Coronavirus Sars-CoV-2/Covid-19 Megathread

[Sheilbh]

Really grim stats in CEE. Czechia is the worst hit country in Europe, Hungary has now had more fatalities than the UK and deaths in Bulgaria and Slovakia are rising fast - and none of them seem to be approaching a peak.

Given that those countries largely avoided/successfully managed the first wave almost all of these deaths have been in the last 4-5 months. I remember the sort of psychological impact of the first wave in London - where it felt grim and I think there was something similar in Bergamo and New York and Madrid. I imagine that's what people in those countries are going through now but possibly worse because it's such a huge number in such a short space of time

[Syt]

The leaders of Burgenland, Lower Austria and Vienna will meet tonight with the Austrian health minister to discuss the situation in Eastern Austria. There may be new restrictions coming in these three states - there's talk of making FFP2 masks in all indoor areas mandatory (which, I think, would be non-public work spaces at this point, as shops, public transports, railway stations etc. already have an FFP2 mask mandate), and more testing.

[The Larch]

It seems that Boris inserted his foot vehemently into his own mouth today during an internal adress to Tory MPs over Zoom when hailing the UK's success vaccines-wise. The scoop is from The Sun but appears reputable.

'GREEDY' JABS GAG
Boris Johnson risks fresh vaccine row over UK's 'greedy' jabs firms

BORIS Johnson risked inflaming the EU vaccines war tonight by saying "it was greed my friends" behind "our vaccine success".

The PM made the controversial comments in a private address to Tory MPs over Zoom earlier this evening.

He was hailing the efforts of "big pharma" in manufacturing the life-saving jab in lightning-quick time.

Boris has spent days trying to dial down the rhetoric and pleading with European leaders to abandon their threat to slap an export ban on vaccines. 
But he risked reigniting tensions with the continent last night as he boasted about how Britain stole the march.

He told MPs at the 1922 Committee: "The reason we have the vaccine success is because of capitalism, because of greed my friends."

He later added: "Actually I regret saying it."

And he asked MPs repeatedly to "forget I said that".

Sources say Mr Johnson singled out that AstraZenca were producing the vaccine at cost and thanked them for their brilliant work.

They also insist the PM was not discussing the ongoing row with Europe over jabs, but instead talking about the wider scientific endeavour.

Witnesses say the comments came as he hailed pharma giants for producing the jabs, adding: "It was giant corporations that wanted to give good returns to shareholders."

He added: "It was driven by big pharma - and I don't just mean the Chief Whip."

The PM's enforcer Mark Spencer was previously a farmer.

In his end of term address to Tory backbenchers, he also delighted them by savaging Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer.

He swiped: "You can take the lawyer out of Islington but you can't take Islington out of the lawyer."

He also took aim at the BBC claiming there are "moments where they approach fairness" adding there is a "degree of instinctive metropolitan bias in the BBC newsroom".

He added: "It's pretty clear from the whole Brexit experience that the BBC was pretty detached from a lot of its viewers and listeners and I hope they move more into line" with their viewers.

EU leaders have explosively threatened to block life-saving vaccine doses which are meant to be heading for Britain.

The chilling threat sparked fears of a global vaccine trade war and warnings Britain would be forced to block the export of key ingredients used in the Pfizer jab.

But after weeks of angry attacks, Britain and Germany appeared to be inching towards a compromise yesterday afternoon.

The PM told the No10 press conference tonight: "We don't believe in blockades of any kind of vaccines or vaccine materials. That's not something this country would dream of engaging in.

"We'll continue to work with European partners to deliver the vaccine rollout."

Boris said he was "encouraged" by the attitude of EU capitals towards finding a solution.

Very Gordon Gekko-ish, so 80s.

[Sheilbh]

They're all quite 80s - it explains a lot.

