The U.S. Justice Department on Monday asked a federal appeals court to allow the Biden administration to resume enforcing a federal employee vaccine mandate that had been blocked by a lower-court judge in January.
A 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel on Thursday reinstated President Joe Biden’s executive order mandating that federal civilian employees be vaccinated against COVID-19. The White House last week had told federal agencies they “must continue to take no action to implement or enforce the COVID-19 vaccination requirement” pending additional procedural steps by the court.
On Monday, the Justice Department asked the appeals court to take “appropriate steps so that the government may resume implementation and enforcement” of President Joe Biden’s executive order…
The White House has said more than 93% of federal employees have received at least one vaccination and 98% have been vaccinated or are seeking a religious or medical exemption…
If ever there were a better excuse to cancel #NerdProm…
New: @whca will require guests at annual correspondents dinner 4/30 to show proof of “full” vaccination. WHCA already required negative Covid test to attend. Board voted today to add vax proof, too. Comes after outbreak at Gridiron dinner last weekend. https://t.co/Sefd4TBdnN
— Paul Farhi (@farhip) April 10, 2022
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The World Health Organization said on Monday it is tracking a few dozen cases of two new sub-variants of the highly transmissible Omicron strain of the coronavirus to assess whether they are more infectious or dangerous. https://t.co/SVw0ydOcMi
— Reuters Health (@Reuters_Health) April 11, 2022
Gavekal's bottom-up analysis of China’s top 100 cities by GDP finds that all but 13 have imposed some form of quarantine restriction, and the intensity is increasing. We classified these cities from no restrictions (level 0) to full lockdown (level 4). pic.twitter.com/weTntE5CPp
— Gavekal (@Gavekal) April 11, 2022
Some residents of Shanghai stepped out of their homes for the first time in more than two weeks, as the city took tentative steps towards easing a COVID lockdown amid mounting worries over the economic impact of the strict curbs. Read more: https://t.co/uIcybx8i7h pic.twitter.com/SYY2uab5gT
— Reuters (@Reuters) April 12, 2022
The U.S. State Department on Monday ordered non-emergency U.S. government workers to leave the consulate in Shanghai due to a surge in COVID cases and China’s measures to control the virus.
On Friday, the State Department announced that non-emergency personnel could voluntarily leave the consulate. It is not clear why the departure of those workers has become mandatory.
The most controversial of Shanghai’s practices had been separating COVID-positive children from their parents. Authorities have since made some concessions.
The State Department cited the risk of parents and children being separated in Monday’s announcement…
"It [Covid] does leave one very tired and exhausted, doesn't it?"
The Queen reveals how she felt after contracting Covid to a former virus patient in a virtual hospital visithttps://t.co/G4G8eJ14Be pic.twitter.com/mtnJa9wgst
— BBC News (UK) (@BBCNews) April 11, 2022
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U.S. officials now say that people 50 and older can get a second COVID-19 booster shot to fortify their immune defenses against COVID-19. But for individuals in that group, the decision is complicated. https://t.co/KQV5U2a683
— Reuters Health (@Reuters_Health) April 11, 2022
One of the most powerful tools against the #coronavirus is one that experts believe is just starting to get the attention it deserves:#ventilationhttps://t.co/4QCjDgntTX #COVID19
— MicrobesInfect (@MicrobesInfect) April 11, 2022
The next leap in coronavirus vaccine development could be a nasal spray. As the virus evolves, some scientists are calling for a change in vaccine strategy: Attacking the virus where it's inhaled https://t.co/JNgta7rb88 pic.twitter.com/2OX5M1iwhc
— delthia ricks ? (@DelthiaRicks) April 11, 2022
From a longer, technical thread:
If there are any questions on Paxlovid prescribing, here's the basics (from NIH) 1/2https://t.co/UN28fBedNB pic.twitter.com/HHvEXlKN5V
— Infectious Diseases (@InfectiousDz) April 11, 2022
(There’s a bunch of drug-interaction warnings — including one for common statins, which a *lot* of older Americans are taking… )
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The rise of COVID cases in some regions of the U.S., just as testing efforts wane, has raised the specter that the next major wave of the virus may be difficult to detect. https://t.co/wwYU9hkXtM
— The Seattle Times (@seattletimes) April 11, 2022
On The Road – Captain C – Atlanta November 2019 Part 1: The Carter Presidential Center
New Deal democrat
Cases in the US rose for the 7th day in a row, to 33,000. Hospitalizations declined to 9896, an all-time low for the past two years. Deaths declined to 498, the lowest in the entire last two years except for June and July 2021.
