Folks, get your updated COVID vaccine.https://t.co/l9SnrQeUu1.
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) January 6, 2023
As always, the (mostly red) Transmission map gives a measure of how likely you are to get sick if you don’t take precautions (currently: very). The Levels map is about covid hospitalizations (currently: increasing). It doesn’t indicate hospital crowding, just covid admissions. https://t.co/PpWVSNSOXd
— Katie Mack (@AstroKatie) January 6, 2023
======
(link)
As hospitals in China overflow with COVID patients, a University of Hong Kong epidemiologist warns of the possibility of ‘a million deaths or more this winter’ https://t.co/RqNOwNQ4UJ pic.twitter.com/lfkHKK1s9x
— Reuters (@Reuters) January 6, 2023
EXPLAINER: As COVID-19 rips through China, other countries and the World Health Organization are calling on its government to share more comprehensive data. Some even say many of the numbers it's reporting are meaningless. https://t.co/oxqXKSi5pX
— The Associated Press (@AP) January 6, 2023
(link)
Beijing says Zero-Covid reversal was the right move at the right time. In reality, the abrupt U-turn–a result of a policymaking process driven by one person–has thrust China into a new public-health emergency. with @JChengWSJ @WSJ China team
https://t.co/a2Ep0RxE4q via @WSJ— Lingling Wei 魏玲灵 (@Lingling_Wei) January 4, 2023
Young people in China self-infect as fears for elderly grow https://t.co/TE5WQWdiO6
— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) January 6, 2023
(link)
China celebrity deaths spark fears over Covid death toll https://t.co/0UDLXX4Jlv
— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) January 5, 2023
(link)
(link)
The people at the front end are too overstretched for security theatre:
(link)
(link)
Taiwan has again offered to provide China with assistance to help it deal with a surge in COVID-19 cases but Chinese authorities have not yet responded, official Taiwan media reported late on Thursday. https://t.co/YQcjN55DeP
— Reuters Health (@Reuters_Health) January 6, 2023
(link)
(link)
A hopeful turning point for Japan after having gone through its worst wave for fatalities pic.twitter.com/ifrPlXXEdc
— Eric Topol (@EricTopol) January 3, 2023
In the Philippines, the sight of rows of air purifiers at the grocery store and UV-C disinfection in restaurants + cafes tells me that even in this country it's recognized that #COVIDisAirborne.
I am proud to say that this is my country of birth! 🇵🇭#CovidIsNotOver #covid19bc pic.twitter.com/4ZS9Ak2ydN
— Daryl DC 🚅🚇🚡🚍 @[email protected] (@daka_x) January 3, 2023
United Kingdom:
ONS deaths data has been released for week ending 23 Dec.
2,982 more deaths were recorded in-week compared to the 2015-19 average. That’s 26% more, the largest excess we’ve seen all year.
Year-to-date there have been 567,379 deaths recorded which is 8% more than 2015-19 avg. pic.twitter.com/XXdulv4tTr
— stuart mcdonald (@ActuaryByDay) January 5, 2023
‘Emergency doc in Alberta’:
(link)
======
The Omicron subvariant, XBB.1.5, is causing concern among scientists after its rapid spread in the United States in December. https://t.co/HDioaTViWp
— Reuters Health (@Reuters_Health) January 5, 2023
(link)
Why hasn't Paxlovid implementation lived up to its expectations?
Prescribed for only 13% in the US & 0.5% in the UK despite it working well against all variants to date, including XBB.1.5 [we've shown rebound is ~10% via systematic assessment]https://t.co/UEODG36Aza @maxdkozlov— Eric Topol (@EricTopol) January 3, 2023
Study identifies four major subtypes of #LongCovid.
1.) Heart and kidney problems
2.) Respiratory problems
3.) Anxiety/sleep disorders/brain fog
4.) Pain syndromes, such as headache or chest pain https://t.co/qvox1TwjNS pic.twitter.com/0PGbiQQoGB— delthia ricks 🔬 (@DelthiaRicks) January 4, 2023
======
Ohio:
(link)
I’d forgotten about the Super Bowl…
(link)
Really worthwhile, shareable read:
How anti-vaxxers exploited Damar Hamlin's collapse https://t.co/F0JCmjiIMs
— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) January 5, 2023
… While rare and potentially dangerous cases of heart inflammation have been associated with some Covid vaccines, these real cases have been muddled together with unrelated illnesses and misinterpreted, sometimes cherry-picked data.
