As a public school teacher in Georgia, USA, I hope to get the vaccine later this month.

Germany extends his hard lockdown until 31-Jan-2021 with new, more stringent rules (e.g. even hairdressers closed 16-Dec-2020 until 31-Jan-2021) - [www.DW.com] - (in English).

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bv

The Australian level is pure luxury, they may even host games with crowds.

This is true.

There was a cricket Test match at the MCG (largest stadium in the country) at (I think) 25% - ie about 25,000 people. At that point there were no active cases in Melbourne.

Since then though there has been two outbreaks in Sydney. One still of unknown transmission, and one as a leak from Quarantine. That State has tightened up its restrictions - and even mandated masks, quite amazing flip for that State's Govt, and has restricted numbers that can gather.

However, with 24 hours to go, another cricket Test match is due to be played in Sydney and (approx) 12,000 will be allowed to attend. Only exclusions are a handful of local suburbs where there's an outbreak associated with a bottle shop & supermarket.

Several comments are being made that it's illegal to have more than 5 people to your home, but 12,000 are OK to attend a cricket match. Double Standards? Yes, many people will in effect be seated out of doors, and socially distanced while seated, but there will be crowds while people enter and leave, and at bars & food points inside, and in and around the toilets. What could possibly go wrong?


In Melbourne yesterday, where the Australian Open Tennis is due in (about) 4 weeks, plans were disrupted when the hotel apartment complex that was to be used to accommodate the quarantining travelling players and their entourages pulled out.

And there are still questions about the Grand Prix in Melbourne after the Tennis.

--
Captain Corella
60 Years a Fan

THE AUSTRALIAN ---- 5 January 2021



ROCKMAN

^ Matthew Pottinger is not credible. He is one of the most anti China members of the administration. I wouldn't trust anything he says in regards to China. Feel free to google him and read some of his other opinions. I am not saying the virus didn't escape from a lab but I would need credible sourcing.

Sort of like asking someone who hates the Stones being asked whether the Stones are better than Nickleback. If they said Nickleback was better would that shape your opinion?

In any event, IMHO, No scientist should engage in creating new strains of viruses for experimental purposes. There are too many Control issues.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2021-01-06 13:20 by Chris Fountain.

EU health authority as well as EU Commission approved the Moderna vaccine which becomes now the second vaccine authorized for use in the 27-nation bloc - [www.DW.com] .



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2021-01-06 19:40 by Irix.

Germany is having a harder lockdown with less exceptions and reduced social contacts (at least until 31/01), i.e. measures that should have been taken two month ago

In Argentina we had the largest hard lockdown since 20th March and now that we are in Summer the situation is getting worst everyday.

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slewan
measures that should have been taken two month ago

Exactly. Now the schools stay closed again etc. etc. They didn't have the balls to take the measures earlier...

I've been following both the worldometers.info link and the New York Times corona map (global) link for many months now.
Today's eye catcher was .... the grafics of infections over the past 10 months of the U.K. In fact the U.K. entered the third wave and the grafic line is sky rocketing! The first wave was merely a "small" bump compared to the second wave, which in turn looks moderate compared to today's grafic line level. I can't help but say ... SHOCKING!
Luckily (although that still has to turn out that way) considerable progress is made with vaccination.
In the Netherlands they started vaccination yesterday instead of tomorrow. Wow (kidding). I am afraid the Dutch grafics may also show similar shapes in a few weeks time ...

In the US 3,865 peopled died on Wednesday. The US response to the virus has been a total disaster.

Gosh, if there only were a month long lockdown in every country in March ‘20, this would all be over by now.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2021-01-08 05:24 by Koen.

^ That and following the safety guidelines i.e. masks and social distancing.

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georgie48
I've been following both the worldometers.info link and the New York Times corona map (global) link for many months now.
Today's eye catcher was .... the grafics of infections over the past 10 months of the U.K. In fact the U.K. entered the third wave and the grafic line is sky rocketing! The first wave was merely a "small" bump compared to the second wave, which in turn looks moderate compared to today's grafic line level. I can't help but say ... SHOCKING!

Understatement.

I'm in Australia, and today one of the Australian State's Chief Health Officers gave some background on why a particular decision had been taken with regards to a lockdown.

To date there have been about 2.8m cases in the UK since this whole thing started.

But 1m of those have been since 1st December 2020!

That's a reflection of how the new variation changes things.

On better news.... I'm reliably informed that Bill Wyman got his first vaccination dose yesterday at 1:00pm.