Cases are rising in all four Census regions, and so far I cannot detect any signs of a slowdown or reversal anywhere. Notably, cases are now rising in almost all the biggest States, including CA, WA, CO, TX, FL, IL, WI, OH, NJ, MD, MA, PA, and NY. Only MI and NC among the big States are declining.
On the positive side, all of the Pacific States and Territories where BA.2 reached saturation first are either flat – HI – or declining -AK, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands.
Anecdotally I was in two Big Box stores yesterday, and was virtually the only person masked in my formerly high compliance area. BA.2 probably finds that ideal.
Baud
Yay Nancy!
NeenerNeener
Monroe County, NY:
303 new cases yesterday.
Vaccinations now at 71.9%, so this went up again.
Deaths also went up again, from 1815 to 1823. Not good.
lowtechcyclist
I’d think being just shy of 96 years old would leave one tired and exhausted, but Her Majesty’s a tough old bird.
NotMax
FYI.
——————-
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Baud
@NotMax:
The nice thing about these vaccine bans on businesses is that it’s ammo the next time the Chamber of Commerce tries to preach to Dems about regulating businesses.
lowtechcyclist
It’s so obvious that we need to vaccinate the world, to reduce the likelihood and frequency with which we get hit by new Covid variants. It pisses me off no end that the Republicans won’t let us fund this. It would be the best fifty billion we could spend right now.
YY_Sima Qian
On 4/11 Mainland China reported 1,251 new domestic confirmed (335 previously asymptomatic), 23,295 new domestic asymptomatic cases, 0 domestic suspect cases.
Guangdong Province reported 16 new domestic confirmed (6 previously asymptomatic) & 19 new domestic asymptomatic cases. 9 domestic confirmed cases recovered & 8 domestic asymptomatic cases were released from isolation. There currently are 118 active domestic confirmed & 205 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.
Guangxi “Autonomous” Region reported 6 new domestic asymptomatic (5 at Fangchenggang & 1 at Chongzuo) cases, 5 response workers in “closed loops” via regular testing & a traced close contact under centralized quarantine. 3 domestic confirmed cases recovered & 6 domestic asymptomatic cases were released from isolation. There currently are 10 active domestic confirmed (4 at Baise, 3 at Qinzhou, & 1 each at Fangchenggang, Guilin & Yulin) & 197 active domestic asymptomatic cases (86 at Fangchenggang, 41 at Baise, 19 at Chongzuo, 44 at Qinzhou, 4 at Guilin, 2 at Beihai, & 1 at Nanning) in the province. 3 sites at Qinzhou are currently at Medium Risk.
At Hunan Province 2 domestic confirmed case recovered. There currently are 17 active domestic confirmed & 7 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. 3 sites at Changsha & 1 village at Hengyang are currently at Medium Risk.
Inner Mongolia “Autonomous” Region reported 1 new domestic confirmed (mild, at Chifeng) case, found via voluntary screening. 1 domestic confirmed case recovered & 3 domestic asymptomatic cases were released from isolation. There currently are 7 active domestic confirmed (1 each at Hinggan League & Hohhot, 2 at Chifeng, & 3 at Tongliao) & 4 active domestic asymptomatic (2 at Tongliao & 1 each at Hohhot & Hinggan League) cases in the province. 1 residential compound at Chifeng is currently at Medium Risk.
Tianjin Municipality reported 1 new domestic asymptomatic case, a traced close contact under centralized quarantine. 2 domestic confirmed cases recovered & 1 domestic asymptomatic case was released from isolation. There currently are 14 active domestic confirmed 32 active domestic asymptomatic cases in the city. 1 sites are currently at Medium Risk.
Shandong Province reported 3 new domestic confirmed & 13 new domestic asymptomatic cases. 25 domestic confirmed cases recovered & 120 asymptomatic cases were released from isolation. There currently are 206 active domestic confirmed cases & 1,047 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 1 new domestic confirmed (previously asymptomatic, at Yuncheng) & 3 new domestic asymptomatic (all at Taiyuan) cases, all traced close contacts under centralized quarantine. 1 domestic confirmed case recovered. There currently are 44 active domestic confirmed (32 at Taiyuan, 5 each Xinzhou & Yuncheng, & 1 each at Datong & Jinzhong) & 19 active domestic asymptomatic (15 at Taiyuan, 2 at Yuncheng, 1 each at Changzhi & Yangquan) cases remaining.
