Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Do we throw up our hands or do we roll up our sleeves? (hint, it’s door #2)

The Giant Orange Man Baby is having a bad day.

They think we are photo bombing their nice little lives.

The real work of an opposition party is to hold the people in power accountable.

American History and Black History can not be separated.

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

There is no compromise when it comes to body autonomy. You either have it or you don’t.

The choice is between normal and crazy.

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

If a good thing happens for a bad reason, it’s still a good thing.

Celebrate the fucking wins.

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.

This country desperately needs a functioning fourth estate.

An almost top 10,000 blog!

After dobbs, women are no longer free.

Let’s show the world that autocracy can be defeated.

Anyone who bans teaching American history has no right to shape America’s future.

Republicans do not pay their debts.

Cancel the cowardly WaPo and set up an equivalent monthly donation to ProPublica.

We still have time to mess this up!

If you cannot answer whether trump lost the 2020 election, you are unfit for office.

Marge, god is saying you’re stupid.

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

You are here: Home / Healthcare / COVID-19 / COVID-19 Coronavirus Updates: Wednesday / Thursday, Sept. 1-2

COVID-19 Coronavirus Updates: Wednesday / Thursday, Sept. 1-2

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COVID-19 Coronavirus Updates: Wednesday / Thursday, Sept. 1-2

(Jack Ohman via GoComics.com)


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Longish thread here:

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Cosplay socialists’ favorite millionaire radio host says he has the ‘rona:

As with Sen. Incitatus, one assumes this fella had gut-deep knowledge of horse medications already.

Reader Interactions

79Comments

  1. 1.

    oldster

    I’d love to hear views on whether to mix or match for the booster.
    Better even than views, would be links to data and studies.
    I got Pfizer x 2. When it’s time for my booster, should I get a third Pfizer shot?
    Any advantage to switching to Moderna? J&J?
    Of course, this definitely goes into the category of “first world problems,” given that most of the third world has not gotten a first shot.
    Cheryl, any links or thoughts?

  2. 2.

    NeenerNeener

    Monroe County, NY website: 161 new cases on 9/1, 4.4% test positivity.

    NYS Dept of Health says 152 new cases for Monroe County on 9/1.

  3. 3.

    Matt McIrvin

    So, the decrease in long COVID in breakthrough infections vs. unvaccinated infections is about a factor of 2. Combine that with about a ~3x decrease in infections (with Delta) and it’s something like a 6x drop in long COVID probability overall. Not the level of protection we wanted but it’s certainly something.

    Munro’s point that a lot of long COVID symptoms are prevalent in the general population is worth considering too. Not that long COVID isn’t real–it clearly is–but a lot of these surveys define it so broadly that a comparison to a COVID-negative group is worthwhile.

  5. 5.

    Matt McIrvin

    …I’m also a bit annoyed that the Twitter responses to Munro’s thread on long COVID in kids seem divided into two groups: people who are angry at him, and antivaxxers/denialists who seem to think this result supports their case.

  6. 6.

    Mary G

    Orange County went up and down last week, from about 300 new cases a day to more than 2,100 for both Saturday and Sunday. Nonetheless, we are still the lowest county in Southern CA and positivity went down from 8.4% to 6.8%.
    We’re struggling to get to 2 million fully vaccinated residents: Number of Persons
    1,989,13
    Fully Vaccinated
    Maybe next week!

    I had my third shot Wednesday, along with a flu shot, and it kicked my ass and took me through a tour of covid symptoms which were most disagreeable, though I’m sure nowhere near as bad as the real thing.
    Wed (day of shots) fatigue, arm swollen, hot, and red at injection site.
    Thursday arm fine, sore throats and sinuses, slight fever, major sweats and chills. My other summer blanket was in the wash outside in the garage, and I couldn’t reach the winter blankets, so I ended up huddling beneath two beach blankets and a stack of beach towels during the chills.
    Friday bowels very irritable, much immodium taken and much time in the bathroom
    Saturday brain fog. That is scary shit. I was trying to work on the computer and dropped my wireless mouse so many times it broke. I was just not at home in my head.
    Thankfully everything but the fatigue only lasted its one day and I feel mostly back to normal now.

  7. 7.

