Lean in!
The city of Wuhan is spending taxpayer money to promote its official twitter account @WuhanPlus , as if the city doesn't have one of the world's highest visibility.
The promoted tweet should just be something like:
You probably have heard of us. pic.twitter.com/R6pegPOoxI— itrulyknowchina (@itrulyknownchi1) November 8, 2021
NEW: Nearly 300,000 children ages 5 through 11 have received their first dose of Covid-19 vaccine, CDC data shows
— Ana Cabrera (@AnaCabrera) November 9, 2021
We can now start thinking about all Americans being vaccinated, although those under 5 years old are still not eligible. They are 6% of the population. https://t.co/ras3lGffri
— Cheryl Rofer (@CherylRofer) November 8, 2021
The Biden administration is encouraging local school districts to host clinics to provide COVID-19 vaccinations to kids and information to parents as the White House looks to speedily distribute vaccines to kids ages 5-11. https://t.co/fVk5IUFArM
— The Associated Press (@AP) November 8, 2021
Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy tells @MarthaRaddatz that the Biden administration is “prepared to defend” sweeping COVID-19 vaccine mandates against legal challenges, says new requirements are "appropriate and necessary.” https://t.co/vbDVg6sK8e pic.twitter.com/iepncFhi4x
— ABC News (@ABC) November 7, 2021
While I cannot sit here and write 3000, here’s a few: Vaccines work. The COVID-19 vaccines are extremely effective at preventing serious illness, hospitalization, and death. This here is in regards to ADULTS in the U.S. Source: https://t.co/sNcZ1NlKfQ
— Chise ????? BWS GoH (@sailorrooscout) November 8, 2021
Emotional families reunite at airport as US lifts travel ban https://t.co/zyvTORXZgh
— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) November 9, 2021
======
Yesterday (11/7) there were 332,372 new #COVID19 cases worldwide & 4,402 deaths.
Russia reported the largest daily increase in cases (+38,028) followed by:
United Kingdom: 29,843
Turkey: 27,304
United States: 21,968
Ukraine: 18,556
Germany: 12,788https://t.co/BwidoSMooH pic.twitter.com/nFwW9ILv1h— KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation) (@KFF) November 8, 2021
China committed an act of barbarity when it prosecuted citizen journalist Zhang Zhan for her revealing look at Wuhan in the first stages of what became a global pandemic, the Editorial Board writes.https://t.co/2zclz60zaW
— Washington Post Opinions (@PostOpinions) November 7, 2021
Per the BBC:
The US state department has urged China to release citizen journalist Zhang Zhan, expressing deep concerns over her deteriorating health.
She was given a four-year jail term over her reporting of the Covid-19 outbreak in Wuhan when the pandemic began.
Zhang has been on an intermittent hunger strike since she was detained in May last year.
The US moves comes after reports that she is perilously close to death…
Zhang, a 38-year-old former lawyer, had initially travelled to Wuhan in February 2020 after reading an online post by a resident about life in the city during the outbreak.
Once there, she began documenting what she saw on the streets and hospitals in livestreams and essays, despite threats by authorities, and her reports were widely shared on social media
In May she was found guilty of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble” – a charge that is commonly levelled against activists and whistle blowers seen as undermining the government’s efforts to control information in the country…
India could resume deliveries of COVID-19 shots to global vaccine-sharing platform COVAX in a few weeks for the first time since April, two health industry sources said, ending a suspension of supplies that has hurt poor countries https://t.co/yxoSMmeVLo pic.twitter.com/rjwanq4kaa
— Reuters (@Reuters) November 9, 2021
Some possible factors in Japan’s success include a belated but remarkably rapid vaccination campaign, an emptying out of many nightlife areas as fears spread during the recent surge in cases, a widespread practice, well before the pandemic, … https://t.co/e7CvvV89zh
— JJ Angelus (Ms/Mrs) #SciComm (@JJ_Angelus) November 8, 2021
Though some speculated that the drop in cases might be due to less testing, Tokyo metropolitan government data showed the positivity rate fell from 25% in late August to 1% in mid-October, while the number of tests fell by one-third.
— JJ Angelus (Ms/Mrs) #SciComm (@JJ_Angelus) November 8, 2021
Thailand plans to reopen borders to foreign workers amid shortage https://t.co/QHZ9n4Bv0n pic.twitter.com/Mibe4dVDHX
— Reuters (@Reuters) November 9, 2021
People “unvaccinated by choice” in Singapore no longer can receive free covid-19 treatment https://t.co/LRy0iDnbqQ
— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) November 8, 2021
It’s not the financial death sentence it would be here, but it’s a clear declaration of intent:
Eighty-five percent of people in Singapore eligible for coronavirus vaccines are fully vaccinated, and 18 percent have received booster shots.
But the Singaporean government said Monday that it will no longer cover the medical costs of people “unvaccinated by choice,” who make up the bulk of remaining new covid-19 cases and hospitalizations in the city-state…
Singapore is considered to have one of the world’s the best health-care systems. A 2017 study in the leading medical journal the Lancet found that Singapore ranked first among 188 countries in efforts to meet health-related sustainable development goals set by the United Nations for 2030.
