Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

When someone says they “love freedom”, rest assured they don’t mean yours.

Accountability, motherfuckers.

Oh FFS you might as well trust a 6-year-old with a flamethrower.

The most dangerous place for a black man in America is in a white man’s imagination.

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

Fuck the extremist election deniers. What’s money for if not for keeping them out of office?

It could be worse. Vance could have said “post-menopausal sows.” Waiting for that audiotape to surface.

In short, I come down firmly on all sides of the issue.

The US Supreme Court is on the ballot in november.

Can we lighten up on the doomsday scenarios?

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

People are complicated. Love is not.

Motown is Joe-Town!

The new republican ‘Pastor’ of the House is an odious authoritarian little creep.

Elections aren’t won by handwringing, cowering, and/or bashing your own candidates.

Following reporting rules is only for the little people, apparently.

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

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

Everybody saw this coming.

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

Stamping your little feets and demanding that they see how important you are? Not working anymore.

So many bastards, so little time.

There is no right way to do the wrong thing.

Tick tock motherfuckers!

You are here: Home / Healthcare / COVID-19 / COVID-19 Coronavirus Updates: Monday / Tuesday, Nov. 22-23

COVID-19 Coronavirus Updates: Monday / Tuesday, Nov. 22-23

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When Cambodia rolled out COVID-19 vaccines, lines stretched down entire streets and people left their shoes out to save their places as they sheltered from the sun. But three months into its campaign, just 11% of the population had received at least one dose. In far wealthier Japan, it took two weeks longer to reach that level.

Now both countries boast vaccination rates that rank among the world’s best. They are two of several nations in the Asia-Pacific region that got slow starts to their immunization campaigns but have since zoomed past the United States and many nations in Europe.

The countries with high rates include both richer and poorer ones, some with larger populations and some with smaller. But all have experience with infectious diseases, like SARS, and strong vaccine-procurement programs, many of which knew to spread their risk by ordering from multiple manufacturers.

Most started vaccinating relatively late due to complacency amid low infection rates, initial supply issues and other factors. But by the time they did, soaring death tolls in the United States, Britain and India helped persuade even the skeptical to embrace the efforts…

Early in the pandemic, many Asian countries imposed strict lockdown and travel rules that kept the virus largely at bay. As vaccines rolled out in force elsewhere, those low rates sometimes worked against them, giving some people the impression that getting the shot wasn’t urgent.

But when the virulent delta variant began ripping through the region, cases rose, encouraging people to sign up.

Some countries, like Malaysia, made extra efforts to ensure that even the hardest-to-reach groups were offered the vaccine. It enlisted the Red Cross’s help to give shots to people living in the country illegally and other groups that may have feared showing up for a government-sponsored vaccination…

To date, about a dozen countries in the Asia-Pacific region have vaccinated more than 70% of their populations or are on the cusp of doing so, including Australia, China, Japan and Bhutan. In Singapore, 92% are fully vaccinated.

Some countries in Asia, however, have continued to struggle. India celebrated giving its billionth COVID-19 vaccine dose in October, but with a population of nearly 1.4 billion, that translates to a fully vaccinated rate of 29%. Indonesia started earlier than most but has also stumbled, largely due to the challenge of expanding its campaign across the thousands of islands that make up its archipelago…

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Reader Interactions

38Comments

  1. 1.

    mrmoshpotato

    Ran across this earlier via Dana Houle.

    Do you ever sit back and think about the fact that during the Ebola outbreak during Obama, conservatives understood just fine how contagious diseases worked?— Donnie Two Peaches (LOSER) (@Unabogie) November 23, 2021

  2. 2.

    NeenerNeener

    Monroe County, NY:
    The Monroe County website say 435 new cases, 7.9% test positivity.
    Deaths have gone up by 26 to 1485.

    358 individuals are hospitalized for COVID-19 in the region. 94 of these patients are in ICU.

    Our vaccination % seems stuck at around 65%, but that could be because the 5 to 12 age group is now eligible.
    NYSDOH says 384 new cases.​

  3. 3.

