No, because nobody wants you. pic.twitter.com/mXZvYeCRCC
— Ad Rock is Shedding Spike Protein?? (@Adenovir) June 24, 2021
The United States is now averaging 279 deaths per day from coronavirus, the lowest seven-day average since the pandemic began, according to data from @CNN and Johns Hopkins University.
— Ryan Struyk (@ryanstruyk) June 26, 2021
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WHO: Delta variant is 'most transmissible' identified so far. Covid variant first detected in India is now spreading in at least 85 countries https://t.co/bCguZH1Ubj
— delthia ricks ? (@DelthiaRicks) June 26, 2021
Resolving this lies with a very small number of countries essentially those in the G7 & G20. The unwillingness to invest globally at risk & at scale in June 2020 led to the lack of current capacity. June 2020 was best time. June 2021 the next best time.
— Jeremy Farrar (@JeremyFarrar) June 25, 2021
Countries where the Delta variant has become dominant.
A sharp rise in cases.
In Russia and Indonesia, where vaccination rates are low, 14% and 9%, respectively, also a spike in fatalities. pic.twitter.com/8omOCq6NIY— Eric Topol (@EricTopol) June 26, 2021
India COVID-19 cases rise by 50,040 amid concern about Delta variant https://t.co/QwWyrRg17c pic.twitter.com/vIHzLpIASQ
— Reuters (@Reuters) June 27, 2021
Covid-19: Crowds flee Dhaka ahead of strict Bangladesh lockdown https://t.co/iZ1x3hlYi0
— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) June 26, 2021
Malaysia's COVID-19 lockdown to be extended – PM https://t.co/L6RpF2l1r4 pic.twitter.com/cTuQ2ZoCFZ
— Reuters (@Reuters) June 27, 2021
… Lockdown measures were set to end on Monday. But Muhyiddin said they will not be eased until daily cases fell below 4,000, Bernama said.
Malaysia reported 5,803 cases on Saturday.
Faced with a sharp rise in coronavirus cases, the Thai capital has announced a ban on indoor dining and gatherings of more than 20 people,The measures will remain for 30 days. https://t.co/EHQNH8xavY
— The Associated Press (@AP) June 27, 2021
Australia's Sydney and Darwin in COVID-19 lockdowns https://t.co/da0igWLhga pic.twitter.com/BHTo4LmyB3
— Reuters (@Reuters) June 27, 2021
New Zealand extends COVID-19 alert level in capital https://t.co/roDQkQ5AwR pic.twitter.com/lKYsXWU3qN
— Reuters (@Reuters) June 27, 2021
Masks are on again in Israel: The country is reinstituting Covid restrictions as the delta variant fuels a new surge. 90% of cases are the result of delta variant, which is rapidly spreading throughout the country https://t.co/GGeDq6SYhf
— delthia ricks ? (@DelthiaRicks) June 26, 2021
And they were all asymptomatic. The vaccines work. Get vaccinated. https://t.co/uduU7yhDY6
— Ed MD (@notdred) June 26, 2021
An important correction on the Israel story. Half of “adults” infected in Israel were fully vaxxed, not half of all cases. About half of the total infections were kids. Means about 25% of infections were in fully vaxxed, and most if not all were reportedly asymptomatic infections pic.twitter.com/mFFgH5mOEz
— Scott Gottlieb, MD (@ScottGottliebMD) June 26, 2021
Russia is hosting Euro 2020 matches but the alarm is being sounded about a new wave of coronavirus https://t.co/KnY57QpTCS pic.twitter.com/KSRMprtm9A
— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) June 26, 2021
And St Petersburg is a Euro Cup site partly because these lies made their Covid numbers sound better—and Russia promised to put far more fans in the seats than elsewhere despite the incredibly low vaccination rate.
— Mig Greengard (@chessninja) June 26, 2021
The U.K. has recorded its most new coronavirus infections since early February as authorities ran a “grab a jab” initiative. Hundreds of walk-in vaccination sites, including at stadiums and shopping centers, opened in England over the weekend. https://t.co/dnDhAqLSpF
— AP Europe (@AP_Europe) June 26, 2021
NEW: Colombia reports 33,594 new coronavirus cases, the biggest one-day increase on record, and 693 new deaths
— BNO Newsroom (@BNODesk) June 26, 2021
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Aside from the fact that viruses don't "leak" from buildings, the wrongheaded concept of a "lab leak hypothesis" is nothing more than junk science. A hypothesis requires data. @profvrr highlights a new critique of has-been science writer Nicholas Wade's take on a "leaky lab" https://t.co/oLV2SbskL1
— delthia ricks ? (@DelthiaRicks) June 25, 2021
… In the meantime, the true scandal of the COVID years continues to unfold. It’s not breathless speculation on the origins of the virus, but rather that the United States and many other nations failed to prepare for the pandemic. Everywhere but China had months to anticipate its arrival, come up with strategies to limit transmission, and to ready their public health and medical systems to take care of those who did get sick. Six hundred thousand dead in the US and nearly 4 million worldwide are the brutal measure of that failure—and a reminder. It was human errors and choices that enabled a virus of still-uncertain origin to spark a global disaster.
Interesting thread from @kakape about misinformation. And I too prefer @scheufele's term "community immunity" to "herd immunity." 1, we're not cattle. 2, community does a better job explaining how location specific immunity may be.
(hi, Dietram!) https://t.co/8Sjv9wCEJT— Helen Branswell (@HelenBranswell) June 26, 2021
Revisiting w/ chart: Reactivation of Epstein-Barr virus may underlie long Covid. Scientists say EBV—which is latent in most people—is revived by inflammatory responses to coronavirus infection. This may explain long COVID symptoms—fatigue, brain fog, etc https://t.co/oAL8B7Tj1x
— delthia ricks ? (@DelthiaRicks) June 26, 2021
Really interesting take from @hildabast.
