Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires Republicans to act in good faith.

When your entire life is steeped in white supremacy, equality feels like discrimination.

When you’re in more danger from the IDF than from Russian shelling, that’s really bad.

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

No offense, but this thread hasn’t been about you for quite a while.

If America since Jan 2025 hasn’t broken your heart, you haven’t loved her enough.

Relentless negativity is not a sign that you are more realistic.

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.

“Perhaps I should have considered other options.” (head-desk)

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

There are consequences to being an arrogant, sullen prick.

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

We can show the world that autocracy can be defeated.

’Where will you hide, Roberts, the laws all being flat?’

Hi god, it’s us. Thanks a heap, you’re having a great week and it’s only Thursday!

My right to basic bodily autonomy is not on the table. that’s the new deal.

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

A sufficient plurality of insane, greedy people can tank any democratic system ever devised, apparently.

Republicans in disarray!

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

🎶 Those boots were made for mockin’ 🎵

Petty moves from a petty man.

“The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.”

You are here: Home / Healthcare / COVID-19 / COVID-19 Coronavirus Updates: Monday / Tuesday, Sept. 20-21

COVID-19 Coronavirus Updates: Monday / Tuesday, Sept. 20-21

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  1. 1.

    NeenerNeener

    Monroe County web site: 119 new cases yesterday.
    Over the last week we had 361 cases among children 0 – 19, 209 cases for people in their 20s, 187 for people in their 30s, 125 cases for 40s and 140 cases for 50s. No older age group had more than 98 cases.

    4.5 test positivity.
    Now at 1398 deaths, up from 1379 last week.
    61.9% of the population is completely vaccinated.
    187 people hospitalized, 51 in the ICU.

    Is it still 2 weeks before COVID hits you if you’ve been exposed to Delta? Because last weeks numbers look like Labor Day/Back to School numbers but that’s less than 2 weeks.

  2. 2.

    Wvng

    Nice to see that picture of Richard Matthew (cough David Anderson cough) and know his school is protecting his campus so well.

  4. 4.

    NotMax

    The IMB requires vaccinations for missionaries sent into the field.

    Brings new meaning to the missionary position.

  5. 5.

    The Thin Black Duke

    If these anti-vaxxers were gamblers, they’d be bankrupt by now, and Big Sal would be patiently waiting in the back alley with a lead pipe.

  8. 8.

    NotMax

    FYI.

    Turkmenistan: Getting Covid in a land where no cases officially exist

    Sayahat Kurbanov was suffocating. He gasped for air as if he were running a marathon, the pain in his chest unbearable. He had all the symptoms of coronavirus.

    The problem was he was in Turkmenistan, where patients like him officially do not exist.
    [snip]
    None of the staff at Mr Kurbanov’s hospital used the words Covid or coronavirus. “They would say ‘this virus’ or ‘this disease'”, he said. “I would push them, ‘Why aren’t you saying what it is? Is it Covid?’ And they would nod silently.”

    While in hospital, Mr Kurbanov received a text message from the government with a health warning. It urged people to wear face masks because of dust in the air.

    “Are we dying from the dust?” he said. “They will let people die but they will never admit that they have Covid.” Source

  11. 11.

    YY_Sima Qian

    On 9/20 China reported 42 new domestic confirmed cases & 0 new domestic asymptomatic cases.

    Fujian Province reporter 42 new domestic confirmed cases. There currently are 405 active domestic confirmed cases & 3 active domestic asymptomatic cases.

