Tokyo:
Sit tight, folks; more data is on the way:
I had meant to post the articles about Provincetown. Obviously the infection was probably brought in by tourists, but in the end, they ended up infecting clusters of fully-vaccinated residents. What’s coming out of Provincetown would seem to back up what Israel’s officials are seeing: reduced immunity, particularly among the older and more vulnerable individuals who were vaccinated back in January and February.
No AP story yet, but the WaPo has the scoop:
And the slides:
From your links:
Communications
– Acknowledge the war has changed
– Improve public’s understanding of breakthrough infections
– Improve communications around individual risk among vaccinated
• Risk of severe disease or death reduced 10-fold or greater in vaccinated
• Risk of infection reduced 3-fold in vaccinatedThe delta variant of the coronavirus appears to cause more severe illness than earlier variants and spreads as easily as chickenpox, according to an internal federal health document that argues officials must “acknowledge the war has changed.”
If it spreads as easily as chickenpox, we’ll need at least 90% of the population vaxxed or recently infected to seriously reduce circulation in the population.
This should surprise no one: vaccine tourists are coming to the US from all over the world.
It’s apparently illegal to export vaccines from the US unless almost everyone in the US has been vaccinated. Or you get special permission or something. The Biden admin has to jump through some hoops to send that half billion doses he promised. But since there’s a surplus of vaccines and they don’t check if you’re a citizen, anyone who comes in can get vaccinated. So people who have the money are flying in, getting a jab, waiting a month, booster jab, and then going home.
197,385,409 total cases
4,214,933 dead
178,537,192 recovered
In the US:
35,584,272 total cases
628,492 dead
29,626,754 recovered
Yesterday’s numbers for comparison:
Don’t blame them, and I know a number of Americans who reside outside the U.S. who did this as well. The U.S. embassies are not doing anything for the Americans as they say this is too complicated.
I do have to wonder what kind of visas these vaxx-tourists are using. Because I thought tourist visas are not being given out.
I have zero problem with vax tourists - none at all. It’s better if we can keep producing more supply and get it out into the global supply chain, though. I certainly get, and supported, keeping the vaccines here initially but once everyone has had a chance to get vaccinated and once the supply ramps up, then we should share our technology. As we’ve seen, when the rest of the world is deprived of that technology (even if it’s not by design), there’s a good chance that variants will emerge that will come back to neutralize the effectiveness of our vaccines. We don’t want that.
The seven-day-averaged reported new cases has risen to a new high of 5881 in Louisiana, far surpassing the previous high of 3737 set on January 8, and it’s still rising with incredible speed. Even the non-averaged daily new reported cases vastly outstrips the non-averaged daily reported cases from January. Or from any month, for that matter. Louisiana is rapidly approaching the regime of tens of thousands of new daily cases typical of New York or California, but without their large populations.
Mississippi is similarly shooting upwards, with 2170 cases, rapidly approaching its own record of 2516 set on January 11, and it looks as if they’ll reach and pass that in the next day or so.
It seems to be rising rapidly in Florida, as well, with un-averaged daily cases way up, but there’s something wonky about the way they’re manipulating the data, because it doesn’t look asbad as I suspect it should
It’s also going up rapidly in
Oklahoma
Texas
Georgia
Tennessee
North Carolina
South Carolina
Kansas
Kentucky
It’s generally rising, but seems to be stuttering in
Alabama
Arkansas
Missouri
Hawaii
Puerto Rico
It’s going steadily up in lots of states, but is nowhere near the peak value. The rise is probably alarmingly fast in California, but it doesn’t look like it because the overall number of cases there has been so huge.
Overseas, it’s slowing in many places, but still shooting up in
Iran
Malaysia
Thailand
Bangladesh
Iraq
Cuba
Japan – Japan is particularly visible because of the Olympics. This is their fifth peak, and it’s the highest so far, and still going up.
Florida is only reporting weekly, rather than daily.
Unfortunately “OMG breaktrhough infections” are what’s dominating the news, resulting in many thinking “well, what’s the point, then?” I had this conversation with someone literally last night:
THEM: The vaccine doesn’t protect at all from “the variants.”
ME: Actually, yes it does.
THEM: Nope. It only protects against original covid.
ME: That’s actually not the case; it protects against them all. Delta is likelier to get through, but still much less likely than if you’re not vaccinated. Also, it keeps all variants way less likely to make you sick,
THEM: No. No protection. That’s what I heard.
This surge now already includes the second highest wave peak. There were 106,000 cases on July 27, which is higher than last year’s July peak and higher than the initial surge and the brief resurgence in April. Worse, we’re just a few weeks into this new variant.
There’s a lot of discussion (understandably) about the dangers to the unvaccinated, but what needs to be mentioned is that many already-vaccinated people, particularly the elderly and those with underlying conditions who were vaccinated back in January and February, are potentially walking into a death trap of a false sense of security.
A lot of people in this category may be eating out at a restaurant, going to church, having indoor gatherings to avoid the heat, traveling on vacations and stopping at busy rest area plazas under the assumption that they’re mostly protected, and there’s a growing body of evidence suggesting that they’re putting themselves in grave danger if they make these assumptions.
There are also a lot of workplaces that have opened and expect employees to be back in the office. Many of these workplaces are not policing mask usage or even requiring employees to be vaccinated. For people who are at elevated risk, it’s a disaster in the making.
I know people wanted to believe that this was over last month, but it’s not. Delta hit a grand slam home run and has basically tied the score. And the unvaccinated idiots are the pitcher that served it up.
Brett Giroir, former President Trump’s coronavirus testing czar, on Thursday urged anyone who has not yet gotten vaccinated against COVID-19 to quickly do so, arguing that it is “just a matter of time” before all unvaccinated individuals become infected with the delta variant of the virus.
The ex-Trump official, in an interview on Fox News’s “America Reports,” emphasized health guidance that the potential side effects of the coronavirus vaccine “pale in comparison to what you will get if you get the COVID infection,” adding that the highly transmissible delta variant poses an even greater risk.
“If you have not been vaccinated, and you have not had COVID before, you will get the delta variant,” Giroir argued. “This is so infectious that you will get it.”
…
I wonder if this will change anyone’s mind?
I doubt it. What might change minds is when someone sees a Facebook post with one of their friends in a hospital bed with tubes through his nose - then he/she might change his mind. But this variant spreads so quickly that by the time a person realizes they were in contact with an infected person, they’ve probably already come down with the disease.
I am increasingly worried about the mutations that may result from this strain. This is a forest fire with a lot of trees left to burn, and one mutation could overwhelm our entire vaccine regime. We’re probably a single mutation away from that happening.
Or they’ll decide that it is fake news, or their friend is actually faking it.
It’s not impossible for people to believe insane conspiracy theories, even about their own kids.
Let’s face it… Bodies could pile up in the streets, and as long as they’re not blocking the driveways of these folks they’ll happily deny what is happening.
I was listening to NPR this morning, and a woman was saying “do you see people dying of covid on the sidewalks?” And I thought, “I can’t recall ever seeing anyone dying of breast cancer or heart disease on the sidewalk, what a bizarre claim”.
People make bizarre claims to support their beliefs.
Their case rate has gone over 10,000 daily cases for the first time. It’s hard to believe the Olympics aren’t the major reason for the spike no matter what the organizers say.