“If you just lock down and wait for the virus to disappear, it’s not going to happen,” Dr. Anthony Fauci told FP’s @RaviReports. https://t.co/nBftmtadzl
— Foreign Policy (@ForeignPolicy) May 4, 2022
Worth reading the whole thing — it’s not that long. Maybe not new information, if you’ve been keeping up, but IMO it’s useful to have it laid out so succinctly:
… Ravi Agrawal: You said last week that we are out of the “acute component” of the pandemic phase. In real terms, what does that mean for Americans?
Anthony Fauci: We are still in the middle of a pandemic, to be sure—there’s no confusion about that. But when I say we’re out of the acute fulminant stage right now, what I mean is that cases have gone down dramatically. Our numbers of deaths per day are down to one-tenth of what they were. We have many less hospitalizations, and the case numbers went way down from 900,000 to around 15,000 per day. Now, as we’ve seen before, we’re starting to see an uptick in cases, particularly with the new BA.2 variant. But what we are seeing is something that our colleagues in the United Kingdom and in some of the European countries have seen, where although the cases are starting to go up, they’re not going up in a very steep, fulminant way and they’re not associated with a concomitant increase in hospitalizations or the utilization of intensive care unit beds.
What that’s telling us is that 90-plus percent of our population has either been vaccinated and boosted or has gotten infected—or both. This is not protecting us specifically from infection, but it seems to be protecting us from that surge of hospitalizations that stressed the health care system during previous eras of this pandemic.
We hope that we don’t see a major uptick [in cases] as we get into the fall, but that remains to be seen. We’re going to have to wait and see, which is the reason why we’re still encouraging people to get vaccinated. If you’ve not been vaccinated or if you have been vaccinated and are eligible for a booster, make sure to get it. Now…
RA: I’m going to channel some of the questions we’ve received from our subscribers here. It’s fair to say the United States performed relatively poorly on the pandemic despite having one of the world’s most advanced health care systems. Knowing what you now know, what would you recommend America did differently?
AF: Well, what America could have done differently would have taken decades to fix. It isn’t a one thing for this pandemic that was specific. Our health care system has a great deal of disparities.
We have a very heterogeneous population, many of whom have a much greater risk of developing severe disease—mostly minority populations or brown and Black populations. Not only are they in occupational situations that put them at greater risk of getting exposed, but they have underlying conditions that are much more likely than you see in the general population: hypertension, diabetes, obesity, chronic lung disease. And that’s why they’ve suffered desperately greater than the general population.
Also, we have an uneven health care system. The access to good health care isn’t evenly distributed throughout the country, where it is in other nations that have more uniform health care systems. They’ve done much, much better than we have. Those are just a few of the reasons why, even though we’re a very rich country, even though we were deemed to be as well or better prepared than anyone else for a pandemic, we did quite poorly. We have almost a million deaths over a two-and-a-half-year period. That is very serious…
RA: So let me ask you a related question then. Turning to Ukraine, given the relatively low vaccination rates there, are you now worried about the conditions of war acting as an incubator for the next dangerous variant? And this holds true not only for Ukraine but also many other parts of the world, such as Yemen or Afghanistan.
AF: Well, you’re absolutely correct. And that gets back to the saying that we in public health have said for so long that a global pandemic can only be solved by a global response. You can’t have just some countries responding because then you give the virus the opportunity to proliferate, expand, and mutate and develop variants.
Whenever you have the disruption of anything from a natural disaster to a disruption of society by conflict, in this case the Russian invasion of Ukraine, that always leads to a disruption of health care systems, including how one can respond to a pandemic. But it goes well beyond Ukraine. You mentioned some of the other countries, even in sub-Saharan Africa, where you have, you know, less than 20 percent of some countries vaccinating their people, particularly when you have a high level of other diseases such as HIV/AIDS, in which the virus can have a particularly greater impact on people. That has secondary effects throughout the world because it gives the virus the opportunity to continue to spread from person to person. And the more the virus replicates, the greater the opportunity you give it to mutate. And when it mutates, that’s when you get new variants…
Hospitalizations have increased ~35% since their mid-April nadir, now pushing 18,000; today was the largest (757) increase since January; still a low absolute number but not a good trend; nothing like the BA.1 wave pic.twitter.com/cEBhOwGon9
— Eric Topol (@EricTopol) May 5, 2022
======
The number of newly reported COVID-19 cases and deaths continued to drop globally in the last week, the World Health Organization said.
