Contrasting strategies

https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/coronavirus/a-glimpse-of-normalcy-a-new-zealand-band-plays-to-50-000-fans-1.5400923

Singer Matiu Walters grinned as he gazed out over 50,000 damp but delirious fans and said those magic words: "So, what's up Eden Park?"

While much of the world remains hunkered down, the band Six60 has been playing to huge crowds in New Zealand, where social distancing isn't required after the nation stamped out the coronavirus.

New Zealand had 9 new cases in the past 7 days, 33 active cases total, all at the border. No active community cases.



https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/coronavirus/india-virus-patients-suffocate-from-low-oxygen-amid-surge-1.5400805

Indian authorities scrambled Saturday to get oxygen tanks to hospitals where COVID-19 patients were suffocating amid the world's worst coronavirus surge, as the government came under increasing criticism for what doctors said was its negligence in the face of a foreseeable public health disaster.

For the third day in a row, India set a global daily record of new infections. The 346,786 confirmed cases over the past day brought India's total to more than 16 million, behind only the United States.

In a sign of the desperation unfolding over the shortages, a high court in Delhi warned Saturday it would "hang" anyone who tries to obstruct the delivery of emergency oxygen supplies, amid evidence that some local authorities were diverting tanks to hospitals in their areas. The court, which was hearing submissions by a group of hospitals over the oxygen shortages, termed the devastating rise in infections a "tsunami."

....

India's infection surge, blamed on a highly contagious variant first detected here, came after Prime Minister Narendra Modi declared victory over the coronavirus in January, telling the virtual gathering of the World Economic Forum that India's success couldn't be compared with anywhere else.

"In a country which is home to 18% of the world population, that country has saved humanity from a big disaster by containing corona effectively," Modi said.

But health experts and critics say a downward trend in infections late last year lulled authorities into complacency, as they failed to plug the holes in the ailing health care system that had become evident during the first wave. They also blame politicians and government authorities for allowing super-spreader events, including religious festivals and election rallies, to take place as recently as this month.

This is how well our borders are closed /facepalm

https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/coronavirus/canadians-avoiding-hotel-quarantines-for-air-travellers-fuel-taxi-boom-on-u-s-border-1.5401771

U.S. taxi and limousine services are seeing a boom in business from customers seeking to enter Canada by land to avoid a restriction on international travel that applies only to air traffic.

While both Canadian land and air travellers are required to take a test within three days of departure, and again on arrival, only those flying to Canada must spend up to three days of the country's 14-day required quarantine period in a hotel.

That has led to a surge of calls for taxi and limousine services from Canadians who fly through U.S. airports in states like New York and then cross over the land border,

"They call from six in the morning to 12 at night," John Arnet, general manager of 716 Limousine in Buffalo, N.Y. said. "We've had so many requests for border crossings that we're turning them down."

The company now does more business driving Canadians to their homes in Ontario than with U.S. clients.

Meanwhile more cases with the strain running rampant through India get discovered here.
https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/ontario-identifies-36-cases-of-b-1-617-covid-19-variant-first-discovered-in-india-1.5400313

In a statement to CTV News Toronto, Public Health Ontario (PHO) says 36 cases of the B.1.617 have been identified in the province in the last few days.

Of those cases, six were detected through PHO’s genomic surveillance program. The agency says the cases were all linked to international travel.

The other 30 cases were identified through the province’s airport and land border screening programs.

Close the fucking border.

You should build a wall - and let the (US-)americans pay for it! (-;

Make Canada Great Again!

Sorry, couldn't resist.

:)


It's just frustrating, my family hasn't been able to visit for over a year now because the border is supposedly closed. Yet there are so many loopholes that it's totally ineffective. "On Friday, Ontario reported 2,700 new cases of the B.1.1.7 variant, which was first discovered in the U.K. According to Public Health Ontario, the majority of samples screened come back positive for the B.1.1.7 variant or the two other variants of concern circulating in the province." We're importing new variants from all over the world, B117 is the dominant one atm, yet Brazil, Africa and now India strains are circulating as well. And with our high active cases we're probably breeding new strains as well.

29% has received a first dose now of one of the vaccines (3.2% second dose), more vaccines are coming. At some point it should start having an effect. For now we're setting one grim record after the other. "A 13-year-old girl from Brampton has become one of the youngest people in Ontario to die of COVID-19. The girl’s father was an essential worker at a warehouse, the mayor said. As of Sunday, the city's test positivity rate stood at 22.2 per cent."

