Financial Times’ graph shows a definite problem for the U.S. I would temper this a bit by saying that right now our booster program is better than some European countries (eg, Germany), though it’s worse than the U.K., Ireland, Belgium, and several other European countries (eg, Austria).
In the U.S. the Covid-19 indicator reporting will be sporadic between now and next Wednesday. We’ll have a better grip on what’s happening by Tuesday the 6th of December, when all the backlogs should have been sorted out.
Thank you Joshua. I think we are really in for it
and Fauci telling everyone to do Thanksgiving isn’t going to help one bit.
Re boosters. My oldest has a friend who has had headaches severe enough since her booster several weeks ago to now be warranting strong pain killers. Same daughter is nervous about a booster. A week – ish after her second Pfeizer, she had knife like pain at the top of her spine/base of her skull. This is a kid who has an extremely high pain tolerance and has never complained about pain.
We don’t hear about these things. We don’t seem to question these things. And the fact that we do not is why people are hesitant, including me who had both first vaccines pretty soon after roll out.
Half truths or blatant untruths are seriously hurting this country, but are excused by too many IMO
Although the current administration is a vast improvement over trump, it still leaves much to be desired. We still are NOT getting the correct information.
Agree absolutely. But is it more the fault of the health “experts” or the president. Could the decree to “keep it positive” come from him.
I have no doubt these experts know all of this. Heaven help us if they do not. So why would a professional give half truths. Why is the medical community hesitant to do more than read what is scripted for them rather than address individual patients? My youngest thinks the fact that we are so quick to file law suits weighs heavily into the picture
The good news of the day is that India and Indonesia have really seen their Delta wave abate in recent weeks, to very manageable caseload levels.
In other good news, the UK 7-day average of deaths has gone down by 25% in two weeks. So, even though cases are increasing gradually and hospitalizations are steady at a high level, deaths are coming down a bit.
Dutch hospitalizations stabilized, at least for the day, which is good news. However, the numbers in ICU increased by 17 and cases set a new record. The government has announced a special press conference for Friday. It may announce further measures/restrictions.
Slovakia is locking down nationwide; closing pretty much everything except essential stores. I expect Germany to do so at some point in the coming days. France has seen its largest case increase since the summer, and has announced new limits, including reinforcement of the Covid pass system (requiring its use pretty much everywhere, in all public indoor spaces).
South Africa is on the verge of its next wave, as cases there increase along with test positivity. Also, a new variant with 32 spike mutations has been discovered in SA. Not known whether this variant has been detected outside of SA. Mexico appears on the cusp of its next wave as test positivity rises to 16% nationwide. With the exception of Japan, India, and Indonesia, several countries in Asia are now experiencing surges.
Maybe I’ve underestimated the length of the pandemic, by repeatedly suggesting that it would follow a similar trajectory to the Spanish Flu: Namely, two years. Perhaps our mobility now, compared to 100 years ago, allows the virus to constantly proliferate.
More like several years? 🙁
Sadly, I afraid you are right. As long as we continue to act as if there is no virus or life is back to normal, this will continue.
I am still torn on mandates for a vaccine we are not honest about. Exceptions are those who use the vaccine as a political tool.
But I do. agree with severely limiting where unvaccinated can go.
From the NYT..
“Ticket inspectors on public transport in Germany will conduct random checks of passengers’ proof of vaccination, recovery from Covid or a negative test.
Those without the required documents will be asked to disembark and could eventually face fines.”
I should add that my view is if someone does not want a vaccine, that is a persons choice. However, it becomes something much more than a personal choice if a person chooses to risk others because of his decision
There’s the rub.
AY.4.2 is a successful child of Delta’s. It now accounts for 15% of infections in the UK, up from 9% last month. It is considered >10% transmissible than its parent, but not more lethal. As mentioned yesterday, the up and coming star kid is AY.43; appears to be outcompeting all other AY. sub-lineages where it’s been sequenced (Portugal, Israel, among others). My guess is that it’s in the UK, too. Nothing is known about its transmissibility or lethality. I would not worry yet about the severely mutated – 32 spike mutations – variant found in Botswana in HIV patients. While this variant is vaccine-evasive, and would spell disaster if it were to spread, it’s mutated too much to be a stable agent as it attempts to transmit. Epidemiologists call this “lack of fitness.” Something to monitor, to be sure.
Germany’s caseload is soaring (record numbers today; similarly record numbers in the Netherlands). Hospitals are on the brink, especially in the Eastern half of the country. Merkel is mulling a full, nationwide lockdown.
Highly vaccinated Massachusetts is experiencing a major spike in cases, but also a 52% increase in hospitalizations in the past 20 days. Minnesota, Michigan, Indiana, Montana, North Dakota, all experiencing very troubling increases in cases (with inadequate testing; in many instances less testing today than last year at this time – you tell me how the hell the Covid pills will work if you don’t test). What this means is that in places like Western Michigan many folks enter the hospital with insufficient oxygen levels, fever, cough, trouble breathing, but have NOT been tested yet. They of course test positive, sometimes the day they’re put on a ventilator. The Covid pills would not have saved any one of these people. The pills are not a game changer, unless we as a nation invest in public health. Full stop. And, Biden won’t do it. Trump certainly didn’t do it. And so we’ll hobble along, almost like a 3rd world nation sometimes, with multiple crises – from Covid to opioids – that aren’t being adequately addressed.
C-19 for 11-25 is ready.
Comments are closed.
Your no-hype southeastern New England weather blog!
Thanks TK.
Happy Thanksgiving Eve!
This chart comes from the NY Times and may have higher numbers than reported on TV here daily. Even so, this is quite alarming, if you ask me.
https://ibb.co/XXJtg2h
Sure is alarming.
