Fauci briefed House Democrats today on the need for more Covid funding after Congress failed to get a deal on that.
He tells me he thinks U.S. cases could soon rise again, or halt their fall, and he thinks vulnerable people will likely need fourth shots. https://t.co/G09VdnY07J
— Josh Wingrove (@josh_wingrove) March 17, 2022
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This is the first tweet in a BIG thread — both lengthy & info-packed, but too long even for its own post. Well worth clicking over, to read the whole thing:
NEW: time for a Covid situation update
Cases and hospitalisations are rising again across much of the western world.
What’s driving the rise, and should we be worried? pic.twitter.com/XyxtEBPkEm
— John Burn-Murdoch (@jburnmurdoch) March 17, 2022
Following a citywide shutdown that rattled financial markets, the Chinese government said companies in Shenzhen, a city of 17.5 million and major business center, would be allowed to reopen while efforts to contain COVID-19 outbreaks there progress. https://t.co/yrVXPLQVcM
— The Associated Press (@AP) March 17, 2022
The Chinese commercial hub of Shanghai is pushing ahead with a mass testing initiative as it tries to curb a new spike in COVID-19 infections, but some districts were easing lockdown rules in an effort to minimise disruptions.
The city, home to about 25 million people, saw symptomatic local community infections hit 57 on March 17, with another 203 domestically transmitted asymptomatic cases, up from eight and 150 respectively a day earlier.
Shanghai, which has up to now remained relatively unscathed by the coronavirus, has shut schools and launched a city-wide testing programme that has seen dozens of residential compounds sealed off for at least 48 hours…
Even as Chinese authorities lock down cities in the country's worst outbreak in two years, they are looking for an exit from what has been a successful but onerous COVID-19 zero-tolerance prevention strategy. https://t.co/hriL8ozv9I
— The Associated Press (@AP) March 18, 2022
Analysis: Clear roadmap needed for Hong Kong's revival as COVID sweeps through city -experts https://t.co/ovhTsXZPqo pic.twitter.com/EQuplBgF30
— Reuters (@Reuters) March 18, 2022
…Last year, many states, including capital Delhi, had banned large gatherings on Holi as Covid cases soared across the country. Infections have since come down drastically – India has been logging an average of 2,500 daily new cases for weeks – and restrictions have been eased everywhere.
Elated, devotees are celebrating the day in all its glory. Images from the festival show crowds completely covered in colourful paint as they take part in the large celebrations…
However, government officials and health experts have warned against complacency.
On Thursday, the health ministry had directed states to maintain “heightened surveillance” as Covid cases rise in China, Singapore and some European countries…
South Korea hit a record daily COVID high with more than 600,000 new cases, as the country that once took an aggressive anti-pandemic approach is set to end COVID restrictions https://t.co/55EcWSNOtz pic.twitter.com/aGe9dvB2Ip
— Reuters (@Reuters) March 17, 2022
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This facet of the Covid pandemic in this country — the threatening & harassing of people who were trying to help their fellow citizens stay alive — makes me seethe. @STATnews intern Azma Hasina Mulundika reports. https://t.co/L5CQjBgIfR
— Helen Branswell ?? (@HelenBranswell) March 18, 2022
… To capture the experience of public health officials during the pandemic, researchers scoured data from a national survey of local health department workers and combed through media reports of attacks. They turned up nearly 1,500 different instances of harassment against public health workers between March 2020 and January 2021, and also found at least 222 public health officials left their jobs during that time frame.
The survey results were troubling: Health officials said they were personally attacked, villainized, and their experiences often marginalized. Their work was, at best, underappreciated, and, at worst, blamed for broader problems. Of those who said they’d experienced harassment, 24% reported facing backlash on social media; 6% said they had received personally targeted messages; 6% said they received threats to their own safety or their family’s; and 2% said their personal information was publicly shared online, a type of attack known as doxxing…
Beth Resnick, a study author and health policy researcher at Johns Hopkins, said that in some cases, community health officials bore the brunt of anger for state level policies that they didn’t play a hand in crafting. “They were being held accountable for policies that they didn’t even know were going to happen,” Resnick said. She and her colleagues found this was particularly common in rural communities.