"Among several wonderful options, the more old-school vaccine from Novavax combines ease of manufacture with high efficacy and lower side effects. For the moment, it’s the best COVID-19 vaccine we have." https://t.co/uXMhl43qp6— Dr. Claire Standley (@ClaireJStandley) June 24, 2021
IMO, this argument gives too much weight to the ‘reasoning’ of anti-vaxxers, but…
… These other, non-mRNA vaccines have been widely used throughout the world—and some could still make an important difference in the U.S. Although the U.S. has plenty of doses of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines available right now, demand for them has cratered. The Washington Post reports that in 10 states, fewer than 35 percent of American adults have been vaccinated. An international study of COVID-19 vaccine misinformation, published in May, found that among the most common online rumors were those alleging particular dangers of mRNA technology—that it leads, for example, to the creation of “genetically modified human beings.” The CDC has also made a point of debunking the circulating falsehood that COVID-19 vaccines can change your DNA. For a time, it looked as though the Johnson & Johnson vaccine would help address this worry. It’s based on a fairly new technology, but not as new as mRNA. However, concerns about tainted doses made at a Baltimore factory and the emergence of a very rare but serious side effect have pretty much dashed that hope. The Johnson & Johnson single-dose vaccine has reportedly accounted for fewer than 4 percent of doses administered in the country.
In this context, the success of the Novavax vaccine should be A1 news. The recent results confirm that it has roughly the same efficacy as the two authorized mRNA vaccines, with the added benefit of being based on an older, more familiar science. The protein-subunit approach used by Novavax was first implemented for the hepatitis B vaccine, which has been used in the U.S. since 1986. The pertussis vaccine, which is required for almost all children in U.S. public schools, is also made this way. Some of those people who have been wary of getting the mRNA vaccines may find Novavax more appealing.
The Novavax vaccine also has a substantially lower rate of side effects than the authorized mRNA vaccines. Last week’s data showed that about 40 percent of people who receive Novavax report fatigue after the second dose, as compared with 65 percent for Moderna and more than 55 percent for Pfizer. Based on the results of Novavax’s first efficacy trial in the U.K., side effects (including but not limited to fatigue) aren’t just less frequent; they’re milder too. That’s a very big deal for people on hourly wages, who already bear a disproportionate risk of getting COVID-19, and who have been less likely to get vaccinated in part because of the risk of losing days of work to post-vaccine fever, pain, or malaise. Side effects are a big barrier for COVID-vaccine acceptance. The CDC reported on Monday that, according to a survey conducted in the spring, only about half of adults under the age of 40 have gotten the vaccine or definitely intend to do so, and that, among the rest, 56 percent say they are concerned about side effects. Lower rates of adverse events are likely to be a bigger issue still for parents, when considering vaccination for their children…
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Despite talk of vaccine passports, only one state in the U.S. is enforcing a version of it. By @DavidALieb. https://t.co/jtHL4DWkP1
— The Associated Press (@AP) June 26, 2021
Of course, Hawaii has both more ability and more incentive to keep potential plague-spreaders out:
… Hawaii is the only state enforcing some version of a vaccine passport. It requires travelers to upload a photo or PDF of their Hawaii vaccination document or pass a pre-arrival COVID-19 test to avoid having to quarantine for 10 days.
Earlier this month, California became just the third state — behind New York and Louisiana — to offer residents a way to voluntarily display digital proof of their COVID-19 shots. None of those states requires the use of their digital verification systems to access either public or private-sector places.
By contrast, at least 18 states led by Republican governors or legislatures prohibit the creation of so-called vaccine passports or ban public entities from requiring proof of vaccination. Several of those — including Alabama, Florida, Iowa, Montana, North Dakota and Texas — also bar most businesses from denying service to those who aren’t vaccinated…
The prohibition doesn’t apply to the demands employers make on their employees. Earlier this month, a federal judge in Texas threw out a lawsuit from 117 Houston hospital employees who challenged a workplace requirement that they get vaccinated. More than 150 were later fired or resigned for not getting their shots…
Inbox:
U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) will hold a press conference on Monday in Milwaukee with families from across the country who will share their experiences regarding adverse reactions to Covid-19 vaccines and how the medical community has repeatedly ignored their concerns.
— Niels Lesniewski (@nielslesniewski) June 25, 2021
if you’re wondering why the plague wiped out so many people in the fourteenth century it’s because people didn’t understand science and were weird. if you’re wondering why unvaccinated people are contracting the delta plus variant of covid the answer is also that.
— World Famous Art Thief (@CalmSporting) June 26, 2021
I wonder how much of the lag for under 30 is just another manifestation of young people’s greater likelihood of not doing preventative care, like getting health insurance before they start getting ill, not doing basic medical treatment even when they have good health coverage etc https://t.co/jc17zfh0O2
— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) June 22, 2021
Two unvaccinated players led to an outbreak. Imagine what college classrooms and dorms (with no more mask/distancing requirements) will do this fall at universities that don’t require vaccines. 1/ https://t.co/UHgwNWbjJ4
— Chip Stewart (@MediaLawProf) June 26, 2021
NC State out of the CWS is tragically avoidable, but here's the leadership that put them in this position.
Let's be clear — getting vaccinated is not a *political* decision, it's a *public health* one.
