The rise in US Covid hospitalizations may surpass the summer BA.5 wave, fueled by waning immunity, lack of mitigation and BQ.1.1https://t.co/o5ibW11jaX pic.twitter.com/Y3Uf6EKC3i
— Eric Topol (@EricTopol) December 7, 2022
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For much of the world, 2022 marked the beginning of the end of the COVID-19 pandemic. https://t.co/ZUTdE9ABrp
— Reuters Health (@Reuters_Health) December 7, 2022
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There's relief, but also confusion & fear
Parts of the city are quiet. People allowed out, but some stay in, feeling unprepared
It's like whiplash. Authorities went from declaring all out war on covid, to suddenly downplaying the risks
People/businesses playing catchup pic.twitter.com/HEDHCW2zvS— Selina Wang (@selinawangtv) December 8, 2022
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On interdependence and medical supplies, once its demand side needs were resolved, China was ultimately a MASSIVE exporter to the world of personal protective equipment (PPE) in response to the COVID-19 pandemic starting April 2020
Source: https://t.co/YhHa7tlrWb pic.twitter.com/Dt7WQOiJi5
— Chad P. Bown (@ChadBown) December 8, 2022
Ginger, (Chinese) ginseng and sleep early.
That's the precautions they are advising the public to take.
Not well-fitting K/N95 masks (which also lessen the severity of infection if you do get infected)https://t.co/S3jdVMflvU
Ginseng
I'm not joking https://t.co/tAwdEDf2N7
— Naomi Wu 机械妖姬 (@RealSexyCyborg) December 9, 2022
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Disheartening thread…
My latest: The covid treatment Paxlovid has been free so far.
But soon people who are at the highest risk of severe illness and are least able to afford the drug — the uninsured and seniors — may have to pay the full price. https://t.co/aOEDg6h8Hk— Hannah Recht (@hannah_recht) December 7, 2022
The body of evidence we have for efficacy and safety of Covid vaccines is the largest in the history of medical interventions
— Eric Topol (@EricTopol) December 7, 2022
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If you’re inside with people, wear a mask. If you’re on a train or in an airplane not wearing a mask, what the hell are you thinking. I know it’s hard to have meetings without snacks but you can give goodie bags for later!
You don’t want to get people sick, ok? So many germs pic.twitter.com/MGiMbDuZnu
— Jorts (and Jean) (@JortsTheCat) December 7, 2022
On The Road – JanieM – Maine #11Reader Interactions
36Comments
Comments are closed.
suzanne
Can we have a thread to talk shit about Sinema?
NeenerNeener
Monroe County, NY:
81 new cases on 12/06/22.
66 new cases on 11/07/22.
109 new cases on 12/08/22.
NotMax
Hey, could have been tiger penis.
//
rikyrah
Please encourage everyone to get those booster shots
I don’t know if China has been right.. I just know that they look it far seriouser than we did, especially during Dolt45’s Administration
OzarkHillbilly
My lack of colds and flus these past 3 years are half the reason I still mask up.
eversor
Sinema is now an indepedent.
YY_Sima Qian
The reported numbers in China no longer track reality, not even the underlying trend. The numbers to watch now are active severe/critical cases, new deaths, & vaccinations.
On 12/8 Mainland China reported 3,588 new domestic confirmed (229 previously asymptomatic), 13,004 new domestic asymptomatic cases, 1 new domestic suspect case, & 0 new domestic deaths. Mainland China reported 49 new imported confirmed cases (3 previously asymptomatic), 156 imported asymptomatic cases, & 1 imported suspect case.
Overall in Mainland China, 3,743 confirmed cases recovered (84 imported), 33,048 asymptomatic cases were released from isolation (199 imported) & 232 were reclassified as confirmed cases (3 imported), & 384,691 individuals were released from quarantine. Currently, there are 43,158 active confirmed cases in the country (518 imported), 143 in serious/critical condition (all domestic, + 5 in the past 24 hrs.), 322,042 active asymptomatic cases (1,724 imported), 2 suspect cases (1 imported). 1,459,212 traced contacts are currently under centralized quarantine. There have been 5,235 total COVID-19 deaths to date.
