dagblog - Comments for "[COVID NEWS] Fauci warns against 'overreacting' to new strain, advises against banning UK flights"

December has been the nation

artappraiser — Sun, 27 Dec 2020 15:32:20 +0000

December has been the nation's deadliest month since the Covid-19 pandemic's start -- with more than 63,000 Americans lost to the virus in the past 26 days. In comparison, the entire month of November saw about 36,964 deaths.

[....] experts continue to warn that while the end is in sight, the pandemic is not over and another surge stemming from the Christmas holiday could be on its way.

More than 1.1 million people were screened at airports on Saturday, according to the TSA, marking the third busiest day for US air travel since March. More than 616,000 were screened on Christmas Day alone, and hundreds of thousands more traveled in the days leading up to the holiday.

"We very well might see a post-seasonal -- in the sense of Christmas, New Years -- surge," Dr. Anthony Fauci said on CNN's "State of the Union" Sunday morning, pointing to holiday travel and private gatherings taking place despite the advice of health experts [....]

December is the deadliest

artappraiser — Sun, 27 Dec 2020 15:17:59 +0000

In reply to [COVID NEWS] Fauci warns against 'overreacting' to new strain, advises against banning UK flights

December is the deadliest month in the US since the coronavirus pandemic began -- and projections for January are 'nightmarish,' expert says https://t.co/qnM0HUKGo8
— Fulvio Meloni (@MeloniFulvio) December 27, 2020

How is it that California,

artappraiser — Sun, 27 Dec 2020 09:09:22 +0000

In reply to [COVID NEWS] Fauci warns against 'overreacting' to new strain, advises against banning UK flights

How is it that California, the world’s fifth-largest economy, the state with some of the strictest lockdown protocols in the country, remains such a hotbed of new COVID-19 cases? https://t.co/WN9QoHZ6d0
— The New Yorker (@NewYorker) December 27, 2020

Japan, Spain, France, Sweden

artappraiser — Sun, 27 Dec 2020 05:01:36 +0000

In reply to [COVID NEWS] Fauci warns against 'overreacting' to new strain, advises against banning UK flights

Japan, Spain, France, Sweden and Canada find cases of the new coronavirus variant.

@ NYTimes.com Coronavirus Live News page, 1 hr. ago, authors at end of past

Japan, Spain, France, Sweden and Canada have found small numbers of infections involving a new, potentially more transmissible variant of the coronavirus, most linked to travel from the U.K., where it was first detected.

The rapid spread of the variant led to the lockdown of London and southern England this week, prompted a temporary French blockade of the English Channel and resulted in countries around the world barring travelers from the U.K. Because few countries have the level of genomic surveillance that Britain does, there is concern that the variant may have been traveling across the world undetected for weeks.

A recent study by British scientists found no evidence that the variant is more deadly than others but estimated that it is 56 percent more contagious.

So far, the British variant has been diagnosed in seven people in Japan, the country’s health ministry said. All had either recently traveled to the U.K. or been in contact with someone who had.

The discovery in Japan prompted the country to close its borders to all new entry by nonresident foreigners. The ban will go into effect at midnight on Monday and last through the end of January, the public broadcaster NHK reported.

In Spain, the variant was found in the capital region, local authorities said on Saturday. Antonio Zapatero, a regional health official, said that four cases had been confirmed in Madrid, while another three were being treated as suspicious. At least two of the cases involve people who had recently been to Britain and then tested positive in Madrid, as well as some of their relatives.

The first case of the new fast-spreading variant of the coronavirus in France was identified on Friday, according to the French health ministry. Officials said that the patient was a French citizen living in Britain who had traveled from London to Tours, a city in central France, on Dec. 19, a day before the British government imposed a lockdown following the emergence of the variant.

Officials in Sweden announced on Saturday that a case of the variant had been detected there after a traveler visited Sormland, near Stockholm, from the United Kingdom over Christmas, Reuters reported. No additional cases had been detected, the Public Health Agency of Sweden said.

Health officials in Ontario, Canada, said on Saturday that they had confirmed two cases of the variant in the province. The two cases were a couple from Durham, about 90 miles northwest of Toronto. The couple had no known travel history, exposure or high-risk contacts, the province’s health ministry said.

It is normal for viruses to mutate, and most of the mutations of the coronavirus have proved minor. The British variant has a constellation of 23 mutations, several of which might alter its transmissibility. Vaccine experts are confident that the available vaccines will be able to block the new variant, although that has to be confirmed by laboratory experiments that are now underway.

The European Union’s member nations are scheduled to begin vaccinating against the virus on Sunday with the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. Hungary began administering the vaccine a day early, on Saturday.

A few other concerning variants have also been identified, including one in South Africa and another in Nigeria. The U.K. said on Thursday that it would ban travel from South Africa after the British health secretary, Matt Hancock, said two people were confirmed to have been infected with the variant that emerged there.

