So “fuck it, let’s have a big virus party and catch it all at once” it is. Glad you’re not in charge of public health.
He never said that. He even claridied that he’s not talking about that. So this is just a smear.
Look, all decisions involve a cost/benefit analysis. If a variant of a virus comes along that is a lot less lethal, this changes the cost/benefit relationship, and should imply a different response. That doesn’t mean covid parties.
It could mean a public health focus on vaccinations and protecting the vulnerable, but ending lockdowns. It could mean ending vaccine mandates, as it appears that vaccines don’t really slow the spread of Omicron, but do protect the vaccinated from serious outcomes. That would mean the unvaxxed are primarily risking their own health and not that of others. From my perspective, if the vaccinated are not at extra risk from the unvaccinated, then the state’s right to interfere should be greatly diminished.
Looks like today will top out at 935,926 US cases. Just under 1.9 million in two days.
295,549,540 total cases
5,473,509 dead
256,083,112 recovered
In the US:
58,040,720 total cases
851,439 dead
41,901,183 recovered
Yesterday’s numbers for comparison:
The topic we were discussing was cancelling the olympics in China. Thanks for the info about unrelated matters though.
Moderating:
This thread is for breaking news, not for commentary. If you want to discuss a particular news item, please start a new thread for it. Feel free to link that thread to this one, for easy reference.
Johns Hopkins data on new Daily Reported COVID Cases (7-day average). The whole country is in the red again (meaning rising cases) except for Maine.
There are new record highs as of yesterday, January 4, in:
Rhode Island – 4057 (with some non-averaged days around 16,000 !)
Vermont – 1128
New Hampshire – 1558
Connecticut – 8570
Maryland – 16348
Washington DC – 2802
Pennsylvania – 21640
Michigan – 16389
West Virginia – 2879
Mississippi – 5591
Tennessee – 12674
Kentucky – 7382
Indiana – 9934
Illinois – 28404
Missouri – 8539
Louisiana – 10113
Texas – 55704
Kansas – 3666
Utah – 4854
Nevada – 3743
California – 59084
Oregon – 3548
Washington (state) – 9815
The US as a whole seems to have achieved a new all-time world record of 579088 new reported daily cases (7-day average). Way to go, team.
The World Science Fiction Convention in Washington DC last month wasn’t cancelled, but last night I received word that, less than two weeks shy of the opening, Boston’s Arisia convention has been shelved. Under the circumstances, I’m not surprised.
Fake testing sites have been popping up in areas such as Northern Illinois and Philadelphia.
Here’s some news:
I think this qualifies as breaking news, if only because a Prime Minister got involved.
World number one tennis player Novak Djokovic’s entry into Australia has been delayed over an issue with his visa and exemption from being vaccinated against Covid. Players taking part in the Australian Open must be jabbed or have an exemption approved by an independent panel. Defending champion Djokovic announced yesterday he would be playing thanks to an exemption but upon arriving at the airport in Melbourne it emerged the Serbian star’s team had not requested a visa that permits medical exemptions for being unvaccinated. And Australia’s Prime Minister Scott Morrison has warned there will be “no special rules” for Djokovic - who said last year he was opposed to vaccination - and said he “could be on the next plane home” unless he provides evidence he genuinely can’t be vaccinated for medical reasons.
My bold. I took that summary from a BBC rolling news story, so I won’t post a link to that; but the full story is here:
j
Here’s some more news:
Still counting as ‘breaking’, but jury is out on whether it is ‘news’.
Djokovic’s visa has now been cancelled. While there are possible appeal avenues its hard to see him forcing the government’s hand on a visa issue.
As context, our federal government, and this prime minister, is being smacked around the head for dropping the ball on covid management, so they will want to look particularly loud and tough on Djokovic. So, to give them a hand, can you all please focus your attention completely on the tennis player and nothing in the background.
I must admit, I’m having a hard time following exactly what happened with Djokovic. The timeline seems to be:
-
A whole bunch of potential players/assistants apply for a medical exemption from Tennis Australia/the Victorian government. Djokovic is one of those who gets one. This is in the context of the Vic government usually being way stricter/more cautious than the Feds wrt Covidsafe measures, so that’s a bit odd. Everyone goes apeshit because the dude’s an anti-vaxxer, and we think he’s an arse. Morrison says “well, this is a matter for the Victorian government - not my problem”
-
Djokovic rocks up at the airport, and some sources say “with a visa that doesn’t allow for exemptions” but other sources say “with insufficient evidence that his grounds for an exemption was actually true”. Gets visa cancelled. Morrison takes credit.
From what I hear, one of the grounds for exemption is “has had actual Covid in the last 6 months” which I actually think is fair enough (though I also think Djokovic’s an arse just on general principles) so I suspect he was trying on “yes, I pinky-swear I had Covid in October - flu-like symptoms and loss of smell and everything” without actually having any sort of documentation of the fact. But it’s rather unclear exactly who was in charge of what, at what point.
The WHO says they have been aware of this since November and aren’t very concerned.
298,083,383 total cases
5,481,639 dead
256,751,148 recovered
In the US:
58,765,219 total cases
853,561 dead
41,994,529 recovered
Yesterday’s numbers for comparison:
I know what many of you are thinking so: yes; those numbers are correct.
“Only” 764K US cases today. Downblip noise or is Omicron receding as it did in SA?
Lots of new record high Daily Reported Cases of COVID (7-day average) from Johns Hopkins (as of January 5 2022):
Vermont – 1329
New Hampshire – 2352
New York – 73676
Massachusetts – 20685
Rhode Island – 5024
Connecticut – 11156
Maryland – 18919
Washington DC – 3133
Puerto Rico – 10114
Georgia – 22266
South Carolina – 10779
Virginia – 17092
Michigan – 24603
Ohio – 24182
Wisconsin – 8847
Illinois – 36474
Indiana – 13156
Kentucky – 9806
Tennessee – 12674
Mississippi – 7239
Louisiana – 12714
Arkansas – 4495
Missouri – 11634
South Dakota --1520
Nebraska – 2816
Kansas – 7447
Texas – 66590
New Mexico – 2896
Colorado – 10652
Nevada – 4438
Utah – 6666
Washington (state) – 12490
Oregon – 5096
California – 74010
That’s 32 states, plus DC and Puerto Rico
As before, several states either just came down off a record high, or are poised to set a new one.
The US as a whole has a new record (and a new world record over the entire pandemic) of 710892 cases in a single day (7-day averaged)
If you look sat the trends, this current surge exceeds anything we’ve seen previously by far – these values wiould be literally off the charts if plotted on graphs from a year ago. The numbers of cases, even on the new plots, are surging exponentially upwards. I’m surprised that there haven’t been even more cancellations and shutdowns than we’d seen before. Unwillingness to close things down (and the knowledge that we now have more masks, vaccines, and experience) and the apparently less severe nature of omicron seems to be the reason, but by any objective view, this is a much bigger surge than we’ve seen before.
Humans once again proving they are the smartest, most capable and adaptive of all species:
Again? That happened in 2020 too. You’d think the airports would’ve done something to “protect” the slots by now that wouldn’t involve doing something this stupid and polluting.
And on another topic: Covid: Deadly Omicron should not be called mild, warns WHO
300,684,964 total cases
5,489,503 dead
257,483,676 recovered
In the US:
59,564,116 total cases
855,843 dead
42,089,198 recovered
Yesterday’s numbers for comparison: