I was going to post this in the Breaking News thread, but there are quite a few articles, and hopefully there will be more in the coming days and months.
Here are some good news articles…
Biden says that there will be enough vaccine for every adult by the end of May.
California’s positivity rate hits the lowest it has been since the start of the pandemic.
78.6M doses of vaccine have been administered in the US.
10% of the US adult population is fully vaccinated
Cool! Some relief for these poor people. And it makes sense since virus variants may be more likely to form in someone with long covid. So there’s enough of a virus around that’s mutating and making them sick. (Not saying the mutations are what’s making them sick necessarily)
I posted this in another thread a couple of weeks ago, but it fits in here very well. The unexpected consequences of the UK being locked down, tiered and variously restricted for the last few months:
At the end of our road there is a park, and last year the town council allowed a franchise for a coffee selling horsebox in the car park. (Time was a horsebox was for horses, but these days they sell coffee and cakes.)
It was supposed to be set up for summer, but there were delays; and then it was supposed to start in August, but there were problems with electricity supply; and eventually it got going late in September. I remember thinking to myself what a cock-up it had been - missing the season completely, a business dead in the water before it could even get started.
Two factors I had failed to consider
Tell people they have to stay at home apart from limited exercise, and they’ll spend all their time exercising
If people can’t spend their money in a pub or a bar or a cafe, then hell, a horsebox it is.
Through the foulest of the winter weather, there was not a time we passed by the horsebox when there wasn’t a queue for coffee. What looked like a doomed venture has been a huge success. The owners have had a great pandemic.
Sometimes things turn out in an unexpected way - and that can be a good thing.
In laboratory tests, T-cell responses in those vaccinated or previously infected with coronavirus were largely unaffected by each of the key variants. This included the new Brazilian variant, found in small numbers in the UK last week.
The new findings suggest that even if people are able to be reinfected by the variants, some of which are believed to partially evade our first immune response, the body will have key tools for preventing severe disease.
Of my 882 patients who tested positive for covid (out of about 1200, all get tested regularly), only 1 died, and I’ve not had a new positive case in over 2 months now.
Covid infections in elderly care homes is down after the vaccine rollout. The number of health care workers who initially refused the vaccine has also dropped.
The number of doses of vaccine administered continues to rise, up 5M since two days ago.
Doctor, will I be able to play the piano after my surgery?
Yes, of course!
Wonderful, I’ve always wanted to be able to play the piano!
Will all the closed drive-in cinemas be able to re-open when the lockdown ends?
Yes, of course!
That’s great, nobody had any plans to re-open them before COVID happened.
There has been the question, “Do vaccines prevent asymptomatic infection/transmission?” Understandably, medical authorities have stated they couldn’t say for sure without data. This nuanced position led to articles being written incorrectly giving the impression that vaccines provided no protection against transmission.
We’re now seeing data and papers on the subject, and the results are looking very good. The vaccines are being shown to be extremely effective in both preventing hospitalization (near 100%) and transmission:
I wanted some good news today, so I went looking for some.
All adults in the country (US) are eligible for a vaccine, and half of the adults in the country have had at least one vaccination. The drug companies are now working on vaccine approval for children.
Here’s good news of a sort, I suppose. I genuinely have no idea how common this is, but here in South East England today we saw our first contactless busker.
I guess it was inevitable, and that’s why I can’t figure out how common it is. The weather is better, buskers are out on the streets, and since COVID struck nobody carries cash any more. In (pedestrianized) East Street in Shoreham, a busker playing a piano (that’s style) had set up a contactless terminal attached to a stand - tap in to give a £2 tip.
As we’re pretty close to being cashless at present, I can’t help but wonder if there are already contactless beggars out there. The game is changing.
