We're entering another week where U.S. officials warn they don't have the money to order a fourth vaccine dose if it turns out everyone needs them this fall. https://t.co/oGU32PhMKn
— Dan Diamond (@ddiamond) March 28, 2022
… The CDC said had changed its COVID-19 travel recommendation for India to “Level 1: Low” from “Level 3: High,” which urges unvaccinated Americans to avoid travel to those locations.
The CDC also lowered Chad, Guinea and Namibia to “Level 1.” The State Department on Monday lowered its travel advisory for India to “Level 2: Exercise Increased Caution,” reflecting the lower COVID-19 risk, but also cited the risk of “crime and terrorism.”
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Explainer: Omicron 'stealth' COVID variant BA.2 now dominant globally https://t.co/jkoJU2KBlh pic.twitter.com/Xeu5jjrE5R
— Reuters (@Reuters) March 29, 2022
Shanghai, China's most populous city, again tightened the first phase of a two-stage COVID lockdown, asking some residents to stay indoors unless they are getting tested as the number of daily cases rose beyond 4,400 https://t.co/vTc4aEvHwG pic.twitter.com/X6gaZtTbRy
— Reuters (@Reuters) March 29, 2022
After months of imposing limited lockdowns of individual neighbourhoods, Shanghai has decided to lock down parts of China’s biggest city in two phases in a bid to curb a spike in Covid-19 infections. pic.twitter.com/ZSY7uWr6P3
— South China Morning Post (@SCMPNews) March 29, 2022
Some scenes from Puxi, Shanghai today as residents prepare for lockdown and stock up on food. Lots of crowds, queues and empty shelves. Police outside supermarkets. Pudong went into lockdown this morning until April 1st, when this part of the city will follow. #shanghai @BBCWorld pic.twitter.com/JC6VgmDjh6
— Edward Lawrence (@EP_Lawrence) March 28, 2022
… Shenzhen’s recent “war” on COVID-19 has hurt up to 93% of the local small and medium-sized companies surveyed by the state-controlled newspaper, with many suffering production disruptions due to shutdowns, interruptions in supply chains, and delays in order executions.
Shenzhen allowed businesses and factories to restart operations on March 21 after authorities declared the latest outbreak had been brought under control.
The city, which has grappled with multiple outbreaks so far this year, conducted three rounds of mass testing in March after a spike in infections.
The outbreaks were modest by international standards, but Shenzhen authorities were swift to implement measures including business shutdowns under China’s so-called “dynamic” zero-COVID policy…
More worrying than the short-term effect of the shutdowns is the long-term contraction in demand caused by the epidemic, the newspaper warned, citing a “profound” impact on Chinese demand from COVID-19.
Companies complained about changes in consumer behaviour from delays in surgical operations to purchases of new mobile phones.
Data on China’s factory and services sector for March due out in coming days are expected to reflect the COVID-related pain.
The epicentre of China’s COVID containment efforts has since moved to Shanghai, where the megacity of 26 million residents is facing its worst flare-up since China’s initial 2020 outbreak…
The Chinese city of Changchun, capital of the COVID-hit northeastern province of Jilin, on Tuesday apologised to its 8.5 million residents for food shortages related to shutdowns and disruption caused by COVID containment measures.
Due to COVID-19, two major wholesale food markets in Changchun have shuttered, leading to a shortfall in food supply, said the city’s deputy Communist Party secretary, Liu Renyuan, a problem aggravated by a shortage of workers that has delayed deliveries to homes…
To ease the dearth of sorting and delivery personnel, the provincial government of Jilin has organised about 1,000 tonnes of “vegetable bags” to be delivered to Changchun each day, he said.
Authorities will also crack down on price hikes on vegetables, Liu added.
Changchun and the rest of Jilin have been battling with COVID cases increasing by thousands almost every day since mid-March…
In what they have called a “last-ditch battle” against the virus, authorities have put the entire province under lockdown since March 14 and conducted mass testing to isolate infections. read more
Changchun itself has completed more than 10 rounds of citywide testing of its residents.
