Polling. Money. Polling and money.
— Mig Greengard (@chessninja) July 20, 2021
It's amazing how much everyone gets in line once the bat signal goes out. https://t.co/e4MAiCL5Wz
— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) July 20, 2021
The US administered 507,000 vaccine shots yesterday, bringing the total to 338 million, or 101.9 doses per 100 people. The 7-day moving average has essentially leveled off at around 521,000 shots per day. pic.twitter.com/QuecrLIt6D
— Patrick Chovanec (@prchovanec) July 20, 2021
Covid deaths in the U.S. thankfully remain far below previous peaks, although given that it's roughly another 9/11 every two weeks, far above levels we used to think tolerable.
— Justin Wolfers (@JustinWolfers) July 21, 2021
#DeltaVariant makes up ~83% of US coronavirus cases, a “dramatic increase” from early July, when it crossed the 50% mark to become dominant nationally, according to the CDC. In some regions, the percentage is higher—particularly where vaccination is low https://t.co/u5yhbZT6uv
— delthia ricks ? (@DelthiaRicks) July 21, 2021
The US had +32,687 new confirmed cases of COVID-19 yesterday, bringing the total to over 35.0 million. The 7-day moving average rose to 36,155 new cases per day, its highest level since May 13. pic.twitter.com/JqrH1PS3NM
— Patrick Chovanec (@prchovanec) July 20, 2021
The COVID-19 pandemic is being blamed for life expectancy in the U.S. falling by a year and a half in 2020 — the largest one-year decline since World War II. The decrease for both Black Americans and Hispanic Americans was even worse: three years. https://t.co/a72wRoYu5N
— The Associated Press (@AP) July 21, 2021
“We’re drowning in this stuff." With demand for #Covid19 vaccine falling, states are sitting on unused supply approaching expiration dates. Many have pleaded with the federal government to donate the vaccine to other countries, @OliviaGoldhill reports. https://t.co/4eBTbjREf8
— Helen Branswell (@HelenBranswell) July 20, 2021
======
India's 3,998 new COVID-19 deaths are its highest in a month https://t.co/2QBxPTBgzV pic.twitter.com/zkdTPHvNhK
— Reuters (@Reuters) July 21, 2021
ICMR sero survey says two-thirds of Indians exposed to Covid https://t.co/7H88Bdb3ok
— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) July 21, 2021
The most comprehensive research yet estimates India’s excess deaths during the coronavirus pandemic were a staggering 10 times the official COVID-19 toll. A report estimates excess deaths to be 3 million to 4.7 million between January 2020 and this June. https://t.co/KYCOgpFgiU
— The Associated Press (@AP) July 20, 2021
Close analysis of the #COVID19 crisis in #India shows official government death statistics are likely understating the true toll by one and a half million lives.https://t.co/xKiBULQs1s
— Laurie Garrett (@Laurie_Garrett) July 20, 2021
South Korea reports record daily infections as Delta variant drives surge https://t.co/pF6gi1nf3p pic.twitter.com/WZJFthWbqG
— Reuters (@Reuters) July 21, 2021
Nike halts footwear production due to Covid outbreak https://t.co/VR2DAZEnQg
— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) July 20, 2021
… Dr Perry said that Nike’s manufacturing map means it could potentially move production the other countries, depending how agile its supply chain relationships are.
“Costs might increase in the short term if it needs to move production into more expensive areas, but it’s more important to service demand than risking a stock-out situation,” Dr Perry added.
Dr Steve New, professor of operations management at the University of Oxford’s Saïd Business School, told the BBC that previously, because Vietnam has been effective at containing Covid, it has been able to respond rapidly with short local shutdowns. But he said that as the situation worsens, “it will be much harder to pursue this approach without much more significant disruption to the supply chain.”
Vietnam has vaccinated around 4% of its 100 million population. Its capital Hanoi has stopped all non-essential services due to new clusters of Covid infections and on Sunday urged its citizens to stay at home.
The government added factory workers to its vaccine priority list after the rise in cases in late April forced manufacturing areas in the north of the country to close.