The study also suggests that a lack of clear communication could be a contributing factor. Some health officials surveyed said that they turned to social media to help fill an information gap during the pandemic. This also put them at the forefront of public backlash. Many public health officials reported frequent harassment on social media, including serious personal threats…
Resnick raises solutions that could help bring the escalating situation under control, starting with more research on the topic. She said there’s a pressing need for better incident reporting systems, more robust policies to protect the workforce, and, more broadly, investments in infrastructure and staffing to reduce the burdens on already strained officials. Resnick also mentioned there’s a coalition in the works — which will include law enforcement such as the FBI — to address the issue.
As she noted, the issue is “not necessarily going to go away once Covid is over. The harder question is long term: What does this actually mean for the field, and how are we going to make sure we are better prepared for next time?”
Our Republican Governor ‘Chickenshit’ Charlie Baker shows his true interests:
1/These are the people to whom Massachusetts turned for "guidance" on how to get rid of 4,000 pesky COVID deaths easily and cheaply
Here they are telling health departments to use NCHS death certificate data to assess COVID deathshttps://t.co/sb7kZAQsME pic.twitter.com/MjFikTTUiK
— Gregory Travis — "The Duke of Mild" (TM) (@greg_travis) March 18, 2022
3/Why is it common to omit COVID as the cause of death on death certificates where COVID was the cause of death?
* Often families don't want COVID listed
* Often coroners and funeral directors don't want COVID listed pic.twitter.com/1wZ6dXjjay
— Gregory Travis — "The Duke of Mild" (TM) (@greg_travis) March 18, 2022
5/This is a DELIBERATE and overt act to instruct public health professionals in every state on how to intentionally under-count COVID deaths
By limiting the time between when a diagnosis of COVID disease is made and the subsequent death from the disease
*POOF* Pandemic over
— Gregory Travis — "The Duke of Mild" (TM) (@greg_travis) March 18, 2022
New Deal democrat
Cases in the US increased slightly again to 32,700, only a 10% decline from one week ago. Deaths remained steady at 995. The number of jurisdictions where cases increased week over week remained at 7 and includes NY, VT, RI, NV, HI, KY, and PR. IL is flat.
I spent some time yesterday comparing the speed with which BA.2 overtook BA.1 in various countries and US States. There do appear to be several definite patterns, and as a result I am going to go way out on a limb with several predictions.
I am indebted to the work of Emma Hodcraft, Ph.D. of the Institute of Social and Preventive Medicine at the University of Bern, Switzerland, on whose data of infection prevalence by variant for many countries and for all jurisdictions in the US is found at Covariant.org.
The data she has collected demonstrate that BA.2 is very much a Omicron, rolling in and out like a tsunami. Like BA.1, the BA.2 variant causes peak infections by or very shortly after it approaches 100% of all infections. This has been the case in South Africa, India, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Sri Lanka, Serbia, the Philippines, Montenegro, Hong Kong (yes, even Hong Kong), and also the US territory of Guam, all of which have already hit that mark. For example, Hong Kong hit 90% penetration by BA.2 in mid-February. Cases peaked on March 4, and have fallen by 60% since then.
So, first of all, according to the most recent UK government data I have seen, BA.2 accounts for 90% or more of all new COVID infections. It should be essentially 100% within about a week. Shortly after that cases should peak and, like original Omicron, decline sharply. In fact, the week over week rate of increase in the UK has declined in the last several days.
Secondly, whether BA.2 causes a new wave or not depends on how quickly it overtakes BA.1. In some cases, like Denmark and Guam, BA.2 overtook BA.1 while cases were still increasing. In that case and similar one, BA.2 amplified the wave, causing the up-cycle to be loner and more intense before declining. By contrast, in countries like South Africa, BA.1 had so thoroughly rolled through the population that BA.2 simply lessened the rate of decline.