As of 12/8, 3,446.141M vaccine doses have been injected in Mainland China, an increase of 739K doses in the past 24 hrs.
As of 12/8, Hong Kong reported 13,924 new positive cases, 647 imported & 13,277 domestic, & 23 new deaths. There have been 10,914 total COVID-19 deaths to date.
On 12/8, Taiwan added 14,359 new positive cases, 64 imported & 14,295 domestic. There were 32 new deaths. There have been 14,617 total COVID-19 deaths to date.
Amir Khalid
Malaysia’s Ministry of Health reported 1,616 new Covid-19 cases yesterday, for a cumulative reported total of 5,006,855 cases. 1,615 of these new cases were local infections; one new case was imported. It also reported four deaths, for an adjusted cumulative total of 36,742 deaths – 0.73% of the cumulative reported total, 0.74% of resolved cases.
30,935 Covid-19 tests were conducted yesterday, with a positivity rate of 7.5%.
There were 21,473 active cases yesterday, 533 fewer than the day before. 1,324 were in hospital. 81 confirmed cases were in ICU; of these patients, 58 confirmed cases were on ventilators. Meanwhile, 2,145 more patients recovered, for a cumulative total of 4,948,640 patients recovered – 98.8% of the cumulative reported total.
The National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme (PICK) administered 2,550 doses of vaccine on 8th December: 106 first doses, 106 second doses, 762 first booster doses, and 3,025 second booster doses. The cumulative total is 72,512,029 doses administered: 28,116,641 first doses, 27,527,681 second doses, 16,269,873 first booster doses, and 602,062 second booster doses. 86.1% of the population have received their first dose, 84.3% their second dose, 49.8% their first booster dose, and 1.8% their second booster dose.
YY_Sima Qian
Things continue to loosen at a rapid pace in China. The China National Health Commissions just published 10 updates to pandemic response, in large part confirming steps many Chinese cities have already taken over the past 2 weeks, & some reemphasizing the loosening already covered in the “20 Rules” published in mid-Nov.:
The reality on the ground is outpacing government guidelines. Stories of acquaintances testing positive are multiplying. Plenty of people reporting feverish & respiratory symptoms, though the flu is going around, as well. A lot of people have tested positive on rapid-antigen test, many not reporting to their community offices, & some are not self-isolating. Contact tracing has largely gone by the wayside, since actual infections are exploding even as PCR testing has plummeted. Then there are the positive cases walking around who have not tested at all.
The “Dynamic Zero COVID” infrastructure is being dismantled before our eyes. Posters for scanning QR health codes have come down across the country. There are no more testing booths in the community. No more contact tracing phone calls. No more restrictions of any kind for domestic arrivals. One of my wife’s students just tested positive on rapid antigen yesterday (“T” band is dark crimson, indicating high viral load), & my wife had spent 15 min w/ the student in the same office the day before. In theory, she is a close contact. Both of us are self-quarantining at home, both of us wearing KN95s all the time, but she is still negative. No contact tracing calls came. No community workers contacted us to home quarantine. A month ago, her health code would have immediately flashed red & she would have been sent to centralized quarantine.
I always thought the warnings from analysts, commentators & journalists suggesting that the entire DZC effort is merely Xi’s excuse to exert techno-totalitarian control over the population were far too hyperbolic. Abuses of the health code system to impose movement controls outside of the public health context have actually been very rare, and each instance has caused massive public backlash & prompted rapid retreat by the local authorities responsible. Throughout the 3 years of DZC, the associated restrictions & tracking subsided as soon as a local outbreak was eliminated. The claims were contradicted be the facts & experiences on the ground.
Local authorities have been so quick to dismantle the DZC apparatus because they have been a significant drain on their already highly stressed finances. Clear messaging from the top also means they can get off their previously precarious high wire act of trying to balance containing outbreaks & minimizing socioeconomic disruption, which they are only happy to oblige. The nurses that had been staffing the community testing booths are now pulled back to hospitals to backfill the infected staff, & to help prepare for the expected huge influx of patients through the exit wave.