And if you run an organization, it's a critical onehttps://t.co/CQwYH9Qwkn pic.twitter.com/sWQ5rewJri
— Evan Donovan (@EvanDonovan) June 26, 2021
If universities won’t require it for the safety of their students & employees, maybe they could at least do it to protect their most prized asset – college football games. Remember how many games & bowls were lost last year? Do we want that again? 2/
— Chip Stewart (@MediaLawProf) June 26, 2021
Ian R
If that coach is telling his players that getting vaccinated is a political decision, he’s absolutely indoctrinating them with his values and opinions.
Cermet
The Delta and/or Delta-plus variants are sweeping the world; just a matter of time before it rolls over the US. While fully immunized people will get this variant apparently it causes no (currently) direct harm to them. Guess this variant is gonna help create herd immunity the hard way for those too stupid or those unfortunate to not get vaccinated. So, the goal will be achieved one way or another but one method requires so many needless deaths. At least that is one way to ‘fix’ stupid.
YY_Sima Qian
On 6/26 China reported 0 new domestic confirmed & 0 new domestic asymptomatic cases.
Guangdong Province did not report any new domestic confirmed cases.
Imported Cases
On 6/26, China reported 14 new imported confirmed cases, 21 imported asymptomatic cases:
Overall in China, 26 confirmed cases recovered, 20 asymptomatic cases were released from isolation & 2 were reclassified as confirmed cases, and 1,784 individuals were released from quarantine. Currently, there are 462 active confirmed cases in the country (386 imported), 13 in serious condition (12 imported), 471 asymptomatic cases (455 imported), 0 suspect cases. 17,908 traced contacts are currently under quarantine.
As of 6/26, 1,165.23M vaccine doses have been injected in Mainland China, an increase of 21.435M doses in the past 24 hrs.
On 6/27, Hong Kong reported 6 new positive cases, 5 imported & 1 domestic (a coworker of the member of the ground staff at the airport, who tested positive on 6/25, both infected w/ the Delta Variant).
YY_Sima Qian
Quarantine life continues. I am definitely losing sense of day/night, due to lack of sunlight, meaning I have to consciously think about what time of day it is. It is difficult to think that some people are being quarantined in this hotel for 21 or 28 days, because the communities workers have determined that their places of residence do not meet the requirements for home quarantine. There has been a steady stream of people being released from quarantine. With all areas in Guangzhou being re-designated as Low Risk, people who had been quarantined because of their travel history to the city are being released early. No such luck for me, since the last case found in Bao’an District of Shenzhen was 6/22, it takes 14 days of 0 cases for re-designation to Low Risk. I will have to serve out my centralized quarantine until 14 days after my return from Shenzhen.
With the decrease in number of quarantined in the hotel, Wi-Fi has improved, allowing me to have daily video chats w/ my wife & daughter. Mobile signal remains very poor, however. Food is OK, but I have taken to eat only the breakfast & lunch provided by the hotel, & order delivery for dinner, instead. I did order a plate of steamed crawfish two nights ago, it was heavenly! There are 3 crawfish restaurants below the hotel, all have pretty good reviews. I plan to hit them all. I fear I will gain a couple of kilos by the time I get out of here.
Brachiator
This is great news, but probably won’t make a difference to Anti-vaxxers and vaccine hesitant individuals, who will always find a reason to reject a vaccine.
Anne Laurie
You’ve probably already considered this, but would you be allowed to install a timer that would raise or dim the room lighting to correspond to ‘daytime’?
Not as your sole source of light, of course… but as someone happiest living a ‘third shift’ life, I have read about other time-shifted workers who use ambient lighting to remind themselves about the day/night differential. If only so they don’t accidentally wake their outside contacts by calling them at 3am instead of 3pm!
WereBear
What is truly bizarre is how I thought the Republican worship of PROFIT would override their culture wars. Sadly, no.
Baud
Wisconsin has been on a good electoral track lately. I hope they continue that next year in the Senate election.
@WereBear:
Culture always wins out because it’s more fundamental.
stacib
@Brachiator: I have shared before about my neighbor who was vaccine hesitant. I don’t know why – she’s not generally the conspiracy type of person, but getting the shot scared her. Even those of us on the block, who initially thought we would hold out, couldn’t convince her to go. This was in early March. She has now been in the hospital for five weeks, tomorrow being the beginning of week number six with Covid. She was in intensive care for almost three weeks. I’ve tried to use this as a cautionary warning to my other friends who won’t get vaccinated. This shit is serious, and convincing them that because you haven’t gotten it before, doesn’t mean you won’t get it now or later is difficult.
Ken
Last night, Major Major Major Major linked to a twitter explainer about the Israeli numbers. Warning: algebra.
Short version: The 50% is to be expected given the percentage vaccinated, and will keep going up as more are vaccinated. The endpoint is that in a 100% vaccinated population, 100% of people who get COVID will be vaccinated. (My own addition: And there will be three of them a day, versus three thousand.)
Amir Khalid
Malaysia’s Director-General of Heath Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah reports 5,586 new Covid-19 cases today in his media statement, for a cumulative reported total of 734,048 cases. He also reports 60 new deaths today, for a cumulative total of 4,944 deaths — 0.67% of the cumulative reported total, 0.74% of resolved cases.
There are currently 61,395 active and contagious cases; 886 are in ICU, 446 of them intubated. Meanwhile, 4,777 more patients have recovered, for a cumulative total of 667,709 patients recovered – 90.96% of the cumulative reported total.
17 new clusters were reported today. Of the cumulative total of 2,772 clusters, 874 clusters are still active; 1,898 clusters are now inactive.
5,583 new cases today are local infections. Selangor reports 2,211 local cases: 387 in clusters, 1,254 close-contact screenings, and 570 other screenings. Kuala Lumpur reports 626 local cases: 233 in clusters, 224 close-contact screenings, and 169 other screenings.
