the case for not panicking is that panicking is nearly always unproductive and is often destructive. the secondary case for it is that we don't know yet and we have numerous lines of defense, at least in the united states, for anyone willing to take advantage of them. https://t.co/DkIS97o7ut
— GOLIKEHELLMACHINE (@golikehellmachi) December 3, 2021
you know what would be more beneficial than panicking? sharing links on where to get boosters, sharing best practices for masking, sharing tips to keep safe while traveling, not tweeting at all, literally anything other than tweeting about being on the verge of panic
— GOLIKEHELLMACHINE (@golikehellmachi) December 3, 2021
Analysis: The most-vaccinated big counties in America are beating the worst of the coronavirus https://t.co/ORqERbRsxp
— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) December 4, 2021
A rush of vaccine-seeking customers and staff shortages are squeezing drugstores around the U.S., leading to frazzled workers and temporary pharmacy closures. Pharmacists are doling out a growing number of COVID-19 shots and giving coronavirus tests. https://t.co/qL3JYxUJnr
— The Associated Press (@AP) December 4, 2021
— Virginia Heffernan (@page88) December 4, 2021
New coronavirus testing rules for international travel begin Monday https://t.co/XZD0Of9pWl
— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) December 4, 2021
======
Despite #OmnicronVariant's global spread, the WHO says there are no Omicron deaths so far. The agency warns it may take weeks to determine how infectious the variant is, whether it causes more severe illness & how effective antivirals & vaccines are https://t.co/NSN6Ysf3gc pic.twitter.com/Wnp90HvUng
— delthia ricks ? (@DelthiaRicks) December 4, 2021
The OECD says it would cost $50 billion to vaccinate the world—a sum that pales in comparison to the $10 trillion G-20 countries have spent mitigating the economic impact of Covid-19 https://t.co/HUxPRqZdZn via @business
— Kevin Whitelaw (@KevinWhitelaw1) December 1, 2021
Omicron proves we’re not in control of Covid – only global action can stop this pandemic https://t.co/qyPuPAlpGj
— Crawford Kilian (@Crof) December 4, 2021
S.Korea reports 3 more Omicron cases https://t.co/GXZn6KLRqt pic.twitter.com/ef0Th1FAR7
— Reuters (@Reuters) December 5, 2021
WHO urges Asia-Pacific to ready for Omicron-driven surge in infections https://t.co/cYRNypos48 pic.twitter.com/DDSDoc7AyH
— Reuters (@Reuters) December 3, 2021
Nearly 2 years into the pandemic, Cook Islands reports first case of Covid https://t.co/qI0udEDlfc pic.twitter.com/jQ4qQGrThh
— delthia ricks ? (@DelthiaRicks) December 4, 2021
"A devastating blow for aviation and tourism": Travel industry officials worried after Britain tightens virus testing rules amid concerns about the omicron variant. https://t.co/4BmTjpsM2W
— AP Europe (@AP_Europe) December 4, 2021
‘For now, South Africa is the latest proof of the adage that no good deed goes unpunished.’https://t.co/P00ONlgn2u
— Sarah Emily Duff (@sarahemilyduff) December 1, 2021
======
Lots of caveats; too soon to know. But early info from South Africa provide tantalizing hints that #Omicron may trigger milder illness. With thoughts from @MarionKoopmans, @AmeshAA & @PeterHotez. https://t.co/AOE215ZxTT
— Helen Branswell (@HelenBranswell) December 5, 2021
Omicron variant may have picked up a piece of common-cold virus https://t.co/okhl2QYo3A pic.twitter.com/T6rAoXSTvx
— Reuters (@Reuters) December 4, 2021
… By inserting this particular snippet into itself, Omicron might be making itself look “more human,” which would help it evade attack by the human immune system, said Venky Soundararajan of Cambridge, Massachusetts-based data analytics firm nference, who led the study posted on Thursday on the website OSF Preprints.
This could mean the virus transmits more easily, while only causing mild or asymptomatic disease. Scientists do not yet know whether Omicron is more infectious than other variants, whether it causes more severe disease or whether it will overtake Delta as the most prevalent variant. It may take several weeks to get answers to these questions…
The same genetic sequence appears many times in one of the coronaviruses that causes colds in people – known as HCoV-229E – and in the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) that causes AIDS, Soundararajan said.
South Africa, where Omicron was first identified, has the world’s highest rate of HIV, which weakens the immune system and increases a person’s vulnerability to infections with common-cold viruses and other pathogens. In that part of the world, there are many people in whom the recombination that added this ubiquitous set of genes to Omicron might have occurred, Soundararajan said…
More research is needed to confirm the origins of Omicron’s mutations and their effects on function and transmissibility. There are competing hypotheses that the latest variant might have spent some time evolving in an animal host.
In the meantime, Soundararajan said, the new findings underscore the importance of people getting the currently available COVID-19 vaccines.
“You have to vaccinate to reduce the odds that other people, who are immunocompromised, will encounter the SARS-CoV-2 virus,” Soundararajan said.