Financial Times’ graph shows a definite problem for the U.S. I would temper this a bit by saying that right now our booster program is better than some European countries (eg, Germany), though it’s worse than the U.K., Ireland, Belgium, and several other European countries (eg, Austria).
https://twitter.com/EricTopol/status/1463514191298371586/photo/1
In the U.S. the Covid-19 indicator reporting will be sporadic between now and next Wednesday. We’ll have a better grip on what’s happening by Tuesday the 6th of December, when all the backlogs should have been sorted out.
Thank you Joshua. I think we are really in for it
and Fauci telling everyone to do Thanksgiving isn’t going to help one bit.
Re boosters. My oldest has a friend who has had headaches severe enough since her booster several weeks ago to now be warranting strong pain killers. Same daughter is nervous about a booster. A week – ish after her second Pfeizer, she had knife like pain at the top of her spine/base of her skull. This is a kid who has an extremely high pain tolerance and has never complained about pain.
We don’t hear about these things. We don’t seem to question these things. And the fact that we do not is why people are hesitant, including me who had both first vaccines pretty soon after roll out.
Half truths or blatant untruths are seriously hurting this country, but are excused by too many IMO
On the topic of sweeping things under the rug
https://twitter.com/samirkayande/status/1463234983271682050?s=21
Although the current administration is a vast improvement over trump, it still leaves much to be desired. We still are NOT getting the correct information.
Agree absolutely. But is it more the fault of the health “experts” or the president. Could the decree to “keep it positive” come from him.
I have no doubt these experts know all of this. Heaven help us if they do not. So why would a professional give half truths. Why is the medical community hesitant to do more than read what is scripted for them rather than address individual patients? My youngest thinks the fact that we are so quick to file law suits weighs heavily into the picture
https://twitter.com/amyboylanwrites/status/1463441546360020998?s=21
The good news of the day is that India and Indonesia have really seen their Delta wave abate in recent weeks, to very manageable caseload levels.
In other good news, the UK 7-day average of deaths has gone down by 25% in two weeks. So, even though cases are increasing gradually and hospitalizations are steady at a high level, deaths are coming down a bit.
Dutch hospitalizations stabilized, at least for the day, which is good news. However, the numbers in ICU increased by 17 and cases set a new record. The government has announced a special press conference for Friday. It may announce further measures/restrictions.
Slovakia is locking down nationwide; closing pretty much everything except essential stores. I expect Germany to do so at some point in the coming days. France has seen its largest case increase since the summer, and has announced new limits, including reinforcement of the Covid pass system (requiring its use pretty much everywhere, in all public indoor spaces).
South Africa is on the verge of its next wave, as cases there increase along with test positivity. Also, a new variant with 32 spike mutations has been discovered in SA. Not known whether this variant has been detected outside of SA. Mexico appears on the cusp of its next wave as test positivity rises to 16% nationwide. With the exception of Japan, India, and Indonesia, several countries in Asia are now experiencing surges.
Maybe I’ve underestimated the length of the pandemic, by repeatedly suggesting that it would follow a similar trajectory to the Spanish Flu: Namely, two years. Perhaps our mobility now, compared to 100 years ago, allows the virus to constantly proliferate.
More like several years? 🙁
Sadly, I afraid you are right. As long as we continue to act as if there is no virus or life is back to normal, this will continue.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/nov/24/us-covid-thanksgiving-travel-hospitals-health-workers-vaccines-boosters
I am still torn on mandates for a vaccine we are not honest about. Exceptions are those who use the vaccine as a political tool.
But I do. agree with severely limiting where unvaccinated can go.
From the NYT..
“Ticket inspectors on public transport in Germany will conduct random checks of passengers’ proof of vaccination, recovery from Covid or a negative test.
Those without the required documents will be asked to disembark and could eventually face fines.”
I should add that my view is if someone does not want a vaccine, that is a persons choice. However, it becomes something much more than a personal choice if a person chooses to risk others because of his decision
There’s the rub.
AY.4.2 is a successful child of Delta’s. It now accounts for 15% of infections in the UK, up from 9% last month. It is considered >10% transmissible than its parent, but not more lethal. As mentioned yesterday, the up and coming star kid is AY.43; appears to be outcompeting all other AY. sub-lineages where it’s been sequenced (Portugal, Israel, among others). My guess is that it’s in the UK, too. Nothing is known about its transmissibility or lethality. I would not worry yet about the severely mutated – 32 spike mutations – variant found in Botswana in HIV patients. While this variant is vaccine-evasive, and would spell disaster if it were to spread, it’s mutated too much to be a stable agent as it attempts to transmit. Epidemiologists call this “lack of fitness.” Something to monitor, to be sure.
Germany’s caseload is soaring (record numbers today; similarly record numbers in the Netherlands). Hospitals are on the brink, especially in the Eastern half of the country. Merkel is mulling a full, nationwide lockdown.
Highly vaccinated Massachusetts is experiencing a major spike in cases, but also a 52% increase in hospitalizations in the past 20 days. Minnesota, Michigan, Indiana, Montana, North Dakota, all experiencing very troubling increases in cases (with inadequate testing; in many instances less testing today than last year at this time – you tell me how the hell the Covid pills will work if you don’t test). What this means is that in places like Western Michigan many folks enter the hospital with insufficient oxygen levels, fever, cough, trouble breathing, but have NOT been tested yet. They of course test positive, sometimes the day they’re put on a ventilator. The Covid pills would not have saved any one of these people. The pills are not a game changer, unless we as a nation invest in public health. Full stop. And, Biden won’t do it. Trump certainly didn’t do it. And so we’ll hobble along, almost like a 3rd world nation sometimes, with multiple crises – from Covid to opioids – that aren’t being adequately addressed.
C-19 for 11-25 is ready.