Coronavirus thread

Started by JBS, March 12, 2020, 07:03:50 PM

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Mandryka

Quote from: k a rl h e nn i ng on December 04, 2021, 09:50:31 AM
If so, a distressing demo of omicron breakthrough.

Only of infections. Delta breaks through at the level of infections.
Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

Pohjolas Daughter

Quote from: Pohjolas Daughter on December 01, 2021, 09:19:57 AM
Not surprised to hear that.  Earlier today read yet another article about the hospitality industry struggling to stay afloat with yet more cancellations:

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-59463592

PD

Quote from: k a rl h e nn i ng on December 04, 2021, 09:31:59 AM
"a corporate Christmas party" ... people, in other words, who ought to have shown better sense:

Omicron cases related to Christmas party in Oslo, Norway, may grow to 100 — 11:20 a.m.
Bloomberg

Cases of the Omicron variant of Covid-19 in the Norwegian capital linked to a corporate Christmas party may rise to as many as 100, public broadcaster NRK reported.
Quote from: Florestan on December 04, 2021, 09:43:22 AM
Don't know about the Norwegians but the Dutch certainly were.

Reuters:

Dutch authorities: all 14 passengers from S.Africa flights with Omicron were vaccinated

By Reuters Staff

1 Min Read

AMSTERDAM, Dec 2 (Reuters) - All 14 passengers on Nov. 26 flights from South Africa to the Netherlands that were later found to have the Omicron coronavirus variant had been vaccinated, Dutch health authorities said on Thursday.

A spokesperson for the Netherlands Institute for Health (RIVM) confirmed the vaccination status of the 14 on the basis of an investigation by the regional health authority that oversees Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport. (Reporting by Toby Sterling Editing by Peter Graff)


https://www.reuters.com/article/health-coronavirus-variant-dutch-flights/dutch-authorities-all-14-passengers-from-s-africa-flights-with-omicron-were-vaccinated-idUKS8N2LZ09X
Quote from: Florestan on December 04, 2021, 09:43:22 AM
Don't know about the Norwegians but the Dutch certainly were.

Reuters:

Dutch authorities: all 14 passengers from S.Africa flights with Omicron were vaccinated

By Reuters Staff

1 Min Read

AMSTERDAM, Dec 2 (Reuters) - All 14 passengers on Nov. 26 flights from South Africa to the Netherlands that were later found to have the Omicron coronavirus variant had been vaccinated, Dutch health authorities said on Thursday.

A spokesperson for the Netherlands Institute for Health (RIVM) confirmed the vaccination status of the 14 on the basis of an investigation by the regional health authority that oversees Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport. (Reporting by Toby Sterling Editing by Peter Graff)


https://www.reuters.com/article/health-coronavirus-variant-dutch-flights/dutch-authorities-all-14-passengers-from-s-africa-flights-with-omicron-were-vaccinated-idUKS8N2LZ09X

I had mentioned an article earlier about the effect on the hospitality industry.  At least part of the Christmas parties were corporate related and some involved catering.  :(  So, not everyone is going ahead with their plans.

PD
Pohjolas Daughter

Karl Henning

Dang, and the Republican Senator from Ohio declared the pandemic over, too!

I'm grateful that my church choir are preparing to sing a Lessons and Carols, Christmas Eve. We're all vaccinated and boosted, singing masked and distanced. That is to say,none of us supposes that the fact that we're vaccinated means that we're somehow done with precaution.
Karl Henning, Ph.D.
Composer & Clarinetist
Boston MA
http://www.karlhenning.com/
[Matisse] was interested neither in fending off opposition,
nor in competing for the favor of wayward friends.
His only competition was with himself. — Françoise Gilot

Karl Henning

The virus is life-threatening, but everybody is going to die anyway.

j/k

Opinion: The virus is life-threatening, but the means of survival exist. Use them.

By WaPo Editorial Board
Today at 8:00 a.m. EST

The new coronavirus variant is a genuine cause for unease. Omicron appears to be highly transmissible, and it will most likely swamp the world in the months ahead. It is too early to know whether it will be more virulent than the delta variant or more evasive of vaccine immunity. But it is not too early to decide what to do about it. The tools to respond exist, if we will only be serious about wearing masks and getting vaccinated.

