Asked Nov 23
Dec 4
Today
I wonder why they decided to publish the numbers now?
To get access to a larger share of western-developed vaccines.
Why would you want to vaccinate dead people? /kidding
Perhaps the Sputnik vaccine is less effective than touted or they have production problems.
I still don’t buy their numbers; too many doctors still leaping(?) to their death.
Huh? Is there a news story i missed?
I was thinking Russia might be more willing to admit past deaths now that they are delivering a vaccine. The people are less likely to riot.
Speaking of vaccines, al Jazeera had an interesting summary of which countries have started vaccinating people, and who was vaccinated first. Old people and healthcare workers are common, but so are heads of state.
China is weirdly absent. I’m not sure why.
On a more depressing note, Iran cut a deal to obtain vaccine from COVAX, the big international distribution system, but now Iran says the US financial blockade prevents them from actually paying for the vaccines. They are working on developing their own.
81,673,086 total cases
1,781,539 dead
57,799,127 recovered
In the US:
19,781,624 total cases
343,182 dead
11,696,727 recovered
Yesterday’s numbers for comparison:
Unfortunately, we have reason to believe there will be a spike due to the holidays, which we won’t see in total until at least two weeks later. Plus there’s the likelihood that people would delay testing around the holidays.
I don’t think that’s how spikes work. It’s not just two weeks and done. The spike is all the people that got COVID because of Christmas gatherings, and all the people they gave it to. Spikes ripple.
One thing to keep in mind is that it’s not just about the death rates. Another big concern is residual symptoms in those who recover from the virus, some of which can be very serious and debilitating.
An example is my youngest sister. She came down with the virus right before Thanksgiving, likely getting it from her teenaged daughter, who got it at school. Everyone in her family then came down with it. Everyone subsequently recovered with minimal symptoms except my sister.
She has had intense, continuous, sharp chest pain since coming down with the virus. She hasn’t been able to sleep or work in the last month. She has seen a cardiologist, and they think it may be pericarditis. She’s getting a chest CT and echocardiogram tomorrow.
Note that my sister is in excellent shape with no co-morbidities. She’s also only 39 years old.
Yes, this blog post gives a good overview of what (real and artificial) holiday spikes look like. Basically, any effect from Christmas gatherings would be evident starting roughly two weeks after Christmas and continuing for multiple weeks after that.
Ug, sorry to hear that.
I wish we had more data on how common that sort of thing is. Death rate is fairly easy to track (imperfect, but decent). Morbidity rate is really hard to know, at least at this point in time.
I am no fan of the Iranian regime but that’s a disgrace. They’re just people and deserve the vaccine as much as anyone.
I see an opportunity for a humanitarian gesture from an incoming President, that could potentially open the door for more fruitful relations…
robby, sorry to hear about your sister. I hope she makes a full recovery soon.
Do you mean long Covid? There has been quite a bit written about it. The actual statistics will be hard to find since not everyone will see a doctor for long running symptoms, but there have been a few studies, particularly in the beginning of the pandemic. This study from the UK was early in the pandemic and had an estimate of 10% of long Covid.
More info. on heart damage from long Covid.
Other effects of long Covid on Mayo Clinic article.
Plus trends tend to spike quickly and then recede very slowly. It could be a couple months after the spike before things settle down again.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/04/europe/russia-medical-workers-windows-intl/index.html
And others - suspicion about mental illness effects.
No new record daily highest reported cases (seven day average) for any state recorded since South Carolina’s on December 26.
Aside from that, no state or territory had highs reported for days or even weeks.
If it weren’t for the Christmas holiday travel, I would think we’d turned a corner, but I expect another uptick in a couple of weeks.
Doesn’t this work both ways, though? If they want the vaccine, they can act.
What action do you suggest? They aren’t the ones who pulled out of the nuclear deal and imposed sanctions on themselves
Let’s not get bogged down in the details of whether they were cheating and whether the sanctions are justified in the first place, that’s not for this thread. Obviously if you think the sanctions were not justified, then you’re going to think the vaccine situation just makes it worse.
But if the sanctions are justified, I don’t see how the COVID situation suddently puts the burden entirely on the U.S. side to act unilaterally. The sanctions are there because the U.S. wants them to do something. If they want the vaccine, they could ask what they need to do to get it.