New research examines the maximum risks of SARSCoV2 infection with & without masks. Investigation by scientists at Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organisation in Göttingen Germany https://t.co/xM0oOTkNDU via @medical_xpress
— delthia ricks ? (@DelthiaRicks) December 4, 2021
… “In our study we found that the risk of infection without wearing masks is enormously high after only a few minutes, even at a distance of three meters, if the infected persons have the high viral load of the delta variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus,” says Eberhard Bodenschatz. And such encounters are unavoidable in schools, restaurants, clubs or even outdoors.
As high as the risk of infection is without mouth-nose protection, medical or FFP2 masks protect effectively. The Göttingen study confirms that FFP2 or KN95 masks are particularly effective in filtering infectious particles from the air breathed—especially if they are as tightly sealed as possible at the face. If both the infected and the non-infected person wear well-fitting FFP2 masks, the maximum risk of infection after 20 minutes is hardly more than one per thousand, even at the shortest distance. If their masks fit poorly, the probability of infection increases to about four percent. If both wear well-fitting medical masks, the virus is likely to be transmitted within 20 minutes with a maximum probability of ten percent. The study also confirms the intuitive assumption that for effective protection against infection, in particular the infected person should wear a mask that filters as well as possible and fits tightly to the face…
It always amazes me how promiscuous SARS-CoV-2 is. https://t.co/2JGPAAssDX
— Florian Krammer (@florian_krammer) December 4, 2021
======
New York has announced three more cases of the omicron variant of the coronavirus, bringing to eight the number of state cases linked to the new variant. Gov. Kathy Hochul said the cases appear to be unrelated. https://t.co/u9lNUuQW6t
— The Associated Press (@AP) December 4, 2021
Nevada to make unvaccinated state workers pay insurance surcharge https://t.co/rmmTNdYl32
— Healthcare-Global?? (@HealthcareGlob1) December 3, 2021
Analysis: Aaron Rodgers flaunts the NFL/NFLPA coronavirus protocols and gets a fine that barely shows up in his paycheck.
Antonio Brown and two others do the same and get three-game suspensions.
What gives? It’s complicated. https://t.co/KSvQGEfDL1
— AP NFL (@AP_NFL) December 3, 2021
A man bragged he was “gonna be rich” off fake coronavirus vaccine cards, prosecutors say. Then he got charged. https://t.co/NxkG6ttEoe
— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) December 4, 2021
heaven help us they have a new joke pic.twitter.com/BjWl1vHKXL
— Michael Hobbes (@RottenInDenmark) December 4, 2021
As others pointed out, not much point arguing with someone who believes in ‘Jewish space lasers’…
If it cancer was contagious, we sure as hell would take precautions to prevent it from spreading. https://t.co/DwlTtsxfEi
— Patrick Chovanec (@prchovanec) December 4, 2021
rikyrah
The cancer tweet from that clown ?
NeenerNeener
Monroe County NY:
Monroe County website takes the week end off, the NYSDOH says 639 new cases yesterday.
It’s 2020 all over again; 600+ cases a day and the hospitals full of COVID patients.
Amir Khalid
Malaysia’s Ministry of Health reports 4,298 new Covid-19 cases today in its media statement, for a cumulative reported total of 2,658,772 cases. It also reports 36 deaths as of midnight, for an adjusted cumulative total of 30,574 deaths – 1.15% of the cumulative reported total, 1.18% of resolved cases.
Based on cases reported yesterday, Malaysia’s nationwide Rt is at 0.97.
378 confirmed cases are in ICU, 172 of them on ventilators. Meanwhile, 4,929 more patients have recovered, for a cumulative total of 2,566,159 patients recovered – 96.5% of the cumulative reported total.
Nine new clusters were reported today, for a cumulative total of 5,978 clusters. 233 clusters are currently active; 5,745 clusters are now inactive.
4,275 new cases today are local infections. 23 new cases today are imported.
The National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme (PICK) administered 67,701 doses of vaccine on 3rd December: 3,209 first doses, 3,902 second doses, and 60,590 booster doses. As of midnight, the cumulative total is 54,031,000 doses administered: 25,876,761 first doses, 25,438,880 second doses, and 2,905,809 booster doses. 79.2% of the population have received their first dose, while 77.9% are now fully vaccinated.
p.a.
Does the US have a kind of ‘national treasure’ award that IIRC Japan has? If so, does Fauci have it, because 1) he deserves it, and 2) why not troll Cruz et al.
eclare
@p.a.: Ever since tfg gave Rush Limbaugh that Congressional medal, awards have lost their sheen.
Matt McIrvin
The surreal thing to me is that people are discussing how much to freak out about omicron, while delta is going vertical again where I live, even deaths are up and it doesn’t seem to be causing a media panic. The vaccinated are rushing iout to get boosters, though. Given the effectiveness of the shots, maybe the vaxxed and boosted have just decided they don’t give a fuck about antivaxxers any more.
Matt McIrvin
I’ve also been wondering whether “% with at least one shot” numbers are at all accurate. Are there really that many people who got the first shot and never followed up, or are some second and third shots being misrecorded as first ones? If it’s the latter, people with one shot could be overcounted, and fully vaccinated undercounted.
(Also, having just one shot is increasingly irrelevant given that you really need to be fully vaccinated and, if possible, boosted to have good protection now.)
JMG
I posted yesterday that my son and his wife tested positive for covid in NYC last week after visiting us for Thanksgiving. Both vaxxed but not boosted. Alice and I got tested yesterday shortly after that at the nearby urgent care center, both rapid and PCR. Rapid came back negative, PCR to come, but both the EMT who administered the tests and the doctor who gave us the results said it’d be very unlikely if we were infected. They were both so happy when we told them we were triple vaxxed! I felt it might be my first doctor visit since childhood that ended with me getting a lollipop.
Rusty
Here in New Hampshire we have the highest rate of infection in the country, the test positive rate is up to 13.5% and hospitalizations up 43%. The hospitalizations will flatten, because all the ICU beds are full and the hallways are being turned into wards, we will be shipping the ill out. Fully vaccinated stands at 55%, lowest in New England. Sununu our governor said this is “serious”. What is he going to do about it? Nothing. No plans for a mask mandate, nothing. Let it burn. He is highly likely to be reelected.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@JMG: Excellent news.
YY_Sima Qian
On 12/4 China reported 42 new domestic confirmed (none previously asymptomatic) & 5 new domestic asymptomatic cases.
Inner Mongolia “Autonomous” Region reported 30 new domestic confirmed & 4 new domestic asymptomatic cases. There currently are 332 active domestic confirmed & 4 active asymptomatic cases in the region.
Heilongjiang Province reported 10 new domestic confirmed cases. 1 domestic confirmed case recovered. There currently are 29 active domestic confirmed & 1 active domestic asymptomatic cases in the province.
Xianyang in Shaanxi Province did not report any new domestic positive cases. There currently is 1 active domestic confirmed case in the city.
Shanghai Municipality did not report any new positive cases. There currently are 5 active domestic confirmed & 2 active domestic asymptomatic cases remaining. 4 residential compounds are currently at Medium Risk.
At Xuzhou in Jiangsu Province there currently is 1 active domestic asymptomatic case remaining.
At Hangzhou in Zhejiang Province there currently are 2 active domestic asymptomatic cases remaining.
Guangzhou in Guangdong Province did not report any new domestic positive cases. There currently is 1 active domestic confirmed case in the city, a worker at a quarantine hotel. Phylogenetic analysis indicates that the case is the same transmission chain as the imported & domestic confirmed cases at Xianuang in Shaanxi, the imported case having stayed at the quarantine hotel where the quarantine worker worked at. 1 quarantine hotel has been elevated to Medium Risk.
At Dalian in Liaoning Province 16 domestic confirmed cases recovered & 1 domestic asymptomatic case was released from isolation. There currently are 103 active domestic confirmed & 9 active domestic asymptomatic cases remaining.
Hebei Province did not report any new domestic positive cases. There currently are 20 active confirmed cases in the province.
At Rizhao in Shandong Province there currently are 1 active domestic confirmed & 5 active domestic asymptomatic cases remaining.
At Sichuan Province the last 2 domestic confirmed cases recovered.
Chongqing Municipality there currently are 3 active domestic confirmed & 2 active domestic asymptomatic cases remaining.
At Henan Province there currently are 63 active domestic confirmed cases remaining (47 at Zhengzhou & 16 at Zhoukou).
Dehong Prefecture in Yunnan Province reported 2 new domestic confirmed & 1 new domestic asymptomatic cases, all at Longchuan County (all from screening of persons under centralized quarantine). 1 domestic confirmed case recovered & domestic asymptomatic case was released from isolation. There currently are 49 active domestic confirmed & 40 active domestic asymptomatic cases at the prefecture. 1 zone at Longchuan County is currently at High Risk. All areas at Ruili are now at Low Risk.
Imported Cases
On 12/4, China reported 17 new imported confirmed cases (2 previously asymptomatic), 16 imported asymptomatic cases, 0 imported suspect cases:
Overall in China, 36 confirmed cases recovered (15 imported), 9 asymptomatic cases were released from isolation (7 imported) & 2 were reclassified as confirmed cases (both imported), & 990 individuals were released from quarantine. Currently, there are 1,036 active confirmed cases in the country (419 imported), 12 in serious condition (2 imported), 459 active asymptomatic cases (390 imported), 2 suspect cases (both imported). 34,655 traced contacts are currently under centralized quarantine.
As of 12/4, 2,543.424M vaccine doses have been injected in Mainland China, an increase of 10.625M doses in the past 24 hrs.
On 12/5, Hong Kong reported 9 new positive cases, all imported.
There go two miscreants
“Flouts” AP, not “flaunts”. What he was flaunting was being a jerk. (I know, it’s a hopeless battle.)
p.a.
@eclare: oh yeah, I memory-holed that embarrassment for my mental health.
NorthLeft12
The tweet from MTG is up there with the best/worst from TFG for ignorance, stupidity, and stupidity.
