Global Covid-19 news and analysis
November 7, 2020 2:57 PM Subscribe
Global COVID-19 total clears 49 million, experts weigh in on mink variant
- ‘Critical moment’ as Europe, N Africa see COVID-19 surge: WHO
- How hard is the coronavirus second wave hitting elsewhere in Europe?
- India’s Covid-19 tally climbs to over 8.46 million; 50,356 cases recorded in last 24 hrs
- Latin America has some of the highest COVID-19 death rates in the world. Why?
- Impact of COVID-19 in the Middle East, North Africa, Central Asia, and Eastern Europe
- Hub page for global relief efforts for Covid-19 with focus on regions with humanitarian situations
- Six countries reported coronavirus on mink farms
- ECDC to assess risk associated with spread of SARS-CoV-2 in mink farms
- North Denmark in lockdown over mutated virus in mink farms
- WHO looks at mink farm biosecurity globally after Danish coronavirus cases
- @DrMikeRyan and Dr @mvankerkhove answer a question about a mink-related strain of the #COVID19 virus in #Denmark
WHO looks at mink farm biosecurity globally after Danish coronavirus cases
Caution on this link for those who are distressed by photos of dead animals.
posted by eviemath at 5:52 PM on November 7, 2020 [1 favorite]
Caution on this link for those who are distressed by photos of dead animals.
posted by eviemath at 5:52 PM on November 7, 2020 [1 favorite]
This mink news is possibly far more significant but slow creeper news than the increasing count.
It’s the accepted wisdom that the SARS reservoir was eliminated when the Chinese destroyed the masked civet population. When they were destroyed then humans weren’t getting pinged by the virus anymore and it’s disappeared (MERS on the other hands still has a reservoir in camels and we keep getting it).
The internally linked ECDC risk assessment is the most informative. SARS2 (COVID) & other CoVs aren’t the only respiratory illness that does supremely well in weasels & viverrids. The issue here is now is SARS2 is endemic in humans and the mink (mustela) it seems is serving as a mutation pool for functional mutations to the spike protein-possibly providing evolutionary escape from SARS/SARS2 neutralizing antibodies. The Dutch have done an amazing thing to try to prevent it-for all of us.
I’m imagining uncontrolled spread through a possible 15 million individual mink with what seems to be a faster mutational rates, with the first reports a month ago. The 9-12 months for us to get to 39 million individuals has been rending. Yikes!
posted by rubatan at 6:15 PM on November 7, 2020 [10 favorites]
It’s the accepted wisdom that the SARS reservoir was eliminated when the Chinese destroyed the masked civet population. When they were destroyed then humans weren’t getting pinged by the virus anymore and it’s disappeared (MERS on the other hands still has a reservoir in camels and we keep getting it).
The internally linked ECDC risk assessment is the most informative. SARS2 (COVID) & other CoVs aren’t the only respiratory illness that does supremely well in weasels & viverrids. The issue here is now is SARS2 is endemic in humans and the mink (mustela) it seems is serving as a mutation pool for functional mutations to the spike protein-possibly providing evolutionary escape from SARS/SARS2 neutralizing antibodies. The Dutch have done an amazing thing to try to prevent it-for all of us.
I’m imagining uncontrolled spread through a possible 15 million individual mink with what seems to be a faster mutational rates, with the first reports a month ago. The 9-12 months for us to get to 39 million individuals has been rending. Yikes!
posted by rubatan at 6:15 PM on November 7, 2020 [10 favorites]
Unfortunately there are Mink farms all over the world.
posted by sammyo at 7:15 PM on November 7, 2020
posted by sammyo at 7:15 PM on November 7, 2020
10,000 Utah mink killed by Covid
Just a few miles down the road from me.
posted by mecran01 at 9:15 PM on November 7, 2020 [4 favorites]
Just a few miles down the road from me.
posted by mecran01 at 9:15 PM on November 7, 2020 [4 favorites]
I'm really worried this approaching wave will swamp hospital capacity.. well, everywhere. The fatality rate shoots up high after that. I witnessed it here in Jersey City in the spring. Over 500 people died in my town. There was a 6 week siren serenade with helicopters flying people out. There were around 5 piles of people's every possession on every block for miles around. It was grim.