The countries of Europe where there is a new, identifiable BA.2 wave are ones where the BA.1 wave did not last as long, or was not as intense, as others. BA.1 had peaked, but had not yet burned through the vulnerable population. In those cases a new up wave started when BA.2 became about 1/3rd of new infections.
By way of contrast, the original Omicron wave began in the UK only about 5 days before that in the US. But the UK’s peak began 8 days before the US, and lasted only about 6 days before beginning a sharp decline, vs. 15 days in the US. By contrast, the Scandinavian countries experienced a longer, bigger outbreak of BA.1 than did the UK, Germany, or France.
Since the US experienced a longer lasting, more vigorous wave of BA.1, it resembles South Africa more closely than the UK. Currently BA.2 is running over 33% in NY, NJ, CT, and RI. Two of those States do show increases in new cases now. Put this together and I am expecting BA.2 to result in an experience between that of the UK and South Africa: an increase in cases, but not so pronounced as in the UK, where cases have doubled in the first half of March. Once BA.2 becomes virtually 100% of all US cases, probably around late April, cases will recede again.
YY_Sima Qian
On 3/17 Mainland China reported 2,388 new domestic confirmed (24 previously asymptomatic), 1,742 new domestic asymptomatic cases.
Guangdong Province reported 74 new domestic confirmed (3 previously asymptomatic) & 61 new domestic asymptomatic cases.
Guangxi “Autonomous” Region reported 2 new domestic confirmed (1 each at Nanning & Guilin) & 20 new domestic asymptomatic cases (10 at Qinzhou, 2 each at Baise & Fangchenggang, 5 at Chongzuo, & 1 at Beihai). There currently are 85 active domestic confirmed (47 at Fangchenggang, 15 at Baise, 18 at Qinzhou, 3 at Nanning, & 1 each at Chongzuo & Guilin) & 156 active domestic asymptomatic cases (48 at Fangchenggang, 15 at Baise, 53 at Chongzuo, 32 at Qinzhou, 5 at Liuzhou, & 3 at Beihai) in the province. 1 zone at Fangchenggang are currently at Medium Risk.
Hunan Province reported 2 new domestic confirmed cases, 1 each at Changsha (a traced close contact of domestic positive cases elsewhere) & Huaihua (found at fever clinic). There currently are 6 active domestic confirmed cases in the province (3 at Changsha, 2 at Huaihua, & 1 at Xiangtan).
Inner Mongolia “Autonomous” Region reported 7 new domestic confirmed (3 previously asymptomatic) & 3 new domestic asymptomatic cases. 11 domestic confirmed cases recovered. There currently are 20 active domestic confirmed & 6 active domestic asymptomatic cases in the province.
Tianjin Municipality reported 61 new domestic confirmed (5 previously asymptomatic, 47 mild & 14 moderate) & 2 new domestic asymptomatic cases, all are traced close contacts already under quarantine. 3 domestic confirmed case recovered. There currently are 349 active domestic confirmed & 34 active domestic asymptomatic cases in the city. 4 sites are currently at High Risk. 9 sites are currently at Medium Risk.
Shandong Province reported 61 new domestic confirmed (3 previously asymptomatic) & 162 new domestic asymptomatic cases. There currently are 1,121 active domestic confirmed cases & 1,634 active asymptomatic cases in the province.
At Shanxi Province there currently are 20 active domestic confirmed cases in the province (9 at Jinzhong, 5 each at Yuncheng & Taiyuan & 1 at Jincheng).
Hebei Province reported 24 new domestic confirmed & 193 domestic asymptomatic cases. 3 domestic confirmed cases recovered & 1 domestic asymptomatic case was released from isolation. There currently are 292 active domestic confirmed & 1,024 active asymptomatic case in the province. As the province does not break down recoveries by administrative divisions, I cannot track the count of active cases in administrative divisions, given the multiple simultaneous outbreaks.