    • Putian reported 5 new domestic confirmed cases. There currently are 195 active domestic confirmed cases (86 mild, 108 moderate, 1 serious & 1 critical; 191 at the epicenter Xianyou County, 3 at Xiuyu District & 1 at Licheng District) & 3 active domestic asymptomatic cases (all at Xianyou County) in the city. Fengting Township at Xianyou County is currently at High Risk. 4 zones, 1 residential building, 1 school, 1 community & 7 villages aren currently at Medium Risk, all at Xianyou County.
    • Quanzhou reported 1 domestic confirmed case, of 2 clusters seeded by people who had traveled to Xiamen or Putian. There currently are 24 active domestic confirmed cases (1 serious) in the city. 3 villages are currently at Medium Risk.
    • Xiamen reported 36 new domestic confirmed cases (4 are traced close contacts & 32 from mass screening). There currently are 183 active domestic confirmed cases in the city (4 serious, 164 in the epicenter Tong’an District, 9 at Si’ming District, 7 at Haicang & 3 at Huli District). 2 communities are currently at High Risk. 3 villages, 1 zone & 1 residential compound are currently at Medium Risk.
    • Zhangzhou did not report any new domestic positive cases. There currently are 3 active domestic confirmed cases in the city. 1 community is currently at Medium Risk

    Yunnan Province did not report any new domestic positive cases. There currently are 9 active domestic confirmed & 2 domestic asymptomatic cases remaining in the province, all at Ruili in Dehong Prefecture.

    At Hunan Province 1 domestic confirmed case recovered. There currently are 15 active domestic confirmed cases remaining in the province, all at Zhangjiajie

    At Henan Province 1 domestic confirmed case recovered. There currently are 9 active domestic confirmed cases.

    • At Zhengzhou 1 domestic confirmed case recovered. There currently is 1 active domestic confirmed case remaining in the city.
    • At Shangqiu there currently are 8 active domestic confirmed cases.

    At Hubei Province there currently are 2 active domestic confirmed (both mild) & 1 active domestic asymptomatic cases, all at Jingmen.

    At Shanghai Municipality there currently are 2 active domestic confirmed cases.

    Imported Cases

    On 9/20, China reported 30 new imported confirmed cases (4 previously asymptomatic), 13 imported asymptomatic cases, 2 imported suspect cases:

    • Yunnan Province (locations not specified) – 12 confirmed cases, all Chinese nationals returning from Myanmar; 3 asymptomatic cases, 2 Chinese nationals returning from Myanmar & 1 from Laos; all via land border crossings
    • Shanghai Municipality – 6 confirmed cases, 1 Chinese national each returning from Japan, Thailand, Sri Lanka, Côte d’Ivoire (via Paris CdG), the UAE & the US; 2 suspect cases, no information released
    • Nanjing in Jiangsu Province – 3 confirmed cases, 1 each coming from Germany, Singapore & South Korea
    • Guangzhou in Guangdong Province – 2 confirmed cases, 1 Chinese national each returning from Gabon (via Nairobi) & Myanmar; 2 asymptomatic cases, 1 Chinese national each returning from Gabon (Nairobi) & Saudi Arabia
    • Dongguan in Guangdong Province – 1 confirmed case (previously asymptomatic), a Chinese national returning from the DRC (via Nairobi), off a flight that landed at Guangzhou
    • Hangzhou in Zhejiang Province – 2 confirmed cases (both previously asymptomatic); 2 asymptomatic cases, 1 each coming from Ecuador & Mexico
    • Harbin in Heilongjiang Province – 2 confirmed cases, both coming from Japan
    • Xiamen in Fujian Province – 2 confirmed cases (1 previously asymptomatic), 1 each coming from the UK (via Amsterdam Schiphol) & the UAE
    • Fuzhou in Fujian Province – 2 asymptomatic cases, both coming from Japan
    • Tianjin Municipality – 3 asymptomatic cases, 2 Chinese nationals returning from Singapore & 1 from Mexico (via Paris CdG)
    • Chengdu in Sichuan Province – 1 asymptomatic case, a Chinese national returning from Egypt

    Overall in China, 34 confirmed cases recovered (30 imported), 14 asymptomatic cases were released from isolation (all imported) & 4 were reclassified as confirmed cases (all imported), & 241 individuals were released from quarantine. Currently, there are 980 active confirmed cases in the country (541 imported), 12 in serious condition (5 imported), 349 active asymptomatic cases (340 imported), 4 suspect case (all imported). 16,306 traced contacts are currently under centralized quarantine.