Sarawak reports 513 cases: 127 in clusters, 322 close-contact screenings, and 64 other screenings. Negeri Sembilan reports 501 cases: 104 in clusters, 244 close-contact screenings, and 153 other screenings.
Melaka reports 380 cases: 307 in clusters, 51 close-contact screenings, and 22 other screenings. Johor reports 312 cases: 192 in clusters, 70 close-contact screenings, and 50 other screenings.
Perak reports 229 cases: 190 in clusters, 26 close-contact screenings, and 13 other screenings.
Sabah reports 190 cases: 57 in clusters, 75 close-contact screenings, and 58 other screenings. Penang reports 138 cases: 68 in clusters, 18 close-contact screenings, and 52 other screenings. Kelantan reports 133 cases: 57 in clusters, 61 close-contact screenings, and 15 other screenings. Kedah reports 129 cases: 33 in clusters, 72 close-contact screenings, and 24 other screenings. Pahang reports 118 cases: 74 in clusters, 26 close-contact screenings, and 18 other screenings.
Labuan reports 83 cases: two in clusters, 46 close-contact screenings, and 35 other screenings. Terengganu reports 16 cases: 13 close-contact screenings and three other screenings. Putrajaya reports four cases: three close-contact screenings and one other screening. Perlis reports no new cases today.
Three new cases today are imported: two in Kuala Lumpur, one in Selangor.
Matt McIrvin
Yeah, I doubt Novavax will have much effect on vaccine reluctance– the antivax rants I’ve seen tend to mix up characteristics of the existing vaccines willy-nilly. It’s not as if these people understand the physical properties on what they’d be getting.
My current worry is that Delta is making people spread fatalistic rumors about breakthrough infections that will make them less eager to get vaccinated when it should be making them more eager. Just saw someone on Twitter mashing a bunch of confused ideas together to conclude that 100% of people will get infected and 50% of vaccinated will have organ damage.
Starfish
@YY_Sima Qian: Where did you travel to? How did you wind up in quarantine?
Starfish
You are never going to convince the hardcore anti-vaxxers which is about 10% of all anti-vaxxers. You can convince the vaccine hesitant people if you are compassionate and listen to their nonsense for a little. That is tough for me because I am a judgmental person, but I am trying.
There was some anti-vaxxer responding to some journalist in Mississippi, and his daughter posted from his Twitter account that he died of COVID. The journalist was sad that this person had engaged with him and was not convinced to take this seriously.
I think we still have a lot of people without convenient access.
For example, my one friend who is not vaccinated has three children, and one of them is still not quite old enough to be vaccinated. She wants everyone to be done at the same time which is easier than carting people back and forth for vaccinations.
Comparing any vaccine to the pertussis vaccine is not great because the pertussis vaccine is one that has slightly less efficacy than the others and slightly more side effects than the others.
Novavax does not have the refrigeration requirements of all the vaccines, so delivering it to people will be much easier.
The number of vaccines that had to be discarded due to improper refrigeration was a lot. Hopefully, we can waste fewer doses once this one is out there.
NotMax
FYI.
germy
YY_Sima Qian
Just heard that a colleague of mine in Shenzhen has been placed under centralized quarantine there, the reason being he traveled on the same high speed train as a traced close contact back on 6/18, & everyone on the train has been deemed as F2 close contact. He is to be under centralized quarantine for 14 days.
These measures make zero sense on a number of levels:
His circumstance is similar to mine, quarantined in a business hotel dedicated for the purpose, 3 meals provided / day, can order delivery (though more limited choices). Unfortunately, the windows in his room are also boarded up, shutting out all access to sunlight. Apparently, he too is staying on a low floor. This is inhumane!
Through the more than dozen localized outbreaks in China since the 1st wave, responses have largely been driven by science & coherent (if very cautious) risk analysis. There were a couple of exceptions, as when Xinjiang authorities locked down the entire “Autonomous” Region (twice the size of Texas) during the outbreak in its capital Ûrumqi, or when Wangkui County Heilongjiang Province continued w/ lock down for a month after the last Medium Risk area was re-designated as Low Risk. Now, ahead of the Centennial anniversary of the founding of the CCP (on 7/1), all local authorities are operating at maximum paranoia.
Matt McIrvin
@germy: The big unanswered question everyone is asking is how many of these vaccinated people will end up with long COVID, since these symptoms can creep up on people who had mild cases, and there are scary reports of some huge fraction of people who got asymptomatically infected having invisible long-term damage.
Certainly, though, avoiding serious enough disease to go to the hospital is good.
germy
@Matt McIrvin:
I’m assuming we’ll be given boosters in September – October, but who knows?
different-church-lady
Keeping the public alive and healthy is now “politics” for no other reason than we had a selfish idiot for president.
Robert Sneddon
@germy: An epidemic like this is statistical — being vaccinated vastly reduces someone’s chances of catching the disease, spreading the disease, of suffering severe effects from the disease, of suffering long-term from the infection, of dying from it. For some people the disease will still end up being unpleasant through bad to fatal even if they’re ‘fully’ vaccinated. The odds of all those things happening to an individual go way down if they’re vaccinated but no-one knows which individuals in the population will suffer the worst until it happens to them. It’s statistical.
tom
Will Ron Johnson have a news conference with the friends and loved ones of the 600,000+ Americans who have died of COVID? With the millions who were seriously sickened? With those are dealing with long-term debilitating effects from COVID infections?
Matt McIrvin
@germy: Probably! I’m also hoping that once a pediatric vaccine is approved, lots of school districts at least in more liberal areas will require vaccination for K-12 students, and that combined with college mandates will drive the total fraction of vaccinated much higher than the ceiling it’s hit now.
