India is reeling.. America is vaccinating.. And China is worried?
According to late week reports, a ‘double mutant strain’ of COVID is now infecting cities in China..
Wu Zunyou revealed the “Indian variant” had been found in “some Chinese cities,” without elaborating. The news has sparked intense discussion online about stricter border controls amid the five-day Labor Day break beginning Saturday…
Citizens are rightly concerned about the variant, Wu said, noting: “The virus has been mutating since the start of the pandemic.” It will not stop mutating until the pandemic is over, he added. “Implementing containment measures is key to stopping the spread of mutant strains, and also to prevent the occurrence of new mutations,” the senior health official said.
The horrible scourge of COVID-19 has decimated so much of India over the past week.. It is truly a horror show to see some of the images coming from the nation. We saw one video recently where two sons were transferring their deceased mom on a motorbike..
The numbers are sickened are rising into the hundreds of thousands by the day. Some conservative estimates say that there will be one million or more dead in that nation by August.
The United States has largely been able to brag up its vaccine over the previous 100 days of the Biden Administration, but this India problem seems extremely concerning. What variants? What kind of a wave.. will this effect the rest of the planet just as we want to rid earth of the plague?
The Biden administration will restrict travel from India as that country grapples with a gigantic surge in coronavirus cases, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Friday.
The policy will take effect Tuesday, May 4, Psaki said in a statement. The administration made the decision on the advice of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, she said.
India has reported an average of about 357,000 new cases per day over the past seven days — up about 26% from a week ago, Johns Hopkins data shows.
Just consider this too: 32.69% positivity rate in Delhi, India..
Concerning the variant, it seems that India is being hit by the highly contagious Covid variant, known as B.1.617, which was first spotted there. The variant, which contains two key mutations that have been found separately in other coronavirus strains, is believed by some to be behind the latest wave of infections.
NEW DELHI — As he surveyed the thousands of people gathered at an election rally in eastern India on April 17, Prime Minister Narendra Modi appeared jubilant. “Everywhere I look, as far as I can see, there are crowds,” he said, his arms spread wide. “You have done an extraordinary thing.” At the time, India was recording more than 200,000 coronavirus cases a day. In the western state of Maharashtra, oxygen was running short, and people were dying at home because of a shortage of hospital beds. In Modi’s home state of Gujarat, crematoriums were being overwhelmed by the dead. Those scenes were just a prelude to the devastation now unfolding in India. It is recording more infections daily — at last count 379,000 — than any other country since the start of the pandemic. Hospitals are turning away severely ill patients, and their relatives are frantically searching for medical oxygen.
Elizabeth Warren and others are urging President Biden to assist with vaccines in India..
The COVID-19 outbreak in India is a humanitarian crisis that threatens its 1.4 billion citizens, and billions more around the world. I’m urging President Biden – and our vaccine manufacturers – to use every tool possible to help with this crisis. https://t.co/9TgUuyJeKg
Just a note this, website is not trying to be a constant harbinger of doom and gloom.. but wow.. these India numbers are atrocious and concerning. IF you are not concerned you are not normal..
And this “ban” is not a complete ban.. and it starts May 4..
How much of the India strain already got out to the rest of the world…?
This situation in India is heartbreaking .. and if models are right it can further spiral out of control with more than a million potentially dead by August. Several are questioning current numbers stating that they don’t believe the numbers at this time..
A new study out of College of Health and Human Services at George Mason University is blunt: People kept traveling and going about their daily lives–even when they were experiencing COVID symptoms!
“We could not detect any significant change of movement when people should self-quarantine. On the other hand some people almost did not leave home since the beginning of the pandemic, while others move freely around,” says Dr. Janusz Wojtusiak in a university release.
Wojtusiak and the team find the most common ailment volunteers continued to travel normally with was a headache. In fact, results show headaches were always listed as a symptom even if participants had other issues as well.
Other possible COVID symptoms participants experienced included coughs and sore throats.
Despite this, participants traveled an average of 139 miles each week during the study. This window during the pandemic includes periods when Virginia was under a stay-at-home order and after the mandate was lifted. The average volunteer also visited just under six different locations each week during this time.
BUT!!!
Although some volunteers may have had potential coronavirus symptoms, none actually reported suffering a COVID-19 infection. Therefore, the team could not positively link infection rates to movement in this report. The team notes future studies will include data from the winter of 2020, when health officials noted another virus surge in many areas.
So often when we post COVID related links and news, the feedback we hear is that we are fear mongering and creating chaos.. that the world has ‘moved on.’
But despite the lessening media attention, every time a vaccine goes into an arm, an angel gets its wings.
Covid is alive and well. . . Across America and the world. While some nations are in awe at the United States’ vaccine administration, it has yet to be seen if there is a long term ‘booster’ that will be necessary and how varying variants will end up acting.
That is why a few news snippets are a little troubling..
From INDIA, things seem to have spiraled desperately out of control.
Hospitals in Delhi have warned they are at breaking point. At the Holy Family Hospital, intensive care units are full and there is no room for any more beds.
“Almost every hospital is on the edge. If oxygen runs out, there is no leeway for many patients,” Dr Sumit Ray told the BBC.
