There are two pieces of good news on the COVID-19 front today. First there's this:
Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings received a federal judge’s blessing on Sunday to flout the Florida law that bans companies from demanding proof of vaccination against the coronavirus. It will be the first cruise operator to require every person on board in Florida to be fully vaccinated, in defiance of Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), whose office has called the lawsuit “meritless” and the company’s vaccine policy discriminatory.
Thank God. Of all the idiotic, performative anti-vax grandstanding that DeSantis has done, this is arguably the worst. Cruise ships are practically floating petri dishes even in the absence of COVID-19, and if it makes sense to demand vaccination anywhere, this is it.
Cruise ships are private enterprises, and it goes against all common sense and against Republican orthodoxy to subject them to a government regulation explicitly designed to make them less safe. DeSantis should be ashamed of himself.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin will require that all service members get a coronavirus vaccine by mid-September....The mandate is an acknowledgment of rising coronavirus rates across the country as the delta variant of the virus spreads, and the way in which the coronavirus can wreak chaos in military units. It comes after months of senior defense officials cajoling service members to consult with their doctors and get the vaccine. The Biden administration has directed agencies throughout the federal government to devise plans for requiring workers to get vaccinated.
Good for Biden and good for Austin. We mandate vaccinations of all kinds for all sorts of different reasons. There's no reason not to mandate this one.
"There's no reason not to mandate this one." Well, there is one - the vaccine does not have formal, non-emergency FDA approval. This should be remedied ASAP.
Perhaps, Steve, in your estimation our Covid problem is not an emergency?
Obviously the FDA needs to go through its own process without interference. But all indications are the final approval will be ready within a few weeks. I agree it's reasonable for the vaccine mandates to not go into effect till this is finalized as long as the timetable is reasonable.
Next, let's see a mandate for police, fire, and medical workers, please.
And everyone else, too, unless they're already dead.
Covid, climate change, vodoo economics - why do Democrats have to play Sisyphus to the Republican boulder that keeps rolling down?
Doings outside of Florida or Texas: https://bronx.news12.com/all-nj-counties-now-categorized-as-substantial-or-high-risk-of-covid-19-community-transmission
There are only 12 states below 15 new cases/day/100K; three below 10 (and SD has a positive rate of 12%, so...).
Most areas at or above CDC levels for high risk, the other states are getting there. More fluctuations at the county level:
https://covidactnow.org
Of course the deep South is going deep red-->75 new cases/day/100K. LA and FL are there, and rest are coming on strong.
The rate of growth may have stopped increasing in places--but typically at a high level. Over half the states are seeing case numbers double in a week or less.
The UK had the Delta variant outbreak before us. Things were really bad there, then the numbers dropped quickly...and are now going back up....
I am not sure the numbers are really going up in the uk. The upward trend in last week is so slight that could just be due to reporting glitches and might be affected significantly by increased testing due to school reopening, etc.
My best guess is that true infections of a week or so ago ( as our reported tests are actually just showing old data) were still declining somewhat. But sure looks like the rate of decrease did slow dramatically or leveled off. Which is not as optimistic.
The more important part of Republican orthodoxy is to work to make everyone less safe, whether directly as in the case of Ron DeSanity or through imagination.
Ron DeSanity is going to run for president.
Picture it!
Vote for me, Ron DeSanity. As your President I will do all kinds of harm and injury to anybody that I can, including you and everyone you know, but, more importantly, to a lot of people don't know, also. So, vote for me, Ron DeSanity!
Pretty good summary of what the last two Republican presidents did.
Is Ron de Santis Biden's Katrina?
The other bit of good news is that the UK numbers held steady, again.
I classify this as "good news" using the following analytics without any scientific support.
1. The delta variant hit the UK about a month before us. UK and US vax data and behavior is roughly the same.
2. Extrapolate to the US, and for the first time in the pandemic we could see a levelling off with a mostly open economy.