Singapore is easing its Covid-19 restrictions, starting with the March 29, lifting an outdoor mask mandate that had been in place for almost two years. pic.twitter.com/KZ7bzfzi4w
— South China Morning Post (@SCMPNews) March 29, 2022
Group of 20 major economies (G20) chair Indonesia has started talks with members on standardising health protocols for travel, its health minister said on Monday, stressing the importance of harmonising rules and technology as global travel resumes. https://t.co/dmYqtWRJlL
— Reuters Health (@Reuters_Health) March 28, 2022
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From virologists who've studied the evolution of coronaviruses: "We Study virus evolution. Here’s where we think the coronavirus is going." https://t.co/HAZdxobGfq
— delthia ricks ? (@DelthiaRicks) March 29, 2022
Can the Covid-causing coronavirus outwit the human innate immune response? New study from the Univ of Colorado suggests the answer is 'yes.' Innate immunity is the body's first-line of defense. It kicks in way before antibodies or T cells https://t.co/5jzd479WEO pic.twitter.com/XNRO8hWMN3
— delthia ricks ? (@DelthiaRicks) March 29, 2022
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We need a recap of how disingenuous the "we have to vaccinate the whole world first!" position was, seeing as how it was contrived last fall entirely to oppose the US booster and then promptly abandoned by most of the doctors who advocated for it pic.twitter.com/EADUNd006p
— Jake Anbinder (@JakeAnbinder) March 26, 2022
NeenerNeener
Monroe County, NY:
148 new cases according to the Monroe County COVID dashboard.
Deaths still at 1811, so nobody died of COVID last week for the first time in the 2 years they’ve been tracking this.
Vaccinations still at 71.6%.
Amir Khalid
Malaysia’s Ministry of Health reported 13,336 new Covid-19 cases yesterday in its media statement, for a cumulative reported total of 4,152,203 cases. It also reported 54 deaths for an adjusted cumulative total of 34,842 deaths – 0.84% of the cumulative reported total, 0.89% of resolved cases.
Malaysia’s nationwide Rt stands at 0.92.
146 confirmed cases are in ICU, 90 of them on ventilators. Meanwhile, 25,552 more patients have recovered, for a cumulative total of 3,896,489 patients recovered – 93.8% of the cumulative reported total.
Two new clusters were reported yesterday, for a cumulative total of 6,929 clusters. 217 clusters are currently active; 6,712 clusters are now inactive.
13,147 new cases reported yesterday were local infections. 189 new cases were imported.
The National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme (PICK) administered 41,287 doses of vaccine on 28th March: 4,360 first doses, 1,684 second doses, and 35,243 booster doses. The cumulative total is 68,745,333 doses administered: 27,488,413 first doses, 25,799,715 second doses, and 15,668,773 booster doses. 84.2% of the population have received their first dose, 79.0% their second dose, and 48.0% their booster dose.
New Deal democrat
With almost all US States having resumed reporting, the good news (relatively speaking) is that cases continued flat at 30,700. I call this good news because we are probably going to find out later today that in the past week BA.2 made up close to half of all new cases, and yet there has been no national increase. Cases have been within 2,000 of 30,000 for the past two weeks.
Deaths decreased below 700 to 692, almost a 75% decline from their Omicron peak. Deaths have only been lower than this for 4 of the last 24 months.
In the Northeast, where BA.2 already made up over half of all new cases one week ago, cases are up 25% from their nadir two weeks ago, but still only amount to 6,500 cases. The biggest increase has been in NY, which in the past two weeks has increased from 8 to 15 cases per 100,000. NJ, CT, and MA also have had sizable increases. Cases in the West, which already had 40% of all cases BA.2 one week ago, are still declining, and notably still so in CA, although CO has increased from 14 to 25 cases per 100,000 in the past two weeks to the highest level in the nation. AK and VT have a slightly lower level of cases.
Cases in the Midwest are flat week over week at 6 per 100,000, and up from 8 to 10 in the South. Texas has had a big increase from 10 to 18 cases in the past week. SD now leads the nation with the lowest rate at 1.8 cases per 100,000.