Liaoning Province reported 46 new domestic confirmed & 79 new domestic asymptomatic cases. 8 domestic confirmed cases recovered. There currently are 241 active domestic confirmed & 205 active domestic cases in the province.
Heilongjiang Province reported 16 new domestic confirmed & 35 new domestic asymptomatic cases. 2 domestic confirmed cases recovered & 3 domestic asymptomatic cases were released from isolation. There currently are 84 active domestic confirmed & 120 active domestic asymptomatic cases in the province.
Jilin Province reported 1,834 new domestic confirmed (1,827 mild, 7 moderate) & 792 new domestic asymptomatic cases. 15 confirmed & asymptomatic cases recovered. There currently are 10,081 active domestic confirmed & 4,097 active domestic asymptomatic cases in the province. As the province is not currently breaking down recoveries by confirmed & asymptomatic cases, I can no longer track the count of active domestic confirmed & asymptomatic cases for Jilin City & Changchun.
Beijing Municipality reported 7 new domestic confirmed (all mild) & 1 new domestic asymptomatic cases, 2 are traced close contacts already under centralized quarantine & 6 via screening of persons deemed at risk of exposure. 1 village is currently at Medium Risk.
Shanghai Municipality reported 57 new domestic confirmed & 203 new domestic asymptomatic cases, 105 of the new domestic positive cases are traced close contacts already under centralized quarantine, the rest from screening of persons deemed at risk of exposure. 12 domestic asymptomatic case was released from isolation. There currently are 160 active domestic confirmed & 1,297 active domestic asymptomatic cases in the city. 10 sites are currently at Medium Risk.
Shaanxi Province reported 33 new domestic confirmed cases (32 mild & 1 moderate). 6 domestic confirmed cases recovered. There currently are 321 active domestic confirmed cases in the province. As the province does not break down recoveries by administrative divisions, I cannot track the count of active cases in administrative divisions, given the multiple simultaneous outbreaks.
At Hubei Province 9 domestic confirmed cases recovered. There currently are 10 active domestic confirmed (4 mild & 6 moderate, 9 at Wuhan & 1 at Shiyan) & 3 active domestic asymptomatic (2 at Wuhan & 1 at Xianning) cases in the province..
Jiangsu Province reported 4 new domestic & 47 new domestic asymptomatic cases. 18 domestic confirmed cases recovered & 9 domestic asymptomatic cases were released from isolation. There currently are 156 active domestic confirmed & 270 active domestic asymptomatic cases in the province.
Anhui Province reported 4 new domestic asymptomatic (1 at Ma’anshan & 3 at Tongling) cases. There currently are 4 active confirmed (2 each at Ma’anshan & Tongling) & 34 active domestic asymptomatic (19 at Ma’anshan, 3 at Suzhou, 9 at Tongling & 1 each at Anqing, Chuzhou & Haozhou) cases in the province. 2 villages at Ma’anshan, & 1 village & 1 residential building at Tongling, are currently at Medium Risk.
Zhejiang Province reported 13 new domestic confirmed & 10 new domestic asymptomatic cases. As the province does not break down recoveries by administrative divisions, I cannot track the count of active cases in administrative divisions, given the multiple simultaneous outbreaks.
Gansu Province reported 16 new domestic confirmed (1 previously asymptomatic) & 10 new domestic asymptomatic cases. There currently are 165 active domestic confirmed & 155 active domestic asymptomatic cases in the province.
Fujian Province reported 113 new domestic confirmed (6 previously asymptomatic) & 83 new domestic asymptomatic cases. There currently are 279 active domestic confirmed & 163 active domestic asymptomatic cases in the province.
At Xining in Qinghai Province there currently are 2 active domestic confirmed cases in the city.
