Things are starting to spiral out of control again, the UK variant and others are wreaking havoc across the world.
https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/coronavirus/no-region-in-the-world-spared-as-covid-19-cases-deaths-surge-1.5380905
Iran and India are the worst off from the countries I have been keeping an eye on, cases going almost straight up, many more are facing new problems.
"Every single day the number of cases is increasing. Every single day the number of deaths is increasing. The alarm bells are ringing for the intensive care units," Cinel said. (head of the Turkish Intensive Care Association) The mutant form of the virus is causing more harm to the organs," he said. "While two out of ten patients were dying previously, the number is now four out of 10. And if we continue this way, we will lose six."
We entered a new state of emergency here and the 4 week lock down has been raised to a stay at home order. Today 4,227 new cases, second highest yet. However this time the ICU is already pretty much full. More young people get severe symptoms with these new variants and death rate is going up. We're switching vaccination strategies to now open it up in hot spots and at risk places for everyone over 18. To get as many first doses into arms the time period between doses has now been extended to 4 months with the idea that the gap should shrink when production ramps up. Mobile vaccination units are being prepared to hopefully slow down the spread.
Now paying the price for not properly getting the numbers down nor properly closing the borders :/
The only exceptions to the deteriorating situation are those countries that are advanced in their vaccination program, mostly notably Israel and Britain. Even the U.S., which is a vaccination leader globally, is seeing a small uptick in cases.
Harris, from the WHO, says the world knows how to fight these surges. She said good news was coming out of the U.K. -- which saw new coronavirus cases drop 60% in March amid a strong vaccination program -- "that indeed the vaccination programs have averted very large numbers of deaths. But we have to do it all."
"We have to keep on social distancing. We have to avoid indoor crowded settings. We have to keep wearing the masks, even if vaccinated," she said. "People are misunderstanding, seeming to think that vaccination will stop transmission. That is not the case. We need to bring down the transmission while giving the vaccination the chance to stop the severe disease."
