[News] Coronavirus

A place to discuss the now-global coronavirus outbreak.

The new variant = roided rona!

This week Britain recorded more than 40,000 cases in a single day for the first time in six months. Globally, the World Health Organization says cases and deaths are climbing after a period of decline, spurred by the more contagious delta variant. Last week there were nearly 3 million new infections and more than 55,000 lives lost around the world.

Their response-

Monday, the government lifts a legal requirement to wear face coverings in most indoor settings, including shops, trains, buses and subways. Donning a mask in many places will stop being an order and become a request.

For a long time I had thought that nuclear war would be the downfall of the human race. Turns out it's just regular old stupidity that will destroy us.

The only positive thing I can say is while the UK's count total is awful their death rate is still substantially lower than their first wave.

Yes, yes, deaths trail, but even so they're greatly down.

Either way, makes no sense to get rid of the mask mandate now. None. Outside of political pressure.

garion333 wrote:

The only positive thing I can say is while the UK's count total is awful their death rate is still substantially lower than their first wave.

Yes, yes, deaths trail, but even so they're greatly down.

Either way, makes no sense to get rid of the mask mandate now. None. Outside of political pressure.

I understand pressure to open things up. I never understood no masks.

I'll start traveling soon again within Canada but I'm wearing a mask in closed spaces for the foreseeable future regardless of rules.

My wife and friends and I road-tripped to coastal Oregon over the weekend. Though there were cautious people, there was also constantly a huge crowd, all close together without masks, at the Tillamook restaurant.

Also their food is garbage, just total cheap crap described like real food. A member of our group volunteered to go. She stood in line with a mask and couldnt get out fast enough with our stuff.

In other news, there's been an ongoing feud between Norwegian Cruise Lines and the state of Florida because the cruise line wants - for safety reasons - to mandate that anyone who gets on board their ship, passenger or crew, has been vaccinated. Florida, meanwhile, has passed a law that says that it's illegal for any company to require proof of vaccination, with a penalty of $5,000 per person asked for identification.

Now Norwegian is suing the Surgeon General of Florida over the law, saying that it violates federal law. Florida, of course, calls the lawsuit baseless and says the cruise line is "discriminating" against individuals who can't be vaccinated or chose not to for reasons of "health, religion, or conscience".

Because, you know, it's fine for a baker to not make you a cake because you're gay, but it's not fine for a cruise line to say you can't board their ship if you might infect everyone on board.

(Norwegian, meanwhile, has previously warned back in May that the law might make them just abandon the state altogether: "At the end of the day, cruise ships have motors, propellers and rudders, and God forbid we can't operate in the state of Florida for whatever reason, then there are other states that we do operate from".)

garion333 wrote:

The only positive thing I can say is while the UK's count total is awful their death rate is still substantially lower than their first wave.

Yes, yes, deaths trail, but even so they're greatly down.

Either way, makes no sense to get rid of the mask mandate now. None. Outside of political pressure.

It’s basically a giant gamble that enough people who are more likely to die if infected are now double vaccinated, while everyone else is either not particularly susceptible to hospitalisation or death. It’s an enormous gamble, especially given our very haphazard approach to international travel.

It was 50,000 new infections today. Our hospitalisation rates are climbing if relatively slowly, the death rate is pretty static. Time will tell.

Keldar wrote:

In other news, there's been an ongoing feud between Norwegian Cruise Lines and the state of Florida because the cruise line wants - for safety reasons - to mandate that anyone who gets on board their ship, passenger or crew, has been vaccinated. Florida, meanwhile, has passed a law that says that it's illegal for any company to require proof of vaccination, with a penalty of $5,000 per person asked for identification.

Now Norwegian is suing the Surgeon General of Florida over the law, saying that it violates federal law. Florida, of course, calls the lawsuit baseless and says the cruise line is "discriminating" against individuals who can't be vaccinated or chose not to for reasons of "health, religion, or conscience".

Because, you know, it's fine for a baker to not make you a cake because you're gay, but it's not fine for a cruise line to say you can't board their ship if you might infect everyone on board.