The Singaporean model, however, depends heavily on privatized medical services, meaning that the unvaccinated may already have coverage if they become sick with covid-19. In the United States, for example, about one-third of health-care spending is private, while in Singapore it is the opposite, according to an analysis by the New York Times…
Singapore recorded some 91,000 new coronavirus infections over the past 28 days, 98.7 percent of which were asymptomatic or mild cases, according to the Health Ministry.
As of Nov. 7, 1,725 people were hospitalized with the virus. Of those, according to the Health Ministry, 301 have required oxygen, 62 are under close monitoring in the intensive care unit and 67 are critically ill and intubated. That has put Singapore’s current ICU use rate at 68.5 percent.
“While this is still manageable by stretching our health care manpower, we must not let down our guard and must avoid a resurgence of cases that could once again threaten to overwhelm our health care system,” the Health Ministry said Monday…
New Zealand beefed up security measures at its parliament as thousands of people gathered to protest against COVID-19 vaccine mandates and government lockdowns aimed at controlling the pandemic https://t.co/uXQ3nkvYV1 pic.twitter.com/3Gkw5XZlga
— Reuters (@Reuters) November 9, 2021
WHO casts doubt on Turkmenistan's zero-Covid claim https://t.co/gl2lMzaAU2
— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) November 8, 2021
Russia set a new record for daily coronavirus deaths Tuesday as the country emerged from a weeklong paid holiday meant to curb the record-breaking spread of infectionshttps://t.co/VyEDnVDUz5
— The Moscow Times (@MoscowTimes) November 9, 2021
Bulgaria's daily COVID-19 deaths rise to record high https://t.co/VjOsqy5TyK pic.twitter.com/PbhFQ9is7S
— Reuters (@Reuters) November 9, 2021
Germany is considering the return of tougher Covid measures as cases begin surging again. The country's infection rate has hit a record high. Hospitals are filling up as the outbreak becomes a ‘pandemic of the unvaccinated’ https://t.co/FzcwMIkUxH
— delthia ricks ? (@DelthiaRicks) November 8, 2021
England’s hospitals have already reached peak winter bed occupancy. Health officials say the situation is ‘very worrying’ as exhausted staff prepares for a Covid surge https://t.co/LhQ991urbx pic.twitter.com/Gt5xpx4DTs
— delthia ricks ? (@DelthiaRicks) November 8, 2021
Frontline NHS staff in England will have to be fully vaccinated against Covid, the BBC has been told, with workers given until spring to have both jabs https://t.co/cx7PyTH1gO
— BBC Breaking News (@BBCBreaking) November 9, 2021
After 20 months of pandemic restrictions, Cuba is about to fully reopen its airports, gateways to the country's tourism industry. An inoculation campaign has significantly reduced coronavirus infections and deaths. https://t.co/B5eHCboWSA
— The Associated Press (@AP) November 9, 2021
======
“Conclusion: Children aged < 12y may be critical hidden spreaders, which indicates an urgent need of vaccination for this particular population.”
— Bernard Lee (@bernardclee) November 8, 2021
Control of the the pandemic requires interventions better aimed at understanding specific aspects of transmission:
-The latent period
-Individual variability in infectiousness
-Incubation
-Time between symptom onset in the infector & the infected https://t.co/jo6UnXefas pic.twitter.com/YO9PE4dvZm— delthia ricks ? (@DelthiaRicks) November 8, 2021
Not to mention that this is what we *reduced* the pediatric COVID mortality to with all of our mitigation measures. The same measures that reduced pediatric influenza deaths by over 99% last season.
— Nathan Boonstra, MD (@PedsGeekMD) November 7, 2021
When someone says something like that, it really means that they care "statistically zero" about children.
— Alberto Stolfi (@StolfiAlberto) November 7, 2021
======
People entering shopping malls, theaters, gyms or nail salons in the city of Los Angeles began having to show proof of COVID-19 vaccination as one of the country's strictest measures intended to slow the spread of the coronavirus took effect. https://t.co/ApxlOLEj7w
— The Associated Press (@AP) November 8, 2021
St. Patrick’s Hospital in Missoula, MT, thought 30 #Covid patients was a huge number. And then came Delta. @EricBoodman describes a wave like no other. https://t.co/gxgS296miD
— Helen Branswell (@HelenBranswell) November 8, 2021
Leading ‘conservative’ intellectual William F. Buckley suggested tattooing HIV-positive individuals on the forehead & buttocks — as a kinder alternative to ’rounding them up & putting them in camps’. But, memory-holed…
They literally refused to let Ryan White attend school. The general public wouldn't go near anyone who had or was perceived to have HIV/AIDS. Princess Diana made GLOBAL headlines when she interacted with AIDS patients. These people are evil liars. https://t.co/PNDzyxRWtc
— Jenboree ???????? (@jennifer_nuchia) November 8, 2021
On The Road – Uncle Ebeneezer – SE Asia Valentines (Part 8): Sunrise At Angkor Wat
NeenerNeener
Monroe County, NY:
The Monroe County website says 255 new cases yesterday, the NYSDOH says 256.
