Sound *ON*!
IT’S STILL TOO EARLY pic.twitter.com/1pQj0REW7h
— Bette Reynolds (@reynolds_bette) April 16, 2022
.@ashishkjha says on Fox News that he doesn’t think events like the White House Correspondents’ Dinner need to be canceled because “we are at a point in this pandemic where I think we can gather safely” pic.twitter.com/it3aEdDyqt
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) April 17, 2022
======
Madatory disclaimer: I’m an aggregator, not a reporter. I can only share what I find, and given the current news climate, Shanghai’s plight is monopolizing what (pandemic) news hasn’t been redirected to other global horrors. I will be almost as happy as a Shanghai resident when the day comes that medical-health media attention is directed elsewhere!
Shanghai, battling a major #Omicron BA.2 outbreak, reports its 1st deaths. Health officials in the mega-city of >26M say 3 people, all elderly, have died of Covid. That raises to 4641 the number of people who’ve reportedly died of Covid in China since 2019 https://t.co/h9u652RFIg
— delthia ricks ? (@DelthiaRicks) April 18, 2022
… All three people who died were elderly, had underlying diseases such as diabetes and hypertension and had not been vaccinated against the coronavirus, city Health Commission inspector Wu Ganyu told journalists.
“After entering hospital, their conditions grew worse and they died after attempts to save them were unsuccessful,” Wu said.
The deaths raise to 4,641 the number of people that China says have succumbed to the disease since the virus was first detected in the central city of Wuhan in late 2019.
While China has an overall vaccination rate of around 90%, a low rate among the elderly remains a concern. Only 62% of Shanghai residents over age 60 have been vaccinated, according to the latest data available. Some experts say China needs to raise that rate before it can safely live with the virus.
While highly contagious, the omicron BA.2 variant driving the Shanghai outbreak is less lethal than the previous delta variant. However, China’s low death toll from COVID-19, which is blamed for more than 988,000 deaths in the United States, has raised questions about how China’s authoritarian and often highly secretive government counts such fatalities…
At a meeting Monday, Vice Premier Liu He, President Xi Jinping’s top economic adviser, pledged increased spending to stabilize supply chains and provide financial support for health workers and others on the pandemic front lines.
While the ruling Communist Party has urged more targeted prevention measures, local officials have routinely adopted stringent regulations, possibly for fear of being fired or penalized over outbreaks in their areas.
In the city of Wenzhou, which has seen only a handful of cases, authorities have authorized rewards of up to 50,000 yuan ($7,800) for information about people who falsify their health status, online news site The Paper reported.
COVID-shaming pits neighbour against neighbour in locked-down Shanghai https://t.co/m8oyzUzWa2 pic.twitter.com/BgPvVrV2P2
— Reuters (@Reuters) April 18, 2022
With the city of 25 million in lockdown, thousands of people in Shanghai who test positive for COVID-19 but have few or no symptoms are being ordered into quarantine centers in immense exhibition halls and other buildings. https://t.co/zcCRwDMFAA
— The Associated Press (@AP) April 18, 2022
Argument from the ground (Shenzen) — extracts from a longer thread:
The general answer to why Chinese don’t rise up against this or that, is because *overall* there’s constant incremental improvement. Bad as something is, our parents had it better than our grandparents and we have it better than our parents, collectively, cooperation is rewarded.
— Naomi Wu 机械妖姬 (@RealSexyCyborg) April 9, 2022
Some countries were founded in a fight against fascism, freedom from colonial powers- every nationality has its buttons you do not push if you don’t want people in the street. In China, our fight was against the humiliation of colonialism, but also the of humiliation of poverty.
Jokes about our conduct at seafood buffets abound, but plenty of us grew up with ration tickets, and before that, if you did not fight your way to the front of the line- your family didn’t eat. Now a great deal of our culture revolves around showing off there is too much food…
Shanghaiese will not starve in their homes- the powers that be are well aware of it. The only reason they have not taken to the streets in greater numbers is the population is highly educated, well invested in the current system, and aware that doing so will make things worse.
We’ve already seen the Shanghai authorities ease the lockdown today, but this will also likely speed the spread of this variant. If COVID escapes local lockdowns into the general population, any reasonable estimate puts the death toll at upwards of 5 million people.
So in the next few weeks, if there is no major progress, we are faced with the possibility of civil unrest caused by scarcity- either from lockdowns, or by a shortage of workers able to deliver supplies due to illness.
Food shipments in China are very time-sensitive due to our poor cold chain. Most Chinese want “fresh” not frozen or refrigerated foods. This is why massive amounts of food has been lost to spoilage in Shanghai as trucks could not make timely deliveries. https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.108
Few Chinese eat canned or frozen foods in any quantity, many rely on takeout. Overall, with the exception of rice, I would estimate 80% of our average caloric intake is perishable foods with a fragile, time-sensitive supply chain. We’ve seen even modest delays are a huge problem.