    New Deal democrat

    COVID continues its Northern migration. The States originally hit, almost all in the Deep South, continue to show declines, while almost all the Northern States, including places like New England, almost all continue to show small but steady increases.

    Since the beginning of the Delta wave, the biggest increases in total confirmed cases amount to no more than 4% of the population. Probably at least another 4% had unconfirmed mild or asymptomatic cases.

    A huge issue continues to be just how many unconfirmed cases there have been. Does highly contagious Delta really only hit 8% of the population, or perhaps 15% of the unvaccinated? Or is the real number much higher? The CDC should have this information at the ready, but as far as I can tell has done nothing.

  11. 11.

    oldster

    @Cermet:

    Studies provide information that has passed high levels of reliability in controlled conditions. They’re great!

    But before we get that kind of grade-A, certified information, there is sometimes lots of other information available — case reports, preliminary results, scientifically grounded models and hypotheses. There’s also the speculation of people whose training, brains, and experience have made their speculation worth attending to.

    “Imperfect information” ≠ “no information”.

    So, what information do we have so far, while we await the higher quality stuff?

  12. 12.

    MomSense

    I thought that at the time of his ridiculous statements about young people not needing the vaccine Rogan said that he and his family had been vaccinated.  It seems that with all the new stories about his horse paste eating the old accounts of his statement about vaccination are hard to find.

  13. 13.

    Matt McIrvin

    @oldster: Most of the partial information I’ve seen has suggested that mixing different vaccines doesn’t hurt and might actually help. But it’s been generally indicated against just because the biggest field studies have been with un-mixed vaccines. It’s a matter of operating in a world of imperfect knowledge.

  14. 14.

    Mousebumples

    @oldster: hypothetically, i like the idea of mixing it up, but I’m sure all the data that exists will largely be from getting the same brand.

  15. 15.

    debbie

    @Matt McIrvin:

    Long COVID symptoms sound very much like symptoms from autoimmune diseases like chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, etc. Maybe they should be treated as such.

  23. 23.

    Amir Khalid

    Malaysia’s Minister of Health Khairy Jamaluddin reports 20,988 new Covid-19 cases today in his media statement, for a cumulative reported total of 1,786,004 cases. He also reports 249 new deaths today, for a cumulative total of 17,191 deaths — 0.96% of the cumulative reported total, 1.13% of resolved cases.

    There are currently 262,540 active and contagious cases; 1,001 are in ICU, 470 of them on ventilators. Meanwhile, 23,473 more patients have recovered, for a cumulative total of 1,506,273 patients recovered – 84.34% of the cumulative reported total.

    31 new clusters were reported today, for a cumulative total of 4,804 clusters. 1,488 clusters are currently active; 3,316 clusters are now inactive.

    20,987 new cases today are local infections. Selangor reports 4,073 cases: 253 in clusters, 2,000 close-contact screenings, and 1,821 other screenings.

    Sarawak reports 2,992 cases: 234 in clusters, 2,152 close-contact screenings, and 606 other screenings. Kedah reports 2,455 cases: 20 in clusters, 1,495 close-contact screenings, and 940 other screenings. Sabah reports 2,329 cases: 82 in clusters, 1,379 close-contact screenings, and 868 other screenings. Johor reports 2,145 cases: 535 in clusters, 886 close-contact screenings, and 724 other screenings.

    Penang reports 1,600 cases: 125 in clusters, 505 close-contact screenings, and 970 other screenings.

    Kelantan reports 1,247 cases: 64 in clusters, 754 close-contact screenings, and 429 other screenings.

    Perak reports 990 cases: 133 in clusters, 464 close-contact screenings, and 393 other screenings. Terengganu reports 987 cases: 32 in clusters, 757 close-contact screenings, and 198 other screenings.

    Kuala Lumpur reports 730 local cases: 330 close-contact screenings and 400 other screenings.

    Pahang reports 599 cases: 110 in clusters, 373 close-contact screenings, and 116 other screenings.

    Melaka reports 407 cases: 96 in clusters, 174 close-contact screenings, and 137 other screenings.

    Negeri Sembilan reports 301 cases: 19 in clusters, 135 close-contact screenings, and 147 other screenings.