“Within minutes, they will die. You can see these patients: they’re on ventilators, they require high-flow oxygen. If the oxygen stops, most of them will die.”
I was speaking to a friend today .. he is an RN at a local hospital here in Pennsylvania where we write our dispatches from..he said while the hospital he works at has become understaffed due to the pressures on some forcing them to quit, something else recently has been more concerning.
The plight of the COVID patient has gone from respiratory fatigue to mental anguish. He said that patients, in the past two weeks, have been actively removing their medical devices, fighting back, and having brain fog beyond anything seen before. It seems as though this new version of COVID, whatever this new variant that is hitting, has caused much more brain and overall confusion.
Yes, he confirms that breathing issues are still happening. The typical COVID infection stuff.. but now the new type of sickness includes complete and total cognitive skills being deluged by this new variant.
He even conjured that perhaps this is an altogether new virus.
As vaccines are distributed throughout the nation, a weary world wonders how much of an effect they will have on stopping, or at least slowing the pandemic. Several states are still surging, and the nation of India is having dramatic and traumatic results from a surge causing more than 300,000 cases daily now.
Back in the United States, news of a “breakthrough“ case surgeon a Kentucky nursing home is giving us a trial run on how effective the vaccines can be.
Here is the information about what occurred:
An unvaccinated health care worker set off a Covid-19 outbreak at a nursing home in Kentucky where the vast majority of residents had been vaccinated, leading to dozens of infections, including 22 cases among residents and employees who were already fully vaccinated, a new study reported Wednesday. Most of those who were infected with the coronavirus despite being vaccinated did not develop symptoms or require hospitalization, but one vaccinated individual, who was a resident of the nursing home, died, according to the study released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Altogether, 26 facility residents were infected, including 18 who had been vaccinated, and 20 health care personnel were infected, including four who had been vaccinated. Two unvaccinated residents also died.
The FDA has authorized third vaccine with Johnson & Johnson one-shot jab to be distributed as early as Monday
By the end of March, J&J has said it expects to deliver 20 million doses to the U.S., and 100 million by summer
Worldwide, company aims to produce 1 billion doses globally by the end of 2021
Johnson & Johnson shot only requires a single shot compared to Pfizer and Moderna’s jabs
VARIOUS MEDIA REPORTING..
The vaccine, made by Janssen, J&J’s vaccine arm, is safe and effective, and it’s considered flexible. It’s a single dose, and it doesn’t require special storage.
The vaccine is authorized for people ages 18 and older.
New Jersey-based Johnson & Johnson said 20 million doses would be delivered in the US by the end of March. The company plans to deliver 100 million doses during the first half of 2021.
The doses can be stored in a standard fridge, unlike the ultra-cold conditions required by the other two vaccines from Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech, both of which are two-shot regimes.
“We need a vaccine that can be quickly mass produced,” Dr. Greg Poland, head of the Mayo Clinic’s Vaccine Research Group, said Friday. “We’d want to see a reasonable duration of efficacy and protection.
In an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal on Friday, Dr. Marty Makary — a surgeon and a professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and Bloomberg School of Public Health — said that there are actually many more than the 28 million confirmed cases of the coronavirus in the U.S., possibly as much as 6.5 times more than that number.
Between that group, and the roughly 15 percent of the country which has already received one dose of the vaccine, Makary argues that much of the nation is already protected from the virus.
“There is reason to think the country is racing toward an extremely low level of infection,” Makary wrote. “As more people have been infected, most of whom have mild or no symptoms, there are fewer Americans left to be infected. At the current trajectory, I expect Covid will be mostly gone by April, allowing Americans to resume normal life.”
pidemiologist Michael Osterholm issued dire warnings about the potential spread of the new, more contagious Covid-19 variants, saying that they could produce a surge of cases in the United States to levels “we have not seen yet in this country.”
Dr. Osterholm, who is director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota and a member of President Biden’s transition team advising on coronavirus, told Meet the Press host Chuck Todd that he expects to see cases of the new Covid-19 variants to surge “in the next six to 14 weeks.” As a result, he said the US may need to execute a major shift its vaccine strategy, focusing on administering the first dose of the vaccine to as many people as possible instead of trying to get people their second doses.
“We still want to get two doses in everyone, but I think right now, in advance of this surge, we need to get as many one-doses in as many people over 65 as we possibly can, to reduce serious illness and deaths that are going to occur over the weeks ahead,” Osterholm said.
Have you noticed normal content going haywire lately?
If there was social media in ancient times, perhaps the same would have occurred.
History, we can learn, brings out the best and the worst in people. Times when we are challenged, especially in a long-duration event, can make us recoil into the worst of humanity..
After 9/11, the last time the world was shook to its core, a large swath of people chose to go with antiquated racist beliefs and attack Muslims.. It was the “kinder and gentler” George W. that actually did the right thing and made it a policy as a nation to visually be seen with Muslims and have events that mitigated the zealous rage against them. Of course the next choice the American government made was to embroil itself into two wars in the Middle East that largely decimated any good feelings after September 11…
But during COVID, we are also reminded of the similar events in history in which societies became enraged and inflamed. Just because WE are living through something does not mean WE are the first. That belief system is extremely selfish and narcissistic.