Vietnam produces first batch of Russian COVID-19 vaccine https://t.co/GD8NYmgf6R pic.twitter.com/nxRVZerusD
— Reuters (@Reuters) July 21, 2021
Australia's two largest states, NSW and Victoria, reported sharp increases in new COVID-19 cases, a blow to hopes that lockdown restrictions would be lifted with more than half the country's population under stay-at-home orders https://t.co/o744eDsDD7 by @renjujose and @byronkaye pic.twitter.com/ZWzJE7iSvw
— Reuters (@Reuters) July 21, 2021
Push to get wary Russians vaccinated leaves some COVID clinics short https://t.co/EE2hKmx4y0 pic.twitter.com/dsWrkXBMA9
— Reuters (@Reuters) July 21, 2021
Remember when Russia lied about its Covid numbers in Spring 2020 and kept Russians off flight bans? When excess deaths later showed cases were over FOUR TIMES official numbers? It’s still happening. There’s no transparency or accountability.
— Mig Greengard (@chessninja) July 19, 2021
Anecdata warning, but I know more people in Russia with Covid now or in past few months than I’ve known in Brooklyn since the start. And most of the people I know in Russia are relatively privileged, educated, etc (if also true in Brooklyn). But few are vaccinated.
— Mig Greengard (@chessninja) July 20, 2021
Covid cases continue to rise sharply in UK as Delta sweeps through, but hospitalizations and deaths continue to be decoupled from the rising spread when viewed relative to similar points in other waves of infection — reflecting protection of most vulnerable through vaccination. pic.twitter.com/HInqn8c2KI
— Scott Gottlieb, MD (@ScottGottliebMD) July 20, 2021
Covid: France rolls out health pass as cases soar https://t.co/HP9PmZkPYT
— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) July 21, 2021
The Senegalese equivalent of Thanksgiving…
Senegal's COVID-19 surge forces difficult Eid al-Adha decisions https://t.co/6NUJSRv0HS
— Reuters Africa (@ReutersAfrica) July 20, 2021
The Mexican villages refusing to vaccinate against Covid https://t.co/vFU2g74WPS
— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) July 21, 2021
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"In the beginning of the pandemic, each infected person infected 2.5 – 3 other people. The alpha variant increased that to 5. With #DeltaVariant, each infected person infects 8-9 unvaccinated people. You can see potential for exponential growth." – @CarlosdelRio7
— COVID19 (@V2019N) July 19, 2021
Should we be concerned about SARSCoV2's Lambda variant? The WHO recently classified lambda as a VOI—variant of interest—because, like many evolving variants, it's linked to greater transmissibilty. It's spreading rapidly in S. America https://t.co/zaIMwJt0YJ
— delthia ricks ? (@DelthiaRicks) July 20, 2021
New research article in BMJ Global Health @GlobalHealthBMJ looks at the association of #lockdowns and health and whether they cause more harm than good. The findings? Lockdowns do not cause health harms/excess deaths compared to #COVID19https://t.co/tUKzEATl6f pic.twitter.com/mHMDSPmuNg
— Medical Research Library of Brooklyn (@DMCLibraryBKLYN) July 20, 2021
Public health measures meant to slow the spread of COVID-19 essentially defeated influenza. https://t.co/2YocR7jkac
— Scientific American (@sciam) July 20, 2021
New study calculates global waste from N95 mask usage & suggests ways to reduce it. The pandemic generates ~7200 tons of medical waste daily, much of that disposable masks. Decontaminating N95's so they can be worn more than once drops costs & waste by 75% https://t.co/DkOPuW5YsC
— delthia ricks ? (@DelthiaRicks) July 20, 2021
======
This is a pretty high-profile example of a vaccine-hesitant person becoming convinced they should take the plunge over Delta variant news, which suggests there may be others thinking the same way https://t.co/eRGH7Ku4ng
— Benjy Sarlin (@BenjySarlin) July 20, 2021
Looks like Carlson got the "ix-nay on the anti-vaxxer-ay" memo but he's bristling at it. https://t.co/xQNTcJ83az
— Jeet Heer (@HeerJeet) July 21, 2021
Was hearing lots of reports that Fox was changing its line on vaccination.