Internationally, the UK’s data dump went out of its average. Cases there have only increased 4% in the past 10 days, and have probably peaked. A data dump also exited France’s average, but there cases have still risen over 40% in the last 10 days. Cases in the EU as a whole, however, have declined 15% from their peak of one week ago, and are only 10% above their post-BA.1 low of 26 days ago.
We have even more accumulating evidence that any BA.2 wave is going to be short, on the order of 3 weeks, with an equally swift decline thereafter. The US will probably hit its peak in about 2-2.5 weeks from now.
lowtechcyclist
“As a Congressional stalemate stretches into its third week…”
How about “As Congressional Republicans continue to block Covid-19 spending…”
Would it be too damned hard to say who’s on what side here?
Baud
@lowtechcyclist:
Now, now, the Dems are to blame too for not agreeing to pay for it by taking away food for babies or something.
Central Planning
@NeenerNeener: it looks like the positivity rate here has doubled over the last 2 weeks – now at 3.35% according to the COVID AlertNY app.
I wonder if lifting the mask mandate has anything to do with that. //
Dorothy A. Winsor
Mr DAW talked to a seemingly sensible neighbor yesterday who said she might not get the second booster because she’d heard that your body can adapt to [something] but if you keep giving it the same thing over and over, it loses that ability. Or something. Maybe it made more sense directly from her, but I doubt it.
lowtechcyclist
@Baud: I keep on thinking, put Covid spending in the defense budget. Nobody ever asks how we’re going to pay for an increase in defense spending.
mrmoshpotato
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Maybe your neighbor is a dumbass slapdick.
Baud
@lowtechcyclist:
Until we get Senators who will end the filibuster, we’ll get hung up on these types of things. Maybe next year.
mrmoshpotato
@lowtechcyclist:
I’d rather we throw Rethuglicans into the Sun until we have a supermajority in both chambers.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@mrmoshpotato: I’m afraid that’s possible. I liked her! She’s in my zumba class.
debbie
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Did your husband experience any dizziness after that conversation? I know I would have. It’s beyond circular or pretzel logic at this point.
Baud
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
She’s confusing vaccines and cocaine.
lowtechcyclist
Well so would I! I’d also like a pet unicorn.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: That’s an easy mistake to make.
Ken
I thought the ask was to turn babies into food. I may be thinking of Jonathan Swift.
lowtechcyclist
@Ken: It would explain why they’re against abortion.
germy
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
The supply appears to be there: States have 131 million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines on hand. Many experts say there is no evidence that an additional shot could hurt people’s immunity by habituating them to coronavirus vaccines.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@germy: Ah. That must be it.
rikyrah
@lowtechcyclist:
I like this idea
rikyrah
Any official recommendation for a second booster for those over 50?
YY_Sima Qian
On 3/28 Mainland China reported 1,228 new domestic confirmed (48 previously asymptomatic), 5,658 new domestic asymptomatic cases, 0 domestic suspect cases.
Guangdong Province reported 8 new domestic confirmed & 10 new domestic asymptomatic cases.
Guangxi “Autonomous” Region reported 10 new domestic asymptomatic cases (6 at Fangchenggang & 2 each at Beihai & Baise). 4 domestic confirmed cases recovered & 7 domestic asymptomatic cases were released from isolation. There currently are 48 active domestic confirmed (22 at Fangchenggang, 3 each at Baise & Nanning, 19 at Qinzhou, & 1 at Guilin) & 275 active domestic asymptomatic cases (99 at Fangchenggang, 10 at Baise, 66 at Chongzuo, 82 at Qinzhou, 5 at Liuzhou, 6 at Guilin, 4 at Beihai, 2 at Guigang, & 1 at Nanning) in the province. 1 zone at Fangchenggang are currently at Medium Risk. 5 sites at Qinzhou are currently at Medium Risk.
Hunan Province reported 3 new domestic confirmed & 2 new domestic asymptomatic cases, all at Changsha, 4 traced close contact under centralized quarantine & 1 truck driver coming from elsewhere. 5 domestic confirmed cases recovered. There currently are 47 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. 9 sites at Huaihua are currently at Medium Risk, as are 10 sites at Changsha & 1 zone at Shaoyang.
