The UK strain of the virus thats 50-70% more infectious is worrying.
The South African one, that hits even younger crowds is worrying.
The Brazilian one, that seems to have mutated so much, that people that have already had covid19, and recovered, and have antibodies, are getting sick again...

Yep, 3k total used to be alot (caused people to worry).

Then it was the "holy sh*t" 1k pr day.
I remember when the USA hit 2k pr day... and people were saying, thats like 1 x 9/11 pr day in deaths.

Now everyday the US has 4k+, and its just basically ignored by media/news.

Its like that in the rest of the world too.
Virus is kicking our arses.

Welp
https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/coronavirus/covid-variant-found-in-u-k-may-be-more-deadly-than-others-says-boris-johnson-1.5278204

We joined the club, detecting a (possibly) new strain
https://www.cp24.com/news/covid-19-variant-detected-at-barrie-long-term-care-home-experiencing-significant-outbreak-1.5275289

Lab testing has confirmed a COVID-19 variant in six swabs from Roberta Place, a long-term care home in Barrie, Ont., that has been experiencing a deadly novel coronavirus outbreak, the Simcoe Muskoka District Health Unit has confirmed.

The variant strain testing is a two-part test, and at this time, the health unit says the first test indicates a “very high probability” that there’s a variant strain that’s of concern.

Not going well there
https://barrie.ctvnews.ca/only-3-residents-at-roberta-place-in-barrie-ont-not-infected-with-covid-19-as-death-toll-rises-1.5278481


Cases are currently going down, under 3K per day again (was under 100 a day) but we obviously let it grow far too big before doing anything. Now everything is back in lock down, schools suspended until further notice. Schools were supposed to open again next week, yet yesterday the announcement came they will stay closed with no end date given. The line ups at the liquor stores after this news broke were epic haha.

At least it's been noted in the article that: ""Both the vaccines we're currently using remain effective both against the old variant and this new variant".

What the world needs to do now is focus on accelerating vaccination; not only will this obviously mean less cases and deaths, but by reducing the spread of the virus it will reduce the emergence of new strains, as with less virus circulating there is less opportunity for mutations.

Weekly update, lock downs are finally showing a result, deaths still up but should follow the downwards trend next week.

Last week saw 4.43 million new cases (down from 4.95 million) to a total of 98.7 million
Also another 98,025 people lost their lives (up from 95,718) to a total of 2,114,657

USA and Europe are both heading down again, USA a bit faster than Europe

The continents

Europe reported 1.56 million new cases (down from 1.63 million) and 38,511 more deaths (up from 37,220)
North America reported 1.50 million new cases (down from 1.85 million) and 32,603 more deaths (slightly up from 32,521)
South America reported 646K new cases (down from 665K) and 12,912 more deaths (up from 11,590)
Asia reported 537K new cases (down from 577K) and 7,888 more deaths (down from 8,192)
Africa reported 183K new cases (down from 222K) and 6,109 more deaths (slightly down from 6,191)
Oceania reported 343 new cases and 2 deaths

Corners of the world

USA reported 1.29 million new cases (down from 1.65 million) and 22,321 more deaths (down from 23,707)
Brazil reported 361K new cases (down from 378K) and 7,008 more deaths (up from 6,749)
India reported 96,9K new cases (down from 111K) and 1,091 more deaths (down from 1,295)
South Africa reported 80.9K new cases (down from 119K) and 3,609 more deaths (down from 4,042)

Iran reported 42.6K new cases (down from 43.8K) and 604 deaths (603 last week)
Japan reported 41.8K new cases (down from 43.9K) and 515 deaths (458 last week)
Canada reported 41.7K new cases (down from 51.4K) and 1,099 deaths (1,022 last week)
South Korea reported 3,021 new cases (down from 3,883) and 111 deaths (136 last week)
Australia reported 90 new cases (94 last week), no deaths

Europe in detail

Generally it looks like everyone is heading back down with the exception of Spain who is currently nr 1 in cases in Europe. (However Spain adjusts their data, can change)

There are an awful lot of active cases around, hopefully countries don't relax measures too soon.

UK variant of Corona Virus is faster spreading and more deadly than the normal strain of Corona Virus.
Globally 2 million lives have been lost and more lives will be lost as the Corona Virus mutates into more aggressive faster spreading strains.
500,000 deaths will be recorded in the US during February, the virus kills 4,000 people in the US every day.
Can Biden save American lives and stop the Corona Virus and distribute the vaccine to slow down the Corona Virus spread.
UK variant jacking up cases, hospitalisations and deaths in both the UK and the US.
1 million deaths in the US, assuming 4,000 deaths per day continues for months will see 1 million death in the US reached during June.

