SARS-CoV-2 Coronavirus (COVID-19)

gov baker announced thursday that phase 4 reopening will begin tomorrow due to 7 day running average of new cases declining.
that night, cases went up substantially, and higher yesterday.

complacency? idk.

in an open letter to the gov, the mass public health association and 28 related groups urged the gov to postpone phase 4 for at least 4 more weeks. of course, he ignored them.

otoh, florida numbers look pretty good.

 

All the hallmarks of a superspreader event as we speak
Miami Beach officers shoot pepper balls into spring break crowds to enforce emergency curfew - CNN

 

that's what they said about the superbowl. we'll see.

otoh, i'm not convinced that desantis isn't fudging the numbers.

 

IMHO, Florida looks to plateau and that is before the 'Spring Break' crowd effects are observed. I'd recommend being personal protective gear paranoid. ... Don't leave home without it.

Bob Wilson

 

it's also spotty like everywhere. my brother lives in bonita springs, and they have very low numbers in the southwest area.
venues have been open all 'winter'

 

Medical or economic?

Florida (GOD's waiting room) has about the oldest population in the nation, second to Maine, while California has one of the youngest....and yet their deaths per million are within statistical spitting distance of each other....and BOTH are in the lower half of the nation.

My own mother and her NEVER TO BE oxygenarian sisters (they're in their mid-80's) flew down to Florida for Spring Break last week.....LITERALLY sending us kids a picture from a Duval street bar.

It was some of THEIR KIDS who were worrying about them getting into trouble during Spring Break in FL.

Gotta love the Irony...

 

Strange about Michigan. We had one of the earliest and strictest lockdowns and mask wearing requirements. All stores I visit still require mask wearing with what looks like very good compliance. It will be interesting to see what numbers are released today (total will be for two days).

 

i find around here that it is geographical. there are clusters, and there are area's that haven't had many cases.
it is difficult to tell unless you travel the state and look at each city and town.

i know that most of our issues are inner city and places where people are crowded together. but we also have the occasional super spreader event like just last week and a suburban family hosted a party for about 50 high schoolers, shutting the school to in person learning indefinitely.
cases from that party by contact tracing are around 50 and climbing.

but at around 2,000 cases a day the last few days, we have bigger fish to fry. with phase 4 beginning today, the nba and nhl will have 12% attendance (around 2000 people each game sharing the same bathrooms)
and baseball opens next week, along with all the other venues opening up to public attendance.

i just hope the vaccine and summer catch up to the loonies. not much talk about new strains, but i know it is a concern.

 

California Covid death rates are now following that steep curve downward.

 

'dr. fauci calls out astra zenica'

 

Now that I've gotten the Pfizer EN6198 and EN6206 (batch ID?) doses, I'm wondering how it is handling the variants?

Lay reports suggests Pfizer reduces the severity but does not eliminate the variants. Is anyone following this research?

Google found: S. African Variant Challenges Pfizer, Moderna Vaccines

March 9, 2021 -- The Pfizer/ and Moderna vaccines don’t work as well against the coronavirus variant first discovered in South Africa as they do against the dominant virus strain first seen in United Kingdom, a new study says.
. . .​

The number of samples is low, <100 and closer to 50, per variant.

Bob Wilson

 

nothing conclusive yet, and reports (and variants) are all over the place.

cdc recommends not changing your behavior after vaccinated, except for a very few things like gathering with others who you definitely know are also vaccinated.

 

Yeah, that means we are still long ways to get to hug and kiss grandkids.

 

same here, over a year now. very difficult.

 

Those are specifically called out as "LOT#" on my card. And I do have different numbers than you.

Small indoor gatherings only, not medium or large groups, with others who are fully vaccinated. But may also include a single household at a time of low risk unvaccinated people.

Our only changes so far have been to resume sharing ski chairlift seats with vaccinated friends, and spouse resumed carpooling to the local ski hill with a vaccinated friend while I was away for elder care duties. Before the second vaccine, she was driving solo to the ski hill. Even though skiing remains open several more weeks, we will not be doing any road trip to ski elsewhere this season, and have no other road trips in planning yet before September.

Here is the CDC's current guidance:
Interim Public Health Recommendations for Fully Vaccinated People

 

[joke]So are those in the oldest profession considered ‘essential workers’?[/joke]
What is Nevada doing?

Bob Wilson

 

no doubt they jumped the line

 

my brother in florida had his second shot, and is done with covid. ignoring the cdc, he will be going back to his old lifestyle

 

Two recently published papers confirmes the fear that the UK variant known as B.1.1.7, causes an increased risk of severe illness and death. Not only this variant B.1.1.7 is 43 to 90 percent more transmissible than other pre-existing variants, but also the infection with this variant is associated with a 55 percent to 64 percent greater chance of dying compared to earlier variants, studies found. However, neither study looked at the effectiveness of the currently available vaccines against this variant.


Increased mortality in community-tested cases of SARS-CoV-2 lineage B.1.1.7. Davies NG, Jarvis CI; CMMID COVID-19 Working Group, Edmunds WJ, Jewell NP, Diaz-Ordaz K, Keogh RH. Nature. 2021 Mar 15.

Risk of mortality in patients infected with SARS-CoV-2 variant of concern 202012/1: matched cohort study. Challen R, Brooks-Pollock E, Read JM, Dyson L, Tsaneva-Atanasova K, Danon L. BMJ. 2021 Mar 9;372:n579.