Inner Mongolia “Autonomous” Region did not report any new domestic positive cases. 1 domestic confirmed case recovered & 2 domestic asymptomatic cases were released from isolation. There currently are 10 active domestic confirmed & 28 active domestic asymptomatic cases in the province.
Tianjin Municipality reported 7 new domestic confirmed (4 previously asymptomatic, all mild) & 10 new domestic asymptomatic cases, all of the new domestic positive cases are traced close contacts already under quarantine. 66 domestic confirmed cases recovered & 1 domestic asymptomatic case was released from isolation. There currently are 330 active domestic confirmed & 212 active domestic asymptomatic cases in the city. 8 sites are currently at High Risk. 9 sites are currently at Medium Risk.
Shandong Province reported 12 new domestic confirmed (3 previously asymptomatic) & 41 new domestic asymptomatic cases. 41 domestic confirmed cases recovered & 43 asymptomatic cases were released from isolation. There currently are 616 active domestic confirmed cases & 2,315 active asymptomatic cases in the province. As not all of the administrative divisions in the province provide data on recoveries, I cannot track the count of active cases in all of the administrative divisions, given the multiple simultaneous outbreaks.
Shanxi Province reported 3 new domestic confirmed cases, all at Xinzhou, all workers recently returning from Jilin. There currently are 4 active domestic confirmed cases (3 Xinzhou & 1 at Jinzhong) remaining.
Hebei Province reported 6 new domestic confirmed & 108 domestic asymptomatic cases. 23 domestic confirmed cases recovered & 138 domestic asymptomatic cases were released from isolation. There currently are 332 active domestic confirmed & 3,339 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 10 new domestic confirmed (1 previously asymptomatic) & 64 new domestic asymptomatic cases. 16 domestic confirmed cases recovered & 18 domestic asymptomatic cases were released from isolation. There currently are 475 active domestic confirmed & 1,398 active domestic asymptomatic 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.
Heilongjiang Province reported 5 new domestic confirmed (all mild) & 20 new domestic asymptomatic cases. 8 domestic confirmed cases recovered & 11 domestic asymptomatic cases were released from isolation. There currently are 230 active domestic confirmed & 265 active domestic asymptomatic cases in the province.
Jilin Province reported 1,055 new domestic confirmed (12 previously asymptomatic, 1,054 mild & 1 moderate) & 812 new domestic asymptomatic cases. 675 domestic confirmed cases recovered & 224 domestic asymptomatic cases were released from isolation. As the province does not consistently break down recoveries by confirmed & asymptomatic cases or by jurisdictions, I can no longer track the count of active case counts in the different jurisdictions.
Beijing Municipality did not report any new domestic positive cases. 1 village & 1 community are currently at Medium Risk.
Shanghai Municipality reported 96 new domestic confirmed (21 previously asymptomatic) & 4,381 new domestic asymptomatic cases. 3,831 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. 17 domestic confirmed cases recovered & 205 domestic asymptomatic case was released from isolation. There currently are 363 active domestic confirmed & 18,531 active domestic asymptomatic cases in the city. 15 sites are currently at Medium Risk.
Shaanxi Province reported 3 new domestic confirmed cases. 28 domestic confirmed cases recovered. There currently are 175 active domestic confirmed & 5 active asymptomatic 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 there currently are 2 active domestic confirmed (both moderate, 1 each at Wuhan & Shiyan) & 2 active domestic asymptomatic (2 at Xianning & 1 each at Ezhou & Huanggang) cases in the province..
Jiangsu Province reported 3 new domestic confirmed & 21 new domestic asymptomatic cases. 14 domestic confirmed cases recovered & 27 domestic asymptomatic cases were released from isolation. There currently are 46 active domestic confirmed & 381 active domestic asymptomatic cases in the province. As not all of the jurisdictions in the province track recoveries, I cannot track the count of active cases in all of the administrative divisions, given the multiple simultaneous outbreaks.
