Coronavac seems to be working at 50 - 70% efficacy, perhaps even higher than the trials had suggested, in both Brazil and Chile, despite the prevalence of the P1 variant.

I wonder if this success is due to the vaccine is mostly working not because of spike antibodies, as previously assumed, but nucleocapsid and membrane antibodies. I would assume these are highly conserved antigen sites across all variants, since the bulk of evolutionary pressure lies in the n-terminal and the receptor-binding domain of the spike protein.

As of today, I'm officially fully vaccinated against the coronavirus!

It was quite the adventure getting that second dose. When I got my first dose through a neighboring county at a conference center, I was handed a note card with the date April 9th (which would be this coming FRIDAY) on it as the date for my second dose, so I asked to have that day off last week. But the county bot messaged me two days ago that actually my shot date would be THURSDAY the 8th instead and moreover during my work shift and at a different location farther away that I didn't know how to get to. Well there was no choice: I immediately put in to reschedule...and they haven't gotten back with me since. In the meanwhile though, I began looking for emergency back-up options because I know you have to get that second shot within a fairly narrow time window if you want the maximum level of immunity. I was having a tough time until I went to work yesterday and asked at the pharmacy. To my shock, they delivered me news that seemed too good to be true: the store where I work would be holding a clinic upstairs in the break room the very next day (today) with the Pfizer vaccine! Needless to say, I jumped on the news and signed up right away. And so today I was able to get my second shot over my lunch break without having to make any kind of special journey at all. My wait was 5 minutes, not the 30 I endured at the conference center last month, and all I had to do was hand them my consent form and wait for one other person ahead of me to be done. Then I was given my shot and my note card was signed off on, done deal! What's more, my employer, Albertsons, gives workers $100 for getting fully vaccinated, so I was able to use my completed note card to put in for that right afterward. Between my $600 stimulus check at the start of the year, my $1,400 stimulus check from last month, and this $100 from my employer, that adds up to $2,100 I wouldn't otherwise have this year, which I think will be sufficient, I think, to keep me out of hunger all year for the first time...like ever! I think anyway.

Anyway, no side effects or anything so far, just a little soreness in the shoulder where I got my shot is all. No big.

You know what the best part of it all is though? Well first a little background: You remember that horrible winter storm that knocked out the Texas power grid back in February right after Valentine's Day? Well during that week, I was among the only employees at the Albertsons store I work at who continued going to work throughout that week despite the roads being downright treacherous to drive on, despite the store relying on emergency back-up generators (i.e. they had no heating or anything themselves) for two days and therefore not opening for those two days, despite all of that. Why? Because I have to have the money. No choice. Also it was actually warmer there than at my house anyway. I was the only courtesy clerk who bothered showing up that whole week. And for the first two days, only two cashiers showed up too. One of those two cashiers was a new hire. (What a way to start, right?!) She and I wound up bonding a lot over those first two days of working in an empty store. I mean I completed all my normal morning chores invariably within a couple of hours and then had the whole rest of the day to do nothing and get paid for it. (They were just waiting for the regular electric power to come back on so we could open, but it never did those first two days.) So me and the few other people there had tons of down time to just hang out. Me and the new lady hit it off and over the subsequent month and a half, we have become an item. Yep, you read that right: I have a girlfriend now. Me!! I mean a steady one who hasn't lost interest after one, two, or three meets. We're looking forward to going on our first proper date in the near future.

Cant believe its been over a year of this. So much has happened in that time. Hopefully we can move on with our lives soon and be done with it.

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."

Weekly Update.


In total 4.49 million new cases were reported this week (up from 4.11 million) to a total of 135,288,781 cases worldwide
Also another 77,516 deaths were reported this week (up from 71,048) to a total of 2,927,665 casualties

Cases are rising a little in the USA, deaths as well. Europe had a big Easter dip in reporting and has less cases overall this week, deaths are still up

The continents

Asia reported 1.73 million new cases (up from 1.22 million) and doubled its deaths 14,720 (up from 7,606)
Europe reported 1.23 million new cases (down from 1.43 million) and 24,887 more deaths (up from 23,284)
South America reported 841K new cases (up from 809K) and 27,272 more deaths (up from 26,108)
North America reported 602K new cases (up from 554K) and 10,444 more deaths (slightly down from 10,517)
Africa reported 79.3K new cases (down from 87.4K) and 1,799 more deaths (slightly down from 1,897)
Oceania reported 1,519 new cases (down from 2,011) and 9 deaths (21 last week)