Even with the unknowns, vaccines work. [emphasis mine—kh ... feel the burn, Andrei?]They can protect against the delta variant raging everywhere. Boosters create a high level of immunity against delta and may help fend off omicron, too. The vaccines are a lifesaver to people who might otherwise die. Why hesitate to get vaccinated, refuse to wear a mask or deride mandates for both at this stage of the pandemic? Why is a quarter of the U.S. population without at least one vaccine dose — essentially driving at high speed without a seat belt? How many more of the unvaccinated will be hospitalized, intubated and die? Anyone in the United States who can easily get a free vaccine and refuses to do so is leaving themselves vulnerable to a killer disease that has already taken more lives than were lost in the line of duty during the Civil War.

Why should anyone become another victim?

Vaccines have already shown to be tremendously effective, bringing infection levels way down from last winter's surge. But delta is still tormenting the unvaccinated and, with the arrival of the holidays, appears to be surging anew. Ominous reports have been coming in recent weeks from Minnesota, Michigan, Colorado, Vermont, Nebraska and New Hampshire. New York state just reported the most new cases since January — 56 hospitals in the state had a bed capacity of 10 percent or less. Massachusetts reported its largest single-day case count since last winter's surge. Nirav Shah, director of the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention, told the Associated Press, "Omicron is a spark that's on the horizon. Delta variant is the fire that's here today."

President Biden's latest pandemic strategy, promising to fight the pandemic with "science and speed," calls for more testing, better access to vaccines, tighter travel restrictions and other measures. These are all pointing in the right direction, but the ambition is modest. For example, Mr. Biden proposes that private health insurers reimburse people for rapid at-home tests, not just those obtained at a doctor's office or pharmacy. That might help, but at-home diagnostic tests are still not being manufactured rapidly enough so that the whole country can feel comfortable using them regularly and without cost.

Masks and other simple mitigation techniques are going to be vital again this winter. We know what to do to fight this war. Governments, businesses, schools and other institutions play a big role, but it is ultimately up to individuals to regard the virus for what it is: potentially life-threatening. The way to survive is at hand. Grab it.
Karl Henning, Ph.D.
Composer & Clarinetist
Boston MA
http://www.karlhenning.com/
[Matisse] was interested neither in fending off opposition,
nor in competing for the favor of wayward friends.
His only competition was with himself. — Françoise Gilot

Karl Henning

The most-vaccinated big counties in America are beating the worst of the coronavirus

By Aaron Blake
Senior reporter
Today at 7:00 a.m. EST

About 1 in 420 Americans has died of covid-19, according to official data. And we're still averaging more than 1,000 deaths per day.

But in certain areas — and indeed in many areas in which the population is much more tightly packed and the coronavirus could transmit more easily — the story is far less grim. A big reason: widespread vaccination. Death rates are far below the national average in the most-vaccinated, often-urban areas.

Much has been written about the yawning gap in outcomes between less-vaccinated and more-vaccinated areas, especially as deaths in less-vaccinated, red states significantly and increasingly outpace more-vaccinated, blue states. The Washington Post's Philip Bump also reported this week that deaths in red counties are more than 50 percent higher than in blue counties.

But even that might undersell just how beneficial vaccination is in preventing the worst that the coronavirus has to offer — particularly when adopted on a grand scale in a given area.

From the start of the vaccination effort, a pertinent question has been when we might achieve something amounting to "herd immunity," i.e. having enough people vaccinated to stomp out the virus. Guesstimates often pegged that number at 70 percent or above. That concept has proven elusive, particularly as the delta variant has rendered the vaccines less effective at preventing the spread — while still extremely effective at preventing hospitalizations and deaths.

But those latter metrics remain hugely important. And in the densely populated areas in which we've approached overwhelming adoption of the vaccines, the death rates are often a fraction of the national average — a significantly greater gap than between the most-vaccinated and least-vaccinated states.

Perhaps the most highly vaccinated large county in America, according to New York Times data, is Montgomery County, Md., just outside the District of Columbia. Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show 93 percent of those 12 and older there are fully vaccinated, compared to around 70 percent nationally. The number dying over the past week is eight times as high nationally — 3.4 per 1 million — as it is in Montgomery County — 0.4 per 1 million — even as Montgomery County is near some virus hotspots.