(Norwegian, meanwhile, has previously warned back in May that the law might make them just abandon the state altogether: "At the end of the day, cruise ships have motors, propellers and rudders, and God forbid we can't operate in the state of Florida for whatever reason, then there are other states that we do operate from".)

I'm always mixed on the vax mandates just because of the people that medically can't get the vax. But of course, that isn't what Florida is doing, so screw them and I hope the cruise lines just move to other ports.

lunchbox12682 wrote:

I'm always mixed on the vax mandates just because of the people that medically can't get the vax. But of course, that isn't what Florida is doing, so screw them and I hope the cruise lines just move to other ports.

Any well done mandate would allow those that can't be vaccinated to show proof of that and not be bared. It just doesn't seem that hard to me.

I know it's morbid to put it this way, but I'm deeply curious about how the morbidity of the Delta variant will go. Viruses tend to mutate towards more infectious but less deadly, as there's not a lot of evolutionary value in killing off your host. On the other hand, Delta is far more likely to affect people who haven't been vaccinated, and, at least in the U.S., it's highly likely that anyone who is not vaccinated has chosen to do so for a whole series of idiotic reasons, and those people are just inherently likelier to be gathering and performing a number of notably higher-risk activities. So, it's looking to be a battle of evolution making things less deadly, yet stupidity making "less" even "more" just because of behavior pattersn.

polypusher wrote:

My wife and friends and I road-tripped to coastal Oregon over the weekend. Though there were cautious people, there was also constantly a huge crowd, all close together without masks, at the Tillamook restaurant.

Also their food is garbage, just total cheap crap described like real food. A member of our group volunteered to go. She stood in line with a mask and couldnt get out fast enough with our stuff.

Lol at the bolded. Where was this?

I will tell you as an Oregonian that as soon as the CDC guidance about masks came out masks disappeared everywhere. I think people took to heart the idea that if you’re vaccinated you don’t need a mask and we have like 70% vaccination here.

And obviously as predicted all the people who were never going to get the vaccine took the CDC guidance to mean it was time to go massless. Oregon was really good about masks and now I hardly ever see them and feel I’m one of the few people still wearing one.

Keldar wrote:

In other news, there's been an ongoing feud between Norwegian Cruise Lines and the state of Florida because the cruise line wants - for safety reasons - to mandate that anyone who gets on board their ship, passenger or crew, has been vaccinated. Florida, meanwhile, has passed a law that says that it's illegal for any company to require proof of vaccination, with a penalty of $5,000 per person asked for identification.

DeSantis is selling "Don't Fauci My Florida" t-shirts and sh*t on his campaign website at the same time that Florida accounts for 20% of all new COVID infections in America.

Making this all the more depressing DeSantis is far and away the most popular Republican after Trump in conservative straw polls about the 2024 election.

DSGamer wrote:
polypusher wrote:

My wife and friends and I road-tripped to coastal Oregon over the weekend. Though there were cautious people, there was also constantly a huge crowd, all close together without masks, at the Tillamook restaurant.

Also their food is garbage, just total cheap crap described like real food. A member of our group volunteered to go. She stood in line with a mask and couldnt get out fast enough with our stuff.

Lol at the bolded. Where was this?

The Tillamook Creamery Restaurant

You don't go to Tillamook for the food, just the ice cream!

OG_slinger wrote:
Keldar wrote:

In other news, there's been an ongoing feud between Norwegian Cruise Lines and the state of Florida because the cruise line wants - for safety reasons - to mandate that anyone who gets on board their ship, passenger or crew, has been vaccinated. Florida, meanwhile, has passed a law that says that it's illegal for any company to require proof of vaccination, with a penalty of $5,000 per person asked for identification.

DeSantis is selling "Don't Fauci My Florida" t-shirts and sh*t on his campaign website at the same time that Florida accounts for 20% of all new COVID infections in America.

Making this all the more depressing DeSantis is far and away the most popular Republican after Trump in conservative straw polls about the 2024 election.

