At that point, I almost think if I had the choice I'd go with the russian one lol.

Potentially less than 60% effective is a huge drop down from 95%.
40%+ of the time it doesn't work, vs 5% of the time.

Russians have given out data on their vaccine, its supposedly decent.
(ei. near as good as european/american versions) (they hacked into tons of labatories, to collect data and research so.... why wouldn't it be?)

I'm mostly basing these suppositions on the method the Russian vaccine uses, that is, a non-replicating adenovirus vector, which makes it similar to the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine (which has a ~ 65% efficacy based on the most complete study).

Ideally, I'd still hope CoronaVac works the best out of them, since it's cheap and rollout can proceed rather quickly. And not only to Brazil, for a lot of South American countries have deals to buy dozens of millions of doses from Butantan in the upcoming months. Besides, the method can easily shift between any variant of the virus you want to base it from (and probably SARS-CoV too!).

A few months ago leaked preliminary results claimed CoronaVac was actually the most efficacious vaccine of all those being tested here (this, AZ's, and J&J's), so I'd like to know what went horribly wrong if it landed at 60%. Unless these rumors are bull and it's actually in the 70-80% range or so.

Edit - a point to consider too is the number of people being hospitalized or dying in the control/vaccine groups. If we were only to compare those, the vaccine would probably be significant to virtually all recipients, so it's not like it outright fails to elicit an immune response completely 40% of the time.

It got me Christmas week! And I could have easily avoided it if I wanted to since I had ample warning(could've booked a hotel a week prior to escape exposure)

Noticeable symptoms started Tuesday Dec 22, was heavily exposed to a pre-symptomatic infected every day for about 5-6 days prior to actually experiencing symptoms myself

Tuesday - very minor throat irritation, increased nasal/throat mucus production/congestion but not excessive, far far less than what a common cold would produce

Wednesday - 6am, wake up feeling overall fine, no throat irritation, maybe a bit more tired than usual. Early on that day, the only thing that really stood out was a mashed potatoes consistency bowel movement. Around 2pm est I have a second one of those mashed potatoes bms and just start feeling horrible. By 4pm I'm coughing, having chills, very tired/fatigued, fever of of 103F, abdominal discomfort, eyes feeling dry and irritated, muscle/body aches all over, 0 appetite. thankfully No shortness of breath and no symptomatic indication of lower respiratory involvement. o2 saturation was completely normal. by midnight fever is down to 102F.

Thursday- pretty much the same symptoms as the other day but to a lesser degree. muscle/body aches substantially worse though. also noticed my sense of smell was altered and diminished a bit. picking up an odd chemicalish odor with every inhalation, kinda hard to exaclty describe and put my finger on it. At midnight my temp was still 102F. The discomfort, chills, sweating etc made it very difficult to actually fall asleep. Bed was too uncomfortable and had to sleep on the nice firm floor to find some real comfort/relief.

Friday/Christmas - Woke up at 7am feeling much much better, almost like the last 2 days never happened. Temp was normal, 99.5F. Muscle/body aches completely gone, energy pretty much back to normal, appetite returned but still not 100% back to normal. cough present but less frequent. sense of smell still distorted. had the beginnings of a sore throat in the morning which progressively got worse throughout the day(maybe an opportunistic infection creeping up?)

and somehow out of everyone, I as a 30yr old 27 bmi man got hit the hardest symptom severity wise. My 70-yr-old male relative with a bmi of 30 fared better than me.

Hope you get better soon! The soar throat might last for a while. When my wife got sick I didn't have any severe symptoms but ended up with a soar throat for nearly a month which is normally gone in a few days when I get a cold.



Weekly update. The numbers are going to be distorted for a couple weeks with drops and surges. Lower reporting has already had an impact making it hard to tell what is from the recent lock downs and what from less testing / reporting during the holidays. I'm guessing the numbers won't be stable until 2nd week into Januari.

The total number of infections passed 80 million last week. 4.20 million new cases were reported (down from 4.57 million) affected by lower reporting. Last week another 76,652 deaths were reported (down from 79,906) also affected by lower reporting. Total now stands at 1,756,947

USA has a big Christmas drop, Europe a bit smaller drop.

