Coronavirus Disease Weekly News 17January 2021

Written by rjs, MarketWatch 666

The news posted last week for the coronavirus 2019-nCoV (aka SARS-CoV-2), which produces COVID-19 disease, has been surveyed and some important articles are summarized here. The articles are more or less organized with general virus news and anecdotes first, then stories from around the US, followed by an increased number of items from other countries around the globe. There are still some concerns over lingering affects from holiday data irregularities. Economic news related to COVID-19 is found here.

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Summary:

New US Covid infections for the week just ended were 8.5% lower than for the week ending January 9th, so it appears that the incidence of new cases may have peaked and be turning down, at least for the time being. However, we really still can’t tell how many of the prior week’s cases were from reports that had been delayed over the holidays. On the other hand, if we compare new cases from the week ending January 16th to those from the week ending December 19th, two weeks which should have been unaffected by reporting issues, we have a 3.3% increase in new cases, or growth at a rate less than 1% a week. Since we should be past the holiday surge by now, there’s no reason to think new cases will begin to rise again soon, at least not until one of the more contagious mutant strains becomes dominant here. In the UK, that appears to have taken around three months, which would give us time to get part of the population vaccinated and slow the next surge down. But reports indicate that one of the 2 mutant Covid strains circulating in Ohio became dominant in the Columbus area in just three weeks. If that’s an accurate assessment, we’ll barely have time to catch our breath before it will be off and running again.

We did have a new one day record for Covid deaths this week, when nearly 4,500 deaths were reported on Tuesday. With that, total Covid deaths this week were 5.0% higher than the prior week, and 26.6% higher than those during the week ending December 19th. The good news is that with new Covid cases leveling off, Covid deaths should be leveling off soon too. The bad news is that US Covid deaths will be plateauing at a level roughly equal to US deaths from heart trouble and cancer combined.

The chart below from WorldoMeter shows the daily number of new cases for the US, updated through 16 January.

New cases globally continued to increase. (See Johns Hopkins graph below.) The growth rate has visibly slowed since the rapid acceleration in October. Of course the unreliability of current data reporting due to the holiday season is a concern, as discussed earlier.

Also, Johns Hopkins has a graph for global deaths (below). Deaths for the world continue to rise.

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Calculated Risk tracks the daily testing rate and results. This past week the percent positive test results declined. The 16 January graphic:

The count of testing has been quite eratic over the past several weeks, and the percent positive has leveled off again after previously rising sharply. The reason for the continuing erratic pattern for this metric is not clear. Any holiday effect should have been removed by the end of the week.

Of course, Steven Hansen summarizes and links the latest news related to the pandemic every day, 7 days a week, plus displays over a dozen important graphics updated at least daily. The most recent article at the time this is published: 16 January 2021 Coronavirus Charts and News: More Lethal Strains Initially Cause More Deaths, But More Transmissible Strains Cause Even More Deaths Due To Exponential Growth In The Number Of Infections

This article leads the daily newsletter from Global Economic Intersection every day. Newsletter subscription is free.

Here are the rest of the articles for the past week reviewed and summarized:

Trump administration to shake up state COVID vaccine allocation methods – The Trump administration is changing how coronavirus vaccines are allocated to states, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said Tuesday. Rather than distribute vaccines based on population, the administration instead will allocate doses based on how quickly they can administer the shots, as well as on the size of the population over age 65, Azar said. States will have two weeks to prepare for the change, Azar said, which should give them time to improve their reporting to a federal database. Azar indicated some of the current slowness is a result of data reporting issues, and the change in the allocation method will give them an incentive to fix those issues. “This new system gives states a strong incentive to ensure that all vaccinations are being promptly reported, which they’re currently not,” Azar told reporters during a press briefing. “It gives states a strong incentive to ensure doses are going to work protecting people rather than sitting on shelves or in freezers,” he added. The policy change would reward states that inoculate people quickly and comes as top administration officials have been complaining about the slow pace of vaccinations. Azar said that states’ rigid adherence to eligibility criteria has led to a bottleneck. The administration’s Operation Warp Speed has made available nearly 25 million first doses over the past month, but just over 9 million people have been vaccinated. “We need doses going to where they’ll be administered quickly, and where they’ll protect the most vulnerable,” Azar said. To that end, the administration is also pushing states to give shots to anyone age 65 and older, regardless of underlying health conditions, as well as anyone under age 65 with an underlying condition. The administration will also release second doses of the vaccines it had been holding in reserve, in an effort to double the number of doses available. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Robert Redfield said a post-holiday surge has created a sense of urgency. “It’s going to be a difficult January and probably February, but with a vaccine and the new therapeutics we have, there’s really strong light at the end of that tunnel as we enter March,” Redfield said. “We really need to commit right now to get as many Americans vaccinated as we can that are particularly the most vulnerable and at risk for hospitalization.” But current Trump officials will no longer be in charge in two weeks, and it’s not clear if the incoming Biden administration supports such a change. Azar said Operation Wap Speed had not yet spoken with the transition team about the change. “While we will certainly brief the Biden team on those changes, we operate as you know, with one government at a time, and this is the approach that we believe best fulfills the mission and the current situation that we are facing today,” Azar said.

U.S. Vaccine Shift Stirs New Unease as 128 Million Join Line — The U.S. government wants states to offer vaccines to millions more Americans as Covid-19 infections continue to soar, in a bid to bolster an immunization campaign that’s off to a rocky start. In recommending that states start immunizing all residents 65 and older, along with all those between 16 and 64 with medical conditions that make them more vulnerable to serious disease, U.S. health officials are clearing a path for about 128 million more Americans to be vaccinated. About 10 million people have received the first dose of a Covid vaccine since immunizations started in late December, according to Bloomberg’s vaccine tracker. The rapid shift in strategy has raised worries that an accelerated rollout, for which many states may not be ready, could lead to new shortfalls down the road. “The first couple of weeks it was all: Why aren’t they all done, why aren’t you getting them out fast enough?” Maryland Governor Larry Hogan said in a briefing Tuesday. “The next story is going to be: There’s hundreds of thousands of people waiting for the vaccines and we don’t have any.” Expanding eligibility is intended to speed up vaccination by increasing demand and giving providers more flexibility, resulting in fewer wasted doses. Yet such a strategy with supplies still limited risks exacerbating the frustration and chaos already playing out in some states. Striking a balance between immunizing quickly and establishing confidence in the U.S. vaccination campaign will be crucial in the weeks ahead. In a briefing Tuesday, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar also urged states to open up vaccination to younger people with medical conditions that put them at higher risk of severe illness from Covid-19. States can ultimately decide how to prioritize the shots they receive.

Governors’ red tape blamed as vaccine doses pile up- Governors face a growing outcry over inflexible vaccine policies that are now being blamed for leaving millions of doses to pile up in freezers – and some to land in the trash. Pharmacists and hospital leaders, scrambling to get the scarce Covid-19 vaccine doses into the arms of the willing, are begging state leaders not to tie their hands. They say a patchwork of Byzantine-like state regulations – and, in at least one case, the threat of monetary penalties for stepping out of line – have left the medical community paralyzed over what to do with extra supplies. The Trump administration put it all on governors to decide how shots would be administered and who would get them first. Now, instead of moving rapidly through all the available doses, some states have been trapped by their own policies as pandemic deaths and hospitalization continue to hit new records. Urgency around the problems was growing on Monday as it compounded the nation’s already slow immunization campaign with another manufactured crisis. “The more rules we create, the more penalties we put in place, the fewer vaccines that are going to be delivered,” former FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb said Monday on CNBC. “That’s the bottom line.” With the Trump administration’s vaccination efforts hitting roadblocks and falling behind schedule, Joe Biden’s goal of 100 million vaccinations in 100 days is looking more out of reach by the day. In New York, Gov. Andrew Cuomo spent weeks insisting that only health care workers can get the shots, even as many refused, and only began to ease restrictions in recent days. In California, Gov. Gavin Newsom assembled sprawling expert committees to weigh complicated rules for distribution, miring the effort in bureaucratic confusion. The feds have sent 1.2 million doses to New York, but about 605,000 people have received a shot. California shipped nearly 2.5 million doses to local health departments and health care systems, but just over 783,400 vaccinations have been administered. President-elect Joe Biden has set the formidable goal of injecting 100 million doses during his first 100 days in office.

As the Vulnerable Wait, Some Political Leaders’ Spouses Get Covid Vaccines -With supplies of covid-19 vaccines scarce, a federal advisory panel recommends first putting shots into the arms of health care workers, who keep the nation’s medical system running, and long-term care residents most likely to die from the coronavirus. Nowhere on the list of prioritized recipients are public officials’ spouses. Yet the first ladies of Kentucky and West Virginia; Republican Vice President Mike Pence’s wife, Karen Pence; Democratic President-elect Joe Biden’s wife, Jill Biden; and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris’ husband, Doug Emhoff, were among the first Americans to get the potentially lifesaving shots. Kentucky also vaccinated six former governors and four former first ladies, including current Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear’s parents. The early vaccinations of political spouses spurred outrage on social media, with several Twitter users saying they should not be able to “jump the line” ahead of doctors, nurses and older people. In most of the 29 states that responded to KHN inquiries of all 50 governors’ offices, top elected officials said they – and their spouses – will be vaccinated but have chosen to wait their turn behind more vulnerable constituents. Governors who got the shots along with their spouses, and the vice president’s office, said they wanted to set an example for residents, build trust, bridge ideological divides and show that the vaccine is safe and effective. But that’s a rationale some critics don’t buy.“It looks more like cutting in line than it does securing trust. The politicians can get the hospitals to give it to them under this illusion of building trust. But it’s a façade,” said Arthur Caplan, a bioethics professor and founding head of the medical ethics division at New York University Grossman School of Medicine. “People might say: ‘Yup, typical rich people. They can’t be trusted.’ This undermines what they set out to do.”Besides, Caplan said, the public doesn’t trust politicians all that much anyway, so inoculating celebrities, religious leaders or sports figures would likely do more to boost confidence in the vaccine. Rock ’n’ roll king Elvis Presley famously got the polio vaccine in 1956 to help win over those who were skeptical; the actions of governors’ wives from that period are less remembered.

Pfizer Investigates Post-Vaccine Death for Possible Connection -Pfizer Inc. and federal health officials are investigating the death of a health-care worker 16 days after the person received the first dose of the company’s Covid-19 vaccine. So far, the evidence doesn’t suggest a connection, Pfizer said in a statement on Tuesday. The Florida-based physician developed a rare disorder called severe thrombocytopenia that decreases the body’s ability to clot blood and stop internal bleeding. Pfizer cited its clinical trials and data gathered since the vaccine was authorized in the U.S. in reporting its initial conclusion that the evidence doesn’t suggest a causal association to the shot it developed with Germany’s BioNTech SE. Meanwhile, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said it is aware of the death, and “will evaluate the situation as more information becomes available,” according to spokesman Tom Skinner. “To date, millions of people have been vaccinated and we are closely monitoring all adverse events in individuals receiving our vaccine,” Pfizer said in its statement. “It is important to note that serious adverse events, including deaths that are unrelated to the vaccine, are unfortunately likely to occur at a similar rate as they would in the general population.”The New York Times first reported news of the death of Gregory Michael, a 56-year-old obstetrician and gynecologist located in Miami Beach. The Times cited a Facebook post written on Jan. 5 by his wife, Heidi Neckelmann, who said Michael had died from a brain hemorrhage.