    As of 9/20, 2,180.986M vaccine doses have been injected in Mainland China, an increase of 3.348M doses in the past 24 hrs.

    On 9/21, Hong Kong did not issue any reports, due to Mid-Autumn Festival.

  12. 12.

    Matt McIrvin

    Tucker Carlson works for an organization with a COVID vaccination mandate. The level of evil and dishonesty displayed here actually astonishes me.

  15. 15.

    Baud

    @Matt McIrvin:

    He’s trying to activate the lizard brain of people who are already susceptible to having that part of their brain activated.  Evil, yes.  Dishonest, irrelevant to his goals.

  18. 18.

    MomSense

    @raven:

    They had Raffensberger on earlier.  He’s pretty pleased with the 2020 election and how safe and fraud free it was.  He even wrote a book about or called Integrity.  Did they ask him why the legislature needed to pass an “anti voting fraud” law when the election was so safe and fraud free?

  20. 20.

    Matt McIrvin

    It’s an interesting question how high childhood vaccine uptake will actually be. Matthew Yglesias was posting some dour and cynical stuff about it, saying he thought it’d be no more than 30%. But childhood vaccinations are different from other kinds–kids get them at regular pediatrician visits, which are a widely normalized thing.

    It seems to me that everything depends on whether they become part of the normal course of childhood vaccines. Since COVID vaccines have become so politicized, that might end up as a regionally dependent/partisan thing, like HPV vaccine for teenagers (full vaccination is now above 50%, but it’s taken years and is really geographically uneven). And it won’t be instant–only a minority of parents will rush their kids to CVS to get them right away.

  23. 23.

    germy

    @Matt McIrvin:

    Not to play armchair Freud here, but is it possible he declared war on the world because his mother abandoned his family?

     

    EDIT:  come to think of it, Freud himself was armchair Freud.

  25. 25.

    Matt McIrvin

    @germy: “40% after six months” is from one outlier paper, IIRC, and in any event was for sterilizing immunity against infection of any kind, which comes from antibody levels. Those inevitably decline after vaccination or infection.

    But protection against severe disease and death, the ability to mount a new rapid response against a subsequent infection–which was the stated goal of the vaccines in the first place–comes more from B- and T-cell immunity and, by most accounts, is far more long-lived. Maybe for years. The only groups that have significant trouble with that several months after two-shot vaccination seem to be the immunocompromised and elderly, which is why the Pfizer booster recommendation focuses on them. There’s been a LOT of confusion and misleading information about this.

    There does seem to be some legit disagreement around the edges about precisely when the age window for boosters should cut off–some like Peter Hotez are arguing for a lower minimum age, like 40 rather than 65. I suspect there’s going to be a lot of revision of these guidelines over time.

  27. 27.

    marklar

    “gives a new meaning to the missionary position”– Notmax

    Not really, Notmax. Those opposed to vaccinations would say it stands for “just lie on your back and take it.” (the vaccine, that is)

  28. 28.

    Matt McIrvin

    @germy: I think he’s just a grifter who has no shame and a good thing going.

    The “testosterone levels” bit is particularly despicable–they’re going straight for the psychosexual obsessions of violent fascists. Internet Nazis have testosterone levels on the brain, just can’t stop talking about them. It’s one of the “scientific” measures they constantly use to rank people as superior and inferior.

  29. 29.

    Suzanne

    @Matt McIrvin:  Kids’ vaccines probably won’t be at CVS or other retail locations. Because of the cooling requirements, most of the retail clinics have been doing Moderna, since they don’t have the deep freezers. This will be a going-to-the-pediatrician thing, or potentially a government-agency-run site, because we’re only talking about Pfizer right now.

    There is some thought that parents will be more likely to get it for their kids if they can get it at a pediatrician’s office, because they (supposedly) know and trust the pediatrician more.

  30. 30.

    Amir Khalid

    Malaysia’s Ministry of Health reports 15,759 new Covid-19 cases today in its media statement, for a cumulative reported total of 2,127,934 cases. It also reports 301 new deaths as of midnight, for a cumulative total of 23,744 deaths – 1.12% of the cumulative reported total, 1.24% of resolved cases.