But it won’t solve the problem in the least-vaccinated parts of the US because their wingnut governments will forbid mandates.
YY_Sima Qian
@Anne Laurie: I wish, but my hotel room is not set up for that. Anyway, just another week left.
Starfish
From The Houston Chronicle:
Matt McIrvin
@germy: …The other thing that’s almost certainly going to happen is that the rules against mixing different vaccine types will go away (since it’s becoming increasingly clear that it doesn’t really matter), which will make the logistics somewhat easier.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Novavax-style protein-subunit vaccines become the dominant variety over the long run. Heard about military-sponsored research into vaccines that put spikes from different COVID variants on the same nanoparticle, so you get broader protection.
Robert Sneddon
@germy:
Booster vaccinations are likely but at the moment the science hasn’t been done to say how much they will help or how they should be carried out.
The University of Southampton is the program leader for a booster evaluation trial going on here in the UK. They’re looking at three possible protocols, double-blinding the trial volunteers with a non-COVID19 vaccine (one used against meningococcus, I think). They’re administering a single vaccination of the recipient’s original formulation (for the UK that will be either AstraZeneca or Pfizer), a half-dose of the same vaccine to stretch out stocks and the third option is a single full dose of a different vaccine. This third option will also include some not-yet-approved vaccines such as Novavax since it’s thought they will get approval soon anyway.
The preliminary results of this trial are expected some time in September although monitoring of trial volunteers will continue into next summer. Any decision on a booster campaign will be made promptly as the authorities would like to combine this booster jab into the annual influenza vaccination program that usually starts in October here in the UK.
One thing about any booster vaccination program decided on by the richer nations is that it will cut into the number of doses being distributed for first vaccinations in poorer parts of the world under the Covax program. Saying that there’s no way any politician can stand up in front of their own national population and say that prioritising the people of other nations is more important than supplying these booster shots if it’s shown they are effective at reducing infections and deaths here at home.
Matt McIrvin
@Ken: It’s a good explanation of the principle, but it vastly exaggerates the fraction of Israelis who have been fully vaccinated. The real percentage seems to be somewhere in the high fifties (I’ve found varying estimates). They got up to high numbers early on but hit a hard ceiling of vaccine reluctance.
So the base-rate effect here is not as extreme as the tweets imply. However, I don’t have a clear sense of how many of the unvaccinated are adults.
artem1s
He’s making a valid point here but not the one that will really resonate with football fans. The Big Ten Conference and the NCAA spent an entire year changing their rules so Ohio State would still be eligible for bowl play. Some of their games got canceled because their players were positive, some because the other team was. Granted they won the games they got to play and so had a winning conference record. But the conference was so desperate to get their big TV draw team/s into the bowls, that the small teams that met the requirements and played MORE games were effectively penalized for successfully keeping their students uninflected.
NCAA should stick to their guns on cancelations and quarantining. If a red state governor doesn’t mandate for state universities – their students have to test and quarantine – teams and players. If a state does mandate, they don’t have to worry about losing players or missing games.
If you want students, parents and fans to be outraged at vaccine hesitancy ruining their season, tell them that the NCAA is fixing the playoff so their cross state rival will get to go to a bowl and they won’t. They will demand the NCAA mandate vaccines in their own schools if they believe their opponents might not be able to field their best team. If he thought he could gain an advantage by having just one high profile player on the other team get benched for a big game or a series of games, Bill Belichik would do it in a heartbeat. That’s the strategic message about vaccinations you want to push out to college coaches and Presidents = and the professional teams where these kids hope to get drafted. Do you (or your agent) want to ensure your draft placement? Demand the NCAA make your fellow students AND daft teammates and coaches get vaccinated.
Matt McIrvin
…There do seem to be a lot of non-experts jumping to the alarming conclusion that some large fraction of vaccinated people must be asymptomatic spreaders of Delta, and this is what’s driving the new outbreaks.
And I’m not convinced that’s true. Some could be. But Delta also seems to be so much more transmissible that you could explain it just by Delta ripping through the residual fraction of unvaccinated in highly-vaccinated areas, since the R value got jacked up enough that the existing contacts between unvaxxed people are now enough to sustain an outbreak, when they were not before. Some mild or asymptomatic infection then spills over from that wave into the vaccinated.
Matt McIrvin
@Matt McIrvin: (I should add that Ely does estimate that about 83% of Israeli adults are fully vaccinated–Israel has a considerably younger population than the US, I guess, which is skewing my intuitions.)
LiminalOwl
@WereBear: My spouse(the Thin Black Duke) is perpetually amazed at this with respect to plus-szed women’s clothing. It was especially notable when a chain I liked was closed by the new owners; they sold both plus and regular clothing in good colors and styles at reasonable prices, and according to business news reports the new owners felt that the fat-women clientele had a negative impact on their brand.
And, on an entirely different note, I will be buying a Flopping Fish for my cats.
LiminalOwl
@YY_Sima Qian: Much sympathy. Is there something we can do to be of support?
Wag
@Matt McIrvin: NYT today says partially/fully vaccinated in Israel is 57/61. Interestingly, the graph shows that the vaccine rate has not increased significantly for the past month. Compare that to the US with at 56/44 but still rising. There is a good sized chunk of the population at risk in both the US and Israel, and I suspect that similarly, right wing religious communities are the major pool of susceptible people in both countries.