And now it's back. The presidential campaign brought it here in the beginning of October, meeting with donors the day before his diagnosis. Six days later cases spiked to 1300 out of nowhere, and then it started breaking out in newark. I've been hearing the sirens from newark late, and thin, and faraway.. but many. Then closer, into journal square i believe. There's been some here but oddly in the afternoon and I think some might be some form of election noise. Halloween was surreal. Trick or treating and ambulances. It ended early, by 730. So it's back and the former president brought it here. Like not only is he responsible for this crap in general, he's also directly responsible for it, like this is his outbreak. His campaign supercluster. I'm so angry about it and it hasn't even started yet. They've started flying helicopters into the hospital here. There's no 'outside' to get help from anymore, there's not enough doctors, and manhattan is behind me. I hope for the best, but worry there's no way to even cope with what's coming. 20% fatality rate is what happens when there's no hospitals, I saw it in the spring and I'm probably looking at a long winter of it. Sorry if this all sounds UScentric, but that's just my story on the ground where I am. It sounds like the same story in most of Europe and South/Central America too.
posted by sexyrobot at 1:05 AM on November 8, 2020 [15 favorites]
And now it's back. The presidential campaign brought it here in the beginning of October, meeting with donors the day before his diagnosis. Six days later cases spiked to 1300 out of nowhere, and then it started breaking out in newark. I've been hearing the sirens from newark late, and thin, and faraway.. but many. Then closer, into journal square i believe. There's been some here but oddly in the afternoon and I think some might be some form of election noise. Halloween was surreal. Trick or treating and ambulances. It ended early, by 730. So it's back and the former president brought it here. Like not only is he responsible for this crap in general, he's also directly responsible for it, like this is his outbreak. His campaign supercluster. I'm so angry about it and it hasn't even started yet. They've started flying helicopters into the hospital here. There's no 'outside' to get help from anymore, there's not enough doctors, and manhattan is behind me. I hope for the best, but worry there's no way to even cope with what's coming. 20% fatality rate is what happens when there's no hospitals, I saw it in the spring and I'm probably looking at a long winter of it. Sorry if this all sounds UScentric, but that's just my story on the ground where I am. It sounds like the same story in most of Europe and South/Central America too.
posted by sexyrobot at 1:05 AM on November 8, 2020 [15 favorites]
Thread on the hospitalisation situation in Europe. (For context NPHET is the covid advisory body to the Irish government. They are facing some domestic criticism for the strictness of the lockdown given Ireland's relatively low numbers).
posted by roolya_boolya at 2:29 AM on November 8, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by roolya_boolya at 2:29 AM on November 8, 2020 [2 favorites]
there are Mink farms all over the world
To be fair, somebody has to keep Melania in coats.
posted by flabdablet at 3:59 AM on November 8, 2020 [5 favorites]
To be fair, somebody has to keep Melania in coats.
posted by flabdablet at 3:59 AM on November 8, 2020 [5 favorites]
They are facing some domestic criticism for the strictness of the lockdown given Ireland's relatively low numbers).
Hah. We had (have) that in Australia too. "Why do we have speed limits/seatbelt laws/food and drug laws; hardly anyone dies in road accidents and from poisoning."
posted by Joe in Australia at 4:15 AM on November 8, 2020 [20 favorites]
Hah. We had (have) that in Australia too. "Why do we have speed limits/seatbelt laws/food and drug laws; hardly anyone dies in road accidents and from poisoning."
posted by Joe in Australia at 4:15 AM on November 8, 2020 [20 favorites]
hardly anyone dies in road accidents and from poisoning
Usually it’s just one or the other.