So I figured I would take a look. pic.twitter.com/R2E1M3Wdta
— James Fallows (@JamesFallows) July 21, 2021
lowtechcyclist
It boggles my mind that the states can’t just put their soon-to-expire vax doses on a refrigerated truck to Mexico. I think that’s worth a call to my Congresscritters today.
Oh, and Stat News is freakin’ indispensable. Stopped there long enough to throw a few bucks at them.
Matt McIrvin
Yes, though at this point, that’s mostly because the first wave was wildly undercounted. Look at the deaths in the Northeast alone and it’s clear that case rates were underreported by a factor of at least several.
The winter 2020-21 wave is what it looks like when there’s an actual mass testing regime in place in some states.
HeartlandLiberal
Monday, sitting on deck with morning cigar, reading Twitter, I read reports of stock market crashing. By the end of the day, the GQP had clearly issued new talking points, because even talking heads on Faux Noise Nutwork were being heard changing their tune, and encouraging vaccination. Yesterday even Fucker Carlson was bending his head to his masters, claiming he never said vax doesn’t work (he did), but “they” were lying about how much protection it gave, yada yada yada.
Cause and effect.
Quod erat demonstrandum.
Cermet
@Matt McIrvin: I’ve seen no evidence that the case count was ‘wildly undercounted’ here in the US nor North East; also, Delta is significantly more contagious then any previous variant but thanks to incredible improvements in treatments and the fact that so many are vaccinated deaths are going to be small compared to case counts now.
ItinerantPedant
Get back to me when Fox has been beating the vaccine drum for a solid week.
What’s gonna happen is they’ll start losing one tenth of one percent of market share to OANN and Newsmax, and they’ll turn Bowtie Jenny McCarthy loose again.
YY_Sima Qian
On 7/20 China reported 6 new domestic confirmed & 1 new domestic asymptomatic cases.
Yunnan Province reported 2 new domestic confirmed (both mild, a Chinese & a Burmese nationals, both at Longchuan County, Dehong Prefecture). There currently are 82 domestic confirmed & 2 domestic asymptomatic cases. 1 community at Ruili remains at High Risk. 1 village at Ruili & 1 village at Longchuan County remain Medium Risk.
Nanjing in Jiangsu Province has reported a cluster of cases at the international airport there overnight, at least 17 ground staff & custodians have tested positive, 9 of whom were found via weekly screening of workers at the airport. All such staff should have been vaccinated, already. 1 domestic asymptomatic case was reported in yesterday’s data dump, the rest should be included in tomorrow’s. The airport has been shut down, > 10K employees at the airport were held there overnight for testing, which was completed by 3 AM on 7/21. 2 communities & 2 villages in Jiangning District, where the airport is located, have been elevated to Medium Risk. I will be following the development there closely, as my extended family on my mother’s side are all in Nanjing.
Qingyuan in Guangdong Province did not reporting new domestic positive cases. There is 1 domestic asymptomatic case there.
Imported Cases
On 7/20, China reported 20 new imported confirmed cases, 22 imported asymptomatic cases, 1 imported suspect case:
Overall in China, 28 confirmed cases recovered, 17 asymptomatic cases were released from isolation & 1 was reclassified as confirmed case, and 398 individuals were released from quarantine. Currently, there are 602 active confirmed cases in the country (519 imported), 15 in serious condition (12 imported), 453 asymptomatic cases (445 imported), 0 suspect cases. 8,116 traced contacts are currently under centralized quarantine.
As of 7/20, 1,478.484M vaccine doses have been injected in Mainland China, an increase of 11.168M doses in the past 24 hrs.
On 7/21, Hong Kong reported 5 new positive cases, all imported.
Robert Sneddon
@lowtechcyclist:
It’s not that simple — the vaccines are essential but what’s also needed is the storage, transportation, distribution and deployment infrastructure in place to get the vaccine doses into people’s arms.