Soprano2
@Starfish: I think the most important factor among conservatives who won’t get vaxxed is their desire to prove “you aren’t the boss of me.” My co-worker who told me he’s protected because he’s had Covid complained bitterly about our boss mentioning getting vaxxed in every meeting. He said,”Why is everyone trying to force me to take it?” It’s really important to them to prove their autonomy by resisting vaccination. I don’t know how to overcome that. I’m not sure even a lot of deaths will do it.
That baseball coach is stupid. I hope most coaches aren’t like that.
I figure every story like the ones about Israel are going to make it sound like the vaccines don’t protect people, because most reporters either don’t understand what’s actually happening or are too lazy to explain it. I hate that it makes the vaccines sound ineffective to the uninformed.
Matt McIrvin
@Wag: Actually, now I think it’s mostly children. What I wasn’t figuring in was that Israel’s population pyramid is way, way younger than the US’s.
Robert Sneddon
Scotland — 2,639 new cases of COVID-19 reported, one new death (although Register Offices are generally closed at the weekends). Test positivity rate is 8.9%. Hospitalisations and ICU bed occupancy rates remain low given the numbers of new cases reported although they’re higher than they were a few weeks ago when the new case rate was a tenth of what it is today. It’s understood that 90%-plus of new cases are the Delta variant as it is more infectious and thus has an evolutionary advantage compared to previous variants.
There’s a rather morbid inference to be drawn if one studies the day-to-day ICU bed occupancy numbers – yesterday the number of ICU beds in use was 18, today it is 17. Overnight one death was reported, probably from a medical establishment since the Register Offices are generally closed at weekends. The odds therefore are that someone in an ICU bed died although this was not specifically stated anywhere.
There were about 30,000 vaccinations carried out yesterday in Scotland, about 60% of those first-dose. That brings the percentage of the adult population fully (2-dose) vaccinated up to 60%. Public Health Scotland is now opening up offers of vaccination to anyone over 18 years old. They can apply for an appointment online or by phone rather than waiting for the authorities to contact them. This should cover the cases where people have fallen down the cracks in the health records department (moved house, just arrived in Scotland recently, not registered with a General Practitioner etc.) There have been some walk-in clinics set up previously in surge areas such as Glasgow, it’s possible PHS will eventually deploy such clinics generally in Scotland to try and vaccinate anyone who has missed out under the previous appointment-based system.
Matt McIrvin
@Soprano2:
Explaining it runs into the “I was told there would be no math” barrier.
Suzanne
@different-church-lady:
And evil! Don’t forget evil!
Pediatric vaccines cannot come fast enough for me. We are currently vacationing in an AirBNB in Ocean City, MD, because we wanted something that didn’t require flying, bringing our kids into a hotel elevator, indoor dining, or really anything else near other people.
Matt McIrvin
It’s kind of surreal contrasting the gathering panic over Delta-related outbreaks in various countries (some of which have a lot of vaccination) with the situation here in New England, where all the numbers are still dropping and society is opening up to what feels more like normal–new daily cases in Massachusetts are in the double digits now, lower numbers than we’ve seen since the first scary days of spring 2020, and that’s with a more complete reopening than the one that seemed to put a floor on the drop in cases in summer 2020.
I assume we’ll get socked eventually. Not throwing away the masks. But I also don’t see much reason to go into self-imposed lockdown until there’s evidence it’s happening here. As a vaxxed person in what is now a low-incidence area, I feel more like enjoying the situation while it lasts.
Central Planning
@Starfish:
I have 5 kids. All of them got every childhood vaccine without any hesitation on our parts. We were never given an option for different brands of vaccines, much less given the efficacy of them (besides “You’ll need a booster when you’re older.”)
My point is that nobody knows the efficacy of childhood vaccines besides the fact that they work.
In other news, my dad and his wife aren’t going to get the vaccine. They spent their careers in healthcare (working in hospitals) so they feel safer not getting the vaccine. If they do, they will just OD on the pain meds they have saved up over the years from their surgeries.
I called them idiots.
Matt McIrvin
@Suzanne: I think pediatric vaccines will be a game-changer, as long as we can convince people to use them. I suspect undetected transmission through children (and teenagers) is a major driver now, though the science all seems contradictory and uncertain.
Matt McIrvin
@Central Planning: My mother-in-law is a retired nurse who, in years past, had expressed opinions about kids being “over-vaccinated”, so I was initially worried about her… but I shouldn’t have been. She was just itching to find some safe way to come out of retirement and help with the COVID crisis, and she ended up being a volunteer vaccinator–probably gave COVID shots to thousands of people in this city, including my spouse and me.
She also was a rare case of someone who “did her own research” not by listening to some yahoo on YouTube but by reading the peer-reviewed medical literature, and ended up being way ahead of the CDC on the safety of outdoor activities, etc.
I’m happy I have this kind of relatives.
YY_Sima Qian
@LiminalOwl: Thanks for the concern. I am a bit pissed, my colleague is very pissed, but we’ll get through it. It is what it is. I am already half way through my quarantine.
rikyrah
@YY_Sima Qian:
?????
Central Planning
@Matt McIrvin: You’re lucky. I wasn’t trying to suggest that all healthcare workers are that way. I think there are some other contributing factors…. They live in NC, spend a ton of time outdoors, and she watches Fox News, although never brings up that shit when we are around.
I’m sad and disappointed because we probably won’t see them in person again.
Starfish
@Central Planning: How old are your children though? Were they born before all the autism hysteria of the late 1990s or not?
We have year round whooping cough where I live because of anti-vaxxers. One of the local high schools had a whooping cough outbreaks a few years ago due to the combination of the anti-vaxxers and the people not taking the boosters.
Because I have to sit next to these stupid anti-vaxxers, I end up listening to the fanciest of anti-vaccine nonsense.