23 die in Norway after receiving Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine, 13 were nursing home patients – Twenty-three people died in Norway within days of receiving their first dose of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine, with 13 of those deaths – all nursing home patients – apparently related to the side effects of the shots, health officials said.Common reactions to the vaccine, including fever and nausea, “may have contributed to a fatal outcome in some frail patients,” Sigurd Hortemo, chief physician at the Norwegian Medicines Agency,said in a Friday statement. All 13 were nursing home patients and at least 80 years old. While officials aren’t expressing serious concern, they are adjusting their guidance on who should receive the vaccine. The news comes just over a week after officials reported the deaths of just two nursing home residents after they received the Pfizer jab. More than 30,000 people in Norway have received the first shot of the Pfizer or Moderna coronavirus vaccine in the Scandinavian country since late last month, according to official figures. “We are not alarmed by this,” Steinar Madsen, medical director with the agency, told Norwegian broadcaster NRK. “It is quite clear that these vaccines have very little risk, with a small exception for the frailest patients.” “Doctors must now carefully consider who should be vaccinated,” he added. “Those who are very frail and at the very end of life can be vaccinated after an individual assessment.”The agency reported Thursday that a total of 29 people had suffered side effects, including the 13 people who died. Twenty-one women and eight men experienced side effects, officials said. Besides those who died, nine had serious side effects – including allergic reactions, strong discomfort and severe fever – while seven had less serious ones, including severe pain at the injection site.

J&J One-Shot Vaccine Is Safe In Early Trials, Generates “Promising Immune Response” — According to interim data from the Phase 1/2A trial which tested 805 volunteers, and which was published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine, Johnson & Johnson’s one-dose coronavirus vaccine is safe and appears to generate a promising immune response in both young and elderly volunteers. The company is expected to release results from its 45,000-person phase three trial later this month. According tot he report, J&J scientists randomly assigned healthy adults between the ages of 18 and 55 and those 65 and older to receive a high or low dose of its vaccine – called Ad26.COV2.S – or a placebo. Some participants in the 18-to-55 age group were also selected to receive a second dose of the vaccine. J&J is using the same technologies it used to develop its Ebola vaccine for its Covid-19 vaccine. Most of the volunteers produced detectable neutralizing antibodies, which researchers believe play a key role in defending cells against the virus, after 28 days, according to the trial data. By day 57, all volunteers had detectable antibodies, regardless of vaccine dose or age group, and remained stable for at least 71 days in the 18-to-55 age group. Unlike Pfizer’s and Moderna’s authorized vaccines, which require two doses about three to four weeks apart, J&J’s requires only one dose. That means patients will not have to come back for another dose, simplifying logistics for health-care providers. Alas, this vaccine too had its side-effects, and unlike the unexpected spike in allergic reactions in mRNA based vaccines, the most common side effects from the J&J shot were fever, fatigue, headache, muscle aches and pain at the injection site Side effects were less common in the older age group, who received only one dose of the vaccine, as well as those who received a lower dose of the vaccine, according to the data. Speaking to CNBC’s Meg Tirrell, Dr. Paul Stoffels, chief scientific officer at J&J said that the phase one and two clinical trial data shows a single shot of the vaccine “gives sustainable antibodies.” He added it gives the company “confidence” the vaccine will be highly effective against the virus. As CNBC reports, U.S. officials and Wall Street analysts are eagerly anticipating the authorization of J&J’s vaccine, which could happen as early as next month. Public health officials and infectious disease experts say world leaders will need an array of drugs and vaccines to defeat the virus, which has killed at least 382,120 Americans since the beginning of the pandemic. If J&J’s vaccine is authorized by the Food and Drug Administration, it would be the third approved for use in the U.S. behind the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine and Moderna’s. Pfizer’s vaccine was authorized on Dec. 11, and Moderna’s was authorized a week later on Dec. 18.

More-contagious UK COVID variant has arrived in Minnesota – Health officials say a more contagious variant of the virus that causes COVID-19 has arrived in Minnesota.The strain, which was first detected in the United Kingdom in September, was identified in specimens from five Twin Cities-area residents in four counties, the Minnesota Department of Health announced Saturday.The patients range in age from 15 to 37 years and became ill in the last two weeks of December. Two patients had traveled internationally, one did not travel and the travel patterns of the other two are still unknown, according to MDH. This content is being provided for free as a public service to our readers during the coronavirus outbreak. Please support our work on behalf of the community by subscribing to the St. Cloud Times.“While it is thought to be more easily spread from one person to another, it has not been found to cause more serious disease,” State Epidemiologist Ruth Lynfield said in a statement. “It’s important to note that this variant strain of the virus has been found in other states in the U.S., so we were expecting to find the virus in Minnesota. Knowing that it is now here does not change our current public health recommendations.”MDH Director of Infectious Disease Kris Ehresmann reiterated advice to wear masks, social distance and quarantine if you are ill. “This virus makes it really hard for people to know whether they or the person next to them is infected – whether this strain or another strain – so we all need to do our part to protect ourselves and each other,” Ehresmann said. Ehresmann said preliminary studies have indicated COVID-19 vaccines are effective against the variant strain.

New mutant strain of coronavirus more contagious because it replicates in the throat, says study –The mutant strain of coronavirus is 70 per cent more contagious than the original because it replicates faster in the throat, scientists believe.A Public Health England and Birmingham University study found that swabs taken from the nose and throat of Covid-19 patients with the latest strain, known as B117, had ‘high viral loads’ compared samples taken from patients suffering the original strain.Higher levels of Covid were detected in the material collected on swabs from patients with the B117 variant, suggesting a more severe case of the virus, and evidence for why the virus is being more easily transmitted. Michael Kidd, who lead the study, told The Mirror that the findings could help explain how the variant multiplies in each person it infects, but said it was ‘hard to determine’ why the virus was spreading as quickly as it is. The study, which is yet to be peer reviewed, states: ‘Clearly, the higher viral loads inferred from samples [of the new variant, indicated with an undetectable viral S-gene target] could determine the infectiousness of subjects, and thus the ability of the virus to transmit onwards.’It added that samples of the new variant ‘had seen increase in relative viral load of between 10 and 1,000-fold’ compared with samples of the original virus. However the study claims it is unable to place the reason for increased transmission entirely on the new variant, due to other factors which could be spreading the virus more quickly including ‘human behavioural factors’. The new variant of the virus, which has a mutated ‘spike’ protein on the outside which makes it better at invading the body, was announced in November.The study added that samples of the new variant ‘had seen increase in relative viral load of between 10 and 1,000-fold’ It has been traced back to someone in Kent in September, which is believed to be the first instance of it anywhere in the world.It has since spread worldwide and across Britain, causing the UK’s coronavirus infections to surge into 2021.London School of Hygiene scientists warned in December that the variant could have a transmission rate so much higher than its predecessor that even lockdowns wouldn’t be able to stop it more than doubling the death toll by June.

CDC map: UK COVID-19 variant continues to grow in Florida, around US -A week after the Florida Department of Health identified the first case of the U.K. COVID-19 variant in the state, there are now at least 22 cases of the variant, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.The new variant, known as B.1.1.7, had most widely been detected in the UK, which is seeing a surge in hospitalizations as the variant is putting a strain on the nation’s hospitals. UK health officials say the strain is 50% to 70% more contagious and deaths have increased there by 21%, according to The Associated Press. According to a database and map by the CDC showing all known U.S. COVID-19 cases caused by different strains of the novel coronavirus, there are 22 confirmed cases in Florida among the 52 found throughout the U.S. as of Thursday.At the end of December, the CDC issued guidance on the U.K. variant, saying it was likely already in the U.S. but hadn’t been traced yet given the small fraction of U.S. infections that had been sequenced.It’s likely the number of variants and cases will continue to grow, even as vaccine efforts are underway globally.The new, more contagious strain of the coronavirus is already in the state.Epidemiology Officer in Chief Dr. Nicole Iovine said researchers expected a mutation.“Evidence suggests that it might be more easily transmitted from person to person. There is no evidence right now that it causes more diseases,” Iovine said.While this new mutation has the power to infect more people Iovine believes current COVID-19 vaccines and testing will be effective in treating and identifying the variant.“The testing currently that is done to detect the virus that causes COVID-19 isn’t specifically directed towards distinguishing this new variant from the usual COVID strain,” she said.She said if you get a positive COVID-19 result you would not know if it is a new variant or not.

As U.K. variant spreads in U.S., scientists warn that country isn’t doing enough to track Covid strains – As more cases of the more contagious variant of the coronavirusare detected in the United States, there’s growing concern among scientists that the country hasn’t been doing enough to track genetic changes in the virus, leaving Americans in the dark about the emergence of potentially dangerous new strains.So far, at least 50 cases of the coronavirus variant first discovered in the United Kingdom have been identified in the U.S. In the U.K., rapid spread of the variant, known as B.1.1.7, sent the country intostrict lockdown this week as cases surged. Now scientists in the U.S. are playing catch-up, racing to figure out just how widespread the U.K. variant is in America. “Clearly, we’re not doing this enough,” said Gigi Kwik Gronvall, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. “You can only look where the light is, and if the light is not sufficiently bright, you’re going to miss a lot of territory.” It’s not just the U.K. variant that American scientists are concerned about missing: New variants of viruses emerge all the time, but the country needs a system to quickly detect strains that could cause the virus to behave differently or render vaccines and treatments less effective. Finding new strains involves sequencing the genetic code of the virus. It’s a lengthy process that can take days to complete and can cost $10 per sample to $100, depending on the technology. The process uses specimens from Covid-19 diagnostic tests that would otherwise have been thrown out. However, the U.S. has sequenced only about 60,000 samples, or 0.3 percent of all cases, according to the nonprofit GISAID Initiative, one of the few international databases that houses the genetic information for more than 300,000 virus samples around the world. The U.S.’s number is strikingly low compared to the numbers in other countries, like the U.K., which has sequenced nearly twice as many cases. Since the U.K. strain was found, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has promised to ramp up genetic sequencing in the U.S. But some say the effort is too little, too late, because the virus is already widespread in the country.Joe DeRisi, co-president of the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub in California, which has sequenced 10,000 samples for the state, said there is no federal program for strategic surveillance of the virus’ mutations. “There should be 1,000 sites sequencing like we do,” DeRisi said. “There’s just a handful doing this. If you compare it to the nation as a whole, it’s pitifully small. There’s a very small amount of surveillance going on.”

Why New Covid “Super Strain” is a Game-Changer –According to Phillip Alvelda, a former NASA & DARPA technologist-turned-entrepreneur, the pandemic is about to get even uglier for Americans as the fast-spreading U.K. strain makes its way across the country. He talks to Lynn Parramore of the Institute for New Economic Thinking about what you need to know and how our behavior must change in order to beat the coronavirus.