243 COVID patients hospitalized.
We’re at 1455 deaths now, up from 1439 last week. This is scary.
70% of eligible residents are vaccinated.
According to the Monroe County website: between March 1, 2021 and October 31, 2021, a total of 198 deaths were reported. Among patients under the age of 65, 93% were not fully vaccinated. Among patients ages 65 and older, 71% were not fully vaccinated.
mrmoshpotato
Legal challenges to public health measures. Gotta love these times.
YY_Sima Qian
On 11/8 China reported 43 new domestic confirmed (8 previously asymptomatic) & 46 new domestic asymptomatic cases.
Inner Mongolia “Autonomous” Region did not report any new domestic positive cases. 10 domestic confirmed cases recovered. There currently are 84 active domestic confirmed cases in the region.
At Xi’an in Shaanxi Province there currently are 11 active domestic confirmed cases in the city.
Ningxia “Autonomous” Region did not report any new domestic positive cases. There currently are 40 active domestic confirmed cases in the region.
Gansu Province reported 4 new domestic confirmed cases (3 previously asymptomatic, 1 mild & 3 moderate). 15 domestic confirmed cases recovered. There currently are 111 active domestic confirmed cases (including 5 serious) in the province.
Hebei Province reported 12 new domestic confirmed cases. There currently are 112 active confirmed & 3 active domestic asymptomatic cases in the province.
At Hunan Province there currently are 4 active domestic confirmed (at Changsha) & 1 active domestic asymptomatic (at Zhuzhou) cases remaining in the province.
At Zunyi in Guizhou Province there currently are 5 active domestic confirmed cases (2 moderate, 1 serious & 2 critical) remaining in the city. 2 residential compounds remain at Medium Risk.
Beijing Municipality did not report any new domestic positive cases. There currently are 41 active domestic confirmed cases in the city. 1 community remains at High Risk. 2 communities are currently at Medium Risk.
At Rizhao in Shandong Province there currently are 14 active domestic confirmed & 6 active domestic asymptomatic cases in the city. 1 residential compound is currently at Medium Risk.
Sichuan Province reported 7 new domestic confirmed cases (2 previously asymptomatic). There currently are 24 active domestic confirmed & 2 active domestic asymptomatic cases in the province.
Chongqing Municipality did not report any new domestic positive cases. There currently are 6 active domestic confirmed & 4 active domestic asymptomatic cases remaining in the city. 2 residential compounds & 1 office building are currently at Medium Risk.
At Changzhou in Jiangsu Province there currently are 3 active domestic confirmed & 1 active domestic asymptomatic cases in the city. 3 residential compounds are currently at Medium Risk.
Qinghai Province did not report any new domestic positive cases. There currently are 12 active domestic confirmed cases in the province.
At Tianmen in Hubei Province the 2 domestic confirmed cases recovered.
Heilongjiang Province reported 8 new domestic confirmed (1 previously asymptomatic). 1 domestic confirmed case recovered. There currently are 250 active domestic confirmed & 2 active domestic asymptomatic cases in the province.
Shangrao in Jiangxi Province reported 3 new domestic confirmed & 6 new domestic asymptomatic cases. 1 domestic asymptomatic cases were released from isolation. There currently are 12 active domestic confirmed & 31 active domestic asymptomatic cases in the city. 1 township & 2 residential compounds are currently Medium Risk.
At Zhejiang Province there currently are 1 active domestic confirmed (at Jiaxing) & 1 active domestic asymptomatic (at Hangzhou) cases remaining.
Henan Province reported 2 new domestic confirmed (both previously asymptomatic) & 8 new domestic asymptomatic cases. 1 domestic confirmed case recovered. There currently are 38 active domestic confirmed & 16 active domestic asymptomatic cases in the province.
Dalian in Liaoning Province reported 5 new domestic confirmed (1 mild & 4 moderate) & 27 new domestic asymptomatic cases, 28 traced close contacts & 4 from mass screening. There currently are 45 active domestic confirmed & 55 active domestic asymptomatic cases in the city. 4 residential compounds, 4 residential buildings & 2 villages have been elevated to Medium Risk. 1 community, 4 residential compounds, 4 residential buildings & 4 villages are currently at Medium Risk.
Dehong Prefecture in Yunnan Province reported 2 new domestic confirmed (both at Ruili, from persons already under centralized quarantine) & 5 new domestic asymptomatic cases (4 at Ruili from persons already under centralized quarantine, & 1 at Longchuan County, from persons in restricted movement zones). 1 domestic asymptomatic case was released from isolation. There currently are 18 active domestic confirmed & 35 active domestic asymptomatic cases at the prefecture. 1 zone & 1 village at Ruili is currently at Medium Risk.
Imported Cases
On 11/8, China reported 19 new imported confirmed cases (4 previously asymptomatic), 28 imported asymptomatic cases:
Overall in China, 42 confirmed cases recovered (14 imported), 11 asymptomatic cases were released from isolation (9 imported) & 12 were reclassified as confirmed cases (4 imported), & 2,245 individuals were released from quarantine. Currently, there are 1,222 active confirmed cases in the country (393 imported), 27 in serious condition (3 imported), 507 active asymptomatic cases (350 imported), 3 suspect case (all imported). 50,079 traced contacts are currently under centralized quarantine.