Add to this, most Chinese watching Shanghai are extremely upset by the situation there but almost none I have spoken to has acted on that awareness and begun to stock up on dry goods. Many of my friends in Shenzhen still rely on takeout and don’t even have a sack of rice on hand.
The fact that many Westerners have a relatively unhealthy diet of processed, pre-prepared foods with an extremely long shelf-life actually serves them well here and makes the time-sensitive and precarious nature of the Chinese food supply situation a little counterintuitive.
I genuinely hope that ample supply trucks will get through, health care shortages eased, and people patient. Civil unrest is called for in some cases, but here it would only make things vastly worse, very, very quickly. But you should understand why this is such a delicate time.
India’s COVID infections hit month-high, one state reports spike in deaths https://t.co/oZnItChe2M pic.twitter.com/zRUiP6jf3m
— Reuters (@Reuters) April 18, 2022
India’s tally of daily COVID-19 cases nearly doubled on Monday from the previous day to more than 2,000 for the first time in a month, government data showed, and the southern state of Kerala reported a big jump in deaths.
India was at the centre of the global COVID crisis this time last year but the situation has improved since then and most precautions including the wearing of masks have recently been dropped.
But cases have been creeping up in the country of 1.35 billion people in the past few days…
Authorities reported 2,183 new infections on Monday, taking the running total to more than 43 million, according to health ministry data.
The ministry reported 214 more deaths, including 151 since April 13 in Kerala, which is widely considered to issue more accurate data than many other states.
India has reported a total of about 522,000 deaths from the coronavirus though many global experts have said its real death toll could be up to 4 million, from several hundred million cases…
South Korea lifts most COVID precautions as new cases dip to two-month low https://t.co/F0HmfST6Qs pic.twitter.com/8GV5dTioDW
— Reuters (@Reuters) April 18, 2022
======
From a longer thread:
Already today many are more worried about long-COVID than they are about simply getting a bout of COVID.
For good reason. If you’re vaccinated & boosted, surviving COVID is less of a concern. What comes next is. 2/
— Andy Slavitt ?? (@ASlavitt) April 17, 2022
I recently talked to two people who know more about the causes & treatments for long-COVID than anybody else. Come listen. @VirusesImmunity & @PutrinoLab. 3/ https://t.co/AvY4DY71K3
— Andy Slavitt ?? (@ASlavitt) April 17, 2022
Here’s a snippet of @PutrinoLab talking about the impact of effective rehabilitation & lifestyle treatments. Full dialogue on the link.
80% reduction in symptoms & a small number of people fully recovered is very promising.
12/ https://t.co/LXxKeSh5iG— Andy Slavitt ?? (@ASlavitt) April 17, 2022
======
For millions of Americans, the pandemic remains a ubiquitous threat to their lives and livelihoods.
They are immunocompromised or otherwise at higher risk of severe illness, unable to take paid time off or work from home, and struggle to make ends meet. https://t.co/p7HgrbO2T0
— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) April 17, 2022
satby
Goddess love ya, AL! Two years plus of this would have put me in the loony bin.
Baud
What @satby said.
NeenerNeener
Monroe County, NY:
NYSDOH: 306 new cases yesterday. These have to be just PCR tests. The huge numbers from the Monroe County site are combined PCR and home tests.
Amir Khalid
Malaysia’s Ministry of Health reported 6,623 new Covid-19 cases yesterday in its media statement, for a cumulative reported total of 4,389,025 cases. It also reported 12 deaths for an adjusted cumulative total of 35,421 deaths – 0.81% of the cumulative reported total, 0.83% of resolved cases.
Malaysia’s nationwide Rt stands at 0.86.
66 confirmed cases and 60 suspected cases are in ICU; of these patients, 43 confirmed cases and 33 suspected cases are on ventilators. Meanwhile, 11,233 more patients have recovered, for a cumulative total of 4,249,704 patients recovered – 96.8% of the cumulative reported total.
Six new clusters were reported yesterday, for a cumulative total of 6,990 clusters. 120 clusters are currently active; 6,870 clusters are now inactive.
6,610 new cases reported yesterday were local infections. 13 new cases were imported.
The National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme (PICK) administered 60,184 doses of vaccine on 17th April: 11,268 first doses, 45,359 second doses, and 3,557 booster doses. The cumulative total is 69,633,398 doses administered: 27,625,877 first doses, 26,246,346 second doses, and 15,974,034 booster doses. 84.6% of the population have received their first dose, 80.4% their second dose, and 48.9% their booster dose.