Anhui Province reported 2 new domestic confirmed (both mild, 1 each at Huainan & Xuancheng) & 16 new domestic asymptomatic (13 at Wuhu,& 1 each at Bengbu, Huainan & Tongling) cases. There currently are 14 active confirmed (2 at Ma’anshan, 5 at Wuhu, 3 at Tongling, 2 at Huainan, & 1 each at Hefei & Xuancheng) & 184 active domestic asymptomatic (21 at Ma’anshan, 9 at Haozhou, 34 at Wuhu, 15 at Huainan, 6 at Bengbu, 5 at Hefei, 86 at Tongling, 3 at Suzhou, 2 each at Anqing & Chuzhou, & 1 at Huaibei) cases in the province. 2 sites at Ma’anshan, 4 at Tongling & 4 at Wuhu are currently at Medium Risk.
Zhejiang Province reported 4 new domestic confirmed (1 previously asymptomatic) & 8 new domestic asymptomatic case. As the province does not break down recoveries by imported versus domestic cases, I cannot track the count of active domestic cases in the province.
Gansu Province reported 11 new asymptomatic cases. 12 domestic confirmed cases recovered & 15 domestic asymptomatic cases were released from isolation. There currently are 140 active domestic confirmed & 314 active domestic asymptomatic cases in the province.
Fujian Province reported 7 new domestic confirmed (6 previously asymptomatic) & 124 new domestic asymptomatic cases. 70 domestic confirmed case recovered & 48 domestic asymptomatic cases were released from isolation. There currently are 1,021 active domestic confirmed & 1,666 active domestic asymptomatic 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 Xining in Qinghai Province there currently is 1 active domestic confirmed case in the city.
At Guizhou Province 3 domestic confirmed cases recovered. There currently are 1 active domestic confirmed (at Qiandongnan Prefecture) & 2 active domestic asymptomatic (both at Zunyi) cases in the city.
Jiangxi Province reported 1 new domestic confirmed (mild) & 5 new domestic asymptomatic cases. 5 domestic confirmed cases recovered & 18 domestic asymptomatic case was released from isolation. There currently are 52 active domestic confirmed & 307 active domestic asymptomatic cases in the city. 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.
Henan Province reported 3 new domestic confirmed (2 at Zhoukou & 1 at Zhengzhou) & 8 new domestic asymptomatic cases (3 at Jiaozuo, 2 at Zhoukou, & 1 each at Luohe, Zhumadian & Zhengzhou). There currently are 67 active domestic confirmed & 61 active domestic asymptomatic 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. 2 sites at Zhoukou, as well as 3 at Luohe & 13 at Jiaozuo, are currently at Medium Risk.
At Chongqing Municipality 5 domestic confirmed cases recovered & 2 domestic asymptomatic case was released from isolation. There currently is 20 active domestic confirmed & 6 active domestic asymptomatic cases in the city. 3 dormitory buildings are currently at Medium Risk.
Chengdu in Sichuan Province reported 1 new domestic asymptomatic case, a person recently arriving from out of province on 3/18, have previously tested negative 3 times since.
Yunnan Province reported 6 new domestic asymptomatic cases. 3 domestic confirmed case recovered & 42 new domestic asymptomatic were released from isolation. There currently are 52 active domestic confirmed & 289 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 3/28, Mainland China reported 65 new imported confirmed cases (24 previously asymptomatic, 1 in Guangdong), 100 imported asymptomatic cases, 0 imported suspect cases:
Overall in Mainland China, 1,179 confirmed cases recovered (137 imported), 910 asymptomatic cases were released from isolation (125 imported) & 72 were reclassified as confirmed cases (24 imported), & 31,264 individuals were released from quarantine. Currently, there are 27,859 active confirmed cases in the country (838 imported), 59 in serious condition (all domestic), 43,425 active asymptomatic cases (1,309 imported), 15 suspect cases (all imported). 370,261 traced contacts are currently under centralized quarantine.
As of 3/28, 3,259.042M vaccine doses have been injected in Mainland China, an increase of 4.058M doses in the past 24 hrs.
On 3/29, Hong Kong reported 7,596 new positive cases, 2 imported & 7,594 domestic (3,162 via RT-PCR & 4,432 from rapid antigen tests), 129 deaths + 22 backlogged deaths.
On 3/29, Taiwan reported 96 new positive cases, 63 imported & 33 domestic.
germy
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
It must be a rumor circulating in conservative media.