As of 11/8, 2,338.493M vaccine doses have been injected in Mainland China, an increase of 7.767M doses in the past 24 hrs.
On 11/9, Hong Kong reported 1 new positive case, imported (from the US).
Amir Khalid
Malaysia’s Ministry of Health reports 5,403 new Covid-19 cases today in its media statement, the lowest daily number in six months, for a cumulative reported total of 2,516,255 cases. It also reports 58 deaths as of midnight, for an adjusted cumulative total of 29,349 deaths – 1.17% of the cumulative reported total, 1.20% of resolved cases.
Based on cases reported yesterday, Malaysia’s nationwide Rt is at 0.94.
504 confirmed cases are in ICU, 199 of them on ventilators. Meanwhile, 5,311 more patients have recovered, for a cumulative total of 2,425,054 patients recovered – 96.4% of the cumulative reported total.
Five new clusters were reported today, for a cumulative total of 5,817 clusters. 307 clusters are currently active; 5,510 clusters are now inactive.
5,378 new cases today are local infections. 25 new cases today are imported.
The National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme (PICK) administered 108,821 doses of vaccine on 8th November: 6,342 first doses, 44,084 second doses, and 58,395 booster doses. As of midnight on the 4th, the cumulative total is 50,527,937 doses administered: 25,538,619 first doses, 24,604,953 second doses, and 565,629 booster doses. 78.2% of the population have received their first dose, while 75.3% are now fully vaccinated.
NotMax
@mrmoshpotato
The WATB Syndrome.
Baud
Re: the last tweet, also the difference between a sexually transmitted disease and an airborne disease.
Also, too, right wingers not only persecuted gay people, they opposed promotion of condom use to fight AIDS.
At least they’re killing themselves this time rather than the innocents.
YY_Sima Qian
Well, Wuhan definitely needs to be known as more than the site of the original outbreak of COVID-19. (It may very well not be where the 1st crossover into human took place, but that nuance has long been lost.) A number of Chinese cities are promoting themselves as destinations to audiences home & abroad, some even putting up foreign YouTubers active in China on junkets to showcase the sites & culture on social media. I am not sure what is the point, at least with respect to the foreign audiences, given the COVID related border restrictions that will last at least another 6 mos.
However, never underestimate the provinciality of some people. A few months ago I had to call the customer service of my bank in Upstate NY to initiation some transactions. While the request was being processed, the friendly agent tried to chat me up:
Agent: So where in China do you live? (I had told her that I was living in China.)
Me: The world-famous Wuhan!
Agent (in bubbly voice): And where is that? Why is it famous?
Me: … (slightly taken aback…)
Me (a mixture of nonchalance & bemusement): It’s in central China, where COVID-19 pandemic started.
Agent: OHHHH!!!
We then chatted a bit about the initial lock down in Wuhan & the situation in Upstate NY (this was at the tail end of the brutal winter wave in the US).
Baud
@NotMax:
No vaccine for that.
OzarkHillbilly
@mrmoshpotato: Nothing new about that. They’ve been making legal challenges against public health measures on guns for decades.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: What you talking ’bout? There is a widely available .38 cal. vaccine for it.
YY_Sima Qian
The study of the Delta outbreak at Putian in Fujian Province in Sept., tweeted by Eric Topol, is unsurprising. The vast majority of < 18 yrs. in China were not vaccinated at the time, & vaccination of the 3+ yrs. only started in Oct. In the current outbreak, there has been major super-spreading events at Zhengzhou in Henan Province, in schools (both public/state schools & expensive private boarding schools). Unvaccinated children have also played accelerating roles at Shangrao in Jiangxi Province, Tianshui in Gansu Province, Shijiazhuang/Xinji in Hebei Province & Heihe in Heilongjiang Province.
debbie
@Baud:
They’re counting on their supporters being too stupid to remember AIDS. ??♀️
Just like they do when they blame the supply chain crisis on Joe, as if it wasn’t businesses’ decision to adopt Just in Time. ??♀️ ??♀️
satby
They are monsters. And other people aren’t real to them at all.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: Buried in that Not all Covid waves look the same. Here’s a snapshot of the Delta surge article are these paragraphs:
Apparently that data you’ve been asking for on vaccination status of the ill is available, but I guess you have to dig for it.
New Deal democrat
Increasing confirmation that the winter wave has started: cases decreasing only in the formerly hard hit Deep South and northern mountain West. Cases increasing throughout the Northeast, Midwest, and southern mountain West with just a few exceptions.
In percentage terms, in the last two weeks cases have increased 20% in the Northeast and Midwest, decreased 20% in the South, and remained flat in the West. Contrast this with 1 year ago, when cases nearly doubled in the same 14 day period except in the South, where they increased over 50%. Deaths increased by 25% in that same period vs. remaining flat this year.
So the initial signs are that, while there will be a winter wave, vaccinations plus the recent Delta outbreak will keep the wave subdued vs. last winter. And younger children being vaccinated should help a great deal as well.