• LP: New, fast-spreading “super strains” are raising a lot of concerns, such as more infection among young people. You’ve been studying the U.K. variant, which has shown up in the United States. What do we need to know?
• PA: We saw the U.K. strain coming for some time. All of a sudden there began to be dramatic upticks in infection rates, even without material changes in individual behavior en masse or the abatement measures enacted and observed. England has not been the most Johnny-on-the-spot responder to the coronavirus, and there has been a lot of confusion about what abatement measures should be observed, in which areas, etc. Of the developed nations, the U.S. and the U.K. have struggled the most as societies to communicate, plan and observe reasonable measures that other countries have more successfully applied.The U.K. variant, which has now spread across Europe and into several U.S. states, has what appear to be a couple of important mutations in the spike protein, which allows the virus to attach to the receptors in the lungs. Apparently, the new variant is stickier – better at binding to the receptors. That means that it takes less of the virus to get you sick, or the same viral load gets you sicker.A big change is that the U.K. variant appears be somewhere between 40 and 70% more infectious. For a person who has this variant, they’re likely to infect 40% to 70% more people. If you think about what we have done to reduce the effectiveness of transmission, getting people to wear masks has been a successful campaign. But some masks are better at protecting people than others. A well-fitted N95 and KN95 masks will filter 95% of the virus particles from coming into your lungs, but there are also terrible masks that don’t protect people much at all. If you average mask-wearing over the population, it seems that the mask mandates reduce the infectiousness of the virus by about 40 to 50%.To put the U.K. variant in perspective, with its faster spread, we are effectively put back to where we once were without masks – even when we’re now wearing masks!

Near-Term Covid Analyses Point to Risk of Medical System Breakdown, Other Severe Dislocations – Yves Smith – Some common cognitive biases impede effective responses to looming dangers like Covid. They are disconcertingly apparent as more and more evidence supports the notion that new strains of Covid, like the UK one spreading in the US, are markedly more infectious. That means (unless the UK strain is milder, which so far does not appear to be the case) we will shortly see a big increase the number of hospitalizations. This will take place when medical systems in many parts of the US are already at the breaking point, with even ambulance crews nearing their physical limits.Yet rather than get in front of a near and present danger, the authorities and pundits are acting as if they can hold the present course, when that isn’t working very well in the US and UK. All bets are on Magic Covid Vaccines making the pandemic go away, when polls show only about 40% are willing to take them now (roughly 20% are anti-vaxxers and another 40% want to hold off to be assured of safety). Even if that cheery view might work out in the longer term, it ignores the cost of potentially catastrophic near-term damage. Three fresh pieces look at the severity of the ossible downside. One, an interview with Phillip Alvelda originally published at the Institute for New Economic Thinking website, presented some critical facts relatively late in the article, which means they may have escaped the notice of some readers. Another is from MIT Technology Review yesterday, and the third is from Ben Hunt’s Epsilon Theory newsletter, which Hubert Horan kindly forwarded. Hunt’s take is the most comprehensive, so we’ll turn to that last. The MIT Technology Review article underscores that the higher transmission rate of the UK variant is the real deal and the implications are dire: If the variant strain, first spotted in the United Kingdom, is as infectious as some suspect, it could dominate US case numbers by March, send covid-19 deaths to unprecedented levels, and collide with the rollout of vaccines, research suggests.British scientists fear that the new strain, which they say is 50% to 74% more transmissible (meaning the average case generates even more follow-on infections), has put wings on the feet of the pandemic in the UK, where covid-19 case numbers have risen swiftly….“If the variant becomes common [in] the US,” Tom Frieden, former director of the CDC, said on Twitter, “it’s close to a worst-case scenario.” He says political turmoil, overtaxed hospitals, and an unrelenting new form of the virus could create a “perfect storm.” Now to Ben Hunt (emphasis his):I believe there is a non-trivial chance that the United States will experience a rolling series of “Ireland events” over the next 30-45 days, where the Covid effective reproductive number (Re not R0) reaches a value between 2.4 and 3.0 in states and regions where a) the more infectious UK-variant (or similar) Covid strain has been introduced, and b) Covid fatigue has led to deterioration in social distancing behaviors. A single Ireland event is a disaster. A series of Ireland events on the scale of the United States is catastrophic. If this were to occur, I’d expect to see a doubling of new Covid cases/day from current levels in the aggregate (today’s 7-day average is 240k/day), peaking somewhere around 500,000 new daily cases before draconian economic shutdowns (more severe than anything we’ve seen to date) would occur in every impacted major metro area. Hospital systems across the country would be placed under enormous additional strain, leading to meaningfully higher case fatality ratios (CFRs) as medical care was rationed. Most critically, this new infection rate would far outpace our current vaccine distribution capacity and policy. Assuming that vaccines are preferentially administered to the elderly, aggregate infection fatality ratios (IFRs) should decrease, but the overall burden of severe outcomes (death, long-term health consequences) would shift to younger demographics.

California Congresswoman Who Once Questioned Mask-Wearing Catches COVID-19 – Rep. Michelle Steel (R-CA), who once expressed skepticism about the mask mandate in Orange County last spring, has tested positive for COVID-19. Although she does not show any symptoms, the 65-year-old Korean American politician learned she had been in contact with someone positive with the virus, Steel’s statement said via Associated Press. “At the advice of the Attending Physician, and to protect the health of my colleagues, I will be quarantining,”

California records a high of 695 coronavirus deaths in a single day – California reported 695 coronavirus deaths on Saturday, setting a new record for the state’s single-day death toll as it continues to deal with a rise in coronavirus cases.The new fatalities bring the state’s coronavirus death toll to 29,233, according to coronavirus data reported by the state.California also reported 52,636 new coronavirus infections, bringing its cumulative total to 2,621,277.The numbers come as the coronavirus ravages California following a surge from the fall and winter holidays that has stretched hospital capacity in the state. California recorded 74,000 new coronavirus infections alone on Monday, surpassing a single-day record high for new cases of over 66,000 on Dec. 28, 2020 Health officials issued an emergency mandate on Tuesday requiring all hospitals to accept patients from hospitals in crisis care amid increasing patient loads, and Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) unveiled a new strategy on Monday to help preserve the state’s oxygen supply.Meanwhile, the U.S. as a whole is battling a surge in infections. The COVID Tracking Project reported that the nation saw 310,000 new coronavirus infections Friday, with many of the cases concentrated in New Jersey and California.There have been 22,086,436 confirmed coronavirus cases in the U.S. since the pandemic began, according to a count from Johns Hopkins University. Over 371,000 have died.

Dodger Stadium to halt COVID-19 testing, shift to vaccination site— Dodger Stadium, the nation’s largest COVID-19 testing site, will cease testing for the virus and shift to a massive vaccination site, the city announced Sunday. Testing operations at the stadium will end Monday, the city said. The site will be converted to vaccination by the end of the week, reaching up to 12,000 vaccinations per day once it is fully operational. “From early on in this pandemic, Dodger Stadium has been home base for our testing infrastructure, a vital part of our effort to track the spread of COVID-19, try to get ahead of outbreaks, and save lives,” Mayor Eric Garcetti said. “Vaccines are the surest route to defeating this virus and charting a course to recovery, so the City, County, and our entire team are putting our best resources on the field to get Angelenos vaccinated as quickly, safely, and efficiently as possible.” Los Angeles County’s pop-up testing sites will stop using a COVID-19 test produced by Curative that has been found to have a risk of false negative results. Health officials have been looking for a way to increase vaccinations. As of last week, more than 2 million COVID-19 vaccine doses had been shipped to California, but only a third of that inventory had been administered. On Monday, L.A. County health officials said along with Dodger Stadium and more than 70 other sites, more vaccination sites will be added to get frontline workers vaccinated in the coming weeks. L.A. County Public Health Director Dr. Barbara Ferrer said five sites, in addition to private-partner sites, will allow for additional 500,000 vaccinations among healthcare workers by the end of January. Last Friday, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced a goal of administering 1 million vaccines statewide by the end of this week. City officials acknowledged closing the site will reduce the overall testing capability available in the region – but it will triple vaccine distribution. They noted the city continues to operate eight permanent and six mobile sites, and testing will be expanded at some of those existing sites. A testing site at Pierce College in Woodland Hills is expanding to accommodate more people. The city opened Dodger Stadium for COVID-19 testing in May 2020 and since then more than 1 million tests have been administered there.January 10 COVID-19 Test Results; Record 7-Day Cases and Deaths –The US is now averaging close to 2 million tests per day. Based on the experience of other countries, for adequate test-and-trace (and isolation) to reduce infections, the percent positive needs to be under 5% (probably close to 1%), so the US has far too many daily cases – and percent positive – to do effective test-and-trace. There were 1,935,115 test results reported over the last 24 hours. There were 222,918 positive tests. Almost 29,000 US deaths have been reported so far in January. See the graph on US Daily Deaths here. This data is from the COVID Tracking Project.The percent positive over the last 24 hours was 11.5% (red line is 7 day average). The percent positive is calculated by dividing positive results by total tests (including pending). And check out COVID Act Now to see how each state is doing. (updated link to new site) The second graph shows the 7 day average of positive tests reported and daily hospitalizations.

U.S. sets COVID-19 death record for second week, cases surge (Reuters) – The United States lost more than 22,000 lives to COVID-19 last week, setting a record for the second week in a row, as new cases also hit a weekly high. California was the state with the most deaths at 3,315 in the week ended Jan. 10, or about eight out of every 100,000 people, up 44% from the prior week, according to a Reuters analysis of state and county reports. Arizona had the highest death rate per capita at 15 per 100,000 residents, followed by Rhode Island at 13 and West Virginia at 12 deaths per 100,000 people. (Open tmsnrt.rs/2WTOZDR in an external browser to see a related graphic)On average, COVID-19 killed 3,239 people per day in the United States last week, more than the number killed by the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001. Cumulatively, nearly 375,000 people in the country have died from the novel coronavirus, or one in every 873 residents. The total could rise to more than 567,000 by April 1, according to a forecast bit.ly/35yAtXs from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME). The United States reported more than 1.7 million new cases of COVID-19 last week, up 17% from the prior seven days. Former U.S. Food and Drug Administration chief Scott Gottleib said new cases could start declining in February. “By the end of this month, we’ll have infected probably about 30% of the American public and maybe vaccinated another 10%, notwithstanding the very difficult rollout of the vaccine,” Gottleib told CNBC on Friday. “You’re starting to get to levels of prior exposure in the population where the virus isn’t going to spread as readily.” Across the United States, 13.4% of tests came back positive for the virus, down from 13.6% the prior week, according to data from the volunteer-run COVID Tracking Project. The highest rates were in Iowa at 59%, Idaho at 54% and Alabama at 45%.

President George H.W. Bush’s sister, Nancy Bush Ellis, has died at the age of 94 died from COVID-19 complications – Nancy Bush Ellis, the sister of former President George H.W. Bush and aunt of former President George W. Bush, died at the age of 94 on Sunday, the George and Barbara Bush foundation confirmed.