Combined with a wave of anti-vaccine activity online throughout the pandemic, it has given birth to a group of activists who ascribe nearly any tragic or unexplained death to vaccines.
The loudest voices in the anti-vaccination lobby have followed this pattern throughout the pandemic, even though heart problems are a symptom of Covid itself…
Research by the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), a non-profit campaign group based in London and Washington, found that mentions of an anti-vaccine film quadrupled after the player’s collapse.
CCDH chief executive Imran Ahmed said activists were “cynically exploiting tragedy to baselessly connect any injury or death of a notable person to vaccinations”.
The day after the match the documentary Died Suddenly, which was released in November last year, was mentioned nearly 17,000 times, the CCDH says. The BBC previously looked into the claims in the film and found little or no evidence behind many of them.
Caroline Orr Bueno, a researcher on misinformation who has spent a decade looking at the anti-vaccination movement, says the film gave rise to communities of people across several social media platforms primed to hunt for news events to back up their views.
“They believe the anti-vaccine rhetoric that they are seeing,” she says, “and they are joining in out of genuine concern without necessarily knowing that they’re being misled.” …
While it might seem unusual for young, healthy people to experience heart problems, there are important differences between a heart attack and cardiac arrest.
Most heart attacks are caused by blockages in arteries and are associated with older people as well as lifestyle factors like smoking and diet.
Most cardiac arrests are caused by a problem with the heart’s electrical system which keeps it pumping. These heart rhythm malfunctions are often genetically inherited and can be seen in young people who appear otherwise healthy.
A 2018 study by the Football [Soccer] Association looked back over 20 years of data from screening more than 11,000 players and found not only were cardiac deaths more common than previously thought – although still rare – but that most of them were in people with no previously diagnosed heart problem.
One of the first clear examples of anti-vaccination activists taking advantage of a high-profile news event was the televised collapse of Danish football star Christian Eriksen during the European football championships in June 2021.
Influential accounts immediately began blaming Covid vaccines.
Only after the initial wave of speculation and misinformation was it revealed by the director of Eriksen’s club at the time, Inter Milan, that the midfielder had not received a Covid-19 vaccine prior to his collapse.
In November, Twitter stopped enforcing its Covid misinformation policy, a development that Imran Ahmed of the CCDH called “particularly worrying”.
“Anti-vax lies are deadly and platforms must stop allowing dedicated spreaders of disinformation from abusing their platforms and the trust of other users.”…
Reader Interactions
36Comments
Comments are closed.
Amir Khalid
Malaysia’s Ministry of Health reported 571 new Covid-19 cases yesterday, for a cumulative reported total of 5,028,794 cases. 570 of these new cases were local infections; one new case was imported. It also reported seven deaths, for an adjusted cumulative total of 36,866 deaths – 0.73% of the cumulative reported total, 0.73% of resolved cases.
26,948 Covid-19 tests were conducted yesterday, with a positivity rate of 3.3%.
There were 11,564 active cases yesterday, 132 fewer than the day before. 581 were in hospital. 38 confirmed cases were in ICU; of these patients, 18 confirmed cases were on ventilators. Meanwhile, 696 more patients recovered, for a cumulative total of 4,980,364 patients recovered – 99.0% of the cumulative reported total.
The National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme (PICK) administered 7,738 doses of vaccine on 5th January: 119 first doses, 110 second doses, 870 first booster doses, and 6,639 second booster doses. The cumulative total is 72,588,841 doses administered: 28,121,380 first doses, 27,532,865 second doses, 16,282,446 first booster doses, and 652,150 second booster doses. 86.1% of the population have received their first dose, 84.3% their second dose, 49.9% their first booster dose, and 2.0% their second booster dose.
Lapassionara
Many thanks, AL. This anti-vax nonsense is really irritating. COVID can cause myocarditis. This fact is or should be well-known. And every discussion of the anti-vax claims re heart problems allegedly linked to the vax should start with this fact.
dmsilev
I’ve been watching the trends in LA County and the winter wave we’re seeing now is quite different than last year or the year before. In both of those, hospitalizations took off like a rocket, eventually peaked, and then came steadily down, with the wave lasting about 4 months start to finish. This year, hospitalizations rose and then leveled off at about 1200 or so (vastly lower than the 4000 peak last year, never mind the 8000 of the first winter) and have just …stayed there for about a month now. Same basic pattern is seen in the ICU statistics, though the plateau this year is actually below the pre-surge numbers from last year, which seems to suggest that the severity of the disease is getting better (presumably due to the combination of vaccines and several waves of …natural immunity).
lowtechcyclist
@Lapassionara:
I’m not even gonna bother arguing with anti-vaxxers. AFAIAC, they’re a treasonous fifth column, giving aid to an enemy that’s killed over a million of us in the past three years.