--
Captain Corella
60 Years a Fan

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CaptainCorella

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georgie48
I've been following both the worldometers.info link and the New York Times corona map (global) link for many months now.
Today's eye catcher was .... the grafics of infections over the past 10 months of the U.K. In fact the U.K. entered the third wave and the grafic line is sky rocketing! The first wave was merely a "small" bump compared to the second wave, which in turn looks moderate compared to today's grafic line level. I can't help but say ... SHOCKING!

Understatement.

I'm in Australia, and today one of the Australian State's Chief Health Officers gave some background on why a particular decision had been taken with regards to a lockdown.

To date there have been about 2.8m cases in the UK since this whole thing started.

But 1m of those have been since 1st December 2020!

That's a reflection of how the new variation changes things.

On better news.... I'm reliably informed that Bill Wyman got his first vaccination dose yesterday at 1:00pm.

On topic covid-19 news? That's brilliant. Good job

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georgie48
I've been following both the worldometers.info link and the New York Times corona map (global) link for many months now.
Today's eye catcher was .... the grafics of infections over the past 10 months of the U.K. In fact the U.K. entered the third wave and the grafic line is sky rocketing! The first wave was merely a "small" bump compared to the second wave, which in turn looks moderate compared to today's grafic line level. I can't help but say ... SHOCKING!
Luckily (although that still has to turn out that way) considerable progress is made with vaccination.
In the Netherlands they started vaccination yesterday instead of tomorrow. Wow (kidding). I am afraid the Dutch grafics may also show similar shapes in a few weeks time ...

Uk case and death numbers are amongst the worst in the world - late lockdowns, open borders etc, slow set up of efficient test and trace all well documented. However take the first peak ‘cases’ with a pinch of salt. Likely more in line with 100k a day but testing infrastructure wasn’t in place at that point

The situation in the UK is particularly bad,it’s not been helped by Boris ,who don’t know his arse from his elbow.

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Koen
Gosh, if there only were a month long lockdown in every country in March ‘20, this would all be over by now.

Very true. So simple, yet so hard.

Bjornulf

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yorkshirestone

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georgie48
I've been following both the worldometers.info link and the New York Times corona map (global) link for many months now.
Today's eye catcher was .... the grafics of infections over the past 10 months of the U.K. In fact the U.K. entered the third wave and the grafic line is sky rocketing! The first wave was merely a "small" bump compared to the second wave, which in turn looks moderate compared to today's grafic line level. I can't help but say ... SHOCKING!
Luckily (although that still has to turn out that way) considerable progress is made with vaccination.
In the Netherlands they started vaccination yesterday instead of tomorrow. Wow (kidding). I am afraid the Dutch grafics may also show similar shapes in a few weeks time ...

Uk case and death numbers are amongst the worst in the world - late lockdowns, open borders etc, slow set up of efficient test and trace all well documented. However take the first peak ‘cases’ with a pinch of salt. Likely more in line with 100k a day but testing infrastructure wasn’t in place at that point

You could be and are probably right there. It would be interesting (to say the least) to get the U.K. 2020 "overkill" figures. They could say a lot. In the Netherlands the overkill (more deaths than on average over decades) for 2020 was around 13.000, while there were "only" 12.000 corona deaths. So 25.000 corona- plus unaccounted deaths.

The Moderna vaccine has UK approval ,so that's three we have got access to now.
Good news for the world as well.

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georgie48

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yorkshirestone

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georgie48
I've been following both the worldometers.info link and the New York Times corona map (global) link for many months now.
Today's eye catcher was .... the grafics of infections over the past 10 months of the U.K. In fact the U.K. entered the third wave and the grafic line is sky rocketing! The first wave was merely a "small" bump compared to the second wave, which in turn looks moderate compared to today's grafic line level. I can't help but say ... SHOCKING!
Luckily (although that still has to turn out that way) considerable progress is made with vaccination.
In the Netherlands they started vaccination yesterday instead of tomorrow. Wow (kidding). I am afraid the Dutch grafics may also show similar shapes in a few weeks time ...

Uk case and death numbers are amongst the worst in the world - late lockdowns, open borders etc, slow set up of efficient test and trace all well documented. However take the first peak ‘cases’ with a pinch of salt. Likely more in line with 100k a day but testing infrastructure wasn’t in place at that point

You could be and are probably right there. It would be interesting (to say the least) to get the U.K. 2020 "overkill" figures. They could say a lot. In the Netherlands the overkill (more deaths than on average over decades) for 2020 was around 13.000, while there were "only" 12.000 corona deaths. So 25.000 corona- plus unaccounted deaths.

Information on excess deaths in England only (so far almost 70,000 since March) can be found here:

[fingertips.phe.org.uk]

Our statistics are indeed shocking. We are told that 1 in 50 people has the virus and that in London it's 1 in 30. It took until today for the government to decide that a negative test is required to enter the country.