The decline began in March, though there have been big jumps in cases in certain regions.https://t.co/4tscWpYj7A
— The Associated Press (@AP) May 4, 2022
Beijing returned to work after a five-day Labour Day holiday with China's capital on high COVID alert as it tries to eradicate an outbreak https://t.co/3Q2T41NAIW pic.twitter.com/tMJ1CEEr6b
— Reuters (@Reuters) May 5, 2022
How Covid-scarred Shanghai will finally exit lockdown https://t.co/lhrkZ0gEQR
— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) May 5, 2022
Hong Kong is reopening beaches and pools in a relaxation of COVID-19 restrictions, while China's capital Beijing is easing quarantine rules for arrivals from overseas. Hong Kong had closed water sports venues amid an outbreak of the omicron variant. https://t.co/Czfzxv3duZ
— The Associated Press (@AP) May 5, 2022
======
The Omicron COVID variant is as severe as previous variants, unlike assumptions made in previous studies that it was more transmissible but less severe, a large study in the United States has found https://t.co/BYOIMoETG7 pic.twitter.com/mQ8mqGuE5o
— Reuters (@Reuters) May 5, 2022
It's time for a consensus defintion of #LongCovid https://t.co/WOzdFODiok @LancetRespirMed @DrMunblit
"There is an urgent need for unification of terminology for the sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 infection." pic.twitter.com/vW8gDT9CV4— Eric Topol (@EricTopol) May 4, 2022
Studying #coronavirus variants that have faded away can help us prepare for what comes next. Lessons from Gamma, Iota and Mu, the vanished variants https://t.co/y5ao7TbTev
— delthia ricks ? (@DelthiaRicks) May 4, 2022
======
Changing your mind about COVID is a sign that you’re committed to the truth, not committed to an idea, @olgakhazan reports: https://t.co/PNCeLDcpzR
— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) May 3, 2022
On The Road – way2blue – Massi Mara, Kenya in July 5 of 6
WaterGirl
Over a million deaths in the US, and probably a lot more unreported cases. Half a million kids with long Covid.
And much of the US shrugs.
How long did we hear about the 4 tragic deaths in Benghazi?
Fetuses matter, but they couldn’t care less once the child is born.
The hypocrisy burns. We have to shrink the Republicans to the point where they can slide down the drain in the bathtub.
New Deal democrat
Since I hate relaying just bad news, let me start out with States where cases are falling, which include AK, CO, KS, ND, and OK, plus DC. Cases are flat in AL, AR, TX, IN, NE, MO, and VT. Unfortunately, most of these are rural States where BA.2.12.1 has not really taken hold yet.
The worst jurisdiction of all is PR, where daily COVID cases equal 1 in every 800 people, followed by all of New England, NY, NJ, HI, and IL, with 30 cases per 100,000. The best States are generally those of the Deep South, plus ID, WY, OK, and MO, with only 5 cases per 100,000. All of these may be undercounting compared with last year, but probably not since the peak of Omicron in January.
In bellwether NY and NJ, cases are up 20% compared with one week ago. In NYS, the epicenter remains the NYC area, with cases declining in the original BA.2.12.1 epicenters of Central NY and the Finger Lakes region.
Nationwide cases rose to 66,200, an increase of over 20% from one week ago. Hospital admissions rose to 16,588. Deaths rose sharply to 568, due to a data dump by NC. Even without NC, however, deaths still would have risen to 401.
rikyrah
Will never get past
90% OF THE LAST 500,000 COVID DEATHS DID NOT HAVE TO HAPPEN???
And, I honestly think it’s 95%??
rikyrah
Going on a Floating Petri Dish?
Hell NO!?
Ramalama
Off-topic: why do you post images of some tweets – like the one from NBC – but embed others directly into your posts? Is there a strategy to not give NBC link juice?
New Deal democrat
On that study that reported that Omicron was as severe as prior COVID strains, the researchers include this note:
“They said their study could have several limitations, including the possibility that it underestimated the number of vaccinated patients in more recent COVID waves, and the total number of infections, because it excluded patients who performed at-home rapid tests.”
Oh.
Amir Khalid
Malaysia’s Ministry of Health reported 1,054 new Covid-19 cases yesterday, for a cumulative reported total of 4,452,835 cases. It also reported three deaths for an adjusted cumulative total of 35,567 deaths – 0.80% of the cumulative reported total, 0.80% of resolved cases.
74 confirmed cases are in ICU; of these patients, 41 confirmed cases cases are on ventilators. Meanwhile, 4,107 more patients have recovered, for a cumulative total of 4,388,491 patients recovered – 98.6% of the cumulative reported total.
1,053 new cases reported yesterday were local infections. One new case was imported.