The greed point is arguabe because I don't think that's the motive behind capitalism. But I don't think it's entirely wrong to say capitalism and big pharma are behind the vaccine success. There's also the research and the state support behind it - I sort of would like more credit for Oxford and Emory University, BionTech etc - but I think it's also a big part of why we have 4-5 vaccines already in use around the world and why I think vaccinating the world is attainable. It is an incredible achievement for scientists but, regrettably, also for pharma companies (not AZ)

[Tamas]

Really grim stats in CEE. Czechia is the worst hit country in Europe, Hungary has now had more fatalities than the UK and deaths in Bulgaria and Slovakia are rising fast - and none of them seem to be approaching a peak.

Given that those countries largely avoided/successfully managed the first wave almost all of these deaths have been in the last 4-5 months. I remember the sort of psychological impact of the first wave in London - where it felt grim and I think there was something similar in Bergamo and New York and Madrid. I imagine that's what people in those countries are going through now but possibly worse because it's such a huge number in such a short space of time

Don't worry with most of the media in firm Fidesz hands, they are working hard to ease people's concerns.

I was just reading an absolutely horrifying account of one of her recent workdays from a Hungarian nurse, published on a reputable independent news site. Oxygen running out, beds brought in by the military to help, waiting rooms turned into wards. She later asked the site to put an additional comment on the end of the article, requesting people not to "involve politics" in the discussion of the article.  It's like the whole country is a victim in an abusive relationship. Yeah god forbid the people leading the country the last decade are held accountable for the conditions in hospitals and handling of the pandemic! Especially considering news tidbits like how various sport organisations have received far more extra funding in 2020 than hospitals and healthcare.

Even by official numbers we have more people in hospital per million inhabitants than Italy did this time last year and there's no end of the upward curve in sight yet.

I am really nervous and hoping my parents will get their Pfizer shots as scheduled tomorrow at the hospital, and manage to avoid being infected there and the next week or so, then they should be safe from ending up in hospital. It is just terrifying.

[viper37]

Situation is still flaring up in the country, other schools are closing, some for lack of teachers.  A 2 year old kid is hospitalized with severe covid-19 symptoms

Since we had zero covid cases for a while, we no longer had an active covid-19 unit in the regional hospital, so the sick patients are sent elsewhere, while the unit is reopened.
No definitive answers on the variant, but the B.1.1.7 (UK) is suspected, untile the sequencing is finished.  30 infected people in 12 different sites, but public health authorities are asking parents to isolate their kids for 10 days even if they have had a 1st negative results. 

Things were going so well.  All it took, as one idiot...

[Zanza]

Draft legislation for the EU Council tomorrow to limit vaccine exports was leaked.

Not an outright export ban, but will limit exports to countries that either are significantly further in their vaccination campaign or have significantly better infection numbers.

One country in both categories is the United Kingdom.

Also:

the EU will be able to block exports even if companies respect their contract but are backloading supplies to the end of the quarter

[Syt]

The leaders of Burgenland, Lower Austria and Vienna will meet tonight with the Austrian health minister to discuss the situation in Eastern Austria. There may be new restrictions coming in these three states - there's talk of making FFP2 masks in all indoor areas mandatory (which, I think, would be non-public work spaces at this point, as shops, public transports, railway stations etc. already have an FFP2 mask mandate), and more testing.

Meeting lasted into the night. Rumors are experts were advocating for a hard lockdown for 2-3 weeks, but the politicians wouldn't have any of it and supposedly only want masks in more places and encourage people to get tested more. Results to be presented some time today.

Meanwhile, the health speaker of the EPP in European Parliament (of which Chancellor Kurz's party is a member) slammed Kurz for his accusatory tone towards the EU when it's his political decisions that caused Austria to fall behind in vaccinations. Ouch.

[Tamas]

Draft legislation for the EU Council tomorrow to limit vaccine exports was leaked.

Not an outright export ban, but will limit exports to countries that either are significantly further in their vaccination campaign or have significantly better infection numbers.

One country in both categories is the United Kingdom.

