Haven’t seen much debate of the fact that 85% of US 12 and up have at least one shot. Not nearly enough fully vaccinated and boosted, but hardcore antivaxxers occupy far more of our collective headspace than their percentage of the population (likely a lot lower than 15%) merits. pic.twitter.com/ni7LmXHSMk
— Henry Farrell (@henryfarrell) January 21, 2022
The United States is now reporting 1,853 new coronavirus deaths per day, the highest seven-day average since October 2, according to data from @CNN and Johns Hopkins University.
— Ryan Struyk (@ryanstruyk) January 21, 2022
In the U.S. more people died of Covid in the past week than died of Ebola during the whole 2014-2016 West Africa epidemic.
Maybe it’s me, but the slew of ‘the pandemic is essentially over’ articles seem a bit premature.
— Craig Spencer MD MPH (@Craig_A_Spencer) January 22, 2022
As #Omicron crests, booster shots are keeping people across the U.S. out of hospitals. Extra vaccine doses were expected to lower infection rates. But the shots also seem to be preventing severe illness caused by the new variant, according to the CDC https://t.co/GcaftZweGK
— delthia ricks ? (@DelthiaRicks) January 22, 2022
Omicron won’t be the last variant nor will SARS-CoV-2 be the last novel pandemic pathogen. Seems the debate shouldn’t be whether xyz is endemic/not but rather about what investments we must mobilize now to build strong public health systems for both immediate & long-term benefit.
— Eric Reinhart (@_Eric_Reinhart) January 21, 2022
Wow – Distributing covid tests is a big deal for the Postal Service!
But they should still fire DeJoy.https://t.co/2ywtTfgexi
— Cheryl Rofer (@CherylRofer) January 21, 2022
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From a longer thread:
“Omicron continues to sweep the the world”, says @DrTedros at @WHO presser on #covid19.
“The number of deaths remains stable for the moment, but we're concerned about the impact Omicron is having on already exhausted health workers and overburdened health systems."— Kai Kupferschmidt (@kakape) January 18, 2022
"Omicron may be less severe, on average, but the narrative that it is a mild disease is misleading, hurts the overall response and costs more lives”, says @DrTedros.
— Kai Kupferschmidt (@kakape) January 18, 2022
The first commercial airline flights in one month have taken off from Xi’an in western China as the government eased travel curbs imposed after a coronavirus outbreak ahead of next month’s Winter Olympics in Beijing. https://t.co/UdXzxeqkJV
— The Associated Press (@AP) January 22, 2022
The sweeping “zero-tolerance” strategy that China has used to keep COVID-19 case numbers low and its economy functioning may, paradoxically, make it harder for the country to exit the pandemic. https://t.co/2kP2osBcVs
— The Associated Press (@AP) January 22, 2022
Not that the rest of us are bitter…
… The communist government’s practice throughout the pandemic of trying to find and isolate every infected person has largely protected hospitals from becoming overwhelmed and staved off the deaths that have engulfed most of the world.
But the uncompromising approach also means most people in China have never been exposed to the virus. At the same time, the effectiveness of China’s most widely used vaccines has been called into question. New studies suggest they offer significantly less protection against infection from omicron, even after three doses, than people get after booster shots of the leading Western vaccines.
Together, those factors could complicate China’s effort to get past the pandemic. Experts say if the country of 1.4 billion people were to relax restrictions, it could face a surge similar to what Singapore or Australia experienced, despite a highly vaccinated population…
The world’s most populous nation was the only major economy to grow in 2020, and it accounted for a fraction of global deaths and infections.
As part of the country’s tough-minded strategy for keeping the virus at bay, residents in Chinese cities must display their infection status on a government-monitored app to enter supermarkets, offices or even the capital.
But weeks ahead of the Olympics, omicron is testing this approach with outbreaks in the southern province of Guangdong, as well as Beijing….
China relies heavily on its own Sinovac and Sinopharm vaccines, along with several others made domestically. It has not approved the Pfizer shot, even though a Chinese company bought distribution rights in 2020.
Instead, the focus is on developing China’s own mRNA vaccines, like the Pfizer and Moderna formulas. One such vaccine is in late trials.