The fact that this enemy isn’t human doesn’t make any difference to me. It’s still an enemy, and it’s still killing us by the thousands each week.
WereBear
@dmsilev:
Is the “severity getting better” or is it that the most vulnerable of each mutation have already fallen?
The level of denial of people who refuse to realize how much everything has changed continues to astonish me. It’s a slow motion asteroid crash, yet they get up each day focusing on the new small frustrations and never put it together…
Which is fine for celebrity gossip but this is deadly.
WereBear
@lowtechcyclist: Especially when we know they act from white supremacy! And wanting blue states to die. I know that now and I can’t un-know it.
It admittedly makes me have to control my internal hostility when I see one anywhere, live or not. I avoid them like the Plague because they are.
NotMax
@WereBear
Call it the Toilet Paper Conundrum. The less there is, the more the concern shown.
dmsilev
@WereBear: Probably some of each. I don’t pretend to have any real expertise in this area, so won’t try to be any more specific than “some”.
YY_Sima Qian
Lack of meaningful data continues to pose challenges for developing a clear picture of the exit tsunami in China. The daily data dump that the China CDC publishes continue to show rapidly increasing severe/critical cases (the absolutely number, at 5,016, is probably orders of magnitude lower than reality, but ~ 50% higher than the number on 1/2). Chinese health care experts are opening predicting 80 – 90% of the Chinese population to be infected in the exit tsunami.
The only way to assess the picture for severe/critical cases is through anecdotes from personal contacts & social media. We went to hospitals in Wuhan twice in the past week, once to visit my wife’s grandparents, & the other to get a check up on some short term sequelae my wife has been experiencing. These are not among the top handful of big hospitals in the city, but both are medium sized well established ones. During our visits, both hospitals were operating normally, the hospital staff were calm & moved at a deliberate pace, & the number of patients in the outpatient clinics of different departments were at normal level. We did not go into the infectious disease or ICU wards. My wife went to one of the top hospitals in Wuhan a few evenings ago to get a CT scan, & there was no one waiting. Just days before there would be lines of patients waiting for their turn. I have hear similar accounts from family, friends & colleagues in Beijing. I suspect the cities & provinces at the front of the exit tsunami are past their peaks for severe/critical. As for deaths, I continue to sporadically hear colleagues & distant relatives losing a grandparent to COVID-19. Even after deaths peak, the waiting time for crematoriums may stretch through Chinese New Year at the end of Jan.
All signs continue to point to an incredibly intense, but also very short, exit tsunami in China. We should expect similar trend for severe/critical cases & deaths.
As of 1/5, 3,481.101M vaccine doses have been injected in Mainland China, an increase of 747K doses in the past 24 hrs. As of 12/13, 1,307.222M individuals have taken at least 1 shot (or 92.73% of the total population), 1,274.018M are fully vaccinated (90.37% of the total), & 815.718M boosted (57.86% of the total). Of the > 60 y.o. cohort, 240.217M individuals have taken at least 1 shot (or 91% of the cohort), 228.644M are fully vaccinated (86.6% of the cohort), 184.179M boosted (69.76% of the cohort). Of the > 80 y.o. cohort, 27.73M individuals have taken at least 1 shot (or 77.5% of the cohort), 23.757M are fully vaccinated (66.4% of the cohort), 15.153M boosted (42.35% of the cohort). The official advise is taking a vaccine shot (primary course or boosters) 6 months after an infection.
Since the vast majority of the Chinese population has been infected since the beginning of Dec., this is suppressing vaccine uptake. I have been telling everyone I know that a 3 months gap is enough.
On 1/5, Hong Kong reported 19,722 new positive cases, 195 imported & 19,527 domestic, & 55 new deaths. There have been 12,204 total COVID-19 deaths to date.
On 1/4, Macao reported 102 new cases & 2 new deaths. There have been 63 total COVID-19 deaths to date. The Macanese authorities believe ~ 60 – 70% of the residents have been infected in the exit tsunami.
On 1/5, Taiwan added 27,676 new positive cases, 395 imported & 27,281 domestic. There were 62 new deaths. There have been 15,445 total COVID-19 deaths to date.
