COVID-19 News and Discussions

[Time_Traveller]

COVID-19: UK records 39,950 new cases and 19 more coronavirus-related deaths

Monday 19 July 2021

The UK has recorded 39,950 new COVID cases and 19 more coronavirus-related deaths in the latest 24-hour period, according to government data.

The figures compare with 48,161 and 25 deaths announced on Sunday while 34,471 infections and six fatalities were reported this time last week.

Meanwhile, another 18,186 people had their first jab on Sunday, taking the UK total to 46,314,039.

Live COVID updates from the UK and around the world

And a further 128,878 had their second jab yesterday, meaning 36,099,727 are now fully vaccinated.

https://news.sky.com/story/covid-19-uk- ... s-12359190

[wjfox]

CDC tells individuals to ‘avoid travel’ to the UK as Covid cases rise

Published Mon, Jul 19 2021 2:57 PM EDT Updated 20 Min Ago

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Monday said to “avoid travel” to the U.K. as the delta Covid-19 variant continues to spread.

The warning is “Level 4” is the CDC’s highest. It isn’t binding but it comes after airline executives and other members of the travel industry have pressed the Biden Administration to loosen Covid travel restrictions.

[...]

The CDC said if individuals must travel to the U.K., they should be fully vaccinated against Covid-19. Meanwhile, England lifted remaining Covid-19 restrictions on Monday, allowing for indoor gatherings and the reopening of nightclubs.

[...]

U.S. airline stocks fell sharply on Monday as the rise of delta variant cases has raised concerns about the economic recovery and the potential impact on the recent rise in travel demand after a slump for much of the past year.

Covid cases in the U.S. have jumped by about 66% in the past week to a seven-day average of about 32,300 new cases per day, according to Hopkins’ data.

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/07/19/cdc-tel ... -rise.html

[Xyls]

Full speed ahead to crazy town! Choo choo!

[wjfox]

Massive tragedy for Myanmar, if these figures are even partially true.

Really highlights the difference between rich and poor countries.

Could this pandemic turn out even worse than 1918...?

----------

‘Everyone is dying’: Myanmar on the brink of decimation

Myanmar desperately needs an international health intervention but its military regime seems content to let the people die

July 17, 2021

[...]

One estimate provided by public health experts in Myanmar predicts that 50% of Myanmar’s 55 million people will be infected within three weeks by either the Alpha or Delta variant of Covid-19.

One very reputable public health specialist expects that the population will be decimated by at least 10-15 million by the time Covid is done with Myanmar.

[...]

I have worked in and on Myanmar for more than 30 years. Everyone I know there is either infected or caring for an infected person. No hospitals accept patients anymore, not even the priciest private ones.

Some of the Covid-infected die on the steps in front of hospitals that reject them. They undoubtedly go untested, with death certificates likely reading “pneumonia” as cause of death.

[...]

One does not need to be an epidemiologist, statistician or econometrician to see where this is going. The public health system, to the degree it still exists, will utterly collapse, at this rate of infection, probably within two weeks.

https://asiatimes.com/2021/07/everyone- ... ecimation/

[weatheriscool]

What made the spanish flu so deadly is what it did to india with 11 million dead. If these numbers out of Myanmar are true then covid is shaping up to be a very nasty pandemic even within historical terms.

[weatheriscool]

2 more fully vaccinated Texas House Democrats test positive for COVID-19, bringing total to 5
Source: NBC KXAN/Austin

The positive rapid tests bring the total to five who have contracted COVID-19.

“All of the HDC Members who tested positive are feeling good, with no symptoms or only mild symptoms,” a release from the House Democratic Caucus said.

All members and staff were provided daily rapid tests as a precautionary measure after they learned three members tested positive for COVID-19 in the days prior.

Read more: https://www.kxan.com/news/texas/three-f ... -covid-19/

[wjfox]

[caltrek]

India's Excess Deaths During Pandemic up to 4.9 Million, Study Shows
By Ankur Banerjee and Neha Arora
July 20, 2021

https://www.usnews.com/news/world/artic ... tudy-shows

Introduction:

(Reuters) -India's excess deaths during the COVID-19 pandemic could be as high as 4.9 million, a new study shows, providing further evidence that millions more may have died from coronavirus than the official tally.

The report by the Washington-based Center for Global Development, co-authored by India's former chief economic adviser Arvind Subramanian, included deaths from all causes since the start of the pandemic through June this year.

India's official tally of more than 414,000 deaths is the world's third highest after the United States and Brazil, but the study adds to growing calls from experts for a rigorous nationwide audit of fatalities.

A devastating rise in infections in April and May, driven largely by the more infectious and dangerous Delta variant, overwhelmed the healthcare system and killed at least 170,000 people in May alone, official data show.