Nearly 30,000 Americans have died of COVID-19 in the past 10 days – The herd immunity policy pursued by the United States government and its counterparts around the world is producing ever spiraling heights of mass death. There have been more than 28,895 deaths in the US since the new year began. The number of lives lost each day is rapidly increasing. The highest the average number of daily deaths recorded before the holiday lull in reporting was 11,731 worldwide. That number has now increased to 12,680 and increasing. A similar trend is seen in the United States, where two consecutive days of more than 4,000 reported deaths have shot the weekly average past 3,000. At this rate, more than a quarter million people will die across the globe before the end of January, including more than 60,000 in the US alone. Whatever hopes workers and youth around the world had that 2021 would provide some relief are quickly being shattered. Such sentiments have been further dashed in light of the new and more infectious variant of COVID-19 first detected in Great Britain. It has been estimated to be about 56 percent more infectious and has already spread to many parts of the United States, Europe and other parts of the world, 47 countries so far. It is expected that this variant will become the dominant version of the coronavirus wherever it emerges. One person infected with the already existing variant might cause 39 new cases after one month if the spread of the virus is uncontrolled. One person infected with the new variant could cause 150 new cases, nearly quadrupling the inevitable increase of illness, hospitalizations and death. The surge in cases is also placing even greater strain on the distribution of the vaccine. The development of multiple vaccines to the coronavirus in less than a year is a triumph of modern medical science and those deemed safe and effective should be administered and taken as widely as possible. But this achievement is being gravely undermined by the total lack of any other controls on the spread of the virus. Testing has remained stagnant in the US even though more than 12 percent of all tests nationally come back positive. Contact tracing has been all but abandoned.

Colorado Post-Christmas COVID 19 Rise Update – During a January 8 press conference about Colorado‘s ongoing battle against COVID-19, Governor Jared Polis confirmed that case numbers, which had been steadily declining since fearsome peaks in November, had started rising again in the two weeks or so after Christmas, and noted that officials will be on the lookout for a possible New Year’s bump.The most recent data from the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment shows that the increases aren’t yet at levels similar to those experienced in the state a month or two ago – but risk remains. Here are the stats in major categories, as updated at 4:30 p.m. on January 10; we’ve juxtaposed them with the January 4 figures from our previous COVID-19 weekly numbers roundup:

361,148 cases (up 19,898 from January 4)

19,985 hospitalized (up 1,272 from January 4)

5,208 deaths among cases (up 274 from January 4)

4,107 deaths due to COVID-19 (up 200 from January 4)

3,179 outbreaks (up 126 from January 4)

Four major takeaways: The pace of cases has definitely quickened. The increase of 19,898 easily exceeded the average weekly bump of 17,686 between December 13 and January 4. Hospitalizations are up, too. The average count over the three-week period between December 13 and January 4 was 862 – about two-thirds of the current 1,272. Deaths among COVID cases and directly attributable to the disease are both down – from an average of 325 from December 13 to January 4 to 274 for the former on January 10, and from 298 to 200 for deaths attributed to COVID on January 10. But because fatalities are a lagging statistic, these figures could jump: The current death toll averaged just under 29 per day this past week. Outbreaks continue to trend downward; the average from December 13 to January 4 was 146 a week, compared to the current 126. But with many schools restarting in-person education today, January 11, that could change quickly.The new COVID-19 case totals over the past ten days are an up-and-down affair. But two recent days registered more than 3,000 cases, considerably above the highest points in our last survey.The seven-day positivity rate for the state currently stands at 7.80 percent, compared to 7.67 percent on January 4. And outpatient syndromic COVID visits remain static, registering 4.42 percent on both January 4 and January 11.

Nurses speak on conditions in Arizona hospitals where COVID-cases reach national highs Arizona’s largest COVID-19 testing company may be shutting down due to lack of funding. Embry Women’s Health, a health care group offering many women’s health services, opened over 60 testing sites throughout the pandemic with the capacity to perform 18,000 tests per day. By some estimates, 25 percent of all COVID-19 tests in Arizona have been performed through Embry. According to Arizona’s local Fox station, Embry has not received any funding from the CARES Act, and its CEO is now appealing to private stakeholders to fund the testing sites. The threatened closure of a primary testing company comes as Arizona faces the highest per capita rates of new virus cases in the US. According to data from the COVID Tracking Project – a group that compiles and organizes data from state public health authorities – Arizona saw a weekly average of 9,742 daily cases. For reference, a previous COVID-19 surge in July brought the state to a daily case level of 3,600. COVID-19 hospitalization rates in Arizona are also reaching all-time highs. Unlike testing and case numbers, which can be quite variable, hospitalization numbers are a reliable metric for the state of the community transmission as it represents people sick enough to seek care. As of January 10, 4,988 COVID-19 patients are currently hospitalized in Arizona. Arizona has the highest number of currently hospitalized patients per capita in the country. As of January 10, the state had 685 hospitalizations per million people. Alabama trails closely behind with 584 per million and Nevada and California both have 571 hospitalizations per million people.High hospitalization rates have a direct impact on staffing in the hospital, increasing the number of patients a single nurse must care for and/or forcing staff to work overtime hours. On a Facebook page for travel nurses in Phoenix, Arizona nurses discussed the current COVID-19 surge and its impact on their working conditions. All names have been changed to protect the nurses’ identities.

Coronavirus in Mississippi: Record 91 deaths in single day reported — The Mississippi State Department of Health reported a record 98 coronavirus-related deaths on Tuesday and 1,648 new cases. Since the virus hit the state in March, a total of 241,957 cases and 5,284 coronavirus-related deaths have been reported. The previous single-day record of 91 deaths was reported Jan. 5. On Jan. 6, the state topped 5,000 coronavirus-related deaths. On Thursday, the state reported a single-day record of 3,255 new cases of the coronavirus. State officials have been working over the past two weeks to increase the vaccination rate in the state, which they said has been too slow so far. On Tuesday, Gov. Tate Reeves announced that residents between the ages of 65-74 and those between ages of 18-64 with underlying conditions such as cancer, diabetes and heart disease, can now be vaccinated.Those who are eligible can make appointments for one of the 18 drive-thru vaccination locations sponsored by the health department or contact one of the hospitals or private clinics now offering immunizations across the state. Reeves said that so far, roughly 2% of Mississippi’s population has been immunized. The health department is currently working to expand locations where people can go to get one of the vaccines that have been given emergency authorization for use in the U.S. and plans to release updates soon, Reeves said.

Arizona sets coronavirus deaths record, hospitalizations top 5,000 – Arizona on Jan. 12 set a new one-day record for daily deaths from COVID-19 as hospitalizations from the surge topped 5,000 for the first time. The state Department of Health Services reported 335 new deaths from COVID-19, with 232 of those attributed to COVID-19 after the latest periodic reviews of past death certificates. With its health care system struggling to cope, Arizona had a record 5,082 COVID-19 patients occupying inpatient beds as of Monday, including a record 1,183 in intensive care beds. COVID-19 patients occupied 66% of all intensive care beds statewide and 59% of all inpatient beds. Arizona remains the U.S. state with the worst COVID-19 diagnosis rate, with one out of every 109 residents diagnosed with the disease. The diagnosis rate is calculated as the total state population divided by the number of new cases over the past week. The state had a record 5,082 COVID-19 patients occupying inpatient beds as of Monday, including a record 1,1983 in intensive care beds, as COVID-19 patients occupied 66% of all intensive care bed statewide and 59% of all inpatient beds. The state’s previous daily deaths record was 297 and was reported just five days earlier, on Jan. 5. That report also included many from death certificate reviews.

Georgia sees record number of COVID-19 deaths reported in a single day– The grimmest of all records in Georgia’s fight against the coronavirus was set on Tuesday as 145 people were reported dead within the last 24 hours due to COVID-19, state health officials report.As of 3 p.m. on Tuesday, the Georgia Department of Public Health said there have been 10,444 confirmed deaths from the virus. The previous record high was 106 on Aug. 25, 2020. This is the second time reported confirmed deaths in Georgia have reached triple digits in one day. Saturday, the state reported 100 deaths. The two-week average for deaths per day sits now at just under 50, a rate not seen since the middle of September.State officials said another 42 people, believed to have the virus, but not confirmed, also were reported dead in the last 24 hours bringing the probable deaths to 1,176 since the start of the pandemic. Tuesday also saw the sixth time this year the number of hospitalizations set a record, according to data provided by the Georgia Department of Public Health. The state reported 5,695 people were currently in the hospital as of Tuesday afternoon. A total of 45,177 Georgians have been hospitalized since the beginning of the pandemic. Most hospitals remain at or near capacity with more than a third of all patients suffering from COVID-19 symptoms. Reported cases were down slightly Tuesday, but the two-week average continued to climb, according to state data. There has been an average of 6,856 cases per day for the last 14 days or 95,982 confirmed cases total in the same time period. The state counts 648,694 confirmed cases since the start of the pandemic. Those numbers do not include the 124,998 total cases confirmed by antigen testing, According to the GDPH, 3,372 more confirmed cases were added Tuesday.

US Coronavirus: United States sets record for most Covid-19 deaths reported in one day – The US set a record Tuesday for the most Covid-19 deaths reported in one day since the start of the pandemic, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.As of Tuesday evening, 4,197 deaths were reported, according to JHU. This is not the complete total for Tuesday, though, because final numbers come in overnight.The only other time the number of deaths have gone over 4,000 took place on January 7 when 4,194 total deaths were reported, according to JHU data.Prior to Tuesday’s record-setting death toll, the US had averaged more than 3,223 Covid-19 deaths a day over the past week, JHU data showed.After widespread concerns about delays in vaccinations, the Trump administration will nowrelease reserved second doses immediately, US Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said. Such a plan had already been announced by President-elect Joe Biden.More than 9 million people have received their first dose of the coronavirus vaccine and more than 27 million doses have been distributed, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That means one-third of vaccines that have been delivered have been given to people. Six states — North Dakota, West Virginia, Connecticut, South Dakota, Montana and Tennessee — have administered enough first doses to account for more than half of the doses they’ve received.Meanwhile, seven states — Arkansas, Georgia, Alabama, Hawaii, Virginia, Idaho and California — have administered less than a quarter of the doses they’ve received.Officials with Operation Warp Speed defended the slow rollout of vaccines Tuesday, saying states were sticking too rigidly to guidance designating health care workers and nursing home residents to be vaccinated first. They said the rollout would speed up soon, and asked states to open up vaccination to everyone 65 and older and to younger people with chronic conditions. Over the past week, an average of 248,650 new Covid-19 infections have been reported every day.