The US is the world expert in logistics (something a lot of Americans take for granted), other countries like Mexico not so much. Saying that there are places in the world which are a lot worse than Mexico and those countries will require Operation Overlord levels of intervention to actually get vaccination programs up and running, not just airlifted supplies of vaccine and good wishes.
Barbara
@Robert Sneddon: Amazingly, this fact consistently fails to be mentioned. I hope we can become instrumental in helping others to address logistical gaps.
Ruckus
@ItinerantPedant:
I don’t think they will. The world knows that they took the vaccine and it didn’t kill them. The world knows that faux news personal have to have a vaccine to work. Once that came out they lost their soapbox and they are going to lose a lot of followers and red state voters if they don’t get them vaccinated. And that will end their grift. The rubes may not be all that smart, but the upper end of the red death are not all that stupid. Evil to the tenth degree yes, but not as stupid as they sound.
Geminid
The stock market drop probably did precipitate this recent turnaround by conservative media. Ironically, last year trump downplayed the virus until the market crashed in March. Up until then, trump tried to run a bluff. But people on Wall Street and elsewhere realized that the virus held the high cards.
Van Buren
I have seen vaccination data broken down by race, age, gender, and political affiliation. What I cannot find is data on vaccination rates by education level. Has anyone else seen any?
debbie
@Cermet:
A woman I worked with died died suddenly back in April 2020 from a blood clot in her lung. She went to her doctor because she felt flu-ishness which would not go away. She died even as they were scheduling an MRI. I guarantee you she was not counted as a COVID death.
NotMax
FYI.
dmsilev
@Cermet: Last spring, we were definitely undercounting cases. Remember how limited test-kit availability was? Testing was basically limited to people showing severe symptoms, and anyone with a milder case that didn’t need urgent medical care was left to figure things out for themselves. Lots of mild and asymptomatic cases were never tested or diagnosed,
Now, we have the capability to test anyone who thinks they need it, mass surveillance testing, etc. Very different baseline.
Matt McIrvin
@Cermet: In Massachusetts, the case fatality rate in the spring of 2020 got up to 16%. I know of no expert on the subject who believes COVID-19 infection was ever 16% fatal. That’s because the vast majority of the infections weren’t being detected or reported, but more of the deaths were (a lot of them were probably being missed too, but less in Massachusetts than elsewhere, going by Kieran Healy’s work)
In March and April 2020, if you called up a doctor and said you thought you had COVID, they told you to just ride it out at home unless it got so bad you needed to go to the emergency room. They couldn’t even test most people.
dmsilev
@Van Buren:
Try this: https://www.kff.org/coronavirus-covid-19/poll-finding/kff-covid-19-vaccine-monitor-june-2021/
Scroll to Figure 2, which among other categories shows the breakdown for with/without college degree. Going down a bit further, there’s this interesting bit:
(emphasis added). This is a poll from mid to late June, so one wonders whether that chunk of the population is reassessing things right about now.
Amir Khalid
Malaysia’s Director-General of Health Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah reports 11,985 new Covid-19 cases today in his media statement, for a cumulative reported total of 951,884 cases. He also reports a record 199 new deaths today, for a cumulative total of 7,440 deaths — 0.78% of the cumulative reported total, 0.91% of resolved cases.
There are currently 137,587 active and contagious cases; 927 are in ICU, 459 of them on ventilators. Meanwhile, 7,902 more patients have recovered, for a cumulative total of 806,857 patients recovered – 84.77% of the cumulative reported total.
30 new clusters were reported today, for a cumulative total of 3,329 clusters. 931 clusters are currently active; 2,398 clusters are now inactive.
11,978 new cases today are local infections. Selangor reports 5,547 local cases:174 in clusters, 3,679 close-contact screenings, and 1,694 other screenings. Kuala Lumpur reports 1,172 local cases: 202 in clusters, 529 close-contact screenings, and 441 other screenings.
Kedah reports 800 cases: 92 in clusters, 480 close-contact screenings, and 228 other screenings.
