The CIA director has joined the ranks of aides or officials who have met with POTUS right before testing positive for the coronavirus. As with the others, the director was not a close contact as defined by the CDC. Somehow I do not find that particularly encouraging.
A top official in Shanghai has admitted that they were not "sufficiently prepared" for the Omicron surge, an admission not at all normal for China. It's not clear what the aftereffects of this admission might be.
The website covid.gov mentioned yesterday has four formal goals: to protect against and treat covid; to prepare for new variants; to avoid future shutdowns; and to help fight the virus abroad.
Daily vaccinations--both first and boosters--are at the lowest level since early 2021 at the start of the vaccination program. Speaking of vaccines, Taiwan has confirmed its first death linked to the AstraZeneca vaccine, and will pay $209,000 in damages to the family. Can you imagine what the dollar amount would be here? Actually, it would likely take years to resolve the issue here.
One reason that Omicron may be so transmissible is that it has the highest environmental stability among variants of concern. The average survival time on skin for the original virus was 8.6 hours. Alpha and Beta were 19.6 and 19.1 hours, respectively. Delta was 16.8 hours, and Omicron tops them all at 21.1 hours. Even so, a 15-second exposure to an alcohol-based hand sanitizer completely inactivated all the covid variants.
Lots of little points today. I plead the distraction of an uncomfortably swollen knee. I have no real idea what's going on, but I have an appointment in orthopedics on Tuesday to see if they know. In the meantime, I'll try to time things better tomorrow
1 comment:
I checked our local rate, 670 per 100,000. Nope it's not gone away although all restrictions have (except where they haven't).
About two years ago I said I'd know when this was over when the teaching hospital went back to regular visiting because they would be lead by the risk as they had no political axe to grind. I guess it really is nearly over. There's no appointments, no time limits within the 12 hour visiting window, no test to enter. You can even visit on a covid ward. The only restrictions are two visitors per bed, masks and no children.
I'm glad you are seeing someone with the knee, once you start changing gait you push the pain elsewhere (says the woman who had hip pain from flat feet needing more arch support)
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