JPL
@satby: ??
lowtechcyclist
Re the comparison between Covid and car crashes: we’ve been steadily reducing the absolute number of vehicle fatalities over the decades. When I was in my teens, between 50K and 55K people died in motor vehicle accidents every single year. Pre-pandemic, that was down in the 30s, despite many more people and many more miles driven.
And this happened largely due to the heavy hand of government regulation. Seat belts, air bags, front and rear ends that could absorb some of the shock of a crash rather than have the driver and passengers absorb it all. None of this was required when I was growing up.
But now the FedSocSix say we can’t do the same with Covid, and the GQP says they don’t want to spend any more money to address Covid. So here we are.
New Deal democrat
Only 4 States reported yesterday, so as usual tomorrow will be the next new real data fix. Also, no further news in the last 24 hours about BA.2.12. Hopefully the CDC will start to track it in their weekly seroprevalence reports. I did check many upstate NYS counties yesterday, and a number have peaked, so crossing fingers that will be the norm.
I take issue with the tweet by “a nosy archeologist” highlighted above. While there have been some nutcase lower court judges, even *this* Supreme Court has upheld all State mandates except as to church services, and Federal mandates as to the military and medical personnel. They also indicated they would approve a more narrowly tailored federal employee and contractor mandate, but the Biden Administration ran up the white flag rather than try that route. They also never attempted a vaccine mandate for interstate common carrier travel.
The big shortfall in vaccinations has been 5-17 year olds, fewer than half of whom have had a shot. There is absolutely no good reason why Blue States have not mandated COVID vaccinations for schools, or why the Biden Administration has not pushed them to do so.
bluegirlfromwyo
@satby: Absolutely. AL, you’re an invaluable resource but I’m not sure you take enough breaks.
Baud
@New Deal democrat:
Not sure what your talking about. DOJ is currently litigating these cases in the lower courts.
What I think they aren’t doing is the more tailored OSHA reg for workplaces. Not sure the story, but regs usually take a long time to develop.
NotMax
What’s the word for that? Oh, yeah. Bullf*ckingsh*t.
lowtechcyclist
Indeed!
It’s quite interesting to go back to AL’s earliest posts in this series, from January and February 2020. Here’s one tidbit from the 1/31/20 post, and thank the Lord that Wilbur Ross is no longer in charge of anything:
Good thing he didn’t want to talk about a victory lap – the sound he’d just heard was the starting gun. But he clearly had no clue.
mrmoshpotato
LMAO! Well done, Bette!
mrmoshpotato
Let Michelle Wolf host again, so she can trash the Rethuglicans and the assclown media some more.
Ohio Mom
@lowtechcyclist: Plus roads are designed and engineered to promote safety; sometimes we tear up really dangerous stretches of highway and rebuild them to newer standards. That’s also government intervention.
Baud
@lowtechcyclist:
@Ohio Mom:
Y’all comparing decades long efforts with the need for a rapid response. Our government moves very slowly in rapid response absent a supermajority consensus, and that gives bad faith actors a way to veto action.
mrmoshpotato
@satby: Couldn’t have put it better myself! Thank you, AL!
Lapassionara
@lowtechcyclist: I think the Democrats should include these kinds of quotes from Trump admin officials made early in the pandemic in their messaging. People forget how clueless and callous TFG’s government was, including of course, TFG himself.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
That’s why these people are so upset. They a pining for the good old days were life was cheap.
rikyrah
I am still baffled. Why are the Elderly in Hong Kong not vaccinated?
rikyrah
@satby:
I hear you.
But, I have learned so much from these threads
Geminid
@mrmoshpotato: “Mandatory disclaimer: I’m an aggregator, not a reporter.”
Heard as Ms. Laurie leaves bookstore:
“See you later, agggregator.”
” After a while, bibliophile.”
Princess
@rikyrah: I don’t know about Hong Kong but my understanding was that in China at first they were told it hadn’t been tested on people over 60 and so older people didn’t get it at first when it was scarce and now are reluctant.
I’ll leave it to your imagination to ask why they did not test it on the most vulnerable population.
I also don’t understand why they arent compelling vaccination now. We can’t but I’d think they could.“0
Regardless, the US with a million dead is not in a post to point fingers.
Betty
@lowtechcyclist: To your point, when I was growing up, the news would report anticipated and subequent deaths from car accidents for major holiday weekends. Now they are more likely to report gun-related deaths after holiday weekends.
Geminid
@Ohio Mom: A lot of safety features are being added to highways. I see much more guardrail than I used to. There is also a lot more pavement scoring along the edges of roads, and in the center of two lane roads. This gives drivers a sonic message when they stray. I first saw these strips on interstate highways but now they are all over. These may be examples of cooperation between the insurance industry and highway engineers. A similar synergy seems to exist in occupational safety safety questions like fall protection.