    Amir Khalid

    Malaysia’s Ministry of Health reports 5,594 new Covid-19 cases today in its media statement, for a cumulative reported total of 2,597,080 cases. It also reports 61 deaths as of midnight, for an adjusted cumulative total of 30,063 deaths – 1.16% of the cumulative reported total, 1.19% of resolved cases.

    Based on cases reported yesterday, Malaysia’s nationwide Rt is at 1.00.

    424 confirmed cases are in ICU, 168 of them on ventilators. Meanwhile, 4,908 more patients have recovered, for a cumulative total of 2,498,345 patients recovered – 96.2% of the cumulative reported total.

    10 new clusters were reported today, for a cumulative total of 5,898 clusters. 231 clusters are currently active; 5,667 clusters are now inactive.

    5,570 new cases today are local infections. 24 new cases today are imported.

    The National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme (PICK) administered 109,016 doses of vaccine on 22nd November: 4,941 first doses, 11,912 second doses, and 92,163 booster doses. As of midnight, the cumulative total is 52,082,943 doses administered: 25,688,568 first doses, 25,011,232 second doses, and 1,571,340 booster doses. 78.7% of the population have received their first dose, while 76.6% are now fully vaccinated.

  4. 4.

    Matt McIrvin

    @mrmoshpotato: They didn’t, though–they thought the way contagious diseases worked is that you get them from DIRTY FOREIGNERS, particularly the non-white kind, but good clean Americans who look like me are all right. And that’s been more or less their reaction to COVID too, even after the disease was a full-blown pandemic here and people crossing the border were probably less likely to have it.

  5. 5.

    Joe Falco

    I’m surprised the Mouse didn’t just tell the Florida Republicans to go f off and continued to require vaccinations for their employees. Did the lawyers decide they didn’t want Death by MAGA customers to take their money elsewhere while they could still breathe?

  6. 6.

    New Deal democrat

    Not every country is having the winter wave that the EU has been experiencing. While the U.K. is hardly a poster child for good pandemic response, in the last two months new infections have risen from about 50 to 65 per 100,000, while the EU has risen from 10 to 58 per 100,000. Noteworthy that the U.K. had a full scale Delta outbreak this summer, which the Continent escaped. Similarly, despite similar climates, Canada, Japan, and Israel have escaped the winter wave, and in the case of Israel, despite only being 65% fully vaccinated, an aggressive booster campaign has brought cases back down close to zero. Meanwhile New England, with over 70% fully vaccinated, continues to see increasing cases.

    As noted above, in the US, in the Northeast, every State except for VT is still increasing week over week. In the South, only in the deepest South along the gulf coast are cases not at least slightly increasing. By contrast, in the West, only CO, AZ, and HI are increasing.

    But the real interesting data is from the Midwest. While almost all States except for ND, SD, and NE have shown an increase in the past week, in the past 5 days the weekly averages are basically flat, as is the case for the region as a whole. Why so interesting? Because last year the Midwest also rose first into the winter wave, and peaked first as well – exactly this week.

    All of which suggests that, although it is having a winter wave,  due to boosters, new vaccinations for young children, and the recent Delta wave, the US will not necessarily have an EU-type winter wave this year.

  8. 8.

    Fair Economist

    That graph indicating vaccination produces plenty of neutralizing antibodies is misleading, because it’s on a log scale, and a really tight one at that. Antibody production is as much as 90% lower against some strains. It’s hard to tell exactly because the log scale is so tight it’s not very usable. Fortunately Delta is one of the better neutralized strains.

    I still want vaccines to be switched to target the Delta variant. Even reboosting won’t help if we get an escape variant, and that’s easier as long as the vaccines target a near-extinct variant.

  9. 9.

    Matt McIrvin

    @New Deal democrat: My guess is that we will have a pretty big winter wave, but it will be even more concentrated among the unvaccinated than the summer wave was, since the same people who rushed out to get vaccinated in the first place are rushing out to get booster shots, and the boosters for vaccinated people turn out to be damned effective. Like, close to the effectiveness of the original shots on Wuhan-type COVID, at least in the early months.