Still, no stories of overwhelmed hospitals, or long waiting lines, yet. It appears people w/ minor ailments are avoiding hospitals for fear of infection, for a change. However, we are still at the beginning of the exit wave. China National Health Commission just announced today that the temporary hospitals (intended only for monitoring of asymptomatic & mild cases who are unwilling to isolate at home) will be converted to makeshift hospitals (that have stronger treatment capabilities, 10% of the beds need to be upgraded to regular hospital beds w/ integrated monitoring equipment & oxygen support). It seems the Chinese government is still preparing for a huge wave of moderate to severe cases that require hospitalization.
Vaccination in China is picking up again. When we took our daughter to the local community clinic last week, there was a long time for COVID vaccine shots, full of elders & children getting their 1st/2nd/3rd shots. A few weeks ago there was no line. The medical staff processing the vaccination paperwork do not want to take on the responsibility of advising vaccination for people w/ underlying conditions. So they have a temporary office set up w/ a doctor from one of the main hospitals nearby to provide onsite consult, the advise now biased toward vaccination (which should have been the case from the beginning). The recommended interval until boosting has been reduced from 6 months to 3 for the elderly population. China just gave EMUs for 4 new vaccines, 3 adjuvanted subunit protein ones & a viral vector inhalable one. The adjuvanted subunit protein vaccine from Livzon & the adeno-viral vector inhalable vaccine from CanSino, whose EMUs authorizations were given in Sept., are now becoming widely available. Rumors are flying that China will be rolling out the campaign for 2nd boosters in the coming weeks. Should have happened in the Fall, now infection will likely be most people’s “booster”.
State propaganda has done a complete 180 degree on the message wrt Omicron. While China was continuing DZC, the emphasis was on the very high R0, the massive exit waves seen at Hong Kong and Taiwan (& what it would mean translated to Mainland China), risk of breakthrough & reinfections, risk to China’s under-vaccinated elders & relatively weak health care capacity, & the risk of Long COVID. Within the past week, the emphasis shifted to the > 90% of cases being asymptomatic or mild (like “common cold” or “flu”), “only” 0.5% of cases requiring hospitalization to date, vast majority of people self-healing at home, & risk of Long COVID low. Both narratives were built on facts, but the former was built on one set of facts focusing on potentially high societal impact, while the latter narrative is build on another set of facts focusing on the low individual risk. What pisses me off is the propaganda repeating some of the worst narratives that spread in the ROW to promote their openings: that COVID-19 is now like a “cold” or “flu” (not the case for a minority that should not be ignored) & playing down Long COVID, plus the uniquely Chinese crap of promoting Traditional Chinese Medicine as solution. While the TCMs being promoted have been in use for a long time, have been found to contain medically active ingredients that have an anti-inflammatory effect in particular (thus OK to reduce symptoms), & come in tablets & capsules, it is absolutely irresponsible to promote them as a prophylactic or as a cure.
NeenerNeener
@OzarkHillbilly: Amen. I’m still masking because I haven’t had a cold since 2019.
New Deal democrat
The CDC variant report, which will be released later this morning, will be the most interesting in months. BA.5 is likely to fall below 10%, but more important is whether a new dominant strain is emerging out of the Alphabet soup. While BQ.1&1.1 are likely to be about 2/3’s, it looks like the share of XBB, while still small, has been increasing exponentially. It may be poised to brush aside the BQ variants.
Meanwhile, Biobot updated yesterday and surprisingly showed a near across the board decline, with only the Midwest continuing to surge, with small declines in the South and West, and a big one in the Northeast. Maybe the Thanksgiving outbreak ran into a wall of resistance?
Confirmed cases remain elevated at 61,800, and still show an increasing trend. Hospitalizations appear to have been peaking in the past 4-5 days, currently at 34,700 (vs. 22,900 in mid-October, and 46,000 during the BA.2.12.1 wave this summer). Deaths have spiked to 420, a 45 day high.
Regionally, the increase in new confirmed cases is most apparent in CA and Wa on the West Coast, as well as WY, FL, SC, and IN.
