Israel is reimposing a mask mandate in light of a covid surge driven by the Delta variant. Half of the new cases are people who had been vaccinated. That's the bad news. The good news is that the infections of vaccinated people are much milder than those of unvaccinated people. Delta is also driving the latest surge in Africa; it's now been detected in 13 countries. Cases have been consistently rising since May. WHO says the current wave could be the region's worst yet. According to the director of the African CDC, this third wave has been "extremely brutal." In Uganda, 99 percent of the cases are from Delta; in Zambia, 77 percent.
Delta could cause more problems here in the US. More than one in 10 people who got a first dose of Pfizer or Moderna have missed their second dose. This makes them much more vulnerable to Delta. Delta appears to be behind the outbreak in Sydney. There have been 22 new cases, bringing the total to 65, making this the largest outbreak in six months. There are likely to be more new cases. Nine hundred or so clients visited a hair salon while several employees there were infectious. Raising even more concerns about Delta, many of the confirmed infections appear to have occurred after only seconds of contact. There was also a child's birthday party where at least 17 guests had tested positive as of Thursday night. The rest of the guests are expected to be infected along with household contacts of almost everyone who was there.
The UK reported 15,810 new covid cases today, cases having risen by almost 50 percent in one week. As of June 16, 83 cases of Delta Plus had been identified in the US compared with 41 in the UK and 40 in India where Delta Plus is considered a variant of concern. Delta Plus cases have also been identified in Canada, Japan, Nepal, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Switzerland, and Turkey.
The Chinese vaccines have been getting some very bad press of late. Since the pandemic began, 401 doctors in Indonesia have died. At least 20 of them were fully vaccinated with Sinovac. Some countries in the Middle East are giving residents a third dose of one of the Chinese vaccines. Personally, I'd ask for a different vaccine.
There's a new quirk with the Olympics. Word is that some of the British Olympians are vaccine-hesitant. Well over 90 percent of the British athletes will be fully vaccinated by July 23, but there will still be holdouts. I wonder if there will be additional restrictions for unvaccinated athletes in terms of how much they can circulate.
Meanwhile, back in the US, nearly all covid deaths occurring now are among the unvaccinated. This cannot be stressed enough: the vaccines we have in the US work. Period. Full stop. Louisiana is turning to a lottery in hopes of getting more people to be vaccinated. The vaccination rate in Louisiana is lower than every state but Mississippi. Six of the bottom eight states in vaccination rate are southern. Besides Mississippi and Louisiana, there are Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, and Tennessee. One reason they think a lottery will work in Louisiana is that their research suggests that independent of political affiliation, the people not yet vaccinated are the people most likely to buy lottery tickets. To me, not getting vaccinated is the same as buying a lottery ticket. The odds are better in the vaccination lottery, but the covid prize sucks more than the cash one would.
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