How COVID-19 is affecting society

[WolfEyes]

Trump tried to fire her for telling the truth; Biden wants to give her a promotion (msn.com)

 

[Innula Zenovka]

A member of Uganda's Olympic team has tested positive for Covid-19 after arriving in Japan, the first infection in an overseas squad.

The athlete, who has not been named, tested positive during a screening at the airport near Tokyo on Saturday.

The athlete went into quarantine at a government facility while their eight teams' members travelled on to their host city in Osaka.

All the Ugandan athletes and coaches were reported to have received two vaccination shots and tested negative before their departure.

They are only the second national squad to arrive for next month's Games after an Australian softball team.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-57543588

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Evernote link because why not

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Government ordered to release secret pandemic planning files

Whitehall had refused to publish documents from 2016 exercise that warned health system would not cope

www.theguardian.com

 

[Romana]

Government ordered to release secret pandemic planning files

Whitehall had refused to publish documents from 2016 exercise that warned health system would not cope

www.theguardian.com

They kept the files secret, Frontbutt dumped ours.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

‘Mistakes need to be dealt with’: anger in South Africa as third wave hits

Cyril Ramaphosa’s government has been criticised for its slow reaction and faltering vaccination programme

www.theguardian.com

 

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

More delta facts... fastest spreading variant so far by a long shot.

 

[Essence Lumin]

(quoting an article)

Last week, the WHO warned of a third wave of the pandemic across Africa, with 90% of countries likely to miss a vaccination target of at least 10% of their populations by September.

More than 3.6 million cases of Covid-19 have been recorded in 47 countries in the WHO’s Africa region. Eight countries, including Uganda, had seen a more than 30% rise in cases in the space of a week.

“We really feel it’s an emergency,” said Mukuzi Muhereza, UMA secretary general. “We are receiving SOS [calls] for oxygen and human resources from health facilities across the country.

I am surprised their total covid cases are such low numbers. 3.6 million total cases for 1.2 billion people vs in the US - 33 million cases for 300 million people. That's about a 35 times difference.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

(quoting an article)



I am surprised their total covid cases are such low numbers. 3.6 million total cases for 1.2 billion people vs in the US - 33 million cases for 300 million people. That's about a 35 times difference.

That might simply be a case of under-reporting, of course, because of sparse medical facilities. If a migrant worker makes it home from the city to his small village, and a couple of weeks later people there start developing coughs and dying, as they are everywhere else, and the local hospitals and medical centres are overwhelmed, then how many of them are going to be properly examined and the cause of death reported?

That's what happened in India, and I would be astonished if they're able to keep a more accurate count in much of Africa, either.

 

[Essence Lumin]

The consensus seems to be that doesn't account for a 35 to 1 difference. Some differences that help account for it are the much lower number of elderly people in Africa, and having previously dealt with other infectious diseases and taking actions such as closing off borders as the disease was taking off.

I get the following hits on the first page of a google search for low covid number of cases africa

COVID-19: Unpacking the low number of cases in Africa

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has infected over nineteen million people globally with over 700 000 fatalities as of 9 August 2020. To date, Africa has recorded the least amount of COVID-19 confirmed cases. As of 9 August 2020, Africa ...

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

BugBitten Is the low incidence of COVID-19 in Africa due to prior infections with Plasmodium falciparum?

blogs.biomedcentral.com

The coronavirus is ravaging the world. But life looks almost normal in much of Africa.

Reasons for Africa's low COVID-19 rates revealed

Africa's unusually low COVID-19 cases and deaths could be down to a young and sparse population, and the hot and humid climate interrelating to heighten their individual effects, research from the World Health Organization has revealed.

medicalxpress.com

Frontiers | The Reported Few Cases and Deaths of Covid-19 Epidemic in Africa Are Still Data Too Questionable to Reassure About the Future of This Continent

More than seven months after the first case of Covid-19 in Africa was detected, (in Egypt on Feb 14,) prevalence and mortality are still low and, although ma...

www.frontiersin.org

COVID-19 in Africa: Why is the official death rate so low?

COVID-19 in Africa: Why is the official death rate so low?

news.sky.com

 

[Veritable Quandry]

Also worth mentioning that Africa is Very Very Big. There are large areas of low population density that slows the spread. It is not surprising that the largest outbreaks on the continent are in places like South Africa, which has more urban population. As a whole, Africa has a few dense urban areas with lots of sparsely populated countryside in between.

 

[Free]

Also worth mentioning that Africa is Very Very Big.

 

[Essence Lumin]

Veritable, you might want to look at that picture again before agreeing.

 

[Free]

Veritable, you might want to look at that picture again before agreeing.

What, should have used Andromeda?

 

[Veritable Quandry]

Veritable, you might want to look at that picture again before agreeing.

I do not subscribe to your narrow concepts of space time. Why can't Africa be bigger on the inside?

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Evernote link because paywall

 

[bubblesort]

I'm eating my breakfast, watching the morning news, and among all the garbage paid coverage my local news spews at me while I have my morning coffee, there is a CDC PSA. It's horrible.

The PSA says if you have been vaccinated, you don't have to wear a mask, inside or outside, in MOST SITUATIONS.

WTF does, "most situations," mean? Like, not on Thursdays? I hate everything about this ad. If I was trying to spread corona and make people trust the CDC less, I would put this ad out.

Around here, everybody, including myself, interprets, "most situations," to mean all situations. Nobody wears masks anywhere. Is that bad? IDK, maybe it is, maybe it isn't. We have no clear directive from the CDC regarding this. We won't know if this is a bad idea for a few weeks, I guess.

I tried to find the ad on the CDC youtube channel, to show you guys what I'm talking about, but I cant find it there. The cowards either won't post it, or... did they even make it? I honestly don't know if it came from some OAN or Blaze listening right wing nut with more money than sense.

We really need to overhaul the CDC. These kinds of failures are unacceptable.

 

[Arkady Arkright]

WTF does, "most situations," mean? Like, not on Thursdays? I hate everything about this ad. If I was trying to spread corona and make people trust the CDC less, I would put this ad out.

I'd say 'most situations' means apply some common sense, instead of having to have every little thing spelt out for you.

 

[bubblesort]

I'd say 'most situations' means apply some common sense, instead of having to have every little thing spelt out for you.

Ah, yes, use common sense... Good thing we have the CDC to tell us to use common sense. Without them, I might have been tempted to want to use specific, rational science. What a disaster that would have been! The CDC are truly the heroes we need, fighting the evils of precision and clarity that science would give us.

 

[Argent Stonecutter]

I'd say 'most situations' means apply some common sense, instead of having to have every little thing spelt out for you.

If people had common sense we wouldn't have had second or subsequent waves of COVID.