Another option for China may be to track how the virus is evolving and put off opening its borders until it becomes even milder. But it’s anyone guess when or if that might happen…
Hong Kong health authorities warn of worsening COVID outbreak https://t.co/o03cqJrhRs pic.twitter.com/n0fX4Urwch
— Reuters (@Reuters) January 22, 2022
Taiwan on COVID alert as domestic Omicron cases spike https://t.co/Ra9541MVDB pic.twitter.com/iJQH0cPD2L
— Reuters (@Reuters) January 22, 2022
India's daily COVID cases rise by 337,704 in last 24 hours – govt https://t.co/kuib8FWW6j pic.twitter.com/uAQsFZENy4
— Reuters (@Reuters) January 22, 2022
Tokyo daily COVID-19 cases hit record for 4th straight day https://t.co/7kAzaEIlCb pic.twitter.com/ZdniEIloSV
— Reuters (@Reuters) January 22, 2022
As Japan infections surge, so does risk of pandemic fatigue https://t.co/3bPDbPkmmo pic.twitter.com/xmzoM7oMQS
— Reuters (@Reuters) January 21, 2022
Japan on Friday acted to contain a record surge in COVID-19 cases with a return to curbs that have however shown diminishing results, while a laggard vaccine booster programme leaves many people vulnerable to breakthrough infections.
The government empowered authorities in Tokyo and 12 other prefectures to implement curbs on mobility and business activity – measures that, with three prefectures already under such devolved restrictions, now cover half of Japan’s population.
The highly infectious Omicron variant has driven the current wave of cases, and nationwide infections hit an all-time high of around 46,000 on Thursday…
But studies of cell phone traffic, train usage and other mobility data suggest levels of compliance by the public have steadily decreased…
Japan has fully vaccinated almost 80% of its population, but an increasing number of them are vulnerable to breakthrough infections as they got their shots more than six months ago. A booster programme that would help immunise them against the fast-moving variant has reached less than 2%…
One doctor told Reuters there appeared to be delays in imports of vaccines for boosters, as Japan depends on overseas drugmakers for almost all of its supplies.
Another pointed to a decision to shut down mass vaccination centres after the main inoculation push last year, and the health ministry’s initial insistence on an eight-month gap between first-phase inoculations and booster shots.
Makoto Shimoaraiso, a Cabinet official guiding Japan’s pandemic response, said that delays in regulatory approvals and reopening of inoculation sites had hampered the vaccine rollout…
The country has recorded just over 2 million coronavirus cases and 18,461 deaths during the pandemic.
Tokyo’s occupancy rate of hospital beds for COVID-19 patients, rose to 31.5% on Friday. An increase to 50% would warrant escalation to a full state of emergency, officials have said…
#Omicron extends its reach to some of the planet's most remote islands. Isolated islands in the Pacific through geographic isolation and stringent policies remained mostly untouched by the pathogen —but no longer https://t.co/K47wEASyg3
— delthia ricks ? (@DelthiaRicks) January 21, 2022
Poland reports new daily record of 40,876 COVID cases https://t.co/tMZ4SVZV82 pic.twitter.com/3w7vhfQByv
— Reuters (@Reuters) January 22, 2022
… Authorities have said the latest wave of the pandemic will drive case numbers to levels not yet seen in Poland, with estimates of the peak ranging from 60,000 to as many as 140,000 daily infections.
Health Minister Adam Niedzielski said on Twitter that the number of tests being conducted had grown steadily over the past week, with some 151,000 test results, including 100,000 PCRs, reported on Saturday.
Poland, a country of around 38 million, has one of the world’s highest COVID-19 death rates per capita and its vaccination rate is below the European Union average. It has so far reported 4,484,095 COVID-19 cases and 103,819 deaths…
Latin America and Asia are the latest nations to face an omicron surge. In Costa Rica, election officials are encouraging those with the coronavirus to skip voting. Beijing is locking down some communities as the country awaits the start of the Olympics. https://t.co/McWIhjOsZ6
— The Associated Press (@AP) January 21, 2022
The world-famous Carnival festivities in Rio de Janeiro will be held in late April rather than the final weekend of February, as coronavirus cases spike in Brazil. https://t.co/oF2cZf8ryl
— The Associated Press (@AP) January 22, 2022
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The FDA has expanded the use of remdesivir to patients who are not hospitalized. The infused antiviral, which has been widely used for hospitalized Covid patients, is now approved for high-risk patients who aren't sick enough to be hospitalized https://t.co/LwLaQVMBaO
— delthia ricks ? (@DelthiaRicks) January 22, 2022
Bad ‘infection prevention’ techniques:
I'm telling you. Vitamin C and D "MEGADOSING" is causing so many stones right now. I'm tired. Everyone stop it!
— Ashley Winter MD || Urologist (@AshleyGWinter) January 21, 2022
COVID-19 vaccines may, in rare cases, have long-lasting side effects that resemble Long Covid. Researchers are "tiptoeing' around it; patients feel ignored by the medical community. Important story by @jcouzin and @GretchenVogel1https://t.co/vcd66fMWxn
— Martin Enserink (@martinenserink) January 21, 2022
… The research was small in scale and drew no conclusions about whether or how vaccines may have caused rare, lasting health problems. The patients had “temporal associations” between vaccination and their faltering health, says Avindra Nath, clinical director at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), who has been leading the NIH efforts. But “an etiological association? I don’t know.” In other words, he does not know whether vaccination directly caused the subsequent health problems.