    Perlis reports 90 cases: eight in clusters, 50 close-contact screenings, and 32 other screenings. Putrajaya reports 37 cases: 32 close-contact screenings and five other screenings. Labuan reports five cases: four close-contact screenings and one other screening.

    One new case today is imported, in Kuala Lumpur.

    The National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme (PICK) administered 398,134 doses of vaccine on 1st September: 188,780 first doses and 209,354 second doses. As of midnight yesterday, the cumulative total is 35,150,474 doses administered: 19,832,137 first doses and 15,241,655 second doses. 61.0% of the population have received their first dose, while 46.7% are now fully vaccinated.

  25. 25.

    oldster

    @Matt McIrvin:

    Thanks, Matt.

    “It’s a matter of operating in a world of imperfect knowledge.”

    True, though some studies have suggested that this day of the week ends in a “y”. Further research indicated.

  26. 26.

    Winston

    Got my Moderna booster on Tuesday at Publix. Just had to say I was immunocompromised. Took 15 minutes, was free, and walk-ins welcome. Had more reaction to the booster than the first two. Bottom of feet turned red, arm is still sore, slept all day, but still….

  29. 29.

    MomSense

    @debbie:

    The only thing I just found was his non apology for his statements where he said his parents were vaccinated.  I ended a friendship over that fucking podcast.  Local organic farmer whose daughter is a friend of my youngest son, was amplifying Rogan on Instagram.  When I told her that I thought she was being irresponsible she got mad, said I was refusing to dialogue respectfully, blah blah blah.  I guarantee that if any members of her too pure for “poisons” family get COVID they won’t be able to afford monoclonal antibodies and regeneron.  They already have the horse paste, though.

  31. 31.

    New Deal democrat

    @Matt McIrvin: It’s not easy to estimate the level of infection in people who haven’t even been tested.

    Randomized volunteer study.

    Employer trial on all hospital workers.

    All or randomized laboratory blood draws.
    All or randomized blood donors.
    All or randomized members of the military.
    Etc.

    We have a pandemic emergency. There’s no excuse for the CDC not pursuing this.

    Btw, I know this comment reads like harsh disagreement, so I want you to understand that I usually agree with all or most of what you say, and there’s no reason to respond.

  32. 32.

    marklar

    Regarding Joe Rogan*, why all the criticism about his use of Ivermectin.

    From what I understand, it’s species-appropriate for jackasses.

     

    *Josh Rogin at the WaPo as well

  33. 33.

    MomSense

    @oldster:

    Look for information from Canada.  They were in a hurry to get their population vaccinated and I believe found it difficult to get enough Pfizer for second doses so they had people get Moderna for their second shot.  Also in UK young women who had Astra Zeneca for their first dose had either Pfizer or Moderna for their second.  My first cousin once removed was one of them and her dad works for CDC.  She married a Brit and lives in London.

  34. 34.

    debbie

    @rikyrah:

    I’d be concerned about jumping on a booster right now. As someone with a totally f’ed up immune system, I can tell you that you don’t want to overload your immune system. It will screw with you in totally unexpected ways. Instead, follow the science, which right now advises an 8-month wait for a third shot.

  35. 35.

    Matt McIrvin

    @rikyrah: I’d guess that the larger dose in the Moderna shot is the reason. It’s functionally so similar to the Pfizer vaccine otherwise.

  38. 38.

    Amir Khalid

    I find myself half-wondering if Governors Abbott and DeSantis are secretly preparing to ban Covid-19 related cloxures of sxhools and businesses, which are making them look bad.

  39. 39.

    Matt McIrvin

    @debbie: My position on boosters has always been that I’ll get one when they tell me to get one. As of now, that’s January.

  42. 42.

    Matt McIrvin

    @p.a.: When I got mine, the town clinic where I got the shots was giving out Moderna and J&J doses, depending on the day–but when I showed up, it was during the short pause in J&J vaccination because of the clotting incidents, so I think they only had Moderna.

    Everything I’ve seen shows no great difference between the different vaccines available here (even J&J) in preventing severe disease and death over the long haul, and that’s the main thing most people should be considering at this point.

  43. 43.

