Global surge in coronavirus cases is being fed by the developing world — and the U.S. https://t.co/Ofm6VUdYue
— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) July 15, 2020
CDC Director Robert Redfield: “I do think the fall and the winter of 2020 and 2021 are going to be probably one of the most difficult times that we experienced in American public health.” pic.twitter.com/8LLnbXxpHW
— The Recount (@therecount) July 14, 2020
.@edyong209: “A country that, 7 months into a pandemic, still cannot ensure that its healthcare workers have enough gowns and gloves and protective equipment is not going to be able to distribute a vaccine in an efficient way. It simply isn’t.” pic.twitter.com/9e0foFoCO3
— Christiane Amanpour (@camanpour) July 13, 2020
NBC NEWS –
"WASHINGTON — The federal government may not have the capacity to supply medical professionals with personal protective equipment amid the latest surge in coronavirus cases, according to internal administration documents obtained by NBC News"https://t.co/BBTBY5Ysxi
— Jesse Ferguson (@JesseFFerguson) July 15, 2020
NBC (cont) –
"In particular, nursing homes and long-term care facilities say there is a major personal protective equipment shortage."
"N-95 masks are still not available and were not included in the FEMA shipments to nursing homes"
— Jesse Ferguson (@JesseFFerguson) July 15, 2020
The US had +65,594 new confirmed coronavirus cases today, bringing the total to over 3.5 million, and pushing the 7-day moving average above 63k/day. pic.twitter.com/R7wDjdMb3A
— Patrick Chovanec (@prchovanec) July 15, 2020
It's Tuesday, so US covid cases and fatalities are coming in fast and furious
Before we see the tallies this afternoon, this morning's alignment of key metrics indicates a veritable train wreck.
@POTUS @WhiteHouse: "we're doing a great job"
Wondering what a bad job would be? pic.twitter.com/HsmJ4MF19a— Eric Topol (@EricTopol) July 14, 2020
======
Around 570,000 people worldwide have lost their lives to coronavirus with more than 13 million confirmed cases
These maps and charts track the global spread of the virushttps://t.co/s3jnoAX73w
— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) July 14, 2020
This is so embarrassing. Okinawa was COVID-free for months, then American USFJ soldiers held a big 4th of July party and spread it across the island. https://t.co/bXubOgH8jV
— REDACTED 和諧删剪 (@Comparativist) July 14, 2020
Coronavirus infection rate in England fell sharply month before lockdown lifted https://t.co/2tzmimQc6d
— The Guardian (@guardian) July 15, 2020
The German government is considering local travel bans in areas that see sudden, unexplained surges in coronavirus cases, Germany's pandemic point person tells @AP. https://t.co/7LJBYigeq3
— AP Europe (@AP_Europe) July 14, 2020
Kazakhstan denies an 'unknown pneumonia' following rumors last week of a mysterious new disease. The World Health Organization blamed Kazakhstan's deadly outbreak on #COVID19. The country, meanwhile, has imposed a 2nd national lockdown https://t.co/Vz0FQaxvm3 via @medical_xpress
— delthia ricks ? (@DelthiaRicks) July 14, 2020
Health experts put Tokyo on the highest alert for coronavirus infections, alarmed by a recent spike in cases to record levels https://t.co/G37r0NMuvn by @juminism @changran_kim pic.twitter.com/vAIrj430Om
— Reuters (@Reuters) July 15, 2020
Videos by Indian Nobel laureate help fight Covid-19 https://t.co/CsI3IEcoLA
— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) July 14, 2020
In Africa, coronavirus cases are increasing and deaths are rising, according to the WHO
How fast is it spreading across the continent?https://t.co/g452HcThBW
— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) July 14, 2020
Australia weighs further coronavirus curbs as outbreak grows https://t.co/5m1oMm0mx7 pic.twitter.com/7C2Y0GaVtY
— Reuters (@Reuters) July 15, 2020
Brazil coronavirus cases rise past 1.9 million, deaths total 74,133 https://t.co/N5FG69zNq4 pic.twitter.com/bWysSJqo8A
— Reuters (@Reuters) July 15, 2020
Mexico reports 7,051 new cases of coronavirus, 836 more deaths https://t.co/BzzQUDju8w pic.twitter.com/3Ciwf9vlZx
— Reuters (@Reuters) July 15, 2020
This is what happens to a country with uncontrolled #Covis19 transmission: Canada-U.S. border to remain closed to non-essential travel until at least Aug. 21, sources say – The Globe and Mail https://t.co/6foZN9BoS3
— Helen Branswell (@HelenBranswell) July 14, 2020
======
More than half of #COVID19 transmission is due to people with no symptoms, according to a new model. The Univ. of Florida research found ~1/3 of these cases need to be isolated in addition to most symptomatic cases to quell the pandemic https://t.co/HZQwoCzT2R
— delthia ricks ? (@DelthiaRicks) July 14, 2020
Moderna's Phase 1 data are out. Their #Covid19 vaccine, which is expected to go into Phase 3 late this month, generated an immune response in all subjects vaccinated. Will it be protective? How long will it last? Phase 1 trials can't answer those Qs. https://t.co/gheH5gsuyo
— Helen Branswell (@HelenBranswell) July 14, 2020
COVID19 has pan-body disease manifestations and this is the best review to date on all the non-lung potential impacts, system by system, new @NatureMedicine https://t.co/gNvDiRuzsb by @aakriti_15 @MVMadhavanMD @KartikSehgal_MD and colleagues pic.twitter.com/QCnqKnu0P0
— Eric Topol (@EricTopol) July 14, 2020
What is contact tracing, and how does it work with #COVID19? https://t.co/XNLce82Nk3 via @medical_xpress
— delthia ricks ? (@DelthiaRicks) July 14, 2020
Moderna's messenger RNA #COVID19 vaccine is a 2-dose vax. Clinical testing will soon expand to ~30k people and test it against placebo. In early trials of 45 young people, antibodies against the virus were produced https://t.co/aakKinDSt5
— delthia ricks ? (@DelthiaRicks) July 15, 2020
======
Scoop: FEMA is sending Texas 14 mobile morgues this week as death counts in the state are rising https://t.co/XYP5BeL9uf
— Josh Kovensky (@JoshKovensky) July 14, 2020
“You treat COVID, you look at COVID, you see COVID, you smell COVID, you hear COVID. Everything’s COVID. There are two parallel worlds: The world inside the hospital and the world outside … We need people to understand that it is a dire situation.” https://t.co/dL81M75SAN
— Millie Tran (@millie) July 14, 2020
Mississippi's GOP governor: "Herd immunity is not anything like a realistic solution" https://t.co/aaxPSs3BTn pic.twitter.com/ukKwEfHiE3
— The Hill (@thehill) July 14, 2020
Former COVID-19 data chief: Outbreak is "much worse" than DeSantis administration lets on in Florida https://t.co/NcQAVorqXg
— Salon (@Salon) July 15, 2020
A Long Island party. No ???s.
One person tested + for #COVID19 …
..and then, it was more than a third of the party attendees. https://t.co/libzrScZVQ— Laurie Garrett (@Laurie_Garrett) July 14, 2020
Montana offered free coronavirus testing to long-term care facilities, and several declined. Now, nearly everyone who lives at one place is infected and eight have died. Even simple preventive measures have gone unused during the pandemic. https://t.co/M1080GNWZR
— AP West Region (@APWestRegion) July 14, 2020
Amir Khalid
Malaysia’s daily numbers. Five new cases. Four cases from local infection: three Malaysians and one non-Malaysian. One case of imported infection, a permanenr resident returning from India. Cumulative total 8,734 cases.
