Translation
Sandrgen or Murray tested positive 4 days ago?
With Roland Garros just around the corner, get ready for our Survivors' Pool, You Can't Win Jack and Predictions contests.
For our SP players, remember: just the LAST NAME of the player, unless two players with the same last name play on the same day.
For our SP players, remember: just the LAST NAME of the player, unless two players with the same last name play on the same day.
Covid-19 Updates & Info
-
meganfernandez
- Posts: 4994
- Joined: Fri Dec 18, 2020 2:04 pm
- Has thanked: 2538 times
- Been thanked: 1759 times
-
shtexas
- Posts: 138
- Joined: Wed Dec 09, 2020 4:29 pm
- Location: USA
- Has thanked: 33 times
- Been thanked: 38 times
Re: Covid-19 Updates & Info
Murray. Sandgren had it in November.
-
shtexas
- Posts: 138
- Joined: Wed Dec 09, 2020 4:29 pm
- Location: USA
- Has thanked: 33 times
- Been thanked: 38 times
Re: Covid-19 Updates & Info
Or, looks like Sandgrenshtexas wrote: ↑Thu Jan 14, 2021 9:04 pmMurray. Sandgren had it in November.
From a NY Times article:
The American Tennys Sandgren, ranked No. 50, flew to Australia despite a recent positive test. He received special clearance after health officials determined that he was not infectious, because he showed no symptoms and had previously tested positive for the virus in November. “Some people who have recovered from Covid-19 and who are noninfectious can continue to shed the virus for several months,” the tournament said.
-
ti-amie
- Posts: 23774
- Joined: Wed Dec 09, 2020 4:44 pm
- Location: The Boogie Down, NY
- Has thanked: 5438 times
- Been thanked: 3378 times
-
Honorary_medal
Re: Covid-19 Updates & Info
Experts warn of vaccine stumbles ‘out of the gate’ because Trump officials refused to consult with Biden team
Even as covid-19 cases continue to overwhelm hospitals, the Trump administration has balked at close communication with its successor.
By
Laurie McGinley,
Amy Goldstein,
Lena H. Sun and
Isaac Stanley-Becker
Jan. 14, 2021 at 7:39 p.m. EST
The last time a presidential transition began during a national emergency — in 2008 amid the Great Recession — the outgoing Bush administration set aside partisanship to work closely with incoming Obama officials about how to deal with the economic collapse.
“Everyone was completely responsive to any question,” said Lawrence Summers, director of the National Economic Council under President Barack Obama. “They talked to us about major decisions.”
That smooth handoff is in stark contrast to what is happening now as President-elect Joe Biden prepares to assume power during a double-barreled crisis involving a lethal virus and its economic fallout that experts say demands close cooperation. Instead, as the coronavirus overwhelms U.S. hospitals and kills more than 3,300 people a day on average, the Trump administration has balked at providing access to information and failed to consult with its successors, including about distributing the vaccines that offer the greatest hope of emerging from the pandemic.
For more than a month, the Biden team pressed to attend meetings that offered “real-time information on production and distribution of vaccine” — important details for the president-elect’s advisers debating ways to bring the pandemic under control, said a transition official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss private interactions.
While health agencies’ career staff have been helpful, it was not until this week that Biden officials were allowed to attend meetings of Operation Warp Speed, the administration’s initiative to accelerate vaccine development and distribution. They were also not invited to the two Warp Speed sessions this weekend when Trump officials decided on sweeping changes to try to speed up the sluggish vaccine rollout. Nor were they briefed on those changes in advance.
While some of those policies mirrored Biden plans, others raised red flags among the president-elect’s advisers. One is a recommendation to offer vaccines immediately to tens of millions under 65 who have high-risk medical conditions — a change the Biden team fears could overwhelm state supply and already stressed sign-up systems, while creating unrealistic expectations for those eager to get inoculated.
Another new policy, involving the controversial question of whether to penalize slower-moving states, was supposed to take effect the week after Biden becomes president. State officials said they were uncertain about whether to take the new policy seriously or to brush it off because it seemed to lack support from the incoming administration.
But on Thursday, Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont (D) tweeted that federal officials had notified the state that it would receive an additional 50,000 doses next week “as a reward for being among the fastest states” to get shots into arms. West Virginia, meanwhile, which is moving at the fastest clip based on Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data, did not get any additional doses, said Holli Nelson, a spokeswoman for the state’s National Guard. A Health and Human Services spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Biden transition official also said it took the transition team several weeks to get access to Tiberius, a data system that would have helped officials understand earlier “where vaccine is going, which states are ordering, when it is moving.”