Hebei Province reported 44 domestic asymptomatic cases. 30 domestic confirmed cases recovered & 360 domestic asymptomatic cases were released from isolation. There currently are 57 active domestic confirmed & 1,305 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 1 new domestic confirmed & 24 new domestic asymptomatic cases. 14 domestic confirmed cases recovered & 82 domestic asymptomatic cases were released from isolation. There currently are 70 active domestic confirmed & 625 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 1 new domestic confirmed & 1 new domestic asymptomatic cases. 12 domestic confirmed cases recovered & 16 domestic asymptomatic cases were released from isolation. There currently are 125 active domestic confirmed & 135 active domestic asymptomatic cases in the province.
Jilin Province reported 171 new domestic confirmed (29 previously asymptomatic, 169 mild & 2 moderate) & 598 new domestic asymptomatic cases. 1,212 domestic confirmed cases recovered & 1,179 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 reported 4 new domestic confirmed cases, all traced close contacts under centralized quarantine. 1 site is currently at High Risk.
Shanghai Municipality reported 994 new domestic confirmed (273 previously asymptomatic) & 22,348 new domestic asymptomatic cases. 22,284 of the new domestic positive cases were already under quarantine, & the rest from screening of persons deemed at risk of exposure (effectively meaning from the community). 379 domestic confirmed cases recovered & 3,450 domestic asymptomatic cases were released from isolation. There currently are 6,921 active domestic confirmed & 205,617 active domestic asymptomatic cases in the city. 13 sites are currently at Medium Risk.
Shaanxi Province did not report any new domestic positive cases. 5 domestic confirmed cases recovered. There currently are 35 active domestic confirmed & 3 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. 2 sites at Xi’an are currently at Medium Risk.
Hubei Province reported 1 new domestic confirmed (mild, at Huanggang) & 36 new domestic asymptomatic (12 each at Wuhan & Ezhou, 7 at Huanggang, 3 at Shiyan, & 1 each at Enshi Prefecture & Jingmen) cases. 9 of the cases at Wuhan are traced close contact under centralized quarantine, 2 constructions workers returning from Shanghai & under centralized quarantine upon arrival, & 1 at hospital intake. The cases at Ezhou & Enshi are traced close contacts under centralized quarantine. All of the cases at Huanggang are traced close contacts under centralized quarantine. All of the cases at Shiyan are construction workers returning from Shanghai & under centralized quarantine. The case at Jingmen came from Wuhan on 4/7 & tested positive at fever clinic. 2 domestic asymptomatic cases were released from isolation. There currently are 2 active domestic confirmed (both mild, at Enshi Prefecture & Huanggang) & 166 active domestic asymptomatic (44 at Suizhou, 48 at Wuhan, 24 each at Ezhou, 12 Huangshi, 5 at Xiaogan, 4 at Enshi Prefecture, 22 at Huanggang, 2 at Jinzhou, & 1 each at Jingmen & Xiangyang) cases in the province.
Jiangsu Province reported 14 new domestic confirmed (1 previously asymptomatic) & 62 new domestic asymptomatic cases. The province no longer publishes recoveries, so I cannot keep track of the active case counts.
Anhui Province reported 61 new domestic asymptomatic cases. 2 domestic confirmed case recovered & 74 domestic asymptomatic cases were released from isolation. There currently are 22 active confirmed & 618 active domestic asymptomatic cases in the province.
Zhejiang Province reported 11 new domestic confirmed (4 previously asymptomatic) & 18 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.
At Gansu Province 1 domestic confirmed case recovered & 7 domestic asymptomatic cases were released from isolation. There currently are 2 active domestic confirmed & 65 active domestic asymptomatic cases in the province. As the province no longer breaks down recoveries by administrative divisions, I cannot track the count of active cases in the administrative divisions.
At Wuzhong in Ningxia “Autonomous” Region there currently are 2 active domestic asymptomatic cases in the city.
Fujian Province reported 4 new domestic confirmed (2 previously asymptomatic) & 24 new domestic asymptomatic cases. 33 domestic confirmed case recovered & 178 domestic asymptomatic cases were released from isolation. There currently are 240 active domestic confirmed & 757 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.