    Based on cases reported yesterday, Malaysia’s nationwide Rt is at 0.93.

    844 confirmed active and contagious cases are in ICU, 377 of them on ventilators. Meanwhile, 16,650 more patients have recovered, for a cumulative total of 1,897,386 patients recovered – 89.2% of the cumulative reported total.

    23 new clusters were reported today, for a cumulative total of 5,328 clusters. 1,315 clusters are currently active; 4,013 clusters are now inactive.

    15,732 new cases today are local infections. Sarawak reports 3,732 cases: 126 in clusters, 2,243 close-contact screenings, and 1,363 other screenings.

    Johor reports 1,959 local cases: 273 in clusters, 956 close-contact screenings, and 730 other screenings. Selangor reports 1,926 local local cases: 71 in clusters, 1,005 close-contact screenings, and 850 other screenings.

    Penang reports 1,417 local cases: 35 in clusters, 494 close-contact screenings, and 888 other screenings. Kelantan reports 1,338 cases: 100 in clusters, 786 close-contact screenings, and 452 other screenings. Sabah reports 1,291 cases: nine in clusters, 752 close-contact screenings, and 567 other screenings. Perak reports 1,184 cases: 230 in clusters, 432 close-contact screenings, and 522 other screenings.

    Kedah reports 786 cases: three in clusters, 519 close-contact screenings, and 264 other screenings.
    Pahang reports 707 cases: 97 in clusters, 454 close-contact screenings, and 256 other screenings.

    Terengganu reports 592 cases: 14 in clusters, 454 close-contact screenings, and 124 other screenings.

    Kuala Lumpur reports 351 local cases: three in clusters, 142 close-contact screenings and 206 other screenings.

    Melaka reports 264 cases: 23 in clusters, 145 close-contact screenings, and 96 other screenings.

    Negeri Sembilan reports 126 local cases: four in clusters, 65 close-contact screenings, and 57 other screenings.

    Putrajaya reports 33 local cases: 25 close-contact screenings and eight other screenings. Perlis reports 23 cases: 10 close-contact screenings and three other screenings. Labuan reports three local cases, all from other screening.

    27 new cases today are imported: nine in Labuan, eight in Selangor, eight in Kuala Lumpur, one in Putrajaya, and one in Negeri Sembilan.

    The National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme (PICK) administered 289,618 doses of vaccine on 20th September: 94,145 first doses and 195,473 second doses. As of midnight yesterday, the cumulative total is 40,664,674 doses administered: 22,097,565 first doses and 18,648,795 second doses. 67.7% of the population have received their first dose, while 57.1% are now fully vaccinated.

  31. 31.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Suzanne: It’s just what most parents do, right? You take your kid to the doctor every six months, and at many of those visits the kid has some shots they have to get, and the school requires you to submit those records for entry. All of this is opt-out rather than opt-in; you have to be a committed antivaxxer to push back.

    The main thing that short-circuits that is if the school district won’t require the COVID vax because it’s run by wingnuts, and the doctor won’t recommend the shots because the doctor is a wingnut. I think that does happen with HPV, which is another case of a highly politicized vaccine. But, nationally, even teenage HPV vaccine uptake is way above 30% by now.

  34. 34.

    Honus

    Got the Moderna booster yesterday.  Walked a couple blocks from my office to a Blue Ridge Health District trailer on the Charlottesville downtown mall.

  35. 35.

    dr. bloor

    If the regulatory review goes smoothly, millions of children could be immunized by Halloween.

    “Smoothly” is doing a whole lot  of work in that claim.

  36. 36.

    New Deal democrat

    The top 10 States for new COVID infections now are, in order: AK, WV, WY, KY, MT, SC, TN, ID, AL, and ND.

    AL is in a clear declining trend. The rest all share the characteristic of having low vaccination rates, and aside from SC, are in Appalachia or the northern Plains or Rockies.

    The slight increasing trend in the heavily vaccinated Northeast has continued. Probably some is rural areas, and some is schoolchildren.