Baud
@satby:
Worst Hallmark condolence card ever.
OzarkHillbilly
@satby: Which brings me back to what I said yesterday. They don’t think it can happen to them or those they love. They’re special.
sab
@YY_Sima Qian: Back before Time Warner sold itself to Spectrum my cable tv used to have foreign sponsored statiobs. RT was of course political propaganda from Russia. Japan’s was mostly about food. China’s was mostly tourism ads featuring various provinces and cities that wanted to showcase themselves. I miss that.
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly:
Antivaxxers suck, but there is a lot of useless noise out there despite AL’s best efforts to sort through the mess.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud:Yep, which is why at this point I would just assume that 90% of the ill are unvaccinated.
sab
I think the Dr Boonstra clip is getting his point exactly backwards. As far as I can tell from his twitter feed (he is an Iowa pediatrician) 700 children dead is 700 children dead. Stats mean nothing to those families.
debbie
@satby:
Now I want them dead
ETA: Them = anti-vaxxers everywhere.
OzarkHillbilly
Apparently Ivermectin isn’t so good at fighting parasitic infections either. Appears to be having the opposite of the desired effect.
germy
NotMax
@OzarkHillbilly
Simultaneously,
OzarkHillbilly
Heh:
sab
@sab: Perhaps I am wrong, but I believe Dr Boonstras points are that 1) mitigation helps, 2) Covid isn’t hugely dangerous to small children but it is to their adults, and flu is the opposite. Not so dangerous to adults who have survived repeated exposure, and quite dangerous to babies and small children. 3) Mitigation ( masks amd vax) helps for both viruses.
OzarkHillbilly
@NotMax:
So much for free markets.
satby
@Baud: yep.
@OzarkHillbilly: Agreed. I mean most people don’t calculate risk accurately, but there’s a malicious, sociopathy to the idea that 700 dead children is just a statistical blip.
Sloane Ranger
Monday in the UK we had 32,322 new cases. The rolling 7-day average is down by 16.6%. New cases by nation,
England – 24,979 (up 1200)
Northern Ireland – 1028 (down 7)
Scotland – 2012 (down 896)
Wales – 4303 (up 1720).
There is a slight increase in case numbers from Sunday, but this is normal after a weekend due to office closures.
Deaths – There were 57 deaths within 28 days of a positive test yesterday. The rolling 7-day average is up by 8.2%. 32 deaths were in England, 11 in Northern Ireland, 14 in Wales and none reported from Scotland. I suspect that these figures will increase once offices process the backlog of reports caused by the weekend office closures.
Testing – 869,016 tests took place on Sunday, 7 November. The rolling 7-day average is up 2.9%. The PCR testing capacity reported by labs was 862,002.
Hospitalisations – As of Friday, 5 November, there were 8966 people in hospital and 1026 people were on ventilators. The rolling 7-day average for hospital admissions was up by 3% as of 2 November.
Vaccinations – As of Sunday, 7 November, 50,262,735 people have had 1 shot of a vaccine, 45,852,677 have had 2 shots and 10,302,544 have had a 3rd shot/booster. This means that 87.4% of all UK residents aged 12+ have had 1 shot, 79.7% have had 2 and 17.9% have had a 3rd shot/booster.
debbie
@OzarkHillbilly:
The world has gone insane from stupid. ??♀️
satby
@sab: he’s (the doctor) calling the original tweeter (@PedsGeek) a monster.
Matt McIrvin
@New Deal democrat: In the Northeast, the pattern is that cases are generally still dropping in greater NYC and Connecticut, but rising in a lot of areas to the north. Now that the data anomalies have cleared from the averages, northern New Hampshire genuinely seems to be coming down off its big outbreak, but VT is still struggling, and I think MA is starting to see a rise.
The spike in northern Maine is clearing but it’s affecting the coastal areas more now. Generally a big spike will happen in a lower-vaccination, lower-mask rural area and then spread to the cities while it’s clearing where it started. The cities can generally keep it more modest but they don’t go unscathed.
YY_Sima Qian
The case of Zhang Zhan is somewhat more complex than is being portrayed by western press. (There is, of course, zero mention in Chinese media or social media.) She was indeed quite brave & dogged in attempting to highlight the suffering & chaos in Wuhan in late Jan. & early Feb. However, anyone consuming Chinese social media, or even state media, at that time had an appreciation of the chaos & suffering, before the censors tightened the grip again in mid-Feb. I will never forget the desperate pleas on WeChat, Weibo (Chinese version of Twitter) & Toutiao (Chinese news/blog aggregator) seeking help for someone’s parent or grandparent, who was lying on the flood of overcrowded ERs, drowning in their lungs. I will also never forget the Chinese public raking the Chinese Red Cross over the coals for monopolizing donated medical supplies & channeling them to favored hospitals, while administrators of the biggest public hospitals in Wuhan were on Weibo pleading for masks & gloves for their doctors & nurses. I would say Chinese media & social media conveyed much more of the suffering from COVID-19 than American media.