The continents

Europe reported 1.48 million new cases last week (same as last week) and 31,356 more deaths (down from 34,788) slightly affected by under reporting
North America also reported 1.48 million new cases last week (down from 1.75 million) and 23,453 more deaths (down from 23,727) affected by lower reporting
Asia reported 619K new cases last week (down from 723K) and 9,916 more deaths (down from 10,134) following the same trend as last week
South America reported 468K new cases last week (down from 488K) and 8,216 more deaths (down from 8,633) affected by lower reporting
Africa reported 155K new cases last week (up from 125K) and 3,645 more deaths (up from 2,672)
Oceania reported 586 new cases last week (down from 709) and 6 deaths

Corners of the world

USA reported 1.32 million new cases (down from 1.59 million) and 17,418 more deaths (down from 18,095) both affected by lower reporting
Brazil reported 285K new cases (down from 328K) and 4,828 more deaths (down from 5,234) both likely affected by lower reporting
India reported 165K new cases (down from 177K) and 2,208 more deaths (down from 2,509) continuing the same trend as before
South Africa reported 81.8K new cases (up from 56.4K) and 1,991 more deaths (up from 1,333) rising sharply
Iran reported 43.5K new cases (down from 53.2K) and 1,167 more deaths (down from 1,546)

Canada reported 39.9K new cases (down from 46.5K) and 679 deaths (789 last week), however yesterday only New Brunswick reported, 1 case.
Japan reported 19.8K new cases (up from 18.6K) and 322 deaths (281 last week)
South Korea reported 7.25K new cases (up from 6.73K) and 128 deaths (73 last week)
Australia had a slight uptick but is already going down again, 179 cases last week, no deaths

Europe in detail

It's hard to tell now where lock downs have taken effect due to holiday testing / reporting. Germany is dropping a bit faster than expected, probably under reporting but they're also in lock down. The UK slowed down a bit at the end of the week yet firmly takes the top spot.

We'll probably see some alarming numbers next week which will just be counts catching up to previous trends. Any effect from Christmas gatherings will come later.

Well merry effing Christmas, we had to delay the lock down...
https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/first-two-cases-of-u-k-coronavirus-variant-found-in-ontario-health-officials-confirm-1.5245525
Ontario's Associate Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. Barbara Yaffe announced Saturday that the variant was identified in a couple from Durham Region, Ont. In a news release, she said the couple had no known travel history, exposure or high-risk contacts.

The strain has also been identified in UK travelers in Japan
https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/coronavirus/tokyo-covid-19-cases-hit-record-new-strain-arrives-before-new-year-holiday-1.5245311
Japan on Friday reported its first cases of a fast-spreading variant in passengers arriving from Britain. The new variant has also been detected in a man who visited that country and a family member - the first cases of infected people found outside airport checks - Nippon TV reported on Saturday.

And Sweden
https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/coronavirus/british-coronavirus-variant-found-in-traveller-to-sweden-health-agency-1.5245321
The new variant of the coronavirus circulating in Britain has been detected in Sweden after a traveller from Britain fell ill on arrival and tested positive for it, the Swedish Health Agency said on Saturday.

Got to spread the holiday cheer around :(

Germany posts the lowest numbers of new infections for quite some time. A christmas miracle....... (created by less testing and delayed reporting over the holidays).

UK version spreads faster (56-70% or something), but doesnt appear to make you much more sick than the normal strain.
What worries me is the african mutation, that one also seems to spread more, but unlike the UK strain, this one appears to make younger democrafics sick too.

So far,  the "upside" of corona was mostly those that got very sick were the elderly.
The fact that the africa mutation, is makeing more younger crowds get really sick as well, is a bad sign.

The irony is, dispite how many countries cut off flights to the UK (to avoid this mutation), alot of countries havn't done so towards african nations (where this mutation is starting to spread).

Also heard that during the holidays upwards of 115m americans choose to travel.
Which to me is crazy. I know Cristmas is about spending time together as family, but mass gatherings isnt a good thing with corona out there.
Supposedly something like 1/3 americans choose to go spend holidays outsides their own homes, traveling to family to celebrate it.
Its bound to lead to more infections, just gotta give it a few weeks, and it ll start showing on testing sites.

