Coronavirus COVID-19 - Global Health Pandemic #92

[SouthAussie]

Australians will be able to tap and display COVID-19 “proof of vaccination” certificates on their phones or carry hard copies with them under plans being finalised by the Morrison government ahead of the rollout of vaccines later this month.

The Express Plus Medicare app and Australians’ MyGov accounts will both hold digital proof of vaccination certificates, while vaccine providers and Services Australia offices will be able to print out certificates too.

Down the track, retrieving your vaccination certificate could be as simple as double-tapping a smartphone to access the certificate in a digital wallet.

Vaccine certificates are expected to play a key role in allowing Australians more straightforward access to nursing homes and hospitals, where at-risk populations live, and potentially even to cross state borders in the event of future lockdowns.

The certificates will also be important as Australia looks to begin reopening its international borders later this year to allow people to leave the country and travellers to arrive from overseas.

https://www.smh.com.au/politics/fed...-of-vaccine-certificates-20210205-p56zv7.html

 

[SouthAussie]

Scientists probing the origins of the coronavirus are wrapping up a lengthy investigation in China and have found “important clues” about a Wuhan seafood market’s role in the outbreak.

Peter Daszak, a New York-based zoologist assisting the World Health Organisation-sponsored mission, said he anticipates the main findings will be released before his planned February 10 departure.

“It’s the beginning of hopefully a really deep understanding of what happened so we can stop the next one,” he said over Zoom late Friday. “That’s what this is all about -- trying to understand why these things emerge so we don’t continually have global economic crashes and horrific mortality while we wait for vaccines. It’s just not a tenable future.”

‘Where Did Covid Come From? Investigator Foreshadows Fresh Clues

 

[Mo Thuairim]

Ah-ha-ha, you flatterer! I'm not so sure about the organized bit, I think it is sheer desperation that is motivating the rollout. And having a fairly simple healthcare system at least in terms of primary care in that nearly everyone has a GP and you just wait for them to give you an appointment and tell you where to go (as it were!). They seem to be using bigger well-ventilated buildings, even the cathedrals so people can keep spaced out. Obviously some of the older/frail people find it harder to get to a vacc centre so I think they must be going to them to jab them so I am pleasantly surprised that this is going reasonably quickly. And obviously the vaccines have to be taken to the elderly homes and staff.

I am hoping that things will speed up even more as we open up to the over 65s as they will be more mobile, I did see that appointments for this group should be going out this week, although there are regional differences. Then it will be the over 50s which again should go quickly. Although of course it depends on supply of jabs but so far we don't seem to be having a problem.
I will, of course say nothing about the squabbles with the EU and what we think about that............I hope still being a member of the EU doesn't hold up Ireland, Mo, how is vaccination going there?

I have noticed that there is still this sense of entitlement around vaccines as well, now they are here, that I want mine, I want the best one and I want it now! Mostly from US tv reports that I watch occasionally, but even a friend said to me that "I hope they don't make teachers a priority group because that will slow down my jab and I want to see my grandchildren". And this is someone who has only not seen them for a few months not the whole year. And a friend that is not a selfish person. Again I understand we're all sick of the restrictions but I would happily wait a little longer so that kids can go back to school and teachers can feel safe. I do get it, I want to see the babies in my family too but we are not talking about having to wait years longer. I just feel people do not appreciate how fortunate we are to have vaccines at all less than a year into this.

Further to this, my sister recently lost a friend/colleague to Covid in her early 50s. She was living with one kidney, given about 2 years to live owing to cancer. She also had antiphospholipid syndrome and had had frequent miscarriages at a younger age but eventually did have children and just wanted to have those last 2 years with her grandchildren. It made me wonder whether her treatment for Covid took into account her blood-clotting problems but I don't know the details, and probably the cancer was the main factor here.