Zunyi in Guizhou Province did not report any new domestic positive cases. There currently are 8 active domestic confirmed & 1 active domestic asymptomatic cases in the city.
Jiangxi Province reported 2 new domestic confirmed (both at Nanchang) & 5 new domestic asymptomatic cases (4 at Nanchang & 1 at Jiujiang), 6 traced close contacts & 1 recently arrived from elsewhere. There currently are 3 active domestic confirmed (all at Nanchang) & 13 active domestic asymptomatic (12 at Nanchang & 1 at Jiujiang) cases in the city. 3 sites are currently at Medium Risk.
Henan Province reported 1 new domestic confirmed case, at Luoyang, aa traced close contact of domestic positive cases elsewhere, already under centralized quarantine since 3/16. There currently are 8 active domestic confirmed (5 at Puyang & 1 each at Luoyang, Shangqiu & Zhengzhou) & 1 active domestic asymptomatic (at Puyang) cases in the province. 7 sites at Puyang are currently Medium Risk.
Chongqing Municipality reported 10 new domestic confirmed (2 previously asymptomatic, all mild) & 6 new domestic asymptomatic cases, 12 traced close contacts already under centralized quarantine & 4 from screening of persons deemed at risk of exposure. There currently is 49 active domestic confirmed & 13 active domestic asymptomatic cases in the city. 3 dormitory buildings are currently at Medium Risk.
Sichuan Province reported 1 new domestic asymptomatic case, at Chengdu, a person who entered centralized quarantine to care for a minor arriving from Hong Kong.
Yunnan Province reported 5 new domestic confirmed (1 previously asymptomatic) & 25 new domestic asymptomatic cases. 3 domestic confirmed cases recovered & 11 new domestic asymptomatic were released from isolation. There currently are 75 active domestic confirmed & 366 active domestic asymptomatic cases remaining in the province. As the province does not break down recoveries by administrative divisions, I cannot track the count of active cases in administrative divisions, given the multiple simultaneous outbreaks.
Imported Cases
On 3/17, Mainland China reported 73 new imported confirmed cases (13 previously asymptomatic, 3 in Guangdong), 162 imported asymptomatic cases, 6 imported suspect cases:
Overall in Mainland China, 337 confirmed cases recovered (229 imported), 110 asymptomatic cases were released from isolation (76 imported) & 37 were reclassified as confirmed cases (13 imported), & 9,540 individuals were released from quarantine. Currently, there are 16,974 active confirmed cases in the country (2,368 imported), 18 in serious condition (1 imported), 12,786 active asymptomatic cases (1,802 imported), 19 suspect cases (all imported). 274,768 traced contacts are currently under centralized quarantine.
As of 3/17, 3,213.773M vaccine doses have been injected in Mainland China, an increase of 4.732M doses in the past 24 hrs.
On 3/18, Hong Kong reported 20,082 new positive cases, 3 imported & 20,079 domestic (7,963 via RT-PCR & 12,116 from rapid antigen tests), 206 deaths + 53 backlogged deaths. Among the > 80 y.o. cohort, CFR for the fully vaccinated is 0.09%, & 1.32% for the partially vaccinated, & 8.5% overall.
On 3/18, Taiwan reported 91 new positive cases, all imported.
NeenerNeener
Monroe County NY:
The dashboard says 129 new cases again yesterday. I don’t know if they missed the update yesterday or we really had a repeat of the case numbers from the day before. Anyway, it’s not good.
rikyrah
Democrats control the House and Senate. How did they not put the COVID FUNDING in the Omnibus bill?
Baud
@rikyrah:
The omnibus is subject to the filibuster.
Amir Khalid
Malaysia’s Ministry of Health reported 27,004 new Covid-19 cases yesterday in its media statement, for a cumulative reported total of 3,927,437 cases. It also reported 86 deaths for an adjusted cumulative total of 34,185 deaths – 0.87% of the cumulative reported total, 0.94% of resolved cases.