The National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme (PICK) administered 2,151 doses of vaccine on 4th May: 376 first doses, 1,337 second doses, and 438 booster doses. The cumulative total is 70,332,430 doses administered: 27,773,404 first doses, 26,735,674 second doses, and 16,036,713 booster doses. 85.1% of the population have received their first dose, 81.9% their second dose, and 49.1% their booster dose.
YY_Sima Qian
On 5/4 Mainland China reported 360 new domestic confirmed (190 previously asymptomatic), 4,678 new domestic asymptomatic cases, 0 domestic suspect cases, & 13 new deaths.
Guangdong Province reported 13 new domestic confirmed (2 previously asymptomatic, 11 at Guangzhou & 2 at Jiangmen) & 6 new domestic asymptomatic (all at Guangzhou) cases. 1 of the cases at Guangzhou was previously asymptomatic, 6 of the new positive cases are traced close contacts under centralized quarantine & 10 via screening of residents under lockdown. 1 of the cases at Jiangmen was previously asymptomatic, & the other a traced close contact under centralized quarantine. 10 domestic confirmed & 7 domestic asymptomatic cases recovered. There currently are 156 active domestic confirmed & 50 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 1 new domestic asymptomatic cases, at Fangchenggang. 8 domestic asymptomatic cases recovered. There currently are 1 active domestic confirmed (at Beihai) & 104 active domestic asymptomatic cases (87 at Fangchenggang & 17 at Baise) in the province.
Hunan Province 2 new domestic confirmed cases, 1 each at Changsha & Xiangtan, both recent arrivals from elsewhere. There currently are 26 active domestic confirmed & 1 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. 4 sites at Shaoyang are currently at Medium Risk.
At Inner Mongolia “Autonomous” Region 4 domestic confirmed cases recovered. There currently are 46 active domestic confirmed (45 at Hulun Buir & 1 at Chifeng) cases in the province. 4 sub-districts in Manzhouli are currently at Medium Risk.
At Tianjin Municipality there currently are 1 active domestic confirmed & 2 active domestic asymptomatic cases remaining.
Shandong Province reported 1 new domestic confirmed & 14 new domestic asymptomatic cases. 2 domestic confirmed cases recovered & 34 asymptomatic cases were released from isolation. There currently are 66 active domestic confirmed cases & 587 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.
At Shanxi Province 2 domestic confirmed & 18 domestic asymptomatic cases recovered. There currently are 22 active domestic confirmed (21 at Taiyuan & 1 at Yuncheng) & 65 active domestic asymptomatic (64 at Taiyuan & 1 at Shuozhou) cases remaining.
Hebei Province reported 19 new domestic asymptomatic cases. 41 domestic asymptomatic cases recovered. There currently are 11 active domestic confirmed & 499 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 2 new domestic confirmed (1 previously asymptomatic) & 99 new domestic asymptomatic cases. 4 domestic confirmed & 16 domestic asymptomatic cases recovered. There currently are 36 active domestic confirmed & 843 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 4 new domestic confirmed cases. 18 domestic confirmed & 16 domestic asymptomatic cases recovered. There currently are 179 active domestic confirmed & 127 active domestic asymptomatic cases in the province.
Jilin Province reported 4 new domestic confirmed (2 previously asymptomatic, 2 mild & 2 moderate) & 20 new domestic asymptomatic cases. 263 domestic confirmed & 493 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 42 new domestic confirmed (40 mild & 2 moderate) & 8 new domestic asymptomatic cases. As the city does not break down recoveries by imported vs. domestic cases, I cannot track the count of active domestic cases there. 13 sites are currently at High Risk. 34 sites are currently at Medium Risk.
Shanghai Municipality reported 261 new domestic confirmed (185 previously asymptomatic) & 4,390 new domestic asymptomatic cases. 4,432 of the new domestic positive cases were already under quarantine & 34 via screening of persons deemed at risk of exposure. There were 13 deaths (avg. 82.77 y.o., youngest at 40 y.o. & oldest at 100 y.o., all w/ a range of underlying conditions, none vaccinated). 1,739 domestic confirmed & 13,133 domestic asymptomatic cases recovered. There currently are 10,279 active domestic confirmed (512 serious & 99 critical) & 85,671 active domestic asymptomatic cases in the city. 13 sites are currently at Medium Risk.
At Shaanxi Province there currently is 1 active domestic confirmed case remaining.