3. Why, my guess is with a more transmissable yet less risky strain, we get to some sort of R<1 by a combination of vaccine and herd immunnity.
Of course, the strain is only "less risky" because of the combination of the people at risk who have died and the people at risk who have been vaccinated and the vaccine tilting older.
I mean, its not great news, just good news. People are dying and they are absolutely avoidable deaths.
Its completely bizzare that a certain segment has turned this into being political. Especially since that same segment is a big fan of WWII movies. Its like any war, you do everything you can to minimize casualties. In WWII, US casualties were minimized by use of overwhelming force.
Here, all we needed was overwhelming compliance with logical steps with zero downside and the population afirmatively won't do it.
It is mildly bad news to me.
Cases in the uk came down steadily for two weeks or so which made it look like they had reached and surpassed herd immunity. Then they stopped going down and have generally been flat for a week or so ( with daily blips).
A while ago, someone made a big point of the uk numbers having gone up for one day. And, at that time, I said to not give a lot of weight to one day changes as too much variability and " get back to me" if this lasts a week. Now it has and so hard to say it is just a short term reporting issue.
The hope was that the uk really had hit herd immunity in early july and that if we follow the same path, we would be doing so about now. And that stay on a downward path. Once you hit herd immunity, the R should continue to decrease and cases go down at an accelerating rate. A leveling off from an increase is a good sign. Not so leveling off from a decrease.
However, maybe this was somewhat driven by increased testing, which tends to lag increased cases and might also be caused by school reopening. If so, maybe actual uk infections decreasing but that is hidden by increased testing picking up a higher %age of cases. That seems to be happening in some places in usa now.
WorldoMeter has the daily case numbers drop the rebound a little--but their "active cases" plot a bit more consistent. No, I don't know how they get "active cases".
It seems as long as there are big nationwide surges in new cases, we are not at R<1. My understanding for herd immunity is that any new infections arriving in a community will quickly die out. But right now we are seeing spreading everywhere, and the coming case decline will just be another drop off like always seen with pandemics over time.
And what if we never get to R<1? Vaccinated people just keep re-infecting each other? That would be a strange situation.
I can understand some people not getting the vaccine because of its possible side effects. I don’t agree with that but I understand it.
…. What really gets me angry are the many people like this one guy I saw in what is now multiple daily tv reports of people in hospitals with COVID who say they now see the light. This guy said he didn’t get the shot because “we’re a deeply conservative family.” Holy freakin‘ @&))?(:/@“&!??!!
I know that basic medicine has become a political test. But how did this happen? This guy said he would now get the shot to protect his young son, who had his face pressed against the window during the interview. Did your kid not exist before, buddy? Or was Trump/Fox News just more important? Will these people turn *anything* into a political test if they are told to do so?
As Kevin continues his deep dive into Fox News, I hope he finds some time to deep dive into a facet which to my mind has much more of a direct connection to our current FUBAR situation.
And that is that regardless of SAT score, you can convince many humans that a particular group of other humans are the enemy.
So, if over a period of years the left wing ambles along, head in the clouds, musing over policy proposals based on logic, and the right wing, ever more stridently, with ever more anger, culminating in Trump, spends all day demonizing liberals -- well, there is your answer.
The guy in your example thinks all covid mitigation advice is coming from the enemy. Consider how the whole "ask your own doctor" argument -- as if the people studying covid mitigation aren't doctors!
No! For the fans nothing is more important than giving the impression of having an extremist experience, like those fat guys at football games who paint their blobbery bods in team colors and stand there rooting and making loud drunk noises, because that's who they really are.
Both sides are turning things into a political test and showing solidarity with their " tribe " . There are plenty of liberals who truly do not think they should need to mask but do so anyway to be part of their tribe. Of course, wearing a mask just for that purpose, while perhaps being just as stupid as not getting vaccinated to be conservative, is not doing anything that bad in the end.
But, in a different situation, the similar liberal tendency to just conform their opinions to the tribe and not think for themselves could be the one that was more damaging.