“Look, we are still prepared to meet our goal of 100 million shots in 100 days,” the official said, referring to a commitment Biden made in early December. “But it would have been a lot more helpful if we’d had access to real-time information.”
On Thursday afternoon, another senior Biden official described “uneven cooperation” from the Trump administration. He spoke on the condition of anonymity in advance of Biden’s speech Thursday night calling on Congress for an additional $400 billion to fight the pandemic, including $20 billion for a national vaccination program.
The lack of coordination has alarmed public health officials and experts on presidential transitions, especially as a more contagious virus variant first identified in Britain spreads across the United States and the CDC projects as many as 477,000 covid-19 deaths by Feb. 6.
The dearth of coordination “means we are stumbling out of the gate with the vaccine,” said Douglas Brinkley, a presidential historian at Rice University. “We are failing at a government level on distribution because there is no game plan. There is a chaotic Trump one and a learning-curve Biden one.”
The decision to urge states to immediately vaccinate a much larger pool of people — about 81 million between the ages of 16 and 64 with high-risk medical conditions — was “absolutely inappropriate,” said Michael Osterholm, a member of Biden’s covid-19 advisory board and director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota.
“When you make a recommendation that … far exceeds the number of doses that are available for the foreseeable future, that’s not helpful,” Osterholm said. “It only creates confusion, frustration, and frankly, a lack of trust in the system.”
HHS Secretary Alex Azar and other Warp Speed officials said they made the decision to dramatically increase eligibility because too many doses are sitting in freezers and they have greater confidence in a reliable supply of vaccines.
A senior Trump official denied there was any effort to keep Biden in the dark about Warp Speed activities. The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations said that while Biden officials have only recently been invited to Warp Speed meetings, they have been regularly briefed on what has been discussed.
The official said it was not appropriate for the Biden team to take part in making decisions because the United States has “one government at a time.” He added that when Biden becomes president, “they can change everything if they want.”
In a statement, an HHS spokesman said the agency “is committed to smooth, professional transition planning" and has been holding briefings with the Biden team as needed.
Tensions between incoming and outgoing administrations aren’t unusual — the post-election period between Democrat Harry S. Truman and Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower in the early 1950s was especially acrimonious, for example. But it’s hard to imagine a transition more fraught than this one, with a president raging against the election results as a deadly pandemic spreads out of control.
“It’s a very bad TV show that I would stop watching because it is so unbelievable,” said Howard Markel, a medical historian at the University of Michigan.
The transition initially was stalled when the General Services Administration, headed by a Trump appointee, refused to recognize Biden’s victory and provide funding to his transition team. The GSA administrator reversed course on Nov. 23. But even when Trump career officials were told they could talk to the Biden team, they were permitted to share only publicly available information, said an administration health official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal matters. “After that, we could share nonpublic information, but it had to be cleared first.”
Even if the Trump team chose not to cooperate with Biden in some areas, there should have been a free flow of information on vaccines, said the Trump health official, who compares the current crisis to a war. “The pandemic should have been a DPZ — depoliticized zone,” he added.
Brinkley shared that view. “Operation Warp Speed should be deeply bipartisan,” with a constant exchange of information, he said. “The fact that has not been happening with Trump is because he’s called it a fraudulent election. Why would I give data to somebody who is a fake president-elect?”
Max Stier, president and CEO of the Partnership for Public Service and an expert on presidential transitions, described handoffs of power as a relay race in which runners have to pass the baton. “You run side by side as fast as possible so you can win,” he said. “You don’t want it to be a start-and-stop strategy, you want it to be a smooth handoff.”
“Because your decisions might only last for another week, there should be an alignment” with the incoming administration, he added.
Despite the challenges, Biden and his team have scooped up extensive information about coronavirus vaccine production and distribution from long-standing contacts in pharmaceutical companies and federal agencies. And they have gotten information through back channels from career staff working “off the clock” and using personal email accounts.
Jeffrey P. Koplan, a former director of the CDC, said it was “shocking” that members of the outgoing administration hadn’t involved Biden’s team in their decision-making.
“It’s not rocket science — it’s been done before,” said Koplan, who was head of the CDC under both Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.
There also was much more discussion and cooperation in prior transitions on a range of health issues, said Nicole Lurie, who is advising the Biden team, participated in the Obama transition and later served as Obama’s assistant secretary for preparedness and response at HHS.
“I knew the person who had been in the role before me, we had a period of overlap, and there was just a lot of information-sharing,” Lurie said. “It’s nowhere near as complicated as it is now.”
While the Bush-Obama handoff is often cited as a model, a well-functioning transition has been regarded by leaders of both parties as an important goal until very recently, according to former administration officials and historians.
Through most of the 20th century, outgoing and incoming presidents were occasionally antagonistic, such as in the transition between Herbert Hoover and Franklin D. Roosevelt in the early 1930s, Brinkley said. Yet even in those times, it was thought that “the crown jewel of American democracy is the smooth transition. You go out for political combat for two years” until the election, followed by a seamless transition, he said.
Partisanship intensified in the 1990s, he said. But even after the 2000 election, which was contested for more than a month before being decided by the Supreme Court, Bill Clinton’s staff provided the George W. Bush team with intelligence data on al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups. That occurred before it was clear that Bush — not Clinton’s vice president, Al Gore — would be the next president, Brinkley noted.
Recalling the drawn-out election battle, Summers, who in 2000 was Clinton’s outgoing treasury secretary, said, “We didn’t think what happened was fair or legitimate. But it didn’t occur to anyone to not concede, or to not work with the transition once the Supreme Court ruled.”
Said Brinkley: “It used to be seen as anti-American not to have a smooth transition.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2 ... p-vaccine/
Even as covid-19 cases continue to overwhelm hospitals, the Trump administration has balked at close communication with its successor.
By
Laurie McGinley,
Amy Goldstein,
Lena H. Sun and
Isaac Stanley-Becker
Jan. 14, 2021 at 7:39 p.m. EST
The last time a presidential transition began during a national emergency — in 2008 amid the Great Recession — the outgoing Bush administration set aside partisanship to work closely with incoming Obama officials about how to deal with the economic collapse.
“Everyone was completely responsive to any question,” said Lawrence Summers, director of the National Economic Council under President Barack Obama. “They talked to us about major decisions.”
That smooth handoff is in stark contrast to what is happening now as President-elect Joe Biden prepares to assume power during a double-barreled crisis involving a lethal virus and its economic fallout that experts say demands close cooperation. Instead, as the coronavirus overwhelms U.S. hospitals and kills more than 3,300 people a day on average, the Trump administration has balked at providing access to information and failed to consult with its successors, including about distributing the vaccines that offer the greatest hope of emerging from the pandemic.
For more than a month, the Biden team pressed to attend meetings that offered “real-time information on production and distribution of vaccine” — important details for the president-elect’s advisers debating ways to bring the pandemic under control, said a transition official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss private interactions.
While health agencies’ career staff have been helpful, it was not until this week that Biden officials were allowed to attend meetings of Operation Warp Speed, the administration’s initiative to accelerate vaccine development and distribution. They were also not invited to the two Warp Speed sessions this weekend when Trump officials decided on sweeping changes to try to speed up the sluggish vaccine rollout. Nor were they briefed on those changes in advance.
While some of those policies mirrored Biden plans, others raised red flags among the president-elect’s advisers. One is a recommendation to offer vaccines immediately to tens of millions under 65 who have high-risk medical conditions — a change the Biden team fears could overwhelm state supply and already stressed sign-up systems, while creating unrealistic expectations for those eager to get inoculated.
Another new policy, involving the controversial question of whether to penalize slower-moving states, was supposed to take effect the week after Biden becomes president. State officials said they were uncertain about whether to take the new policy seriously or to brush it off because it seemed to lack support from the incoming administration.
But on Thursday, Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont (D) tweeted that federal officials had notified the state that it would receive an additional 50,000 doses next week “as a reward for being among the fastest states” to get shots into arms. West Virginia, meanwhile, which is moving at the fastest clip based on Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data, did not get any additional doses, said Holli Nelson, a spokeswoman for the state’s National Guard. A Health and Human Services spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Biden transition official also said it took the transition team several weeks to get access to Tiberius, a data system that would have helped officials understand earlier “where vaccine is going, which states are ordering, when it is moving.”
“Look, we are still prepared to meet our goal of 100 million shots in 100 days,” the official said, referring to a commitment Biden made in early December. “But it would have been a lot more helpful if we’d had access to real-time information.”