Hubei Province reported 1 new domestic asymptomatic case, at Wuhan, a person that came from elsewhere on 4/28 & under centralized quarantine since. 1 domestic confirmed & 9 domestic asymptomatic cases recovered. There currently are 2 active domestic confirmed (both mild, both at Wuhan) & 49 active domestic asymptomatic (23 at Wuhan, 10 at Ezhou, 7 at Huanggang, 6 at Xiangyang, & 1 each at Xiaogan, Xianning & Yichang) cases in the province.
Jiangsu Province reported 3 new domestic confirmed & 26 new domestic asymptomatic cases. 5 domestic confirmed & 95 domestic asymptomatic cases recovered. The currently are 23 active domestic confirmed & 328 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 did not report any new domestic positive cases. 32 domestic asymptomatic cases recovered. There currently are 7 active confirmed & 160 active domestic asymptomatic cases in the province.
Zhejiang Province reported 10 new domestic confirmed & 24 new domestic asymptomatic cases. As the province does not break down recoveries by imported versus domestic cases, I cannot track the count of active domestic cases there.
Fujian Province did not report any new domestic positive cases. 1 domestic asymptomatic case recovered. There currently are 18 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 Ningde remain at Medium Risk.
Ürumqi in Xinjiang “Autonomous” Region reported 4 new domestic asymptomatic cases, all traced close contacts under centralized quarantine. 49 domestic asymptomatic cases recovered. There currently are 7 active domestic confirmed & 101 active domestic asymptomatic cases in the city.
At Guizhou Province there currently is 1 active domestic asymptomatic (at Tongren) case remaining.
Jiangxi Province reported 3 new domestic confirmed (both mild) & 38 new domestic asymptomatic cases. 31 domestic confirmed & 46 asymptomatic cases recovered. There currently are 175 active domestic confirmed & 615 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 14 new domestic confirmed & 26 new domestic asymptomatic cases. 6 domestic confirmed & 30 domestic asymptomatic cases recovered. There currently are 53 active domestic confirmed & 154 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.
Sichuan Province reported 1 new domestic confirmed case, at Chengdu, a person coming from elsewhere & under centralized quarantine since arrival. As the province does not break down recoveries by imported vs. domestic cases, I cannot track the count of active domestic cases there.
At Yinchuan in Ningxia “Autonomous” Region there currently is 1 active domestic asymptomatic case in the region.
At Chongqing Municipality there currently are 5 active domestic confirmed & 1 active domestic asymptomatic cases remaining in the city.
At Qinghai Province 4 domestic confirmed & 4 domestic asymptomatic cases recovered. There currently are 13 active domestic confirmed & 6 active domestic asymptomatic cases in the province.
Yunnan Province reported 2 new domestic asymptomatic cases, both at Mengla County in Sipsongpanna Prefecture. 32 domestic asymptomatic cases recovered. There currently are 6 active domestic confirmed & 76 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 5/4, Mainland China reported 13 new imported confirmed cases (0 previously asymptomatic), 62 imported asymptomatic cases, 0 imported suspect cases:
Overall in Mainland China, 2,125 confirmed cases recovered (8 imported), 14,132 asymptomatic cases were released from isolation (65 imported) & 190 were reclassified as confirmed cases (all domestic), & 30,335 individuals were released from quarantine. Currently, there are 12,755 active confirmed cases in the country (165 imported), 650 in serious/critical condition (all domestic), 118,737 active asymptomatic cases (526 imported), 1 suspect case (imported). 470,918 traced contacts are currently under centralized quarantine.
As of 5/4, 3,348.588M vaccine doses have been injected in Mainland China, an increase of 948K doses in the past 24 hrs.
On 5/5 Hong Kong reported 321 new positive cases, 17 imported & 304 domestic (131 via RT-PCR & 173 from rapid antigen tests), 5 deaths (1 fully vaccinated).
On 5/5, Taiwan reported 30,106 new positive cases, 71 imported & 30,035 domestic (72 moderate & 5 serious). There were 5 new deaths (actual dates of death between 4/46 & 4/29, all having a range of underlying conditions, 2 fully vaccinated & boosted).
NeenerNeener
Monroe County, NY:
747 new cases yesterday. No sign of a peak yet.
NeenerNeener
@Ramalama: It’s because WordPress doesn’t perform well on some platforms when there are many, many embedded Tweets. So AL takes pictures of some of the pertinent info instead.
Anne Laurie
@Ramalama: Twitter’s got a lot of weird programming in its embeds, unfortunately.
It was *really* screwing up the already-unstable WordPress platform, so the Blogmaster decreed: No more than 10 embedded tweets per post, and no more than one or two of those ‘above the fold’.