The tweet responses quickly degenerated into a pointless debate about whether cancer really is “communicable”. Reading that thread explains perfectly why people would elect trash like Trump, MTG, Bobert, Gosar, Gohmert, ……etc. …….etc……
R-Jud
I have just received the results of my PCR test, confirming what I already know: I picked up a case of delta-variant COVID while visiting relatives in the US last week. We reckon the vector was my brother-in-law, who, while vaccinated, was hunting with people who probably weren’t a few days before Thanksgiving. He and my sister-in-law are also Covid+ with symptoms. Everyone else tested negative.
I can only detect salty, bitter and sour flavours right now. Coincidentally, those words also describe my mood.
Matt McIrvin
@Rusty: Yeah, it’s spilled across the state line into my neighborhood, too, which is the most New Hampshire-ish part of Massachusetts. I don’t think this is all omicron. Oh well. Charlie Baker won’t do much either. Got my boost, wearing that N95 around. Anecdotally speaking, everyone I know is running out to get booster shots as fast as they can though less than half of them have likely managed to do it yet–the pharmacies are slammed.
Scout211
Parents in Northern California knowingly sent their COVID positive kids back to school.
The parents could be charged with a misdemeanor . . . maybe.
debbie
South Africa did the right thing. China did not.
Matt McIrvin
@NorthLeft12: And guess what–the same people who are raging about COVID vaccine mandates freaked out about HPV vaccination, so I don’t wanna hear it from them.
Matt McIrvin
…I doubt this is what MTG is thinking of, but there’s also a fringe belief associated with tobacco/cancer denialism that, not just some, but ALL forms of cancer are caused by infection with the same two or three viruses, and that there’s a huge conspiracy to suppress this knowledge. One of those people, who was also a major-league wingnut, used to hang out on James Nicoll’s old LiveJournal so Carlos Yu could use him as a punching bag.
Scout211
@R-Jud:
Oh no! I hope you feel better soon.
YY_Sima Qian
@R-Jud: Sorry to hear about your infection, at least it seems you have a relatively mild case, partly thanks to vaccination.
My mom just returned to Upstate NY from a multi-week visit to her friend in Tampa, FL. I would have preferred that she did not make the trip at all (she is 70+ w/ hypertension), but at least she was boosted 2 wks before she started the trip. so she should be well protected. Incidence rate at FL appears to have been fairly low these few wks, too.
Ken
Unless it were cause by a virus in the naughty bits, in which case we might try to vaccinate against it, but the GQP’s evangelical arm would fight the efforts.
Now I’m trying to decide if the meme should be “HPV: Rehearsal for COVID”, or “GQP: Death Cult for over a Decade”.
O. Felix Culpa
@R-Jud: Oh no. So sorry you got infected. Goes to show how pernicious this virus is. I hope you recover quickly and fully.
lowtechcyclist
Then let’s just fucking DO IT.
Take the money out of the defense budget, or something. Because this is a matter of national defense: the closer the world is to universal vaccination, the less room there is for new variants to evolve and find their way here.
$50B isn’t quite pocket change on the scale of the U.S. budget, but it’s close, somewhere between 1 and 2 percent of what our government spends each year. We can afford this, and given how much this damned pandemic is costing us, it’ll pay for itself many times over.
Not to mention, it would be a nice gift to the rest of the world, helping them for once rather than messing things up. Let’s just fucking DO it.
Chief Oshkosh
@There go two miscreants: But we’re with you 99.44% of the way!
stinger
@R-Jud:
So very sorry about your COVID and about stupid hunters — but what a great line!
Another Scott
@Matt McIrvin: I signed up with my county health department to get my first shot, then they changed to the national reservation system. When I signed up for the booster, the national system thought that I only had one shot (received on the day I got my second). That can’t be unique to me.
There are still lots of improvements needed in the data.
Cheers,
Scott.
Rusty
@Matt McIrvin: My department at work is all vaccinated and everyone is planning on getting boosters. A few already had them, but the rest of us had appointments from a week to a month out. My wife and I discovered Rite Aid is doing booster walk-ins 2-3 weekdays, our closest had all day walk-ins Wednesday and is going to try to repeat on Wednesdays. I got mine the Wednesday, 20 minutes in and out. Called my wife, by the time she got there, 30 people in line. She called the morning the next day about coming 2-3 and the pharmacist said they weren’t busy and if she came down in the next hour she would give it. Coworker and her husband did the same at Rite Aid on Friday (and good management that said take the time to get the booster in the middle of the work day), the rest of my coworkers are scheduled this weekend or going to Rite Aid Monday. Maybe this will work for people you know too.
Brachiator
I am not worried at all about panic. I continue to be alarmed at the refusal of some conservative governors to deal with the pandemic. Dopes like DeSantis keep fighting vaccine mandates and other reasonable efforts to deal with the Corona virus. And yet I have never heard him offer any alternative public health measures. Instead I only here meaningless drivel about letting people decide.
I don’t see the unvaccinated making smart decisions. And I recently heard an NPR report claiming that New Mexico hospitals were being inundated with Corona virus cases. But this was not because of issues with state residents. These hospitals were getting overflow patients from Texas, another state which has been not following best practices in fighting the pandemic.
Instead of pointless speculation about what the Omicron variant might do, I would like to see reporters and pundit ask conservative governors hard questions about why they are not doing more to protect the health of their citizens.