Also:

the EU will be able to block exports even if companies respect their contract but are backloading supplies to the end of the quarter

Is there an actual shortage stopping EU countries from progressing, or preventing me and my wife to be vaccinated before the autumn is just a nice way to hide some cointries' incompetence in organising?

[celedhring]

Can't say about other countries (but we are all on roughly similar vaccinesx100k so I presume we all have similar usage), but outside AZ (which has been stopped for a week), we have no significant backlog of any vaccine. They get used as soon as they arrive.



(First column is vaccines received, second column shots given)

[Syt]

Share of people who have received at least one Covid shot:

[Zanza]

Is there an actual shortage stopping EU countries from progressing, or preventing me and my wife to be vaccinated before the autumn is just a nice way to hide some cointries' incompetence in organising?

Yes, there is an actual shortage. Didn't you read the news the last three months?

[Tamas]

Is there an actual shortage stopping EU countries from progressing, or preventing me and my wife to be vaccinated before the autumn is just a nice way to hide some cointries' incompetence in organising?

Yes, there is an actual shortage. Didn't you read the news the last three months?

Between the UK, and the growing horrorshow that is Hungary, I have had no emotional capacity for anything else.

[Syt]

There's reports that investigators found 29 million AZ doses in an AZ production facility in Italy?

[Sheilbh]

Draft legislation for the EU Council tomorrow to limit vaccine exports was leaked.

Not an outright export ban, but will limit exports to countries that either are significantly further in their vaccination campaign or have significantly better infection numbers.

One country in both categories is the United Kingdom.

Yeah. From the reporting here it seems this mainly relates to AZ - I think from the Dutch plant that is going to be authorised for EU use by the EMA this week. Apparently there is a stockpile there some of which is going to the UK. That'd be the first export of AZ from the EU to the UK since early January. From the reporting here the EU and UK are talking and likely (as two customers of AZ) work out a way to divvy up that stockpile that they think is fair.

But there is an Italian report of 29 million doses scheduled for the UK in Italy - which British reporters have said no-one knows about here. European reporters in Brussels say European sources dispute the figure is that high and say most of the doses are for Canada and Mexico so it seems like a little bit of a mystery. Assuming the UK wasn't expecting 29 million doses from Italy - which seems extraordinary and unlikely - then it probably won't have a massive impact on either vaccination campaign. Most of the UK's AZ vaccine has come from UK factories so we'd be talking in the low millions affected by this. The 10 million doses exported to the UK gets cited a lot but that is overwhelmingly Pfizer.

And from what I've read it seems unlikely that this ban will be imposed on Pfizer - which makes sense. That's the vaccine that the UK is entirely reliant on their Belgian manufacturing (and Moderna I think - but we've not had any of that yet), so restrictions there would have a real impact on the UK program. But also be a bit weird because Pfizer is broadly meeting their commitments and the UK is one of two manufacturers of a crucial raw material (the other is in the US for the US supply chain) so there might be retaliation that would severely reduce Pfizer's capacity in Belgium. But if there was export restrictions on Pfizer (and the UK didn't retaliate) it would delay the UK campaign by about two months - and speed up the EU campaign by about a week if they then used those vaccines.

Also:

the EU will be able to block exports even if companies respect their contract but are backloading supplies to the end of the quarter

My understanding is that's aimed at J&J. The fear is they're prioritising the US so they would meet their obligation to the EU but in a lump-sum in June rather than a steady supply.

Can't say about other countries (but we are all on roughly similar vaccinesx100k so I presume we all have similar usage), but outside AZ (which has been stopped for a week), we have no significant backlog of any vaccine. They get used as soon as they arrive.

I know I'm a stuck record on it - and this isn't to do with the EU but member states - but delaying the second dose would have a huge impact. It'd be about an extra 5% of population with a very high level of protection. And there is now real world data to support the approach - I think Germany, Denmark and Canada  among others are looking at it or have started delaying second doses.

The ECDC have a useful pan-European tracker:
https://vaccinetracker.ecdc.europa.eu/public/extensions/COVID-19/vaccine-tracker.html#uptake-tab