Two more patients recovered and were discharged, total 8,526 patients recovered or 97.6% of the cumulative total. 86 active and contagious cases are in hospital for isolation/treatment; five are in ICU, one of them is receivig respiratory assistance.
No new deaths, total stands at 122 deaths. Infection fatality rate is 1.40%, case fatality rate is 1.41%.
p.a.
My evil fantasy for the DeathCult Party is that their own gunhumper followers turn on them and start exercising their pathetic 2nd Amendment ‘justice’.
Jail or social ostracism just doesn’t seem enough.
terben
From the Australian Dept of Health:
‘As at 3pm on 15 July 2020, a total of 10,495 cases of COVID-19 have been reported in Australia, including 111 deaths, and 7,928 have been reported as recovered from COVID-19.
259 new cases today and 1 death in Victoria. 15 cases reclassified, a net increase of 244. most new cases are in Victoria (238)
OzarkHillbilly
MASHA.
JPL
@Amir Khalid: With so few cases are you able to move about freely?
low-tech cyclist
He’s turned us into a failed state, hasn’t he?
Each round of cleaning up after the elephants makes the previous round look trivial.
Large swaths of our bureaucracy will need to be rebuilt, just to give us a functioning government again.
low-tech cyclist
Comments to the local school board about reopening are due this afternoon. I’ve written a pretty good draft, but I’m going to find a place for this. If he’s right – and I believe he is – this is no time to be sending the kids back to school.
WereBear
In the coming centuries, if we endure as a civilized species, we will be a freshman class in how leadership works, or doesn’t.
Providing confusion and intermittent support and no one can do anything to reverse the death spiral. We are the Hindenburg a spark away from disaster.
WereBear
@p.a.: That will never happen with fundamentalists.
The call never comes from inside the house.
Bruce K
Greece is seeing what authorities are calling a spike: 57 new cases on July 14, 28 from international travel, according to Kathimerini. The government is considering cracking down on public religious celebrations that take place around this time of year, and apparently considering mandating masks in public, though no official directives have come down.
At the same time, though, they’re lifting the ban on direct flights from the UK, and still considering lifting the ban on incoming travelers from the US, although the reports say that they’ll only allow people in if they can show a negative test within 72 hours before arrival, which for the US makes it pretty much academic. What’s the lead time on COVID tests for the US at the moment?
Geminid
Yesterday in Virginia Governor Northam had his first Covid-19 briefing in two weeks. He spent some time on questions regarding school reopening, but the main point of the briefing was that infections are on the rise and that there will be stepped up enforcement of social distancing mandates, especially the mask requirement, by state agencies including the Department of Health and the Alcohol Control Board.
Amir Khalid
@JPL:
We in Malaysia are still strongly encouraged to take all precautions: wear masks when out and about, wash our hands, maintain social distancing, avoid visiting friends’ and family’s homes, etc. And by and large we are still complying.
More and more sectors of the economy are reopening under the Recovery Movement Control Order, which runs through Merdeka (independence) Day on 31 August. Bars and clubs are still closed, though. The reopening is being done with all possible precautions. Most shops and offices and services are open, but to get in you usually have to scan a QR for contact tracing code. Each economic sector has a set of Covid-19 SOPs it must comply with to prevent spread.
Kids in the secondary grades went back to school today, subject to SOPs developed by the Education Ministry. The primary grades go back next Wednesday. I passed by a school today and it looked like a normal school day. Contact sports are scheduled to resume next month, but in empty stadiums.
Domestic travel has been reopened for a couple of months now; you can travel freely between states again. Non-essential international travel is still mostly restricted.
Amir Khalid
@low-tech cyclist:
More precisely, he’s saying that in Covid-19 management at least, America fits the description of a failed state. Which is a scary thought.
Cermet
Possible terrible news – this study indicates that a vaccine might not help since it is possible that the immunity does not last long enogh. See – https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.07.09.20148429v1
If true, herd immunity won’t work, either. This study is still too small to draw hard conclusions but if true, this is very bad news.