Matt McIrvin
@Another Scott: Some of the aggregation sites have decided that New Hampshire’s vaccination data are unreliable because boosters are getting reported as first vaccinations. My suspicion is that this is actually happening in many more states than NH.
And then there’s vaccine tourism, etc. According to Massachusetts, on the island of Nantucket, 133% of people over 12 now have 1+ dose. Yeah, there might be a problem with that number.
JMG
@Matt McIrvin: As with Cape Cod, the Nantucket numbers are probably skewed because summer residents got vaccinated there last summer. In my town, population quintuples from July 1 through Labor Day, and while most are rentals, many are second homers as well. Meanwhile, the data goes off the permanent resident census.
Brit in Chicago
@Matt McIrvin: “data are” Yeah! I’m not completely alone, then.
Will
Hayes jumped the shark a long time ago, he’s just a sensationalist that provides over stimulation to those on the left that can be easily stimulated. He’s not much better than his equivalents on Fox News other than that he at least sometimes provides useful info.
@lowtechcyclist: You can’t just see something that says it will cost $50B, say DO IT, and assume it can easily be done. This is like that dumb Dr. Rasmussen tweet about vaccinations to Africa and other parts of the world. The people have to want to take it, which they don’t. All across Africa they are tossing doses in the trash can because no one wants them.
When someone says it would “only cost” or “be achieved in weeks/months” they always leave out the other key part of that phrase… “at gunpoint” Only way you are going to vaccinate the world and defeat the virus at this point is at gunpoint. So if you are ok with that and your conscious doesn’t mind forcing people out of their houses/huts to do stuff at gunpoint, in the words of gamers, “Let’s f’n goooooo”
YY_Sima Qian
@debbie:
I think statements such as these should be unpacked more. Well established timeline indicate that doctors in Wuhan only started to suspect novel respiratory pneumonia by ~ 12/24/2019, & novel coronavirus was only confirmed by partial genetic sequencing by 12/27/2019. Doctors in the two main infectious disease hospitals in Wuhan only detected an outbreak mostly associated w/ the Huanan Seafood Market on 12/29/2019. Wuhan municipal authorities publicized the outbreak of novel pneumonia on 12/31/2019, though the WHO was likely notified (or learned of it) on 12/30. By 1/7/2020 several labs in China have complete full genetic sequence of SARS-CoV-2, a lab in Shanghai published the full sequence on 1/9/2020 (against official directive at the time), while 3 national level labs followed suit on 1/10/2020. The speed at which the full genome of the virus was sequenced & shared was noted & lauded at the time internationally, which enabled Moderna & BioNTech to start working on their mRNA vaccines from mid-Jan. 2020.
In the meantime, Director of China CDC personally briefed Robert Redfield (then director of US CDC) on 1/1/2020. The Huanan Seafood Market was shut down & decontaminated on 12/31/2019. However, it was also clear that during the 1st half of Jan. 2020 Wuhan municipal government & Hubei provincial government tried to suppress the suspected (much was not yet confirmed at the time) extent of the outbreak, obfuscated evidence of human to human transmission w/ expert teams sent by the central government, WHO’s Beijing office, & those send by Taiwan/Hong Kong/Macau. They also stubbornly (& likely on purpose) only published count of lab confirmed cases, meaning case count froze at 41 for nearly 2 weeks in mid-Jan. 2019, leading to the impression that COVID-19 was not particularly infectious from human to human. (Hence the infamous statement by the WHO on 1/15/2020 that evidence to date only supported “limited human to human transmission”.) What was not publicized was that lab test kits were in extreme short supply & what were available were unreliable (which is expected in the very early days), & those tests were directed to suspected cases w/ exposure to Huanan Seafood Market (presaging the same mistakes all over the world, reserving precious test kits on cases w/ travel history to China). There was no public awareness campaign to alert citizens to take precautionary measures. At the same time, central authorities in Beijing was also keeping a tight leash on what kind of information can be shared w/ international stakeholders (such as the WHO & foreign governments), much to the displeasure of WHO’s Beijing office & HQ at Geneva.
By 1/17/2020, clear evidence of human to human transmission in nosocomial settings in other cities in China, as well as cases showing up in Thailand & Japan, made the insistence on “limited human to human transmission” untenable. On 1/20/2010, Dr. Zhong Nanshan (leading expert on respiratory diseases in China) announced on national state TV that COVID-19 was transmissible from human to human, & significant NPI measures were required to arrests its spread. On 1/23/2020 (the day before Chinese New Year’s Eve), a cordon sanitaire was setup around Wuhan, followed by locking down the city on 1/24/2020, & the rest of Hubei Province quickly followed, then most of China in the following days.
From late Jan. 2020 on, there was a torrent of information coming out of China on COVID-19’s transmission (including up to 14 days of incubation, a-/pre-symptomatic transmission & & possibility of aerosol transmission), pathophysiology, diagnosis, prevention, prognosis & treatment. Much of it in the form of peer reviewed papers in international journals & pre-prints awaiting publication, the rest in the form of compiled handbooks & information sharing conference calls.
