Coronavirus Sars-CoV-2/Covid-19 Megathread

[Valmy]

So learning to live with a low level Covid-19 epidemic?

I mean that is kind of what we do with all the other diseases.

[crazy canuck]

But yeah, I guess they should listen to you more often.  When are you planning to jump on the active politics field?

I doubt I would ever serve in any capacity beyond local government, and that is probably only after the kids are gone.

You are going to work on your phrasing before you enter higher office. 

[Sheilbh]

I generally think the UK press has handled vaccination-related stories pretty well (the worst, from what I've seen, was the Italian press). But they're currently reporting that William Shakespeare the first man to get the Pfizer vaccine once it was authorised has died of an unrelated illness. And as sad as that is on a purely human level, I'm not sure 81 year old man dies of illness is really news that needs to be reported.

I doubt it'll make much of an impact but just seems like a very weird decision

[celedhring]

I generally think the UK press has handled vaccination-related stories pretty well (the worst, from what I've seen, was the Italian press). But they're currently reporting that William Shakespeare the first man to get the Pfizer vaccine once it was authorised has died of an unrelated illness. And as sad as that is on a purely human level, I'm not sure 81 year old man dies of illness is really news that needs to be reported.

I doubt it'll make much of an impact but just seems like a very weird decision

Well, it's William Shakespeare! That's sure worth reporting.

[Tamas]

It's not every day such a massively overrated playwright dies.

[Valmy]

It's not every day such a massively overrated playwright dies.

How dare you? Now I know why the Brits voted Brexit so they can exclude East Europeans from this point forward.

[Sheilbh]

It's not every day such a massively overrated playwright dies.

[Sheilbh]

I generally think the UK press has handled vaccination-related stories pretty well (the worst, from what I've seen, was the Italian press). But they're currently reporting that William Shakespeare the first man to get the Pfizer vaccine once it was authorised has died of an unrelated illness. And as sad as that is on a purely human level, I'm not sure 81 year old man dies of illness is really news that needs to be reported.

I doubt it'll make much of an impact but just seems like a very weird decision

Well, it's William Shakespeare! That's sure worth reporting.

I feel that if your surname's Shakespeare, your one job as a parent is not to name any children you have "William".

[Jacob]

Oh this is charming:

Influencers say Russia-linked PR agency asked them to disparage Pfizer vaccine

French and German YouTubers, bloggers and influencers have been offered money by a supposedly UK-based PR agency with apparent Russian connections to falsely tell their followers the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine is responsible for hundreds of deaths.

Fazze, which said it was an "influencer marketing platform ... connecting bloggers and advertisers", claimed to be based at 5 Percy Street in London but is not registered there. On Tuesday, it closed its website and made its Instagram account private.

The agency contacted several French health and science YouTubers last week and asked them, in poor English, to "explain ... the death rate among the vaccinated with Pfizer is almost 3x higher than the vaccinated by AstraZeneca".

The influencers were told to publish links on YouTube, Instagram or TikTok to reports in Le Monde, on Reddit and on the Ethical Hacker website about a leaked report containing data that supposedly substantiates the claim.

The article in Le Monde is about data reportedly stolen by Russian hackers from the European Medicines Agency and later published on the Dark Web. It contains no information on mortality rates. The pages on the other two sites have been deleted.

The influencers were asked to tell their subscribers that "the mainstream media ignores this theme", and to ask: "Why some governments actively purchasing Pfizer vaccine, which is dangerous to the health of the people?"

The brief also included requests to "act like you have the passion and interest in this topic", and to avoid using the words "advertising" or "sponsored" in posts or videos because "the material should be presented as your own independent view".

...

According to LinkedIn, Fazze's management come from Moscow and have worked for an agency reportedly founded by a Russian entrepreneur.

French media have pointed to the similarities between Fazze's message and the official Twitter account of Russia's Sputnik V – a viral vector vaccine like AstraZeneca – which has repeatedly claimed "real world data" shows they are "safer and more efficient" than mRNA vaccines.

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2021/may/25/influencers-say-russia-linked-pr-agency-asked-them-to-disparage-pfizer-vaccine

[DGuller]

I may have said this before, but if asteroid was coming for earth, Russia would sabotage the efforts to destroy it if it judged the earth being hit by an asteroid to be in its interest.  The soulless sociopathy is sometimes hard to fathom.

[Sheilbh]

Concerningly it does look like hospitalisation rates are starting to pick up in the North-West. Not sure how alarming it is yet but clearly worth closely monitoring.

[Josquius]

I may have said this before, but if asteroid was coming for earth, Russia would sabotage the efforts to destroy it if it judged the earth being hit by an asteroid to be in its interest.  The soulless sociopathy is sometimes hard to fathom.

Not even in its interest.
Just less in its disinterest than other nations.

[Sheilbh]

Really informative John Burn-Murdoch update on indicators about the Indian variant which has now become dominant in the UK (although this is a bit like the Spanish variant which became dominant over last summer - it's in the context of quite low case numbers):
https://twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1397995388267810818

My take would be that it looks too soon to tell but I think there's reasons to be cautiously optimistic. It is definitely taking off. But the vaccine seems to be offering good protection to the elderly (the most vaccinated community) so the cases are far more slanted to the young, meaning there's a 75% reduction in deaths compared with similar case figures in autumn. It also seems to be peaking earlier. Hospital admissions are increasing (though from a very low base largely thanks to lockdown) - it seems to be a similar number of young people are hospitalised, but basically very low numbers of the elderly (which probably reflects vaccination status).

It's not fine and it needs to be monitored but in a lot of ways it looks different from previous waves/outbreaks because of the vaccines. I think he's also flagged that it's looking likely that, again as with the UK variant, the UK is a little bit ahead of other Western countries in terms of exposure to the Indian variant. It's become the dominant strain here, but it's also taking off in the US and I imagine will take off in Europe as well.

[Jacob]

Russia has plenty of COVID-19 vaccine doses. What's missing is trust
The silver-haired man with the microphone sounded frustrated and impatient as he fielded a question about how soon he thought the COVID-19 pandemic would end and what it would mean for life in Russia's capital.

"We are sick, we continue to be sick. People continue to die. At the same time, they do not want to be vaccinated," Sergei Sobyanin, Moscow's 62-year-old mayor, told a meeting of the city's municipal leaders.

What good is it to be the first country in the world to launch a mass vaccination campaign if no one takes advantage of it? he asked rhetorically.

"The percentage of vaccinated people in Moscow is less than in any European city, and for some, it is several times [less]. This is amazing," he said with exasperation.

...

Finding takers for Sputnik V
Just how reticent are Russians about getting Sputnik V?

As of the third week of May, only 11 per cent of the population — or 15.7 million people — had received at least one dose.  Less than eight per cent had received two doses.

In Canada, the U.K., the U.S. and many European nations, vaccination rates are either closing in on 50 per cent of the population with at least one dose or have already exceeded it, and the results appear to be reflected in improving COVID-19 case numbers.

...

In an editorial in Novaya Gazeta, Russia's leading independent publication, writer Kirill Martynov said the lack of trust in the vaccine mirrors a decline in trust in other Russian institutions.

Russian autocracy is not equipped for a successful fight against the pandemic, he wrote.

"In a closed, censored, corrupt society, citizens do not expect anything good from the state, and the vaccine is no exception."

https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/russia-covid-vaccine-rollout-sputnik-1.6041050

[viper37]

It's not every day such a massively overrated playwright dies.

How dare you? Now I know why the Brits voted Brexit so they can exclude East Europeans from this point forward.

You disapoint me, for someone practically French, there are tons of better written stuff on the other side of the Mare Britannicum