Negeri Sembilan reports 745 cases: 110 in clusters, 450 close-contact screenings, and 185 other screenings.
Johor reports 642 local cases: 245 in clusters, 278 close-contact screenings, and 119 other screenings. Pahang reports 603 cases: 154 in clusters, 375 close-contact screenings, and 74 other screenings.
Sabah reports 474 cases: 82 in clusters, 227 close-contact screenings, and 165 other screenings. Melaka reports 453 cases: 203 in clusters, 190 close-contact screenings, and 60 other screenings.
Kelantan reports 386 cases: 168 in clusters, 146 close-contact screenings, and 72 other screenings. Penang reports 362 cases: 108 in clusters, 128 close-contact screenings, and 126 other screenings.
Perak reports 274 cases: 53 in clusters, 98 close-contact screenings, and 123 other screenings. Sarawak reports 261 cases: 71 in clusters, 115 close-contact screenings, and 75 other screenings.
Terengganu reports 171 cases: 32 in clusters,123 close-contact screenings, and 16 other screenings.
Putrajaya reports 51 cases: six in clusters, 25 close-contact screenings, and 20 other screenings. Labuan reports 35 cases: seven in clusters, 22 close-contact screenings, and six other screenings. Perlis reports two cases: one close-contact screening and one other screening.
Seven new cases today are imported: three in Selangor, two in Johor, and two in Kuala Lumpur.
The National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme (PICK) administered 299,593 doses of vaccine on 20th July: 204,064 first doses and 95,529 second doses. A lot fewer than on Monday; but not bad, considering that Tuesday was a public holiday (Eid al-Adha) and some vaccination centres were closed. As of yesterday, the cumulative total is 15,071,814 doses administered: 10,301,905 first doses and 4,769,909 second doses. 14.6% of the population have received their second dose.
Matt McIrvin
The other way you can tell there was (and is, in some places) massive undercounting is by positivity rates. If the tests are coming back 20, 30, 40 percent positive, you’re definitely missing most of the cases–it’s not plausible that most of the people who are infected are getting tested. There are high positivity rates in the places that are having big outbreaks right now. But in spring 2020 it was like that basically everywhere.
NotMax
@dmsilev
The end? To be brutally blunt, wishful thinking. A castle built on quicksand.
OzarkHillbilly
@NotMax: Hope springs eternal.
The Thin Black Duke
I expect to be wearing a mask until it’s “safe”, whenever that is. It won’t be soon.
Cermet
@debbie: Antidotal information is only used by people that have no facts; as for you knowing what she died of – well please, you have zero proof. Big claims require big proof.
debbie
@Cermet:
Really? So people knew the facts from Day 1? Talk about big claims!
Kay
Masks and vaccinations are now completely rolled into the CRT panic:
Van Buren
@dmsilev: TY, that is a great source of info.
Cermet
@dmsilev: Lack of knowledge does not prove we were … and note what they said … WILDLY under counting. That is B.S. Did they under count? I’d guess they did but have no proof but that isn’t what this thread is about. Is the count far off? No. Is is extremely accurate? Again, no. Could it be an undercount? Possibly but not likely. Please, stop this nonsense argument trying to support a statement that is unsupported by any data.
Cermet
@Matt McIrvin: You are posting a very small slice of data; absolutely no one average out Covid death rate on average was that high. Very early in the infection I saw 1.6% as worse case. Selecting a small sample size for a region and time period does not prove much except an under count is certainly reasonable but wildly? Utter B.S. You people are a being ridiculous – what is the point. Show me proof that the count is wildly off or stop this nonsense argument.
NotMax
@OzarkHillbilly
And sorrow floats.
(h/t John Irving)
rikyrah
@Robert Sneddon:
Don’t you think that they should be setting up the routes. So that they can get vaccines to countries in this hemisphere?
rikyrah
I don’t understand why Australia isn’t fully vaccinated.
Same with New Zealand.
rikyrah
@Kay:
That’s phucking crazy ?
