I accept that as a retraction and correction.
You do you.
Actually, a Letter in peer reviewed publication is just a shorter paper with recent results that the authors want to get out quickly. They undergo peer review just like a Journal paper, but the reviewers are working with more urgency and since the paper is shorter, there task is not as tough as a 10+ page paper with more detail (the paper was submitted in December 2020 and accepted for publication in February 2021, so the definition of “fast publication” is relative).
In fact, the title of the open access section “Biophysical Letters”, which is not an unusual name for a separate journal section for fast breaking developments. And while I hate the publisher with a fiery passion (Elsevier), they are a reputable scientific publisher with a lot of processes and policies in place to prevent “bad” papers making it to publication. The impact factor of the journal is 3.665 (2018- the latest available), which is quite good, but not spectacular.
Really not the place.
Italy’s variant struggle
Italy is currently experiencing a large wave of coronavirus infections driven by new variants. Intensive care units are filling up, and the government is scaling up restrictions. On Monday, the country surpassed 100,000 deaths.
The tragic milestone preceded a grim anniversary: On Mar. 9, 2020, Italy entered its first national lockdown. It was the first Western country to be severely affected by the virus, as its army moved coffins into overcrowded warehouses and doctors posted pictures of their bruised faces after long hours of wearing tight masks.
“We would have never thought that one year later, we would find ourselves facing such an emergency,” Prime Minister Mario Draghi said on Monday.
After a monthlong decline in overall Covid-19 cases in the European Union, cases in Italy began climbing again from mid-February, caused largely by the highly contagious variant first seen in Britain. Some epidemiologists fear that the United States, where the variant is also spreading, could soon face a similar resurgence in cases.
…
At the risk of getting in trouble, I was going to say the same thing. (sorry, everybody)
Let’s move the conversation.
Timor L’Este and Papua New Guinea, both of which had fared extremely well, given that they share land borders with Indonesia, are now seeing surges. Timor L’Este has imposed its first lockdown to try to dampen its outbreak, and PNG may follow.
These are small nations who lack the capacity to resource either comprehensive vaccination programs or manage the consequences if they are hit. PNG has had 16 deaths [2 per million] and Timor has had zero until now. They have made mighty efforts to manage the risk for more than a year, far better than more affluent and resource-rich nations. It would be tragic to see them falter at this point.
118,201,241 total cases
2,623,280 dead
93,891,900 recovered
In the US:
29,801,506 total cases
540,574 dead
20,549,678 recovered
Yesterday’s numbers for comparison:
Not really “breaking” news but hey:
118,638,111 total cases
2,632,074 dead
94,251,029 recovered
In the US:
29,862,124 total cases
542,191 dead
20,640,270 recovered
Yesterday’s numbers for comparison:
Here’s an odd item: Elderly patient in a rehab facility gets 2nd shot, then due to a mix-up gets another shot a few hours later. He then goes into shock of some sort. (ETA: Looks like this happened 2 or 3 weeks ago. He’s recovering now.)
Brazil faltering:
This is really important, because it would greatly reduce transmission. But although they’re basing their statement from real-world data in Israel, this study hasn’t been peer-reviewed yet.
Right, that’s huge!
In similar good vaccine news:
It was highly effective against the uk strain. Less effective against the sa strain. But even in South Africa it did a decent job of preventing serious illness.
Oh, here’s the link i wanted to share
We’re apparently all getting access to the vaccine by May at the latest: https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/11/covid-vaccine-biden-will-direct-states-to-make-all-adults-eligible-by-may-1.html
If quarantine and control are greatly reducing transmission, reducing asymptomatic transmission greatly reduces quarantine and control failure.
For places which do not have strict quarantine and control measures in place, reducing asymptomatic transmission will have minimal effect, because transmission does not greatly come from asymptomatic carriers.
Eligibility and access are not the same thing, though. I expect to be eligible by March 29 in my state, but I have no idea when I will actually get my arm jabbed.
True, but all the reports I’ve read in the news have made me less concerned about that, especially in a month and a half.
Yeah, I hope everything will be ramped up enough to move quickly by then.