Regulation in construction is not so tight: I occasionally see roofers working on two story houses without secured harnesses. I’ve only used them once, on work in Pennsylvania that an acquaitance scratched up during the big recession. It was a on a one story McDonalds, and the contractor wouldn’t let anyone set foot on the roof without the fall protection gear he provided
YY_Sima Qian
On 4/17 Mainland China reported 2,723 new domestic confirmed (910 previously asymptomatic), 20,639 new domestic asymptomatic cases, 0 domestic suspect cases, & 3 deaths.
Guangdong Province reported 25 new domestic confirmed (5 previously asymptomatic) & 10 new domestic asymptomatic cases. 5 domestic confirmed & 20 domestic asymptomatic cases recovered. There currently are 247 active domestic confirmed & 187 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 16 new domestic asymptomatic (15 at Fangchenggang & 1 at Baise) cases, 1 person in “closed loops”, 14 traced close contact under centralized quarantine, & 2 via screening of persons deemed at risk of exposure. 16 domestic asymptomatic cases recovered. There currently are 8 active domestic confirmed (4 at Baise, 2 at Qinzhou, & 1 each at Guilin & Yulin) & 550 active domestic asymptomatic cases (466 at Fangchenggang, 43 at Baise, 14 at Chongzuo, 26 at Qinzhou, & 1 at Guilin) in the province. 3 sites at Qinzhou are currently at Medium Risk.
Hunan Province did not report any new domestic positive cases. 4 domestic confirmed & 1 domestic asymptomatic cases recovered. There currently are 9 active domestic confirmed & 1 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.
Inner Mongolia “Autonomous” Region reported 1 new domestic confirmed case, Chifeng, a recent arrival under centralized quarantine. There currently are 8 active domestic confirmed (3 at Chifeng, 2 each at Hinggan League & Bayan Nur, & 1 at Tongliao) & 11 active domestic asymptomatic (8 at Hinggan League & 1 each at Hohhot, Tongliao & Wuhai) cases in the province. 1 residential compound at Chifeng is currently at Medium Risk.
At Tianjin Municipality there currently are 2 active domestic confirmed & 4 active domestic asymptomatic cases in the city.
Shandong Province reported 3 new domestic confirmed & 27 new domestic asymptomatic cases. 8 domestic confirmed cases recovered & 98 asymptomatic cases were released from isolation. There currently are 122 active domestic confirmed cases & 785 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 9 new domestic confirmed (4 each at Taiyuan & Shuozhou, & 1 at Yangquan) & 50 new domestic asymptomatic (49 at Taiyuan & 1 at Shuozhou) cases, all are connected to the logistics center outbreak. 2 domestic confirmed cases recovered. There currently are 61 active domestic confirmed (46 at Taiyuan, 10 at Shuozhou, 2 at Jinzhong, & 1 each at Xinzhou & Yangquan, & Yuncheng) & 169 active domestic asymptomatic (114 at Taiyuan, 2 at Yangquan, 1 each at Shuozhou, Changzhi & Jinzhong) cases remaining. 1 site at Taiyuan is currently at Medium Risk.
Hebei Province did not report any domestic positive cases. 3 domestic confirmed & 68 domestic asymptomatic cases recovered. There currently are 25 active domestic confirmed & 807 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 9 new domestic asymptomatic cases. 3 domestic confirmed & 32 domestic asymptomatic cases recovered. There currently are 17 active domestic confirmed & 344 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 30 new domestic confirmed & 24 new domestic asymptomatic cases. 8 domestic confirmed & 10 domestic asymptomatic cases recovered. There currently are 131 active domestic confirmed & 118 active domestic asymptomatic cases in the province.
Jilin Province reported 166 new domestic confirmed (41 previously asymptomatic, 163 mild & 3 moderate) & 376 new domestic asymptomatic cases. 800 domestic confirmed & 848 domestic asymptomatic cases recovered. 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 3 new domestic confirmed cases (all mild), all traced close contacts under centralized quarantine. As the city does not break down recoveries by imported vs. domestic cases, I cannot track the count of active domestic cases there. 1 site is currently at High Risk.
Shanghai Municipality reported 2,417 new domestic confirmed (853 previously asymptomatic) & 19,831 new domestic asymptomatic cases. 20,834 of the new domestic positive cases were already under quarantine, & 561 screening of persons deemed at risk of exposure (effectively meaning from the community). There were 3 deaths (1 89 y.o. & 2 91 y.o., all w/ a range of underlying conditions, none vaccinated). 733 domestic confirmed cases recovered & 19,473 domestic asymptomatic cases were released from isolation. There currently are 19,854 active domestic confirmed (16 serious, none vaccinated) & 235,512 active domestic asymptomatic cases in the city. 13 sites are currently at Medium Risk.