US sets new COVID death record with nearly 4,500 fatalities in a day as toll hits 380K – more than the last 10 influenza seasons combined – and hard-hit LA County officials say children are APOLOGIZING to their dying relatives for spreading the virus –The United States has set a grim new record for daily COVID deaths as the pandemic continues to worsen across the country. A staggering 4,470 deaths Americans succumbed to the virus in the 24 hours to Tuesday evening, according to new data obtained by Johns Hopkins University. The total number of US citizens who have died from COVID-19 has now surpassed 380,000 – more than the past 10 flu seasons combined and a fifth of the world’s almost two million dead, despite accounting for just four percent of the global population. Meanwhile, the number of COVID deaths recorded in the first 12 days of January alone has already eclipsed the number of virus fatalities recorded in each month from June to October last year. Already this month, 34,502 Americans have lost their lives to the virus. In contrast, 19,447 died from the virus during the entire 30 days of last June. Prior to Tuesday’s staggering number of deaths, the US was averaging 3,223 COVID-19 deaths a day over the past week. Meanwhile, hospitalizations and case numbers also remain precariously high. On Tuesday, 230,000 Americans tested positive for the coronavirus, while 131,326 people across the country were in hospital being treated for the disease. The situation is most dire in Los Angeles, which is experiencing the LA County health officials have urged residents to now wear masks inside their own homes to stop the virus spreading between family members. A staggering 4,470 deaths Americans succumbed to the virus in the 24 hours to Tuesday evening, according to new data obtained by Johns Hopkins University. Pictured above health care workers tend to a COVID patient at Providence St. Mary Medical Center in Apple Valley, California on Monday Officials say the surging rates of COVID-19 in the city is likely tied to family gatherings that have taken place over Thanksgiving and Christmas. They also say children are apologizing to their elderly residents who have become sickened with the disease. ‘One of the more heartbreaking conversations that our healthcare workers share is about these last words when children apologize to their parents and grandparents for bringing COVID into their homes for getting them sick,’ County Supervisor Hilda Solis told The Los Angeles Times.

California hospitals ration oxygen as COVID-19 death toll surpasses 30,000 – California’s health care system is getting closer each day to complete collapse under the crush of the uncontrolled spread of the coronavirus. Over 30,000 people in the state have died of COVID-19 as of Tuesday, with almost 22,000 hospitalized and intensive care units (ICU) totally overwhelmed in most of the state. About eleven percent of the total number of COVID-19 deaths in California since the beginning of the pandemic took place in just the last week, at a rate of almost 500 per day. Inundated hospitals are being forced to treat patients in hallways, conference rooms, gift shops and makeshift field hospitals set up in tents and trailers. Hospitals are severely understaffed, and many nurses, doctors and other staff have themselves contracted the virus. The state says it needs at least 3,000 additional temporary medical workers to keep up with the deluge of admissions, and with most hospitals across the country facing similar staffing shortfalls, is reportedly looking to bring in nurses from outside the US. The situation is particularly dire in Southern California, where ICU capacity has remained at zero percent for almost a month. San Bernardino, Los Angeles and Riverside counties have among the highest rates of infection in the nation. Ambulances are forced to wait hours to offload their patients – as much as 7 hours in Santa Clara County and 8 hours in Los Angeles. To relieve the dangerous shortage of beds, temporary “ambulance receiving spaces” have been set up outside emergency rooms, where paramedics or EMTs are caring for multiple patients at a time until space is freed up in the ER. The growing wave of death has put morgues over capacity throughout the region, so much so in Los Angeles that the National Guard was deployed last week to help move corpses into temporary storage in refrigerated trailers. Los Angeles County alone accounts for over 12,000 deaths and almost 8,000 current hospitalizations. The total number of confirmed infections in the county is approaching one million, or about ten percent of the population. Dr. Christina Ghaly, director of the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services, warned last week that “the virus is virtually everywhere in Los Angeles County right now.” Almost all hospitals in Los Angeles have had to regularly turn away ambulances, and some patients have been sent hundreds of miles away for care, diverted to hospitals which are themselves understaffed and overwhelmed. Ghaly warned as early as two weeks ago that “soon, there won’t be any places for these ambulances to go… If every hospital is on diversion, then no hospital is on diversion.”

New data shows that nearly 1400 kids in the Michigan’s Upper Peninsula have caught COVID-19 – New demographic data obtained by Columbia University’s Brown Institute for Media Innovation’s “Documenting COVID-19″ project, in collaboration with the Detroit Free Press, has revealed a dire situation in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula (U.P.). The data shows that the number of cases among children in Michigan’s U.P. exploded from a total of 149 cases in the first seven months of the pandemic, to nearly 1,400 children in K-12 over a six week period in the early months of the fall school term. Furthermore, since mid-October more than 13,500 people in the U.P. contracted the virus, a three-fold increase since the pandemic began in March. The death toll during the second wave has also skyrocketed: 337 dead in 10 weeks, compared to 46 deaths in the previous seven months. Many U.P. counties remain today in the “Level B” category, according to the system the state uses to assess coronavirus risk. This means that the positivity rate is between 7-10 percent. These infection rates are similar to southeast Michigan’s Oakland and Wayne counties. The U.P. is home to a population of about 313,000, according to the 2010 census, a number that is a little under half the current size of the city of Detroit. Early in the pandemic, many thought that rural areas were safer from the pandemic due to lower population density. On this basis, schools were allowed to open. However, throughout the fall, hospitalizations and deaths rose dramatically in less populated regions of the country. In fact, a Pew Research Study released in December shows that the geography of new deaths has shifted over the course of the pandemic, now deeply affecting rural areas. The revelation of the massive outbreak of the virus among children in Michigan’s U.P., a largely rural part of the country, is only further evidence that many of the peninsula’s 15 counties will very likely see a rapid rise in cases if schools continue with reopening plans this spring. Furthermore, the spread of the virus among students will undoubtedly lead to an increase in community spread. Over those same two-and-half months of increasing cases among children in the fall, more than 13,500 people in the U.P. contracted the virus, three times the total number infected since the pandemic began in March. Michigan’s seven-day average of new cases is now 3,136, an 11 percent increase from 2,837 a week ago today. Forty-three counties now have a positivity rate of 10 percent or higher. That compares to 32 counties on December 21, the start of Christmas week. The impact of the decision to reopen schools in Michigan, including the U.P., has been devastating. Several educators have died in Michigan school districts since the hybrid and full openings began. The latest reported death was that of 69-year-old Cheboygan school bus driver Dale Wiersum, who died from COVID-19 in December as the second wave took hold before the Christmas holidays. Wiersum had been a driver for 7 years in the district before his tragic death. The problem facing working families in rural communities is not fundamentally different from working families in urban communities who are forced to make the tough decision to return to work in order to survive. As a consequence of parents having to return to work, they are forced to send their children into school.

Another Mutant COVID Strain Discovered In Ohio – As public health experts around the world issue warnings about new mutant strains of SARS-CoV-2, it appears a new variant has been isolated in Ohio, likely originating from somewhere in the Midwest.One of these variants, dubbed the “Columbus strain,” has three gene mutations that haven’t previously been seen in other SARS-CoV-2 strains – the virus that causes COVID-19, according to a statement from The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center. These mutations occur in the so-called spike protein of the virus, which enables the virus to bind to human cells more quickly. This strain quickly became the dominant COVID strain variant in Columbus over a three-week period between late December 2020 and early January, according to the researchers, who hope to post their findings soon on the pre-print database bioRxiv.A second variant found by the Ohio researchers has a mutation dubbed 501Y that is identical to one seen in the UK’s B117 variant. This mutation affects the receptor-binding domain, or part of the virus’s spike protein that latches onto the ACE2 receptor in human cells; in lab-dish experiments, the mutated receptor-binding domain binds more tightly to the ACE2 receptor, past research found.However, the researchers believe the Ohio-linked mutation independently evolved from a similarly mutated strain that was already a strain already in the US. So far, it has only been found in one patient from Ohio, so the researchers don’t yet know how prevalent it is in the population overall. A spokesperson for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention told CNBC that the agency is reviewing the new research. But the researchers believe the Ohio variant independently evolved that mutation from a strain already in the U.S. It was found in one patient from Ohio, so the researchers don’t yet know how prevalent it is in the population overall.

U.S. Covid deaths reach another record, as researchers find two new variants in Ohio -A record 4,327 people died from Covid-19 in the U.S. on Tuesday, marking the deadliest day of the pandemic so far as the federal government tries to speed up the rollout of lifesaving vaccines. It comes as researchers in Ohio say they have found two new variants that likely originated in the U.S. The new record is the second time in the last week that Covid-19 deaths have exceeded 4,000 in one day. It also pushes the nation’s weekly average of deaths per day to 3,342 – a 26% increase compared with a week ago, according to a CNBC analysis of data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. So far, 34,804 people have died in January, on track to become the deadliest month of the pandemic in the United States. Medical experts say the nation is now in its post-holiday surge, and the situation will likely worsen before it improves. The U.S. has reported more than 22.8 million Covid-19 cases since the beginning of the pandemic, and cases are rising in a majority of states every day. As of Tuesday, the average number of new cases over the last week climbed by at least 5% in 36 states and Washington, D.C. “We’re in a very difficult situation, and it’s getting worse,” Dr. Anthony Fauci said. “I hope that as we get towards the end of January that we’ll see a peaking and a turning around, particularly if people hang in there and don’t get discouraged by Covid-19 fatigue and let down on their public health measures.” The record number of Covid-19 fatalities comes as the Trump administration – with just a week until President-elect Joe Biden takes office – tries to speed up the distribution of coronavirus vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna. Researchers in Ohio say one of the two new variants they’ve discovered quickly became the dominant strain in Columbus, Ohio, over a three-week period in late December and early January. Like the strain first detected in the U.K., the U.S. mutations appear to make Covid-19 more contagious but are not expected to diminish the effectiveness of the vaccines, researchers said. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is reviewing the research on the new strains. The CDC issued new guidelines Tuesday that expand vaccine eligibility to everyone 65 and older as well as to those with comorbid conditions, such as diabetes and heart disease. U.S. officials said they will also stop holding back millions of doses reserved for the second round of shots of the two-dose vaccines. The U.S. has distributed more than 27.6 million doses of vaccines but has only administered roughly 9.4 million shots, according to data from the CDC. Fauci said the federal government was “a bit too rigid” when it limited the initial doses to only a small group of people, and the doses weren’t dispensed as efficiently as they could have been. “Right now, we’re not going to abandon the prioritization, but when people are ready to get vaccinated, we’re going to move right on to the next level so that there are not vaccine doses that are sitting in a freezer or refrigerator where they could be getting into people’s arms.”

January 16 COVID-19 Test Results; Over 50,000 Deaths in January Already – It is possible the 7-day average cases is nearing a peak. The US is now averaging close to 2 million tests per day. Based on the experience of other countries, for adequate test-and-trace (and isolation) to reduce infections, the percent positive needs to be under 5% (probably close to 1%), so the US has far too many daily cases – and percent positive – to do effective test-and-trace. There were 2,015,414 test results reported over the last 24 hours.There were 215,449 positive tests.Over 50,000 US deaths have been reported so far in January. See the graph on US Daily Deaths here. This data is from the COVID Tracking Project. The percent positive over the last 24 hours was 10.7% (red line is 7 day average). The percent positive is calculated by dividing positive results by total tests (including pending).

And check out COVID Act Now to see how each state is doing. (updated link to new site) The second graph shows the 7 day average of positive tests reported and daily hospitalizations. It is possible cases and hospitalizations have peaked, but are still at a very high level.

