Word came today that the New Year's Eve celebration would still go on, though that might change before December 31. Instead of 58,000 people, though, there will be only 15,000. I have not yet heard how those 15,000 people will be chosen. They must have proof of full vaccination, wear masks, and practice social distancing. I'm not sure of the specifics on distancing--family groups, maybe? The last New Year's Eve on which The Professor and I saw midnight was December 31, 2018, aboard MS Lofoten anchored outside Tromso, Norway. The fireworks display was the best I've seen.
The graph showing case numbers in the District of Columbia shows a vertical line. Cases on Saturday nearly tripled the previous record high. An ER nurse in the District comments, "What do you do when you have a tidal wave coming at you in a little paddle boat? There's going to be a huge uptick. Our entire waiting room is going to be all Covid-positive."
Data from the UK suggest that Omicron appears to reduce the chance of a hospital visit 20 to 25 percent and an overnight admission by at least 40 percent. The data were based on 56,000 Omicron cases and 269,000 Delta ones. Still, new daily cases just went over 100,000 for the first time. There were 301 hospital admissions on December 20, up 78 percent in one week and the highest single day number since February 7. For unvaccinated people who had not had a case of covid, risk of hospitalization was about 11 percent lower for Omicron than Delta. Modeling suggests that there could be 3,000 hospitalizations per day at the peak of the wave in January if no new restrictions are put in place.
Meanwhile in Europe, the continent, Spain is responding to a daily all-time record of almost 50,000 new cases in one day and enacting an outdoor mask mandate. Italy is considering an outdoor mask mandate as well as making the health pass valid for six months rather than nine, and banning parties or events, indoors or out, until the end of January. In Greece, all outdoor and indoor areas not currently requiring masks must start to require them. There will be no public events until January 3 at the earliest. Data from France suggest that unvaccinated children are helping drive the surge there. Vatican City now requires all workers to be vaccinated or recovered from covid. Regular testing is no longer an option. Finally, Putin has said there will be no vaccine mandates. Russians, he says, are "inventive people" meaning "whatever you start to push, they find ways to circumvent it."
There's more news I could include, but Son #1 asked for my help with his Christmas present to Son #2, and I have a bit more to do tonight so that I can hand it off in the morning for him to finish. The Professor is making butter tarts tonight, and I've already been called into the kitchen for a consult. Multitasking may be my middle name this evening.
1 comment:
It's not so long since that the headlines were that there could be 1m new cases a day by Christmas. Nope. I'm no longer at home to "could","might" and "may" because depending on what figures you use for your modelling you can produce whatever figures you like. The NHS went through last Christmas with 3000-4000 admissions a day, the graph for last December looks very different to the current one. Vaccinations work, it's just a pity that we still have one in ten people that haven't had one shot, one in five that haven't had two.
This is the first year I've ever had a frozen turkey and ham. I was concerned about isolation affecting the supply chain and I had the entire Christmas meal in the freezer at the start of the month. This is the first time I've had space in the freezer for a while, the downside is that the fridge is full of thawing meat.
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