I don't know how other countries record coronavirus deaths, but in the UK the figure is based on the number who died within 28 days of a positive test, which makes it difficult to know how many deaths were actually attributable to COVID-19. More often that not, a person is said to have died "with" coronavirus, not "of" coronavirus. It's a subtle but important difference, especially when you hear stories of people with serious conditions (e.g., terminal cancer) whose death certificates record the virus as the cause of death - even, in some cases, if they were never tested for the virus. Funeral directors have said anecdotally that this tended to happen in the very beginning and that they are starting to see the same thing happen again now.

So it's hard to know what the true number of COVID-19 deaths is, but even though the figures are most likely inaccurate, they presumably still give a fair indication of the trajectory.

Yes 70,000 excess deaths in the U.K. since March yet some people here believe these were all skydivers whose parachute failed after having previously tested positive for Covid-19 in the last 28 days.

Nate

BV, you seem to be in top of all this, what do you make of this study?

One thing it seems to suggest, and maybe this is just wishful thinking in my part since I had Covid, but appears to suggest immunity from having Covid seems to be at least 6 months which is longer than the previous estimates of 3 months:

New England Journal of Medicine Study

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kovach

immunity from having Covid seems to be at least 6 months which is longer than the previous estimates of 3 months

In Germany they suggest vaccinations also for those who already had a COVID-19 infection because the immunity due to the vaccine would be much better than the immunity due to the disease itself (according to scientists) - [www.Tagesschau.de] - (in German).

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Nate
Yes 70,000 excess deaths in the U.K. since March yet some people here believe these were all skydivers whose parachute failed after having previously tested positive for Covid-19 in the last 28 days.

Nate

And all those people in Intensive Care on oxygen are suffering from something else... I have a good friend there right now, healthy and active until a couple of weeks ago.

I'm sure there have been some cases where Covid was the last straw for someone who was about to die soon anyway, but they don't account for 70,000 extra deaths.

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kovach
BV, you seem to be in top of all this, what do you make of this study?

One thing it seems to suggest, and maybe this is just wishful thinking in my part since I had Covid, but appears to suggest immunity from having Covid seems to be at least 6 months which is longer than the previous estimates of 3 months:

New England Journal of Medicine Study

The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) is one of the most respected medical journals in the world. Highly trusted. Their published results are great news. What they are saying, is the fact that you are protected a minimum of six months by sars-cov-2 (the virus that leads to covid-19) antibodies. Just for the record, the anual flu shot is given late fall, because it is most efficient during the first 3-5 months or so.

In short:

The presence of anti-spike or anti-nucleocapsid IgG antibodies was associated with a substantially reduced risk of SARS-CoV-2 reinfection in the ensuing 6 months.

Details:

A total of 12,541 health care workers participated and had anti-spike IgG measured; 11,364 were followed up after negative antibody results and 1265 after positive results...

Baseline antibody status was determined by anti-spike (primary analysis) and anti-nucleocapsid IgG assays, and staff members were followed for up to 31 weeks.

In this longitudinal cohort study, the presence of anti-spike antibodies was associated with a substantially reduced risk of PCR-confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection over 31 weeks of follow-up. No symptomatic infections and only two PCR-positive results in asymptomatic health care workers were seen in those with anti-spike antibodies, which suggests that previous infection resulting in antibodies to SARS-CoV-2 is associated with protection from reinfection for most people for at least 6 months.

Bjornulf

The side effects from getting the Pfizer / BioNTech and Moderna vaccines, both being RNA type vaccines at an efficiency of 94% to 95%, are a bit stronger than normal vaccines. The experts in Norway say this kind of reaction is a proof of the fact that they are trigging the immune system in a very efficient way, making the immune system work as expected.

Bjornulf

The corona virus have been around for a year now, since it was detected in Nov/Dec 2019 in China, and since we started to act early March in the Western world. So far we have data by the large numbers for six months or so. The fact that you are immune for at least six months is great. Then we just have to wait for another six month, then another year, and so on, to see how long the antibodies are there.

There have been some very few numbers of 2nd time infections reported, but those are probably related to people having a very mild covid-19 reaction the first time around.

Bjornulf

Still trying hard to get the vaccine here in Florida where it was decided that those 65 and over are eligible now. Too bad we were informed, by the President, that 20 million doses would have been administered by the end of December. Another lie, yawn. I have tried three vaccine lotteries without success. Today, I stood on line beginning at 6:45 this morning in the chance that a vaccine might be available to me. No luck again.