You’re not in a emergency situation, relatively speaking, so istm a full vetting is the proper thing to do. By the time you get to it, we might have some good idea about how well the vaccine stops transmission too.
Biden’s got some pretty muscular arms for a man his age. I’m pretty sure he’d knock out Trump despite the weight disadvantage.
92,009,660 total cases
1,970,095 dead
65,822,734 recovered
In the US:
23,368,225 total cases
389,599 dead
13,816,028 recovered
Yesterday’s numbers for comparison:
The world has a new record for single day covid deaths with 15,711.
The US has a new record for single day covid deaths with 4,259.
The U.S. is going to be totally fucked when a more transmissible variant hits us, as it surely will soon. It’s a race with the vaccination program, and I think we’re not going to get enough vaccination done in time. It think we’re going to see hospitals completely overwhelmed in February.
Well, things seem to have improved somewhat for Austria in the meantime. According to today’s graph of vaccinations administered per capita in EU countries, Austria’s now close to the middle of the pack, with 0.59% of the population covered. Belgium is listed as the worst with only 0.07% coverage, though that figure is six days old. Denmark leads with 2.02% coverage as of 11 January.
Meanwhile, the newer, more transmissible British variant of the coronavirus seems to have taken hold in Austria, and as a result politicians are now considering extending the lockdown to mid-February, or even to Easter. A few days ago the government already decided to once again close the border to certain neighbouring countries, and to keep schools closed until February. Day cares for smaller children remain open for those parents who need them.
As far as I can see, no states report new record daily highs in reported cases (seven day average) on the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus site. It could be that there’s a lag in reporting, or something, but otherwise, it’s progress of a sort.
It’s not that the rates of new cases aren’t still rising in many states, and many states had new record highs just yesterday. But it’s still something. I can’t recall the last time we had a day without at least one state reporting a new record high.
And that’s arguably the first step in the retreat, even if we have new record highs tonorrow.
Of course there is, or rather was, a lag in reporting – it was over Christmas, and to a lesser extent New Year’s. What we’re seeing now, almost certainly, is our first week of “normal” numbers, after a week or more of reporting actual new cases PLUS all the cases from two or three weeks ago that didn’t get reported back then because of the holidays. People tend to underestimate how much holidays mess with the data, and for how long.
You misunderstand.
I simply mean a delay in reporting by a day or so. There might be some states that, when you consider yesterday plus the prior six days in average actually WOULD have a new daily high. It looks to me as if some state might not actually have the most up-ti-date data used in calculating the daily rate.
This is quite distinct from the results of the holidays not making a difference in the reported daily cases. It certainly does take time for the new infections (and those resulting from people still asymptomatic infecting others) to percolate through and affect the results.
But that’s not a reporting error.
I signed up on line here in Panama to indicate my interest in receiving vaccination once it is available. However, although Panama says it has ordered the Pfizer vaccine and I think a couple of others, there is as yet no schedule for vaccination.
Last week my doctor said he was going to Miami for a month so he could receive the vaccine there, which isn’t encouraging for when it will be available to the general public here!
Is your doctor an American?
BBC reports the first patient enrolled in a clinical study of inhaled interferon beta as a potential new treatment for COVID:
From the article:
Interferon beta is part of the body’s first line of defence against viruses, warning it to expect a viral attack.
The coronavirus seems to suppress its production as part of its strategy to evade our immune systems.
The new drug is a special formulation of interferon beta delivered directly to the airways via a nebuliser which makes the protein into an aerosol.
The results from earlier phase II studies look quite promising.
j
Ah; I see what’s happening:
Wonderful. What a terrific development in this pandemic saga.
No, he is Panamanian. Like most Panamanian doctors, I’m sure he was educated in the US, and likely has friends or relatives in Miami.
Based on what things look like, I may be better off going to New York, where the rest of my family is, to get the vaccine rather than waiting here in Panama. Seems like NY will be opening it up to anyone over 65, but supplies are short for that.
I’m in NY. My county is asking people to please stop calling, “we have no vaccine here” and they don’t know when they’re going to get any.
As near as I can tell, the CDC said to open it to anyone over 65, in addition to groups otherwise in 1a and 1b; so NY went along, but warned as they did so that there isn’t anywhere near enough vaccine available. They haven’t even yet vaccinated everybody in 1a who wants it. You may as well stay put for the time being.
I wasn’t anticipating trying to go immediately. In any case, I think I would have to quarantine for a couple of weeks after arrival.
Mississippi is out of vaccine to allot:
92,778,786 total cases
1,986,900 dead
66,294,162 recovered
In the US:
23,616,345 total cases
393,928 dead
13,975,036 recovered
Yesterday’s numbers for comparison:
The US will have more 400,000 dead of covid-19 by Friday (two days from now).
Northern California is doing better, though Southern California and especially LA is still in a dire situation.
LA Times Story
SAN FRANCISCO —
As parts of Northern California began to see the first guarded signs of progress Tuesday in the battle against the winter coronavirus surge, communities in hard-hit Southern California were bracing for more cases to swarm hospitals already overwhelmed as COVID-19 continues to rise.
So the lockdown seems to be working in some places, at least.
Economic news:
Football coaches do it. President-elects do it. Even science-savvy senators do it. As cases of the coronavirus continue to surge on a global scale, some of the nation’s most prominent people have begun to double up on masks — a move that researchers say is increasingly being backed up by data.
Double-masking isn’t necessary for everyone. But for people with thin or flimsy face coverings, “if you combine multiple layers, you start achieving pretty high efficiencies” of blocking viruses from exiting and entering the airway, said Linsey Marr, an expert in virus transmission at Virginia Tech and an author on a recent commentary laying out the science behind mask-wearing.
Of course, there’s a trade-off: At some point, “we run the risk of making it too hard to breathe,” she said. But there is plenty of breathing room before mask-wearing approaches that extreme.
…The best masks remain N95s, which are designed with ultrahigh filtration efficiency. But they remain in short supply for health workers, who need them to safely treat patients.
Layering two less specialized masks on top of each other can provide comparable protection. Dr. Marr recommended wearing face-hugging cloth masks over surgical masks, which tend to be made with more filter-friendly materials but fit more loosely. An alternative is to wear a cloth mask with a pocket that can be stuffed with filter material, like the kind found in vacuum bags.
…
This makes good sense to me. I doubled up on masks a couple of months ago when I had to spend the morning at my car dealership waiting for a repair. That was the first time since lockdown began that I had shared an indoor space with other people for any length of time. There were only about five other people and we were seated far apart, but still. Glad to see this practice confirmed.