Mary G
The OC already had its first protest of the new re-shutdown orders by MAGAts coming into Huntington Beach, the Alabama of So. California. The reports were better, with daily cases down to 865 from more than 1300 last week. Hospitalizations again up, but still well within capacity. Housemates report outside world doesn’t look very shut down. Testing positivity rate still bad at 14.6%.
Dirk Reinecke
The situation in South Africa is looking pretty grim.
https://www.news24.com/news24/southafrica/investigations/sa-recording-more-new-covid-19-cases-a-day-than-any-other-country-but-has-one-of-lowest-mortality-rates-20200715
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Mary G: Yeah, the gym near here is still open; they really need to start imposing some sanctions.
mrmoshpotato
@low-tech cyclist:
I’d argue the US became a failed state with W’s re-election (“He’s someone I’d like to have a beer with!” ?♂️), Obama made us a state again, and nearly 63 million piles of Trump trash threw our country off a cliff because black man to white woman was something they were not going to do.
ETA – and let’s not forget about the tens of millions who decided to fail as citizens of the United States. “Fuck Hillary! I’m not gonna vote!” Selfish shitstains.
JPL
GA is a hot bed, but not as dire as FL. The governor is suppose to issue a statement today, but I assume it will be same old, same old. I do wish he would show some leadership and mandate masks, but since he is more interested in pleasing the president he won’t. BTW President pissy pants is coming to town today in order to promote his infrastructure plans. Infrastructure week sucks.
low-tech cyclist
@Cermet: Theoretically, if you could vaccinate everyone at roughly the same time, the virus would have nowhere to go, and we’d have snuffed it out.
Realistically, it’s hard to see when this country will have the capacity to manage something like that, even without taking into account the anti-vaxxers plus the MAGAts who would refuse the vaccine because it’s a liberal hoax.
mrmoshpotato
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Dumbbells.
OzarkHillbilly
Amir Khalid
DG of Health Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah shared on his Twitter this British traveller’s YouTube video on being in Malaysia in the pandemic.
mrmoshpotato
@JPL:
Only half joking – how do you know that bastard Kemp isn’t lying. Cheating sack.
Also, Infrastructure Week is the Groundhog Day sequel. (But the sequel sucks.)
Robert Sneddon
The National Records of Scotland (NRS) weekly report is out — they say thirteen people died in Scotland last week (Monday through Sunda) where the death certificate mentioned COVID-19. This isn’t the same numbers of deaths recorded as specifically due to the disease in day-to-day reporting which is a lot less.
The NRS have also released a social and medical study of deaths related to COVID-19 covering the three months from 1st March to 31st May — the top details as reported by the BBC are that nearly all deaths in that period were of aged people, almost all with co-morbidities including dementia and Alzheimers.
Scotland is partially moving out of lockdown today with places like barbers and pubs re-opening with hygiene and social distancing rules in place. The Scottish Government has made it abundantly clear they won’t hesitate to lock down hard again if this relaxation causes further new outbreaks.
debbie
@JPL:
DeWine (OH) is holding a news conference today at 5:30. He’s either going to shut down the state or scold us all.
Amir Khalid
Another video, this one from The Lincoln Project, simply titled Fauci.
Mousebumples
@Cermet:
@low-tech cyclist:
The podcast I listen to (This Week In Virology) talked about this in the last week or so, and there are a few points I recall:
They did think a vaccine was feasible, however. Lots of different kinds of vaccines are in trials , including some whose method of vaccine have not been traditionally used. (i.e. The Modera RNA vaccine that is currently taking volunteers for its Stage 3 study)
Yes , there is still a ton we don’t know. But I’m going to choose to be as optimistic as I can be until we have more vaccine data.
mrmoshpotato
@debbie:
I vote for both.