    Separately, I did read Cheryl Rofer’s extended tweet. I think she makes one error, which is that she only counts confirmed COVID cases in her model. All of the serological studies I have seen indicate that for every confirmed case, there is at least one unconfirmed case. That adds about another 6-7% to the total population with some immunity.

  37. 37.

    gvg

    This shot will not be at the doctor’s office for kids. I was reading about it this weekend. First, there is the freezer issue. You aren’t getting your shot at your doctor’s and kids won’t be able to either. Second, it’s a lower dose which really complicates the administration of the shot apparently. The description of the process involved unfreezing, a bio sterile cubicle to divide the drug which is apparently rare, expensive and specialized, then transport fast to where the kids are, all in 2 hours. There will be waste and extra logistics. This will make it harder to get the parents to allow their kids to get the shots. I hope we can set it us at schools for efficiency. My county did that for the over 12 year olds within a week of authorization.
    For some reason, a lot of parents resist getting their kids shots. They say we give then (kids) too many shots too close together and they are protectively suspicious of shots they get them selves. It makes no sense to me and has no historical awareness. 60 to 100 years ago is just too long for many people to know about. Idiots make me furious.

  38. 38.

    Fake Irishman

    @NeenerNeener: 

    I have no handy link, but my impression is that because delta blasts you with so much virus quickly (that’s how it overcomes defenses, even in some vaccinated folks) the incubation period is shorter. You all might very well be at or post peak according to the numbers you’ve been posting over the last several weeks. And those elevated rates, while not great, are far far lower than those in less vaccinated communities in souther states and relatively little threat to your health system.

  40. 40.

    Another Scott

    @Matt McIrvin: I expect the COVID-19 vaccine uptake to be very high, eventually, because of mandates and $0 cost. The HPV vaccine is very different.

    Although Gardasil 9 has a price tag of between $400 and $500 for a three-dose schedule, the good news is that the vaccine should be covered at no cost by most insurance plans and the Vaccines for Children (VFC) program for those who are eligible.

    Most is doing a lot of heavy lifting there.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  41. 41.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Another Scott: “Eventually” could be years, of course.

    The conservative turn against all vaccine mandates does terrify me–I’m hoping the upshot of all this is that COVID vaccination gets normalized like other vaccines, but it could be instead that all the others get de-normalized and we get epidemics of every infectious childhood disease at the same time.

    gvg’s point about freezer logistics is a good one, though I got the impression the troubles there are less bad now than they used to be.

  42. 42.

    Platonicspoof

    Also from Medical Xpress, although flu season severity is usually difficult to predict, this 09-17-21 article says:

     

    “There is concern this will be an especially bad flu season due to loosening of mitigations, the fact that many of us were not exposed last year due to COVID mitigations and because influenza will be circulating simultaneously with COVID,” she said. “So individuals could potentially get both at the same time, which could lead to more severe illness and more deaths.”

     

    5. Flu vaccines are particularly important this season to keep from overwhelming hospitals.

     

    Here are the CDC recommendations for various groups for timing of flu vaccination (“. . . vaccination is recommended to be offered by the end of October.”) , formulations, loss of effectiveness over time, etc.

     

    Flu shots should still be free under Medicare.

    ETA  link.

  43. 43.

    Robert Sneddon

    Scotland — 2,870 new cases reported today but the number is not complete due to continuing technical issues with some COVID-19 case reporting. The test positivity rate is 11.7%, also affected by the technical issue. There were 18 new deaths reported overnight. ICU bed occupancy numbers are 94, down three from yesterday while hospitalisations are 1,107, up 21.

    There were about 6,000 vaccinations carried out in Scotland yesterday (Monday) with about 40% of these being first vaccinations. 91.2% of 16+ adults are now vaccinated with their first dose and 83.8% are fully vaccinated. 69.6% of 16 and 17-year-olds have now received their first vaccination, up 0.4% from yesterday. It’s likely that most 16-17 year olds will be getting vaccinated at the weekends since they are generally at school Mon-Fri.