So, Chinese doctors & scientists reacted very quickly to the emerging threat, & tried to fully utilize the fairly comprehensive & elaborate system of infectious disease reporting/tracking system developed in the aftermath of original SARS in 2003. Party/government bureaucrats at Wuhan municipal & Hubei provincial levels acted against established playbook to promote stability during the party congresses in mid-Jan. 2020 & prevent panic (& resulting economic shock) leading up to Chinese New Year. Regime leadership followed their habits & instincts toward opacity & caution, to maintain control of the narrative domestically & internationally. However, by 1/23/2020, when the then unprecedented cordon sanitaire was setup around the metropolis of Wuhan, & cases popping up in Thailand, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, Hong Kong & Taiwan, anyone paying attention should have realized the severity of the situation.
It should be noted that whatever information that was shared by Chinese authorities, or spread out of China, allowed most of E/SE Asia & Oceana to prepare, & they were mostly spared in the 1st wave. These regions accounted for the bulk of Chinese international travel, & reported the earliest detected international cases. The same applied to all Chinese provinces outside of Hubei, w/ domestic travel leading up to Chinese New Year far outnumbering international ones, yet the worst hit province only saw reported cases in the low thousands. As for the rest of the world, unfortunately I do not believe anything China did or did not do made any difference. Most countries still had heads in the sand even after South Korea, Iran & Italy became hard hit.
A couple of anecdotes I can share from the early days in Wuhan:
Throughout the 1st half of Jan. 2020, the administrators of Wuhan Central Hospital forbade any medical staff from wearing masks or face shields, the justification given was preventing mass panic. The results was the worst infection/death rate from medical staff among all the hospitals in the city. 4 of the 6 doctors in the ophthalmology department died of COVID-19 by end of Feb. 2020, among them Dr. Li Wenliang.
One of my wife’s cousins works as a radiologist at one of the top hospitals in Wuhan. In mid-Jan/ 2020 she told us privately that doctors in the city are estimating ~ 200 patients across the myriad of hospitals, based on CT scans & observed symptoms, at a time when the official (lab confirmed) case count was still stuck at 41 for days. I was shocked. I was not surprised that actual case count was higher than the official one, but I thought 5X was extraordinary, given the lessons from the original SARS. What may wife’s cousin (& other doctors in the city) did not know was that real infected case count was probably already in the thousands by that time. It was not apparent yet that bulk of the cases would be moderate, mild or asymptomatic.
lowtechcyclist
@There go two miscreants:
Yeah, that one gets under my skin too.
For awhile back in the 1970s, “if you’ve got it, flaunt it” was a popular phrase. If one has that phrase in their head, it’s hard to go wrong on which is which.
Another Scott
@YY_Sima Qian: Thanks very much.
Cheers,
Scott.
Kay
We’re going to Denmark next week so will be subject to the new “test to re-enter” rule, which goes in Monday. My son who lives in Denmark says the tests are readily available and cheap and we can do at-home but it has to be tele-med verified for US re-entry.
I went w/my youngest to get the booster when he was home for Thanksgiving break, no wait at Rite Aid- we made an appointment online but there were plenty of open slots- and no side effects for either of us.
Robert Sneddon
@Will: There are also the Magic Medics who insist that if Moderna simply hands over the patents to their mRNA technology for free somehow billions of properly manufactured and tested doses of vaccine will appear out of nowhere and the world will be saved. Riiiight.
The nightmare scenario is that some knockoff copy of an mRNA vaccine gets made in a poorly supervised and technically inadequate production plant and these doses go on to poison and sicken the recipients, destroying what little faith a lot of hesitant people have in any and all vaccines.
Ohio Mom
@YY_Sima Qian: Thanks for this historical summary, good to see it all in one place. I’d known and forgotten a lot of it. Makes me appreciate how quickly the world went into this pandemic.
Sloane Ranger
Saturday’s figures from the UK, where we had 42,848 reported new cases. The rolling 7-day average shows an increase of 2.5%,but these figures are likely an undercount due to Wales not reporting on Saturdays, most admin offices being closed over the weekend and a known under-reporting issue in Scotland. The reported cases by nation,
England – 39,949 (down 3939)
Northern Ireland – 1642 (down 266)
Scotland – 1257 (down 1175, but see above)
Wales – Does not report on Saturdays).
Deaths – There were 127 deaths reported yesterday. The rolling 7-day average is down by 3.6%, but the warning above also applies. 104 deaths were in England, 9 in Northern Ireland, 14 in Scotland and Wales did not report.
Testing – Not updated at weekends.
Hospitalisations – Not updated at weekends.
Vaccinations – As of Friday, 3rd, 51,068,961 people had had 1 shot of a vaccine, 46,491,583 people had had 2 shots and 19,809,442 had had a 3rd shot/booster. This means that, as of that date, 88.8% of all UK residents aged 12+ had had 1 shot, 80.8% had had 2 and 34.4% had had a 3rd shot/booster.