BIobot’s data sometimes gets revised, so I would want to see their next update before thinking that the other data will turn down shortly as well.
Steeplejack
@suzanne:
Holy fuck, yes, I need that!
Steeplejack
OzarkHillbilly
@NeenerNeener: Now if only I could do something about my allergies…
OzarkHillbilly
@suzanne:
@Steeplejack:
Here I thought that was every thread ever put up. ;-)
NotMax
@OzarkHillbilly
Am one of those types who rarely fall ill but when I do it’s with a capital SICK. More than a decade since suffering anything similar but in November/December took three weeks for whatever crud is going around (not COVID) to run its course. Strangest thing is first onset of symptoms was more than a week after I had been any closer than a tenth of a mile to another human being. No fever at all, no throat irritation, no loss of appetite, just persistent and insistent shallow cough and production of unwanted phlegm (especially in the sinuses) turned up to 11. For several days and nights all I could snatch was maybe 8 minutes of sleep at a stretch before being awakened by coughing spells or simply the sheer noise of accompanying wheezing when lying down.
Generally speaking the onset of high season for tourists brings with it an influx of germs, so not unexpected except in its severity.
Suzanne
@Steeplejack: In some ways, I think this is better: now the Dems can run a primary without her in it. (I keep trying to remind everyone who isn’t actually from there that Sinema has actually had primary challengers, most of whom are leftier than she is, and they have lost every time.) The party there has backed her because she has successfully put together a winning coalition, even though lots of people there think she sucks for all the same reasons we do. Inertia, in other words. It’s hard to abandon a proven winner.
But this makes it easier.
YY_Sima Qian
Wow, China National Health Commission just produced updated ICU capacity in China in its daily press conference:
On TCM, China NHC claimed that the Chinese medical profession has continued to use a combination of western medicine & TCM (the latter in support) to tread COVID-19 throughout the pandemic, w/ great success. The state media personalities must be reading from a different script.
It seems that China has made focused investment to boost healthcare resources through the nearly 3 years of DZC, after all. Of course, the new ICU numbers are still just numbers read out in a press conference, & some Chinese doctors on social media have bemoaned that the hospitals are woefully underprepared for the coming tsunami. We will have to see. Whether actually China has 5 ICU beds / 100K (same as 2019), 10 / 100K (claimed today), or 13 / 100K (target for EOY), the exit wave is expected to blow right through that capacity. (Unless the currently prevalent Omicron strains are significantly milder than even BA.1/2.)
Naomi Wu’s criticisms remain right on: no update to masking guidance to KN95s, no effort to address indoor air quality standards (Hong Kong & Macau have already shown the way, almost unique in the world in this regard). Instead, we have advertisement for ginseng…
OzarkHillbilly
I think I had the same thing, tho I did have some throat irritation due to post nasal drip. No idea what it was or where it came from.
Steeplejack
@OzarkHillbilly:
You’re saying that like it’s a bad thing.
Steeplejack
@Suzanne:
A friend said now we can use her in a prisoner swap for Paul Whelan.
Suzanne
@Steeplejack: I would support that.
Hell, there’s a whole lot of others I’d throw in to sweeten that deal.
Steeplejack
@OzarkHillbilly:
There is some weird thing going around. In late October I was felled for almost a week: heavy coughing and congestion, painful breathing, extreme fatigue. No fever or nausea. Went to the clinic when a pulse oximeter said my SpO2 was below 90. Tested negative for COVID and flu; chest X-ray (and later MRI) didn’t show anything unusual. Got some antibiotics, an inhaler and basically a shrug from the doc. I’m back to “normal” now except I have little stamina and get tired very easily. I think I’m getting better, but progress is slow.
Tazj
@NotMax: My son had that(similar symptoms)at about the same period of time. It wasn’t COVID either as he was tested several times for it. I was worried for a while because the cough seemed to hang on for so long, and after taking a few days off, he was right back to his normal routine.
Matt McIrvin
@New Deal democrat: The Thanksgiving spike in the MWRA data for greater Boston has pretty clearly hit a ceiling. I think it’s going to dissipate from here.