The Thin Black Duke
@Kay: Seeing how quickly the right-wing talking heads fell into line when the stock market burped, the bullshit about vaccinations is going to go away eventually. Never mind about the lives lost, we’re losing money! And six months from now, the GOP will blame the Democrats for the country’s “vaccine hesitancy”.
Cermet
@debbie: WTF? You are trying to say that I said they knew the death rate that early? You either can’t read or are a troll. Again, the claim was now, not the first day or what ever you believe, now the death rates and/or cases for covid were wildly under counted last major wave. I called B.S. on that and asked for proof. And still, there is zero.
NotMax
@Kay
Pin-headed sacks of concentrated ignorance.
How’s that for a “euphemism?”
//
Kay
@The Thin Black Duke:
“Equity” is now off limits. As a concept. The list gets longer and longer. I was glad to see the school system pushing back though- in that article they don’t just meekly back down- they argue with them and defend the school.
Soprano2
This is from a friend who unfortunately had to go to the ER for something not Covid related. This is what it’s like here right now. Later on she commented that a woman they had seen earlier in the ER who was in a wheelchair was still there! Don’t be like here.
WereBear
Always follow the money with these assholes. Always. I agree that the stock market tank is behind this reversal.
As soon as it goes up, they will pivot, because they rig to game to always make money, no?
Robert Sneddon
@rikyrah: The “routes” are airfreight since most vaccines require cold-chain handling and it’s easier to ship that sort of time-critical item by air, a few hours flying time from one freezer room to (hopefully) another freezer room. The logistical problems are at the far end of the pipeline and not under the control of the richer countries shipping “surplus” vaccine to the end users abroad. If there isn’t enough operational freezer-storage at the destination then there’s no point loading vaccines on an aircraft to start with.
Even if that part succeeds it’s still a long way to needles in arms. Does the receiving nation have enough needles and syringes? Do they have trained vaccinators, how do they inform the local population about vaccination clinics locations (not everyone in the world has internet), record-keeping for people who are receiving two-dose vaccine formulations etc. etc.
In first-world countries like the US this all happens invisibly to the general public, like magic. In other countries it’s more chaotic and unless there’s a good chance of vaccine doses getting into people’s arms there’s no point in shipping those vaccines when there are other places that are hopefully better prepared to make use of them. Photo-op airport deliveries of pallets of shrink-wrapped vaccine are great but they’re only a small part of the total vaccination operation.
Matt McIrvin
@Cermet: We can repeat the exercise elsewhere.
Take New York. By May 1, 2020, there were 24,039 deaths from COVID in the state. If the fatality rate is 1.6% (as people estimated even at the time), that implies about 1.5 million infections. Total confirmed cases were 308,314. So that’s about a factor of 5 undercount.
This is how it was in the urban Northeast. But that’s where most COVID in the US was at the time.
I think experts knew even at the time that they weren’t getting most of the cases. But those graphs are of the confirmed numbers.
David Fud
Anne Laurie, could you consider a content request? I have 3 elementary aged children who are not able to get vaccinated yet. Their public school district is mask-optional. Could you please gather a set of expertise, tweeted or otherwise, that would help me deal with this issue? I doubt the Board of Ed will change their requirements, so I am looking more for hospitalization rates and other children-centric information about Delta COVID. My children will wear masks, and I would like to understand the efficacy of unvaccinated mask-wearing within a group of children, not all of whom will wear masks in a closed space. Thank you for considering this request ahead of time.
Soprano2
If they live here in SWMO or NWAR they most likely are reassessing in light of the Delta variant. I noticed on our local dashboard that the percentage of people with one shot is increasing at a faster rate now. I think in about 90 days there will be another bump as a lot of the people who are sick with Covid now decide to get vaccinated.
Soprano2
It’s bizarre, they are convinced that liberals want to use Covid to control them forever by making them wear face masks forever and forcing them to get vaccinated! These people, who want to tell everyone else how to run their lives and control what they do , see and say through legislation that bans the things they don’t like, are upset because they think others are doing that to them (when they aren’t).
Soprano2
Maybe we should be shipping them to places like Australia and New Zealand. Australia especially put too much stock in their ability to isolate themselves from the rest of the world.