Zhang Zhan was equally obstinate in challenging the pandemic response measures, from the lock down & strict stay at home orders, to medical isolation of asymptomatic & centralized quarantine of close contacts. While violating the pandemic response regulations, she was also passive aggressive with the contractor security guards & community workers that manned the gates of residential compounds (who enforced the regulations on the ground), & the police officers that came to investigate the disturbances. All of it is evident in the videos that she & her associates had posted on YouTube. In these videos, she came off to me as a zealot, & I am instinctively suspicious of zealots. Given the subsequent development of the pandemic across the globe, & the consistently broad popular support that the elimination measures have in China, there is exactly zero probability of her case sparking some kind of popular outrage against the CCP regime.
Of course, nothing justifies her inhumane treatment, whether the harsh 5 year sentence, or her current circumstance. She is on hunger strike, & the authorities cannot have her die as a martyr, so they are force feeding liquid nutrient through her nose. Her infractions should only have justified a few weeks or months in detention. The state propaganda machine & the nationalists on social media should not have had much trouble discrediting her in the eyes of the vast majority, given the materials they can work with. I generally do not ascribe bloodymindedness as the sole/main motivation of the CCP regime (or its key elements), but in some cases that is the only apparent explanation.
sab
@satby: He is pedsgeek. I think he let the original tweeter off the hook by not calling him out by name, so we think he is the original tweeter.
rikyrah
???????? for Singapore
Ohio Mom
Glad someone did the legwork to document this but anyone who thought children could not be vectors has no children in their life.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Ah, the irony. Well Bothsidesim is poisonous.
rikyrah
@sab:
Only 700 CHILDREN DEAD.
THAT ROTTEN MUTHAPHUCKA ?
Robert Sneddon
@sab:
I’ve seen promotional events for rural areas in Japanese cities quite often when I’ve visited there — a city-centre train station atrium will sprout pop-up booths and large banners glorifying the produce from Aomori (fruit, melons etc.), selling bags of vegetables, seafood and the like to passers-by. I recall Fukushima prefecture getting this treatment around 2015, to encourage people to buy rice and greens from that area despite the bad press and scaremongering. Fukushima coastline seafood was still off the menu though.
satby
@sab: ah, got it.
Kay
@Ohio Mom:
It’s weird. The whole discussion is based on a nutty idea that children are a group who are and will be cordoned off from adults. It would be a valid point if children lived in huge child-only dormitories located in child-villages, but since they don’t they were included in the general population spread mitigation efforts.
sab
@sab: This is one if my main objections to Twitter. I am always dropping into a conversation where the beginning and end is inaccessible.
In BJ I do that occassionally but I can always go back to the beginning if the thread and go “oops.” When I do drop in mid-thread and comment I am often wrong and msunderstand what is going on. I have not figured out how to do that in twitter. I never know who is saying what and in what context. So I mostly avoid it.
Bruce K in ATH-GR
Greece: mentioned late in yesterday’s thread, but the daily infection numbers as of yesterday’s Ministry of Health report are at a new high of 7,335 new cases (the highest daily number yet), with 65 dead and 477 intubated in ICUs.
Kathimerini reports an advisor to the government is not advocating boosters at four months instead of six. (source)
Personal note: in my quest for a booster, my firm’s consulting doctor indicated that my easiest and safest option would be to get one shot of the J&J vaccine to serve as a booster. So I have an appointment a week from tomorrow to do that, and once that’s done, I’ll have both my CDC card and my EU cert. And, of course, a hopefully increased measure of immunity.
sab
@sab: This is why I so wholeheartedly support John Cole’s aversion to threaded comments, We lose context. If BJ goes threaded comments I will go off and find a new life elsewhere.
Ken
The UK parliament recently changed the law to allow dumping raw sewage into rivers. Can the USA be far behind?
(The UK is having trouble getting the chemicals for water treatment. No one has any idea why there’s this sudden shortage other than that it’s not because of Brexit.)
Soprano2
@OzarkHillbilly: I can’t tell you how many times in spring/summer 2020 I heard variations of “It won’t be bad here, we don’t live on top of each other like they do in the cities” and “it’s not crowded here like it is where Covid is bad”. I pointed out that in small towns everyone goes to the same places all the time, so all it would take is for one person at one of those places to be sick and spreading it and everyone would have it.
grandmaBear
I read the 300,000 vaxxed 5-11 year olds statistic to Dr. DIL. She asked if all of them had to have 3 people to administer it ( as her 7 year old, meltdown-prone son did). This morning he was dragging his feet and claiming a vaccine reaction. A bit of a drama llama.
Suzanne
So one thing I didn’t mention is that Spawn the Youngest somehow got Hand/Foot/Mouth. Mild case, she’s fine, blah blah…. but she got it from somewhere, and I don’t know where. She’s been almost nowhere, and her sister masks at school. So, of course, I am concerned about her getting Covid. Her sister got her first shot yesterday — YEAH! Now for the littles!
My MIL is coming for Thanksgiving. She has her third shot. It will be nice.
