Coronavirus Sars-CoV-2/Covid-19 Megathread

[Duque de Bragança]

But what about the IPA/micro-brewevery/hipster/etc. beer crowd? 

[Threviel]

Shouldn't the republitards defend his right to serve who he chooses to in his own establishment?

[crazy canuck]

But what about the IPA/micro-brewevery/hipster/etc. beer crowd? 

He may have been referring to the Bud drinkers.

[Threviel]

I meant the customers demanding the freedom to not wear masks.

[crazy canuck]

Shouldn't the republitards defend his right to serve who he chooses to in his own establishment?

He was pretty clear the Republitard anti maskers would definitely react negatively but that he would be asking those types to leave his premises - I should add with the kind of understated self confidence that one cannot help but liking in the way a Texan expresses themselves. 

[viper37]

President Biden says the US will have enough vaccine for all adult Americans by May 2.

Prime Minister Trudeau has said Canada will have enough vaccine 'for those who want it' by September.

So what you are telling us is that the world's economic superpower is using its resources to pay its domestic manufacturers to produce more vaccine for its own exclusive use, and Canada, without any domestic production and a huge geographic size is only a few months behind.

actually, we could have had the domestic production, and we had promising research, but the Federal government was unwilling to finance large scale public test & manufacturing from flu vaccine makers.  We may not have had the capacity to export a significant number, maybe not even vaccinate all of Canada with two shots, but we could have had a significant effort made by university research centers.

One more fault for the Libs. Time to get rid of them before we have an even more serious pandemic.

[celedhring]

Yesterday the minister of health confirmed that the British variant is now dominant in Spain (60%). However, new infections keep falling. Experts over here are actually a bit puzzled over it, they were expecting an uptick as the variant expanded. Maybe the warmer weather is helping? Don't think our vaccination campaign is advanced enough to make a dent in infection numbers (although it is having an effect in fatality rates).

[Syt]

Public health officials held a press conference today. British variant is currently 80% of cases in Austria. 7 day case number per 100k is at 160, though expected to rise to 200-300 in the near future. ICUs are 1/3 full, expected to rise to 1/2 full in the next few weeks. Yay.

[Sheilbh]

Yesterday the minister of health confirmed that the British variant is now dominant in Spain (60%). However, new infections keep falling. Experts over here are actually a bit puzzled over it, they were expecting an uptick as the variant expanded. Maybe the warmer weather is helping? Don't think our vaccination campaign is advanced enough to make a dent in infection numbers (although it is having an effect in fatality rates).

Yeah that is a bit odd - weather could help I suppose. But I'm not sure if even that would explain it because I think the Portuguese third wave was largely driven by the UK variant and there's been similar issues in parts of Italy where cases are rising again and they'd probably have a broadly similar climate.

Vaccinations will definitely help because I think there's evidence here that they do cut transmission. But it's curious and good that it's not having too much of an impact - hopefully that carries on.

[Sheilbh]

Public health officials held a press conference today. British variant is currently 80% of cases in Austria. 7 day case number per 100k is at 160, though expected to rise to 200-300 in the near future. ICUs are 1/3 full, expected to rise to 1/2 full in the next few weeks. Yay.

What are restrictions like at the minute? Any sign of lockdown being imposed?

One other thing which I'd not realised is Europe might also be facing other variants in quite large numbers. Two months ago variants were less than 5% of cases in France, but now the UK variant (B117) is very common, it seems to be around 1/3 - 1/2 of cases in most regions. But, what I find striking is the number of South African and Brazilian variant cases in Grand Est and Normandy. I've no idea why - anyone know?


But it feels there may actually be more risks in continental Europe in the other variants as well as the UK variant, which I'd not really thought about - partly because here there is a lot of sequencing and there's very low presence of the Brazilian or South African variants so they're not such an immediate issue, we're talking around 200 cases of both combined.

I think this does get to the need for all of Europe to get its act together on border controls and quarantines etc.

[Duque de Bragança]

But what about the IPA/micro-brewevery/hipster/etc. beer crowd? 

He may have been referring to the Bud drinkers.

If so, beer drinkers is debatable, to say the least.

[The Larch]

Germany has lifted the restrictions for the use of the Oxford - AstraZeneca vaccine in over 65s.

[Sheilbh]

Germany has lifted the restrictions for the use of the Oxford - AstraZeneca vaccine in over 65s.

That's very good news - from what I've read it'll make roll-out more administratively simple and hopefully other countries that restricted use will follow suit. I think France, Germany and Belgium have now all lifted restrictions.

[The Larch]

Germany has lifted the restrictions for the use of the Oxford - AstraZeneca vaccine in over 65s.

That's very good news - from what I've read it'll make roll-out more administratively simple and hopefully other countries that restricted use will follow suit. I think France, Germany and Belgium have now all lifted restrictions.

Sweden as well. I guess other countries will follow in due time.

[Threviel]

Two of my wifes colleagues have tested positive today, they became sick at the same time, so both probably caught it from someone else. Another one of her colleagues has sick kids and don't feel well, but continues to work anyway.

My wife had a horrible case of the shingles a few years ago and still suffers from pain. She usually gets very sick, fever is very hard on her. I'm quite worried if she were to catch Covid.