posted by notoriety public at 5:15 AM on November 8, 2020 [19 favorites]
Usually it’s just one or the other.
posted by notoriety public at 5:15 AM on November 8, 2020 [19 favorites]
"The Dutch have done an amazing thing to try to prevent it-for all of us. "
Danes.
posted by DMelanogaster at 5:51 AM on November 8, 2020 [6 favorites]
Danes.
posted by DMelanogaster at 5:51 AM on November 8, 2020 [6 favorites]
Unlike epidemic diseases that most people don't have, ignoring countermeasures for road accidents that most people don't have and poisoning that most people don't get doesn't cause incidence to grow exponentially.
This is what drives me nuts about the standard line of argument that says lockdowns are terrible for the economy and terrible for mental health and therefore need to be cut short as soon as they start to really bite, as if there were some kind of tradeoff between desirable public health outcomes and desirable economic outcomes.
There is no such tradeoff. There is never a genuine tradeoff between sound public health and sound economics, any more than there is between sound environmental policy or sound energy policy and sound economics. All of these things belong on the same side of the conceptual see-saw.
EVERYBODY AGREES that lockdowns are terrible for the economy and terrible for mental health. And that is why we do indeed need public policy that has us spending as little time in lockdown as possible. But that does not mean ending lockdown earlier than competent epidemiologists would have us do! It means keeping spread-limiting measures in place for long enough to keep the epidemic's reproduction rate at well under 1 until it burns out and dies.
And because this involves both active and daily case counts displaying exponential decay, the tail end takes a long time. It takes about exactly as long for an exponential decay curve to reduce from 10,000 to 10 as it did to come down from 10,000,000 to 10,000. So there will be a long period with apparently insignificant rates of infection during which it remains vital to maintain all the onerous measures that need to be in place to keep that reproduction rate down. And people will get bored and frustrated by that and there will be an increasingly loud chorus of complete fucking idiots calling for stuff to be opened up well before the epidemic has burned out and died.
But the result of opening up while there's still any uncontrolled community transmission is to bump the reproduction rate above 1 again. Which puts the situation back to exponential growth instead of exponential decay, getting increasingly rapidly worse instead of increasingly slowly better; and we end up needing more weeks spent in lockdown, not less, to get it back under control. Every week after a premature opening-up wastes all the misery incurred during a week before it. Just pisses it straight up against a wall of bogus economic ideology. It's so fucking stupid.
I feel so, so lucky to be living in a country where this principle appears to be understood widely enough, both in government and in general, to allow the appropriate response to have been implemented early and left in place long enough to have worked. My heart goes out to the rest of you. I wish there were something - anything! - I could do to protect you from the ecological and mathematical illiteracy of too many of your compatriots.
In particular, Biden has his work cut out.
posted by flabdablet at 6:47 AM on November 8, 2020 [53 favorites]
This is what drives me nuts about the standard line of argument that says lockdowns are terrible for the economy and terrible for mental health and therefore need to be cut short as soon as they start to really bite, as if there were some kind of tradeoff between desirable public health outcomes and desirable economic outcomes.
There is no such tradeoff. There is never a genuine tradeoff between sound public health and sound economics, any more than there is between sound environmental policy or sound energy policy and sound economics. All of these things belong on the same side of the conceptual see-saw.
EVERYBODY AGREES that lockdowns are terrible for the economy and terrible for mental health. And that is why we do indeed need public policy that has us spending as little time in lockdown as possible. But that does not mean ending lockdown earlier than competent epidemiologists would have us do! It means keeping spread-limiting measures in place for long enough to keep the epidemic's reproduction rate at well under 1 until it burns out and dies.
And because this involves both active and daily case counts displaying exponential decay, the tail end takes a long time. It takes about exactly as long for an exponential decay curve to reduce from 10,000 to 10 as it did to come down from 10,000,000 to 10,000. So there will be a long period with apparently insignificant rates of infection during which it remains vital to maintain all the onerous measures that need to be in place to keep that reproduction rate down. And people will get bored and frustrated by that and there will be an increasingly loud chorus of complete fucking idiots calling for stuff to be opened up well before the epidemic has burned out and died.