Shaanxi Province reported 2 new domestic confirmed (1 mild & 1 moderate, both at Xi’an) cases, all traced close contacts under quarantine. 4 domestic confirmed cases recovered. There currently are 31 active domestic confirmed & 12 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. 3 sites at Xi’an are currently at Medium Risk.
Hubei Province reported 11 new domestic asymptomatic (5 each at Wuhan & Ezhou, & 1 at Huanggang) cases. 2 of the cases at Wuhan are traced close contact under centralized quarantine, 1 construction worker returning from building temporary hospitals in Shanghai & under centralized quarantine upon arrival, a bus driver found via daily screening, & 1 via community screening. The cases at Ezhou are traced close contacts under centralized quarantine. The case at Huanggang is a construction worker returning from building temporary hospitals in Shanghai & under centralized quarantine upon arrival. There currently are 4 active domestic confirmed (3 mild & 1 moderate, 1 each at Enshi Prefecture, Huanggang, Wuhan, & Yichang) & 314 active domestic asymptomatic (34 at Suizhou, 128 at Wuhan, 82 at Ezhou, 6 at Huangshi, 5 at Enshi Prefecture, 52 at Huanggang, 3 at Shiyan, 2 at Jingmen, & 1 each at Xiaogan & Yichang) cases in the province.
Jiangsu Province reported 7 new domestic confirmed (2 previously asymptomatic) & 90 new domestic asymptomatic cases. 5 domestic confirmed & 38 domestic asymptomatic cases recovered. The currently are 87 active domestic confirmed & 840 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 each administrative division, given the multiple simultaneous outbreaks.
Anhui Province reported 1 new domestic confirmed & 58 new domestic asymptomatic cases. 4 domestic confirmed & 67 domestic asymptomatic cases recovered. There currently are 10 active confirmed & 610 active domestic asymptomatic cases in the province.
Zhejiang Province reported 34 new domestic confirmed (8 previously asymptomatic) & 42 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 there.
At Gansu Province 3 domestic asymptomatic cases recovered. There currently are 13 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.
Fujian Province reported & 18 new domestic asymptomatic cases. 19 domestic confirmed case recovered & 29 domestic asymptomatic cases were released from isolation. There currently are 113 active domestic confirmed & 347 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 Xinjiang “Autonomous” Region there currently are 16 active domestic asymptomatic cases in the region (7 at Ürumqi, 3 each at Wusu & Shuanghe, 2 at Bayingol Prefecture, & 1 at Changji).
Guizhou Province reported 1 new domestic confirmed case, at Guiyang, a traced close contact of domestic positive case reported by Xingyi, under centralized quarantine. There currently are 2 active domestic confirmed (1 each at Guiyang & Xingyi in Qianxinan Prefecture) & 3 active domestic asymptomatic (2 at Xingyi in Qianxinan Prefecture & 1 at Tongren) cases.
Jiangxi Province reported 10 new domestic confirmed & 34 new domestic asymptomatic cases. 24 domestic asymptomatic cases recovered. There currently are 13 active domestic confirmed & 97 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 2 new domestic confirmed (both mild, both at Anyang) & 8 new domestic asymptomatic (5 at Zhengzhou & 3 at Anyang) cases. 8 are construction workers returning from building temporary hospitals in Shanghai & under centralized quarantine since arrival. 2 domestic confirmed & 38 domestic asymptomatic cases recovered. There currently are 18 active domestic confirmed & 199 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 1 at Luohe & 2 at Shangqiu, are currently at Medium Risk.
At Chongqing Municipality there currently are 1 active domestic confirmed & 2 domestic asymptomatic cases in the city.
Qinghai Province reported 12 new domestic confirmed (1 previously asymptomatic) & 4 new domestic asymptomatic cases, all at Xining, 2 of the new positive cases were found via screening of residents under lock down & 13 traced close contact under centralized quarantine. 5 domestic confirmed & 4 domestic asymptomatic cases recovered. There currently are 30 active domestic confirmed & 39 active domestic asymptomatic cases in the province.
Yunnan Province reported 31 new domestic asymptomatic cases. 8 domestic asymptomatic cases recovered. There currently are 19 active domestic confirmed & 221 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 4/17, Mainland China reported 19 new imported confirmed cases (2 previously asymptomatic, 1 in Guangdong), 79 imported asymptomatic cases, 0 imported suspect cases:
Overall in Mainland China, 1,637 confirmed cases recovered (18 imported), 20,856 asymptomatic cases were released from isolation (95 imported) & 912 were reclassified as confirmed cases (2 imported), & 33,882 individuals were released from quarantine. Currently, there are 28,987 active confirmed cases in the country (257 imported), 71 in serious condition (all domestic), 282,764 active asymptomatic cases (772 imported), 5 suspect cases (all imported). 425,591 traced contacts are currently under centralized quarantine.