Baud
The Street is optimistic about the vaccine.
oatler.
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/07/ivanka-trump-promotes-goya-violates-ethical-standards.html
Amir Khalid
@OzarkHillbilly:
I’ve seen that. Depressing news, to say the least.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: Irrational exuberance, they don’t seem to understand that even if we find a vaccine, they will all be standing in bread lines long before it has an economic impact.
OzarkHillbilly
@oatler.: Her existence is a violation of ethics standards.
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly:
I think the increased demand for gravediggers will help stimulate the economy.
mrmoshpotato
@oatler.: Ethical standards and a Soviet shitpile mobster crime family don’t mix.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: I’m thinking of making caskets.
Amir Khalid
@Baud:
“… And on the whole, it was a very good year for the undertaker” — Carole King
Ohio Mom
debbie: DeWine (finally!) made masks mandatory here in Hamilton County (for anyone not familiar with Ohio, the county at the southwest corner of the state, where Cincinnati is).
It’s a relief to me to go into the grocery store and see masks everywhere. Last week, I’d say about half the shoppers were bare-faced. So I am thankful.
I think the big issue that needs addressing, and I can’t think of a politic way DeWine can do this, is that most of Hamilton County is doing fine. There are about a half-dozen zip codes where Covid is out of control. I don’t know what is going on in Forest Park, Springdale, Delhi and Cheviot (suburban cities and townships) but they are in big trouble.
I can imagine a backlash in the parts of the county where the virus is being kept at bay — particularly the far west rural areas. The east side of the county is also relatively quiet but we are a less reactionary bunch over here.
arrieve
I’ve been reading A Journal of the Plague Year (free on Project Gutenberg.) It’s eerie, and discouraging, how much London in 1665 sounds like our current situation — the need to get daily provisions versus the danger of going to the markets, wanting to flee London but finding that other towns and cities refused them entry, the efficacy of social distancing, and even asymptomatic transmission.
YY_Sima Qian
Yesterday, China continued the streak of no new domestic cases (confirmed, suspect or asymptomatic). Beijing has not reported a new confirmed case for 9 days, although there have been a couple of asymptomatic cases in the span. Across China there were 6 imported confirmed and 4 imported asymptomatic cases.
Shanghai: 3 confirmed cases, Chinese nationals returning form Mexico, the US and Singapore
Kunming in Yunnan Province (Southwestern China): 1 confirmed case, Chinese national returning from Bangladesh
Taiyuan in Shanxi Province (Norther China, flights destined for Beijing have been diverting to Shanxi and Inner Mongolia for the past several months): 1 confirmed case, Chinese national returning from Russia
Chongqing Municipality: 1 confirmed case, Chinese national returning from Singapore
There has been at least 4 cases imported from Singapore over the past week. The vast majority of the outbreak in Singapore over the past two months has been in the guest worker dormitories. My understanding is that the guest workers are almost all South or Southeast Asia. I am not aware of Mainland Chinese make up an appreciable portion. It would be interesting to see if these 4 Chinese nationals contracted COVID in the dormitories or among the native population.
After ports of Dalian and Qingdao, outside of the packaging of Ecuadorean shrimp have not tested positive on RT-PCR for SARS-CoV-2 at Chongqing and Jiangxi Province. I think China has suspected sale of all Ecuadorean shrimps in the country.
mrmoshpotato
@Ohio Mom:
Send in Louise!
Alex
We’ve got to make nursing home testing mandatory and provide resources to deal with the results. Nursing homes don’t want to know because then they’d have to find space and staff and PPE to separate positive residents, and they’d have to let positive staff stay home and they’d have to clean more, but they aren’t going to get any more reimbursement from Medicaid for all that. This is an industry with a lot of for-profit and vulture capital ownership. They are not going to just do the right thing.
YY_Sima Qian
@arrieve: It is indeed eerie to see history rhyming down the centuries. Then again, the viral biology has not changed over that time, nor has human nature.