    Matt McIrvin

    @rikyrah: But I think the administration denied that story in a presser–or at least wasn’t willing to publicly acknowledge it. As yet, there’s been no change in recommendations.

  44. 44.

    Winston

    @MomSense: well they wanted me to hang out in the store for 15 minutes, but I went next door to the nail spa and had a pedicure. That’s when I was told the bottom of my feet were red. Since then I’ve been looking at them and they are normal.

  45. 45.

    Kay

    @rikyrah:

    The authors of a study based on an enormous randomized research project in Bangladesh say their results offer the best evidence yet that widespread wearing of surgical masks can limit the spread of the coronavirus in communities.
    The preprint paper, which tracked more than 340,000 adults across 600 villages in rural Bangladesh, is by far the largest randomized study on the effectiveness of masks at limiting the spread of coronavirus infections.
    Its authors say this provides conclusive, real-world evidence for what laboratory work and other research already strongly suggest: mask-wearing can have a significant impact on limiting the spread of symptomatic covid-19, the disease caused by the virus.

  46. 46.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Kay: The effect in the result is significant, but it’s not large. But I do very much like the observation made in that article that since mask-wearing only increased by about 29%, we aren’t seeing the full collective effect that more widespread mask-wearing might have.

    The problem in advocating masks has always been that masks, as typically worn, don’t give all that much protection to the wearer (though there is some)–they mostly protect others from you, and the biggest benefit comes from the collective effect of everyone wearing them, but collective actions are hard to motivate people to do in the presence of a lot of non-cooperation.

  47. 47.

    NotMax

    Reported COVID deaths in U.S. pass 650,000.

    Locally,

    Hawaii reported 13 new COVID fatalities on Wednesday, in the highest single-day total for deaths from the virus since the pandemic began. Source

    Hawaii inmates will need to be fully vaccinated against COVID before they are released on parole, under a new mandate that goes into effect Thursday. Source

  48. 48.

    Winston

    @Winston: Before the vaxes were available I checked out some studies that were being conducted on Ivermectin in the Keys which seemed promising. I asked my Doc about it. She was Cuban and she said they were using it there and then India approved it for Covid. It wasn’t horse paste, though. It was formulated for humans. I did check at Tractor Supply and you had to have a prescription from a Veterinarian for horse paste, or dog deworming. So I checked with Canadian Pharmacy online and discovered I could order it from India. I bought ten 12 mg pills formulated for humans for $90. They are still in the refrigerator.  I don’t think I was an asshole for doing this. Just some insurance.

  50. 50.

    Matt McIrvin

    It’s also always worth reiterating what @sailorrooscout (a vaccine researcher at Moderna) and other scientists have been emphasizing on Twitter: that antibody titers may be what matter in preventing infection entirely (sterilizing immunity), but B- and T-cell immunity are what matter for preventing severe disease over the long haul, all of the vaccines available in the US seem excellent at inducing that, and declining antibody levels don’t have any bearing on that. The memory B cells have the job of producing new antibodies when the virus gets into you again, and their ability to do that seems to actually increase over a period of months while antibody levels decline.

    They’ve been skeptical that giving boosters to the whole vaccinated population is a good use of resources, over concentrating on the unvaccinated, and have been knocking down scare articles about declining vaccine effectiveness that lean heavily on antibody titers.

    Personally, I’m wondering if it wouldn’t be best to go all-out on getting the second dose to people who only got one dose of a two-dose vaccine. For multiple reasons:

    • They are probably less vaccine-hesitant than the unvaccinated, since they got one shot already. So it’s an easier lift.
    • They’re not all that well-protected against Delta, though against Alpha and Wuhan-type COVID a single shot worked pretty well. A lot of earlier aggregations of vaccination data treated them as “vaccinated”, but they’re really not.
    • Based on what some scientists think about vaccine dose spacing, getting them that second shot might actually give them better protection than the regular schedule (though data are sparse).

    I’ve been thinking about Dimmit County, Texas, the worst place in the entire US for total cases per capita. It’s a poor, majority-Hispanic county in south Texas, and it stands out in that its “vaccination” rate is actually rather high. But it’s got this unusually huge gap between people with one dose and people who are fully vaccinated. Something like a quarter of the whole county only got the first dose. There’s some kind of story behind that (a crash vaccination program that had no followup, maybe? I’m not sure). Getting those one-dose people their second dose might have a big payoff.

