Coronavirus - International stories and thoughts

Indonesia overtakes India in the number of new cases per day:

Indonesia overtakes India as Asia's new Covid-19 epicenter - CNN

 

Israel reporting Phizer vax is 39% effective against the Delta variant infection (still 88% effective against hospitalization & 91% for severe illness).

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/07/23/del...ective-in-israel-prevents-severe-illness.html

I wonder why they are reporting much lower than other countries dealing with this variant.

 

Not sure where to put these:

Pfizer says covid vaccine effectiveness degrades over time and seems to recommend booster/3rd shot.

Pfizer says immunity drops to 83% within four months in people who got its COVID-19 shot, further bolstering the company case for a booster

Others take matters into their own hands and get 3rd shot anyway

Some Are Chasing Extra Vaccine Shots, While Scientists Debate

 

Can someone explain to us how this virus is changing so fast? I know virus's mutate, or whatever the proper term is, but the speed at which this seems to be changing and the changes in transmission rate is truly incredible.

 

Interesting question.

They seem to be pretty good at identifying new strains when they appear, but I’ve never seen explained how certain ones mutate with some pretty drastically different characteristics. I recall a mutation that occurred because the virus jumped from humans, to minks, back to humans. Not even sure if that is one of the 4 “named” variants, or if it was even particularly bad for humans (compared to other variants), I just know it pretty much wiped out some mink farms, the virus was quickly devastating to minks. Maybe all of these mutations happen in a similar way?

The one thing that should be pretty easy to grasp is the concept that the most transmissible “strains” will quickly become dominant, since that is basically just understanding exponential math. Virology is very difficult to understand, seems to me you basically need to be a virologist or biological researcher to grasp most of that stuff about the how and why viruses behave the way they do. But the epidemiology is actually much easier to understand, since a lot of that is basically just based on math!

 

One factor: the more people that are infected, the higher the likelihood for new variants. Development of a new variant for each individual infection is low, but the more you roll the dice, the higher the likelihood of new variants becomes.

 

While I agree with you, consider that there are multiple different strains of flu running around such that they have a very difficult time making the flu shot highly effective because the strains change materially from one year to the next. The shots usually have 3 or 4 strains, and in spite of that they frequently miss the predominant strains.

 

Here is some interesting news: China and U.S. scientists were planning on injecting Chinese bats with "enhanced coronavirus". That sounds dangerous. The hope was that Chinese bats would be innoculated against diseases that might jump to human populations.

Wuhan scientists planned to release coronavirus particles into cave bats, leaked papers reveal

 

Visitors to China will soon be staying in a luxurious prison cell in Guangzhou for two weeks with meals brought by robots (tell them what they've won, Don Pardo!).

China has built a 5,000-room quarantine center for overseas arrivals - CNN

Actually, it is fairly impressive: a 5,000-room Covid quarantine center in southeast China. Visitors will be whisked by bus (while sticking their heads out of the windows, apparently) directly from the airport. Do not pass go. Do not try to escape. You get a window with a view of some scraggly trees. You can view ChinaVision on your Chinese TV: the only TV in the world that watches you as you watch it.

I am totally looking forward to my next trip to China. Can't wait.

 

China has figured out the origin of the coronavirus: a batch of lobsters from Maine. Apparently the accusation against the U.S. military person visiting China did not get any traction. Time to grasp at a new straw.

Chinese media says Maine lobster shipment was 'Pandora's box' behind pandemic

No explanation as to why the original outbreak was in China, and not Maine and everywhere else that lobsters were shipped to (although China blamed a few case of "e-cigarette pneumonia" in Maine on the virus.

 

Portugal is running out of people to vaccinate. After a horrendous winter during which the hospitals were filled to capacity and people were told to treat themselves at home, Portugal started to wise up and get vaccinated. They are currently at 98% vaccinated among eligible citizens (not including children), and 86% of all citizens.

In Portugal, There Is Virtually No One Left to Vaccinate

They should be fairly close to herd immunity.

 

Interesting - thanks for sharing. Just for comparison's sake . . .

Location.....population.....cases..........cases/pop.....deaths.....deaths/pop.....fully vaxed
Portugal.......10.3mil...........1,071,114....10.3................17,993......0.17...............84.1%
Florida.........21.5mil...........3,626,799....16.9................55,011......0.26...............57.0%
Michigan......10.0mil...........1,159,419....11.6................22,439......0.22...............52.0%

I chose Michigan because it's similar population size to Portugal. Portugal should show a sharp decline in cases, hosp, and deaths in the coming weeks/months.

 

How is that supposed to work for international flight crews? They can’t keep them in quarantine for weeks.

 

Break out the human sized butterfly nets and welding torches for catching rule breakers and welding them into their homes.

 

They could probably have special arrangements (like a hotel in the airport) for flight crews.

 

I have a friend who flies for Amazon. He never leaves the the aircraft (area) when landing in China. They set up their routes so that even if they are nearing their mandatory rest periods that they can reload/refuel and leave Chinese airspace again. Even if it is only to Taiwan.

They will not stay overnight in China for fear of not being able to leave for weeks.

 

China’s vaccine does not work well