Also, one of my friends has a child who had a seizure as an infant due to the pertussis vaccine. She also had relatives who responded like this to that particular vaccine. Finding people willing to do vaccines that were not combined to avoid the one that was causing seizures was hard for that particular family, even though both the parents were medical professionals.
My mother is a pediatrician. I am very hardcore for childhood immunizations.
Sloane Ranger
Woke up this morning to find that my NHS Track and Trace app was blinking red at me. Yes, I have been in contact with someone who has tested positive and I must now quarantine until 6 July. I haven’t used the app to sign in anywhere since arriving home on Friday so I assume the contact happened when I was on holiday in Derbyshire. I have already ordered some rapid lateral flow tests so I could check myself after my holiday but now I’m going to have to get a PCR test. Oh well, I’m fully vaxxed so fingers crossed that I’ll be OK. Symptom -wise, I have a bit of a runny nose but I’ve had that for over a week now and put it down to allergies.
Anyway, here are Saturday’s figures from the UK. As Robert Sneddon says, weekend figures must be taken with a pinch of salt due to weekend office closures. Yesterday we had 18,270 reported new cases. This is an increase of 54.4% in the rolling 7-day average. New cases by nation,
England – 15,136 (up 1638)
Northern Ireland – 298 (up 69)
Scotland – 2836 (up 1089). See also Robert Sneddon’s post above.
Wales – Does not report on Saturday’s).
Deaths – There were 23 deaths within 28 days of a positive test yesterday. This is an increase of 60.8% in the rolling 7-day average. 20 deaths occurred in England and 3 in Scotland.
Testing – Not updated at weekends.
Hospitalisations – Not updated at weekends.
Vaccinations – As of 25 June, 44,078,244 people had received 1 shot of a vaccine and 32,244,223 had had both. In percentage terms this means that 83.7% of all people aged 18 plus have had 1 shot and 61.2% were fully vaccinated.
Suzanne
@Matt McIrvin:
Numbers are still dropping here in Allegheny County and Western PA, too….. we crossed into GREEN on CovidActNow. I bought concert tickets for November, and am thinking about a short Labor Day weekend trip. If Spawns the Younger and Youngest were vaccinated, I would feel better about the situation, but I’m also not going to live like I was living last year.
Matt McIrvin
@Suzanne: I’m trying not to believe too hard in the events we’ve bought tickets for in the fall. But we’re going to an outdoor concert TODAY, which should be fun.
Essex County, MA just went green on CovidActNow too. One thing I wonder about on that site is their county-by-county vaccination numbers–they get them from the CDC, and sometimes their numbers for full vs. partial vaccination are extrapolations based on partial data. But for Massachusetts, it seems like the CDC’s numbers for fraction vaccinated in each county aren’t consistent with the state’s numbers–for instance, they claim Berkshire County is only 50% vaccinated (1+ shot), and Massachusetts says it’s 67%. Don’t know what’s going on there.
dnfree
@YY_Sima Qian: thank you for sharing your personal experience with quarantine, as well as the statistics. Both are valuable.
A younger relative of mine (early 40s) was exposed by meeting with a co-worker at an infrequent office visit. He normally worked from home. The co-worker turned out to have Covid, and the office did not notify my relative. That’s how contact tracing “works” here. My relative had his first vaccine shot a few days later and THEN developed Covid. He was pretty sick. His wife had the J&J vaccine just before the pause in using it, and she did not get sick, fortunately.
Too much in this country (US) is voluntary, and reliable procedures are still not in place, more than a year in.
Matt McIrvin
@Matt McIrvin: …my best guess is that the CDC’s county data is aggregating them by where the shot was administered, not the patient’s resident address, and a lot of those people in the Berkshires went to another county to get their shot.
That would explain why the CDC numbers seem to have higher numbers for the urban Eastern Mass. counties and lower for rural Western Mass. It also would suggest that some of those rural counties elsewhere in the US with seemingly alarmingly low vaccination numbers are having them undercounted.
Jay
@Sloane Ranger:
keep calm and quarantine on,….
best wishes.
dnfree
@YY_Sima Qian: Wow. My previous comment was after reading your earlier comment. Now, having read your “maximum paranoia” comment, I see the opposite extreme from what we have in the US. Sorry to see the overreaction after it seemed China had a more realistic and science-based response.
Sloane Ranger
@Jay: Thanks. I’ve already ordered enough food to feed an army for home delivery. I just need to tell the delivery driver to dump it all in the front yard and retire to a safe distance until I’ve returned to the house.
I’ve also booked the PCR test for tomorrow. I have to walk to the test site, which seems to contradict the stay at home advice, but whatever! I’ll mask up as soon as I leave my house and use the back streets, which will be less busy.
YY_Sima Qian
As Robert Sneddon says, everything about the pandemic is statistical. However, MSM media has done an extremely poor job of covering the pandemic scientifically, and instead fall into their customary binary framing: a vaccine is effective or ineffective, a vaccinated person is at risk or not at risk, an NPI measure is effective or ineffective, a new variant is dangerous or not dangerous.
All COVID-19 control & prevention measures have been likened to layers of swiss cheese. Vaccines represent another layer of cheese w/ very few holes, the number of holes depending on the vaccine. With the Delta variant, I would recommend even the vaccinated people, even those vaccinated w/ the mRNA vaccines, to continue wear masks in indoor & crowded environments, especially if the prevalents in your local area is high & vaccination rate relatively low, especially when around unvaccinated people. A feature of the Delta variant is the higher viral loading of the infected cases, making the infected persons more infectious, and leading to worse outcomes more quickly. The mRNA vaccines are still clearly the most effective vaccine against the Delta variant, in every respect, but that effectiveness is also likely reduced against the Delta variant, in every respect. The reduction in effectiveness is also likely greater for the non-mRNA vaccines (AZ/Oxford, Sputnik V, J&J/Janssen, Sinovac, SinoPharm, CanSino, etc.). If you are partially vaccinated, I would keep the same precautions as unvaccinated.