WaterGirl
@low-tech cyclist: Did you see this from somewhere on BJ yesterday?
We invite you to see the world through the eyes of an innocent, trusting child as she heads back into a life that she’s told is safe.
mrmoshpotato
@arrieve:
They too had a Soviet shitpile mobster manbaby slurping the Kremlin’s asshole since 1987?! ?
YY_Sima Qian
@Cermet:
I have seen studies by Chinese researchers last month observing the same rapid decline in antibodies post-recovery. However, my understanding is that is expected for the humoral response from the human body. Long term immunity depends on cellular response, whereby the T-cells “remember” the virus, and can produce the requisite antibodies when attacked in the future. Effectiveness of the vaccines will also depend on whether it can induce a cellular response. It would have been helpful if the researchers included the rate of antibody decline to other viruses (coronavirus or otherwise) for reference, which I have not seen from any of these papers.
mrmoshpotato
@WaterGirl: Wow.
Sloane Ranger
There were 398 confirmed new cases in the UK yesterday and 138 COVID-19 related deaths.
There is a spike in Blackburn, Lancashire. This is occurring mainly in an area with lots of terraced houses and large families. The authorities are already saying if it gets worse, Blackburn will go back into full lock down a la Leicester.
Face masks will be mandatory in shops from 24 July. Matt Hancock already saying no to a mask order for offices. Some Tory backbenchers already screaming about FREEDUMN regarding the shops order.
YY_Sima Qian
Rebekah Jones is saying that FL has not been publishing case data from the penitentiary system? Come to think of it, I do not recall reading about any outbreaks in FL prisons, plenty of reports from other parts of the US.
Even China reported the outbreaks in prisons, published the transmission chain information, and took corrective actions and held officials account table.
Also saw an article from the Military Times a couple of days ago stating that the infection rate in the US military is double that of the general population (2% versus 1%), and saw a 25K number for infected troops. Overall, US DOD is almost as tightlipped about the outbreak in the US military as the CCP regime is with respect to the People’s Liberation Army and the People’s Armed Police (which is no reporting at all). It isn’t appeared to be very forthcoming even to the nations hosting US troops.
My WAG is that the the PLA and the PAP have not been hit hard by COVID-19. The Chinese military and paramilitary have not played frontline roles in containing the epidemic, other than their medical corps. The lock downs have been enforced by community workers, contractor security guards (rents-a-cops) and volunteers, with the civilian police force serving as back up if disputes escalate. Wuhan is home of the headquarters of the PLA’s Central Command, so certainly members of the army and the paramilitary have been infected. However, China locked down relatively early, locked down hard and locked down extensively. When the civilian residential compounds went under lock down or restricted access, the barracks were locked down, as well. The PLA Navy apparently recalled almost all of the ships at sea in late Jan., and send the crews into quarantine. No ships were put to sea until the crew has been infection free for 14 days. There were no exercises reported until late Mar. when the epidemic in most of China had been suppressed.
If we looking at the civilian case counts in Chinese provinces other than Hubei (< 1500 maximum, typically in the low to mid hundreds) as proxy, then the military and paramilitary outside of Hubei Province probably were not affected at all.
EmbraceYourInnerCrone
@OzarkHillbilly: What absolutely infuriates me is that they SAW this happening to NYC months ago, and also to some extent to New Jersey , Long Island and Westchester county NY. Did all those other states think that they would magically be protected from the virus??
And now they are facing the same situation that happened to us in the North East, except most other states(looking at you Florida) had plenty of time to learn from the early “hot zones” and take the necessary precautions.
I feel like Cassandra.