  51. 51.

    Soprano2

    Cases here are on a downward slope, just like everywhere that was hit first. The sad thing is the deaths – 24 in June, 75 in July and 53 in August (so far, that number might not be complete yet). For deaths July was as bad as November 2020, when no vaccines were available. It’s so tragic – all the deaths in June, July and August were avoidable if only people would get the free shot! Vaccinations are on an upward trend – 52.8% here have at least one shot. Springfield public schools have a mask mandate for everyone that will be revisited as case numbers change. Most other schools around here are “masks optional but strongly recommended”. I saw a story in last week’s paper about a local private religious school with not a mask in sight, and a parent saying how happy they are that their child won’t have to wear one there (all the teachers have to wear them, however). I keep wondering how long it will be until one or more of these schools have to send a large amount of students home to quarantine.

  52. 52.

    Keith P.

    So on Day 1 of COVID, Joe Rogan manages to get prescriptions for a Z-Pak, monoclonal antibodies, *and* a corticosteroid, on top of animal heartworm medication and two IV drips? What kind of doctor does he have, anyway?

  53. 53.

    Peale

    @New Deal democrat: I don’t see the same thing. That “slow but steady” rise in the NE is actually good news with a widely circulating, contagious Delta variant. New Jersey, metro NY, Connecticut and Rhode Island daily cases haven’t moved upwards in two weeks. Massachusetts is rising linearly. These are positive signs that our healthcare system will be able to manage this surge and we won’t be repeating January. Rural New England is a different story.

  54. 54.

    Peale

    @Keith P.: yeah. Wouldn’t it be great if everyone with mild symptoms could get care like that. Of course we’d need 1000% more  medical workers. That’s doable, right?

  55. 55.

    Cermet

    @Winston: You are terribly mistaken if you take that – first, it isn’t for covid; second – there are zero results showing it helps/prevents/or improves covid out comes. It is snake oil – period.

  57. 57.

    oldster

    @Winston: 
    ” I don’t think I was an asshole for doing this. Just some insurance.”

    I don’t think you are an asshole, but you have been grievously misled. Taking ivermectin will not help you, at all, and it will likely make you sicker.
    This is like saying, “I’m going deepsea fishing next week, and I’m worried about drowning. So I have put a bunch of lead weights in my boots, just for insurance.”
    Get the vax. It works. Ivermectin does not.

  58. 58.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Peale: I find MA gov Charlie Baker’s absolutely rigid, categorical refusal to even plan to go back to remote schooling in the event of a large outbreak ominous. Large numbers of parents of kids under 12 are pulling them out of the public schools, which may be his true goal here.

  59. 59.

    TheflipPsyD

    Three days in from school here and received notice that there were positive tests for COVID in my kids’ elementary and middle schools. We have a mask mandate, and these weren’t close exposures.

    The kids are smarter than the adults. We were going to celebrate the last day of summer vacation this past Friday and when we went to pick up food (masked and 2 of us are vaccinnated), my youngest 2 (fifth grade) looked at me (before I could say anything), and said, “Let’s go somewhere else. It’s too crowded in there and we’d have to wait too long and be too close to everybody.” They know they can’t get vaccinated yet and aren’t taking any chances. Their friends are the same way — they are not playing around with this virus and are being careful. I have hope for the future, but what a world we are leaving them.

    ETA: for clarity

  61. 61.

    Winston

    @Cermet: At the time there was no vaccine. There was no indication that the vaccines worked either. Were you asleep then?

    I’m not advocating Ivermectin. Just that there WAS some reason that people were at the time. It got out of hand. And that continued to this day. I just got my third shot of Moderna.

  63. 63.

    Robert Sneddon

    Scotland — There were 6,400 new cases of COVID-19 yesterday with 17 new reported deaths of someone who had tested positive. Test positivity rate is 11.1%. ICU bed occupancy numbers are 55, down four (probably due to deaths) from yesterday while hospitalisations are down four to 624.