The thing is–that happened last year too, and then there was another rise starting mid-December leading up to the massive Omicron peak after Christmas. So obviously this isn’t any sign that we’re in the clear–mitigation measures are just gone and people want to party. But we’re not in the same immunological situation we were in then, either.
Cameron
@OzarkHillbilly: Same here. At this point it’s a lifestyle choice I’m going to continue regardless of what happens with COVID.
Matt McIrvin
@NotMax: I had something like that several years ago–a seemingly normal cold that turned into this chest-deep cough that would not go away. Went to the doctor, they shrugged and said “chronic bronchitis” and gave me, I think, antibiotics and an inhaler; it cleared up eventually.
New Deal democrat
@Matt McIrvin: Agreed. Another Christmas get-together spike will presumably happen even if the Thanksgiving one fades.
Meanwhile, the CDC has updated its variant data. BA.5 is hanging in there at 11.5%. XBB failed to break out, increasing only slightly to 4.7%. BQ.1&1.1 increased to 67.9%, so seem to be winning the Alphabet soup contest.
glc
@NotMax: Hmm, very familiar. Going on a week now. I think I know who my source was though it took a week to manifest. Her source was her 7 year old son, who goes to school.
Not doing much about it except tea. It gets awkward at night. Though fairly mild.
Ultimately the source is Thanksgiving, but that aside, Thanksgiving was nice.
Yutsano
@YY_Sima Qian:
0.5 percent of 1.4 billion is *checks notes*…700 million people. Even if one assumes only 10% of those people get sick that’s still going to tear the PRC health system apart especially in the rural areas. This could get really ugly really fast.
YY_Sima Qian
@Yutsano: 0.5% of 1.4B is 7M. That is not 7M that needs ICU care, but hospitalization & possibly oxygen support. Still, the exit wave will overwhelm China’s health care system, especially ICU care. There is not a single country that hasn’t seen its health care system greatly stressed during the 1st wave of widespread transmission.
Bill Arnold
@New Deal democrat:
NY State absolute positive infections numbers are useless (at home testing), except for the trends. Statewide, and in particularly urban areas, there was a sharp rise (>50 percent) in daily new reported PCR-confirmed cases. from the 4th week in november through now (first week in December), but it has leveled off the last few days.
For those who like it raw, these are urls for the CDC nationwide weekly raw influenza stats. For the current year, one must update the week number each week. (Flu shot is a good fit for actual circulating virus this year – https://www.livescience.com/flu-shots-2022-good-match )
https://www.cdc.gov/flu/weekly/weeklyarchives2022-2023/data/whoAllregt_cl47.html
https://www.cdc.gov/flu/weekly/weeklyarchives2018-2019/data/whoAllregt_cl52.html
https://www.cdc.gov/flu/weekly/weeklyarchives2017-2018/data/whoAllregt_cl52.html
Matt McIrvin
@Yutsano: 7 million.
RaflW
Got my bivalent boost Wednesday. All previous shots led to a day of chills, exhaustion and big headache (but only for 24h).
This time, which is 3.75 months after having Covid (which I caught 10 weeks after boost 4), basically no side effects except sore arm and a few wild dreams the first night.
Indo wonder if I got the boost just a bit too soon? So dang hard to know (the recommendation was to wait at least 3 months. Yep, did that.) But we have a plans to see folx for the holidays, and travel, so I hope the bivalent gave my immune system a kick, and didn’t just get ‘neutralized’ by still active fighters.
dnfree
My husband and I had Covid in early September, even though we almost always mask. A one-time, long-awaited small group gathering, and there we were. So we had to wait for the bivalent boosters. We both had them at our respective doctors’ offices in November. Great, right? No–my husband got a call this week from his doctor’s office. He was mistakenly given the “old” Moderna booster, not the new bivalent one. Now he has to wait until March to get the bivalent one. THAT is infuriating.
Matt McIrvin
@dnfree: If it helps, the clinical evidence I’ve seen suggests that the bivalent booster actually is not that different from the original vaccine in its effectiveness against Omicron. Your husband is probably about as well-protected as if he had the new booster.