But the result of opening up while there's still any uncontrolled community transmission is to bump the reproduction rate above 1 again. Which puts the situation back to exponential growth instead of exponential decay, getting increasingly rapidly worse instead of increasingly slowly better; and we end up needing more weeks spent in lockdown, not less, to get it back under control. Every week after a premature opening-up wastes all the misery incurred during a week before it. Just pisses it straight up against a wall of bogus economic ideology. It's so fucking stupid.
I feel so, so lucky to be living in a country where this principle appears to be understood widely enough, both in government and in general, to allow the appropriate response to have been implemented early and left in place long enough to have worked. My heart goes out to the rest of you. I wish there were something - anything! - I could do to protect you from the ecological and mathematical illiteracy of too many of your compatriots.
In particular, Biden has his work cut out.
posted by flabdablet at 6:47 AM on November 8, 2020 [53 favorites]
Sexy robot thanks for sharing... I work just outside of Newark as a teacher, the rate was really horrific here in the spring. Multiple students lost grandparents, like 3 or 4 of my 60+ students.
And we have to go back into the building tomorrow for the first time since March, so I'm getting increasingly nervous about that.
posted by subdee at 7:33 AM on November 8, 2020 [1 favorite]
And we have to go back into the building tomorrow for the first time since March, so I'm getting increasingly nervous about that.
posted by subdee at 7:33 AM on November 8, 2020 [1 favorite]
we have to go back into the building tomorrow for the first time since March
That right there? That's the thing that has me gibbering and howling in impotent fury and weeping for everybody who lives in the land of the Mad Orange Emperor.
Conditions now are worse than they were in March. The active case count in New Jersey as of 30th March was 16,272. As of today it's 57,366. There is no sane rationale for putting people back into that building. If it made public health sense to avoid doing so in March - and it did - it makes at least three times more sense to avoid it now.
What the fuck is your school board thinking?
posted by flabdablet at 8:01 AM on November 8, 2020 [23 favorites]
That right there? That's the thing that has me gibbering and howling in impotent fury and weeping for everybody who lives in the land of the Mad Orange Emperor.
Conditions now are worse than they were in March. The active case count in New Jersey as of 30th March was 16,272. As of today it's 57,366. There is no sane rationale for putting people back into that building. If it made public health sense to avoid doing so in March - and it did - it makes at least three times more sense to avoid it now.
What the fuck is your school board thinking?
posted by flabdablet at 8:01 AM on November 8, 2020 [23 favorites]
The active case count for March will have been a huge underestimate - counting is much more accurate now. So it might not be the huge increase it looks like.
posted by altolinguistic at 8:17 AM on November 8, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by altolinguistic at 8:17 AM on November 8, 2020 [1 favorite]
Yes, counting is more accurate now. And what that accurate counting shows is that since August, the active case count and the daily new case count are both trending upward along very similar curves. Which, to a pretty damn good first approximation, is the distinguishing characteristic of exponential growth. New Jersey's epidemic clearly has a reproduction rate of over 1 and has done since August. It needs to be locked down harder, not opened up further. Why is this hard to understand?
posted by flabdablet at 8:59 AM on November 8, 2020 [5 favorites]
posted by flabdablet at 8:59 AM on November 8, 2020 [5 favorites]
Not as hard as not doing it.
posted by notoriety public at 9:44 AM on November 8, 2020 [5 favorites]
posted by notoriety public at 9:44 AM on November 8, 2020 [5 favorites]
What the fuck is your school board thinking?