On Thursday afternoon, another senior Biden official described “uneven cooperation” from the Trump administration. He spoke on the condition of anonymity in advance of Biden’s speech Thursday night calling on Congress for an additional $400 billion to fight the pandemic, including $20 billion for a national vaccination program.
The lack of coordination has alarmed public health officials and experts on presidential transitions, especially as a more contagious virus variant first identified in Britain spreads across the United States and the CDC projects as many as 477,000 covid-19 deaths by Feb. 6.
The dearth of coordination “means we are stumbling out of the gate with the vaccine,” said Douglas Brinkley, a presidential historian at Rice University. “We are failing at a government level on distribution because there is no game plan. There is a chaotic Trump one and a learning-curve Biden one.”
The decision to urge states to immediately vaccinate a much larger pool of people — about 81 million between the ages of 16 and 64 with high-risk medical conditions — was “absolutely inappropriate,” said Michael Osterholm, a member of Biden’s covid-19 advisory board and director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota.
“When you make a recommendation that … far exceeds the number of doses that are available for the foreseeable future, that’s not helpful,” Osterholm said. “It only creates confusion, frustration, and frankly, a lack of trust in the system.”
HHS Secretary Alex Azar and other Warp Speed officials said they made the decision to dramatically increase eligibility because too many doses are sitting in freezers and they have greater confidence in a reliable supply of vaccines.
A senior Trump official denied there was any effort to keep Biden in the dark about Warp Speed activities. The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations said that while Biden officials have only recently been invited to Warp Speed meetings, they have been regularly briefed on what has been discussed.
The official said it was not appropriate for the Biden team to take part in making decisions because the United States has “one government at a time.” He added that when Biden becomes president, “they can change everything if they want.”
In a statement, an HHS spokesman said the agency “is committed to smooth, professional transition planning" and has been holding briefings with the Biden team as needed.
Tensions between incoming and outgoing administrations aren’t unusual — the post-election period between Democrat Harry S. Truman and Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower in the early 1950s was especially acrimonious, for example. But it’s hard to imagine a transition more fraught than this one, with a president raging against the election results as a deadly pandemic spreads out of control.
“It’s a very bad TV show that I would stop watching because it is so unbelievable,” said Howard Markel, a medical historian at the University of Michigan.
The transition initially was stalled when the General Services Administration, headed by a Trump appointee, refused to recognize Biden’s victory and provide funding to his transition team. The GSA administrator reversed course on Nov. 23. But even when Trump career officials were told they could talk to the Biden team, they were permitted to share only publicly available information, said an administration health official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal matters. “After that, we could share nonpublic information, but it had to be cleared first.”
Even if the Trump team chose not to cooperate with Biden in some areas, there should have been a free flow of information on vaccines, said the Trump health official, who compares the current crisis to a war. “The pandemic should have been a DPZ — depoliticized zone,” he added.
Brinkley shared that view. “Operation Warp Speed should be deeply bipartisan,” with a constant exchange of information, he said. “The fact that has not been happening with Trump is because he’s called it a fraudulent election. Why would I give data to somebody who is a fake president-elect?”
Max Stier, president and CEO of the Partnership for Public Service and an expert on presidential transitions, described handoffs of power as a relay race in which runners have to pass the baton. “You run side by side as fast as possible so you can win,” he said. “You don’t want it to be a start-and-stop strategy, you want it to be a smooth handoff.”
“Because your decisions might only last for another week, there should be an alignment” with the incoming administration, he added.
Despite the challenges, Biden and his team have scooped up extensive information about coronavirus vaccine production and distribution from long-standing contacts in pharmaceutical companies and federal agencies. And they have gotten information through back channels from career staff working “off the clock” and using personal email accounts.
Jeffrey P. Koplan, a former director of the CDC, said it was “shocking” that members of the outgoing administration hadn’t involved Biden’s team in their decision-making.
“It’s not rocket science — it’s been done before,” said Koplan, who was head of the CDC under both Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.
There also was much more discussion and cooperation in prior transitions on a range of health issues, said Nicole Lurie, who is advising the Biden team, participated in the Obama transition and later served as Obama’s assistant secretary for preparedness and response at HHS.
“I knew the person who had been in the role before me, we had a period of overlap, and there was just a lot of information-sharing,” Lurie said. “It’s nowhere near as complicated as it is now.”
While the Bush-Obama handoff is often cited as a model, a well-functioning transition has been regarded by leaders of both parties as an important goal until very recently, according to former administration officials and historians.
Through most of the 20th century, outgoing and incoming presidents were occasionally antagonistic, such as in the transition between Herbert Hoover and Franklin D. Roosevelt in the early 1930s, Brinkley said. Yet even in those times, it was thought that “the crown jewel of American democracy is the smooth transition. You go out for political combat for two years” until the election, followed by a seamless transition, he said.
Partisanship intensified in the 1990s, he said. But even after the 2000 election, which was contested for more than a month before being decided by the Supreme Court, Bill Clinton’s staff provided the George W. Bush team with intelligence data on al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups. That occurred before it was clear that Bush — not Clinton’s vice president, Al Gore — would be the next president, Brinkley noted.
Recalling the drawn-out election battle, Summers, who in 2000 was Clinton’s outgoing treasury secretary, said, “We didn’t think what happened was fair or legitimate. But it didn’t occur to anyone to not concede, or to not work with the transition once the Supreme Court ruled.”
Said Brinkley: “It used to be seen as anti-American not to have a smooth transition.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2 ... p-vaccine/
“Do not grow old, no matter how long you live. Never cease to stand like curious children before the Great Mystery into which we were born.” Albert Einstein
-
Togtdyalttai
- Posts: 676
- Joined: Thu Dec 10, 2020 8:59 pm
- Location: Maryland
- Has thanked: 83 times
- Been thanked: 124 times
Re: Covid-19 Updates & Info
California announced yesterday that it's allowing seniors 65+ to get the vaccine now. However, our counties aren't exactly stock full of vaccine. There's two places in San Diego that I know of which are giving out vaccine to people 65+, the grocery store Ralph's and UC San Diego. I tried to get an appointment at Ralph's for my mom (gracie on TAT1) but there's none to be had, and she's not a patient in UC San Diego's health system so I doubt she can get in. I have a feeling the situation won't change much in the near future. 
-
shtexas
- Posts: 138
- Joined: Wed Dec 09, 2020 4:29 pm
- Location: USA
- Has thanked: 33 times
- Been thanked: 38 times
Re: Covid-19 Updates & Info
Try UC San Diego anyway. See if you can open a patient portal for her and then request an appointment. One hospital system here is now allowing that.Togtdyalttai wrote: ↑Fri Jan 15, 2021 4:24 am California announced yesterday that it's allowing seniors 65+ to get the vaccine now. However, our counties aren't exactly stock full of vaccine. There's two places in San Diego that I know of which are giving out vaccine to people 65+, the grocery store Ralph's and UC San Diego. I tried to get an appointment at Ralph's for my mom (gracie on TAT1) but there's none to be had, and she's not a patient in UC San Diego's health system so I doubt she can get in. I have a feeling the situation won't change much in the near future.
-
Liamvalid
- Posts: 661
- Joined: Wed Dec 09, 2020 7:44 pm
- Location: Liverpool
- Has thanked: 78 times
- Been thanked: 140 times
Re: Covid-19 Updates & Info
We're still in full lockdown in the UK, only essential stores that sell food allowed to open until the end of Feb. We are getting the vaccine rolled out pretty quickly though. My team at work have all been for their first dose (I was a volunteer for the Oxford vaccine last year and have just been unblinded-I did have the vaccine and not the placebo). I work for the NHS so am still working at the moment but with the weather being so crap i'm quite happy staying home on lockdown after work. Hope all you guys are safe and healthy
Mary, queen of shots
-
Suliso
- Posts: 4465
- Joined: Fri Dec 11, 2020 2:30 pm
- Location: Basel, Switzerland
- Has thanked: 279 times
- Been thanked: 1496 times
Re: Covid-19 Updates & Info
We're moving to a stronger form of lockdown here in Switzerland from Monday, also till the end of February. No chance of me getting a vaccine anytime soon as I'm not in any kind of risk/preferred category. I'm a research scientist, but not directly involved in lab work anymore so I go to the office only once per week. My team working on site full time, though. So far lucky - no one I know has caught the virus in a bad way. Not that worried about myself, more about parents back in Latvia who're in their seventies now and not able to lock down completely either. And of course the life is really boring now, but I guess that's better than being ill...