I thought of her when I was watching that owner of the maskless Florida store talk about how it's only people that are old/sick anyway that have problems with the virus. Well, strictly speaking statistically, of course this is mainly the case but there are so many degrees of age and sickness and for a lot of people they are losing significant periods of time that otherwise they would have had.

A good article to send to your feckless friends/relatives..... I'm an NHS consultant anaesthetist. I see the terror in my Covid patients' eyes
this rang so true to me, I've never worked in ICU but I have done a lot of palliative care and there is nothing that is worse than feeling that you or the patient is running out of time to get something done/something said that is important. Thankfully, this happened very rarely to me and we always tried to keep things serene and keep ahead of things which was easier as we dealt more with slower, less dramatic illnesses, but Covid doesn't give patients or staff that luxury. And not to be able to have family there for support, it's such a cruel illness.

Hi Rosalinda, it's going fine here. Not as fast as the UK obviously but then few places are vaccinating that fast! They did the frontline healthcare workers first then nursing home residents with Pfizer and Moderna. (My 101-year-old granny got her second jab yesterday! No ill effects at all!)

A load of AstraZeneca doses arrived yesterday and we're getting more next week but the plan has changed on those... They had been earmarked for the over-85s and then the over-70s, which are the next vaccination phases to be rolled out, but then the decision was made that they are not to be used for older people because of lack of data on AZ efficacy in over-70s... So now the older groups will get Pfizer and Moderna via their GPs and the AZ will go to younger groups.

To be honest, optics of the ugly EU vaccine row aside (and let's not get into the brief, idiotic triggering of Article 16 of the Northern Ireland Protocol!! The political fallout from that is still rumbling on here)... being an EU member has realistically helped Ireland as we could never have procured enough vaccine on our own as a small country. So yeah, it's a mixed bag! But going OK. Hope you are keeping well.

Here's an overview of the general public vaccine rollout plan for anyone interested...

Over 21,000 AstraZeneca vaccines arrive in Ireland

And reasoning for the Oxford/AZ decision...

'Lack of data' on AZ jab reason for over 70s decision

 

[SouthAussie]

"If you ever don't want to have a pandemic at a certain time, you don't want to have it during an election year. It just heightens the polticisation of the pandemic"
"The level of covid we have (in the US) is unacceptable"

Dr Fauci on our Aussie 60 Minutes program tonight. Dr Fauci is being described by our presenter as the 'calm in the storm'.

"If we can get the overwhelming percentage of the population vaccinated by the end of this summer, we may approach some sense of normality by fall. I must express that is contigent on if we can do that."

When invited to dinner here in Australia, he said "how about in early 2022".

 

[SouthAussie]

Hi Rosalinda, it's going fine here. Not as fast as the UK obviously but then few places are vaccinating that fast! They did the frontline healthcare workers first then nursing home residents with Pfizer and Moderna. (My 101-year-old granny got her second jab yesterday! No ill effects at all!)

A load of AstraZeneca doses arrived yesterday and we're getting more next week but the plan has changed on those... They had been earmarked for the over-85s and then the over-70s, which are the next vaccination phases to be rolled out, but then the decision was made that they are not to be used for older people because of lack of data on AZ efficacy in over-70s... So now the older groups will get Pfizer and Moderna via their GPs and the AZ will go to younger groups.

To be honest, optics of the ugly EU vaccine row aside (and let's not get into the brief, idiotic triggering of Article 16 of the Northern Ireland Protocol!! The political fallout from that is still rumbling on here)... being an EU member has realistically helped Ireland as we could never have procured enough vaccine on our own as a small country. So yeah, it's a mixed bag! But going OK. Hope you are keeping well.

Here's an overview of the general public vaccine rollout plan for anyone interested...

Over 21,000 AstraZeneca vaccines arrive in Ireland

And reasoning for the Oxford/AZ decision...