Ah beat me to it. Yes, Florida accounts for 20% of infections, while only having 6% of the US population. Ron "I will sacrifice my constituents for capitalism" Desantis. GOP death cult in full effect.

OG_slinger wrote:

DeSantis is selling "Don't Fauci My Florida" t-shirts

That’s not even remotely clever and makes no sense.

JC wrote:
OG_slinger wrote:

DeSantis is selling "Don't Fauci My Florida" t-shirts

That’s not even remotely clever and makes no sense.

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/6ByG7Xq.gif)

People are willing to pay anything just to stick it to the libs.

Well, my family of four has made it to our place in Nova Scotia. Relatively painless travel (12 hours of driving). But the rules are kind of absurd. 11 year old has to "self-isolate" for two weeks, but the other three of us who are vaccinated, don't (all of us obviously in the same house).

We have to do this because it is a federal rule for travel from outside Canada. If we had instead travelled from inside Canada (say Ontario) the 11 year old wouldn't have to self-isolate because the other three of us are vaccinated. Now, we travelled from Mass, which has a lower number of cases and and higher rate of vaccination than Ontario. So, the logic... needs some work.

Weird, on the news last week they said non essential travel was still closed and the border to Canada might open again in August

"Freedom Day" here in the UK today - last night many many nightclubs opened at Midnight for a night of drunk debauchery covid incubation after most of the rules were relaxed.

Coupled with that the Health Secretary has been diagnosed as Covid positive and has gone into isolation. Nothing remarkable about that right? It's still currently the law in the UK that you have to do so, despite the chaos it has been causing to some businesses as if one of their staff tests positive almost all of the rest of them have to isolate after being in close contact, and 750,000 school children (including mini-sorb) have missed the last couple of weeks of school due to also have to self isolate after a class mate has a positive diagnosis.

Only he met the Prime Minister (Boris Johnson) and the Chancellor of the Exchequer before hand and both of them were told to self isolate. They decided they didn't have -they some how found themselves in a government trial to test daily rather than isolate, that is supposed to be a totally random selection of people, which just happened to include them both at short notice) - at least until the media got wind of it and quickly forced both to back down and go isolate. But once again our government is shown to firmly believe it's one set of rule for us, and another set (or no rules at all) for them. Which means all of those that don't give a toss really aren't going too at all any more.

Frustrating to put it mildly. About 2:1 of the British Public believe relaxing almost all the rules is wrong right now. We're well into a third spike, and even though our vaccination program has clearly given a high level of protection, there are still a lot of people out there who haven't been vaccinated, or can't be. It's a giant gamble as I've said before.

Stele wrote:

Weird, on the news last week they said non essential travel was still closed and the border to Canada might open again in August

I'm a Canadian citizen as are both of my daughters. Canadians are allowed to cross the border into Canada provided they are either vaccinated and/or can prove they have a place to self-isolate for 14 days.

IMAGE(https://i.redd.it/uhn4e5t4ma831.gif)

Man, UK numbers keep skyrocketing, even at 54% fully vaccinated population. Can't wait for that to be the US in a month.

Or the rest of the south next week...

Just so shameful that there are areas of this country that are in the teens for vaccination percentage.

garion333 wrote:

Man, UK numbers keep skyrocketing, even at 54% fully vaccinated population. Can't wait for that to be the US in a month.

Will things be different in the US because our pop is largely innoculated with mRNA vaccines which have shown ridiculous effectiveness with Delta)? Thought the UK was rolling with AZ?

Top_Shelf wrote:
garion333 wrote:

Man, UK numbers keep skyrocketing, even at 54% fully vaccinated population. Can't wait for that to be the US in a month.

Will things be different in the US because our pop is largely innoculated with mRNA vaccines which have shown ridiculous effectiveness with Delta)? Thought the UK was rolling with AZ?

The UK is rolling with both - I think it's about a 50/50 split, although we have also approved the Moderna and J&J one shot vaccines as well. And the AZ vaccine is still effective against the Delta variant if you've had both doses.