You misspelt “I'm sorry to hear that.”.
posted by ambrosen at 9:48 AM on November 8, 2020 [8 favorites]
You misspelt “I'm sorry to hear that.”.
posted by ambrosen at 9:48 AM on November 8, 2020 [8 favorites]
The curve in Chicago is pretty much identical to prelockdown. Officially we will change phases at 20 percent ICU bed capacity available. We are at 26 precent left as of Friday, publicly available data won't update to Monday night .I expect a lockdown *ahem* phase change this week.
posted by AlexiaSky at 10:02 AM on November 8, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by AlexiaSky at 10:02 AM on November 8, 2020 [2 favorites]
Via Naomi O'Leary some data from the FT to back up flabdablet's excellent comment on the false tradeoff between health and economic outcomes. Original data here towards bottom of the page. Essentially countries that were unable to control their outbreaks have tended to suffer the most economic pain
posted by roolya_boolya at 10:45 AM on November 8, 2020 [8 favorites]
posted by roolya_boolya at 10:45 AM on November 8, 2020 [8 favorites]
Oh except that not everybody comes out bad financially. Every drug company investment from January through early March (and onward), particularly for such treatment drugs as HCQ and remdesivir, needs to be investigated thoroughly for insider trading. They don't want a vaccine and they don't want it to end. They want expensive treatments to invest in and lots and lots of motivated buyers. It's monstrous.
Oh and everything flabdablet said. Thank you. Yes it has been a nightmare living through this idiocy as people die everywhere. But 'liberate michigan' right? It's obscene. If these states had remained closed like one more week, maybe two, NONE OF THIS WOULD BE HAPPENING RIGHT NOW.
posted by sexyrobot at 1:08 PM on November 8, 2020 [6 favorites]
Oh and everything flabdablet said. Thank you. Yes it has been a nightmare living through this idiocy as people die everywhere. But 'liberate michigan' right? It's obscene. If these states had remained closed like one more week, maybe two, NONE OF THIS WOULD BE HAPPENING RIGHT NOW.
posted by sexyrobot at 1:08 PM on November 8, 2020 [6 favorites]
What the fuck is your school board thinking?
God, I wish I knew. The building is still under construction, a couple weeks ago the warning:asbestos signs were up (heresay: I haven't laid my own eyes on them). Kids aren't scheduled to be back until Dec, this is purely for staff to come back in and teach remotely from the building.
It's a very high poverty district, many many kids want to return to school because it's crowded and chaotic at home, and they have babysitting duty (I teach high school).
So I'm sure the kids' education is at the forefront of their minds, and who knows maybe the funding they got to upgrade the ventilation system came with caveats that the district would need a physical reopening plan. I am not in the know enough to know this.
But staff are opting out in droves via an existing health condition form that just requires a doctor's note, and asking the union to escalate our interests and maybe get some legal advice.
If kids can opt out of returning to school in person due to health risks, it seems like staff should be able to do the same thing. Despite what a logistical nightmare that would be.
posted by subdee at 1:25 PM on November 8, 2020 [4 favorites]
God, I wish I knew. The building is still under construction, a couple weeks ago the warning:asbestos signs were up (heresay: I haven't laid my own eyes on them). Kids aren't scheduled to be back until Dec, this is purely for staff to come back in and teach remotely from the building.
It's a very high poverty district, many many kids want to return to school because it's crowded and chaotic at home, and they have babysitting duty (I teach high school).
So I'm sure the kids' education is at the forefront of their minds, and who knows maybe the funding they got to upgrade the ventilation system came with caveats that the district would need a physical reopening plan. I am not in the know enough to know this.
But staff are opting out in droves via an existing health condition form that just requires a doctor's note, and asking the union to escalate our interests and maybe get some legal advice.
If kids can opt out of returning to school in person due to health risks, it seems like staff should be able to do the same thing. Despite what a logistical nightmare that would be.
posted by subdee at 1:25 PM on November 8, 2020 [4 favorites]
Btw though... I am happy that the school got a big grant from the state to update the ventilation system and repair the leaky roof. That's been needed for years.
posted by subdee at 1:31 PM on November 8, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by subdee at 1:31 PM on November 8, 2020 [1 favorite]
What the fuck is your school board thinking?
