More than a third of the CDC’s wastewater sample sites across the U.S. showed rising Covid-19 trends in the period ending March 1 to March 10, though reported cases have stayed near a recent low.
The number of sites with rising signals of Covid-19 cases is nearly twice what it was during the Feb. 1 to Feb. 10 period, when the wave of omicron-variant cases was fading rapidly.
Is it a wave or just a bump?
The German health minister has called on the federal states to reevaluate the coronavirus rules before restrictions are lifted. In other news, a Chinese city locks down as COVID cases rise. Follow DW for more.
German Health Minister Karl Lauterbach said the impact of COVID-19 in the country had reached a “critical” level after the number of infections rose to a record high this week.
“We are in a situation that I would like to describe as critical,” Lauterbach said at the weekly coronavirus press briefing in Berlin on Friday. “We have strongly rising case figures again. […] I keep reading that the omicron variant is a milder variant but that’s only true to a limited extent.”
— Read on m.dw.com/en/covid-digest-germanys-situation-critical-lauterbach-says/a-61094888
Developing..
China is showing a live stream of the construction of a new 6,000-bed isolation center in Jilin city to deal with the new COVID outbreak.
Work is going on 24 hours a day and is expected to be completed in about six days.
This two years to the day of when most of the world shut down in March 2020
Some 1.13 million Americans have died due to the pandemic, the researchers estimate. By comparison, the current total of reported COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. stands at around 960,000.
The new figures, published Thursday in The Lancet, are based on the number of “excess deaths” in countries around the world.
Researchers determined how many additional deaths occurred from January 1, 2020 through December 31, 2021 by modeling the number of “expected” deaths in years unaffected by a global pandemic, compared to the total number who actually died from any cause.
Meanwhile in the COVID is not over category:
COVID CASES USA
44,358 MAR 11 2022
62,387 MAR 11 2021
DEATHS
1,684 MAR 11 2022
1,524 MAR 11 2021
A sampling of headlines seals the deal: COVID, it seems, is over!?
Abrupt end to mask mandates reflects shifting political landscape…
No vax proof for Oscars…
Restrictions ‘will soon be thing of past’…
Hawaii will NOT require tourists to be boosted…
UK to drops isolations…
But is it!?
So there are some voices in the wilderness of “science” who ponder the question: What should we follow now!?
The harsh lockdowns and mask requirements are quickly waning. Those who wanted jail time for the maskless a month ago are now urging to fasten your seatbelt and watch the restrictions go away like magic.
Eric Fiegl-Ding.. I know you’re stunned.
Science magic, after all?
The science, we are now told, “changed.”
What in the world does that mean!?
There are a chosen few still on social media that are shocked at the rapid turn of events. People are are questioning how this can be happening when there are ambulances shortages in rural America, hosoitals still overrun, a 900,000+ death toll, children still spreading like wildfire, and a large cauldron of long haulers that don’t seem able to shake the symptoms that never go away.
But follow the science we must!!!
Just one week ago cloth masks were ruled ineffective. Science said.
N95s were a must!This week tear them off and go hog-wild!! Endemic-ity is here to stay!
Into the wild blue yonder!
Into the abyss!?
We will see..
And just think of the possibilities! If we stop counting cases, COVID goes away..
….and profits are theirs..
Pfizer Inc said on Tuesday it expects 2022 sales of its COVID-19 vaccine and antiviral pill to top $54 billion, but that fell short of lofty Wall Street estimates and its shares were off about 3%.
Still, Chief Executive Albert Bourla said final sales for its oral COVID-19 antiviral, Paxlovid, could be “way bigger” than what Pfizer has forecast since its current outlook only included contracts that have been or are close to being signed.
Pfizer currently expects $22 billion in 2022 sales of the treatment, compared with Wall Street estimates of $22.88 billion.
Ed Yong is a writer for The Atlantic.. according to this report from the Australian news, Yong has been chronicling symptoms of sufferers of the post Covid “long Covid“ cases…
According to his writings, tens of thousands of people across the world are now being known as long haulers. They are people who still report sometimes debilitating symptoms long after the “recovery“ from Covid..
We are not trying to raise any undue alarms here, but this story does seem to be worth paying attention to. There are countless articles of those who have had Covid still stating that they have yet to regain taste and smell months if not now years after recovering.
Along with that, a recent study actually compared brain deterioration in Covid patients to those who have early onset of dementia. That seems to be pretty alarming right?
Yong now says that the planet is about to have a “mass disability event”..
He basically says that some will recover but others will be disabled for the foreseeable future.
NBC is dealing with a choice about how to cover and handle political charges Olympus games in China..
Meanwhile the virus which may have originated there is suddenly surging amongst athletes and coaches..
The AP reports: Athletes and team officials are testing positive for COVID-19 at much higher rates than other people arriving in China for the Beijing Olympics, organizers said Tuesday.
Figures released by local organizers showed 11 positive tests for COVID-19 among 379 athletes and officials arriving Monday. They have been taken into isolation hotels to limit the spread of the infection and could miss their events.
The positive test rate of 2.9% for athletes and officials compared to 0.66% for Olympic “stakeholders,” a group which includes workers and media, in the same period. There were 1,059 people in that category.
When President Joe Biden met with U.S. governors at the White House on Monday, he was the only one given a glass of water — lest anyone else remove their mask to take a drink.
The president was seated more than 10 feet from everyone, including Vice President Kamala Harris and members of his Cabinet.
A White House staffer who was wearing a surgical mask when Biden entered the room was quickly handed an N95 version.
These are just some of the extraordinary efforts on the part of the White House to keep the president from getting COVID-19, even though he’s gotten both of his regular vaccinations and his booster.
— Read on apnews.com/article/coronavirus-pandemic-joe-biden-health-pandemics-kamala-harris-648f64eafd0b4f58e05f75e236b65e00
The Associated Press goes on to describe a White House being extremely cautious that the President does not catch Covid at a time when the Administration is touting the advantages of vaccination..
“We find no evidence that lockdowns, school closures, border closures, and limiting gatherings have had a noticeable effect on COVID-19 mortality,” the researchers wrote.
But the research paper said lockdowns did have “devastating effects” on the economy and contributed to numerous social ills.
“They have contributed to reducing economic activity, raising unemployment, reducing schooling, causing political unrest, contributing to domestic violence, and undermining liberal democracy,” the report said.
— Read on m.washingtontimes.com/news/2022/jan/31/lockdowns-had-little-or-no-impact-covid-19-deaths-/