As of 4/17, 3,315.186M vaccine doses have been injected in Mainland China, an increase of 1.848M doses in the past 24 hrs.
On 4/18, Hong Kong reported 613 new positive cases, 13 imported & 600 domestic (303 via RT-PCR & 297 from rapid antigen tests), 17 deaths (2 fully vaccinated, including 1 boosted) + 3 backlogged deaths.
On 4/18, Taiwan reported 1,480 new positive cases, 90 imported & 1,390 domestic (715 asymptomatic). Symptom onset for the domestic cases date from 4/6 to 4/18.
Anne Laurie
@satby: You guys want me to stop doing these posts, you’re gonna have to ask directly! Subtle is not my setting…(/snark)
Because for my neurodivergent brain, these aggregations are soothing. I started doing them, back in the first days of rumors & wild guesses, so I could tell myself: I will set these snippets aside, and look at them every night. But I won’t look at then every minute.
Doing this is one reason I’ve gotten through the pandemic reasonably intact, so far, and I know it’s been helpful (sometimes in the same way) to you guys, too.
I take breaks when it seems like there’s not gonna be a lot of news (and sometimes I’m wrong about that), and I look forward to a day when I’ll be able to gradually cut back the posts to every few days, once a week, only when something big happens. But in the meantime — here we all are!
YY_Sima Qian
Shanghai’s vaccination rate for the > 60 y.o. is actually lower than national average, 62% vs. ~ 80%. Incredible & frightening!
A.L., so glad that you have found Naomi Wu (aka RealSexyCyborg) on Twitter! A real eclectic voice of all things DIY tech as well as life in China. I highly recommend searching for the video she has put up to explain her background. She is very flamboyantly lesbian, works in a male dominated sector that has a lot of toxicity, has an Uyghur partner, & a large following on a social media platform that is officially banned in China, has had run ins w/ the authorities that she does not want to discuss, & felt has been betrayed by western MSM. Therefore, her vantage point just sits at the crosscurrents of all kinds of discriminations, societal pressures, socio-economic developments, censorship, & Chinese governance. The goods, bads & uglies of China in the 2020s.
Even more fun if you like tech! However, a lot of the casual readers just can’t get over the huge fake boobs…
smith
It always amazed me that TFG never once expressed any regret or condolences over the people who died of covid. And one of the first things Biden did as president was hold a memorial service. That’s the difference between them in a nutshell.
Wvng
@Baud: what Baud said about what Satby said about AL.
YY_Sima Qian
@Princess: All the initial Phase III trials of all of the initial vaccines where on the 18 – 65 cohorts. Then most parts of the world started w/ the most vulnerable populations 1st, anyway, because vaccination was the only tool left they could use (or were willing to use). China, Hong Kong & Taiwan did not start from the oldest population, due to lack of data, & their “Zero COVID” policies meant they could wait to see the effect of the vaccines on the elder most cohorts. Why are vaccination rates of the elders in these 3 places still lower than the rest of the world, 6 months after vaccination has been make available to the elders? The elders tend to favor Traditional Chinese Medicine & distrust western medicine, medical professionals at these places are much more cautious on vaccine advise. Even if the risk of severe complications of elderly to vaccination risk is 1 in 100K (there will be a lot of trouble w/ the families if the elder were to suffer a serious complication), why take that chance when the risk of infection has been perceived to be close to zero? MSM in Hong Kong & Taiwan also played up every death of an elder shortly after vaccination, regardless whether the shot was the cause.
Now, we are where we are – Hong Kong suffering a terrible wave, China cannot contemplate exiting from “Zero COVID”, & we will see what happens in Taiwan.
Nicole
@Anne Laurie: I’m glad to hear that posting these aggregations is good for your mental well-being, Anne Laurie. Reading them has been very, very good for mine. I feel less anxious when I feel like I know “something” about a bad situation, and I look forward to these daily updates the way I used to look forward to Cuomo’s daily briefings during the initial wave. With the added benefit that the person providing the updates is not an authoritarian creep.
Yarrow
@Anne Laurie: Thank you so much for these posts. They – and you – are amazing. I have learned so much from your work here. The best Covid roundup I know. Please do not stop, unless that’s what YOU want and need to do.
YY_Sima Qian
@NotMax: My WAG for the death toll in Wuhan’s 1st wave in 2020 is 10 – 20K. The death figure for the rest of China outside of Hubei Province was probably not far off. I am very skeptical that there were no COVID deaths among the 10s of thousands of imported & domestic cases between Jan. 2021 & Mar. 2022. However, our relatives who are medical professions are convinced that the early identification & early treatment afforded by China’s “Zero COVID” policy allow them to crush the fatality rate to well below that of Flu. If China has been systemically hiding COVID deaths, especially from the Shanghai outbreak, words would leak & medical professionals would be warning their friends & families.