The relative rate is similar in two of the handful of other most-vaccinated large counties in the country: Dane County, Wis. (home to Madison), where 86 percent of people 12 and older are fully vaccinated, per the CDC, and San Francisco, where 84 percent are vaccinated. Dane County also has 0.4 deaths per 1 million despite being in one of the most hard-hit regions, the Midwest.

Slightly fewer people 12 and over are vaccinated in New York City, though still north of 80 percent. Over the past week, it has registered a per-capita death rate about one-third the national average.

Similar to New York City are Multnomah County, Ore. (home to Portland), with its 84 percent full vaccination rate; Alameda County, Calif. (home to Oakland) at 84 percent; and Santa Clara County, Calif. (home to San Jose) at 81 percent. In each case, there is about 1 death per 1 million people, compared to 3-per-1-million at the national level (as well as more than 3 deaths per million statewide in Oregon and more than 2 per million in California).

There are some larger, highly vaccinated counties with rates that are comparable to the national average. These come particularly in the Denver area — Denver itself (79 percent fully vaccinated, 3 deaths per 1 million) and Boulder County (79 percent vaccinated, 2 deaths per 1 million) — and in Minneapolis-based Hennepin County (78 percent vaccinated, 3 deaths per 1 million).

But they also come in slightly less-vaccinated counties than the above and in states that are significantly more hard-hit than the rest of the broader country right now. These counties' per capita death rates are also still about half or less compared to the rest of their states (more than 6 deaths per million in Colorado and 7 deaths per million in Minnesota).

So while the most-vaccinated states are significantly, incontrovertibly and increasingly better off than the less-vaccinated states, the difference is even starker at the county and city level — and even as many of these highly vaccinated counties also happen to be the most densely populated.
Karl Henning, Ph.D.
Composer & Clarinetist
Boston MA
http://www.karlhenning.com/
[Matisse] was interested neither in fending off opposition,
nor in competing for the favor of wayward friends.
His only competition was with himself. — Françoise Gilot

Karl Henning

'Will you answer the call?' Pop-up vaccine clinic at Museum of Science draws crowds — 5:44 p.m.
By Charlie McKenna, Globe Correspondent

Lollipops and stickers were in abundance Saturday at the Museum of Science, which held its third vaccination clinic for children and adults.

The clinic was the third held by the museum in the past four weeks, according to Carrie Nash, the museum's director of public relations. And the museum will hold another one on Sunday.

Those who get vaccinated at the clinic will receive two free tickets to the museum, which recently debuted an exhibit chronicling the vaccine's development. The clinic, dubbed "will you answer the call?" encourages visitors to come dressed as superheroes.
Karl Henning, Ph.D.
Composer & Clarinetist
Boston MA
http://www.karlhenning.com/
[Matisse] was interested neither in fending off opposition,
nor in competing for the favor of wayward friends.
His only competition was with himself. — Françoise Gilot

Florestan

Quote from: k a rl h e nn i ng on December 04, 2021, 02:58:19 PM
Even with the unknowns, vaccines work. [emphasis mine—kh ... feel the burn, Andrei?]

I'm screaming in pain.
Every kind of music is good, except the boring kind. — Rossini

MusicTurner

#5927
Omikron numbers dramatically adjusted here Sunday in DK, to now 183 cases, when it was just 18 on Friday, making the country one of the most targeted places. But it's no doubt due to the massive testing and an effective mapping/surveying of tests/data, typically 2-4 % of the population per day with PCR tests. Most of the cases hadn't been involved in travelling recently. Expect similar trends elsewhere.

Todd

The universe is change; life is opinion. - Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

People would rather believe than know - E.O. Wilson

Propaganda death ensemble - Tom Araya


SimonNZ


Karl Henning

Karl Henning, Ph.D.
Composer & Clarinetist
Boston MA
http://www.karlhenning.com/
[Matisse] was interested neither in fending off opposition,
nor in competing for the favor of wayward friends.
His only competition was with himself. — Françoise Gilot

Mirror Image


Daverz

#5933
Quote from: SimonNZ on December 05, 2021, 01:14:06 PM


Imagine if you could reduce cancer deaths just by wearing a mask and social distancing.  And imagine if there was a vaccine you could get...