-
ponchi101
- Site Admin
- Posts: 14952
- Joined: Mon Dec 07, 2020 4:40 pm
- Location: New Macondo
- Has thanked: 3910 times
- Been thanked: 5729 times
- Contact:
Re: Covid-19 Updates & Info
Strange news from back home (Venezuela).
A friend of the GF had a niece that gave a Bday party (I know, the story already starts with the wrong foot). The friend did not go because he thought it was irresponsible. So, as expected, somebody had the virus and spread it. The entire family had to be tested and went into quarantine.
To their surprise, three of the younger cousins showed they had had the virus a while back. None ever showed any symptoms. A reminder that a lot of people get it and are asymptomatic. This virus is insane.
Bogota is under curfew until Monday. Business to open again, but only some categories. I at the stage in which I want to get an antibody test just to see if by any chance I got it and was asymptomatic too. I am pretty good with flus and colds (seldom get them) so that chance is there.
A friend of the GF had a niece that gave a Bday party (I know, the story already starts with the wrong foot). The friend did not go because he thought it was irresponsible. So, as expected, somebody had the virus and spread it. The entire family had to be tested and went into quarantine.
To their surprise, three of the younger cousins showed they had had the virus a while back. None ever showed any symptoms. A reminder that a lot of people get it and are asymptomatic. This virus is insane.
Bogota is under curfew until Monday. Business to open again, but only some categories. I at the stage in which I want to get an antibody test just to see if by any chance I got it and was asymptomatic too. I am pretty good with flus and colds (seldom get them) so that chance is there.
Ego figere omnia et scio supellectilem
-
dryrunguy
- Posts: 1573
- Joined: Thu Dec 10, 2020 6:31 am
- Has thanked: 693 times
- Been thanked: 1155 times
Re: Covid-19 Updates & Info
Here's the Situation Report released today. Mostly about incidence updates and international vaccination efforts. But while skimming it quickly, one paragraph really jumped out at me.
::
EPI UPDATE The WHO COVID-19 Dashboard reports 91.49 million cases and 1.98 million deaths as of 7am EST on January 15.
Despite initial concerns about public health and healthcare infrastructure in many countries, the continent of Africa continues to represent a small fraction of the global daily COVID-19 incidence. But while many African countries have demonstrated prolonged success in terms of containing COVID-19, daily incidence and mortality in Africa have been increasing sharply since early December. Daily incidence has increased by nearly 150% and daily mortality has more than tripled since December 1.
As a whole, Africa’s daily incidence has increased 36% over the past 2 weeks, but this trend is not consistent across all countries. Much of the recent surge has been focused geographically in the southern part of the continent as well as the coastal portion of West Africa. In total, 23 countries have reported increases in daily incidence of more than 50% over the past 2 weeks. Excluding the island nations, all but 4 of these—Burundi, Chad, Sudan, and Tanzania—are located in the South or West regions of Africa. The countries reporting steady or declining daily incidence over the past 2 weeks are more evenly distributed geographically, with 12 of the 16 located in the East, Central, and North regions; 2 in the South region; and 2 in West Africa.
At the highest end of the scale, 11 countries in Africa have reported increases in daily incidence of more than 300% over the past 2 weeks, including São Tomé and Principe at 3,400% and Liberia at 1,533%. São Tomé and Principe is currently reporting only 12 new cases per day, and Liberia is reporting 14; however, the drastic proportionate increase over the past several weeks is certainly cause for increased attention. While it is actually near the middle of African countries in terms of the relative change in daily incidence, South Africa (46% biweekly increase) continues to represent the majority of the daily incidence in Africa. South Africa is currently reporting 18,031 new cases per day, approximately 56% of the continent’s daily total. In terms of total daily incidence, Tunisia is #2 (2,663; 37% biweekly increase) and Nigeria is #3 (1,363; 57% increase). On a per capita basis, Seychelles is #1 in Africa with 369 daily cases per million population (587% increase), followed by South Africa (304) and Tunisia (225). In total, 24 African countries are reporting fewer than 5 new daily cases per million population, including 10 with fewer than 2.
UNITED STATES
The US CDC reported 22.97 million total cases and 338,351 deaths. Since January 8, the average US daily incidence has hovered between 240-250,000 new cases per day, and it appears as though the daily incidence could be leveling off to some degree. Looking at the monthly average, which smooths out some of the effects of delayed holiday reporting, the US could be approaching a peak or plateau. That being said, it has been less than 3 full weeks since the Christmas holiday weekend and less than 2 weeks since the New Year’s holiday weekend, so we are likely not yet seeing the full effects of holiday travel and gatherings on the national scale.