    I think the effectiveness of the boosters has actually been underplayed by authorities who were waiting on FDA/CDC approval and concerned about global distributional ethics.

  10. 10.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Fair Economist: The difference between the Delta variant and original-recipe COVID is small, from the perspective of immune compatibility–the main difference is just that Delta reproduces faster, so it can overwhelm immune response by brute force. The Delta-targeted vaccine would likely not make a large difference here when it comes to fighting new variants. The vaccine makers have tested Delta-targeted vaccines and they’ll likely come eventually, but it’s more important for them to be prepared to rush one out against an actual escape variant if it starts spreading widely.

  11. 11.

    trnc

    Do you ever sit back and think about the fact that during the Ebola outbreak during Obama, conservatives understood just fine how contagious diseases worked?

    Really? Rand Paul clearly didn’t know shit about Ebola.

  12. 12.

    terben

    In Australia today, a total of 1,023 new cases took the cumulative total to 200,651. Two states NSW (80,163) and Victoria (113,755) account for more than 96% of all cases.

    There were 20 deaths reported today, bringing the total to 1968. The two states above with 623 and 1298 respectively accounting for more than 97% of deaths.

    Although vaccination numbers vary between and within states, the national vaccination numbers are 71.6% fully vaccinated and 77.2% partially. Because Australia is not yet vaccinating people under 12yo, these rates are 84.2% and 90.7% of those eligible.

    My state, South Australia, which shares a border with both NSW and Victoria, has enforced border controls for the past 5 months. These controls have effectively stopped the delta strain from entering from those states. Today those border controls were lifted and our Covid numbers are expected to begin to increase. Currently, SA has had 922 cases (623 from returning overseas travellers) and 4 deaths.

  13. 13.

    BC in Illinois

    My daughter, who has four children (5, 7, 9, 11) in and out of school — in class (masked), back home, virtual, tested, quarantined, etc — has said that “Pandemics suck on a number of levels.

    She found out yesterday about a St Louis program for vaccinating kids who live in the city. Free — with a $100 Target gift certificate! By yesterday afternoon, they were all vaccinated. The nurses were great, the paperwork was a bottleneck. But it’s all done, and they can get their second shot before Christmas.

    “Yes, we will get a prize, toy, something at Target.But we’re saving the rest of it for later.”

    And apparently that worked. But Pandemics still suck.

  14. 14.

    Lacuna Synecdoche

    NYT via Anne Laurie @ Top:

    Now, with the summer’s Delta surge in the rearview mirror, many are wondering when the masks might finally come off.

    It’s getting really hard to tell the difference between NYT and DougJ’s NYT Pitchbot.

    I mean, really? A late autumn/winter Covid surge is ramping up, just like last year at this time, and NYT seriously wants to entertain questions about whether we still need to wear masks?

    For fuck’s sake …​

  15. 15.

    Ken

    I got boostered* yesterday, and other than a little soreness at the spot, no reaction yet.  The only weird thing that happened was there was a woman ahead of me in line who filled out all the forms, but when they called her name, she was nowhere in the store (a Walgreens). Being a nasty suspicious person, my first thought was trying to get around some vax requirement with “see, here’s pictures of me at the clinic”

    (* shut up spellcheck, it’s a word if I say it’s one)

  16. 16.

    gvg

    @mrmoshpotato: ​
      My recollection is they were idiots then too. They clearly didn’t understand basic biology and were just reacting hysterically to damage Obama and democrats. They also wanted to halt all immigration and travel by Americans to foreign countries. I think they always want to halt both things and be isolationist. Also they are natural hysterics.

  17. 17.

    Taken4Granite

    I got my booster Saturday when a state (NH) vaccine crew came to my town. It was a bit of a CF: they underestimated demand for the booster, and by the time I got to the front of the line (after more than two hours of waiting) they were out of Pfizer and nearly out of Moderna (since my initial shots were Moderna, I was OK with staying with Moderna). They were anticipating similar crowds at another such event in a neighboring town on Sunday.