Speaking of the increased travel restrictions announced by the UK government, I have a confession to make. I will be one of those affected as I have booked a cruise to the Canary Islands over Christmas/New Year. I am triple jabbed (got my booster last Tuesday – Moderna) and I carefully researched the anti-COVID measures brought in by the cruise company, these include, reduced passenger numbers (60% of capacity), all passengers to be fully vaccinated, testing before being allowed to board, mask wearing everywhere inside except in your cabin or when eating or drinking, social bubbles, a 2nd COVID test half way through the cruise and tracking bracelets to be worn when outside your cabin. Plus the company has re-jigged it’s air conditioning system to reduce the chances of COVID spreading through that.
Nothing can be certain, and there is a weakness in that the only check on passengers returning to the ship after a shore excursion/personal exploration is a temperature check, which we all know is virtually useless. Nevertheless, I thought, what the hell, it’s as safe as it’s going to get and booked. I had factored in the Day 2 test. When that turned into a PCR rather than RLF, that was fine but I don’t know how the new Pre-departure test (or Pre-entry to the UK test) will be handled as we will be at sea during the 48 hours prior to arriving back in the UK. I assume the test will have to take place on the ship but I don’t know if they’re going to charge or just eat the cost. Maybe they’ll move the mid-cruise test to the end of the cruise? There’s nothing on their website yet. It’s a bit bad of the government to announce this change late on a Saturday, meaning that the companies affected won’t really be able to organise anything until Monday.
sab
@Scout211: Ha! That is the school my RWNJ brother can see from his house.
Jerzy Russian
@Brit in Chicago: Data are plural nouns!
Jay
@YY_Sima Qian:
thank you as well, details I didn’t know, the ghist I did. I don’t tolerate the “blame China” crowd. We didn’t do one bit better here, even forwarned.
lowtechcyclist
@Scout211:
Lock ’em up.
Seriously, if there’s any misdemeanor they can be charged with that will allow them to be sentenced to even a few days’ jail time, it would get the message across.
But don’t most places have a criminal offense of ‘reckless endangerment’ or some such? Because, well, that’s what they did.
lowtechcyclist
“Data is” is appropriate in one context I can think of:
“Data is a character in Star Trek: The Next Generation”
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Going by Hayes tweets the reporters are too fucking dumb and incurious to do that. Jesus Christ, two years into a pandemic and that fucker can’t be bothered to even read a wiki article on pandemics.
Matt
Normal, not-evil, not-brainwashed-by-fundamentalism people, sure.
But as we’ve seen with the HPV vaccine, not the death cult that’s taken over the GOP.
They will drag COVID out for as long as they possibly can, sabotaging anything they can along the way, because they think it’ll help them in the ’22 elections.
MoCaAce
Maybe? I ran out of fucks ages ago.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Worth noting that Silicon Valley is tied at the hip to Wuhan in particular because of outsourcing and it was also mostly spared the first wave even though it should have been clobbered because of all the air travel back and forth. So the word was out to those who would listen.
Scout211
Mr. Scout and I were out on our morning walk this morning when a neighbor and her adult daughter stopped on their drive by us to say hello. The older told us they were on the way to the younger’s son’s house where he and his spouse just got a newborn foster child.
We are in California, yes, but a very red Trumpy county. We usually just keep it light and friendly when we converse with neighbors. But this time I said, “Don’t forget to wear your masks.” They were both clearly taken aback and said they hadn’t actually thought of that. (The younger works in the healthcare field). Sigh. Will they wear masks? Who knows but I felt good about saying what I said.
The end.
YY_Sima Qian
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
The regions in China that Silicon Valley is joined at the hip are Shenzhen (the “Silicon Valley of hardware”), Shanghai & Beijing. I am not aware of any substantial connection between Wuhan and NorCal. The city only had direct flight to the US starting from end of 2019. If NorCal was mostly spared in the 1st wave, I think it is a combination of COVID-19 not starting from the Pearl River Delta region (Guangzhou, Shenzhen & Hong Kong), Chinese diaspora bringing advance intel, & relatively sane response by local authorities.
If there is one country Wuhan is deeply tied to, it is France. Citroën & Peugeot have established joint ventures there going back decades, & the city has had direct flights to Paris (& Rome) for years. It is not a coincidence that France helped the Wuhan Institute of Virology build its BSL4 facility.
Steeplejack
@YY_Sima Qian:
Thank you for this detailed recap.
mrmoshpotato
@rikyrah:
Why are you disparaging clowns? :)
Kent
Yes, I suspect so. A lot of people go in to get that first shot because they have to for whatever reason. Job, to travel, etc. But once they get an actual legit CDC Covid vaccine card it is a trivial exercise to hand-write in that second shot on their 100% legit card with a ball point pen.
Fair Economist
@YY_Sima Qian: NorCal did get COVID early. It, along with the rest of CA, was largely spared from the first wave by early imposition of a “Safer at Home” policy.
mrmoshpotato
@NorthLeft12:
LO-facepalm!
Major Major Major Major
@Scout211: of course it was in Marin.
Major Major Major Major
NYC positivity rate is way up at 2.78%, from a recent local minimum of 1%. Seems to be due entirely to Staten Island, which is almost hitting double digits and has the lowest vax rates outside the Haredi regions.
randal m sexton
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: Santa Clara county ( the silicon valley county) had some of the earliest cases in the country, and had the highest numbers in the bay area. It is also a big county — 1.9 million.