YY_Sima Qian
I think the lesson of Shanghai & Jilin City/Changchun in Jilin Province remains that the earlier & more rigorous response, the lower the ultimate cost to society & economy. There are now dozens of Omicron BA.2 outbreaks & clusters in China that have been contained & suppressed through tried & true methods, but the 3 cities in question waited for too long. Shanghai in particular relied mostly on test & trace, somewhat expanded testing of peoples who are deemed at risk of exposure, w/ very targeted lock downs. However, Omicron BA.2 is so transmissive, & symptoms at least in Shanghai & related outbreaks so mild or non-existent, that test & trace alone means the authorities are stuck chasing the spread. When the reported cases are low, lock downs & movement restrictions can remain targeted, but mass testing should be rolled out early to uncover the full extent of cryptic transmission, so that the authorities are ahead of the spread. While mass testing campaigns are expensive, large scale lock downs & building/staffing temporary hospitals are even more expensive & disruptive. As it is the locales that have contained their Omicron BA.2 clusters keep getting new introductions from the 3 epicenters, especially truck drivers shipping supplies to those cities, & construction workers building temporary hospitals there.
Of course, if the the vast majority of the > 80 y.o. cohort had been vaccinated & a substantial percentage boosted, then Omicron BA.2 may be mild enough for China to shift away from elimination. The incidence at Shanghai, Jilin City & Changchun have been so high that hundreds of the elderly (vaccinated or not) must have been infected. While the precedent at Hong Kong is frightening, so far only 0.1% of active cases in China are severe enough to have required hospitalization elsewhere.
Shanghainese have the same kind of reputation in China as NYers in the US, Londoners in the UK & Parisians in France. Throughout the pandemic Shanghai authorities & population have prided themselves on the more “targeted” & “scientific” approach in responding to clusters & outbreaks, while deriding the overbearing policies implemented elsewhere. (& until Omicron BA.2 they were right.) Now, it is schadenfreude time for the rest of the country, w/ comments piling on against Shanghai on social media.
sab
@germy: I don’t know. At this point I am pretty much hooked on vaccines and anxious for my next shot.
Sloane Ranger
Monday in the UK 215,001 new cases were reported. This figures covers Monday and the preceding weekend. The rolling 7-day average is down 3.3%. New cases by nation,
England – 183,459
Northern ireland – 3841
Scotland – 25,495
Wales – 2206.
Deaths – Yesterday 217 deaths within 28 days of a positive test were reported. This figure covers Monday and the preceding weekend. The rolling 7-day average is up by 27%. 143 deaths were in England, 14 in Northern Ireland, 33 in Scotland and 27 in Wales.
Testing – 632,929 rests took place on Sunday. The rolling 7-day average is down by 2.2%. Whether this is due to people no longer testing due to case numbers beginning to tail off or the fact that free tests are now very hard to get hold of as they will no longer be available w.e.f. Friday and people are stockpiling, I don’t know.
Hospitalisations – Due to a processing issue, no update is available for England, but the dashboard shows that 17,685 people were in hospital and 334 were on ventilators on Friday, 25 March. The 7-day average for hospital admissions was up by 15.8% as at 22 March.
Vaccinations – As at 27 March, 91.8% of all UK residents aged 12+ had had 1 shot; 85.9% had had 2, and 67.4% had had a 3rd shot/booster.
sab
@YY_Sima Qian: My brother in law is from Shanghai and was sent to Jilin during the Cultural Revolution. His memories of Jilin are how beautiful the snow was on the pine trees, and that they banged on pots and pans when they went to see movies in the nearby village, to scare away tigers.
gene108
@lowtechcyclist:
@Baud:
Dems pulled COVID funding out of the budget bill. To get it past the Senate, part of funding new COVID spending was to claw back unused COVID funds from the states. This didn’t sit well with some Dem Reps, because it would have adversely impacted Michigan and some other states, we’d rather like to not get crushed in.
Part of the problem is the Republicans in the Senate not wanting to vote on anything. They make the most basic fucking parts of their jobs, like passing a fucking budget, into some herculean ordeal.
And now we are where we are, hoping for a stand alone bill.