Yarrow
RE: Long Covid, this thread is very interesting wrt microclots.
The whole thread is very interesting. Here’s the general thesis. (If you click through there’s another thread talking about it)
Yarrow
Update from my household. Patient did a bit better yesterday. Temperature never got to 100 but was close. Oxygen would drop with even the smallest effort, like walking to the bathroom, but generally stayed around 95 when seated, so not super concerning. Second at-home Covid test was negative so we’re not sure what’s going on. Covid? Pneumonia? Something else? All symptoms are consistent with Covid. They’re triple vaxxed.
Today’s project is looking into “test to treat” locations (thanks to Chetan Murthy for the recommendation yesterday). Unfortunately this person’s GP retired recently and getting a new one hasn’t been done so not sure how to get a prescription if necessary.
As I said yesterday, this person has a shit ton of other health issues so we’ve all been super careful and we have no idea how they could have got Covid.
Peale
My mom has been calling my dad every day in the nursing home and it doesn’t appear that his symptoms have worsened in the past week at least from what she can tell over the phone. But she also hasn’t been given updates from the staff. In other news, my aunt got together last weekend with her family who had just returned from Las Vegas and now all their kids and grand kids are down with COVID. 7 in total. This brings the total to 12 friends, family and co-workers I know who have tested positive in the past 2 weeks.
Barbara
Info on processed versus fresh food component of Chinese food consumption was interesting. Yes indeed, it would be much more of a challenge to meet dietary needs in a lock down if a higher percentage of food needs to be fresh. I pride myself on eating fresh fruits and vegetables, but the reality is that we use certain canned staples all the time — tomatoes, legumes, and broth, mostly, not to mention peanut butter. Early on we stocked up on a lot of such goods to avoid going to the grocery store unnecessarily, and also bought larger quantities of meat to freeze for the same reason.
I find the low vaccination rates of elderly Chinese to be really shocking. Maybe because they are less likely to live in institutions or access institutional care? I guessed that one downside of a successful zero Covid policy was that people would think that it had gone away without understanding the sheer level of effort required to sustain the policy.
YY_Sima Qian
@Barbara: My in-laws buy fresh produce & meat every day, my m-i-l refuses to consider frozen meats. My parents do shopping at the Wal-Mart once every 10 days.
Vast majority of Chinese elder do not living in retirement homes. They live w/ their children, or live alone.
Soprano2
@Geminid: They put heavy steel cables in the median of interstate highways in MO to prevent vehicles from crossing and causing wrong way crashes.
eachother
I want to thank you too Anne Laurie. Covid information is so important. Being broadly informed about it is very important. The world is a big place and there are many places where Covid word is not being mentioned in US news. War is more flash and bang and easy to display. But Covid eclipses the death toll of this war by a lot. Not much less a behavioral disgrace either.
UncleEbeneezer
@Anne Laurie: I love that you do these posts. It’s been great to have a one-stop place where we can read pretty much every major Covid-related story out there and be informed, for the past two years. The stories are often terrifying, but something about facing them, digesting them etc., is comforting too. It reminds me that it’s just a challenge and we can do this. It’s also been a great lesson in knowledge/science/information and how we figure shit out when we have incomplete and even conflicting information. It’s a process.
Thank you for all the work of putting these together. They’ve helped us get through this mess :)
Soprano2
@Yarrow: Or honestly how they could have gotten any disease, not just Covid. Yet somehow it happened.
Soprano2
@Barbara: I read a book about the history of the A&P stores. The Chinese live the way we did until supermarkets became the place where we get our food. People used to shop almost every single day at their local market.
frosty
AL: I have a friend dealing with Long COVID and your posts are my only source of info. I promised her I would send anything that I could find – there’s another good one today. Thank you so much!
Yarrow
@frosty: Please check the thread I linked in comments above. Might be good info for long covid.
Ruckus ??
@Lapassionara:
That has to be done very carefully and judiciously because a way too large portion of our inhabitants will believe BS over anything else, especially if it meets 2 criteria, first is it being said by a conservative, second, does it say what they want to hear. I’m not sure those conservatives actually believe their own BS but they are willing to say anything to get acceptance by their idiots. And idiots will listen to anything idiotic because – they are idiots. It’s a vicious circle of idiocy for the ability of their financial backers to make money from the idiots, you know faux news listeners. It’s organized medicine wagon politics. Did you remember reading about wagons that traveled from town to town selling some fowl swill in a bottle to anyone that would listen? That’s todays rethuglican party – scamming whoever will listen to them babble BS. The product changes, the scam never does.
