Louisiana’s still gong up, with a seven-day-average of new case reports that’s 3443 cases, the highest since Jan. 12, and only a little shy of their record high of 3756 on January 9.
It’s also going sharply up in
Mississippi
Oklahoma
Arkansas
Nevada
Hawaii
with lesser, but still increasing trends in
Texas
Tennessee
Kentucky
Alabama
Georgia
Kansas
North Carolina
South Carolina
Iowa
Indiana
Utah
California
Arizona
Missouri
Wyoming
Oregon
Washington
Alaska
Idaho
Florida ought to be in there, too, from al accounts, but something’s messed up with the reporting on the Johns Hopkins site about Florida
Most of the other states have rising numbers, too, but they’re not yet appreciable compared to the peaks observed at the beginning of the year.
A lot of countries seem to have peaked and are going back down,. but some are still rising sharply
Meanwhile, Canada has decided to open up to United States tourists. All they have to do is show that they have been fully vaccinated, presumably by showing something they printed off their computer the night before. What could possibly go wrong?
Louisianna currently has a population adjusted 7 day average covid case rate more than 250 times larger than Nova Scotia. But no problem, right? Come on up!
Yes, that’s exactly the point I was trying to make. Congratulations.
I guess I can rest easy now.
Oh wait… Washington State has a 7 day average rate of 12.7 cases/day/100k population. Vancouver Island, just across the border (with a large tourist industry and direct car ferry, foot ferry and air connections to Seattle) has a 7 day average rate of 0.22 cases/day/100k population. So only 57 times more. That’s OK then. As long as the tourists pinky swear that they’ve been vaccinated. And sure we’ll request that they mask up when indoors, but they can feel free to tell us to fuck off as they cough on us.
Well, if your point is that infection numbers in the States is higher than Canada, maybe you should have said that rather than grabbing two apparently random states.
Have you actually looked into what Canada will require as proof of vaccination?
As a first step, starting August 9, 2021, Canada plans to begin allowing entry to American citizens and permanent residents, who are currently residing in the United States, and have been fully vaccinated at least 14 days prior to entering Canada for non-essential travel.
There has been no clarification to date on what exactly will constitute proof of vaccination. Of course there are laws in place:
A person who submits false information on vaccination status could be liable to a fine of up to $750,000 or six months imprisonment or both, under the Quarantine Act , or prosecution under the Criminal Code for forgery.
Considering there is nothing now saying what constitutes a valid document of vaccination status, this paragraph has all the validity of a wet mouse fart.
I’m not sure the Venn diagram between “refuses to vaccinate” and “sophisticated enough to fake proof of vaccination” has a ton of overlap. So that should help!
Not really. The bit you quoted says submitting false information is punishable. You really think there’ll be a swarm of people willing to lie to border patrol and face criminal charges in a foreign country? It may happen some but I doubt it’ll be much of outbreak concern.
As Israel struggles with a new surge of coronavirus cases, its health ministry reported on Thursday that although effectiveness of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine remains high against severe illness, its protection against infection by the coronavirus may have diminished significantly compared with this winter and early spring.
Analyzing the government’s national health statistics, researchers estimated that the Pfizer shot was just 39 percent effective against preventing infection in the country in late June and early July, compared with 95 percent from January to early April. In both time periods, however, the shot was more than 90 percent effective in preventing severe disease.
Israeli scientists cautioned that the new study is much smaller than the first and that it measured cases in a narrower window of time. As a result, a much larger range of uncertainties flank their estimates, which could also be skewed by a variety of other factors.
Dr. Ran Balicer, the chairman of Israel’s Covid-19 National Expert Advisory Panel, said that the challenges of making accurate estimates of vaccine effectiveness were “immense.” He said that more careful analysis of the raw data was needed to understand what is going on.
“I think that data should be taken very cautiously because of small numbers,” said Eran Segal, a biologist at the Weizmann Institute of Science who is a consultant to the Israeli government on vaccines.
Nevertheless, the new estimates are raising concern both in Israel and elsewhere, including the United States, that the vaccine might be losing some of its effectiveness. Possible reasons include the rise of the highly contagious Delta variant or a waning of protection from the shots over time.
…
I’ve bolded the truly alarming part. Efficacy toward preventing infection dropped from 95% to 39%? Toward the end there are several disclaimers. Still-- not good news.
Those are some of the most loudly shouted caveats I’ve seen in a long time.
Regardless, hospitalizations and serious illnesses is what we want to stop. If the vaccine protection keeps doing that, we’re pretty good. The body has a short term high alert system that will fade, we also have long term immunity that will kick in slower after infection.
Pfizer has been saying that it may be necessary for a booster shot. If the efficacy fades, then a booster would hopefully bump the resistance back up to the higher levels.
I’ll wait for doctors to suggest a third booster shot, not Pfizer. Not to get judgy but there are a lot of countries that don’t have their health care workers vaccinated. Should the West keep grabbing?
About 5,300 Floridians are now hospitalized with COVID, a 65% jump since last week and nearly a tripling since June 14 when 1,845 were hospitalized, the Florida Hospital Association said. Officials have said more than 95% of those hospitalized were not vaccinated.
I’m as alarmist as they come, but even I question some of the conclusions from the Israeli studies. Israel is absolutely doing a great job of collecting data, but I wonder about some of the more shocking conclusions they’ve drawn in some of their studies. There’s absolutely no indication that I’m aware of that would suggest efficacy is down to 39%; I would expect a much lower drop in preventing severe disease to go along with that. I could believe their original number 65% efficacy in stopping infection. I suspect that the actual efficacy is somewhere between 65 and 90%. But I think 39% is a real stretch if we’re talking about two doses.
I suspect the booster is more for people with underlying conditions and seniors. If you’re under the age of 50 and don’t have underlying conditions, I doubt a booster is an urgent need.
The US is in a weird place with a glut of vaccines distributed to communities that aren’t getting used and can’t realistically be re-shipped to other countries. If the unvaccinated aren’t interested in them, plenty of vaccinated people could get a booster without the US purchasing any new doses.
Toward the end there are several disclaimers. Still-- not good news.