Xinjiang “Autonomous” Region did not report any new domestic positive cases. 9 domestic asymptomatic cases were released from isolation. There currently are 26 active domestic asymptomatic cases in the region.
Hainan Province reported 21 new domestic confirmed (19 previously asymptomatic, 20 at Sanya & 1 at Lingshui County) & 1 new domestic asymptomatic (at Sanya) cases. 18 of the cases at Sanya were previously asymptomatic, & the 3 new positive cases are traced close contacts under centralized quarantine. The case at Lingshui County was previously asymptomatic. There currently are 73 active domestic confirmed (10 at Haikou, 52 at Sanya, 5 at Qionghai, 3 at Lingshui County, 2 at Danzhou, & 1 at Wanning) & 50 active domestic asymptomatic cases (44 at Sanya, 4 at Haikou, & 1 each at Qionghai & Wanning).
At Guizhou Province 1 domestic asymptomatic case was released from isolation. There currently are 5 active domestic confirmed (1 at Guiyang & 4 at Xingyi in Qianxinan Prefecture) & 3 active domestic asymptomatic (2 at Xingyi in Qianxinan Prefecture, & 1 at Puding County in Anshun) cases.
Jiangxi Province reported 2 new domestic confirmed (both mild) & 18 new domestic asymptomatic cases. 2 domestic confirmed case recovered & 37 domestic asymptomatic case was released from isolation. There currently are 17 active domestic confirmed & 172 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 Zhengzhou & 1 at Anyang) & 11 new domestic asymptomatic (5 at Luohe & 1 each at Zhengzhou, Anyang, Hebi, Xinxiang, Xinyang & Shangqiu) cases. 2 of the cases at Zhengzhou are construction workers returning from Shanghai & under centralized quarantine since arrival, & a worked in the “closed loop” at the airport found via regular screening. 2 of the cases at Luohe are truck drivers recently returned from Xi’an in Shaanxi, & 3 are traced close contacts under centralized quarantine. The rest are construction workers returning from Shanghai & under centralized quarantine. 2 domestic confirmed case recovered & 13 domestic asymptomatic cases were released from isolation. There currently are 21 active domestic confirmed & 193 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 2 at Luohe & 2 at Shangqiu, are currently at Medium Risk.
At Chongqing Municipality 1 domestic confirmed case recovered & 2 domestic asymptomatic cases were released from isolation. There currently are 3 active domestic confirmed & 6 domestic asymptomatic cases in the city.
Sichuan Province reported 2 new domestic confirmed (both at Chengdu) cases, both are truck drivers coming from elsewhere. As the province does not break down recovered cases between domestic & imported, I cannot keep track of the count of active domestic positive cases there. 3 residential compounds at Leshan are currently at Medium Risk.
At Qinghai Province there currently are 11 active domestic confirmed & 5 active domestic asymptomatic cases in the province.
Yunnan Province reported 1 new domestic confirmed & 4 new domestic asymptomatic cases. 4 domestic confirmed cases recovered & 9 new domestic asymptomatic were released from isolation. There currently are 13 active domestic confirmed & 109 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 4/11, Mainland China reported 21 new imported confirmed cases (5 previously asymptomatic, 0 in Guangdong), 92 imported asymptomatic cases, 0 imported suspect cases:
Overall in Mainland China, 1,676 confirmed cases recovered (35 imported), 2,619 asymptomatic cases were released from isolation (99 imported) & 340 were reclassified as confirmed cases (5 imported), & 29,818 individuals were released from quarantine. Currently, there are 21,991 active confirmed cases in the country (356 imported), 77 in serious condition (all domestic), 219,896 active asymptomatic cases (899 imported), 28 suspect cases (all imported). 455,268 traced contacts are currently under centralized quarantine.
As of 4/11, 3,300.328M vaccine doses have been injected in Mainland China, an increase of 2.777M doses in the past 24 hrs.
On 4/12 , Hong Kong reported 1,433 new positive cases, 13 imported & 1,420 domestic (722 via RT-PCR & 698 from rapid antigen tests), 52 deaths (8 fully vaccinated, none boosted) + 7 backlogged deaths.
On 4/12, Taiwan reported 663 new positive cases, 112 imported & 551 domestic.
lowtechcyclist
@NotMax:
Dear South Carolina: what about private property rights? I guess they’re only sacrosanct when it’s us libs who want to regulate businesses.