Malaysia’s nationwide Rt stands at 0.95.
152 confirmed cases are in ICU, 97 of them on ventilators. Meanwhile, 29,450 more patients have recovered, for a cumulative total of 3,596,453 patients recovered – 91.6% of the cumulative reported total.
Nine new clusters were reported yesterday, for a cumulative total of 6,902 clusters. 340 clusters are currently active; 6,562 clusters are now inactive.
26,285 new cases reported yesterday were local infections. 719 new cases were imported.
The National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme (PICK) administered 46,039 doses of vaccine on 17th March: 13,256 first doses, 2,166 second doses, and 30,617 booster doses. The cumulative total is 68,376,641 doses administered: 27,379,023 first doses, 25,782,213 second doses, and 15,425,524 booster doses. 83.8% of the population have received their first dose, 78.9% their second dose, and 47.2% their booster dose.
Soprano2
@New Deal democrat: I really appreciate these posts you do every day. You spend a lot of time to bring us this information. Here’s hoping you’re right about BA.2 in the U.S.
I think it doesn’t matter what kind of “reset” you do to the federal response to Covid, there is a substantial percentage of the population – 27%, perhaps? – that will not be reachable about vaccines and mitigation no matter what they say. At this point my attitude toward them is if they want to kill themselves, let them, we’ve done everything we can to prevent it but if they won’t cooperate what else can you do? People now have better ways to protect themselves from Covid if they want to, although that’s not perfect either. The truth is we were never going to continue mitigation measures indefinitely; I’m surprised some locations were able to hold out as long as they did.
Soprano2
@rikyrah: Because I think it had to have 60 votes. I also heard that Republicans insisted it had to be “paid for”, so they tried to take it from unspent Covid funds that were going to the states, but then Democrats from those states blew a gasket and said no, you’re not taking Covid funds away from my state. I think if Biden can’t get Congress to pass a new bill, he should just declare it’s an emergency and take the money from somewhere else. That would certainly be constitutional according to the SCOTUS, and it would take a 2/3 vote in Congress to override him. I can’t see that happening. Just take the damn money, these things need to be funded!
Kay
@Soprano2:
63% more deaths than peer countries, though. Ugh. We keep falling further and further behind on basic health of our citizens. This is happening in no other country.
Matt McIrvin
@New Deal democrat: I suspect that BA.2 is at best a partial contributor to the new waves in Europe; most of it is that these countries generally had somewhat better controls in place in the US but many of them lifted them entirely, on a rigid timetable, while the Omicron wave was still ongoing.
Here, most places never had them in the first place. But we did have things like school mask mandates, and vaccine/mask mandates in some liberal cities, which are being lifted. So we will probably see some of that.
It seems like the R value is creeping up toward 1 in chunks of New England. And the rural areas have these sort of aftershock outbreaks that last a few days and clear.
It may be that the same thing is happening in the urban areas but the larger counties there effectively average out the data to hide them, so it just looks like the decline is slowing and turning around. I’ve noticed that the mildly higher infection rate in Middlesex County, MA is largely due to a big outbreak in Cambridge. Many of the worst individual places seem to be college towns.
VOR
re: that tweet threat about undercounting of COVID via death certificates. The leading candidate for the Republican nomination for Governor in Minnesota is an MD. Two years ago he “raised the question” of doctors listing COVID as a way to get some of that big money going to COVID care, claiming doctors or hospitals got paid extra for COVID deaths. In short, he suggested a systemic overcount. This theory got him on Laura Ingraham’s show. Now the US is closing in on 1 million COVID deaths and I doubt the MAGAts believe the actual count is anywhere close to that. In reality, counts of excess deaths show the number ought to be considerably higher.
The Moar You Know
Sinovac doesn’t work very well if at all. The Chinese desperately need something better.