Matt McIrvin
…in the whole US, known COVID deaths on May 1, 2020 were 68,206. At a fatality rate of 1.6% that’s about 4.3 million infections. The actual number of known cases was 1,116,012. So, about a factor of 4 undercount.
I suspect it was actually more than that, for a couple of reasons. But these are conservative assumptions.
Now, at the time, there were claims going around that the undercounting of cases was so extreme that it was hiding that COVID really had a seasonal-flu-like IFR. But those claims were themselves innumerate and stupid–just the deaths in New York City couldn’t be explained that way, because there weren’t enough people in NYC.
Matt McIrvin
…Finally, here’s Kieran Healy’s work on excess deaths:
https://kieranhealy.org/blog/archives/2021/02/24/excess-deaths-february-update/
This suggests that even COVID *deaths* were being badly undercounted through 2020. But in that case, the undercount extends all the way through the year rather than being worse early on.
Robert Sneddon
@Matt McIrvin: The base number to indicate how bad COVID-19 was at any given time in any given area or nation is excess mortality — how many more people died compared to, say, the average death rate over the past five non-COVID-19 years.
The excess mortality figure is distorted in both directions by the secondary effects of this disease, the hospitals that couldn’t carry out live-saving or life-extending treatments like cancer chemotherapy because of the COVID-19 case overload versus the drastic drop in deaths from diseases like influenza due to COVID-19 precautions like lockdowns, isolation, masking and hygiene. Excess mortality is still the only hard number we have since dead is dead and deaths are notified and recorded quite precisely, at least in first world countries.
Matt McIrvin
@dmsilev: Late June was the absolute low point of COVID infection in the US. It really felt like the vaccination campaign had fixed it, at least for the summer.
Bruce K in ATH-GR
@Matt McIrvin: Similar situation in Greece. Mid-to-late June, new daily cases were in the low-to-mid three figures, down to the numbers we saw back in January when the lockdowns were in place, but then the Delta spike hit and we’re back to the numbers we saw in the third wave in March and April. 3565 cases reported Tuesday, and wastewater analysis in Athens and Thessaloniki shows a jump in viral load from last week exceeding 200%, which is setting the stage for some really scary things.
Robert Sneddon
Scotland — 1,686 new cases of COVID-19 reported, seven deaths. Test positivity rate is 6.0%. The number of ICU beds is up to 51.
There were 18,000 vaccinations carried out yesterday, mostly second-dose. 67.7% of the adult population is now full-vaccinated with 89.3% having received at least their first dose (all vaccines in use in the UK are two-dose formulations). This continues the trend of lower numbers of vaccinations compared to the surge operation in May which was delivering 45,000 doses a day.
Some of this reduced vaccination may be supply chain limitations — according to published information, Public Health Scotland (PHS) has had about 7.01 million vaccine doses delivered and they’ve administered 6.98 million doses in total so there isn’t a lot in buffer stores, maybe 30,000 or so doses. They have another 900,000 doses ‘allocated’ from the UK central supply but I don’t know if that’s actually available in place or just what’s expected to arrive from the manufacturers sometime in the near future.
Sloane Ranger
Tuesday in the UK we had 46,558 new cases. This is an increase of 40.7% in the rolling 7-day average and we are close to reaching the high numbers we last saw in early January. New cases by nation,
England – 43,261 (up 9104)
Northern Ireland – 1138 (down 638)
Scotland – 1604 (up 140)
Wales – 555 (down 1498).
Deaths – There were 96 deaths within 28 days of a positive test yesterday. This is an increase of 60.6% in the rolling 7-day average. New deaths by nation, 82 in England, 1 in Northern Ireland and 13 in Scotland.
Testing – 1,074,493 tests were conducted on Monday 19 July. This is an increase of 0.4% in the rolling 7-day average. The PCR testing capacity reported by labs on that date was 629,403.
Hospitalisations -There were 4567 people in hospital and 611 people on ventilators on Monday, 19th. The rolling 7-day average for hospital admissions as of 14 July was up 38.4%.