YY_Sima Qian
For 2 consecutive days Shanghai data is suggesting more domestic asymptomatic cases were released from isolation in the city than the China National Health Commission’s data for the entire country. Not sure why, but Shanghai’s data is likely to be a mess.
MagdaInBlack
@YY_Sima Qian: I’ve seen the clips of Shanghai high-rise residents screaming from their apartment balconies. Unsettling to say the least.
YY_Sima Qian
@MagdaInBlack: Local government has really screwed up the lock down, it’s like they never considered the possibility that the outbreak would get out of hand & a city wide lock down would be become necessary. The city should have locked down sub-districts & districts when daily incidence was still in the triple digits, & the city would likely be out of lock down by now (see Shenzhen). It was never realistic to have a loose strategy for Shanghai unless it was the same strategy for the rest of the country. A raging outbreak would be confined to Shanghai. Even now there is no cordon sanitaire around the city.
The good news is that food distribution is finally getting straightened out, according to Chinese social media & my contacts there.
Baud
@YY_Sima Qian:
Are we sure Shanghai’s sister city isn’t Mar-A-Lago?
Dorothy A. Winsor
I see Tucker Carlson told a church crowd that he wasn’t vaccinated. Since Fox theoretically requires its employees to be vaccinated, it strikes me that old Tucker might be lying. You’re shocked, I know.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@NotMax: Yep, came in to post the news about Philly. The masks go on Monday the 18th. The health department had set trigger metrics and we triggered them. One was a 50% rise in cases over 10 days; we saw 60%.
None of this should be a surprise. I heard predictions two years ago that this was going to be the long-term picture of living with Covid: We quarantine, things get better, we come out. Wait a couple months, a new wave, we go back in. Rinse and repeat.
But everyone (the journalists and the crazy anti-vaxxers and every Republican) is going to pretend they never heard all the epidemiologists predicting this pattern, or read the articles about how it happened a century ago with the Flu pandemic.
Amir Khalid
Malaysia’s Ministry of Health reported 7,739 new Covid-19 cases yesterday in its media statement, for a cumulative reported total of 4,333,557 cases. It also reported 19 deaths for an adjusted cumulative total of 35,311 deaths – 0.81% of the cumulative reported total, 0.84% of resolved cases.
Malaysia’s nationwide Rt stands at 0.84.
75 confirmed cases and 99 suspected cases are in ICU; of these patients, 43 confirmed cases and 59 suspected cases are on ventilators. Meanwhile, 19,049 more patients have recovered, for a cumulative total of 4,163,777 patients recovered – 96.1% of the cumulative reported total.
Two new clusters were reported yesterday, for a cumulative total of 6,952 clusters. 126 clusters are currently active; 6,826 clusters are now inactive.
7,716 new cases reported yesterday were local infections. 23 new cases were imported.
The National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme (PICK) administered 46,823 doses of vaccine on 11th April: 4,460 first doses, 32,183 second doses, and 10,180 booster doses. The cumulative total is 69,272,251 doses administered: 27,567,306 first doses, 25,984,454 second doses, and 15,933,049 booster doses. 84.4% of the population have received their first dose, 79.6% their second dose, and 48.8% their booster dose.
Baud
Waiting for the US death toll to hit 1,000,000 is like waiting for the the odometer to roll over.
RSA
@NotMax:
Wow. “Public safety” means something different in South Carolina.
rikyrah
The Supreme Court is not letting people come, but has the nerve to block federal mandates??
YY_Sima Qian
@Baud: Well, one Chinese KOL did call Shanghai the “Florida of China” on Twitter, but the joke is less funny in light of the real suffering of the city’s residents. In normal times, the city is the most modern & well run in China, the “NYC of China”.
jonas
@Baud: Given the high number of unreported/excess deaths, esp early in the pandemic, we almost certainly passed that mark a couple of months ago. But yeah, a grim milestone nonetheless.
jonas
Lol — NY Post (of course) is pushing a “study” by Stephen Moore’s “think” tank claiming that red states that imposed no lockdowns or mandates came out of Covid smelling like roses, while places like CA and NY totally sucked and failed miserably. Unless you count things like, you know, hospitalizations and deaths, but hey, we’re all gonna die someday, amirite?
jonas
@lowtechcyclist:
AFAIK courts have not recognized being an antivax asshole as a protected class when it comes to public accommodations. But you do you, South Carolina.