YY_Sima Qian
On a more personal note, my wife’s grandmother has been discharged from the hospital, & my wife’s grandfather is improving. It is such a load off of our minds. The maternal grandfather of one of my wife’s cousins passed away, > 90 & w/ a range of underlying conditions, & unvaccinated.
YY_Sima Qian
@Amir Khalid: What is the limitation on vaccine uptake in Malaysia? I am familiar w/ the struggles w/ elderly uptake in Mainland China, Hong Kong & Taiwan, & the success of Singapore’s mandates. I am also familiar w/ the craziness in the US & Canada. However, I don’t know the dynamics in Malaysia. Is it the elderly that are skeptical of vaccines, or the young “immortals”?
NeenerNeener
Monroe County, NY:
44 new cases on 1/03/22.
84 new cases on 1/04/22.
80 new cases on 01/05/22.
I’m surprised the numbers are this low after the holidays.
Raven
Yea, no one but antivaxxers would use Hamlin to further their agenda would they?
New Deal democrat
Biobot updated yesterday, showing a slight decline nationwide in COVID at a level just below this past summer’s BA.1.21.2 peak. This is consistent with 300,000-400,000 “actual” new cases daily. Since this data sometimes gets revised, I am taking this with an extra grain of salt. Regionally it indicates sharp declines in the Northeast and Midwest, a slight increase in the South, and a leveling off at low levels in the West.
With the resumption of reporting after the holidays, confirmed cases have returned to their pre-Christmas level at 65,300, only half of their BA.2.12.1 peak last summer. Hospital admissions have continued to increase to 47,300, 1,000 above their BA.2.12.1 peak last summer and contrasted with their October low of 22,900. Deaths have declined to 368, roughly the middle of their range since last March.
The currently hardest hit jurisdictions appear to be NY, NJ, southern New England, as well as WV, SC, MS, AR, DC, and PR. The Mountain States, Dakotas, and Pacific Northwest have the lowest level of confirmed cases.
Later this morning the CDC will update its data on variant proportions. I expect XBB&.1.5 to increase to about 67.5% of cases, BQ.1&1.1 to decrease to about 25%, with BA.5 and the rest of the Alphabet soup of new variants to make up the rest. Regionally the Northeast may see XBB&.1.5 at 90% or more, which would be consistent with a peaking wave.
I am encouraged that both Biobot and confirmed cases (which I think can still accurately indicate a trend vs. other times in the past 12 months) show the XBB wave no worse than the BA.1.21.1 wave last summer, and well below both previous winter waves so far.
Steeplejack
@Raven:
Steady in the ranks, bro’. Take the L on this one.
WV Blondie
Thank you for these updates. Ten days before Christmas I had to take my husband to the local ER. It was absolutely packed with people, almost all of them with respiratory infections (whether covid, flu or RSV). They all had masks on, but we wound up leaving before he got to see a doctor – he waited three hours, and then a nurse told him it was likely to be at least another three hours before anyone could see him.
It’s clear to us that we’ll be taking precautions for the foreseeable future. We both mask when we go to public spaces, and hubbo limits how much he goes anywhere. We’re pretty much only socializing with others who are fully (5X) vaxxed and use their masks when out and about (my sister and her partner flew to California and back between Christmas and New Year’s, and wore masks their entire flights, including in the terminals).
Barbara
Extended family member (in-law) died of kidney failure on Thanksgiving Day, and the family was told that it was almost certainly related to Covid infection that had been diagnosed around 10 days earlier. They listed Covid as the cause of death. He was elderly, not hospitalized with Covid but began developing worrisome symptoms about five days after getting a positive Covid test, and once admitted to the hospital began experiencing rapid decline in kidney function. He had early/moderate dementia and would not tolerate any needles without being tied down so the family declined dialysis. I mean, if you have kidney failure and decline dialysis, that’s basically the same as having a DNR. Really sad but probably not all that unusual.
Steeplejack
@Barbara:
So sorry to hear it. Years from now there will be multitudes of family stories like this. It reminds me of hearing stories when I was a kid about bad times in the Depression or “in the old country.”
kalakal
@lowtechcyclist: That’s how I view them
@YY_Sima Qian: I really appreciate your reporting from China on this*. Also good to hear of your relatives recovery though with a sad exception.
