Starting with something totally different, the US center of population (the average of where 331.4 million residents live) in 2020 was near Hartville, a town of about 600 in central southern Missouri. I found that a little surprising. I would have thought it would be a more easterly location.
The Olympics are going to be interesting. A Polish luge athlete who broke a leg while training near Beijing was flown out on a cargo plane after covid restrictions prevented him from flying commercial. It seems that the cargo plane was equipped much like a commercial liner, so it wasn't as if he lay on a stretcher in a cargo hold. How is this going to work if someone is injured during the Games? Speaking of cargo pilots, this week 130 Cathay Pacific cargo pilots based in Hong Kong were ordered to spend three weeks in quarantine after staying at a hotel near Frankfurt where three crew members who tested positive had also stayed. This sort of thing may be why Hong Kong has only recorded 213 deaths in a city of 7.5 million.
The Netherlands is running out of covid tests. Administering them is said to be something of an "all hands on deck" approach. Positive tests have gone up 44 percent in one week. Ireland's bars and nightclubs will be required to close at midnight starting on Friday in response to the surge there. People have been asked to work from home, and vaccine passes will be required for things such as going to the theater. Models show that without mitigation measures, Ireland could see 200 to 450 ICU patients by Christmas. The country only has 300 permanent ICU beds. Sweden meanwhile will introduce vaccine passes for indoor events with over 100 people in attendance.
Germany is also dealing with a fourth wave of covid. There were 52,826 cases on Wednesday, up by half from a week ago. The 294 deaths Wednesday bring the total death toll to 98,274. Responses being discussed include forcing people to show proof of vaccination, recovery, or a negative tests in order to take public transport or to work. Tighter restrictions on leisure activities are also possible. The prime minister of Belgium describes the situation there, "The alarm signals are all red. We had all hoped to have a winter without coronavirus, but Belgium is not an island." Belgium has one of the highest per capita rates in the EU, one per 100 people. Hungarian doctors warn of a "very sad Christmas." And the Czwch Republic will ban unvaccinated people from access to public events and services. The prime minister warns, "People have to finally believe that Covid kills."
To summarize the European situation, WHO said that deaths in Europe rose by five percent in the last week making it the only region where covid mortality has increased. I may have cited that before, but it probably bears repeating. What happens in Europe often happens here next.
The White House plans to invest billions of dollars to expand US vaccine manufacturing with the goal of producing at least one billion doses per year starting in the second half of 2022. The intent is addressing the immediate needs overseas and preparing for future pandemics. The goal in regard to future pandemics is to have vaccine capability within six to nine months after a pathogen is identified.
Dr. Fauci (Remember him? I haven't mentioned him in a while.) says that if we can get the vaccination rate up and increase the number of boosters being given, it's feasible that covid could be reduced from pandemic to endemic by spring 2022. He said that covid cannot be eliminated but will always be present in the population to some degree just as chickenpox and the flu are. He elaborated, "To me, if you want to get to endemic, you have to get the level of infection so low that it does not have an impact on society, on your life, on your economy. People will still get infected. People might still get hospitalized, but the level would be so low that we don't think about it all the time and it doesn't influence what we do."
Can the US go endemic while the rest of the world stays pandemic? I do wonder.
1 comment:
I've made the comparison with flu before. Here we can have close to 30,000 deaths a year from flu and pneumonia and it doesn't make the news unless it impacts on something else. There's a level of risk there that we live with without even thinking about it. There's no isolation period for flu, no testing or reporting and yet it's a killer (for some).
We are currently staying home pending the results of son's PCR test. It's probably not Covid and there's now no requirement to isolate prior to the test results but that seems all wrong to me. Whatever he's got, covid, flu, lurgy, there's no reason to be spreading it about. I'm much more aware now of the potential impact on others of being a disease vector.
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