I can't know for sure, but it's probably similar to the thinking in many if not most European nations.
I can't know for sure, but it's probably similar to the thinking in many if not most European nations.
Europe has largely steered clear of controversy from parents or teachers about reopening school after the spring’s initial wave, or whether to keep schools open as the virus has returned. Distance learning, or the hybrid of in-person and online learning, is not offered in most European countries.posted by dmh at 1:36 PM on November 8, 2020 [2 favorites]
Instead, the continent’s leaders have largely adopted the advice of experts who contend that the public health risks of keeping children in school are outweighed by educational and social benefits, reports our colleague Melissa Eddy, a correspondent based in Berlin. (NYT Oct 30)
What the fuck is your school board thinking?
Not to derail too much, I've had this conversation with my sister (with 2 school-age kids) who's on the school board of an American suburb of ~4,000 students (85% white, 16% in poverty per 2010 census) although she says she acknowledges the risk of COVID, she also came to this decision. The students and faculty are masked all day. Fortunately, they've had less than 5 documented COVID cases since the school year started (of course, plenty more kids and faculty could be asymptomatic). I'm not a fan of this but so far they've proven me wrong.
posted by fizzix at 2:35 PM on November 8, 2020 [2 favorites]
Not to derail too much, I've had this conversation with my sister (with 2 school-age kids) who's on the school board of an American suburb of ~4,000 students (85% white, 16% in poverty per 2010 census) although she says she acknowledges the risk of COVID, she also came to this decision. The students and faculty are masked all day. Fortunately, they've had less than 5 documented COVID cases since the school year started (of course, plenty more kids and faculty could be asymptomatic). I'm not a fan of this but so far they've proven me wrong.
posted by fizzix at 2:35 PM on November 8, 2020 [2 favorites]
Fortunately, they've had less than 5 documented COVID cases since the school year started (of course, plenty more kids and faculty could be asymptomatic). I'm not a fan of this but so far they've proven me wrong.
how often are they testing?
posted by lalochezia at 6:18 PM on November 8, 2020
how often are they testing?
posted by lalochezia at 6:18 PM on November 8, 2020
Check out Taiwan's response to schooling - it can be done - but it helps if you started back in January, which is when protective equipment was delivered to every household and distributed to every school student.
In Sydney, my daughter masks up for the journey to and from school and they are worn intermittently at the school itself. We mask if there are more people on the street or if we are in close proximity to people indoors.
She had a cold - she was not allowed back to school until we had a negative result, so we went to the clinic - about 15 minutes walk away - filled in paperwork for the two of us - say half an hour until we got tested. Downloaded the app; got the result by noon the next day.
Pretty happy with how they have now got their shit together.
posted by Barbara Spitzer at 8:15 PM on November 8, 2020 [1 favorite]
In Sydney, my daughter masks up for the journey to and from school and they are worn intermittently at the school itself. We mask if there are more people on the street or if we are in close proximity to people indoors.
She had a cold - she was not allowed back to school until we had a negative result, so we went to the clinic - about 15 minutes walk away - filled in paperwork for the two of us - say half an hour until we got tested. Downloaded the app; got the result by noon the next day.
Pretty happy with how they have now got their shit together.
posted by Barbara Spitzer at 8:15 PM on November 8, 2020 [1 favorite]
In non-terrible news, preliminary data suggests Pfizer's vaccine candidate might be as much as 90% effective.
If these numbers hold up and approval is forthcoming, Pfizer theoretically should be delivering 100 million doses (enough to vaccinate 50 million people) to the US government by the end of the year.
posted by firechicago at 5:11 AM on November 9, 2020 [3 favorites]
If these numbers hold up and approval is forthcoming, Pfizer theoretically should be delivering 100 million doses (enough to vaccinate 50 million people) to the US government by the end of the year.
posted by firechicago at 5:11 AM on November 9, 2020 [3 favorites]
90% efficacy in the first trial to read out is much, much better than anyone had hoped. Of course it's only interim, etc. etc. insert all the appropriate caveats here but that also substantially raises the probability that the other trials which have intermediate or final readouts in the next two months are successful to some degree.