    There have not yet been any reports of the number of 12-15 year olds vaccinated on their first day of eligibility.

  44. 44.

    Sloane Ranger

    Monday in the UK we had 36,100 new cases. This is a decrease of 12% in the rolling 7-day average. New cases by nation,

    England – 26,905 (up 4732)

    Northern Ireland – 1020 (up 131)

    Scotland – 2917 (down 916)

    Wales – 5258 (up 2541).

    Deaths – There were 49 deaths within 28 days of a positive test yesterday. This is an increase of 0.4% in the rolling 7-day average. 27 deaths were in England, 5 in Northern Ireland and 17 in Wales. there were no deaths reported from Scotland.

    Testing – 1,123,798 tests took place on Sunday, 19 September. This is a reduction in the rolling 7-day average of 13.5%. The PCR testing capacity reported by labs on that date was 847,492.

    Hospitalisations – There were 7847 people in hospital and 1011 on ventilators on Friday, 17 September. The rolling 7-day average for hospital admissions was down by 4.8% as at 14 September.

    Vaccinations – As at Sunday, 129 September, 48,593,019 people had received 1 shot of a vaccine and 44,466,121 had received both. This means that, as of that date, 89.4% of all UK residents aged 16+ had had 1 shot of a vaccine and 81.8% were fully vaccinated.

  45. 45.

    Unique uid

    @Suzanne: I’m confused by the “deep freezer” reference. Are sites still using the special ultra cold ones for Pfizer ?   I thought they asked for a change to use normal freezers in February, and that was approved by the FDA in April?

    FWIW the Kroger I went to was giving both Moderna and Pfizer.

  46. 46.

    PST

    @Suzanne: I don’t think the cooling requirement is a problem with Pfizer for CVS or similar outlets anymore. I believe that from the start it was okay to keep the vaccine at ordinary refrigerator temperatures after thawing for the last couple of days before use, and most recently that has been extended to 30 days. I walked into a CVS yesterday and got a Pfizer booster. That doesn’t necessarily mean they will want to jab young children, but I hope they do.

  47. 47.

    Unique uid

    @gvg: I was just searching to see how many doses in the smaller Pfizer package, it was 450.  But a CBS news article says smaller packages should be available by October. (Doesn’t say how small)

    It also says 14.5 million doses have been wasted in the USA.

  48. 48.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Platonicspoof: I’m trying to decide now how to time my flu shot to get maximum benefit from its limited window of effectiveness. I think we’re coming up on time to get it done.

  52. 52.

    EmbraceYourInnerCrone

    Meanwhile in southern Louisiana:

    “By the time the sun came up, both hospitals in Houma had endured so much damage, they had to coordinate a massive evacuation.

    Dr. Chuck Burnell, the chief medical officer of Acadian Ambulance, was in the basement of Terrebonne General sorting out how to move more than 100 patients, many of them infected with COVID, some on ventilators.  Burnell has been an emergency physician for almost 30 years, and he said this is among the worst storms he’s been through, arriving as it did just as the state’s COVID deaths soared and its vaccination rate remained among the lowest in the country.“
    “Burnell, the ambulance company’s medical officer, coordinated the evacuation from the hospital’s basement. They had no radio communication and no cell reception. To tell each other anything, they had to run. Nurses, doctors, medics and administrators sprinted across floors wet and slippery from the rain and the sweat. They worked off printed papers to choreograph who would go where and when, to make sure patients positive for COVID didn’t cross with those who weren’t.” (Part of the roof came off in 150mph winds and the hospital had no running water)

    Twin-demic slams Louisiana hospitals

  53. 53.

    Cermet

    Cost of the vaccine is so small compared to a full blown covid case that the amount “wasted” isn’t even a rounding error compared to the cost if vaccination sites refused to vaccinate people until they had enough not to ‘waste’ a vile; net result would have been many more people who would never bothered to go back and try again. I actually think that number is very good considering it wouldn’t even have a significant impact in most countries (the number of lost doses if, somehow, made available – the 14 million.)

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