I would definitely keep an out on both the overall incidence rate & prevalence of the Delta variant in your local area, keeping in mind that the Delta variant prevalence data may be a trailing indicator few days out of date (takes time for a person to be infected, develop symptoms, test positive, viral sample sequenced, data compiled), & that the prevalence of the Delta variant is doubling every 2 weeks in the US.
If COVID-19 prevalence is extremely low, or eliminated, in your local area, then precautions are unnecessary regardless of your vaccination status.
Central Planning
@Starfish: My oldest was born in 1997. Not once did we ever think about not getting our kids vaxed. All of them got the HPV vaccine as soon as they were able.
My wife ended up in the hospital with meningitis from the same bacteria kids get the HIB vaccine for. We never got that vaccine as kids because it only became available in the mid-80s. We too are hardcore for vaccines.
YY_Sima Qian
@Starfish: I had taken a 3 day business trip to Shenzhen, where a small cluster of Delta variant cases was reported on the day I left. There are only 6 positives in Shenzhen and neighboring Dongguan, including the index case who worked at the international airport at Shenzhen, infected by imported cases from South Africa. I stayed at a hotel in the same district as the airport, though ~ 20 kms away, never coming anywhere close to any positive cases, F1 or F2 close contacts, or area designated as Medium Risk. However, that travel history was enough for Wuhan authorities to send me into centralized quarantine, to be followed by 14 days of home quarantine.
It never made any sense to me, given the few cases at Shenzhen, & that the vast majority of residents in Shenzhen do not have restrictions on movement (at least within the city). However, local authorities in China are likely paranoid about clusters of Delta variant cases emerging in their jurisdiction right before the centennial of the founding of the CCP. A cluster would trigger significant NPI measures, & will put a damper on the celebrations.
lowtechcyclist
@Matt McIrvin:
Same here. But that’s not the big deal about Novavax. It’s about vaccinating the world.
That’s where Novavax has two huge advantages over the mRNA vaccines. First, being from an older technology, way more places are capable of making it, so production can be ramped up a lot faster.
And second, storing it requires only ordinary household-level refrigeration, which makes the logistical problems of distribution one hell of a lot easier.
I’d like to see the U.S. pay for enough Novavax doses to vaccinate the world. WHO says it would cost about $50 billion. We as a nation can easily afford to do something like this. We spent trillions on Iraq to its detriment; it would be a blessing to see us make a large-scale difference in the world in a positive way for once.
Matt McIrvin
@lowtechcyclist: A vaccine that is easier to handle AND more effective than the mRNA vaccines is a great thing to have, certainly.
J R in WV
I’ve been to the county health dept for vaccination boosters (like tetanus/whooping cough, etc…), newly released vaccines, vaccine for newer more dangerous flu strains, etc.
I still need to get Shingles vaccinated, and I would like to get Pfizer mRNA shots, even though I’m fully vaccinated with the Moderna vaccine. Any little bit that might help.
I remember when the first two polio vaccines were being administered to everyone, Salk injections at first, Sabin drops on sugar cubes later on. Whole family lined up for both sets of vaccinations. I’m old enough to have a scar from my Smallpox vaccination. I have no idea how many vaccinations I had in boot camp, dozens at least.
I was chatting with a friend at a shop I visit often, he was wearing two masks, a surgical disposable under a reusable cloth mask which held the surgical mask closer to his face, since he has a beard. He was pissed at the vast majority of shoppers not masked up, and pointed out bitterly that WV has a very low vaccination rate, which means that the vast majority of unmasked people were lying about their vaccination rates.
Which means that once the Delta and Delta+ strains become common in WV all those people will be available to catch and spread that strain, and far more likely to need ICU treatment and a vent.
So we’re still wearing masks, and not planning to eat out again for a V long time. Carry out picked up while masked up. Grrr. People who don’t even understand averages and means trying to dissect CDC recommendations.
Matt
Today from the “fucked around, found out” files:
https://twitter.com/ashtonpittman/status/1408915466760900613
Starfish
@Matt: That is exactly what I was talking about in comment 14.
Joey Maloney
@Matt McIrvin: This is a link to the Israeli government’s COVID dashboard stats. In Hebrew, but if you load the page in Chrome it will translate to your language of choice. Total number fully vaccinated is currently 5.2 million out of total pop of around 9 million. Every demographic band over 30 is at least 80% vaccinated; but Israel is a young country like the middle east generally; one quarter of the population is under 18.
Maddeningly, this page does not allow you to derive the raw numbers of each age segment so you can’t tell if the infection rates by age are higher or lower in proportion. Also maddeningly, the age divisions used in other places don’t line up with those on this page, so it’s only possible to to make estimates.
Bottom line is there is as yet no uptick in serious cases or deaths, but it’s too soon for that. Check back in a week or 10 days to see the effect of the new outbreak.
dc
@YY_Sima Qian: I don’t understand why you can’t have natural light though the windows. It would be so easy to have that. And not having it is bad for your health, mental and physical.
YY_Sima Qian
@dc: No idea. If they are afraid that we would try to break the windows and make an escape, they can put a cage outside of the window that would still allow sunlight in. This is certainly very unusual for quarantine hotels in China.
Ruckus
@Cermet:
.
Does it really fix it?
Or just remove some of the more adventurous practitioners?