    The booster hit me harder than the original despite being a smaller dose. I was OK for the rest of Saturday, but spent most of Sunday in bed.

  18. 18.

    Lacuna Synecdoche

    Dana Houle via @mrmoshpotato: ​

    Do you ever sit back and think about the fact that during the Ebola outbreak during Obama, conservatives understood just fine how contagious diseases worked?— Donnie Two Peaches (LOSER)

    No, but I do sit back, every now and then, and think about the fact that we now know how conservatives would have reacted if Obama had, in fact, responded to Ebola the way they were demanding – i.e., the same way they’re reacting now to face masks, vaccines, etc.​

  19. 19.

    Taken4Granite

    @Matt McIrvin: Yes. The 2014 Ebola outbreak was centered on Liberia. I recall an attempt to quarantine somebody who was returning to the US from Kenya around this time. Nairobi and Monrovia are farther apart than Boston and San Francisco, and not (at least at the time) connected by regular direct flights while there are multiple daily BOS-SFO flights. But most Americans don’t realize this; sub-Saharan Africa is effectively one country to them.

  20. 20.

    New Deal democrat

    @Matt McIrvin: That’s why Israel is so interesting, because they only have 65% fully vaccinated as well.

    Optimistic scenario: because weather and human behavior are the same as last year at this time, cases will peak when they did last year, at roughly a 50% increase from here (130,000 or so) about two weeks after Christmas.

    Pessimistic scenario: the winter wave started one month later this year, and will peak later as well, with an 8-fold increase from bottom to top, i.e., over 500,000/day.

    I lean towards the optimistic scenario, but what happens in the Midwest in the next couple of weeks will tell the tale.

    Btw, I have been meaning to ask you if you follow the Boston area wastewater monitoring site:

    https://www.mwra.com/biobot/biobotdata.htm

    As you know, wastewater gives an early warning. Unfortunately, the news has not been good for the past week.

  21. 21.

    YY_Sima Qian

    On 11/22 China reported 5 new domestic confirmed (none previously asymptomatic) & 2 new domestic asymptomatic cases.

    Dalian in Liaoning Province reported 4 new domestic confirmed cases (3 mild & 1 moderate), all traced close contact already under centralized quarantine. 12 domestic confirmed cases recovered & 2 domestic asymptomatic case was released from isolation. There currently are 260 active domestic confirmed & 28 active domestic asymptomatic cases in the city. 2 communities are currently at High Risk. 29 Mediim Risk sites were re-designated to Low Risk. 19 sites are currently at Medium Risk.

    At Ejina Banner in Alxa League, Inner Mongolia “Autonomous” Region 1 domestic confirmed case recovered. There currently is 1 active domestic confirmed case remaining.

    At Xi’an in Shaanxi Province there currently are 4 active domestic confirmed cases remaining.

    At Yinchuan in Ningxia “Autonomous” Region 3 domestic confirmed cases recovered. There currently are 4 active domestic confirmed cases remaining.

    At Gansu Province there currently are 6 active domestic confirmed cases (5 at Lanzhou & 1 at Zhangye) remaining.

    At Hebei Province 1 domestic confirmed case recovered. There currently are 48 active confirmed & 3 active domestic asymptomatic cases in the province.

    • At Shijiazhuang 1 domestic confirmed case recovered. There currently are 16 active domestic confirmed & 3 active domestic asymptomatic cases remaining.
    • At Xinji there currently are 32 active domestic confirmed cases remaining.

    At Zunyi in Guizhou Province the 2 remaining domestic confirmed cases recovered.

    Jilin City in Jilin Province did not report any new domestic positive cases. There currently are 2 active domestic confirmed & 1 active domestic asymptomatic cases in the city.

    Beijing Municipality did not report any new domestic positive cases. 1 residential compound remains at Medium Risk.

