by ezs | Mar 8, 2021 | evilzenscientist
Weekend – Almost 3MM vaccinations in the US yesterday. Phenomenal rate. This is the only way to beat the variants; run faster and vaccinate. Plenty of concern about the 50% who say they won’t get the vaccine however. 🙁 100M vaccinated. Concerns in Europe on blood clot risk of AstraZeneca vaccine.
Weekly graph from The Seattle Times. Positive test rate is picking up slightly. 20% with first dose, 11% with two.
Friday – All US adults eligible for vaccine by 1 May, “independence from Covid 4th July”.
Thursday – real concern in Brazil over spiraling cases and overrun hospitals.
Wednesday – Mixed directions in Europe, relaxed rules vs. increased lockdown and a “fourth wave”.
Tuesday – some excitement – as “extra” vaccines are being given at the close of day in many locations in Washington. We made appointments, then were told there was an error. Mid-March – and we must be just weeks away from open vaccinations.
Monday – the year rolls over. A year, 52 weeks, since I started the daily updates on COVID and capturing the news summaries for posterity. So what are my main observations? Firstly I’m glad that The Guardian, The Seattle Times and many other media outlets are still summarising the pandemic news on a daily basis. The BBC news website stopped this in the summer. Secondly – there’s sadly little shock value of dozens, hundreds or thousands dying on a daily basis. >500K deaths in the US – and that number really doesn’t resonate with many. Thirdly – everything is political. Masks, eating out, return to school, vaccination.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/series/coronavirus-live
https://www.seattletimes.com/tag/coronavirus/
by ezs | Mar 1, 2021 | evilzenscientist
Weekend – 28M fully vaccinated in the US (two shots), WA is still slowly, but surely getting vaccines out. Almost a third of the UK have received at least one vaccine dose. “Hundreds of deaths per day” across European countries; sadly that isn’t newsworthy after the brutal waves of the past year. 90M vaccines have been delivered in theUS, including over 2.4M yesterday.
UK numbers from The Guardian. That massive peak, and the climb into it, seems so long ago.
Weekend numbers from The Seattle Times. A year on – they are still doing a daily roundup and regular stats.
Friday – @YearCovid tweeting last years news.
Thursday – last day in the office one year ago. The start of “vaccine passports” and “vaccinated only” events.
Wednesday – a year ago was the week of panic buying and stripped shelves.
Tuesday – amidst positive talk about vaccinations and decreasing positive tests and a decline in deaths; there are still huge risks of a fourth wave.
Monday – a year since the first COVID death in the US and in Washington State. It’s still a race against time – vaccinate and beat the variants. CDC/NIH tracking five variants across the US.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/series/coronavirus-live
https://www.seattletimes.com/tag/coronavirus/
by ezs | Feb 24, 2021 | evilzenscientist
Saturday – huge demand for vaccinations; this story from Portland, OR describing how 400,000 attempts to book for 3,400 slots. Washington State at around 13% first vaccination, UK is at just under 30% of the population having at least one dose. That reaches almost 40% in Wales. That’s actually quite the testament to the role of the NHS.
Track and Trace (contact tracing) is partially working, depending on location. Great results in New Zealand, missed contacts in England (with a possible Brazil variant escaped into the wild), unknown results in the US.
Usual weekend state of the State from The Seattle Times. Positive test rate is steady at around 5.4% – still a good way to go to below 2% trend.
Friday – next week I will start the “one year ago” retrospectives. The first cases of COVID in the US were in Washington State, first identified in late January. The first death was 29 February.
Thursday – reluctance over taking the AstraZeneca vaccine.
Wednesday – J&J single shot vaccine approved
Tuesday – >112M global cases, >2.5M global deaths.
Monday – officially 500,000 deaths due to Covid in the US.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/series/coronavirus-live
https://www.seattletimes.com/tag/coronavirus/
by ezs | Nov 3, 2020 | evilzenscientist
Weekend – US setting the pace for a million new cases per week. Shocking, sad, not unexpected. Washington State – big spike in numbers. The White House continues to spread coronavirus. Melbourne relaxes the lockdown (which seems to have worked).
From The Seattle Times – the regular weekly status. That spike is going to be brutal. Hospital capacity is still good – but the spike in testing is the early indicator.
Friday – while most of the news continues to focus on election counts, the infections keep coming. US setting records for daily new cases. I would not be surprised to see some huge spikes in 5-14 days from long lines waiting to vote.
Thursday – the steadily increasing number of global cases, followed by the lagging hospitalisation, followed by the deaths. Europe, USA, Brazil.
Wednesday – post election. Record breaking local Washington State coronavirus cases. England lockdown starts tomorrow, panic buying and last minute socialising.
Tuesday – election day in the US. COVID related news intertwined with election news. Mask wearing while voting is now a partisan issue :\
Monday – Argentina importing 10M Russian vaccines.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/series/coronavirus-live
by ezs | Jul 20, 2020 | evilzenscientist
Weekend – European talk of second wave; is this poor isolation/masks or mutation? Quarantine measures being reintroduced. Seattle Times has a longer form article on “six months since the first US case”.
Usual Sunday graphic. WA in the steady, steady growth in number of cases. Must be close to going back to absolute lockdown.
Friday – US back above 1000 daily deaths. 15 days to go from 3 to 4 million cases. COVID isn’t going away. My guess is a combined flu/COVID shot every year going forward.
Thursday – Trump starts to realise COVID is real; cancels GOP convention. UK planning in the Spring was “complete failure”. US hits 4M cases. 915,000 new cases in last two weeks in US.
Wednesday – 15M global cases. Hotspots returning in Europe. More school districts in the area go online only.
Tuesday – schools are starting to move to online only for September. Less than six weeks away – and cases are still increasing. Trump says “wear a mask”..
Monday – yes – twenty weeks. Past the middle of July. Summer is passing. Projects I initiated in the early part of the year are coming to fruition and close.
Potential good news on a vaccine. 3.7MM cases in the US, 140k deaths. I know more and more people who have had COVID-19.
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