Corners of the world

India reported 812K new cases (up from 483K) and 4,326 more deaths (up from 2,866)
USA reported 488K new cases (up from 462K) and 7,230 more deaths (up from 6,468)
Brazil reported 463K new cases (down from 505K) and 20,568 more deaths (down from 21,040)
Iran reported 120K new cases (up from 70.2K) and 1,163 more deaths (up from 653)
Canada reported 54.7K new cases (up from 33.9K) and 243 deaths (182 last week)
Japan reported 18.7K new cases (up from 14.6K) and 149 deaths (218 last week)
South Africa reported 5,518 new cases (down from 7,645) and 280 deaths (344 last week)
South Korea reported 4,075 new cases (up from 3,424) and 27 deaths (21 last week)
Australia reported 55 new cases (95 last week) no deaths

Europe in detail

Big dips in reporting around Easter, hard to tell who is actually recovering and which dips might only be temporary

The biggest concerns are in Asia, Turkey, Iran, India. Here in Canada we're not getting the new variants under control either, hence the stay at home orders for the next 4 weeks. At least we still have the means to get our hands on vaccines but as predicted, it is now quickly turning into a first vs third world situation. Everyone for themselves to get as much vaccine as possible. Survival of the richest.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-56480474
India recorded 260,000 fresh coronavirus cases last week - one of the worst weekly increases since the pandemic began early last year.
Experts say that poor adherence to safety protocols is driving the surge. Some say new variants could also be a reason, but it isn't established yet.

BBC doesn't want to link it to the UK variant of course, but now a new combined variant might become the culprit
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-56507988

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/04/09/coronavirus-covid-live-updates-us/
U.S. cases involving Brazil variant on the rise, according to CDC data

Here variants have likely taken over the spread completely
https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/06/americas/canada-covid-19-variants-spread/index.html
"With increasing rates of infection, we are seeing a greater number of younger adults with Covid-19 being treated in hospital," said Dr. Theresa Tam, Canada's chief public health officer. She added that more than 15,000 variant cases have been detected so far, the vast majority of them the B.1.1.7 variant first detected in the United Kingdom.

Keeping the cases high, just looking at hospital numbers to decide when re-opening was 'safe' was a terrible decision. New Zealand and Australia had the right idea, the rest of the world only created a bigger mess.

In three months, the P1 variant went from 0 to 91% of cases in the Sao Paulo state. That seems kind of a big deal since the P2 variant (which was completely snuffed out in the meantime) that was prevalent during the holiday season appeared to have some fitness advantage already, perhaps due to the E484K mutation.

There was no difference among age groups concerning its prevalence among hospitalized people, however, and neither a difference in viral load.

So it seems plausible it could behave more like the South African variant than the British one (both P1 and the SA one being less capable of inducing the formation of syncytia in the lungs, compared to the UK variant or the basal strain; and the SA variant also caused less severe lung disease in Syrian hamsters compared to the UK one).

This is why, again, counting on some anecdotal reports of some doctors is terrible journalistic practice. The UK variant seems it could be genuinely more aggressive (although the UK tracking app contradicts this), but neither the SA nor P1 seem to be, unlike earlier reports would suggest. And none of the three, too, are particularly more aggressive toward younger people (which was kind of expected since all coronaviruses behave the same, unlike influenza and RSV).

Great stuff, thanks for sharing.

This vaccine panic in Europe and the US needs to STOP. It will only fuel anti-vaxxers and cause needless deaths and long Covid cases in excess of any potential issue with the vaccines by literally orders of magnitude. Stopping J&J because of a 0,0000882353% chance of clotting, are you fucking shitting me? If these people were in charge of Polio vaccination back in the 60s it would still be an endemic disease even now because there is a three in one million chance you are paralyzed from the vaccine.

Considering the issue is likely anti-spike antibodies combining with platelets due to similar antigenic sites, and the fact that the exact polyclonal response to a vaccine is unpredictable in any given individual, it's VERY likely that this rare side-effect is possible with literally every vaccine. So what are they going to do when Pfizer, Moderna, the Sputnik V, etc. eventually report the same issues? Stop all of them?

The vaccine topic is very strange now. I would not be surprised if some of the named ones really stop using. Everyone can really have side effects, as people have different health. There will be no universal remedy anyway. Let's hope that everything will be calm after all.

Kinda sad to see that the vaccination campaign in Israel has pretty much stopped already.

119 vaccine doses administered per 100 people, so roughly 59.5% of Israelis are fully vaccinated.
One week ago, the number was 118.09 or 59.05%
Two weeks ago the number was 116.3 or 58.15%

If the trend continues, they might not even reach 65%, let alone 70%.