YY_Sima Qian
@sab: I remember! The rural areas he spent time in Jilin Province is probably doing fine, but the 3 epicenters will take quite some time to be contained, if at all…
YY_Sima Qian
A rare western MSM article that does not concern troll about China’s “Dynamic Zero COVID” strategy, but nicely summarizes why China is sticking w/ the strategy for now, the benefits & the costs for China & the world, & the potential exit ramp (vaccinate the elders!):
Another from Nature, despite the eye-roll inducing headline:
YY_Sima Qian
An article in the Guardian that explain why countries should not give up on eliminate from the start, for the next pandemic:
sab
@YY_Sima Qian: Back when Time Warner was our cable TV company we had a channel with foreign outlets. Russia’s was RT and all political. China’s was more touristy. All about what a big amazingly beautiful country it is. I miss that channel a lot. But Jilin showed only their university, with many shots at different angles of what was apparently only a single big building.
Tazj
@gene108: Republicans don’t want to vote for anything and also slam Democrats for the spending they approved. I heard a report yesterday on NPR, but it’s been all over the media, about how Republicans want an accounting of all the money allocated for COVID relief and how it was spent before they’ll agree to vote for anything else.
Now I didn’t hear anything that was paid for that was bad or a waste of money, but the complaint was that there was no connection to COVID. Florida supposedly spent money on a stadium or arena construction in Broward county (Florida people correct me if I’m wrong)that they had wanted to build for years.
Of course, that will be one line of attack for the midterms, the Democrats wasted your money. They always complain about wanting state or local control but when they have it don’t want to take responsibility for actually spending the money.
smith
Yet more evidence that covid has hit Republicans much harder than Dems: A milestone: Majority say they’ve had covid — even more in GOP. Combine that with the estimate that 1 in 7 working age adults have symptoms of long covid, and red areas of the US are likely to be in a world of hurt for some time to come. The red-blue divide in health care, economic growth and education can only widen when large numbers of adults who should be in their prime are hobbled by health problems. Many of the identified long-covid sequalae, especially diabetes and heart disease, will look like premature aging in a wide swath of the population.
And of course, what applies in the red-blue comparison will also apply long term in any US-China comparison.
sab
@Tazj: Weird approach, but it seems to work. National Democrats gave local Republicans lots of money without strings attached and local Republicans misspent it. So we should vote out the national Democrats instead of the local Republicans.
Matt McIrvin
@lowtechcyclist: That’s how they did the interstate highway system.
Matt McIrvin
@YY_Sima Qian: The key thing is to use the time they buy that way to get everyone vaccinated. But that’s hard because if there isn’t a lot of disease about, people don’t feel the urgency and are more wary of the vaccines. It’d be interesting to study who got it all right and what contributed (some countries did).
Matt McIrvin
Interesting thing to me about the MWRA wastewater numbers is that if you drill into county-by-county info on Biobot’s site, it’s clear that ground zero is still Cambridge. They’re having their second “bounce” outbreak now. College campuses really seem to be extraordinary trouble spots even with near-universal vaccination.
sab
@YY_Sima Qian: When my brother in laws parents went back to China I thought they were on the safest place on the planet. Now not so much, but I do think their government cares about them much more than ours does.
ETA I know this isn’t heartening, because your parents are in US, but we have more choices, and China’s vaccine is good but ours is much better.
Matt McIrvin
Note that article about future evolution of COVID doesn’t say anything about the virus evolving to be less severe. They emphasize that the main evolutionary pressure is on greater transmissibility and the severity of disease caused by the virus is more a matter of luck. But on the human immune system side, greater existing immunity may tend to lessen the severity of disease. If COVID becomes consistently less severe over time, that will probably be the dominant contributor–us, not the virus.
