Some school districts in Virginia are running into trouble over their covid numbers. That's not in terms of how large or small those numbers are but in how and to whom they are reported. The Virginia Department of Health says that knowing the level of covid spread within K-12 schools is critical to preventing transmission. The Department, though, has stopped contact tracing, and some school districts have followed suit. One father complained that he heard from his daughter that she had been exposed by a classmate's testing positive. He said that he never heard from the school or district.
Taiwan continues to move from zero-covid to "living with the virus." Meanwhile, the People's Republic of China continues with zero-covid, and it's not looking good there. Some Chinese fear that the government is using the pandemic and lockdowns to expand its power and control. Similarities do exist between the Shanghai lockdowns and the situation with the Uyghurs and Kaakhs in the western province of Xinjiang. Shanghai's quarantine camps are apparently not that different from the re-education camps in Xinjiang. One source expressed the view that the pandemic has done "a huge favor to the Chinese Communist Party." An activist from Human Rights Watch commented, "I think the Covid control is almost like a milestone toward deepening repression."
It seems that global covid efforts are looking more like global HIV efforts 20 years ago. Rich nations have, and other nations don't. Low-income countries currently account for less that one percent of global testing, as a WHO official notes, "If you're not testing, you can't sequence, you can't isolate, you can't treat. Everything else unravels."
As for sequencing and isolating, here's an advisory from CNN medical analyst Dr. Leana Wen: "These new variants are so contagious that a cloth mask just isn't sufficient. You really should be wearing a high-quality respirator mask, like an N95, KN95, or KF94." That is, if you're wearing a mask at all.
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