'Lack of data' on AZ jab reason for over 70s decision

Thanks for posting @Mo Thuairim . I know a few of us are really interested in how all the countries are doing.
Glad to hear your vaccinations are proceeding well.
Interesting to hear the AZ decision. We are scheduled to commence AZ in March in the elderly population (I think it is AZ, unless we have enough Pfizer left over from doing the medical and quarantine workers).

 

[HongKongPhooey]

I think you are all very fortunate to be having the vaccinations now. And I think that having national healthcare is helping the process along. The authorities can be more organised because they already have a good handle on who lives where, what the demographic is like, where to step things up more.

As you say, your appointment is arranged for you, you don't have to sit endlessly on the phone or internet trying to get an appointment (at least that is the impression I get).

I think things will go similarly here in Australia, once the rollout starts. I noticed yesterday that the Premier of Western Australia is already telling his state people how it will work, where they will go for vaccination, etc. I imagine the rest of our states will follow suit soon. We are still a few weeks away from commencement.

The way it worked for my parents was they had a letter saying they were able to have the jab with details of location options. They then went on line and selected the location, date and time. They were able to choose a time 5 mins apart. It took minutes. V well organised. I was (ofc) worried they might get flustered at the appointment and forget paperwork or something but nothing was needed - they were greeted, gave their name, checked off and seen before their scheduled time. I'm so impressed (and grateful).

 

[SouthAussie]

Also on our 60 Minutes tonight (super interesting episode tonight!)

"Very easy to see how things spread in that market"
The WHO team have traced the earliest cases.

Patient Zero is an ordinary person, nothing dramatic in his background (not a lab worker), he actually didn't visit the market ... but they don't know if he got it from someone who visited the market ... making him not actually Patient Zero. (Or perhaps was the first person where the virus jumped from bat to human).

As we know, Chinese authorities were trying to downplay the initial outbreak.
Taiwan has been hyper-vigilant about SARS illnesses ... they were the first to pick up on it on December 31st. China was still giving nothing away. People were reassuring the world that things were okay, because they just didn't know about the human to human transmission.

Millions of Chinese headed into Luna News Years celebrations, not knowing about the outbreak. Thereby spreading the virus.
It was a matter of pride, and saving face.

WHO are trying to put the political pressure aside and focus on the science. Otherwise they will never get to the heart of what happened, for future prevention.

 

[Mo Thuairim]

Thanks for posting @Mo Thuairim . I know a few of us are really interested in how all the countries are doing.
Glad to hear your vaccinations are proceeding well.
Interesting to hear the AZ decision. We are scheduled to commence AZ in March in the elderly population (I think it is AZ, unless we have enough Pfizer left over from doing the medical and quarantine workers).

It is just out of an abundance of caution. I don't think there is any concrete reason to suspect AZ will be much less effective in older people, just that the data is currently thin on that group for that particular vaccine. And AZ will still be given to older people in circumstances where Pfizer or Moderna are not available. I expect once AZ has been studied more it will be deemed suitable for all age groups here. But lots of EU countries are reserving AZ for younger people. Germany was the first to do this and won't be giving it to the over-65 age group; in Italy it will only be for under-55s.

France, Poland, Sweden rule out AstraZeneca jab for elderly

 

[SouthAussie]

It is just out of an abundance of caution. I don't think there is any concrete reason to suspect AZ will be much less effective in older people, just that the data is currently thin on that group for that particular vaccine. And AZ will still be given to older people in circumstances where Pfizer or Moderna are not available. I expect once AZ has been studied more it will be deemed suitable for all age groups here. But lots of EU countries are reserving AZ for younger people. Germany was the first to do this and won't be giving it to the over-65 age group; in Italy it will only be for under-55s.

France, Poland, Sweden rule out AstraZeneca jab for elderly

Yes, I was just doing the sums in my head. We have 20 million doses of Pfizer on order. So that will do 10 million people. Our population is about 26 million. We probably will have more than enough Pfizer to do the medical and quarantine workers, as well as the elderly.

