Finally got my first shot scheduled for Thursday. Moderna, oddly, though I live not far from the big Pfizer manufacturing facility.

Do you think there is any chance that your country will make the end of the pandemic a holiday? I certainly think it being a worldwide holiday could be significant.

my grandma got her second dose today and my mother her first the other day

P1 variant is spreading in Brazil and it hits like a truck. Hospitalizations more than doubled in some places as little as three weeks. It can spread fairly quickly even in places without previous outbreaks and it outcompetes the P2 variant as much as the others, so it looks like the N501Y mutation drives its spread far more than some spike antibody resistance from the E484K mutation (which was already present in a lot of places with P2).

The number of people in ICUs is, well, sky-high. Higher than the peaks in Europe during either wave, except it's a plateau and not a peak. The only reason deaths aren't as high is because the population is younger (meaning that they tend to survive treatment but also occupy beds for a bit longer).

You guys know I'm not a fan of all that media terrorizing and harsh restrictions, but when we're at a point when we can't at least give people a fighting chance in a hospital? Yeah, we'll need more distancing for a time.

Still no end in sight, cases are rising again

In total 2.74 million new cases were reported last week (up from 2.52 million) to a total of 113,976,097 cases reported worldwide.
Also another 65,855 deaths were reported (down from 70,082) to a total of 2,743,341 casualties.

Europe is on the rise again, deaths still declining for now. The USA is rising as well, more slowly but reported deaths also went slightly up.

The continents

Europe reported 982K new cases (up from 893K) and 22,295 more deaths (down from 25,668)
North America reported 633K new cases (up from 605K) and 21,857 more deaths (down from 23,232)
South America reported 555K new cases (up from 487K) and 12,506 more deaths (slightly up from 12,399)
Asia reported 499K new cases (up from 454K) and 6,738 more deaths (up from 5,878)
Africa reported 73.1K new cases (down from 80.9K) and 2,455 more deaths (down from 2,901)
Oceania reported 381 new cases and 4 deaths

Corners of the world

USA reported 533K new cases (up from 497K) and 15,336 more deaths (slightly up from 15,225)
Brazil reported 376K new cases (up from 316K) and 8,033 more deaths (up from 7,354)
India reported 102K new cases (up from 84.2K) and 730 deaths (652 last week)
Iran reported 57.0K new cases (up from 54.4K) and 558 deaths (532 last week)
Canada reported 20.9K new cases (slightly up from 20.3K) and 339 deaths (414 last week)
South Africa reported 10.1K new cases (down from 13.0K) and 925 deaths (1,189 last week)
Japan reported 7,505 new cases (down from 10,216) and 448 deaths (500 last week)
South Korea reported 2,778 new cases (down from 3,291) and 35 deaths (43 last week)
Australia reported 40 new cases, no deaths

Europe in detail

UK and Ireland seem to have adjusted to the UK strain, not rising (yet). The rest of Europe is feeling the higher infection rate.

India is concerning, more virulent strains can turn all the progress made around pretty fast. Same as in Brazil.

Got my first shot of the pftzer vaccine here in New York. Got it on my left shoulder and it feel really sore.

Same experience with Moderna for me a couple days ago. Pretty sore yesterday, but mostly better today. Makes me think I'm gonna have a strong reaction to the second shot in a month.

I've heard that the pain is much more severe jn the second shot. Heard some people even got a fever the day they got the second shot. Sucks but I'd rather have this than covid.

I was really worried my dad wasn't gonna survive this pandemic. He's in his 60's, newly diabetic, and is on a permanent regimen of immunosuppressants after his liver transplant a few years back. Thankfully it's been a week now since his second shot and he should be fully inoculated. Now I just have one parent to be particularly concerned about.

Some good news.

Covid vaccines may stop spread ‘almost completely’ with jabs working ‘better than any of us could have imagined’

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/health/covid-vaccine-results-public-health-england-b921793.html