I really hope danes are more sensible than this..... but I wouldnt be surprised if we had mass travel and family gatherings during the holidays as well.

I was wondering why Africa was rising so much again, another strain :( South Korea and Japan also seem to be in trouble.

More deadly or not doesn't really matter if you're already in the severe risk group for the original strain. The extra rate of spread is enough to make it more dangerous. So far we've skipped all Christmas meetings and dinners, traditions broken. And I've skipped doing groceries for now, going on the stash we build up until the lock down takes effect. I have no intention to get in the long line ups for the supermarkets.

Oh well, overall the cases in Canada are down, we're doing great!
_{NOTE: Some provinces and territories won't be providing COVID-19 updates or are giving partial information during the holidays. As such, data will be incomplete.}


While the world was on a rising trend, yesterday had about 74% of the cases of the week before on Saturday and 66% of the reported deaths. Christmas miracle.

I mean, young people panic has been a staple of clickbaity news every time there's a new wave of the pandemic somewhere:

https://news.yahoo.com/as-coronavirus-spreads-to-people-under-40-its-making-them-sicker-and-for-longer-than-once-thought-235006459.html

https://www.cnn.com/videos/health/2020/07/02/texas-hospital-crowded-coronavirus-marquez-pkg-newday-vpx.cnn

https://www.caixinglobal.com/2020-04-05/qa-new-york-emergency-room-doctor-says-its-just-getting-worse-and-worse-101539076.html

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/coronavirus-italy-update-young-people-hospital-luca-lorini-bergamo-a9402531.html

https://www.leparisien.fr/societe/coronavirus-c-est-plus-grave-que-prevu-12-03-2020-8278890.php

https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/17/21184291/coronavirus-covid-19-young-people-sick-vulnerable-affected-severe-cases

And look at this, who could have imagined?

https://www.latimes.com/science/story/2020-03-05/chinese-scientists-say-second-coronavirus-strain-more-dangerous

https://www.deseret.com/u-s-world/2020/5/6/21248354/coronavirus-covid-19-strain-mutation-wuhan-china

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-05-06/new-coronavirus-covid19-strain-mutation-hits-vaccine-research/12218834

https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1329303/coronavirus-news-mutate-new-strain-asia-infection-disease-second-wave-Indonesia

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-indonesia-cases-idUSKBN25Q08V

I'll leave to mass media theorists to try to explain why exactly this happens, so make of it as you will.

Russia admits to world's third-worst Covid-19 death toll

More than 186,000 Russians have died due to coronavirus, three times more than previously reported.

Russia said on Monday that its coronavirus death toll was more than three times higher than it had previously reported, making it the country with the third-largest number of fatalities.

For months, the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, has boasted about Russia’s low fatality rate from the virus, saying earlier this month that it had done a better job at managing the pandemic than western countries.

But since early in the pandemic, some Russian experts have said the government was playing down the country’s outbreak.

On Monday, Russian officials admitted that was true. The Rosstat statistics agency said that the number of deaths from all causes recorded between January and November had risen by 229,700 compared with the previous year.

“More than 81% of this increase in mortality over this period is due to Covid,” said the deputy prime minister, Tatiana Golikova, meaning that more than 186,000 Russians have died from Covid-19.

Russian health officials have registered more than 3m infections since the start of the pandemic, putting the country’s caseload at fourth-highest in the world.

But they have only reported 55,265 deaths – a much lower fatality rate than in other badly hit countries.

Russia has been criticised for only listing Covid deaths where an autopsy confirms the virus was the main cause.

Alexei Raksha, a demographer who left Rosstat in July, told AFP last week that the Russian health ministry and the consumer health ministry falsify coronavirus numbers.

Rosstat’s new figures mean that Russia now has the world’s third-highest Covid-19 death toll behind the US with 333,140 and Brazil with 191,139, according to an AFP count.

[...]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/28/russia-admits-to-world-third-worst-covid-19-death-toll-underreported

______________________________________________________________

Doubt anyone here is surprised that Russia was underreporting deaths.

Excess mortality in Russia is about 14%.