YY_Sima Qian
@sab: If they have been fully vaccinated & boosted (even if w/ the inactivated whole virion vaccines), then they are as safe as they can be under the circumstances. A well respected team at Hong Kong University have studied the efficacies of Sinovac & BioNTech at different doses & different age groups (still a preprint) through the current tsunami:
Hong Kong Data Show Benefit to Third Shot of Sinovac in Preventing Omicron Deaths
(WSJ article about the study)
Vaccine effectiveness of two and three doses of BNT162b2 and CoronaVac against COVID-19 in Hong Kong
(Actual study)
Basically, the Sinovac offers significantly lower protection against infection than BioNTech (for all comparable doses, even comparing boosted cohorts), but boosted Sinovac has the same very high protection against severe disease & death as boosted BioNTech (> 90%) even for the > 60 y.o. & > 80 y.o. cohorts. Studies out of Thailand have shown that mixing vaccines (full course of inactivated whole virion vaccine followed by mRNA or adenoids-viral vector vaccine) offers even better protection.
It is important to note that none of the current vaccines have great protection against infection, especially if not boosted. So mRNA vaccination alone will not suppress spread, as we have seen across the world.
YY_Sima Qian
@Matt McIrvin: I think New Zealand has done about as well as one possibly could.
YY_Sima Qian
@sab: I am certainly glad that my parents have been vaccinated & boosted w/ mRNA vaccines, but I dread the prevalence of COVID in the US. If I can get them back in China, & boosted w/ an inactivated whole virion vaccine shot while in China, it might be the best of all worlds.
New Deal democrat
@Matt McIrvin:
I agree with your take. As the mass of human immune systems becomes less COVID-naive, it will gradually mount a bigger response to variants.
Also, breaking news: the CDC’s variant update was just released. Last week’s reported rate of BA.2 was increased to 39%, and this week’s rate was 55%. On the West Coast it is a majority, and in the Northeast it is over 70%. We’ll probably get a peak in Northeast cases in a week or so.
Scout211
The FDA has approved a second booster shot for anyone age 50 and older.
The CDC is expected to follow that approval. They specify that this is a permissible booster, not a recommended booster.
I saw my primary care doc yesterday and she told me that she recommends the second booster for Mr. Scout and for me. We definitely will do so.
sab
@YY_Sima Qian: Interesting world that we still have such choices, to move people across the world.
WaterGirl
@lowtechcyclist: @Baud:
They are trying to play chicken with Biden. They figure that if they don’t fund this then Biden will cave and pull funds from something else.
My money is on Biden standing firm because he has enough experience with kids to know that they will test you and that if you cave, they know you didn’t mean whatever it is you said. When that happens, going forward they will know you won’t stand firm on the next thing, and they can get their way.
Stand firm against the whiny short-sighted people who are blocking this. There’s no other way to win on anything if you cave on this. I know he has to choose his battles, but I think this one matters if he wants to get reasonable funding for anything going forward. Especially Covid.
smith
@WaterGirl: I think the fact that lacking new funding uninsured people will shortly have to pay ~$200 for a PCR test might wake some of the Goobers up.
YY_Sima Qian
@sab: Realistically, I don’t see my parents back in China until 2023. But great to hear a 4th shot have been approved. My parents were vaccinated back at end of Oct./early Nov., so protection has waned, just as mitigation measures have been lifted.
Bill Arnold
@Matt McIrvin:
Also, it doesn’t mention long-term sequelae (long-COVID). There is pretty much zero selective pressure against (or for) such long-term effects, so random mutations could be e.g. cause severe long term problems in 40 percent (or 0 percent) of cases and such mutations would not affect its fitness (ability to spread), if such effects only appeared well after the virus cleared the body and they weren’t correlated with acute case severity. (Recall that solid large peer reviewed papers about COVID-19 post-acute sequelae mostly started to appear in 2022. (preprints in 2021) This means that such sequelae would probably not/might not affect policy for at least a year.)
Matt McIrvin
@New Deal democrat: I’m not seeing any signs of the Northeast rise reaching a maximum yet. With the Massachusetts numbers it’s easy to be fooled by the irregular weekly cadence of data releases. I personally suspect it’ll be bigger and longer than that, though nowhere near the size of the initial Omicron wave.
Matt McIrvin
Hell yeah, sounds like it’s second booster time for me. I’m traveling later in April so this is a good thing.
Matt McIrvin
…If current trends continue, I don’t think they’ll have to worry about paying for a second booster for everyone because only maybe 15-20% of the population will bother to want one.