It's not going well here either, vaccination is going slow here as well, 150K doses administered so far (and they all need a second dose)

https://montreal.ctvnews.ca/quebec-is-mulling-a-province-wide-covid-19-curfew-which-would-be-a-first-in-canada-1.5254285
The Quebec government is talking to public health authorities about whether it would be worthwhile to impose an overnight curfew as the local COVID-19 situation spirals out of control.

Current (soft) Lock downs are not effective anymore... Cases still rising. Too many people ignore it.
https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/coronavirus/half-of-canadians-say-pandemic-at-its-worst-almost-as-many-visited-over-holidays-poll-1.5253913
Half of Canadians say the country is currently experiencing the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic, and almost as many report visiting friends or relatives during the holidays

https://london.ctvnews.ca/overwhelmed-london-ont-hospital-brings-in-mobile-body-holding-facility-1.5254315
Officials with the London Health Sciences Centre (LHSC) confirm additional capacity for holding bodies had to be brought in as a result of the pandemic.



We're up in the 3000s per day now in Ontario, in August we were down to the 70s

Israel has authorized Moderna's vaccine, India has authorized both Oxford's and one from Bharat Biotech, and Argentina also authorizes Oxford's shot.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/03/world/asia/india-covid-19-vaccine.html?action=click&module=RelatedLinks&pgtype=Article

https://investors.modernatx.com/news-releases/news-release-details/israeli-ministry-health-authorizes-covid-19-vaccine-moderna-use

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-argentina-astrazen/argentine-regulator-approves-astrazeneca-oxford-covid-19-vaccine-astrazeneca-idUSKBN29421P

The race to vaccinate is on
https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/coronavirus/covid-19-vaccine-rollout-urgent-as-new-strains-take-hold-1.5255442

"At a time when we see the pandemic accelerating beyond our control, a rapid and efficient vaccination programme with good population coverage is our only way out," said Daniel Altman, a professor of immunology at Imperial College London.

Herd immunity threshold is back at 70%, was it always that high or new estimate based on the more virulent strains. It doesn't say.

So far Israel leads with 17% of the population having received a first dose.

As of the start of 2021, 4.8 million people in China have been vaccinated, and 800,000 in Russia, according to official figures compiled by AFP.

Britain was the first western nation to initiate a vaccination programme, with nearly a million people having received a first jab by the end of 2020. Rollout in the rest of Europe has been uneven, with more than 300,000 vaccinated in Germany, 140,000 in Spain, 92,000 in Poland, and 52,000 in Denmark, but only a few hundred in France and Belgium as of January 1.

So far, some 15 million people worldwide have been vaccinated. The global population is 7.8 billion.

Thus 5.46 billion people need to be vaccinated to get rid of it with nearly 11 billion doses. We're at 0.015 billion doses atm.



Meanwhile, field hospitals are starting to get used here
https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/coronavirus/field-hospitals-and-cancelled-surgeries-health-care-system-under-siege-by-rising-covid-19-cases-1.5255136

So far to move recovering Covid-19 patients out of the hospital to make room for regular surgeries. However some places already have started cancelling surgeries.

“Right now and the next months are going to be really difficult in Canada,” said Dr. Theresa Tam, Chief Public Health Officer of Canada, said Tuesday. “So reducing any risks of importation and escalation of the epidemic, or pandemic, in Canada is really important.”


And surprise, surprise (not) schools will stay closed next week.

Yeah every country is too slow at the moment, except Israel (no update in the UK since the end of the year so maybe they're doing alright).

We're averaging 40k a day. So 4m in 100 days (~5% of the population) but that's just the first dose. It will take years at that speed.

There is also varying degrees of immunity from already having had Covid-19. 80+ million confirmed cases and maybe 10 times as many undetected. That could be about 10% of the population already walking around with some anti bodies.

It's these new more infectious strains that are creating new problems. The current measures were all tuned to keep the growth down enough under good circumstances, i.e. good weather, no holiday gathering. At least the next mass gatherings aren't until Easter, but we're still in the middle of winter for a while. Things might still get worse until June before finally improving to previous (post first wave) levels.

Then hopefully after next summer enough people will have anti bodies not to get this escalation again end of this year. I imagine we'll still have to continue with masks and social distancing to summer 2022, then maybe again in fall/winter (not a bad idea, flu kills as well) Hopefully this round will be the last of lock downs and mass closures, next summer wave should be much much smaller. It all depends on air travel regulations.

New rules:

Everyone flying into Canada will be required to provide proof of a recent negative test result for COVID-19 as of 11:59 p.m. EST Wednesday.

This new stipulation, which was announced last week, brings Canada in line with dozens of other countries, including France, Portugal, Brazil and Russia. Some airlines have also implemented similar rules, even for flights that are landing in countries that do not have this requirement.

All passengers must present their airline with proof of a negative result from a PCR test taken within 72 hours of their scheduled departure time. Without that proof, the government says, they will not be allowed to board their flight.

Even with proof of a negative test, travellers entering Canada must quarantine for their first 14 days in the country. Anyone whose quarantine plan is not considered acceptable will be placed in a federal quarantine facility.

Federal quarantine facilities will also be used to house anyone who is arriving in Canada from a country that does not offer PCR tests.

Passengers on Canada-bound flights will still have to answer health screening questions, undergo temperature checks and wear masks as required.

The rules are solid, enforcement however, is not...

European Union authorizes Moderna's vaccine: https://www.ema.europa.eu/en/news/ema-recommends-covid-19-vaccine-moderna-authorisation-eu

Vaccination to begin in my own home country of Australia next month: (About damn time) https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/live/2021/jan/07/australia-news-live-nsw-covid-hotspots-victoria-qld-cricket-mystery-case-police-vaccine?page=with:block-5ff669638f08c7a368e6dfec

Bloody hell.... 4100+ dead in 1 day, in the USA.

If it wasn't for the Trump supporters makeing trouble and stealing all the headlines in papers on and tv.
This would be news right? thats alot of people to die in 1 day, due to corona.

That was the day before.
Today's (yesterdays) count is 4134.

2 days in a row with over 4100 deaths to covid19.


Remember when we were surprised at 2000 deaths pr day?
Saying it was like 1 9/11 pr day in deaths?
Now its apparently not even news worthy when twice that amount dies.

I'm almost certain the common cold and flu don't kill 4000 people per day.

I blame the anti-measure whiners who insisted on being close together and spreading the virus around to show how harmless it was supposed to be. Fucking idiots!

The body count is skyrocketing. All of these people spreading deadly misinformation tricked too many fools into believing the bullshit because they wanted good news about their their selfish irresponsibility. Just because they’re stupid doesn’t give them the right to infect society with a deadly virus; we should have howled for stiffer measures before it was too late. This is a crisis, and it would have been fine had everyone followed the rules. But some of this is on us, we underestimated the stupidity of people, and how much harder the enforcement actually needed to be on these assholes.

Like Sleeping Beauty, these idiots are going keep our civilization asleep. But at least Sleeping Beauty only involved one city and one careless prick.