Last year, when the vaccine was more the "trump vaccine " there were plenty on the left that were seeming to downplay it and expressing caution as to whether it was safe. Including saying that trump's contention that we would have it by end of 2020 was unrealistic.
And one thing that many here are missing when they cite polls on vaccine reluctance is that tendency to want to stick with your tribe is more about what you say than what you do. There are a significant number of conservatives already vaccinated ( because they actually thought it was worthwhile) who would tell a pollster they would never get vaccinated. And liberals who will not get vaccinated but will say they are. I know one relative who is a hard line vaccine resistor ( for mainly dumb reasons not political). And her husband and kids are all vaccinated and of course they tell her they are not.
One reason I have followed kevin is that, while he is a solid liberal, he does think for himself and occasionally take a non-tribal position, for which he then gets grief from all the reflexive left wing.
The "tribal position" was to not trust Trump. The liberals were committed to the vaccine, once it was properly tested and approved (including emergency approval). Considering what was coming out of Trump's mouth (bleach anyone?), that was prudent.
Yup.
President Chlorox Colonic Irrigation was not the final word of vaccine efficacy.
Yes. The liberal concern during trump was that he would interfere with the process and make the vaccine(s) less safe. Which is exactly what almost happened (Agent Orange wanted to mix the moderna vaccine with water so we could vaccine twice as many people with the same amount.)
When Pfizer’s vaccine was ready, the ceo was on every news/talk show possible over a couple of days emphasizing that Pfizer took no government cash in developing its vaccine, specifically because he wanted to avoid any possible interference from trump.
"Last year, when the vaccine was more the "trump vaccine " there were plenty on the left that were seeming to downplay it and expressing caution as to whether it was safe."
(Ir)rational thought spouting falsehoods again in defence of conservatives.
Prediction: his example will be Kamala Harris saying she wouldn't get the vaccine on Trump's word (i.e. that of a proven liar who was known to manipulate the pandemic for political reasons) but would trust Dr. Fauci.
Then he'll go "See! Both sides...."
The " both sides" point is that liberals were skeptical of the vaccine last year because they did not trust Trump. And now conservatives are sceptical of the vaccine because they do not trust the beurocracy is telling the truth.
And the issue is that it now goes beyond just not trusting. If someone one side hates says anything , it seems that it is then required to believe that is not true just because the hated one says it. And without actually thinking it through on their own. To a great extent for some on the left, it seems that trump basically controls your thoughts. Whatever he says, you disagree no matter what.
Actually, I would say that trust in vaccines is not the best example of this. I have defended Kamala Harris somewhat on this issue with conservatives. While I think her comments last year were not helpful, they were not that horrible. Note I did not bring up her comments as an example. Just having caution before accepting something is reasonable. I can understand some lack of trust.
What would be a better example is that earlier there were a whole lot of comments after trump said he thought that we could have a vaccine by end of year , that such a thing was near impossible. And also the reaction re hydroxychloroquine was over the top negative just because trump was pushing it. And that for a while the liberal establishment basically banned even discussing the possibility that covid came from a Chinese lab, and some have now basically admitted that it was largely just to oppose trump.
"The " both sides" point is that liberals were skeptical of the vaccine last year because they did not trust Trump."
No, no. You're still confused. Liberals were not skeptical of "the vaccine", they were skeptical of Trump.
Their stance was "I'm pro-vaccine but I don't trust Trump and will not take his word alone on whether any vaccine is safe and ready for use. I will only trust medical experts to tell me when the vaccines are safe."
'There are plenty of liberals who truly do not think they should need to mask but do so anyway to be part of their tribe. '
That's not tribalism, that's shaming into acting like an adult at worst, setting a good example at best. That kind of social pressure is a good thing, and actually what causes juvenile delinquents to lose their minds and start loading firearms....
Certainly there may be some vaccinated who think that vaccinated should not have to wear masks but still wear them in order to try to shame the unvaccinated to wear them ( note that does not work).