Germany and Singapore have identified infections with the new variant. And Denmark, which has wider genomic surveillance than many other countries, detected 33 cases of the variant from Nov. 14 to Dec. 14, according to the Danish health authorities.

The U.S. has not yet reported any cases of the U.K. variant. But the country will require all airline passengers arriving from Britain to test negative for the coronavirus within 72 hours of their departure, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Thursday. The rule will take effect on Monday.

Hisako Ueno and Mike Ives contributed reporting.

— Ben Dooley, Raphael Minder, Marc Santora, Isabella Kwai and Norimitsu Onishi

BREAKING—95%—new data from

artappraiser — Sun, 27 Dec 2020 04:14:47 +0000

In reply to [COVID NEWS] Fauci warns against 'overreacting' to new strain, advises against banning UK flights

BREAKING—95%—new data from Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine shows 95% efficacy & is “100% effective” in preventing severe illness, says AZ CEO. That’s on par w/ Moderna & Pfizer. No official data yet, but UK said to likely approve in days. HUGE. #COVID19
https://t.co/e4ra7GgmxG pic.twitter.com/YYn0MsORcy
— Eric Feigl-Ding (@DrEricDing) December 27, 2020

2) As u know, Oxford was unhappy with the last trial because of the dosing quirk with the half dose / full dose issue that led to a split finding of 90% in the half-full dose, but 63% in the full-full dose. Hence they said last month they will redo with a new trial. https://t.co/6bDkuShf0P
— Eric Feigl-Ding (@DrEricDing) December 27, 2020

3) Recall the original Phase 3 trial last month was still quite good. 70% overall (averaging across all doses), or 90% in the half-full dose. Oxford was the FIRST to publish formally in a journal! Moderna & Pfizer didn’t publish until later even though they were approved first. https://t.co/KJYkinJHhm
— Eric Feigl-Ding (@DrEricDing) December 27, 2020

Nine months into the pandemic

artappraiser — Sun, 27 Dec 2020 04:10:25 +0000

In reply to [COVID NEWS] Fauci warns against 'overreacting' to new strain, advises against banning UK flights

Nine months into the pandemic and the federal government still can't manage to get health workers the protective equipment they need? https://t.co/X1agrHSo3T
— Dr. Tom Frieden (@DrTomFrieden) December 27, 2020

Sobering—1 out of every 1,000

artappraiser — Sun, 27 Dec 2020 04:07:38 +0000

In reply to [COVID NEWS] Fauci warns against 'overreacting' to new strain, advises against banning UK flights

Sobering—1 out of every 1,000 people living in the US has died of #COVID19–residents, not just among cases.

330,000 are just diagnosed COVID deaths. US has accumulated now *420,000 excess deaths* compared to average of a many prior years.

Please stay safe. Thread pic.twitter.com/0FZ1bC4vtd
— Eric Feigl-Ding (@DrEricDing) December 26, 2020

2) Excess deaths have occurred in every group over the age of 25. And it’s not just the elderly. pic.twitter.com/GzyYLheenw
— Eric Feigl-Ding (@DrEricDing) December 26, 2020

3) Rely in just vaccine? No. The Trump administration goal was 20,000,000 vaccinated by end of 2020... we have only vaccinated merely 1 million.... only 5% of that goal! We only have days left. https://t.co/aU5DAGstOR
— Eric Feigl-Ding (@DrEricDing) December 26, 2020

4) US and Sweden are still among the highest in cases per capita (there are some smaller countries with more than US like Slovenia, home of Melania). Unlike Austria, US has not been able to crush the curve. We need aggressive action now. pic.twitter.com/nXsAWhFxcn
— Eric Feigl-Ding (@DrEricDing) December 26, 2020

Nearly half of Economist &

artappraiser — Sun, 27 Dec 2020 01:36:48 +0000

In reply to [COVID NEWS] Fauci warns against 'overreacting' to new strain, advises against banning UK flights

Nearly half of Economist & NYT articles have mentioned COVID this year; that 1-story dominance of news coverage for a year is exceeded only by WWI & WWII
https://t.co/HByPREhQh2
— Matt Grossmann (@MattGrossmann) December 20, 2020

learning as if her life

artappraiser — Sun, 27 Dec 2020 01:15:08 +0000

In reply to Just another personal story

learning as if her life depended on it? because: it really does!

Just another personal story

ocean-kat — Sat, 26 Dec 2020 21:58:48 +0000

In reply to [COVID NEWS] Fauci warns against 'overreacting' to new strain, advises against banning UK flights

Just another personal story from the ground. My mother is terrified. Pinellas county is a hot spot and every day on the news there's a death count. Until now no one where she lives had covid but three weeks ago the first person on her retirement village brought it back from Wisconsin. Then her daughter who was caring for her caught it. In my call today now there are many on the village who are sick. She's following the story so closely that she actually knows more of the details than I do. Which is astonishing as I usually know much more about almost everything that she does.