Now narcissism? Maybe that is surging in the modern era more than past times. 😉
Adam Crigler used to feed his YouTube following a politics-free diet of chatter about aliens, movies, skateboarding and video games. Then came the pandemic. Now, he devotes much of his talk show to his assertion that mask mandates are an assault on personal freedom and that Democrats somehow stole the 2020 election from Donald Trump. Result: a much bigger audience.
“The pandemic has made more people want to blame someone else because they’ve lost their jobs or they’re lonely,” Crigler said.
And so many others.
But when this pandemic ends–and it will–what happens to society? How do we go back to mindless videos on social media again.. Or do we?
Does it change back? Or does a new generation forget mindlessness and innocence .. until the next generation is born and makes it happen..?
There have been rumors and speculation for over a year: Just when did COVID-19 actually begin.. if you remember back to the early days of the pandemic lockdowns, many reported feeling sicker than normal in November and December 2019. Italy had various reports of strange lung diseases in the autumn of 2019.. and a nursing home in the United States had a not so average outbreak in the late summer..
Speculation and rumor aside, fact finders are now on the case of just when–and where–did COVID come from.
A growing body of evidence suggests the coronavirus was spreading globally months before the first cases in a Wuhan market captured global attention last December.
The team assessed medical records from more than 230 clinics across Hubei — the province where Wuhan is located — to look for clues. More than 90 patients in the province were hospitalized with pneumonia or coronavirus-like symptoms in October and November 2019, the Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday.
This finding lends credence to other research from China that shows people were getting sick in Wuhan in November and early December. One analysis, based on satellite images of Wuhan hospitals and online searches for COVID-19 symptoms in the area, suggested the virus may have started circulating there as early as late summer.
According to an April report, 13 of the 41 original cases had no link to the market — which suggests the market wasn’t the origin site of the pandemic.
The WHO team confirmed the virus didn’t make its initial jump from animals to humans at the Huanan market. Evidence suggests the virus was circulating elsewhere in Wuhan before the market outbreak happened, Liang Wannian, a member of China’s National Health Commission who assisted with the WHO investigation, said in a press conference Tuesday.
Hong Kong health authorities are taking no chances with a mysterious outbreak of viral pneumonia in the central Chinese city of Wuhan, warning of symptoms similar to Sars and bird flu as they step up border screening and put hospitals on alert.
“The situation in Wuhan is unusual, and we are not sure about the reasons behind the outbreak yet,” said Secretary for Food and Health Sophia Chan Siu-chee said after an urgent night-time meeting with officials and experts on New Year’s Eve. “Since we are now in the holiday season, and Hong Kong has close transport ties with Wuhan, we must stay alert.”
Seeds of confusion were planted early! Mask? Or no mask!? Human transmission! Or safe!
As the year 2019 ended an “unidentified” virus was identified in Wuhan.
New Years celebrations ushered in the roaring 20s of the 21st century.
Meanwhile, backstage, officials were scrambling for answers.
The cause of mysterious pneumonia cases in the Chinese city of Wuhan remains unknown, health authorities in the city said Sunday, as the number of infected people rose to 59 from 44 on Friday.
Seven of the sick are listed as critically ill, down from 11 on Friday. The number of close contacts of cases under medical observation has risen to 163.
Sunday’s statement, the third from the Wuhan Municipal Health Commission about the incident, is the first to give information about when people became infected. The first person known to have become ill began to show symptoms on Dec. 12 and the last date of symptom onset among the sick was Dec. 29, the statement said.
But the rest of the press information aged even worse, a clear sign that early reports were taking what China was releasing as fact.
A NEW JERSEY mayor claimed he had COVID in November 2019.. the media at the time called his claim unfounded. “I was definitely feeling sick when I was there, and fought my way through it,” he told NJ Advance Media on Thursday. After returning home Nov. 21 from the convention, Melham said a doctor diagnosed his worsening symptoms — including a 102-degree fever, chills, hallucinations and a sore throat that ended up lasting for three weeks — as a bad case of the flu. “I have never been sicker in my entire life,” Melham said, though he acknowledged that he did not have the respiratory problems often associated with the coronavirus.
ABC NEWS reported that intelligence was looking at a spreading virus in November 2019. “”The timeline of the intel side of this may be further back than we’re discussing,” the source said of preliminary reports from Wuhan. “But this was definitely being briefed beginning at the end of November as something the military needed to take a posture on.””
A report in September 2019 talked about interesting symptoms of the vaping epidemic.. Respiratory symptoms reported by patients included shortness of breath, pain associated with breathing and a cough. Other symptoms included fever, nausea, vomiting and diarrhea, the release said. But the cases displayed “no clear infectious cause and all required hospitalization.”
Dr Li Wenliang was an active user of Weibo, China’s Twitter-like social media platform, over the past 10 years. He posted his last words on February 1: “Today the nucleic acid test result turns positive,” he wrote of the test that confirmed he had Covid-19. “The dust has settled, and the diagnosis is finally confirmed.”