    There were just over 11,000 vaccinations carried out in Scotland yesterday (Tuesday) with about 25% of them first-doses. This brings the total in the adult (18+) population to 91.2% first-dose and 83.1% fully vaccinated. The first-dose vaccination rate for 16 and 17-year-olds is now 50.8%.

    The Scottish government is planning for vaccination of 12-15 year olds once the JCVI give their approval as well as looking forward to booster vaccinations for older and immunocompromised people.

  66. 66.

    Fake Irishman

    @Matt McIrvin:

    I appreciate what you’re saying about the effect size being modest for the mask study, but I’d argue 9 percent reduction in cases is a pretty big deal in practice.  That would represent about 18,000 cases a day in the US right now. Positing that 3-5 percent go to the hospital and 0.1-0.3 percent die (which I believe are fairly conservative) extrapolating that reduction in cases (again speculative and making a ton of hidden assumptions) would lead to 540-900 fewer hospitalizations and 18-54prevented deaths — for that day’s cases alone.  I’ll wait for Dave Anderson to come by with the QALYs and the long division on that, but I suspect that’s an extraordinary payoff for a simple, extremely cheap imperfect public health intervention, even for a relatively high number needed to treat. (In a pandemic with 40 million total cases, those numbers would be 3.6 million fewer cases, 108,000-170,000 fewer hospitalizations and about 11,000-33,000 fewer deaths.

    Again, all back of the envelope and way too simplified, but does give an idea of the scope of the effects of even relatively modest changes in population behavior.

  68. 68.

    Winston

     

     

    @oldster: You don’t even know that. Just got my third shot of Moderna. But before anyone knew if the vaccines worked, no one knew if Ivermectin worked. So it was a hedge.

  70. 70.

    YY_Sima Qian

    On 9/1 China reported 1 new domestic confirmed cases & 0 new domestic asymptomatic cases.

    Yunnan Province reported 1 new domestic confirmed case (mild, a Burmese national), found via mass screening. There currently are 19 active domestic confirmed & 1 domestic asymptomatic cases there. 1 community & 2 villages at Ruili remain at Medium Risk. 

    Jiangsu Province did not report any new positive confirmed cases. 26 domestic confirmed cases recovered. There are currently 99 active domestic confirmed cases in the province.

    • At Nanjing 5 domestic confirmed case recovered. There currently are 14 active domestic confirmed (1 mild & 13 moderate) cases in the city.
    • At Yangzhou 21 domestic confirmed cases recovered. There currently are 83 active domestic confirmed cases in the city, though more than half are actually being treated in Nanjing. 1 residential compound remains at Medium Risk.

    Hunan Province did not reported any new domestic positive cases. 4 domestic confirmed cases recovered. There are currently are 81 active domestic confirmed (including 1 serious) & 6 active domestic asymptomatic cases in the province.

    • At Xiangtan the domestic confirmed case recovered. There are currently 2 domestic asymptomatic cases in the city.
    • At Changsha the 2 domestic confirmed cases recovered.
    • At Yiyang there currently are 3 active domestic confirmed & 2 active domestic asymptomatic case in the city.
    • At Zhuzhou 1 domestic  confirmed case recovered. There currently are 16 active domestic confirmed & 1 active domestic asymptomatic cases in the city.
    • At Zhangjiajie there currently are 62 active domestic confirmed & 1 active domestic asymptomatic cases.

    Henan Province did not report any new domestic positive case. 6 domestic confirmed cases recovered. There are currently 72 active domestic confirmed & 1 active domestic asymptomatic cases in the province.

    • At Zhengzhou 6 domestic confirmed cases recovered. There currently are 59 active domestic confirmed & 1 active domestic asymptomatic cases in the city.
    • At Shangqiu there currently are 13 active domestic confirmed cases in the city.

    Hubei Province did not report any new domestic positive cases. 1 domestic confirmed case recovered & 1 domestic asymptomatic case was released from isolation. There currently are 65 active domestic confirmed (28 mild & 37 moderate) & 40 active domestic asymptomatic cases in the province.