EDIT: forgot about HPV vaccine.  There is a vaccine you can get!  And it's another thing that gives radical conservatives conniptions...

fbjim

Quote from: amw on December 01, 2021, 08:45:37 AM
If this were a different thread, I would argue that the real purpose of travel bans and limitations, or vaccine passports that only recognise certain vaccines as valid, or, e.g., the Australian government's forced quarantines of indigenous communities, etc., is not epidemiological at all but rather stems from desires by particular (invariably white-majority for some reason) countries to control or prevent the free movement of "undesirable" populations, with COVID-19 used as an increasingly flimsy pretext. But this is officially an apolitical thread, so I won't.

Travel to Europe was banned for some time as well. I think the travel bans are a perfect example of what I once heard called "do something" politics - i.e. politicians doing something for no reason other than that it's good to be seen taking action. That, and they'll be raked over the coals if they don't do that, even if it's counterproductive.

Karl Henning

Quote from: fbjim on December 06, 2021, 06:56:18 AM
Travel to Europe was banned for some time as well. I think the travel bans are a perfect example of what I once heard called "do something" politics - i.e. politicians doing something for no reason other than that it's good to be seen taking action. That, and they'll be raked over the coals if they don't do that, even if it's counterproductive.

Kabuki theatre politics
Karl Henning, Ph.D.
Composer & Clarinetist
Boston MA
http://www.karlhenning.com/
[Matisse] was interested neither in fending off opposition,
nor in competing for the favor of wayward friends.
His only competition was with himself. — Françoise Gilot

fbjim

Quote from: Mandryka on December 04, 2021, 08:47:24 AM
The mask is a public sign of righteousness.

It's more a sign of me wanting to go to the convenience store.

Karl Henning

Quote from: fbjim on December 06, 2021, 07:13:57 AM
It's more a sign of me wanting to go to the convenience store.

Indeed, a sign of leaving the house on errands.
Karl Henning, Ph.D.
Composer & Clarinetist
Boston MA
http://www.karlhenning.com/
[Matisse] was interested neither in fending off opposition,
nor in competing for the favor of wayward friends.
His only competition was with himself. — Françoise Gilot

T. D.

https://www.economist.com/united-states/why-americas-omicron-response-is-weak/21806662

Concluding paragraph:

Nearly every attempt the Biden administration has made to mitigate the coronavirus has been undermined. "The US is virtually ungovernable," says Mr Gostin. Ms Parmet agrees, pointing to the rulings against vaccine mandates for health-care workers. For decades, she notes, the federal government has required much from health workers: to wear gloves, to get screened for tuberculosis and to take other steps to protect public health. With covid, the federal government has suddenly become hobbled. "The courts are adding to the ungovernability. I fear they have become players in the culture war," says Ms Parmet. "And to do that during a public-health crisis...It's bananas!" Mr Biden probably feels the same way.

Florestan

Quote from: T. D. on December 06, 2021, 02:00:07 PM
https://www.economist.com/united-states/why-americas-omicron-response-is-weak/21806662

The Netherlands and Denmark demanded that all travellers from southern African countries isolate themselves for several days, then produce negative results from covid tests. Slovenia required that such travellers quarantine for ten days, test or no test.

America's response, by comparison, was muted. The Biden administration banned travel from eight southern African countries for everyone except citizens and legal residents—a measure that quickly proved as ineffectual as it was unfair, since the variant had already spread elsewhere in the world.



The highlighted statement is not supported by the facts presented in any way. Logically, since the variant had already spread elsewhere in the world, then the measures taken by The Netherlands, Denmark and Slovenia were equally ineffective and unfair --- unless one presumes that all omicron variants in the world headed for the USA.

Actually, of the mentioned countries it's only the USA that took exactly the one measure which can ensure, with some degree of accuracy, that omicron infected persons do not enter the USA territory, namely this:

The administration also said that from December 6th it would begin requiring international travellers older than one to test negative for covid-19 within 24 hours of departure

The rest of the article is under a pay wall but if its "quality" is similar to the above I have no regret not being able to read it in full.

I should have thought that The Economist does better journalism than that.
Every kind of music is good, except the boring kind. — Rossini