U.S. COVID-19 vaccine supplies strain to meet wider eligibility, second doses (Reuters) – Scattered shortages of COVID-19 vaccines persisted on Saturday under pressure from growing demand, as previously inoculated Americans returned for their required second shots and millions of newly eligible people scrambled to get their first. The supply gaps, coming as the U.S. vaccination effort enters its second month, prompted some healthcare systems to suspend appointments for first-time vaccine seekers and one New York healthcare system to cancel a slew of existing ones. “As eligibility increases, you just increase demand, but we’re not able to increase supply,” Northwell Health spokesman Joe Kemp told Reuters by telephone. Northwell, New York’s largest healthcare provider, offers appointments only as it gets more vaccine, and only after allocating doses to people scheduled for their second shots, Kemp said. Although the supply flow has been sporadic, Northwell expects to offer appointments in the coming week, he added. Both approved vaccines, one from Pfizer Inc and BioNTech and the other from Moderna Inc, require a booster three to four weeks after the first shot to maximize their effectiveness against the coronavirus.

Canada’s health care system overwhelmed by COVID-19 surge -The health care system in Ontario and Quebec, Canada’s two most populous provinces, is on the verge of collapse following an unprecedented surge in COVID-19 cases.Ontario recorded 3,945 new infections on Sunday, a record. Over the past four days, the province has reported more than 14,700 new cases and 216 COVID-19 deaths, including 89 on Thursday, making it the deadliest day in the province since the start of the pandemic. “This is the most serious situation we’ve ever been in, ever, since the start of this pandemic,” Ontario Premier Doug Ford told a press conference Friday. Unsurprisingly, Ford failed to add that his Conservative government’s policies have made a major contribution to this disaster.According to the Ontario Hospital Association (OHA), the province’s hospitals are at 85 percent of capacity, while critical care beds are 78 percent occupied, and close to 100 percent in some areas. Even more worrisome, 100 percent of the province’s basic ventilator beds are now occupied.On January 1, the Ontario government issued a directive to hospitals to increase their capacity to 115 percent. Meanwhile, there is a shortage of health care staff and the available staff is burned out. The heavy burden of treating COVID-19 patients has resulted in a drastic reduction in other health services across the province. According to Anthony Dale, the president and CEO of the OHA, once the mark of 350 patients in ICUs (intensive care units) is reached, it will be very difficult for hospitals to provide other vital services.

Spain passes two million coronavirus cases as infection rates surge – Coronavirus cases and deaths are once again rapidly rising in Spain. After a brief lull in new daily infections in late November and early December, the holidays saw a renewed surge, with cases returning to levels last seen at the height of the second wave in late October. Last Thursday, Spain passed the grim threshold of 2 million coronavirus cases, recording 42,360 new infections since Tuesday. Wednesday, 6 January is a public holiday in Spain, so case figures were not announced on this day. Over 25,000 new infections were recorded on Friday – the second highest figure of the whole pandemic. As of that day, Spain had officially registered a total of 2,050,360 cases and 51,874 COVID-19 deaths. Public broadcaster RTVE reported that a staggering 8 percent of all residents in care homes for the elderly died of confirmed or suspected COVID-19 in 2020. This is 24,933 of the 312,753 who had been living in these facilities last year. These deaths make up around half of all recorded coronavirus fatalities in Spain, as these homes became killing fields due to the Socialist Party (PSOE)-Podemos government’s inadequate measures to contain the contagion. Also on Friday, government figures showed that the accumulated incidence rate per 100,000 people had risen to 350.48 – a rapid increase from 321 a day earlier. This figure has nearly doubled in a month, having stood at 180-190 per 100,000 in early December. The Spanish government considers an incidence rate of less than 25 per 100,000 to be a sign that the pandemic is under control, and 250 or more to indicate “extreme risk.” By this measure, every region in Spain bar the Basque Country, Andaluc’a, Asturias and the Canary Islands are currently in or nearing extreme risk. In a sign that many cases still go undetected, official figures show that around 14 percent of coronavirus tests return positive results across Spain. This figure rises to a huge 25.89 percent in the Community of Valencia, 23.4 percent in Castilla-La Mancha, 20.91 percent in Extremadura and 17.73 percent in Murcia. World Health Organisation (WHO) criteria state that a positivity rate of above 5 percent indicates that the virus is out of control. Meanwhile, the vaccine roll-out in Spain has proceeded at a glacial pace, with only 277,976 having received at least one dose of the vaccine – or 0.6 percent of the Spanish population.

New COVID-19 variant fuels surge in UK and Ireland – The UK’s Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty issued a chilling statement Monday, “The next few weeks are going to be the worst weeks of this pandemic in terms of the numbers into the NHS [National Health Service].” Whitty spoke two days after the UK passed the grim milestone of 80,000 COVID-19 deaths, as lab-confirmed cases hit more than three million. Saturday’s 1,035 deaths took the total to 80,868, according to the governments measure of people who have died within 28 days of a positive Covid test. In the past three weeks, the UK and Ireland have exceeded the per capita daily new case count in the United States, fueled by the new variant of COVID-19 known as B.1.1.7. Scientists in the US and globally have warned that this surge is a bellwether for the rest of the world. “I’ve never seen an epi curve like this,” said former Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director Dr. Tom Frieden. “The B.1.1.7 variant is spreading like wildfire in the UK and Ireland. If it spreads here, it will make an already-bad situation even worse.” The true figures of COVID deaths is almost 100,000. Figures published Saturday by the statistics agencies in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland for deaths where Covid-19 has been mentioned on the death certificate – including data on deaths over recent days – showed there have been 95,000 deaths involving Covid-19 in Britain. Monday’s 529 fatalities brought the new official death toll to 81,960 and the real figure above 96,000. Sometime this week the UK will pass 100,000 deaths. There have been another 46,169 positive cases reported, even with the weekend lull, bringing the total cases to 3,118,518. London and the south east of England are the epicentre of the pandemic but it is raging throughout the country. On Monday, NHS England leader Sir Simon Stevens said that a quarter of coronavirus admissions to hospital are for people under the age of 55. Testifying before Parliament’s public accounts committee he stated, “In London perhaps one in 30 people has the coronavirus, in parts of London it may be twice that number. If you look across other regions of England the issue is that coronavirus is once again on the rise. In Merseyside in just the last week there has been a further 50% increase in the number of Covid hospitalisations.”

London Mayor declares “major incident” as UK capital devastated by COVId-19 – London is suffering an unprecedented medical catastrophe. Last Saturday, Mayor of London Sadiq Khan declared a “major incident” in the capital. Khan said in a statement, “The situation in London is now critical with the spread of the virus out of control… our hospitals are at risk of being overwhelmed. The stark reality is that we will run out of beds for patients in the next couple of weeks unless the spread of the virus slows down drastically.” In an interview with Sky News, he described the situation as “like a theatre of war.” Khan’s announcement is an admission that the Conservative government’s “herd immunity” policy, which he has helped enforce, has brought the health service to the point of collapse in a city of almost nine million people. Fifteen of London’s 32 boroughs are recording infection rates of more than 1,000 cases per 100,000 people, up to 1,569 in Barking and Dagenham – according to the latest figures for the week to January 6. The average figure for London is 1,052. Twenty-four boroughs recorded week-on-week increases in the rate of infection. Official testing figures only scratch the surface. The Office for National Statistics estimates that one in 30 people are infected with the virus in London, up to one in 20 in the worst-hit areas. These numbers are putting unsustainable pressure on health services. The London Ambulance Service is dealing with 8,000 calls a day, compared with 5,000 on a normal busy day, meaning people in need of emergency help are sometimes having to wait hours before paramedics arrive. More than 100 firefighters have been drafted in to drive ambulances. Roughly 800 patients a week have to wait in the ambulance for more than an hour when they get to hospital because staff are too busy to admit them. Roughly 40 percent of patients in London are ill with Covid-19. As of last week, six of London’s 18 acute National Health Service (NHS) trusts had unoccupied beds in the single figures. Several had no intensive care beds spare at all. Sixteen out of 21 London trusts had breached their “safety threshold”, with bed occupancy levels over 92 percent. Two of these were 100 percent full. More than 800 coronavirus cases a day are currently being admitted to the city’s hospitals. Close to 1,000 were admitted to intensive care in the last fortnight. These numbers will increase over the next weeks as the surging case numbers of the last few days produce more hospitalisations. NHS England London medical director Vin Diwakarwarned that in the “best case” scenario, London’s hospitals would be short 1,500 beds by January 19. They would be 2,900 short in the average case and 4,400 in the “worse” case. Besides beds, there are also severe shortages of staff. ICU nurses in major hospitals are being required to look after three patients at a time, rather than the normal one-to-one care.

Australia hit by more infectious coronavirus strains, B117 — More infectious strains of coronavirus have reached Australia, including the B117 variant that was first detected in Britain. Brisbane, Australia’s third largest city, was placed under a three-day lockdown, from last Friday to 6 p.m. today, after a positive test for the B117 strain was confirmed for a cleaner who had been working at a hotel for quarantined people returning from overseas. The case represented yet another failure of the hotel quarantine system. COVID-19 testing site in the Melbourne suburb of Fawkner (Photo: @JoanWil85024201, Twitter) Failures to enact basic preventive measures, such as the proper provision of personal protective equipment (PPE), have triggered multiple COVID-19 clusters spilling out of several states’ quarantine hotels and into the population. The Brisbane lockdown demonstrated some of the calculations being made within Australian ruling circles in the face of the now even deadlier coronavirus threat. When the global pandemic first emerged last year, state and federal governments initially opted for a “suppression” strategy, based on managing a supposedly steady level of infection. Labor and Liberal leaders rejected an elimination strategy, on the explicit basis that this would prove too costly for corporate interests. The criminally negligent approach saw the premature lifting of initial restrictions, leading to the “second wave” in Melbourne. The B117 variant, which has engulfed Britain in the past weeks and reportedly is 1.7 times as contagious as other strains, poses an even greater danger. Similarly infectious strains, including one from South Africa, have also been detected. Despite this, state and federal governments are continuing to resist imposing preventive measures that impinge on profit-generating business activities. The three-day Brisbane lockdown was held over the weekend to limit even minimal adverse effects for corporate retailers, construction companies, and other business interests. Coronavirus has a 14-day incubation period, yet the Queensland state Labor government of Premier Anastasia Palaszczuk has insisted that a lockdown covering this period was not necessary. The premier today announced that only minimal mask wearing and indoor venue capacity restrictions would be in place for the next 10 days.

Australian authorities say we need to assume the UK COVID-19 variant will become the dominant strain. This is where the virus has spread so far – It’s been about five weeks since the UK Health Minister announced a new strain of the coronavirus.Since then, the UK COVID-19 variant has spread to at least 45 countries and prompted lockdowns and new restrictions across Australia.Like national lockdowns in March last year, these are designed to provide some breathing room for authorities scrambling to contain the spread. So far, 45 countries have detected the UK coronavirus variant, according to cov-lineages.org, which, among other things, tracks the global spread of the new COVID-19 strains.Thirteen countries have recorded community transmission of the COVID-19 variant, which studies suggest could be up to 70 per cent more transmissible than earlier strains. Cases have been recorded in European countries including Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Switzerland, Portugal and the Netherlands.Outside of Europe, local transmission has been recorded in the United States, Canada, Israel and in the Philippines.The first case detected in the United States was on December 29, in a man who had no travel history.According to the US Centres for Disease Control, there are 63 recorded cases across the country.The states with the most cases of the variant include California with 33 recorded cases, Florida with 22, and Colorado, where the strain was first detected, has three recorded cases. This is not the total cases of the variant circulating in the US, just those found in the analysis of positive samples. It comes as the US recently reached a record 300,000 new COVID-19 cases recorded in a day.The new strain’s increased infectiousness is thought to be driving up case numbers up in the United Kingdom.Prime Minister Scott Morrison said, “this strain is likely to become [the] more dominant strain of the virus globally”.NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian has said the same, “We have to assume that this strain will become the dominant strain and it is important to keep re-assessing our settings, keep staying vigilant and for the immediate future keep wearing our masks in those indoor settings,” she said.