    At Rizhao in Shandong Province there currently are 5 active domestic confirmed & 5 active domestic asymptomatic cases in the city.

    At Sichuan Province 5 domestic confirmed case recovered. There currently are 20 active domestic confirmed cases in the province.

    • At Chengdu 5 domestic confirmed case recovered. There currently are 19 active domestic confirmed remaining. All areas of the city are currently at Low Risk.
    • At Zigong there currently is 1 active domestic confirmed case remaining.

    Chongqing Municipality there currently are 5 active domestic confirmed & 3 active domestic asymptomatic cases remaining.

    At Changzhou in Jiangsu Province 1 domestic confirmed case recovered. There currently is 1 active domestic confirmed cases remaining. 

    At Xining in Qinghai Province 2 domestic confirmed cases recovered. There currently are 7 active domestic confirmed case remaining.

    At Heilongjiang Province 18 domestic confirmed cases recovered. There currently are 131 active domestic confirmed cases in the province.

    • At Heihe 17 domestic confirmed cases recovered. There currently are 131 active domestic confirmed cases remaining. 1 residential compound remains at High Risk & 1 residential compound remains at Medium Risk.
    • At Harbin the last domestic confirmed case recovered.

    At Shangrao in Jiangxi Province 1 domestic confirmed case recovered & 5 asymptomatic cases were released from isolation. There currently are 2 active domestic confirmed & 12 active domestic asymptomatic cases in the city. 1 township & 1 residential compound remain at Medium Risk.

    At Henan Province 1 domestic confirmed case recovered. There currently are 71 active domestic confirmed cases in the province.

    • At Zhengzhou 1 domes confirmed case recovered. There currently are 53 active domestic confirmed cases remaining. 1 residential compound has been re-designated to Low Risk. 3 communities & 3 villages remain at Medium Risk.
    • At Zhoukou there currently are 18 active domestic confirmed cases remaining. 1 community remains at Medium Risk.

    Dehong Prefecture in Yunnan Province reported 1 new domestic confirmed & 2 new domestic asymptomatic cases, all at Ruili (via screening of persons under centralized quarantine). 1 domestic confirmed cases recovered. There currently are 30 active domestic confirmed & 32 active domestic asymptomatic cases at the prefecture. 1 zone & 1 village at Ruili are currently at Medium Risk.

    Imported Cases

    On 11/22, China reported 14 new imported confirmed cases (3 previously asymptomatic), 16 imported asymptomatic cases:

    • Guangzhou in Guangdong Province – 5 confirmed cases (2 previously asymptomatic), 3 Chinese nationals returning from Vietnam & 1 each from Laos & Nigeria (via Nairobi); 2 asymptomatic cases, both Chinese nationals returning from Laos
    • Yunnan Province (location not specified) – 3 confirmed cases, all Chinese national returning from Myanmar; 3 asymptomatic cases, 1 Chinese national each returning from Laos, Myanmar & the Philippines
    • Shanghai Municipality – 2 confirmed cases, 1 Chinese national each returning from Cameroon (via Addis Ababa) & the UAE
    • Guangxi “Autonomous” Region (location not specified) – 2 confirmed & 4 asymptomatic cases, no information released
    • Chengdu in Sichuan Province – 1 confirmed case (previously asymptomatic), a Chinese national returning from Egypt
    • Bazhong in Sichuan Province – 1 asymptomatic case, a Chinese national returning from Egypt; the case had arrived at Chengdu on 11/6, passed through the 14 days of centralized quarantine & tested negative multiple times, upon release from quarantine on 11/20 the case was transferred to Bazhong & re-entered centralized quarantine, testing positive on 11/22
    • Xi’an in Shaanxi Province – 1 confirmed case, a foreign national coming from Belgium, off a flight diverted from Beijing
    • Hangzhou in Zhejiang Province – 5 asymptomatic cases, 2 coming from Tanzania, 1 each from Uganda, Mexico & Spain
    • Shenyang in Liaoning Province – 1 asymptomatic case, no information released

    Overall in China, 64 confirmed cases recovered (24 imported), 10 asymptomatic cases were released from isolation (8 imported) & 3 were reclassified as confirmed cases (all imported), & 3,623 individuals were released from quarantine. Currently, there are 1,006 active confirmed cases in the country (385 imported), 8 in serious condition (2 imported), 494 active asymptomatic cases (359 imported), 3 suspect cases (all imported). 27,908 traced contacts are currently under centralized quarantine.

