bed occupancy and a lot fewer deaths than expected. Too many by any measure of course but not as many as we feared.
Central Planning
@New Deal democrat: About 18 months ago, right when the pandemic started, I did some napkin math to guess how many people in the US would die from COVID…. I came up with ~660k people.
Looks like I will be very wrong – I did not take stupidity into account when I came up with that number.
Robert Sneddon
Scotland — 1,250 new cases of COVID-19 reported with seven new reported deaths of someone who had tested positive. Test positivity rate is 5.5%. Hospitalisations and ICU bed occupancy numbers again fell noticeably but the reduction in occupancy of ICU beds may be due to the deaths of some ICU patients — seven deaths reported today is coupled with a reduction in ICU bed occupancy of about five.
About 19,500 vaccinations were administered in Scotland yesterday (Thursday) with about 15% of those vaccinations being first doses. 73.8% of the adult population are now fully vaccinated with another 16.1% having received their initial dose of vaccine. We can expect a big pickup in numbers of first doses soon as 16 and 17-year-olds start to come forward to be vaccinated from today.
YY_Sima Qian
@Robert Sneddon: I don’t disagree w/ what you said. Much will depend on how the combinations of current vaccines & NPI measures response to Delta. China, after all, has successfully eliminated a sizable Delta outbreak at Guangdong & contained one at Ruili in Yunnan. Most of the the local clusters seeded by the breach at Nanjing have been contained & appear to be on the way toward elimination. China can always tighten controls at the border further, & expand the local restricts more widely to get ahead of the outbreak.
I don’t think China can or should change strategy as of this moment, not when so much of the population is still vulnerable. Unlike most of the world, China still has options. Eventually, China will have to shift strategy, but it can still be at a time of its choosing. Being conservative now also places China in a position to respond to potential emergence of nasty variants w/ higher evasion properties. Much of the world would not even know until it is already burning through the population, & by then would have limited options.
New Deal democrat
@Soprano2: I’m not sure about that. Doesn’t it only give us information about *current* infections? I want total seropositivity.
New Deal democrat
@Central Planning: The problem is, while the virus is simply a parasitic copying machine, human behavior is incredibly clever, and reacts to the forecasts of itself!
For example, right now, in response to the scary news about Delta, several million people have apparently decided that getting the vaccine is something they want to do after all. Hoocoodanode?
MontyTheClipArtMongoose
@NeenerNeener: de santis for his 2022 re-elect campaign should just reuse bush-43’s message from 2004 — “he kept us safe”
Enhanced Voting Techniques
I imagine that flooding in the south of China must be playing havoc on enforcing that.
Sloane Ranger
I probably won’t be posting figures for Wednesday in future because I volunteer at the museum and don’t feel like hitting my computer when I get home. Anyway, here’s Thursday’s figures.
Yesterday we had 30,215 new cases, which means case numbers have increased two days in a row after declining for five days. The rolling 7-day average is down by 10.4%. New cases by nation,
England – 26,512 (up 119)
Northern Ireland – 1641 (up 601)
Scotland – 1381 (up 110). See Robert Sneddon for more recent data above.
Wales – 681 (up 73).
Deaths – There were 86 deaths within 28 days of a positive test yesterday. This is an increase of 14.4% in the rolling 7-day average. New deaths by nation, 69 in England, 3 in Northern Ireland, 11 in Scotland and 3 in Wales.
Testing – 845,680 tests were conducted on Wednesday, 4 August. The rolling 7-day average for testing is down by 10.9%. The PCR testing capacity reported by labs on that date was 703,905.
Hospitalisations – As of Wednesday, 4 August, there were 5686 people in hospital and 881 people on ventilators. As of 1 August, the rolling 7-day average for hospital admissions was down by 10.3%.
Vaccinations – As of Wednesday, 4 August, 46,926,330 people had received 1 shot of a vaccine and 38,874,837 were fully vaccinated. This means that 88.7% of all adults in the UK had had 1 shot of a vaccine and 73.5% were fully vaccinated.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
You obviously never worked in a place that required that. My experience is about 10% of the staff will do anything to avoid wearing safety equipment and go to elaborate lengths to get around it. That’s one of the reason it doesn’t surprise me to hear China has had these outbreaks even with the “the police will put your ass under 24/7 surveillance and shoot you if you don’t follow the Covid protocols” because idiocy finds a way.