Baud
@jonas:
Red states win on FREEDOM!
Soprano2
I don’t know what the solution to this whole thing is, but I know what it’s not – wearing masks everywhere, everyone staying in their houses all the time and cancelling everything forever. I think we now have plenty of evidence that people will not put up with that, no matter how many lives it would save.
I think that tweet speculating that “most of the population” will develop an illness they didn’t have before is needlessly alarmist. Covid is bad enough – I wish people would quit making it seem even worse by inflating the things it does. “Most people” don’t seem to develop chronic illness after getting Covid – I think we’ve had enough experience with it to know that, at least for now, and that’s without knowing how many asymptomatic cases we never knew about. I suppose we could stay away from each other forever on the chance that perhaps in 20 or 30 years having had Covid means you get something else bad, but that’s just not how human beings are made.
It appears that the state of MO is no longer collecting county vaccine data, so we no longer have any idea how what percentage of the population in each county is vaccinated. I think they’re just collecting cumulative data.
Peale
Another day, another “I really can’t tell how big a problem BA.2 is going to be.”
Peale
I don’t know who Taylor Lorentz is, but she can go sit on a pin. Yeah, our “cancel” campaign to get people to mask and social distant prior to the vaccine pretty much failed. Fuck you. Yeah, after that failed and the goal of getting everyone vaccinated failed, after 2 years to dealing with whiny babies, we just moved on. And it wasn’t “selfish” of us to do so. Yeah, 2 years ago we wanted people to stand 6 feet apart and stay out of bars. We aren’t hypocritical for going to them ourselves after 3 and now 4 vaccines when cases are low
Its like the fucking complaint that any democrat with a mercedes benz is a hypcrite because of the media’s “Democrats need to donate all their belongings to the poor and wear flour sacks” obsession. Har har.
Fair Economist
I notice Taiwan’s numbers keep climbing and given that they have rejected lockdown I think that’s another Zero Covid strategy that’s about to fail. Will put more pressure on Mainland China in the process.
Soprano2
@Peale: Yeah, that’s what triggered my anger too. We cannot have all the pandemic measures forever for everyone, because the people who need to do it the most won’t. I can’t do anything about the idiots who won’t get vaccinated, but I’ll be damned if they’re going to keep me from doing things forever!
Soprano2
@Fair Economist: I think all “zero Covid” policies are doomed to eventual failure unless you think you can keep your country isolated from the rest of the world forever. I’m especially surprised that the places like China with zero Covid policies didn’t also make everyone get vaccinated. How did they think this was going to work?
bluegirlfromwyo
I don’t think anyone here has suggested being locked up forever was the solution. Some of us have suggested that there might be tradeoffs on the way back to a post-Covid world, like getting vaccinated or wearing masks. Red states have rejected the idea of tradeoffs from the beginning. Some of us are still angry about that, especially when we see handwringing about staying locked up forever when it’s clear that no state – red, purple, or blue – is pursuing that solution. China will probably fail at zero Covid too. Take the win!
Edit now that I’ve seen other comments: yes, Taylor Lorenz can suck it and we can still be pissed off at those who engineered this Sophie’s Choice.
ed
@rikyrah: yeah, b/w putting their work out on the midnight shadow docket and this how is someone supposed to properly publicly rebuke Clarence these days ?
Xentik
That Reuters article is absolutely terrible. They present only the opinions of two aging and apparently anti-vax geezers and let them get away with talking about ‘weighing your risks’ in getting the booster. They present exactly zero opinions from the vast majority of healthcare providers, like my SO and her coworkers, who will immediately tell you to go get boosted. Instead the article claims you should ‘weigh the risks’, which would imply there’s some risk to getting the new booster, but is not actually what they’re talking about. Instead, they want you to think about how unlikely you are to die if you get COVID tomorrow and use that as the basis for whether or not you should get a booster.
To reiterate, there is effectively zero risk with getting a new booster, which compared to the non-zero chance of dying or having complications like long COVID suggests only one thing: All health professionals should be encouraging everyone who can get the booster to get it ASAP. Those who don’t are selling their patients a bill of goods (maybe it’s time to update this to ‘a prescription for ivermectin’?).