Another new coronavirus variant found in Japan – A new coronavirus variant has been detected in four travelers from Brazil’s Amazonas state, Japan’s health ministry said Sunday. The strain differs from highly infectious variants first found in Britain and South Africa that have driven a surge in cases in those countries. A ministry official said studies were underway into the efficacy of vaccines against the new variant. “At the moment, there is no proof showing the new variant found in those from Brazil is high in infectiousness,” Takaji Wakita, head of the National Institute of Infectious Diseases (NIID), told a health ministry briefing. Still, Brazil’s Health Ministry said it has been notified by Japanese authorities that the new variant has 12 mutations, one of which is also present in the variants found in the U.K. and South Africa. “It implies a potential higher virus infectiousness,” it said. Of the four travelers who arrived at Tokyo’s Haneda Airport on Jan. 2, a man in his 40s had a problem breathing, a woman in her 30s had a headache and sore throat and a teenage male had a fever, while a teenage girl showed no symptoms, the health ministry said. The four people tested positive for the novel coronavirus in airport quarantine, and the new mutant strain was detected through a detailed examination by the NIID, according to the ministry. The ministry also said that the variant reported in Britain has been found in three different people who had close contact with a man infected with the strain. Brazil’s Health Ministry asked the Japanese government to provide information on the new variant of the novel coronavirus detected in the four travelers. The ministry asked for information such as the genetic sequence of the new strain. The Brazilian ministry has taken necessary preventive measures including sending a cautionary notice to related domestic organizations, an official said. It has asked the Japanese ministry about information on the travelers’ stays in Brazil in order to track their possible contact with others, the official said. Brazil is experiencing a second wave of coronavirus infections, with a daily average of more than 50,000 people testing positive for the virus in January. In Brazil, the mutant strains of the British and South African types have been confirmed.

COVID-19 cases increasing rapidly in China – Since the end of 2020, as part of the worsening global epidemic, coronavirus crises have broken out in many parts of China. As the coldest winter conditions approach, a new wave of outbreaks is still developing. In recent days, the authorities in regions threatened by the epidemic – large cities such as Shenyang, Dalian, and Shijiazhuang – have successively announced that they have entered a “wartime state.” Their measures include opening nucleic acid testing for millions of people, cancelling all gatherings, and restricting public transportation. These pandemic prevention operations face serious challenges. The Spring Festival is approaching – the annual lunar new year, seven-day holiday, and its customary mass movement of people, is due to start on February 12. Usually, hundreds of millions of people, mainly migrant workers, return home during this time of the year. Concerned about the impact of the pandemic, the governments of many cities have issued notices asking people not to return home unless necessary. According to the National Health Commission, as of midnight on January 10, there were 673 confirmed cases (symptomatic infections) and 506 asymptomatic infections recorded in China. Currently, the outbreaks are mainly concentrated in Beijing, as well as Shijiazhuang, Shenyang and Dalian. After a new wave of infections broke out in the three major cities of Beijing, Shenyang and Dalian in the second half of December, the number of cases in Shijiazhuang also increased rapidly – by 212 cases in nine days – making it the most severely-hit pandemic area in China. Shijiazhuang City, the capital of Hebei Province, a city of 11 million people, was declared a “wartime state” last Tuesday. Since Thursday, its railways, highways, and flights have been blocked, to prohibit people from entering or leaving. Gaocheng District, which is under the jurisdiction of Shijiazhuang City, is the epicentre of the outbreak. Three officials in the district have been accused by authorities of “terrible prevention and control.” According to reports, the first case of this outbreak came from Xiaoguozhuang Village, where a 61-year-old female resident was diagnosed with the infection. Subsequently, confirmed cases appeared in the village, one after another, and gradually spread to surrounding villages. At a press conference on January 8, Li Qi, director of the Hebei Provincial Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, said the outbreak in Hebei, like the outbreaks in other regions, was caused by viruses from abroad. Xiaoguozhuang Village is only a dozen kilometres away from Zhengding International Airport, thus facilitating the import and spread of the virus. Most of the local villagers work in the service industry or cold chain logistics, and are therefore more likely to be exposed to the virus. In addition, social gatherings may be a factor in this outbreak. According to official information, from December 28 to January 2, several weddings were held in Xiaoguozhuang Village and surrounding villages, and more than 19 confirmed cases participated. From a wedding on December 28, seven guests were diagnosed with infection. According to comments cited in the media from local villagers, almost no one wore masks or took other protective measures at the wedding.

Another Chinese city goes into lockdown amid new COVID-19 threat (Reuters) – China imposed new coronavirus curbs in areas near Beijing on Tuesday, putting 4.9 million people in Langfang city under lockdown as new infections raised worries about a second wave in a country that has mostly contained the disease. The number of new cases in mainland China reported on Tuesday almost halved from a day earlier and remained a small fraction of those seen at the height of the outbreak in early 2020. However, authorities are implementing strict curbs whenever new cases emerge. The National Health Commission reported 55 new COVID-19 cases on Tuesday, down from 103 a day earlier. Hebei province, which surrounds Beijing, accounted for 40 of the 42 locally transmitted infections, with the capital and northeastern Heilongjiang province reporting one local case each. In a village in the south of Beijing that shares a border with Hebei, residents were stopping vehicles on Tuesday and asking to see health-tracking codes on mobile phones. “We have to be careful as we’re near Guan, where COVID cases were reported today,” said a volunteer security officer surnamed Wang, referring to a Hebei province county bordering Beijing. At a highway checkpoint near Beijing’s border with Hebei, police in protective gowns ordered a car entering Beijing to return to Hebei after the driver was unable to show proof of a negative COVID-19 test. China’s state planning agency said it expected population flows during next month’s Lunar New Year period to be “markedly less” than in normal years, with a bigger share of people choosing cars over other transport. Many provinces have issued notices urging workers to stay put for the festival.

Netanyahu government denies vaccine to Palestinians as it lauds mass rollout to Israelis – To great fanfare, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s immunisation drive has given a first dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine to 1.7 million Israelis, around 15 percent of Israel’s nearly 10 million population. A second dose will be administered within 21 days of the first, meaning all those most at risk – healthcare workers and those over 60 years of age – will be protected from the virus now raging across the country. Nevertheless, the lifting of an early lockdown in May in the interests of the financial elite has seen an alarming rise in cases since September that will continue to escalate. A total of 471,000 infections and 3,600 deaths, largely in the latest wave, has forced the government to impose a third limited lockdown. While Netanyahu has trumpeted the vaccination rollout, dubbed “Returning to Life”, as the fastest in the world, its distribution has been rife with inequities and mismanagement. Teachers were excluded from the initial rollout, despite at least some schools remaining open, while tens of thousands of young people were able to get the vaccine and thousands of doses went to waste, according to the Health Ministry. The government has now agreed to vaccinate them after the Teachers’ Union threatened strike action. With the vaccines widely reported as running out, Netanyahu negotiated with Pfizer to increase the number of the vaccines and the speed of arrival. Fewer of Israel’s Palestinian citizens, including those living in East Jerusalem, have been vaccinated than Jewish Israelis, due to the far lower level of healthcare provision in the Palestinian communities and their distrust of official government programmes. But crucially the rollout does not include the five million Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza, which Israel has illegally occupied since the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. This is yet another example of the gross inequities in the distribution of the vaccine within and between countries across the globe as the rich get the jab while the poor wait in line. It is a gross violation of Israel’s responsibilities under the 1949 Geneva Convention for the health of the Palestinians living in the areas it controls, including the obligation to ensure medical supplies and preventative measures “to combat the spread of contagious diseases and epidemics.” Under the Oslo Accords, Israel agreed to bilateral co-operation on issues involving healthcare and epidemics but has in practice reneged on its obligations to the extent that the Palestinians have long endured problems importing medical equipment and an opaque security permit regime that makes it difficult for those in need of life-saving medical care to seek treatment in Israel or abroad. Israel turned down a modest request from United Nations officials to provide the Palestinians with vaccines for their medical workers, saying that there was a shortage of shots for its own citizens. Health Minister Yuli Edelstein said that while it was in Israel’s interest to contain the virus among the Palestinians, its first obligation was to its own citizens. Israel has refused to acknowledge the Palestinian Authority’s (PA) informal approach to procure and distribute a vaccine on its behalf. Rejecting accusations of “medical apartheid” as tantamount to anti-Semitism, it argued that since the PA had not officially requested help obtaining the vaccine, Israel was not responsible for providing medical support to Palestinians.

Indonesia launches vaccination drive as COVID-19 deaths hit record (Reuters) – Indonesia launched one of the world’s biggest COVID-19 vaccination campaigns on Wednesday with President Joko Widodo getting the first shot of a Chinese vaccine as his country fights one of the worst coronavirus outbreaks in Asia. The drive aims to inoculate 181.5 million people, with the first to be vaccinated receiving the CoronaVac vaccine from China’s Sinovac Biotech, which Indonesia authorised for emergency use on Monday. Dressed in a white shirt and wearing a mask, the president, who is known as Jokowi, got his shot at the presidential palace. “Vaccination is important to break the chain of COVID-19 transmission and give protection to us and safety to every Indonesian and help accelerate economic recovery,” Jokowi said after getting his injection. Some other officials being vaccinated showed off their shot marks to waiting journalists and flexed their arms. Minister of Health Budi Gunadi Sadikin has said nearly 1.5 million medical workers would be inoculated by February, followed by public servants and the general population within 15 months. Unlike many countries, Indonesia intends to inoculate its working population first, rather than the elderly, partly because it does not have enough data from clinical trials on CoronaVac’s efficacy on older people.