Matt McIrvin
@The Moar You Know: None of the vaccines work if people don’t get them. The big problem in Hong Kong is that a dismayingly large number of elderly people there aren’t vaccinated at all, because the zero COVID strategy convinced them it wasn’t urgent and the risk of vaccination was higher.
Matt McIrvin
@Soprano2: We’ve really underperformed on getting booster shots to people who were perfectly willing to get the initial vaccinations. Some of them are probably unreachable by now but I think there’s untapped upside there. Some high-vax places like NYC have remarkably low percentages of boosted people.
Soprano2
@Kay: Well, I don’t know what else our country can do about it. I don’t like it either, but these people have free will, and they have chosen poorly. You live around a lot of them like I do, so you do understand what the government is up against. I think all they can do is to keep reaching out to people who can be convinced, or those who have been poorly served so far. I think trying to reach the anti-mask, anti-vax people at this point is mostly a waste of time and money.
Soprano2
@Matt McIrvin: I’m sure that’s right. Like I said above, they should try to reach the people who are reachable, but it’s a waste of time and money to try to reach the hard core anti-mask, anti-vaxx crowd. As I told one of them on Facebook yesterday, if they want to kill themselves there is nothing the government can do about it.
New Deal democrat
@Soprano2: Thanks for your compliment; I appreciate it.
The important thing to remember is that being fully vaxxed really, *really* lowers your chance of a seriously bad outcome.
The poster child for this is Rhode Island: over 80% double vaxxed, over 95% at least single vaxxed. Plus 34% of its population has had a *confirmed* case, so the real number is probably about 68%. In other words, probably only about 5% of the population is neither fully vaxxed nor previously infected.
And yet, in the recent wave they had a huge outbreak, among the worst States. Why? Probably because the entire State is either a city or a suburb. Big population density = big Omicron outbreak.
But then, look at deaths. A year ago, they had the 3rd worst cumulative death toll per capita of any State. Now their *cumulative* death toll for 2 years is about 20th, meaning they had one of the lowest death rates of any State in all of 2021.
Stay fully vaxxed and keep being safe. It works!
gene108
@rikyrah:
The answer:
https://rollcall.com/2022/03/09/covid-19-aid-to-be-stripped-from-omnibus-package/
Soprano2
@New Deal democrat: Hubby and I got our boosters in December, so I figure we’ve done everything we can to stay safe from it. He got something in January that made him feel pretty bad for a few days; I never got sick, but that doesn’t mean anything with Covid. No tests because it was almost impossible to get a test at that time because of our huge Omicron wave, but it’s definitely possible he had Covid. He still has a lingering cough that’s a lot worse IMHO than his previous “winter cough”. He won’t mention it to his doctor, that drives me crazy! Who wants to be coughing miserably so much? If it were me I would have already been to the doc for some relief.
TonyG
@rikyrah: Manchin and Sinema are, de-facto, not Democrats. The same story for the past 14 months at this point. I blame the voters in West Virginia and Arizona.
Matt McIrvin
@New Deal democrat: I have a friend in Providence who just caught COVID, probably in the hospital when he went to the ER for something else. It made me wonder if the situation there now is worse than the top-line numbers show. He’s vaxxed and boosted, seems to be doing OK.
Meanwhile, the top-line numbers for vaccine effectiveness generally understate the ability of vaccination to prevent severe disease, unless they’re age-adjusted–because the risk of bad outcomes increases hellaciously with age, but old people in the US are also much more likely to be vaccinated.
Matt McIrvin
@New Deal democrat: …I wouldn’t necessarily take 2021 deaths in RI as indicative there, though, because the vast majority of their Omicron deaths have been in 2022. They did get hit pretty hard.
New Deal democrat
@Matt McIrvin: I was counting through the present. Even including 2022, their death rate has declined precipitously compared with other States.
Sloane Ranger
Yesterday in the UK we had 89,717 new cases. The rolling 7-day average is up by 43.9%. New cases by nation,
England – 75,681
Northern Ireland – 2054
Scotland – 9721
Wales – 2261.