(re: Minks. Confusingly there have been outbreaks in The Netherlands and lately in Denmark and we have similar demonyms. The reports of strains which may be phenotypically different are Danish)
posted by atrazine at 7:48 AM on November 9, 2020
(re: Minks. Confusingly there have been outbreaks in The Netherlands and lately in Denmark and we have similar demonyms. The reports of strains which may be phenotypically different are Danish)
posted by atrazine at 7:48 AM on November 9, 2020
President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky tests positive for COVID-19.
posted by threementholsandafuneral at 8:01 AM on November 9, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by threementholsandafuneral at 8:01 AM on November 9, 2020 [2 favorites]
Meanwhile, Sweden is moving away (slightly) from its laissez-faire approach, and is bringing in a national ban on the serving of alcohol after 10pm, lasting until the end of February.
posted by acb at 3:00 AM on November 12, 2020
posted by acb at 3:00 AM on November 12, 2020
ECDE publishes rapid risk assessment of new covid strains related to mink.
According to the full report [PDF], the issue of mutation of SARS-CoV-2 posing a risk for vaccine efficacy and effectiveness still has to be confirmed, and further studies are needed.
According to the full report [PDF], the issue of mutation of SARS-CoV-2 posing a risk for vaccine efficacy and effectiveness still has to be confirmed, and further studies are needed.
Of all the mink-related variants analysed so far, only the Cluster 5 variant has raised specific concern due to its effect on antigenicity and this requires specific assessment. In preliminary studies, this variant showed reduced sensitivity to neutralising antibodies from COVID-19 patients during the spring of 2020. Antibodies generated by natural infection with other variants and the antibodies generated by vaccines may potentially exhibit reduced neutralisation in individuals infected with this variant. T-cell mediated immune responses have not yet been investigated for this variant.posted by roolya_boolya at 9:30 AM on November 12, 2020
It should be noted that these findings are preliminary and need to be confirmed before any conclusions can be drawn. Further investigations are needed to assess the impact on i) the risk of reinfection, ii) reduced vaccine efficacy or iii) reduced benefit from treatment with plasma from convalescent patients or with monoclonal antibodies.
If any of these concerns are confirmed, given the extent of spread of the mink-related strains in the human population, the current assessment will be immediately reviewed to increase the overall level of risk to human health.
Police break up large Berlin protests as Germany passes tougher coronavirus laws (DW, Nov 18)
Several thousand people gathered in central Berlin, banging pans and blowing whistles, to protest Chancellor Angela Merkel and the German government's push to better enforce coronavirus restrictions on Wednesday.Anti-coronavirus demonstration in Amsterdam cut short because of corona measure violations (NLTimes, Nov 15)
Some 190 protesters were arrested and nine police officers were hurt in the clashes that ensued, Berlin police said.
The demonstration was organized by the Women for Freedom action group, who registered their intentions with the municipality of Amsterdam in advance. An attendance of about a thousand people had been taken into account. The demonstration was to last from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. but was stopped by the police 40 minutes before its scheduled end.Coronavirus: Italy extends 'red zones' as infections soar (BBC, Nov 14)
Italian media has broadcast shocking scenes from hospitals in Naples.Slovakia’s mass coronavirus testing finds 57,500 new cases (FT, Nov 10)
Staff at one hospital have brought oxygen tanks and other equipment outside to treat people parked in their cars because the emergency department was swamped with cases.
“The results? Above all expectations. After [the second round] we can say that mass testing reduces the number of infectious people from week to week by 55 per cent! Which is amazing.”posted by dmh at 6:39 AM on November 19, 2020 [2 favorites]
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posted by lalochezia at 3:44 PM on November 7, 2020 [5 favorites]