But that is not what I was saying. There are some liberals who actually do disagree with their " tribal position" on masks for anyone but would not want any of their liberal friends to know that or even strangers. So they wear masks simply in order to not have anyone think they might support trump.
However, I think this was significantly more common back in say may, when cases were low and the common opinion was that we were out of trouble. And almost no place had a remaining mask mandate and a minority was still wearing them even in liberal areas. Then there was more wearing of masks simply as a sign of tribal solidarity. Today, I would assume that many of those now actually do support masking given where cases are today.
And I have talked to liberals who have said exactly that months ago.
By the same point, there are conservatives who actually do support vaccines but might not want their hard line friends to know that.
And that is part of the reason why vaccination has lagged more in very conservative small rural communities. If you are a hard line conservative but disagree with the presumed anti vaccine stance of most of your friends and want to get vaccinated, easier to do so and keep hidden in a big city.
On a personal note, just found out my 92 year old mother tested positive for covid.
She is in a nursing home and was vaccinated. Zero symptoms so far so not overly panicked and likely she will be ok.
I was trying to search to assess how much less risk if no symptoms by a day after testing positive . Did see that symptoms usually start a bit sooner than you will test positive. So that makes me think her viral load has already been high enough to cause her to get sick if she was going to, but cannot find anything really saying much about this.
Does anyone know more of how to assess decreased chance of sickness or death based on still not showing symptoms after positive test?
I am very sorry to hear that, I wish you and her the best.
Sorry to hear about your mom. It looks like if there’s no onset of symptoms for 10 days from a positive test, she’s probably in the clear.
https://medical.mit.edu/faqs/positive-tests-isolation-quarantine-retesting
So sorry to hear that about your mom. My mom is also 92 but dad and she amazingly enough are holding out in the house they bought in 1968. Every person is different and there's been far too little research on breakthrough cases. I wish we knew more about them.
The nursing home had done so well up till recently. 99% of residents vaccinated and staff was better than average with almost all in close contact vaccinated. Only one resident case before two weeks ago.
And appears that the small outbreak they are now having was because of a breakthrough case in a vaccinated staff.
Goddamn delta.
As she is vaccinated and no symptoms, I am actually less worried about covid itself and more worried about what ten days of isolation is going to do to her. She went downhill last year as visits stopped and stopped walking. This year, she could get visits and even went out a few times and was making progress walking again. Now this will set that back.
On please. The outbreak went nowhere. Breakthrough my backside.
I hope she does well and that the facility was able to stop the outbreak quickly. Take care.
Still a hoax, though.
There is this data coming from the Israeli Health Ministry, which apparently unlike the CDC is tracking and sharing data, as well as reacting proactively by providing a third dose to the most at-risk population to cut the severe case/death risk even more. I used to have such a high opinion of the CDC. Just another case of "best medical care in the world" syndrome.
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/the-israeli-graphs-that-prove-covid-vaccines-are-working-1.10101640
I have a high opinion of the CDC- once more. Donald Trump is proof that no American institution is so stable and beneficial, that a Republican can't screw it up.
And the CDC is not responsible for the for-profit motive of Moderna, Pfizer, etc. Judging by their claims of six months coverage as well, the booster shot is coming soon here.
Given El Jefe only hires the best people, I am still shocked Michael Brown didn't at least get an ambassadorship back in 2017.
Positivity is now declining. The southern wave is ending. Next phase will be midwest/inter mountain region burst in October.
The original COVID-19 strain has been supplanted by the Delta variant now. This article refers to it as a "Goldilocks virus" - all of the political obstruction of masking & vaccination contributed to it, of course. Now we'll also see the effects of the Delta + & Lambda variants. Maybe mandates may help prevent more & worse ones if implemented soon.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/delta-variant-most-prevalent/2021/08/08/d1017f0e-f558-11eb-9068-bf463c8c74de_story.html
At this point across most of the nation, delta is totally dominant and really all that is left to be concerned about. Alpha.still seems to be hanging on at a low level ( wonder if there is some small group where alpha is more contagious).