VOR
@eclare: Dr. Fauci was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom back in 2008 (i.e. by GW Bush). The “Awards and Honors” section of his Wikipedia article is long.
Matt McIrvin
@YY_Sima Qian:
Yuuuup. And also to Taiwan and Hong Kong
But there also is a lot of traffic between the US and Singapore, and my impression is that Singapore has a fair bit of contact with Wuhan? At least they were dealing with people from Wuhan bringing COVID in early on.
Ruckus
@eclare:
I disagree. The awards that TFG awarded are like hanging a notice around people’s necks that this person is far less than completely worthless, it’s like everything else he’s ever done. We should start over, at least rename the awards, if we them to be in any way meaningful.
Chacal Charles Calthrop
@YY_Sima Qian: wow, thks
This is the kind of concise, precise information that only makes it into the press in drips and dabs.
Ruckus
@Matt McIrvin:
Given the effectiveness of the shots, maybe the vaxxed and boosted have just decided they don’t give a fuck about antivaxxers any more.
The only thing I feel for people who are willfully and non medically refusing a Covid vaccine is disgust. Or would be disgust if they could rise in my opinion of them about 400%. The are willing to attempt to murder their fellow citizens for their ignorant political bullshit. There is no rational reason to refuse to be vaccinated, none. The only reason is political and that is about as smart as eating 10 lbs of actual crap for dinner.
Ruckus
@R-Jud:
That’s as good as it gets for me as well. But my withdrawal from tasting, which comes of course from a loss of sense of smell is about 6 yrs old, so long before the current debacle. Your’s will most likely come back, it looks highly likely mine will not. I can’t say I’m overjoyed about this but I have learned to live with it, there being no real choice of course.
Sorry about the reason you lost your’s, no one with any medical training has any idea why I’ve lost mine.
Ruckus
@lowtechcyclist:
Here is a lot of information about US Covid vaccine donations.
From one other site I’ve seen and posted about here before, it looks like the US had donated as much if not more than all other countries/areas combined and has dramatically more on order. We are doing what we can, now if we could only get our own morons to actually be vaccinated, for which there is more than enough vaccines, we might actually make some progress towards kicking Covid’s ass. Alas many of our citizens are incapable of making adult decisions, even as they have achieved the age of adulthood, their maturity level has remained at less than infantile.
Ruckus
@sab:
Back when I lived in Marin county and we were getting ready to elect Obama as president, I donated my time, cell phone and voice to the effort. The Democratic offices took up 2 storefronts on a main drag and down the street was the rethuglican office. I’d forgot my reading glasses so had to walk to purchase another pair. In the republican office there were 3 people, in the democratic office there were at least 40. My point is a RWNJ in Marin county is going to be a rather lonely human, it is overwhelmingly democrat, currently 82.3% to 15.8% rethuglican.
StringOnAStick
We did the biannual 3 hour phone call to the (48 yo) widow of my husband’s late brother last night, mostly listening to get hammer on since you can never get a word in edgewise. She then told us she only got the J&J vaccine because she was diagnosed with Lupus 23 years ago and didn’t “want to put anything untested in her body”; of course no booster. She’s a nice but uneducated person from a RW evangelical family that are all unvaccinated and one spent a week in the hospital with covid, but remained refusers. She was a lifesaver with her help with my husband ‘s dad and brother and truly loved them but jfc..
moops
Hence the abundance of breakthrough infections. Most of that is based on self-reporting. I think most people lie about their vaccination status when they show up in the hospital.
YY_Sima Qian
@Matt McIrvin:
All things are relative. I am sure there were tens of thousands of Wuhanese who went on international trips leading up to Chinese New Year, & Singapore is one of the more popular destinations, along w/ Thailand, Malaysia, Australia, Hong Kong, etc. Taiwan would have been a top destination, but Beijing had stopped group travel there early in 2019 in light of the rapidly deteriorating cross-Strait relations, to “punish” the independence leaning DPP government. The measures exacted a heavy toll on tourism related service industries on Taiwan, but also made its pandemic response easier.
I always told me Taiwanese colleagues that the rest of Asia was quite fortunate that the 1st major outbreak of COVID-19 happened at Wuhan, & not Pearl or Yangtze River Delta regions (1st outbreak of SARS in 2003 started in Guangzhou). There are 1M+ Taiwanese (managers, engineers, businessmen & their dependents) living in these two regions, most of whom were heading home before the holiday. These regions are more connected regionally & internationally by at least an order of magnitude compared to Wuhan. Rest of Asia would have been quickly overwhelmed early on, or at least seen Apr. 2020 South Korean level of outbreak, needing similarly rigorous response to contain, at a time a lot less was known about the disease.
It would have been much worse for China, too. While ~ 5M Wuhan residents left the city through the course of Jan., most of them went home in the rest of Hubei Province (which helps to explain the relatively low case count in rest of China). The hundred+ millions of migrant & white collar workers in Pearl & Yangtze River Deltas would have fanned out to every corner of China & E/SE Asia.