YY_Sima Qian
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
Western press have put Zhang Zhan & other “citizen journalists” on pedestals (as they are wont to do because they can only frame complex issues in Manichaean good/evil) as brave exposers of the Hidden Ugly Truth. What I am saying is that the sufferings, chaos & idiocies in execution were well known to anyone who followed Chinese social media (which were often quite direct in their criticism) & state media (which were more nuanced) at the time. Indeed, many were living in it. These “citizen journalists” were also vocally advocating that the Chinese people shake off the “shackles of the CCP regime” (as represented by the pandemic response measures) & live free (which is also at odds w/ scenes of suffering they documented at the hospitals). That would have been disastrous for China & the world, including from a humanitarian perspective.
I find these dissidents to be brave and idealistic in certain aspects, & dangerously naive in others. I find the framing of WP & other western press to be myopic & misguided, & I find the CCP regime’s treatment of these individuals reprehensible.
Part of the reason that the vast majority of people in China continue to support the elimination measures is precisely because of shocking images & accounts coming out of the hospitals in Wuhan during the 1st wave. Memories of the original SARS in 2003 also help.
I am not sure where “bothsideism” comes in.
sab
@grandmaBear: Our meltdown was impressive: ” I have a hole, in my arm!” The hole was almost microscopic.
Suzanne
@Soprano2:
The idea that cities are uniquely dirty/germy made sense in the days before modern plumbing systems. Now, with advancements in building technologies and building science, modern buildings usually have cleaner indoor air than buildings built even twenty years ago. Which means that many urban areas are likely to be “cleaner” than many rural areas.
Also, I think urban residents just have a better sense of how to live and move in more crowded spaces, since they have had more practice.
Matt McIrvin
@Kay: There’s also a sticky medical-ethics angle coming from the idea that it’s wrong to make children take on additional risk for the benefit of adults, because they’re children and need to be specially protected.
But all that requires assuming in the first place that children are at more personal risk from being vaccinated than not being vaccinated, which in a pandemic situation is false.
YY_Sima Qian
@YY_Sima Qian: There are indeed Hidden Truths to be exposed about China’s early COVID-19 response, such as why Beijing was less than transparent w/ the WHO in the 1st half of Jan. (w/ case information), & why obfuscation by Wuhan & Hubei authorities were allowed to persist for crucial 2 weeks in the middle of Jan. (when case counts froze at the low 40s). However, whistleblowers that expose such truths have yet to emerge, & the truth may simply be bureaucratic inertia, bureaucratic rivalry & habitual secrecy, rather than any malign conspiracy.
sab
@Suzanne: Most of our six cats have had an upper respiratory infection for the last two months. These guys haven’t been outside in years. Two years of Covid lockdown. We send one new to us cat to be neutered. We weren’t allowed in because Covid, he comes home and now all the other cats are coughing, wheezing and sneezing. He is fine.
Suzanne
@grandmaBear: My Spawn is also a bit of a drama queen. She was having a parabolic rise in anxiety as we walked into the pharmacy. The tech noticed and basically just did the shot super-fast without warning her. I appreciated that. LOL. Afterward, she said it wasn’t that bad.
Matt McIrvin
@Suzanne: The cities got hit first, when we didn’t have vaccines and didn’t know what we were doing. But that didn’t mean other areas wouldn’t have just as bad a wave sooner or later.
Right now, greater New York City looks like a low-COVID oasis in the generally worsening situation in the Northeast. Some of that is probably still acquired long-term immunity from infection, since NYC was hit so hard in the beginning. But most of it is social immunity–nobody who lived through that could forget to take it seriously.
sab
@YY_Sima Qian: Y’all screwed up for maybe six weeks. Nothing like our screw ups for two years. But I do feel for the Chinese citizens trying to do their patriotic duty to whistle alert early.
Our government screwed up way much more, which killed hundreds of thousands of people.
But your government did so much more damage to well-intenioned people trying to do their civic duty. Long run that will come back to bite you, and us hard.
Zzyzx
So Phish just played a 4 show run in Las Vegas and it’s turning into a real time test in how effective vaccines are. Apparently if you gather a large group of hippies into a hedonistic city during a pandemic, many will get infected.
However of the hundreds of people I’ve heard of who have tested positive post-Vegas, I’ve only heard of a couple of cases where it’s been really bad. Unfortunately one of them has resulted in a death, but there haven’t been any other hospitalizations yet.
Right now, I’m figuring I’m pretty good wrt Covid being fully vaxed and having a recent breakthrough case, but come Jan/Feb if we’re still seeing high numbers, I’m probably going back into my shell a bit.
gvg
Well my contribution to anti Covid is this morning it was cold enough in Florida, that I wore my mask to hike in from the parking garage because I was cold and it was more comfortable with the mask on. My nose appreciated it. It was 48F. Floridians hate cold.
I got a moderna booster for my Pfizer original series last Friday. No reaction except a bit of soreness.