* Your comments on Adam’s posts are also extremely interesting, it’s very instructive to get a perspective from people outside of the US/Europe
@WV Blondie:
The last time I’ve flown I’ve been more concerned in the terminals than during the flights
eclare
@Barbara: Oh I’m so sorry. This virus seems to attack everything. And like Steep said, I bet there are a lot more stories like this.
RIP.
YY_Sima Qian
@Barbara: So sorry about your loss!
YY_Sima Qian
@kalakal: Thank you for the kind words!
The Moar You Know
@WereBear: COVID is getting less severe. Human pathogens usually mutate to be less lethal. Even Ebola has. It’s in their evolutionary best interest; a virus that kills someone quickly doesn’t spread far. A virus that makes you sick for a month, coughing and sneezing, can spread to thousands just through you. That’s viral success.
YY_Sima Qian
@eclare:
@Steeplejack:
There will be high hundreds of thousands to a million such stories in China by end of March. & that would not be the worst case scenario. While the respiratory disease wards are very crowded, ventilator capacity is not being stressed anywhere. Anecdotally, most of the elderly deaths are not from severe respiratory symptoms & cascading organ failures from lack of oxygen in the blood, but relatively sudden deaths merely days after an infection, only mild or moderate outward symptoms, so likely heart attack or other organ failure triggered by SARS-CoV-2 infection.
Steeplejack
@YY_Sima Qian:
Sorry to hear what China is going through, but thank you for your updates. Your reports over the last three(!) years have been invaluable. I hope the rest of your family and loved ones stay safe.
Steeplejack
In related news, my RWNJ brother has tested positive for COVID—apparently a mild case. One of the anomalous blips in his RWNJ-itude is that he is not a COVID denier. He got vaxed early and often through the V.A.
The other anomalous blip is that he is not a Trump fan—or else he has done an incredibly good job of hiding it not only from my other brother and me but also from his Facebook presence. He did tell me once that he voted third-party in 2016—I can’t remember that guy’s name—but I don’t necessarily believe that. I think it’s plausible that he didn’t vote at all or voted for Trump because not a Democrat. But he’s not a MAGAloo. His RWNJ issues are Joe Biden’s high gas prices and senility and Nancy Pelosi, she-wolf of the Capitol.
Raven
@Steeplejack: not many masks at the Atlanta airport!
Steeplejack
@Raven:
Are you masking?
Raven
@Steeplejack: yes, I wear my Vietnam hat when I do just for the hell of it. This is the first time I’ve asked for a wheelchair and it’s worked well.
Bill Arnold
@Lapassionara:
COVID-19 was causing myocarditis and other heart injuries, sometimes lethal, in 2020, prior to vaccine availability.
These antivaxer assertions about myocarditis are literally presuming time-traveling vaccines/blatant year-long causality violation. (Though if pressed they simply deny the fact that there were COVID-19-caused cardiac disease in 2020, facts well-supported by statistics and the research literature.)
Steeplejack
@Raven:
Glad it’s going well. Enjoy the trip and the game.
kalakal
@Barbara: So sorry to hear of your loss
New Deal democrat
The CDC just updated its variant proportions data and it is truly weird.
XBB.1.5, which was estimated to be 40% of all infections last week, had that number revised down drastically to 18%! As of this week, it plus XBB together are only 32% of infections.
BQ.1&1.1, which looked completely overtaken last week, we’re revised back higher to 61%, and this week totaled 56%.
BA.5 and the remaining Alphabet soup made up the remaining 12%.
XBB&.1.5 continue to dominate in the Northeast, while BQ.1&1.1 dominate everywhere else except in the Mid-Atlantic, where the two strains are roughly equal.
I haven’t found any explanation from the CDC for what happened.
NorthLeft
What Chuck Wurster said times a million.
It is just simple common decency to care enough about your family, neighbours, co-workers, and anyone else that you make some small personal inconvenience to prevent the spread of any respiratory diseases.
Infuriates me that these selfish asshats against any kind of public health precautions have this much influence.
The Castle
@The Moar You Know:
This is not correct. Viruses do not have intelligence to make this calculation, and evolution is not an intelligent process either. All that matters is who reproduces and who doesn’t. Sometimes this means pathogens become less virulent, but that is no guarantee. Pathogens can wipe out their hosts and themselves by extension; there is nothing to stop this. Becoming less virulent can also lead to self-extinction if that gives a window of opportunity to other species/variants. Over 99% of the species to ever inhabit this planet are extinct. That is not good evidence for intelligent evolution.
Steeplejack
@Steeplejack:
And guns. I forgot guns. Lots and lots of guns.