It's also got nothing to do with the vaccines - about 50% of our population still isn't vaccinated. However this is mostly younger adults, teens and children - people less susceptible to hospitalization and death from contracting the virus.

So while the numbers who are testing positive are skyrocketing, the numbers being hospitalised isn't. It's currently about 500 a day. During the height of our second peak at the start of the year it was closer to 2000 a day - those numbers almost broke the NHS. Similarly our death rate is pretty static at about 20 a day at the moment - almost all people with underlying health conditions in older age groups - compared to nearly a 1000 a day during that second peak. I would say however those numbers are still high and a cause of considerable concern within the UK - as I have said before, most people in the UK think we're coming out of lockdown way too soon.

That means it's a calculated gamble that although infections right now are running at about 40,000 a day, it won't matter too much as those people will either be asymptomatic, or just have mild flu like symptoms.

Of course for those clinically vulnerable, or cannot take the vaccines for whatever reason, they are being left out to dry. We aren't going to vaccinate anyone under the age of 18 unless there is a specific need to do so - they are either clinically vulnerable, or they live with someone who is. Anyone under 12 won't get vaccinated regardless unless it's exceptional circumstances, mostly because testing in children is still being sorted out.

*sigh*

Tokyo 2020 CEO Toshiro Muto is not ruling out an 11th-hour cancellation of the Olympics Games amid rising Covid-19 cases.

"We cannot predict what the epidemic will look like in the future. So as for what to do should there be any surge of positive cases, we’ll discuss accordingly if that happens," Muto said during a news conference held in Tokyo on Tuesday.

"During the last five-party talk, it was clearly stated we’ll continue to monitor the coronavirus situation, and a five-party talk will be held if necessary," Muto added.

"At this stage, the coronavirus situation might get worse or better, so we will think about what to do when the situation actually arises," Muto said.

The Olympics are happening. It's already too late to stop it, despite what they're saying.

Agreed, mainly because no one wants to be the one to finally pull the plug and deal with the contractual consequences.
I am curious what the vax rate is for everyone in attendance (athletes, coaches, support, etc.).

Sorbicol wrote:
Top_Shelf wrote:
garion333 wrote:

Man, UK numbers keep skyrocketing, even at 54% fully vaccinated population. Can't wait for that to be the US in a month.

Will things be different in the US because our pop is largely innoculated with mRNA vaccines which have shown ridiculous effectiveness with Delta)? Thought the UK was rolling with AZ?

The UK is rolling with both - I think it's about a 50/50 split, although we have also approved the Moderna and J&J one shot vaccines as well. And the AZ vaccine is still effective against the Delta variant if you've had both doses.

It's also got nothing to do with the vaccines - about 50% of our population still isn't vaccinated. However this is mostly younger adults, teens and children - people less susceptible to hospitalization and death from contracting the virus.

So while the numbers who are testing positive are skyrocketing, the numbers being hospitalised isn't. It's currently about 500 a day. During the height of our second peak at the start of the year it was closer to 2000 a day - those numbers almost broke the NHS. Similarly our death rate is pretty static at about 20 a day at the moment - almost all people with underlying health conditions in older age groups - compared to nearly a 1000 a day during that second peak. I would say however those numbers are still high and a cause of considerable concern within the UK - as I have said before, most people in the UK think we're coming out of lockdown way too soon.

That means it's a calculated gamble that although infections right now are running at about 40,000 a day, it won't matter too much as those people will either be asymptomatic, or just have mild flu like symptoms.

Of course for those clinically vulnerable, or cannot take the vaccines for whatever reason, they are being left out to dry. We aren't going to vaccinate anyone under the age of 18 unless there is a specific need to do so - they are either clinically vulnerable, or they live with someone who is. Anyone under 12 won't get vaccinated regardless unless it's exceptional circumstances, mostly because testing in children is still being sorted out.

The hospitalizations are definitely going up at a fairly alarming rate to my eye. Sure, the ratio of sick to hospitalized appears to be better, but the hospitalization line is aggressively increasing.

Sure sounds like the UK is shooting for herd immunity without using those terms since its greatly fallen out of favor.