The View from the Hermitage, Day 474

I survived my first birthday day yesterday. The second is tomorrow when Son #2 and DiL= come for another pancake breakfast and unknown as yet shenanigans. They called last night and sent photos of the two new additions to their menagerie. The current total is 15: five rabbits, four tortoises, three snakes, two cats, and one parrot. Gotta love those knuckleheaded kids so much that they don't ask us to animal-sit for them.

A growing number of scientists say that WHO should not be the entity to continue to investigate the origins of the coronavirus. They've called for an independent analysis similar to what was done after Chernobyl. The WHO emergencies chief says that WHO works "by persuasion" and cannot force China to cooperate. China had to approve the members of the initial WHO investigative team, their agenda, and their report suggesting that the results were not independently verified.

More local officials in the US are worried about another wave of covid. POTUS plans to deploy "response teams" to areas with high infection rates. The US will not meet POTUS's goal of 70 percent partial vaccination but will come close, at 67 or 68 percent. The District of Columbia, two territories (Puerto Rico and Guam), and 20 states have met the 70 percent goal. Those states are Vermont, Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, California, Oregon, Washington, Colorado, Illinois, Minnesota, and New Mexico. Fourteen states including Florida and Texas are close to 70 percent, but 16 states including nearly all the Southern ones are still below 60 percent. Mississippi sits at the bottom with only 46 percent of residents partially vaccinated. 

The covid situation in the UK is being watched by other countries around the world as it turns into a race between an advanced vaccination program and the Delta variant. A professor of infectious disease epidemiology at the University of Edinburgh describes it, "The UK is in an absolutely unique position. We have the biggest Delta outbreak in a well-vaccinated country. We are a petri dish for the world." So far the Delta variant appears to be 60 percent more transmissible and twice as likely to lead to hospitalization. Two Pfizer or AstraZeneca shots reduce the risk of hospitalization from Delta by 96 percent or 92 percent respectively. Thanks (or no) to Delta, 85 percent vaccination would be needed for herd immunity.

Indonesia is tripling the oxygen supply to hospitals for the next two weeks with the extra oxygen being diverted from industry. Delta accounts for 60 percent of new cases; it is the worst outbreak since the pandemic began. Three government hospitals as swell as emergency rooms have been converted to focus solely on treating covid patients. It does not help that Indonesia has one of the lowest testing rates in the world, administering just 47.98 tests per 1,000 people. The percent positivity is currently 20.

There is concern that Africa could become "the continent of covid" as it is on the verge of exceeding the worst week ever in the pandemic. Just over one percent of Africa's 1.3 billion people has been fiully vaccinated. Every European country has more than 25 percent of its population fully vaccinated, and some are over 45 percent. Africa is mostly relying on Covax, and it is not clear just how many Covax doses have actually gotten to Africa. Some European countries including France and Denmark have separately sent hundreds of thousands of doses to African countries.

Portugal is reinstating curfews in 19 municipalities with "very elevated risk" of covid and 26 with "elevated risk." Lisbon and other popular tourist spots are among the municipalities cited. Curfew will run from 11:00 pm to 5:00 am. Only 34 percent of people are fully vaccinated, and "fully" is what protects against Delta. In Portugal and Britain, most new cases are in people under 30, pointing to the need of vaccinating younger adults. 

Finally, in a "how can this get even crazier" moment, British residents who were vaccinated with AstraZeneca vaccine produced by the Serum Institute of India can not automatically skip the EU quarantine that those vaccinated with AstraZeneca vaccine produced in the UK can. Approval from the European Medicines Agency for the Indian-made AstraZeneca has not been requested. Until that happens and approval is granted, the EU will not recognize it as a vaccine worthy of its recipients skipping quarantine.