Vaccinations – As of 19 July, 46,349,709 people had received 1 shot of a vaccine and 36,243,287 had had both. This means that 88% of all adults in the UK had had 1 shot by that date and 68.8% were fully vaccinated.
General – Further to Dr Gottlieb’s observations in Annie’s post, just to illustrate the point he is making,
20 July 2021
New Cases – 46,558
Deaths – 96
People in hospital – 4567
People on ventilators – 611
11 January 2021
New Cases – 46,169
Deaths – 529
People in hospital – 36,751
People on ventilators – 3363.
High levels of vaccination has an effect folks!
Anonymous At Work
@Robert Sneddon: Both Australia and New Zealand could lockdown hard against foreign visitors and returning expats, which they did, because they are islands and Australia already watches the straits separating them from Indonesia et alia (separate issue). And they set up top-tier contact tracing programs ASAP. And their populations largely accepted local lockdowns and an end to vacations for the duration.
If you live on an island of any size, you get used to the idea of self-sufficiency, even if it is a myth.
All that rolled into a less-frantic need to procure vaccines immediately, no matter the cost. Frontline workers got JJ vax over a year ago but general population is slowly getting vaccines based on a lower sense of urgency. Delta is now a big threat down there since their vulnerable, such as elderly or with heart/lung complications, have been sheltered rather than winnowed.
That said, they are in a new 2 week lockdown based on contact tracing and the need to snuff Delta hard.
Anonymous At Work
The turnaround on some at FOX News wasn’t based on stock market. Even the worst day-trader-fluffers there know that the market is going to fluctuate hard due to uncertain times, inflation concerns (and “concerns”), supply chain issues and shortages, etc.
It’s all about polling. Delta is hitting the reddest of areas hard and is concentrated among younger people than earlier waves, aka the few replacement voters as elderly GOP voters die off. Pretty sure a few pollsters have models showing what election maps look like if a net .5% Republican loss looks like.
Georgia’s elections were decided by less. Florida is trending red but the GOP will not win the White House for the next 20 years if Florida is safely blue. North Carolina, same. The GOP doesn’t want to play defense in Bama, Mississippi, Arkansas, or Louisiana. Until 2002 and 2010, there were still Democrats in statewide offices throughout the South and that’s a legitimate fear for the GOP.
Robert Sneddon
@Anonymous At Work:
I’m not sure the Delta variant is ‘snuffable’ with lockdowns and border controls since it’s demonstrably a lot more contagious than previous variants. The only band-aid fix is vaccination, not only to protect those vaccinated but to reduce the amount of virus circulating and infecting others. It’s a statistics thing.
This video published by MedCram is a good analysis (i.e. it meshes well with my assumptions and prejudices) of the Delta variant and how easily it spreads. The vaccination effectiveness data is the important part though, simplified down but making clear that vaccination is the only way out for everyone no matter how tightly they can close their borders.
mrmoshpotato
Fixed.
YY_Sima Qian
@Robert Sneddon: I think Guangdong Province in China is the only successful example to date of eliminating a Delta Variant outbreak, from 2 separate introductions, no less. However, to do so authorities need to immediately implement the strictest countermeasures possible, no efforts spared, & cannot afford to hesitate and “see if the situation will stabilize on its own”. The R0 of the Delta Variant is far too high to rely upon luck. My colleagues in Shenzhen had been swabbed anywhere between 5 to 7 times over the span of 2 weeks, & they were not identified as individuals at risk of exposure.
The outbreak at Ruili & Longchuan County in Yunnan Province is also w/ the Delta Variant. The one at Ruili seems to have peaked, & the secondary cluster at Longchuan County seems to have been caught early. The new cluster at Nanjing Airport is also of the Delta Variant.
Pingtung in Taiwan might have snuffed out a small Delta Variant cluster traced to a couple of imported cases from Peru. However, given the low testing rates there, we cannot be sure if there is still cryptic community transmission going on. I guess we shall see w/ the imminent phased loosening of social distancing measures.