The policy has made these posts a lot more readable for commentors using phones or tablets, I’m told.
The downside is that I have to pick & choose which ten stories are most ‘deserving’ / click-worthy. For the rest, I make screenshots, and/or I add an extract with an active link. I hope that people who are particularly interested in one of those unembedded stories will be able to google & get the info on their own.
And sometimes, the tweets are ‘stand alone’ — the only loss with a screenshot is that people can’t forward them directly from their own twitter accounts.
Ramalama
@Anne Laurie:
@NeenerNeener:
Roger that. Thanks. I was sure I was missing a big reason. Because I’ve not kept up with the posts. Which brings me to another off-topic question: has a where’s the mustard type of hashtag been voted on / decreed yet for the pro-democracy project on social?
Soprano2
@rikyrah: That infuriates me, too. Once we had vaccines available to everyone the deaths should have slowed to a crawl.
rikyrah
@NeenerNeener:
@Anne Laurie:
Oh.
Been wondering about that myself
Barney
The WHO has also published an estimate of excess deaths up to the end of 2021 – 14.9 million (range: 13.3 -16.6 million). https://www.who.int/news/item/05-05-2022-14.9-million-excess-deaths-were-associated-with-the-covid-19-pandemic-in-2020-and-2021
Guac
Beaufort County SC jumped from yellow/”moderate” community transmission to red/”high” from last week to now, on CDC’s transmission map (not the 95% green map). SCDHEC stopped reporting cases by zip code this week, so now we just have county numbers, on Tuesdays only. Positivity rate went from 2.7% a month ago to 10.7% this week. Will probably cancel my upcoming dentist appointment, but I worry that summer/fall will be even worse…
Barney
@Anne Laurie: would there be any way of making the link behind the screenshot open the tweet up in a separate tab? That way, we could, for instance, get the Nature tweet above, which presumably leads to a Nature article, but it wouldn’t force a reload of the Balloon Juice page, so wouldn’t put any more load on the servers.
OzarkHillbilly
@WaterGirl: Pro Life my ass.
Brachiator
And putting it into perspective, from a BBC News story,
And of course, lower income countries have been hit the hardest.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
That Hong Kong Free Press graph,just damn. More proof that the press is just about drama theses days.
smith
@Barney: Most of these tweets are basically links to an article on another platform. Why not just give the direct link, rather than going through Twitter? The comment in the tweet usually has little content, and a direct link gives link credit to the people who actually produced the article.
Another Scott
@Ramalama: https://mobile.twitter.com/Actual_Citizens
#ActualCitizensUnited
HTH!
Cheers,
Scott.
Jay
@smith:
same problem.
prior to “the mandate”, for many users, BJ was unusable, even page by page, all it would do is constantly reload because there was too much “data” on the page.
I still get that problem from time to time, but it’s mostly from comments heavy with links.
If memory serves me right, more than 7 links cacks WordPress.
Ramalama
@Another Scott: Thanks!
Jay
@Anne Laurie:
the “guidelines” have really helped. There were days when I read the important posts, frantically, by trying to scroll down before the page “reloaded”, it sometimes took as much as an hour to read your covid posts, ( not including comments),
Which ever links you want to post “whole”, and which ones you put up as screen shots, is fine by me. I trust your judgement on which one is more significant and I know how to use “google” for the others.
And again, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you from the bottom of my heart for providing this invaluable resource and every *******day, ( except for 3 days break in 2 1/2 years, when Covid was low, missed you❤️❤️❤️❤️)
And thank you again to all the commenters adding info.
smith
@Jay: Is that true for the front page post, too? AL above seemed to indicate it was a problem with Twitter per se. I recall that we’ve never been able to put many links in a comment, but don’t remember if that was a problem with the front page post pre-Twitter. There are other good reasons not to rely so exclusively on Twitter, and if moving away from it helps with page loading problems, all the better.
NotMax
Locally,
Matt McIrvin
@New Deal democrat: I suspect that inherent severity is very hard to judge, and maybe not even all that relevant, since the population being infected isn’t the same as it was. I wouldn’t be so surprised to hear that Omicron is just as bad as Delta if you factor out the effects of vaccination and prior infection on the population, but in real life we have had those.
Jay
@smith:
it’s a mix of problems with WordPress and various platforms. I haven’t used the front page for over 2 years because it often just goes into a “reload” loop, I go post by post.
No biggie, it works most of the time, more so when you try to read everything rather than try to pick and choose.
the tweet thing and the ad thing, however, broke the site for many users, frantically scrolling down to comment 22, because the site “reloaded” at comment 21.