The UK COVID variant has brought a new surge in infections. The number of cases is increasing in several European countries (Italy, France, Germany, etc…).
Coronavirus restrictions were reimposed over three-quarters of the Italian peninsula, including Rome and Milan.
Daily cases have nearly doubled in Italy from where it was in mid-February. There were about 12000 cases per day and now are over 22000 cases per day.
The daily case increases exist in France, Germany, Poland and other European countries to a lesser extent than Italy.
The CDC indicates that the UK variant will be the dominant variant in the US by end of March or Mid-April. The UK variant is twice as contagious and twice as deadly.
SOURCES- DW, Worldometers
Written By Brian Wang, Nextbigfuture.com
Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology.
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Of note, it was only sometime this week that Putin took his first Sputnik 5 vaccine shot. That they chose to wait that long for him, and had imposed pretty serious access controls around him to reduce contact with people up until now, is significant.
Vaccines are making a very significant difference. Look at the UK, where we are hardly in our sunny season, yet are seeing a very steep fall in deaths and hospital admissions (the latter down 26% in the last week alone). What’s different about the UK versus EU is that virtually half the adult population has now been vaccinated (49.9% as of today), so the correlation between infections, hospitalisations and deaths is being broken. Data from the first 3 months of the vaccine rollout shows that the vaccines reduce serious cases by over 85%. Prior to the vaccine rollout we had a very serious second/third wave caused by the new variant discovered in Kent which proved to be 50-70% more transmissible and up to 100% more deadly than the prior wild strain.
Good weather does make a difference as we saw last year before vaccines were available. The simple reason is that people spend more time outdoors and often keep their doors/windows open even when indoors. Since this virus primarily spreads through airborne droplets, the chances of catching it outdoors or where fresh air is circulating is much lower. Vitamin D has been proven to be a red herring in recent peer reviewed studies.
You are quite right. But life is a game of numbers. If you don't play the odds you will surely lose.
Both were hit harder in general, probably due to cultural reasons. But compared to what you would expect, Italy is doing quite well. When you take into account increased testing, they're probably doing better than a year ago. And certainly much better than 3 months ago. Also keep in mind that Italy is not, as you claim, an overall sunny country. The northern half of Italy is in the alps and quite continental.
As for Brazil, it's been in the rainy season for the last 6 months. Now, if April-May doesn't see a sharp dropoff, then that would be a strike against my hypothesis.
Look, if Trump said something is a good thing, then it's a bad thing. That's the law.
That's why the sky is now formally defined as green.
No, naming viruses after politically powerful groups is racist.
As a general rule, if you got into trouble for upsetting a group, then the one thing you are sure of is that it wasn't a powerless victim.
Assuming that the vaccine is killing anyone at all. Last numbers I saw was that the number of people who have problems is marginally less than the raw numbers you'd expect if you just got 10s of millions of elderly people and watched them.
Brazil? Italy? Both are pretty sunny right now and have significant rising cases and deaths again.
No, I’m in my 50’s and have friends and family ranging from 30’s to 70’s. We have the third highest covid death rate in the world despite having some people sheltering in their homes for an entire year. We’re not sheep, we read and listen to impartial news and look in horror at our friends across the pond electing leaders so old it’s a worry they will survive inauguration or leaders with a narcissistic personality disorder who are happy to stir a civil war if it helps them retain the WH. I’ve lived in the States and other European countries, and travelled extensively around the world. I’ve met plenty of folks in the States who have not lived outside their State, let alone another country.
Well, I was born and raised in America and have never been to Russia, nor am particularly longing to go there.
But they were much earlier in developing a vaccine and using it (probably too early; they would not have gotten away with experimenting on people like that here).
But it has now been reviewed and found solid support.
Like Trump used to say "having good relations with Russia is a good thing, not a bad thing." Why must foreign relations be based on suspicion and anger? Russia pulled its ambassador out today because Biden said Putin was a killer. Heh, every president who has an army is that, and beyond the army too.
Meanwhile buy ivermectin and enjoy 83% Covid prevention which is better than some vaccines.
wait people die? I thought that didnt happen
Another pro Russian propaganda troll. From which farm did they let you out?
Classical post communistic propaganda phrases: How good Russia is and how "greedy" western corporations, Pharma exploit the worker class.
1. As others have said, Russia rushed trials and disregarded safety procedures.
I trust western institutions much more than Russian ones.
2. Russia is using vaccine to score a propaganda victory to buff its public image. I don't believe they have people's interest at hearth. Plenty of evidence for that.
3. I don't envy Russians healthcare, wouldn't want to be in their shoes.
4. Russia had earned its place and is where it is because their past actions and not because west is at fault for their failures.
5. It is just plain statistics, each country has some very bright minds, but it depends on the other factors if they can thrive. I don't think Russian environment is good for researchers. Most discoveries and tech innovations are from west.
Well I live in the UK for a US company, and I know people who have died in both the US (in two states) and UK, and a few who were hospitalised. If you want to ignore published science and put more faith in social media, you carry on.