    • At Huanggang there currently are 1 active domestic confirmed & 2 active domestic asymptomatic cases.
    • At Jingzhou, there currently are 2 active domestic confirmed cases.
    • At Jingmen 1 domestic confirmed cases recovered. There are currently 36 active domestic confirmed & 11 active domestic asymptomatic cases in the city. 1 township remains at Medium Risk.
    • At Wuhan 1 domestic asymptomatic case was released from isolation. There currently are 25 active domestic confirmed & 25 active domestic asymptomatic cases in the city.
    • At Ezhou there currently are 1 active domestic confirmed & 2 active domestic asymptomatic cases.

    Shanghai Municipality did not report any new domestic positive cases. There currently are 9 active domestic confirmed cases in the city, 7 from the airport cluster & 2 from the hospital cluster. 1 residential compound was re-designated as Low Risk. 4 residential compounds remain at Medium Risk.

    Imported Cases

    On 9/1, China reported 27 new imported confirmed cases (1 previously asymptomatic), 19 imported asymptomatic cases:

    • Guangzhou in Guangdong Province – 8 confirmed cases, 6 Chinese nationals returning from Myanmar & 1 from Cameroon (via Cairo), & a foreign national coming from Japan; 9 asymptomatic cases, 2 Chinese nationals returning from Turkey (via Tehran) & 1 each from Bangladesh, Myanmar, the Philippines, the UAE, Egypt & the DRC (via Nairobi), & a foreign national coming from Iraq (via Tehran)
    • Shenzhen in Guangdong Province – 1 confirmed & 1 asymptomatic cases, both Chinese nationals returning from Indonesia
    • Yunnan Province (locations not specified) – 8 confirmed cases, 6 Chinese nationals returning from Myanmar & 2 from Laos, via land border crossings
    • Shanghai Municipality – 6 confirmed cases, 2 Chinese nationals returning from the US & 1 each from Thailand, the UAE, the UK (via Amsterdam Schiphol) & Ghana (via Paris CdG)
    • Wuhan in Hubei Province – 1 confirmed  & 1 asymptomatic cases, both coming from Pakistan
    • Jiangsu Province (location not specified) – 1 confirmed case, no information released
    • Hangzhou in Zhejiang Province – 1 confirmed case, coming from Indonesia; 4 asymptomatic cases, 3 from Nigeria & 1 from Kazakhstan
    • Xiamen in Fujian Province – 1 confirmed case, a Chinese national returning from Mexico (via Amsterdam Schiphol)
    • Tianjin Municipality – 2 asymptomatic cases, both Chinese national returning from Guinea (via Paris CdG)
    • Chengdu in Sichuan Province – 1 asymptomatic case, a Chinese national returning from Ethiopia
    • Shenyang in Liaoning Province – 1 asymptomatic case, no information released

    Overall in China, 73 confirmed cases recovered (35 imported), 19 asymptomatic cases were released from isolation (18 imported) & 1 was reclassified as confirmed case (imported), & 2,343 individuals were released from quarantine. Currently, there are 977 active confirmed cases in the country (615 imported), 3 in serious condition (2 imported), 435 active asymptomatic cases (380 imported), 3 suspect cases (all imported). 18,582 traced contacts are currently under centralized quarantine.

    As of 9/1, 2,076.428M vaccine doses have been injected in Mainland China, an increase of 9.839M doses in the past 24 hrs.

    On 9/2, Hong Kong did not report any new positive cases. 

  73. 73.

    Platonicspoof

    Regarding mixing COVID vaccine booster shots (all three “houses” here in the U.S.):

     

    The National Institutes of Health has started a Phase 1/2 clinical trial in which adult volunteers who have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19 will receive booster doses of different COVID-19 vaccines to determine the safety and immunogenicity of mixed boosted regimens.

     

    Initial trial results are expected in late summer 2021. For more information about the trial, including a list of enrollment locations, please visit clinicaltrials.gov and search identifier NCT04889209.