 

[weepingangel]

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[SouthAussie]

I am watching a show called "Outbreak: The Virus That Shook The World".

Right now they are in New Orleans. One woman said "If the president had told us how dangerous this virus is, we wouldn't have had Mardi Gras. Of that I am sure."

Black Americans are dying of covid at three times the rate of other Americans.

New Orleans covid infections were three times the rate of that in NY city.

I am watching on TV, but it is also available on YouTube and other locations.

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[ilovewings]

Get Access

A really good article from Mitch Albom- How much do we really know about this virus---

 

[dixiegirl1035]

"If you ever don't want to have a pandemic at a certain time, you don't want to have it during an election year. It just heightens the polticisation of the pandemic"
"The level of covid we have (in the US) is unacceptable"

Dr Fauci on our Aussie 60 Minutes program tonight. Dr Fauci is being described by our presenter as the 'calm in the storm'.

"If we can get the overwhelming percentage of the population vaccinated by the end of this summer, we may approach some sense of normality by fall. I must express that is contigent on if we can do that."

When invited to dinner here in Australia, he said "how about in early 2022".

Also on our 60 Minutes tonight (super interesting episode tonight!)

"Very easy to see how things spread in that market"
The WHO team have traced the earliest cases.

Patient Zero is an ordinary person, nothing dramatic in his background (not a lab worker), he actually didn't visit the market ... but they don't know if he got it from someone who visited the market ... making him not actually Patient Zero. (Or perhaps was the first person where the virus jumped from bat to human).

As we know, Chinese authorities were trying to downplay the initial outbreak.
Taiwan has been hyper-vigilant about SARS illnesses ... they were the first to pick up on it on December 31st. China was still giving nothing away. People were reassuring the world that things were okay, because they just didn't know about the human to human transmission.

Millions of Chinese headed into Luna News Years celebrations, not knowing about the outbreak. Thereby spreading the virus.
It was a matter of pride, and saving face.

WHO are trying to put the political pressure aside and focus on the science. Otherwise they will never get to the heart of what happened, for future prevention.

Fauci starts at 19:47. And the other section that you referred to. Your 60 minutes I'm now following!

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[weepingangel]

Holy Cross project chronicles COVID history and its impact in real time
more at link/paywalled article can be viewed using “show reader view” in safari
Chronicling history in real time
Students work to preserve history while living it
Living as we are during an unprecedented pandemic, Cynthia Hooper wanted her students to reflect on the making of history. She suggested that during a crisis, we don’t usually have the time and opportunity to consider the historical implications of what we are experiencing. But the associate professor of history and director of the Russian and Eastern European Studies program at the College of the Holy Cross knows, “history really matters and we are not usually attuned to consider the lessons or parallels that could be extremely helpful.”

How does one document history that one is living through? “By recording lived experiences through interviews, preserving material artifacts and even collecting digital media such as tweets/facebook posts.” Almost everything is an artifact at present, she comments, from the sublime to the ridiculous — face masks, funeral announcements to computer GIFs.

Last spring, when campuses began to close and students were suddenly sent home, different instructors tried to address this same sentiment in varied ways. Accordingly, Hooper asked students to consider the larger ramifications of the COVID crisis for Worcester. “I started a FB group called ‘into the abyss’ to share content because even jokes would become artifacts which could be lost,” she said.

She noted that conversations and debate happening in a disposable online forum through social media has “made artifact collection very different than it was even 30 years ago.” There are fewer postcards, written letters or even photographs that can be easily saved and archived.

 

[dixiegirl1035]

Sunday, Feb 7th

New US deaths - 2,614

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[BUF]

‘It is only now I realise the toll the pandemic has taken’: a letter from the other side of Covid

It is only now I realise the toll the pandemic has taken’: a letter from the other side of Covid
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeand...ther-side-of-covid?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other
I moved from London to New Zealand, where the sense of normality is surreal

 

[mickey2942]

I am watching a show called "Outbreak: The Virus That Shook The World".