Soprano2
@bluegirlfromwyo: Are you sure? I think there are a few people on this blog who would happily stay in their houses forever. LOL
I know I was exaggerating, and I’m also mad at the people who refused to cooperate with pandemic measures (I live among a lot of them!), but I’m also tired of the constant hand-wringing that we’re all doomed now that most mask mandates and other measures are gone. We’re all doomed to get long Covid and be chronically sick forever, one of those tweets says, and the message seems to be that it’ll serve all of us right for not wanting to extend all the most extreme measures long after vaccines and treatments became available. That’s the kind of thing that’s just exhausting me these days. Covid is bad enough – they don’t have to exaggerate the effects. To me that’s counterproductive, because it makes people tune out.
Sloane Ranger
Monday in the UK, 91,304 new cases were reported, but this figure also includes Saturday and Sunday as we no longer update over the weekend. The 7-day moving average is down 38.3%. New cases by nation,
England – 75,194
Northern Ireland – 1976
Scotland – 13,761
Wales – 373.
Deaths – There were 348 deaths within 28 days of a positive test reported yesterday. This figure includes deaths occurring over the weekend. The rolling 7-day average is up 45.4%. 301 deaths were in England, 9 in Northern Ireland, 25 in Scotland and 13 in Wales.
Testing – 351,412 tests took place on 10 April. The rolling 7-day average is down 24.8%.
Hospitalisations – There were 20,051 people in hospital and 355 on ventilators on Friday, 8 April. The 7-day average for hospital admissions was down by 0.2% as of 5 April.
Vaccinations – As of 10 April, 92% of all UK residents aged 12+ had had 1 shot; 86.2% had had 2, and 67.8% had had a 3rd shot/booster.
YY_Sima Qian
@Soprano2: They thought they would have more time, until Omicron BA.2 surprised them. The plan was never & is not “COVID Zero” forever, but hold out until nearly full vaccination coverage, less damaging variant, low prevalence in the outside world. China thought they can hold off COVID-19 for quite an extended period of time, until those conditions are met, but COVID-19 found a hole in Shanghai. Furthermore, even the best vaccines do not do much to reduce prevalence alone (unless recently vaccinated and/or infected), so it will take a long time for worldwide prevalence to come down.
Not the 1st time humans beings have miscalculated the pandemic. Many parts of the world reached extraordinary vaccination levels because vaccinations was the only viable mitigation measure left available. There were no other options.
The best performers are Singapore & New Zealand, which held no to “COVID Zero” (or nearly so), until reaching very vaccination targets, then opened up gradually. I think New Zealand might have preferred to hold on just a bit longer, but Omicron made the choice for them.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
If you drop the word “everywhere”, I think that masks might actually be a permanent part of the culture. At least long-term. Plenty of people have dropped them as the mandates relaxed, but plenty of people around here are still wearing them on occasion. Including myself. And there is still mask signage up.
I’ve heard a number of people remark on how they kind of like going through the winter without getting a winter cold.
Staying home? I go out of the house, but much less than I used to. Certain stores I have not been in since 2020, doing what business I do with them online. It wasn’t a huge hardship to stay home from March 2020 to May 2021 and it wouldn’t be a huge hardship to make that lifestyle permanent.
My wife goes out less than me. I’m in a cafe at the moment, which I’m back to frequenting. She hasn’t been in one since ’20.
Many won’t. But many are settling into a long term pattern where life is very much NOT the same as it was in early 2020.
O. Felix Culpa
@Sloane Ranger: Glad to hear that cases are on their way down in the UK. I’m off in a few days to Scotland for a hiking holiday. Hopefully rain will be my only worry. :)
OzarkHillbilly
Herd immunity now seems impossible. Welcome to the age of Covid reinfection
YY_Sima Qian
@Fair Economist:
Taiwan has already formally declared that it is moving away from “COVID Zero” & will instead focus on hospitalizations. However, Taiwan is facing similar challenges as China when it comes to relatively low vaccine update among the > 80 y.o., better than Mainland China (& much better than Hong Kong), but nowhere near Singapore or New Zealand. We will have to see how it develops.
I don’t think you can say any of the Zero COVID countries failed, even w/ the massive hole in failing to get almost all of the > 80 y.o. vaccinated. At the very least, it gave the populations 2 years of near normalcy, high overall vaccination rate, & a milder variant. Imagine if it was Delta sweep over a largely naive & unvaccinated population (see India circa Spring 2021).