YY_Sima Qian
Some of you may have seen news reports of major flooding in the middle and lower Yangtze River in the past week or so, worst in 20 years, due to weeks of non-stop rain. The peak of the flood just went past Wuhan a couple of days ago. Dykes and dams have generally held, but dykes along a couple of tributaries of the Yangtze have been breached in a few places, inundating some villages and a few small towns. As I watch the new reports of government workers, civilian volunteers and PLA/PAP soldiers working to close breaches or reinforce dykes, no one is wearing masks. There is no distancing on the evacuation convoys, and evacuees are housed in school dormitories (4 or 6 to a room, so no distancing there, either). It is a very good thing that China had all but eradicated COVID-19 in the flood prone regions (Hubei, Hunan, Guizhou, Jiangxi and Anhui Provinces) before the start of the spring rain season. Typhoon season is about to start for southeastern coastal regions of China in a few weeks. I can’t imagine how the government and society would fight COVID-19 and floods/typhoons at the same time.
Hurricane season is not that far away for the US. What will happen then?
mrmoshpotato
COVIDicanes?
YY_Sima Qian
Vehicular traffic in Wuhan and other cities in China appear to be even higher than pre-COVID levels, with significant congestion even during off-peak hours. Anecdotal evidence suggest that people are avoiding public transportation, and driving as much as possible. I am curious if the same pattern is repeating elsewhere in the world.
So, while the lock downs have greatly reduced CO2 emissions, the post-pandemic reaction may not be so positive for the planet.
YY_Sima Qian
@Baud:
Wall Street appears to be completely divorced from the real economy. It is the playground of the corporations and the top 0.1%. Only the top 25% see much benefit at all from a buoyant stock market. (Yes, I am glad that my 401K has not taken a beating, unlike in the Great Financial Crisis, for however long that lasts.)
mrmoshpotato
chopper
@Mousebumples:
i can’t think of a single disease of consequence that burned itself out by attaining herd immunity levels naturally. herd immunity is a concept that came about with the creation of vaccines.
Robert Sneddon
@chopper: Herd immunity doesn’t stop or eliminate diseases, it reduces the incidence of a disease to low levels but the disease continues to exist and circulate, occasionally erupting out into the population in an epidemic when the conditions permit.
Vaccines are a man-made super-herd-immunity tool improving the immune numbers and reducing the incidences of disease and outbreaks to the point where, for example, a cluster of 20 or 30 cases of measles is worthy of national news interest, usually due to anti-vaccination craziness.
Only in a very few specialised cases such as smallpox, rinderpest (in cattle) and possibly polio in the near future can vaccination eliminate a specific disease. Until there is a working vaccine for COVID-19 then herd immunity is all we’ve got, basically — the human pool of infected people is too big at the moment and the only other solution isn’t workable (everybody on the planet, without exception, goes into hard solo quarantine for at least two weeks, better still a month).
Brachiator
I have this image of Young Jared, with a hospital gown and gloves over his suit, a mask on his head, like one of the Three Stooges, sitting on a pile of PPE going, “Woo! Woo! Woo! I’ll get you some protective equipment as soon as I figure this stockpile thing out!”
Brachiator
@chopper:
Herd immunity is talked about more by lay people and right wing nut jobs than it is by any medical expert. No one is looking at it as a realistic solution.
Fair Economist
@Cermet: Some people don’t maintain immunity, but most do. Also, there’s more to immunity than current antibody production – there’s memory cell and T-cell responses. In experimental tests with human common cold coronavirus some people were still protected a year after the initial re-infection* even though their antibodies had declined to the base level. Vaccines should still be an enormous help.
*Everybody tested had apparently had the virus in the past, because they all had antibodies already. It seems we all get all this cold, and presumably the others, periodically during life.
Kelly
Man discovered dead in tent while waiting for COVID-19 test in Utah.
https://twitter.com/nycjim/status/1283193079969849344
misterpuff
@Sloane Ranger: At least they have enough holes for burial if it gets bad. 4000 actually.
Mike G
The federal government
may not have the capacitycould prioritize to supply medical professionals with personal protective equipment but is more interested in grifting.FTFY