You mean the UK, which funded development of an effective vaccine, funded development of the supplies and facilities to manufacture it even before it was proven to work, and as a condition of the development funding, made it available to manufacture globally at cost with zero profit? Oh, and has funded hundreds of millions of doses for low income country and already promised to make all surplus UK purchased stock available to other nations. Oh, and let’s not forget, the country with the third highest per capita death rate from covid. Perhaps you should stop listening to the incompetent dictator in Brussels and read the facts before you post.
Yes, because governments would never exploit a crisis to grab more power.
*cough* PATRIOT ACT *cough*
Yes… it is… https://www.thecollegefix.com/professor-quits-researching-covid-because-of-hostility-over-his-findings-about-low-threat-to-children/
Sure, it is all a conspiracy. The Great Reptilians told me.
Europe is messing up vaccinations. They worry about the wrong things. The vaccine will kill a few people but COVID will kill hundreds of thousands. Play the odds since you don't have a choice. If you want perfect, you won't get it, meanwhile people are dying.
We all know that naming viruses after countries is racist.
First off, I thought it was racist to label viruses by their origin?
If not, then this isn't the UK variant of COVID, but the UK variant of the Wuhan Coronavirus.
But more importantly, the American Institute for Economic Research published a piece titled The One-Year Anniversary of Lockdowns that's well worth reading – https://www.aier.org/article/the-one-year-anniversary-of-lockdowns/
They haven’t talked about it until now for the same reason Russian health care workers and ordinary Russians were reluctant to get it. The release was clearly rushed by the Russian government overriding ordinary safety/efficacy trials. As genuine data comes in, it’s gaining legitimacy.
The world calls it the UK variant. Here in the north of England, its know as the London variant 🙂
The Russian Sputnik 5 vaccine is 92% effective (Lancet report on stage 3 trials) and is currently licensed in 12 mostly third world countries, some of which can produce it themselves:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/russian-vaccine-sputnik-v-more-than-90-effective-in-interim-trial/ar-BB1dkvct
This is not the only article about it, and is one of the mildest in its criticism of the prejudice in the West because…Russia. Russia is not looking for royalties, they are looking for reliable production facilities, because Russia does not have the capacity, despite having some of the best STEM researchers in the world.
To protect the profits of Big Pharma, they are allowed to monopolize production in limited quantity, not even enough to produce enough vaccines for everyone in America at the rate it could be given. J&J was so slow and under-equipped that president Biden had to invoke the war powers act and practically force them to allow their out-of-the-running competitor, Merck, to produce the J&J vaccine.
The Russian vaccine, naturally, is never talked about in Western governments, as if it does not exist (they've run out of reasons to criticize it).
Don't try to cover up the fact that the EU effort was from the start absolutely pathetic. And it has not really improved from the start.
Britain had been vaccinating for two weeks before the EU even decided on rolling out the campaign.
European leaders expressing doubt about the Astra Zeneca vaccine with Macron calling it "quasi ineffective" have encouraged antivaxxers in these countries as well.
And something which does not apply to the Euracrats in Brussels of course: when people vote for their leadership they generally expect these leaders to represent their interest first of all. I have nothing against the people in other countries, but why would I let them have my vaccination? I am as vulnerable as them. My wish not to get sick is as strong as theirs.
Having said that the local effort re roll out is quite lackadaisical as well, but at least we have currently no cases in the public, just a couple in quarantine.
Well let's say that at least we need to calculate how quickly we are going to vaccinate, how reasonably quick is our vaccine production going to go up and ship out any surpluses that we may have. We also need to take into account that when the R goes We also below 0.8 probably there are very little incentives that can be achieved with increased vaccination. We also need to continue using emergency rules to continue increasing production here and abroad so the entire globe population is sufficiently covered by let's say the years end. There may be economic and political benefits to that.
What you mean to say is that the rest of the world should BOYCOTT US/UK made drugs, and force pharma companies to invest in manufacturing capacity in the markets they serve. Put Americans/Brits out of work at the plants that should be serving global markets.
But go ahead and give vaccines to 20 year old spring breakers while people are dying in Italy, etc.
The countries that financed, created, & mass produced the vaccine, SHOULD get it first. We can sell it to other countries once we have left overs.
Well, rest of the world is having to wait for the US/UK to finish vaccinating its population so it will stop hoarding production. Not much difference in attitude between Trump and Biden admins in that regard. Could be that other countries will require domestic production of drugs and vaccines in future to avoid being subject to this kind of hoarding behaviour.
I tend to agree, the virus cases dropped significantly last summer just like the Flu does every year.
I think the sunnier weather probably gets at least half the credit (the US gets sunny earlier in the year than most of Europe), but if vaccines are helping people calm down, more power to them.
Btw, evidence for my claim is that Portugal and Spain (also sunny right now) are also killing it.
L the inoculation rate here is much higher than that of continental Europe. Almost a half percent of the US population are getting vaccinated everyday. Strong campaigns in the UK and Israel at the time that the British variant was already dominant shows that the vaccines can have the upper hand against it. The Graph for the US shows continued inching down of the number of daily new cases in the US despite the exponential growth in the frequency of the British variant. However there is going to be a huge resurgence globally where inoculation is moving slow.
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/