"What is tragically clear is that too many people, in the millions rather than hundreds of thousands, may have died," the report said, estimating between 3.4 million and 4.9 million excess deaths during the pandemic.

[wjfox]

[weatheriscool]

Driven by covid deaths, U.S. life expectancy dropped by 1.5 years in 2020
Source: Washington Post

Life expectancy in the United States dropped by a year and a half in 2020 — a continuation of a worrisome decline that was observed in the first half of last year as the coronavirus pandemic ravaged the country, according to federal data released Wednesday.

The decline, which is the largest seen in a single year since World War II, reflects the pandemic’s sustained toll on Americans, particularly the disproportionate impact of covid-19 on communities of color. Black Americans lost 2.9 years of life expectancy while Latinos, who have longer life expectancy than non-Hispanic Blacks or Whites, saw a drop of three years. There was a decrease of 1.2 years among White people.

“It’s horrific,” said Anne Case, a professor emeritus of economics and public affairs at Princeton University. “It’s not entirely unexpected given what we have already seen about mortality rates as the year went on, but that still doesn’t stop it from being just horrific, especially for non-Hispanic Blacks and for Hispanics.”

The provisional data from the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), a part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, shows that life expectancy at birth — a generally reliable measure of the nation’s health — for the total population declined from 78.8 years in 2019 to 77.3 years in 2020. Almost three-fourths of that decline is attributed to deaths from covid-19, according to the report. The report did not include data for Asian Americans or other racial groups.

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2 ... ncy-covid/

[weatheriscool]

India's Pandemic Death Toll Could Be In The Millions
Source: AP News

NEW DELHI (AP) — India’s excess deaths during the pandemic could be a staggering 10 times the official COVID-19 toll, likely making it modern India’s worst human tragedy, according to the most comprehensive research yet on the ravages of the virus in the South Asian country.

Most experts believe India’s official toll of more than 414,000 dead is a vast undercount, but the government has dismissed those concerns as exaggerated and misleading.

The report released Tuesday estimated excess deaths — the gap between those recorded and those that would have been expected — to be 3 million to 4.7 million between January 2020 and June 2021. It said an accurate figure may “prove elusive” but the true death toll “is likely to be an order of magnitude greater than the official count.”

The report was published by Arvind Subramanian, the Indian government’s former chief economic adviser, and two other researchers at the Center for Global Development, a nonprofit think tank based in Washington, and Harvard University...

Read more: https://apnews.com/article/business-sci ... 7cb6e3f92e

[weatheriscool]

Texas has seen nearly 9,000 COVID-19 deaths since February. All but 43 were unvaccinated people.
Source: The Texas Tribune

Of the 8,787 people who have died in Texas due to COVID-19 since early February, at least 43 were fully vaccinated, the Texas Department of State Health Services said.

That means 99.5% of people who died due to COVID-19 in Texas from Feb. 8 to July 14 were unvaccinated, while 0.5% were the result of “breakthrough infections,” which DSHS defines as people who contracted the virus two weeks after being fully vaccinated.

The agency did not release details about the 43 deaths and noted that these are preliminary numbers, which could change because each case must be confirmed through public health investigations. Statewide, more than 50,000 people have died of COVID-19 since March 2020, but the rate of deaths has slowed dramatically since vaccines became widely available in April.

Dr. David Lakey, the chief medical officer of the University of Texas System, said people succumbing to the coronavirus despite being vaccinated was “not unexpected.”

Read more: https://www.texastribune.org/2021/07/21 ... ed-deaths/

[wjfox]

Massive numbers of UK workers are now being told to self-isolate.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-57929162








Supermarkets struggle to stock shelves as ‘pingdemic’ havoc spreads

Wed 21 Jul 2021 23.41 BST

Ministers urged to include retail staff and lorry drivers in exemption as self-isolating workers causes shortages

https://www.theguardian.com/business/20 ... c-absences

[caltrek]

New Campaign Demands World Leaders 'Stop Playing Games' and End Vaccine Apartheid
by Julia Conley
July 21, 2021

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/ ... -apartheid

Introduction:

(Common Dreams) As athletes from around the world prepare to compete in the Olympics in Tokyo—without any in-person spectators due to the coronavirus pandemic, more than a year after the crisis began and despite the availability of effective vaccines—advocacy groups on Wednesday called on world leaders to "stop playing games" and end the apartheid that's keeping the Global South from accessing vaccine doses.

The People's Vaccine Alliance and Public Citizen launched their new Stop Playing Games campaign to demand that leaders of wealthy countries, 33 of which have vaccinated at least 50% of their populations, invest in a global vaccine manufacturing plan to produce and distribute doses at a faster rate in regional hubs around the world.