Soprano2
Well, this is not exactly what they did if my reading is correct. It appears that they decided not to pass a law that requires sewage companies to reduce sewer discharges, and then after public pressure they reversed course and passed the law. It sounds like most sewage treatment companies are private in Britian; in the U.S. most of them are run by local governments. It’s hard to tell, because the press doesn’t know how to write about this issue at all, but it appears that they are mostly talking about discharges from manholes that happen after a rainstorm, and not deliberate discharges of sewage from treatment plants, although again it’s hard for me to tell. Most people have no idea how these systems actually work, and think that these discharges are deliberate, when they’re anything but. My city is, strangely enough, in the forefront of efforts here to reduce stormwater discharges from the sanitary sewers. We’ve done tens of millions of dollars of work on our system, and it’s helped a lot, but no city will ever completely eliminate this problem. I’m also sure that it’s true that much of the problem is due to the age of the British system, and I would bet good money that it’s a combined system, designed to carry both stormwater and sewage, which compounds the problem when you try to fix the issue. If it’s a combined system, then it was actually designed to overflow like this when too much water gets in the system, and that’s a real problem. Lots of large cities here struggle with how to fix the problem.
Suzanne
@Matt McIrvin:
I think that space affects behavior more than most people realize. (Of course I think that, I’m an architect.) But there are actually lots of studies to this effect.
One example: I went to visit my in-laws a few years ago. They live in Fayetteville, AR. So the Crystal Bridges Museum had just opened, so we went to see it. (It’s beautiful, make a point to see it in you find yourself in that part of the world.) As we went to enter the first gallery, a docent stopped us and everyone else who was about to enter, and he told us all in VERY SERIOUS TONES that we should NOT TOUCH THE ART. I was like, “WTF?! Who needs to be told not to touch the art?!”. Went into the first gallery, and I saw multiple people with their hands all over the art. After that, I noticed people in that part of the world just touch things a lot. It’s obviously a cultural difference. I remember being taught not to touch things.
jonas
Got boosted yesterday evening — so far so good. Just a little tenderness at the injection site, but no fatigue, aches, etc. The second round of the Moderna shot sent me to bed with flu-like symptoms for about a day and a half last spring, but the pharmacist says the boosters are only a 1/2 dose, so the reaction should be minimal.
jonas
@Suzanne:
I was in a museum in Italy as a student years ago looking at some Renaissance paintings and these two American women were leaning in closely at some Virgin and Child scene or something, commenting that the fabric on Mary looked “so real!” So she just reaches out and pokes the painting! About three guards, all having heart attacks, leap toward her shouting “No touch! No touch!” She was mortified, iirc, but clearly it never occurred to her that you really shouldn’t just poke a 15th century painting because you think the brushwork on the ermine looks neat.
jonas
@Zzyzx:
As I commented yesterday, in my county fewer than 10 percent of Covid deaths in 2021 were among unvaccinated people, and *all* of those people were older — mostly in their 70s or 80s — with comorbidities. Not a single vaccinated person under 50 or so, as far as I can tell based on local media reports, has died this year.
Suzanne
@jonas: Like I said, it’s obviously a cultural difference. I was taught not to touch things, in stores, in other people’s houses, other people’s stuff in my house, in public spaces of really any kind. Now that I am aware of it, I notice it a lot more: lots of touching is not an urban thing. It’s probably part of the not-taking-up-too-much-space habit, not to extend your body.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Sorry, I wasn’t fully awake when I wrote that. I was referring to your comment about the Chinese censored press doing a better job at reporting the pandemic than the US free press. I am saying that’s because of “bothsidism”. The US press is so addicted to giving an image of impartiality it’s advocating for a disease.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@sab: It already did, it’s exasperating that the Wuhan officials could have strangled COVID in the cradle, supposedly the CCP was training the provincial governments on how to avoid a repeat of SARS. Instead the moment of truth came the local officials were more concerned with looking good to Beijing than dealing with the disaster at their doorstep. And for their efforts they got quite rightfully fired but by then it was to late.
But that being said everyone except a few places like New Zeeland fucked up their response at first so everyone was to complacent.
Miss Bianca
@OzarkHillbilly: Even when it does happen to them, they deny it. Or downplay it. Their loved ones did not, did not, by gum, die of COVID. They were called home into the arms of Jesus for…reasons. Other reasons.
YY_Sima Qian
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: Got it! US MSM has been coddling the ever metastasizing disease that is the modern GOP for decades w/ their “Bothsideism”, which is a major reason why the American experiment w/ democracy is so imperiled. Just as the nihilism of modern GOP knows no bounds, neither does the MSM’s myopia.
Uncle Cosmo
@jonas: Going for my M[ode]rna booster in a coupla hrs. Got my seasonal-flu shot last week in my left shoulder (which has been sore for over a month now). I figured how much sorer can it get. Answer: Considerably – just got back to normal soreness the past weekend. So I spoze I’ll get the boohooster in the other arm – that way I won’t be able to open food packages for a couple days except with both feet… (Frankly, I’d prefer getting jabbed in the tuchis, but apparently vaccination is G-rated these days…)
Bruce K in ATH-GR
Greece again: …crap. Daily numbers generally come in at about 6pm local time, and today’s numbers … 8,613 new cases. 46 dead in the past 24 hours. Intubated ICU cases: 486, up from 477.
Not too long ago, we’d have considered a thousand cases to be a very bad day. Over the summer, a thousand cases became cause for relief. Now a thousand new cases is the delta, the change from day to day. Feels like we’re losing it.
Baud