Original covid is largely going extinct. And was already supplanted by alpha largely before delta got here.
Doubt that restrictions here are a big issue for new variants. More likely that any new variant will arise overseas. And re any new vaccine resistant strain, I am somewhat worried about it coming out of places like Australia and eventually New Zealand, where they might end up with a population of high vaccine immunity ( assuming they get their vaccine act together) but very low natural immunity.
The most successful nations so far also not pose the greatest threat for the future.
Mutations are random occurrences; the more infected individuals, the more virus particles; the more virus particles, the more mutations. Nations with very low rates of infection, such as New Zealand and a number of other Asia/Pacific countries, are very unlikely to be the source of novel mutations. Expert opinions at https://www.cnbc.com/2021/08/05/fauci-warns-more-severe-covid-variant-could-emerge-as-us-cases-near-100000.html
My concern, which is not really a big one, with Aus and nz, is if a variant arises which is less contagious overall to those with natural immunity and no immunity, but makes the vaccine ineffective. So a mutation that avoids the vaccine antibodies but at a cost of being less effective otherwise.
So say R for no immunity and vaccine immunity is 1.2 and R for natural immunity is .2. For a population like us today, such a variant cannot spread at all and would die out. But would have an advantage in aus and nz as little or no natural immunity.
Then, if our natural immunity here wears off over time, and we rely on vaccine boosters, we would end up in same boat and also vulnerable to it.
Without an incubation place like aus and nz, we might be able to drive the virus so low as there is no chance to mutate before our natural immunity wears off enough.
'At this point across most of the nation, delta is totally dominant and really all that is left to be concerned about.'
Except of course, for the NEXT even more infectious variant, thanks to the "Herd immunity" crowd preventing us from reaching herd immunity.
Except even more people will have immunity. You simply don't get it.
Herd immunity is not a fixed state. It depends on what virus and variant you are talking about and what level and type of immunity the population has, and what the other conditions like weather and maybe social distancing there is.
If we reach herd immunity and R is below 1.0 for delta virus, and an immunity level of current natural immunity and more vaccinated ( which I assume is your goal) and current weather and other conditions then, even if all that stays the same, a new more contagious variant would push R back above 1.0 and no longer have herd immunity.
And, in a heavily vaccinated population, a successful variant is one that avoids the vaccine immunity ( even at the cost of maybe being less contagious otherwise).
Plus, as times go on, if our immunity wears off and weather changes, you can lose the herd immunity. We do with the flu every year when winter hits and last year immunity wears off ( offset by new flu vaccine).
One huge misconception is that we reach herd immunity and then you are done and cases disappear. It is a dynamic situation. If immunity does not wear off at all, but you get to herd immunity threshold with cases very low ( because of tough restrictions) R will stay close to 1.0 and you will have a long tail of cases. And will have to keep restrictions forever. If you hit herd immunity at a case peak ( no restrictions) so still a lot of cases, you will overshoot herd immunity driving R far below 1.0 ( as immunity increases due to addtl natural immunity from post peak cases) . This can be the better scenario long term.
I ignore the "active cases " number except for a few countries that are tracking rigorously ( which is not the uk and especially not the usa).
Many places are not following up to see if those diagnosed positive have recovered so they stay counted as active cases for a long time and maybe forever ( not sure).
Look at the us and compare California and texas. Do you really think ca has almost ten times more active cases than ca and in ca , there are almost as many active cases as the total of recovered? And ca problem there mostly due to me county of la where nobody ever seems to recover.
' It will be the first cruise operator to require every person on board in Florida to be fully vaccinated, in defiance of Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), whose office has called the lawsuit “meritless” and the company’s vaccine policy discriminatory.'
DeShithead is not wrong- the policy does discriminate against stupid, dangerous people, and that is his voting base!