As part of the campaign, the groups will circulate a petition during the Olympic Games calling on U.S. President Joe Biden to invest $25 billion in the manufacturing plan, allowing the production of eight billion doses within a year—enough to vaccinate more than half of the world population and putting the global community much further on the path to ending the pandemic.

"Global leaders like President Biden cannot ignore the deadly pandemic and gross inequalities in vaccine distribution that are the backdrop of the Olympics this year," said Robert Weissman, president of Public Citizen. "They must share vaccine technology and invest in scaled-up manufacturing to produce billions more doses in order to end vaccine apartheid."

As of now, only 1% of people in low-income countries have received at least one dose of a Covid-19 vaccine. Last month, Oxfam reported that at the current rate, it would take 57 years for every person in the Global South to be fully vaccinated against the disease.

[caltrek]

An Astonishing Claim About the Coronavirus 'Lab Leak Theory' Doesn't Hold up to Scrutiny
by Lindsay Beyerstein
July 21, 2021

https://www.alternet.org/2021/07/lab-leak-theory/

Conclusion:

(Alternet) Lab accidents happen. Outbreaks linked to labs have been happening throughout the history of microbiological research, but they tend to be relatively small and limited to researchers, their close contacts and the odd health care provider. Which is not surprising considering that, for all their faults, labs are designed to keep people safe from infectious disease within a larger world that offers no such assurances. Lab-based infections account for a tiny percentage of all infectious disease.

(Sociologist Zeynep) Tufekci specifically framed this as a discussion of the origins of pandemics, rather than infections, or outbreaks. Lab-based infections would look even rarer if we compared them to all infections, or all outbreaks, or to all known outbreaks of new diseases.

Whatever the flaws of the Wuhan Institute of Virology, it was surely more secure than countless roosts where bats are swapping SARS-like coronaviruses in innumerable uncontrolled serial passage experiments, all day, every day, with no biosafety protocols. We can debate about whether Biosafety Level 2 lab is secure enough for altered bat coronavirus research, but the fact remains that the corresponding Bat Safety Level=0.

Zeynep Tufekci is right in that we can't rule out the possibility that covid came from a lab a priori, but she's attacking a straw man. Nobody thinks the possibility can be discounted out of hand. Everyone thinks there ought to be continued investigation. But we don't need to pretend all possibilities are equally likely to justify it.

It's comforting to think that the risk of emerging infectious disease can be pinned on a few arrogant scientists. It's far more terrifying to acknowledge that the bats—and all the factors that make spillovers more likely—are all still out there, waiting for us.

[weatheriscool]

Covid: China rejects WHO plan for second phase of virus origin probe
Source: BBC

China has rejected the next stage of a World Health Organization (WHO) plan to investigate the origins of the coronavirus pandemic.

The WHO wants to audit laboratories in the area the virus was first identified.

But Zeng Yixin, deputy health minister, said this showed "disrespect for common sense and arrogance toward science".

WHO experts said it was very unlikely the virus escaped from a Chinese lab, but the theory has endured.

Read more: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-57926368

[weatheriscool]

Texas hospital records first US case of Lambda variant of Covid

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A Texas hospital system has confirmed its first case of the Covid-19 Lambda variant.

The Lambda variant was first detected in Peru last August, and made up 81 per cent of the South American country’s Covid cases between April and June.

Houston Methodist Hospital, which has eight facilities in the state, confirmed its first case on Monday.

The World Health Organisation says that the variant, which it calls “a variant of interest”, has now been found in 29 countries.

https://www-independent-co-uk.cdn.amppr ... 88205.html

[wjfox]

[raklian]

[weatheriscool]

'We are in trouble': Kansas City hospital leaders to call for new mask mandates
Source: KC Star

While COVID-19 hospitalizations in the metro haven’t reached their winter peaks, the current spike is placing additional pressure on the health care system because more people are hospitalized for non-COVID reasons now than in the winter. On Wednesday, Stites said the University of Kansas Health System was turning down transfer patients because its beds are full.

“We have a severe shortage of in-patient beds and that shortage is throughout our community,” Stites said.

He also raised the possibility of asking state officials to provide additional resources. Local officials in Springfield asked Missouri Gov. Mike Parson to fund an alternative care site to help treat the inflow of virus patients.

“We saw in Springfield, they tried to put a field hospital up — and maybe we could be getting close to that,” Stites said.

Hospital leaders, who cannot themselves issue mandates, will have to build support for the idea with elected leaders and public health officials in order to obtain a second mandate. Officials would almost certainly face intense blowback from some portion of their constituents against any new order, especially after going months without one.

Read more: https://www.kansascity.com/news/coronav ... stage_lead