NIH’s communications with patients faded by late 2021, though Nath says the work continues behind the scenes. The pullback caused bewilderment and dismay among patients who spoke with Science, who said the NIH researchers were the only ones helping them. Now, a small number of other researchers worldwide is beginning to study whether the biology of Long Covid, itself still poorly understood, overlaps with the mysterious mechanisms driving certain postvaccine side effects…
How frequently side effects like Dressen’s occur is unclear. Online communities can include many thousands of participants, but no one is publicly tracking these cases, which are variable and difficult to diagnose or even categorize. The symptoms also include fatigue, severe headaches, nerve pain, blood pressure swings, and short-term memory problems. Nath is convinced they are “extremely rare.”
Long Covid, in contrast, affects anywhere from about 5% to 30% of those infected by SARS-CoV-2. Researchers are making tentative progress with several ideas about the underlying biology. Some studies suggest the virus may in certain cases linger in tissues and cause ongoing damage. Other evidence indicates aftereffects of the original infection might play a role even after the body clears the virus.
For example, evidence from animal studies supports the idea that antibodies targeting the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein—the same protein that many vaccines use to trigger a protective immune response—might cause collateral damage, notes Harald Prüss, a neurologist at the German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases (DZNE) and the Charité University Hospital in Berlin. In 2020, while hunting for antibody therapies for COVID-19, he and his colleagues discovered that of 18 antibodies they identified with potent effects against SARS-CoV-2, four also targeted healthy tissues in mice—a sign they could trigger autoimmune problems…
Breakthrough infections can spur strong antibody responses, according to new research reported in the journal Cell https://t.co/L0NLI03gnm via @medical_xpress
— delthia ricks ? (@DelthiaRicks) January 22, 2022
From @CDCgov death rates for #COVID19 variants vs vaccination:
“Incidence & Death Rates Among Unvaccinated & Fully Vaccinated Adults w/and W/out Booster Doses During Periods of #Delta & #Omicron Variant Emergence — April 4–December 25, 2021”https://t.co/U5Jy3Dfv41 pic.twitter.com/DsTfuwCRMo— Laurie Garrett (@Laurie_Garrett) January 21, 2022
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Maybe in this 3rd year of the pandemic we'll finally learn what "endemic" means. https://t.co/9o6ywF38Ng
— Zoé (@ztsamudzi) January 21, 2022
Endemicity is not just about constancy and pervasiveness: it is also about predictability, manageability, relative stability.
We're logging like a million daily infections and the capacity of our medical system is being strained. That's not what this is.
— Zoé (@ztsamudzi) January 21, 2022
"Everyone is sick at the same time" isn't an endemic, it's a fucking emergency
— Zoé (@ztsamudzi) January 21, 2022
?I've had a frankly worrying number of messages from people who think the answer to the hospital crisis is simple: deny care to unvaccinated people.
I talked to ethicists and health-care workers about why this is a terrible, unconscionable idea. 1/https://t.co/Qo9dqvuPwV
— Ed Yong (@edyong209) January 20, 2022
The principle is really simple: "Everyone has an equal claim to relief from suffering, no matter what they’ve done or haven’t done." The medical system shouldn't be a means of punishing people for social choices. 3/ https://t.co/Qo9dqvuPwV pic.twitter.com/bRzjVgSOpa
— Ed Yong (@edyong209) January 20, 2022
Also, a person’s choices are always constrained by their circumstances. Access still matters. Unvaxxed people are disproportionately poor, rural, and uninsured. To a degree, medical care is *already* denied to them. 4/
And while unvaccinated people make up the bulk of hospitalized COVID patients, they are also far from the only reason that hospitals are now struggling. 5/
Many health-care workers have been harassed & threatened on the false grounds that they’re already withholding care (by not prescribing ineffective drugs). No one I talked to would countenance that. They’re still doing their jobs, in awful conditions. 6/
One of the most persistent misconceptions about the pandemic is that it’s a crisis of personal irresponsibility rather than political inaction. The instinct to punish individuals instead of holding leaders accountable is another manifestation of that 7/
And finally, I will note that there is a surprisingly large number of people who will casually state that unvaccinated folks should be left to die, and yet are incensed about being blocked on Twitter.
Obligatory response for this hashtag. #UNMASKOURCHILDREN pic.twitter.com/aI1dOBLTLe
— Scale of Judgment (@ScaleoJudgement) January 20, 2022
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