    As of 11/22, 2,442.786M vaccine doses have been injected in Mainland China, an increase of 5.534M doses in the past 24 hrs.

    On 11/23, Hong Kong reported 6 new positive  cases, all imported.

  23. 23.

    delk

    Yesterday was the first long underwear day of the season. During summer/fall I wore my mask around my neck and only put it on when I was in a crowd/indoors/on public transportation but with winter coats with hoods and scarves it’s far easier to just put the mask on while suiting up for outside. And you know what? While I was outside I kept thinking that if the pandemic is ever truly over I will probably still keep wearing a mask during the winter because it felt great! Kept my face nice and warm.

    Hubby is getting his booster this morning. I got mine two weeks ago.

  24. 24.

    Fair Economist

    @New Deal democrat: That Boston wastewater data is worse than last year at the same time. Not good.

    In the good news department, LA County’s aggressive containment measures (mask and vax requirements) are working so far. The real test comes after Thanskgiving, though – that’s when the epidemic got really crazy last year.

  26. 26.

    Sloane Ranger

    So, Monday in the UK we had 44,917 new cases. This is up by several thousand from the weekend figures but includes cases that weren’t reported then due to office closures. The rolling 7-day average is up by 8.4%. New cases by home nation,

    England – 36,478 (up 2965)

    Northern Ireland – 1469 (up 63)

    Scotland – 2481 (down 196)

    Wales – 4489 (up 2081 but there will be a considerable backlog due to Wales not reporting at all on Saturday’s).

    Deaths – There were 45 deaths within 28 days of a positive test reported yesterday, but I expect to see a big increase today as offices continue to process weekend deaths. The 7-day moving average is down by 5.2%. 34 deaths were in England, 3 in Northern Ireland, 0 in Scotland and 8 in Wales.

    Testing – 1,013,013 tests took place on Sunday. The rolling 7-day average is up by 2.7%. The PCR testing capacity reported by labs on Sunday was 656,244.

    Hospitalisations – As of Friday, 19th, there were 8024 people in hospital and 911 on ventilators. The rolling 7-day average for hospital admissions was down by 4.5% as of 16 November.

    Vaccinations – As of Sunday, 21st, 50,777,474 people had had 1 shot of a vaccine, 46,168,300 had had 2 and 15,331,311 had had a 3rd shot/booster. This means that 88.3% of all UK residents aged 12+ had had 1 shot by that date, 80.3% had had 2 shots and 26.7% had had a 3rd shot/booster.

  28. 28.

    Bruce K in ATH-GR

    Greece: it turns out that the slight decline in new cases at the end of last week may have been a false hope. The Monday evening numbers reported by Kathimerini: 7,287 new cases, 105 dead (worst day for that in all of 2021), and the number of patients intubated in ICUs has climbed to 608. And the Health Ministry is guessing that this wave might peak in the first week of December if things go well, or it might last until after Christmas. The newspaper To Vima is warning that the numbers today may be even worse.

  29. 29.

    Robert Sneddon

    @New Deal democrat: ​
      The UK’s current COVID-19 infection rate is kind of odd — it’s been flat for four months now (35,000 to 45,000 new cases a day) rather than the more usual sudden peaks and troughs experienced by many other nations. Given that the UK has a very high vaccination rate and nearly 30% of the adult population have received booster shots this is possibly the New Normal situation that the UK has reached ahead of most other countries, where COVID-19 is epidemic, like seasonal flu, rather than pandemic.