Deaths – There were 138 deaths within 28 days of a positive test yesterday. The rolling 7-day average is up by 1.9%. 100 deaths were in England, 3 in Northern Ireland, 28 in Scotland and 7 in Wales.
Testing – 807,660 tests took place on 16th March. The rolling 7-day average is up by 9.8%.
Hospitalisations – There were 14,078 people in hospital and 281 on ventilators on 15th March. The 7-day average for hospital admissions was up by 21.9% as of 13th March.
Vaccinations – As of 16th March, 91.7% of all UK residents aged 12+ had had 1 shot, 85.6% had had 2, and 67.1% had had a 3rd shot/booster. These figures exclude Scotland, which did not update on vaccinations yesterday.
smith
@Matt McIrvin: If you’re interested in comparing rural and urban counties within states or regions, you can see that data on the CDC demographics page.
Matt McIrvin
@smith: Good one! Some of those CDC pages are frustratingly hard to find
The shift from COVID as a primarily metropolitan disease in spring 2020, to a universal disease with more deaths in rural areas afterward, is stark. And the changeover coincided roughly with the 2020 presidential election campaign–during Trump’s time in office, it was mostly people in coastal cities who had died of COVID, which influenced everyone’s perceptions.
Origuy
Good news about Italy, since I’m planning to go there in July. I’ll still mask a lot of the time and I’ll try to get a fourth shot before I go. The Reuters article says they are at 84% vaccinated and 65% boosted. I figure it’s safer than going to a lot of places in the US.
smith
Yep. I’ve been exploring them for 2 years now, and am still finding new stuff. In my opinion, the rural-urban thing doesn’t get nearly as much attention as it should. As you said, the differences in death rates are really stark, and particularly so during the omicron wave, when urban counties had higher case rates, but the rural ones still had more deaths.
Geo Wilcox
@The Moar You Know: We give China our vaccines and they tell Putin to shove it up his ass when he asks for aid of any kind.
Matt
Last I checked, threatening people is a CRIME. A “solution that could help bring the escalating situation under control” would be putting the motherfuckers who are whipping up anti-public-health hysteria into JAIL.
La Nonna
@Origuy: Things are fine here in Italy, still masked indoors, and green pass or vaxx proof for restaurants, post offices, cafes, theaters, venues, museums. Highest vaxx and booster rates in the EU, and boosters still available, including #4 for the immune compromised and fragile. Buon viaggio e benvenuto in Italia!!
Eolirin
@Geo Wilcox: We’d have to give them those vaccines in a way that made it look like they came up with them on their own, because they can buy as much Pzifer or Moderna vax as they want, they’re just refusing to because they’re western developed, which would require privately held companies give away IP and not even be able to claim credit for doing so. Never gonna happen.
The Castle
I don’t know who this Gregory Travis character is, but he’s barking up the wrong tree.
Yes, undercounting COVID deaths is a real problem.
But it is *not* a problem in Massachusetts. In fact, it’s the opposite problem there.
Since the start of the pandemic, the CDC estimates 14,000 excess deaths in MA.
But there are over 20,000 official COVID deaths listed in MA!! This is a huge overcounting – almost a 50% overcount. No other state has this huge a discrepency — only a few other states have overcounts at all (two notable ones are New Jersey, New York).
Even if you did remove these 4,000 cases as COVID caused — there would still be a large overcounting COVID deaths problem in MA. So I call bull on this “erasing the pandemic” line. Yes, it is a problem elsewhere though. Both of these things can be simultaneously true.
J R in WV
@Matt:
This is pretty much the textbook example of shouting fire in a crowded theater, isn’t it?
First Amendment stops right where you deliberately cause great harm to society, doesn’t it?
Just like your right to swing your arms ends when you get close to someone’s face, right?
These folks have killed tens or hundreds of thousands of people with this shockingly false propaganda, which is also criminal !