Fair Economist
Flu Report for 4/4/22-4/10/22
Continuing moderate but seasonally very unusual increases in flu. Positivity slightly up from 8.3% to 8.4%. Lab cases down slightly from 3,924 to 3,902 with 985 added to previous weeks. H3N2 continues its unprecedented dominance, 100% of all typed flus. Hospital admissions up from 2,965 to 3,170.
Mortality due to pneumonia, influenza and COVID down to 7.1% from last week’s 8.0%, lowest since the pandemic started and barely above normal rates. This reflects falling deaths due to COVID as there are very few flu deaths at present.
Fair Economist
@Yarrow: I’ve seen many reports on Twitter from people – some of whom I’ve been following for a while – reporting multiple negative rapid tests before finally getting a positive. Sometimes the rapid tests are *never* positive, and the proof comes from PCR.
I will point out it’s an enormous selective advantage for the virus to evolve to be undetectable on any given rapid test, and since they generally use single antibodies, that’s pretty easy to evolve.
Ruckus ??
@Soprano2:
When I was a kid – a very long time ago (not very, very long!) and I went with mom, we shopped at a butcher, a green grocer, a bakery, and a store that sold boxed/bagged food. The last became what we know today, supermarkets and absorbed the others. In SoCal we had bakery trucks – Helms Bakery to name the biggest and best.
Unique uid
Peale, do you an idea of how many of the 12 made into reported case stats? Just curious, there was a Tweet here last week with someone speculating that only 7% of cases were being reported now (I was unable to track it down to a paper, etc in the time allotted)
[edited to add: FU WordPress. That is all]
randal m sexton
@Anne Laurie: Thanks very much for doing these, and it has been helpful to me in a similar way.
Barbara
@Soprano2: Supermarkets, but also, refrigerators and freezers that made it possible to store food for more than a few days. When I visited Taiwan, I went with a friend and stayed with his family. His aunt went every morning, first thing, to an outdoor market where she bought daily food — soy milk, tofu and any meats or vegetables in her meal plan. I just had not put two and two together that China’s zero Covid policy is operating in this environment.
Bill Arnold
@YY_Sima Qian:
Early on in the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic (Feb or early March 2020) I came upon one of Naomi Wu’s MasksForAll tweets, poked around, then made a pot of coffee and read all of then-currently available research papers (not many) on masks vs respiratory viruses, and immediately realized that western medical public health dogma re masks was deadly-flawed and would kill at least 10s of thousands of people[1]. Instantly started preaching masks and getting “stay-in-your-lane” flack for it from people spouting then-current public health dogma.
It was only much later that people worked out how exactly that flawed dogma had gotten baked in; basically early western attempts to suppress persistent vestigial miasma theory, then some later work with TB particle size (5 microns, gets into the alveoli) that got conflated through inter-discipline ignorance with “doesn’t stay airborne” (pollen that causes allergic reactions is average 25 microns (10-70), so no.)
[1] The pre-covid mask research had very little on masks for source control, and nothing on the effects of universal community masking on community spread of respiratory viruses(partly ethics problems with RCTs), but it was still clear that masks worked. (There was highly suggestive material related to effects of the (gauze!) mask policies in the US and the 1918 influenza pandemic, but it was not really scientific.)
YY_Sima Qian
@Bill Arnold: Naomi was really preaching hard to the western audiences, since people in E/SE Asia did not need any convincing to wear masks. She is happy to remind foreign audiences how right she was.
I did not understand the western dogma on needing to see peer reviewed scientific studies before changing guidance on masking. It is by far the least disruptive intervention, can be taken just as a precaution. Of course, I think the CDC & even Fauci later admitted that the purpose of their initial guidance was to save the scarce masks for medical personnel. Why not just say that, save the surgical & N95s for medical personnel & encourage people to wear cloth masks or whatever self-made contraption, until mask supply is sorted out? Course of action they went w/ damaged their credibility, which is the most important thing to manage a productive collective action response.
Now, Naomi Wu is preaching hard on upper room UVGI to minimize aerosol transmission indoors.
YY_Sima Qian
@Barbara: The vast majority of households in China have refrigerators, many have freezers, even in rural areas because subsided purchases of household appliances are part of China’s extreme poverty elimination program. However, the older folks prefer fresh stuff (my m-i-l insists on buying fresh meat, even if she then puts them in the freezer for later), & younger folks have empty fridges because they just order take out (food delivery is cheap & extremely convenient, w/ an endless selection of eateries to choose from).
China did not have much of a cold chain logistics as late as 10 years ago. Now, it is developed enough to be fairly reliable in normal times. However, it is fragile & not robust enough to withstand major emergencies such as the lock down in Shanghai. Wuhan & Xi’an’s lock downs happened in winter, so cold chain logistics was not a major burden. The winter lasts longer in Jilin Province, too. Yangzhou’s & Ürumqi’s lockdowns in 2021 happened in summer & fall, but they are much smaller cities than Shanghai.