    Even with a high number of new cases being detected (the UK test rate is twice that of the US) the hospitalisation and intensive case bed occupancy rates are not that high, indicating that a lot of positive tests are coming from “breakthrough” infections of vaccinated people and/or folks with some immunity from previous exposure. These cases are mostly being dealt with by bed rest at home and over-the-counter treatments rather than requiring hospital admission — typically in the UK there are 40,000 new cases a day reported by testing but only 700-800 admissions to hospital each day.

    I’ve kept an eye on the Scottish figures over the past few months and COVID-19 ICU bed numbers have remained in the 50-80 range over that period for a country with a population of about 5.6 million people, about the same as Minnesota in the US.

  31. 31.

    Mart

    @mrmoshpotato: Actually they listened to Fox and thought everyone was going to get Ebola and die  because Obama let a couple sick people in the country. Even though the disease spread by contact with body fluids, not sneezing. Remember that woman who deserted Chris Christie’s quarantine tent? Good times.

  32. 32.

    BC in Illinois

    @rikyrah:

    Thank you. This was a great relief, especially for a weary mother. As the grandparents of 7 g’children nearby (and one out on the coast), this is a continuing story. There will be no get-togethers of 15-18-20 people this week. We will see most everybody in small groups, and try to take some of the burden off of the parents of house-bound kids.

    + + +

    Real home-bound conversation:
    Dad: “How did you manage to pull off the [PVC basement] drain pipe?”
    Child: “Well, you know how we walk along the back of the couch like a balance beam, and… it was an accident.”
    Dad: *facepalm*

  33. 33.

    Fair Economist

    @Robert Sneddon:

    Even with a high number of new cases being detected (the UK test rate is twice that of the US) the hospitalisation and intensive case bed occupancy rates are not that high, indicating that a lot of positive tests are coming from “breakthrough” infections of vaccinated people and/or folks with some immunity from previous exposure.

    “Not that high” only relative to the horrifying numbers during some earlier waves. The UK’s current death rate, if continued, would amount 750 deaths per million per year, which in the US would comfortably be the third leading cause of death at 250,000 deaths per year. Plus, of course, a lot of long term issues. It’s AIDS times five, and easy to catch too

    I agree it really looks like the “new normal” if there are no public health measures or repeat vaccination. Oh, and the UK’s economy is still down from before COVID.

  34. 34.

    Kalakal

    @mrmoshpotato: I hate that framing. Given the way history is manipulated by the GQP that translates as Ebola outbreak in America that raged uncontrolled thanks to Obama. There 11 cases (9 imported). and 2 deaths

    It does highlight their hypocrisy though

  35. 35.

    Robert Sneddon

    @Fair Economist: It’s what we have here in the UK today, very high vaccination rates (90% of adults), very high numbers of booster vaccinations (30% of adults and counting) and lots of testing (about a million tests a day reported). What happened a year and more ago in the UK (lots of cases, lots of deaths especially of older people etc.) is in the past and not applicable to what’s happening right now which was the reason for my earlier post.

    My take on the current UK situation is that vaccination rates do not materially affect infection rates but they do reduce the severity of reported cases when detected. Per capita, the UK reported death rate from/involving COVID-19 is about two-thirds that of the US with twice the number of new cases reported each day. Hospitalisation and ICU bed numbers I’m not clear about but my general impression is that the UK’s level of serious COVID-19 illness is also way down compared to the US.

  37. 37.

    AlaskaReader

    Curious if anyone has the expertise to know if there is a test where one can tell if someone who is vaccinated has ever contracted a previous case of Covid?

    Follow on question would be can that previous infection, if detectable, can that infection be given a time line?

    Would some type of blood test reveal different types of antibodies or would the antibodies from vaccination mimic possible earlier Covid antibodies and make it impossible to determine if there had been Covid infection at some point?

  38. 38.

    Kayla Rudbek

    Dear Lord give me the patience not to unload a load of whoopass on the stupid bitch who’s begging for a job on Nextdoor because she doesn’t want to get vaccinated…or at least to phrase it in such a fashion that I won’t get Mr. Rudbek upset with me….

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