Bangladesh pandemic cases surpass half a million, with over 7,810 deaths – Officially, COVID-19 pandemic cases in Bangladesh stand at over 524,000 and deaths at more than 7,810, as medical experts criticise the callous disregard of Prime Minister Sheik Hasina’s government over its handling of the health emergency. Nine months have already passed since the first COVID-19 related cases and deaths were reported: three cases on March 8 last year and on March 18, the first death. The government’s under-estimation of the extent of the crisis was exposed after its figures were compared with those in other countries, which adopted the criminal “herd immunity” policy allowing the virus to run unchecked. Yet, Bangladesh has performed only 0.09 tests per thousand people – one of the lowest in the world, according to data on December 2, the day the number of cases reached the half million mark. The Bangladesh Peace Observatory, under the Centre for Genocide Studies at Dhaka University, reports that it counted a total of 2,205 deaths of those with virus symptoms between March 22 and November 28, in addition to other figures from state authorities. It prepared the reports based on information from 25 media outlets. As of January 8, a total of 3.33 million tests have been carried out in Bangladesh. Last week, the country’s health ministry reported just over 13,600 tests, which was a decline from the maximum of 19,000 on December 15. The decrease in the number of tests has taken place as medical experts insist that at least 50,000 tests should be carried out daily. On January 6, Hasina addressed the nation on the second anniversary of her Awami League government. She pompously declared, “The infection rate and death toll in Bangladesh are still quite low. We are trying our best to keep the pandemic under control and have promised to bring the vaccines to Bangladesh swiftly.” She prayed for those who have lost their lives during the pandemic and thanked the frontline workers, including the doctors, health workers, the armed forces and field-level workers for battling the pandemic courageously. However, contrary to the advice provided by medical experts at the beginning of the outbreak of the virus, the government tacitly approved the policy of herd immunity. Hasina has downplayed the pandemic, previously commenting that it was “not that deadly.” Medical and infectious disease specialist Professor Ridwanur Rahman commented that “the government’s strategy against COVID-19 has been suicidal” from the beginning. “From screening at the ports, and quarantine, to testing and contact tracing – all were being carried out in name only,” he said.

Global COVID-19 death toll nears 2 million –It was just one year ago, on January 11, 2020, when the first death attributable to COVID-19 was confirmed in a 61-year-old Chinese man known to have frequented the seafood market in Wuhan. He had several medical conditions, such as chronic liver disease, and died from heart failure and pneumonia. It is now well understood older age and various health conditions can exacerbate COVID-19 infections. It was also exactly one year ago when the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced that the genomic sequence for the novel coronavirus had been posted in the National Institute of Health’s genetic sequence bank, also known as GenBank. One year later, close to two million deaths have been reported. To be exact, the Worldometer coronavirus pandemic dashboard has the figure at 1,968,622, as of this writing. The present seven-day moving average stands at 12,941 deaths each day. It has remained over 10,000 deaths per day since November 23, as the winter surge that has swept across most of Europe and the Americas continues to take its toll on the population. There have also been over 91.9 million COVID-19 infections reported during the pandemic. There is no doubt, given the asymptomatic nature of most cases and lack of testing in many countries, that this number is a gross underestimate. In October, Dr. Mike Ryan, the World Health Organization’s Health Emergencies Program executive director, said, “Our current best estimates tell us that this virus may have infected about ten percent of the global population.” It would mean that based on an estimate of 7.6 billion people, little more than 760 million people had been infected last autumn. Yesterday saw over 663,000 infections and 15,706 deaths. The current seven-day average in daily cases is approaching three quarters of a million a day. The US, with 222,121 cases, reported 4,259 deaths. Both Germany and the UK saw over 1,000 deaths, with Europe registering 6,264 deaths in all. The exponential growth in the UK has been fueled by the B.1.1.7 variant, which has become the most common form of the virus. The mutations in the coronavirus’ spike protein have increased its transmissibility sufficiently to increase the reproduction number from the order of 1.0 to 1.5. Given that the variant has been discovered in over thirty countries, scientists in the US and globally expect this particular version of the virus to become the dominant form, which will push already strained health resources into uncharted waters. The situation with high oxygen demand in Southern California led five hospitals in LA County to declare an “internal disaster” on December 27. Their old decrepit oxygen delivery systems in aging hospitals, long overdue for updating, are beginning to fail under stress.

Covid: UK reports record 1,564 daily deaths – BBC News -A further 1,564 people have died in the UK within 28 days of a positive Covid test – the biggest figure reported in a single day since the pandemic began. It brings the total number of deaths by that measure to 84,767. Dr Yvonne Doyle, medical director at Public Health England, said there have now been more deaths in the second wave than the first. And the prime minister warned there was a “very substantial” risk of intensive care capacity being “overtopped”. Speaking to the Commons Liaison Committee, Boris Johnson said the situation was “very, very tough” in the NHS and the strain on staff was “colossal”. He appealed to the public to follow lockdown rules, which require people in England to stay at home and only go out for limited reasons, such as for food shopping, exercise, or work if they cannot do so from home. Similar measures are in place across much of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. A further 47,525 new cases have also been recorded. Perhaps the most distressing element about the latest Covid deaths is that the numbers are almost certainly going to rise from here. People who are dying now are likely to have been infected three or so weeks ago, around Christmas time. That was at a point when infection rates were rising quite steeply, so in the coming days and weeks we should, sadly, expect to see more deaths than this being reported. Today’s figures are affected by the weekend, which sees delays in reporting deaths that tend to translate into higher figures from Tuesday onwards. Currently around 1,000 people a day on average are dying once you take this into account. But the figures also provide some hope. For the third day in a row the number of newly diagnosed infections are well below 50,000. There have been several days where they have exceeded 60,000. If that trend continues, and the number of new cases keeps coming down, that will eventually translate into the number of deaths falling. But it is going to take some weeks for that to happen. These are, as many have been saying, the darkest days of the pandemic so far.

Irish health system on brink of collapse as COVID-19 figures surge – The Irish health system was on the brink of being overwhelmed last weekend by the upward spiral of admissions to Intensive Care Units (ICU). On January 8, a record 8,248 COVID-19 infections and 20 deaths, were registered. Eight further deaths and 6,888 new cases were reported on Monday. In total, there have now been a staggering 135,884 infections and 2,237 people have died. In the last two weeks, more than 50,000 cases have been reported, accounting for 40 percent of all cases recorded since the outbreak of the pandemic last year. Professor Philip Nolan of the National Public Health Emergency Team (NPHET) warned last week, “The number in hospitals is now increasing exponentially, so we’re at the point now where our health services are under threat”. The number of people with coronavirus in hospital has more than quadrupled in the last two weeks. Latest figures from the Irish Health Service Executive (HSE) put the number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 in hospital at 1,575, with 146 of these in ICUs. Of the 274 open and staffed ICU beds, 232 of these are occupied and only 40 available. The head of the ICU at Mid-Western University Regional Hospital in Limerick, Dr Catherine Motherway, questioned last week whether the ICU’s would be able to cope. Speaking to the Irish Mail she said, “I don’t know, nobody knows. We have a finite health resource, there are only a certain number of beds. We are hoping in some hospitals where possible to continue time-critical cases – i.e., cancers, high-risk vascular etcetera – where the patients can’t wait.” She warned, “In a surge scenario contingency standards of care replace normal standards of care, and outcomes may not be as good for patients.” Enda O’ Connor, ICU director at St James’s Hospital in Dublin, issued a statement last weekend saying that the surge in ICU admissions could be “longer and more severe than the first wave last March due to the increase in cases, and it’s possible we could see scenes here like they had in Italy during the first wave.” Dr Anthony Staines, a leading expert on the coronavirus, stated last week that the projected August deadline for vaccinating most of the population could be extended to December this year due to the slow rollout of the vaccine. The rate at which the Irish state is currently vaccinating people against COVID-19 is nowhere near what is needed to give the population immunity before next year.

Over 600,000 dead from coronavirus in Europe – More than 600,000 people have died of coronavirus in Europe, according to the official statistics tabulated by Worldometer, which includes Russia in its count. The continent surpassed the horrific marker earlier this week. Every three weeks another approximately 100,000 people are dying from the virus on the continent. The total of 300,000 deaths was passed near November 10; 400,000 at the end of that month; and half a million three days before Christmas. More than one in 1,000 people alive in Europe at the beginning of 2020 have died from the coronavirus. Per million people in the population, the number of dead is over 1,700 in Belgium, 1,477 in Slovenia, 1,330 in Italy, 1,245 in the UK, 1,131 in Spain. Another 1,060 people were reported dead in Germany in the past 24 hours, bringing the country’s death toll to 43,203. These numbers are a significant underestimate of the real number. In Spain, the official death toll is 52,878, but the number of “excess deaths” above the historical norm – a better indication of deaths due to the pandemic – is 83,700. Yet scientists are warning that the pandemic is entering into an even more catastrophic stage than anything that has preceded it. It is propelled by the rapid spread of the new, more contagious variant identified in September in the UK, and consciously facilitated by the criminal policies of European governments. Even as health care systems are being overwhelmed, schools and non-essential workplaces are being kept open, despite their role as transmitters of the virus, to ensure that no amount of death prevents the smooth and profitable functioning of business. The clearest warning of what is being prepared can be seen in the UK. Yesterday set a new record of 1,564 deaths. In a country the size of the United States, this would have meant more than 7,700 deaths in 24 hours. Another 47,525 new cases were reported over the same period. The new strain of the virus is now the dominant one in the UK. In Ireland, where the new variant was first detected for the first time on Christmas Day, new cases have skyrocketed from 250 confirmed cases per million people at the beginning of the year to over 1,200 now, a five-fold increase in the space of two weeks. Across Europe, variants identified in the UK, South Africa and Brazil have been detected in over a dozen countries, yet it remains unknown to what extent it has already established itself throughout the population. France gives a particularly clear example of the authorities’ failure to track the spread. The first case of the UK variant was detected in Tours at the end of December. As late as the second week of January, media reports on the number of detected cases indicated that there were between 10 and 20 confirmed such cases. On January 12, Olivier Véran, the health minister, spoke before the National Assembly and reported that the new strain contributed to “approximately one percent of the 100,000 tests conducted in France.” Yet this appears to be a significant underestimate, and varies greatly according to location. Patrice Hérisson, regional director of the medical laboratory Cerballiance in Saint Denis, near Paris, told Le Parisien on Tuesday that “10 to 15 percent of our positive cases in Île-de-France are identified as suspected English variants.”

More than 2 million people dead globally from COVID-19 – The global death toll from COVID-19 topped 2 million Friday as vaccines developed at breakneck speed are being rolled out around the world in an all-out campaign to vanquish the threat. The milestone was reached just over a year after the coronavirus was first detected in the Chinese city of Wuhan. The number of dead, compiled by Johns Hopkins University, is about equal to the population of Brussels, Mecca, Minsk or Vienna. It is roughly equivalent to the population of the Cleveland metropolitan area or the entire state of Nebraska. While the count is based on figures supplied by government agencies around the world, the real toll is believed to be significantly higher, in part because of inadequate testing and the many fatalities that were inaccurately attributed to other causes, especially early in the outbreak. The global death toll from COVID-19 topped 2 million Friday as vaccines developed at breakneck speed are being rolled out around the world in an all-out campaign to vanquish the threat.The milestone was reached just over a year after the coronavirus Expand It took eight months to hit 1 million dead. It took less than four months after that to reach the next million. “Behind this terrible number are names and faces – the smile that will now only be a memory, the seat forever empty at the dinner table, the room that echoes with the silence of a loved one,” said U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres. He said the toll “has been made worse by the absence of a global coordinated effort.” “Science has succeeded, but solidarity has failed,” he said. In wealthy countries including the United States, Britain, Israel, Canada and Germany, millions of citizens have already been given some measure of protection with at least one dose of vaccine developed with revolutionary speed and quickly authorized for use. But elsewhere, immunization drives have barely gotten off the ground. Many experts are predicting another year of loss and hardship in places like Iran, India, Mexico and Brazil, which together account for about a quarter of the world’s deaths.

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