I think you can say Taiwan is another country where “Zero COVID” is no longer viable. Mainland China will give it everything its got, but I rather doubt it can eliminate Omicron BA.2 w/in its borders now (leaving aside continued breaches from outside). I think China will have to at least shift toward a strong mitigation strategy that South Korea employed for most of the pandemic (which South Korea itself exited in advance of the Omicron wave, having hit vaccination targets).
I know I would have strongly preferred to be in any one of the “Zero COVID” countries/regions (including Hong Kong, still), than any part of Europe or N. America for the duration.
YY_Sima Qian
Of courses, we are all fervently hoping that Long COVID will not be a significant risk for the vaccinated (& boosted), which should be the case, or the world is f*cked whatever the strategy.
wenchacha
@lowtechcyclist: What if the business has a strongly-held religious belief?
The Moar You Know
@Xentik: so you say. I spent 12 WHOLE HOURS yesterday feeling like I had a mild case of the flu after my second booster. 12 WHOLE HOURS.
O. Felix Culpa
@The Moar You Know: Heh. My upper arm ached ALL NIGHT after my 2nd booster. Then I was fine, but I won’t let that get in the way of complaining about my suffering. :)
Scout211
We have appointments this week for our second boosters at CVS. Our doctor strongly recommended that we both get the second booster. We had already planned on doing so, but it was nice to get that recommendation from our doctor.
I decided to take the advice of all the jackals here who have posted the information about mixing the mRNA vaccines. We will get Pfizer after the first three Moderna vaccines.
We just spent a week with a house full of grandkids and were out and about with them for the week. It was the first time since the pandemic began that I went to places around here to eat, shop and recreate. I was surprised that here in my area of NorCal, the masking was down to 10% or even less in some venues. It really is like everyone around here thinks the pandemic is over.
Yes, the second booster is definitely on the agenda for us.
Fair Economist
@Soprano2:
You’re exaggerating somewhat, because we don’t have to cancel “everything forever”, just everything that requires unmasking indoors. I host regular events at my house with masks inside, HEPA filters, and food outside and distanced. That’s probably sustainable under perpetual COVID, and fun.
That said, what do you recommend if repeat COVID induces progressive immune/cardiovascular/neurological failure, or if there is a massive diversification into dozens of strains with limited cross-immunity? Those are very possible, given what we know, as well as a couple other doomdayish possibilities. If either is true, then the choice will be “live masked, or die”. Do you really think the entire world will choose to die so they can have a few more Sunday brunches on the way out?
Fair Economist
@YY_Sima Qian: Yeah, “failure” is too strong a word. I’ve been an advocate of Zero-ish strategies since the start and continue to be, even though it looks like the current strategies in Zero Covid countries aren’t up to the job anymore.
One dystopian possibility is that we will live with perpetual COVID with some of us pursuing minimal COVID strategies on an individual basis until enough of the non-minimalists die that the minimizers add up to a societal Zero Covid (by pushing overall R below 0).
Peale
@The Moar You Know: 12 HOURS that you could have spent commenting here. What a waste of my valuable time the booster is.
frosty
@YY_Sima Qian: l have a good friend, vaxxed and boosted and more cautious than me, currently in her fourth month of dealing with fatigue and brain fog. Long COVID can get to the best of us. This virus is a sonofabitch.
smith
CDC has posted the weekly estimate of the proportions of infections due to different subvariants. For the week ending 4/9, nationwide the BA.2 omicron subvariant is thought to account for 85.9% of cases. In the Northeast, the percentage is above 90%.
New Deal democrat
@smith: Thanks, beat me to it by a couple of minutes!
The CDC just updated its seroprevalence data.
BA.2 now accounts for 86% of all new cases. In NY and NJ that is 92.5%; in New England, 90%; and in the Southwest 87.5%.
In Europe cases peaked shortly after BA.2 hit 90% prevalence. We’ll see what happens in the US, and in particular in the Northeast.
YY_Sima Qian
@frosty: That is what I fear for my parents…
Lacuna Synecdoche
@lowtechcyclist:
Plus she has perennial access to the best health care in Britain, and, given her resources, equal access to the best health care in the world, as well.
Lacuna Synecdoche
@Fair Economist:
I can’t speak for Soprano2, but given the US response to Covid so far, I’d have to say that, yes, that’s the most likely outcome – definitely here, probably globally as well.
Matt McIrvin
@New Deal democrat: If you squint at the case and wastewater numbers for Boston you just might be able to see an incipient slowdown, but it could be a chimera. Past waves have certainly had moments of looking like that before they shot to the moon.