International news first, and I’ll save the news that may be sending me back to the hermitage or at least keep me awake at night. Japan has broadened the areas under states of emergency and extended the existing states until the end of August. Five other areas have been put under less-stringent restrictions. While there are new cases daily connected to the Olympics, there is still no sign of Olympics-to-general-public transmission. The Delta variant is spreading in China. The Chinese strategy for earlier outbreaks was to impose strict lockdowns at outbreak sites, hold travelers to lengthy quarantines, and conduct city-wide testing. These strategies are not working with Delta. Two cases have now made it to Beijing, which has very strict prevention policies.
The worst per capita covid death rate in Southeast Asia is now Myanmar. Some people there claim that the military is “weaponizing” covid. Medical oxygen is going to military hospitals and hospitals with government supporters. The same hold with PPE and masks. The military is said to be letting covid run out of control. Doctors who opposed the coup fear that they will be arrested if they show up to work at public hospitals. Some do run makeshift hospitals knowing they will be arrested if caught. The UN human rights group says there have been 260 attacks on medical personnel resulting in 18 deaths. The military has detained 67 health care workers and is looking for 600 more. There are no real figures on vaccination. Vaccination was only in its first week when the coup took place. Maybe three percent of people got two doses. China is sending more vaccine, but it’s not clear who will get it first.
Remember my mantra early in the pandemic? “We’re fucked”? Today’s news makes me feel that even more than I did before. Let’s start with some quotes from the CDC director:
I think people need to understand that we’re not crying wolf here. This is serious … It’s one of the most transmissible viruses we know about. Measles, chickenpox, this—they’re all up there.
The measures we need to get this under control—they’re extreme. The measures you need are extreme.
The number of cases we have now is higher than any number we had on any given day last summer.
Internal CDC data scheduled to be released today show that fully vaccinated people may spread the Delta variant at the same rate as unvaccinated people do. Given that so many breakthrough infections are asymptomatic, there may well be more Delta being spread than previously thought. Covid’s R0, the number of other people an infected person will infect, is 8 or 9. R0 was 2 for the un-mutated coronavirus. For reference, here are the R0s for some other viruses:
Smallpox R0 = 3
Polio R0=4-6
Mumps R0=10-12
Chickenpox R0=10-12
Pertussis (whooping cough) R0=15-17
Measles R0=16-18
So the good news is that covid’s R0 is not as high as those for pertussis or measles. The bad news is that covid is more contagious than two viruses the world was all too happy to see be eradicated, smallpox and polio (admittedly, there are still cases of polio here and there around the world).
On June 22, there were 11,299 new cases of covod on average every day. This was the low point for 2021. The average number of new cases over the past seven days was 66,900. The CDC has noted the importance of updating all communications that describe breakthrough cases as “rare” or a “small percentage” of all cases to reflect that vaccinated or not, the amount of covid you transfer to others is the same. While that will clarify things, I don’t expect the people who need to pay attention to it will.
And the governor of the great state of Iowa says that mask guidance isn’t “grounded in reality or common sense.” I don’t know what reality she is grounded in, but it’s not the same as mine.
Today’s news from the CDC makes me feel much as I did at the outset of all this--vulnerable. I may have been vaccinated, but I could still get infected but with only no or mild symptoms. I may have been vaccinated and feel fine, but that doesn’t mean I’m not contagious. I’m three times as contagious as someone with smallpox was, and thanks to a vaccine, that disease has been eradicated. So why the hell don’t people want to get rid of covid?
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