JAFD
Got a phone call, Wednesday morning, lady who said she was from the city health department, asked if I’d gotten the vaccine, and if not, would I be interested in getting it. Told her I’d been vaccinated, back in January and February. She said “Thank you, we’ll check you off the list”. I mumbled “My pleasure… have a nice day! (I’m not a morning person)
Such be current outreach program in New Jersey. Hope all you fellow jackals have great weekend
Taken4Granite
I realize that in that last tweet Dan Rather is specifically and justifiably mocking a certain Texas Senator, but we have to show our papers–either a driver license or a passport–any time we travel by commercial airliner. That rule was enacted during the administration of [checks notes] George W. Bush.
mrmoshpotato
Gonna be great when DeathSantis let’s Floridians drown from the next hurricane.
So glad we booted out Illinois’ last Rethuglican governor.
mrmoshpotato
@Wvng:
So say we all. :)
Thanks again for these daily updates, AL.
Quiltingfool
@Kay: Retired teacher here – I agree about “parents know best”; yeah, right. A parent bitched at me re my lab rules; if a student violated, they were removed from the lab and did not receive credit. She didn’t think that was fair to her hot mess son. My principal puffed up like a toad and told her she was full of shit (translated from official education lingo). She backed down.
What irritates me to no end is parents who want teachers to do EVERYTHING in regards to raising children. And then when we do, cue the whine fest. My biggest irritation is all the people who want “God” back in schools. Really? You want me to give religious instruction to your kid? Nope. You want your child to be informed (er, indoctrinated, heh) re religion, then get off your ass and take them to Sunday school and church like my folks did. These people really don’t want ME to teach the Bible.
Jay
@satby:
@Spanky:
I started feeling better after the second shot, less brain fog, able to climb ( now) up to 5 flights of stairs, big improvement, still slow growth though, that’s the good news,
The bad news is that on CT scans and MRI’s, I still light up like the sky on a winters night with micro clots.
Jay
@mrmoshpotato: So say we all!
arrieve
@JMG: I’m seeing even higher percentages than that in Manhattan. A few weeks ago, most people were walking around with masks pulled down outside — including me. I wore my mask pulled down except when the sidewalks were crowded and it felt so wonderful to feel the air on my face.
Then came Delta. Now I would say it’s around 70% fully masked on the street. But this is New York, and all through the worst of Covid, most people were masked everywhere outside of their own homes.
Ken
covidactnow.org may have to add a new color, since Florida’s already at the highest SEVERE level.
(Remember when the tracking sites added that fifth bruise-red color? That was a very discouraging day for me.)
Robert Sneddon
Here’s an interesting chart about the effects of COVID-19 in Scotland since the beginning of the outbreak. Read the explanatory text as the vertical axis is not consistent, the three curves have been adjusted in scale so that the numbers of cases, hospitalisations and deaths are normalised around the period of the New Year.
TL:DR — the peak case numbers in the third wave happening now are greater than the second wave during last winter but hospitalisations and deaths are clearly way down in comparison. The major difference between the two waves is that widespread vaccination of the adult population started at the end of December.
J R in WV
If you weld to any extent without a hood and eye protection you will be blind in seconds, and in agony. This is kind of selfp-enforcing. Same for any UV producing activity, like photo engraving with carbon arc lamps, plastics with UV used to set a plastic on an industrial scale, etc.
Chemistry is a little more forgiving, you often won’t see the negative effects of conducting chemistry without protective equipment until you die several years after exposure. My dad grew up in the family business, small town newspapers with job printing, as a youngster he would clean presses after school in the late 1930s. By about 2000 he had a (rare, because it took a long time to manifest, so his early exposure was responsible) leukemia caused by exposure to solvents used to clean equipment back in the day, like carbon tetrachloride and benzene, both banned substances today, but common in his youth.
Protective equipment isn’t just for babies… if you’ve ever had a splinter in your eye or a cut to your cornea you will know it is an agonizing injury. School shop teachers never want to have a student taken to the ER for an eye injury!
I’ve worked in printing, took welding classes, have had eye injuries, and I believe in protective equipment of all sorts. Masks, respirators, gloves, goggles, ear protection, protective suits, you name it, I’ve used it! I have all that gear on hand in the house or shop.