The virus will continue to take its deadly toll upon the world. The US is on track to reach the 1 million death milestone first ahead of Brazil, Mexico and India, all have 150,000+ deaths and rising. America's death toll  of 424,000 is well ahead of second placed Brazil's total of 215,000 deaths.

The global cases of Corona Virus will reach 100 million milestone within 2 or 3 days. The UK variant will continue the spread of the virus at a much faster rate globally and more cases will result in more deaths. The vaccines can  not be produced, distributed and administered to patients fast enough to slow down the rate of Corona Virus. 

It's mostly on the people to bring the spread down. As you can see by the graphs I posted, the first wave was done in 2 months and continued to reach a minimum in June. The second wave was positively underway in September and now more than 4 months later we might finally be seeing the actual peak of the second wave. Globally daily cases have only continued to go up. People are great at adjusting to the new normal, in this case, continually increasing base numbers. What was first a small peak is now pretty much a straight line.

There is still another way out, a cure
https://montreal.ctvnews.ca/quebec-researchers-say-they-have-found-an-effective-drug-to-fight-covid-19-1.5279310

A team of researchers from the Montreal Heart Institute believes they have found an effective weapon against COVID-19: colchicine, an oral tablet already known and used for other diseases.

For Dr. Jean-Claude Tardif, who led the study, this is a "major scientific discovery" and colchicine is the first "effective oral drug to treat out-of-hospital patients."

Analysis of the study found that colchicine resulted in reductions in hospitalizations by 25 per cent, the need for mechanical ventilation by 50 per cent, and deaths by 44 per cent.

"Our study showed the effectiveness of treatment using colchicine to prevent the phenomenon of the major inflammatory storm and reduce complications related to COVID-19," said Tardif.

Colchicine could be used very quickly to treat people with COVID-19, the researcher says.

"Colchicine is old as it is, we've been treating gout with it for hundreds of years, so it's available in pharmacies, so any doctor tomorrow who reads this can definitely decide to prescribe if he wants."



Great news, hopefully not a signal to governments that cases can go up by 50% to fill the lower need for ICU care....

This is fantastic news; for all the progress we've made on the vaccine front, treatments have not progressed as quickly, with dexamethasone being the one really significant breakthrough prior to this latest one. A 44% reduction in mortality is a terrific result.

The fact it's a very old, well known, and widely available drug as opposed to something new, poorly understood and in limited supply is even better.

lol go to Worldometers and check the daily graphs.
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

I thought they adjusted a huge amount of cases and deaths for Jan 2020 but the graph seems to be limited to 365 days and all the numbers for the current days get added to 2020 instead.

Today marks the one year anniversary since the first (officially) diagnosed case of Covid-19 in Canada
https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/coronavirus/it-wasn-t-called-covid-at-the-time-one-year-since-canada-s-first-covid-19-case-1.5279999

It's been going on longer than that though, waste water studies already found traces in sewage water from early December 2019 in Italy and confirmed on a patient in Paris from December 27th. 'Patient zero' has been tracked back to November 17th in China yet some studies suggest it was already around late August 2019.
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-06-coronavirus-emerged-summer.html
(Denied by China and questions raised by the BBC https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-53005768)

Anyway to show up in waste water from December in Italy, multiple people must have already had it a that time after the avg 2 week incubation period.


Next anniversary coming up, 365 days without going to school. My kids have been home from school since March 15th 2020.
https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/coronavirus/two-thirds-of-academic-year-lost-on-average-globally-due-to-covid-19-closures-unesco-1.5279911

Currently plans are to re-open schools here (again) are at least delayed until Februari 10th (not opened yet this year) however the option to roll back into in class learning has already expired (was the 13th), so online learning until ?

The worst is the uncertainty and constant changes. One working day before the schools were supposed to re-open, nope staying closed until further notice. No clue when the next option is to go back to in class learning (Februari is too soon with the huge amount of active cases around) and so far every option to switch coincides with the situation getting worse...


Milestone for tomorrow, 100 million detected cases worldwide.

Pfizer vaccine approved for use here in Australia:

https://www.tga.gov.au/media-release/tga-provisionally-approves-pfizer-covid-19-vaccine