It was all so predictable and preventable, frustrating.

I get the frustration. Probably most people are frustrated with how their government is handling the pandemic (maybe except in east asia and new zealand or so). Here in germany the politician that wants to become the next chancellor has just said that we have exponential growth in vaccination. If politicians have even after a year not learned some basic terms, this is not great. We are amidst the third wave and people are still discussing opening up. Yes, we are vaccinating, but can we please wait until vaccination shows a real effect on the pandemic before we open up? This all is exhausting. I don't want to make the same arguments again and again.

100 countries haven't started vaccinating meanwhile others have begun to vaccinate those below 30 and securing Pfizer supply for years to come. If I wasn't an immigrant, I wouldn't have been vaccinated either. I dunno what can be done about this and when does this problem get more attention?

Weekly update. Another grim milestone has been reached, Europe crossed the one million deaths (officially reported). India's growth looks to be slowing down while cases worldwide slowly continue to drop or level off as well.

In total 5.78 million new cases were reported last week (5.72 million cases last week) to a total of 151,999,193
Another 94,304 deaths were reported as well (up from 87,404) to a total of 3,193,209 (worst week before was just over 100K deaths, Jan 29)

Europe and the USA continue to go down, deaths in the USA slowed declining for a week.

The continents

Asia reported 3.42 million new cases (up from 3.11 million) and 34,142 more deaths (up from 25,272)
Europe reported 929K new cases (down from 1.10 million) and 20,796 more deaths (down from 23,130)
South America reported 861K new cases (867K last week) and 28,784 more deaths (slightly up from 27,740)
North America reported 492K new cases (down from 555K) and 8,384 more deaths (down from 8,999)
Africa reported 72.1K new cases (down from 79.4K) and 2,188 more deaths (2,245 last week)
Oceania reported 915 new cases (down from 1,208) and 10 deaths (18 last week)

Corners of the world

India reported 2.55 million new cases (up from 2.08 million) and 22,286 more deaths (13,876 last week)
Brazil reported 428K new cases (slightly up from 404K) and 17,664 more deaths (17,599 last week)
Iran reported 140K new cases (down from 165K) and 3,012 more deaths (up from 2,738)
Canada reported 54.8K new cases (58.5K last week) and 336 deaths (342 last week)
Japan reported 34.9K new cases (up from 31.2K) and 394 deaths (262 last week)
South Africa reported 8,225 new cases (slightly down from 8,630) and 284 deaths (403 last week)
South Korea reported 4,549 new cases (4,669 last week) and 17 deaths (21 last week)
Australia reported 175 new cases (143 last week) no deaths

Europe in detail

Slowly declining over all

Locally we seem to be cresting as well finally, under the 4,000 cases per day again.

My wife is getting the vaccine before me if all goes to plan. She managed to sign up for moderna/pfizer for next Tuesday, available for those at high risk. I'm on the wait list for Astrazeneca. Her brother is getting moderna/pfizer as well on Tuesday (essential worker). So that would just leave me and the kids of our 'bubble'. Kids won't get vaccinated, and I guess I'll be waiting a bit longer. (Not a hot spot here).

Vaccine antibody titers from an upcoming pre-print indicate that the Indian variant sees just a moderate decrease in neutralization. The two amino acid changes together actually confer less antibody escape than the change to glutamate in the 484 residue on its own (which already had a lesser loss than the change to lysine in that position). That just goes to show that looking at mutations in RBD residues alone is meaningless since they will interact in unpredictable ways when actually combined.

Excellent segment. I didn't know Biden campaigned on lifting the patents protection for vaccines, doesn't seem to be as committed anymore. Hopefully he'll be swung the right way sooner than later. 

Good news for me, my wife got the Pfizer shot, on offer here for those at high risk. Her arm hurts but otherwise she's doing fine (or rather not worse than before). I haven't heard back yet from the wait list for the general Astrazeneca shot but not that worried for myself. (Not in any risk group and never sick long when catching anything at all)

It seems our latest wave has crested, Ontario numbers are going down. It's still pretty bad in Alberta. We came very close to having to deny people ICU care. Patients from Toronto have been shipped here and to other places over the province to help out.

Worldwide the wave has crested as well, cases are going down again compared to 7 days ago. India has flattened out, hopefully also at the top of the wave (and not running out of test capacity) and on the way down again. Perhaps by the end of the year things can go back to semi normal.