Right now they are in New Orleans. One woman said "If the president had told us how dangerous this virus is, we wouldn't have had Mardi Gras. Of that I am sure."

Black Americans are dying of covid at three times the rate of other Americans.

New Orleans covid infections were three times the rate of that in NY city.

I am watching on TV, but it is also available on YouTube and other locations.

To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
For more detailed information, see our cookies page.

Accept third party cookies

I am not so sure about that. After all, they celebrated "Chinese New Year" in San Francisco, a few weeks after Mardi Gras.

It wasn't until St. Patrick's Day, that people in the United States really got the "memo" to end all parties. That is when cities canceled normal St. Patrick's Day parties.

I don't think that Trump knew how serious Covid was in the February, he even went to India, last week of February.

 

[weepingangel]

A parallel pandemic hits health care workers: Trauma and exhaustion | Boston.com
much more at link
February 4, 2021
Dr. Sheetal Khedkar Rao, 42, an internist in suburban Chicago, can’t pinpoint the exact moment when she decided to hang up her stethoscope for the last time. There were the chaos and confusion of the spring, when a nationwide shortage of N95 masks forced her to examine patients with a surgical mask, the fears she might take the coronavirus home to her family and the exasperating public disregard for mask-wearing and social distancing that was amplified by the White House.

Among the final blows, though, were a 30% pay cut to compensate for a drop in patients seeking primary care, and the realization that she needed to spend more time at home after her children, 10 and 11, switched to remote learning.

“Everyone says doctors are heroes and they put us on a pedestal, but we also have kids and aging parents to worry about,” said Rao, who left her practice in October. “After awhile, the emotional burden and moral injury become too much to bear.”

Doctors, paramedics and nurses’ aides have been hailed as America’s frontline COVID warriors, but gone are the days when people applauded workers outside hospitals and on city streets.

Now, a year into the pandemic, with emergency rooms packed again, vaccines in short supply and more contagious variants of the virus threatening to unleash a fresh wave of infections, the nation’s medical workers are feeling burned out and unappreciated.

Over the last year, there have been the psychological trauma of overworked intensive care doctors forced to ration care, the crushing sense of guilt for nurses who unknowingly infected patients or family members, and the struggles of medical personnel who survived COVID-19 but are still hobbled by the fatigue and brain fog that hamper their ability to work.

Researchers say the pandemic’s toll on the nation’s health care workforce will play out long after the coronavirus is tamed. The impact, for now, can be measured in part by a surge of early retirements and the desperation of community hospitals struggling to hire enough workers to keep their emergency rooms running.

“Everyone wants to talk about vaccines, vaccines, vaccines, but for our members, all they want to talk about is workforce, workforce, workforce,” said Alan Morgan, chief executive of the National Rural Health Association. “Right now our hospitals and our workers are just getting crushed.”

 

[ilovewings]

I am not so sure about that. After all, they celebrated "Chinese New Year" in San Francisco, a few weeks after Mardi Gras.

It wasn't until St. Patrick's Day, that people in the United States really got the "memo" to end all parties. That is when cities canceled normal St. Patrick's Day parties.

I don't think that Trump knew how serious Covid was in the February, he even went to India, last week of February.

Trump knew early on how devastating and serious this pandemic was: in a taped conversation with Bob Woodward (convo sometime in Jan or Feb) he told Woodward it was deadly and that he knew it was spread thru the air (as opposed to be touch). I will see if I can find that info online and post it.

‘This is deadly stuff’: Tapes show Trump acknowledging virus threat in February

 

[tabitha111]

Shared on a local facebook group- I thought this was really interesting (speaking of history)
A postcard sent from Richmond, Virginia during the historic c.1918-1919 pandemic. Notice how the two lil ' Santa Babies are shielding their mouths from each other while they have their holiday visit.