But I do appreciate the punchline of a Republican calling the policies of others "discriminatory"....
'Cruise ships are private enterprises, and it goes against all common sense and against Republican orthodoxy to subject them to a government regulation explicitly designed to make them less safe.'
The GOP has never actually been strictly anti-regulation (except at its lunatic Libertarian fringe)- they are against any public policy that costs them- directly or indirectly- money. They have shown themselves to be quite adept as using regulation to stifle competition, aid their donors, and benefit certain industries over others- to their own gain.
Interesting things happening
The "Israel Situation" is somewhat confusing
Numbers are up according to both CDC and Israeli Health Ministry (IHM)
What is disturbing is that the % of breakthrough cases in Israel is very high
https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/israel-given-highest-covid-travel-warning-by-cdc-676325
{snip}
Due to the highly contagious Delta variant, Israel has been registering a surge in cases, with over 6,200 new virus carriers registered on Monday, the highest since February. Over half of the new cases were fully vaccinated.
The morbidity is also significantly increasing in the US, where cases have averaged 100,000 for three days in a row, up 35% over the past week, according to a Reuters tally of public health data
{snip}
While the sheer numbers are low the percentage of break through cases is well over 50%. This seems unusually high to me
Yes, Israel has one of the highest levels of vaccinations and I applaud them for that. Will the next variant be "the one" that renders all vaccines impotent against further spread? All vaccines do is lessen the symptoms and reduces the number of deaths.
The more people that have COVID the greater the chances of mutations happening and break through cases are rising world wide.
Here in the U.S - we are approaching fall and return to indoor activity. Are we looking at another sustained surge?
On please. Vaccines were never 100% fool proof. The Israel data is a fraud in so far as their cases don't even really exist. It's why the vaccinated should never be tested.
((( data ))), you mean.
Re vog 46,
While the Israeli numbers do show a worryingly high number of breakthrough cases, it does not show that all the vaccine does is to reduce illness and death of those vaccinated.
It is still showing a lower %age of vaccinated getting covid than unvaccinated, just maybe not as effective as we hoped.
And note that the efficiency that we really care about with vaccinations are two track. One is reducing illness and death of those vaccinated and the other is reducing the spread of the virus to others. For both of these goals, reducing infection itself is not important- but it is one component to the actual goal.
Say the vaccine is 50% effective in preventing infection itself, and 70% effective in preventing illness of those infected and 60% effective in lowering contagiousness of those infected ( as viral load drops much faster).
Then the actual effectiveness in stopping illness is 85% ( 1 - .5*.3) and 80% effective in stopping spread (1-.5*.4).
Spades, you keep saying breakthrough infections should be ignored as not real. But some still do get sick and even die, just less. But maybe they should be discounted. In the above example, they could be discounted by 70% if examining potential for illness and 60% if examining spread rate. Assuming you know those % ages. Seems for effectiveness on stopping infection and stopping illness, we at least have studies trying to figure that out, even if they differ. Nobody seems to be trying to determine the effectiveness in stopping someone infected from spreading to another. Which is crucial for what we need for herd immunity.
And one other thought. How many of these vaccine breakthrough cases and natural immunity breakthroughs are truly breakthroughs of immunity. And how many are artifacts because someone was reported as vaccinated and really was not or reported as having covid but really did not.
For vaccination, there surely was some number of people who got vaccinated, especially in the real crunch time, where they screwed it up and did not really vaccinate ( for phizer maybe they left it unfrozen too long). Not sure how much good that does us if we do not know the difference.
For natural, how many positive tests were false positives for any reason and that person never had covid. I have said that is not a huge number for discounting total cases, but it might be significant for breakthrough.
Say of 1000 people who tested positive, just 30 were false and they never had covid. And, since that date 50% of unvaccinated with no prior covid got covid and 100 of that 1000 also got covid. So looks like natural immunity is 80% effective . But, if 15 of the false positives got covid, then the effectiveness goes up to about 83%. And that makes a difference