  74. 74.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Matt McIrvin: The effect in the result is significant, but it’s not large.​

    “Statistically significant” is a concept rooted in probability that is not necessarily (or even usually) equivalent to meaningful. Especially when dealing with odds ratios. Much statistical malpractice consists of multiplying a tiny statistically significant effect by the large population and then shouting, “As many as X thousand people will get (or suffer from) this!!!” E.g., a statistically significant increase of 3 in 100,000 in the prevalence of a disease, distributed across all US residents, translates to 1.00003 x 332,000,000 ~ 10,000. Ten thousand sounds like a lot to folks who have trouble with arithmetic after they run out of fingers and toes** but the additional risk is minuscule.***

    ** Sorry if this sounds patronizing, but honestly, very few of us can comprehend on an emotional level numbers larger than a thousand or smaller than a thousandth. And that includes STEM folks who work with humongous numbers all the time: We learn to manipulate them but not really feel them viscerally.

    *** Much insurance scamming – if not illegal, at least “sharp practice” – relies on the inability of humans to emotionally comprehend probability and statistics. “Sure, the chances of getting hit by a meteor might be only one in a billion a year, but that means 7 people will be hit by one this year! But what if you’re one of them??? Just sign right here and you’ll be insured!!”​​

  76. 76.

    J R in WV

    Wife and I got a 3rd dose of Moderna last Friday at the neighboring (big city, kinda) county health dept, after a friend who works there sent us an email about their vaccination clinic. Free parking, discovered at the check in desk Wife had left her wallet on the table, not in her bag. So guy on the check in desk looked us up on the WV state database.

    Then after a 90 second wait, we were sent back into a hallway lined with chairs 8 ft apart. Volunteer EMTs were giving the shots, and he asked me “Pfizer or Moderna?” before he went over to the desk where a public health nurse was filling syringes. Then they asked us to sit out in the lobby for 5 minutes, everyone was masked, professional — a smooth system working well.

    Then my cousin, who I forwarded the email from M A to, got his booster on Monday. I hope everyone I forwarded that email to gets a booster shot. One friend has RA. an immune system disorder, I hope she in particular gets a booster.

    I understand the health dept was getting a lot of static for not sending excess about to expire doses to a foreign country, even tho there is no procedure for gathering unused vaccine doses up from the clinics and pharmacies and forwarding them to an unprepared foreign nation.

    Shots in Arms is better than doses in the landfill~!~

    Anyone who doesn’t understand that doesn’t deserve space to comment!

  77. 77.

    IdahoGoatGirl

    I use Ivermectin to deworm my horse, my goats and occasionally a chicken.  I almost never deworm an animal that is ill, I consider Ivermectin to be basically a poison that stresses the body while killing the parasites.   When the first articles came out about Ivermectin in 2020 I stocked up.   It is a good thing I did because here in Idaho Ivermectin has gotten really hard to get for livestock folks.   I see discussions every day about the difficulties in getting Ivermectin for actually deworming animals.

  79. 79.

    Bill Arnold

    @Uncle Cosmo:
    You probably haven’t looked at the actual study (preprint at the moment), given that non-specific rant. Some people (this site and in particular these roundups has/have a lot of lurkers) may be left with the impression that is is a fake study. It is not.

    Basically, many academically-inclined (or able to fake it) anti-maskers were confidently asserting that a population-level study of general mask usage as a pandemic control measure could never be performed because the experiments would be unethical. These guys (long author list) didn’t actually do a “hold my beer” moment; they studied approaches to increasing mask utilization in Bangladesh villages. (There is a previous paper about that work.) This study is a follow-on of that.
    The Impact of Community Masking on COVID-19: A Cluster-Randomized Trial in Bangladesh (August 31, 2021, Jason Abaluck, Laura H Kwong†, Ashley Styczynski, et al)

    We conducted a cluster-randomized trial of community-level mask promotion in rural Bangladesh from November 2020 to April 2021 (N=600 villages, N=342,126 adults.
    …
    Results: There were 178,288 individuals in the intervention group and 163,838 individuals in the control group. The intervention increased proper mask-wearing from 13.3% in control villages (N=806,547 observations) to 42.3% in treatment villages (N=797,715 observations)(adjusted percentage point difference = 0.29 [0.27, 0.31]).
    …
    The proportion of individuals with COVID-like symptoms was 7.62% (N=13,273) in the intervention arm and 8.62% (N=13,893) in the control arm.

    Anyway, given the results in the study, the effect would very plausibly be much larger if a very high percentage of the population (including infected individuals) wore masks. 42 percent mask usage is rather low compared with what could be achieved with proper general mask discipline.

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