On January 12 and 13, the US reported 4,131 and 4,096 deaths, respectively. These are the second and third highest daily totals to date*, and this is the first time since the onset of the pandemic that the US reported more than 4,000 deaths on consecutive days. The current average daily mortality (3,357 deaths per day) is 17.5% higher than the peak of the initial US surge in April, and the average mortality has remained higher than the initial peak for 6 consecutive days. The US reported 23,502 new COVID-19 deaths in the past week, which exceeds the estimated 22,000 seasonal influenza deaths for the entire US 2019-20 influenza season. If the US is, in fact, approaching a peak or plateau in terms of daily incidence, we can expect mortality to continue increasing for at least the next 2-3 weeks.
*With the exception of April 15, when New York City reported more than 3,700 previously unreported probable deaths from the onset of its epidemic.
The US CDC reported 30.63 million vaccine doses distributed and 11.15 million doses administered (36.4%), including 1.23 million administered in long-term care facilities (LTCFs). The CDC vaccine tracker now includes data on the total number of people who have received at least 1 dose (9.69 million) and those who have received 2 doses of the vaccine (1.34 million people). These data are also available at the state level. The CDC also added a breakdown of the administered doses by manufacturer, with 6.53 million doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine and 4.62 million doses of the Moderna vaccine.
The Johns Hopkins CSSE dashboard reported 23.36 million US cases and 389,581 deaths as of 12:30pm EST on January 15.
VACCINE TRIALS & AUTHORIZATION On January 12, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) received the conditional marketing application for AstraZeneca/Oxford University’s SARS-CoV-2 vaccine. A press release from the EMA indicated that the application “will proceed under an accelerated timeline,” with the EMA issuing its recommendation as early as January 29. The short timeline is possible as a result of the EMA’s rolling review process, which enabled EMA officials to evaluate interim Phase 3 clinical trial data as they became available.
Additional reports of clinical trial results for the vaccine candidate developed by Sinovac (China) continue to emerge. Researchers conducting Phase 3 clinical trials conducted in multiple countries have reported varying levels of efficacy over the past several weeks. Previously, researchers in Turkey reported 91%, Brazil reported 78% efficacy, and Indonesia reported 65%. Multiple news media reports indicate that, earlier this week, researchers from Brazil’s Butantan Institute released new efficacy analysis that is considerably lower than previous estimates. The newest results estimate the Sinovac to be 50.4% efficacious at preventing COVID-19 disease. While this is still above the generally accepted threshold for a successful vaccine, it is much lower than the estimates for other vaccines currently in use, and the inconsistency in the Sinovac trial results, coupled with relatively low value in the most recent results, has raised concerns. Notably, the individual clinical trials utilized their own study designs, so the efficacy estimates may not be directly comparable between trials. To our knowledge, neither the full datasets nor peer-reviewed analysis have been published for any of the Phase 3 trials of the Sinovac vaccine. Following the announcement, officials in Malaysia and Singapore reportedly indicated that more data would be required before finalizing existing purchase agreements.
Researchers conducting clinical trials for the Johnson & Johnson (J&J)/Janssen candidate SARS-CoV-2 vaccine published interim Phase 1/2a trial data in The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM). The early-stage trials demonstrated that the J&J/Janssen vaccine generated neutralizing antibody response in 90% of participants after 29 days and in 100% after 57 days, and the vaccine exhibited an acceptable safety profile. This is encouraging news, but Phase 3 trial data will be important in terms of assessing the vaccine’s efficacy. The Phase 1/2a trials consisted of only 805 participants, but officials from J&J indicated that the results from much larger Phase 3 trials could be released by the end of January. In contrast to the vaccines already in use, the J&J/Janssen vaccine requires only a single dose, which could be an important tool in speeding vaccination efforts. A report published in The New York Times indicated that existing production capacity for the J&J/Janssen vaccine has not met the expected timeline, potentially 2 months behind schedule, which could slow its initial release once authorized for use.
INTERNATIONAL VACCINATION
EUROPE
Earlier this week, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced that vaccination operations will be conducted around the clock. He also indicated that vaccine production and supply are the biggest barriers currently, as opposed to vaccine administration. Public Health England reported that more than a third of adults aged 80 years and older in England have received at least 1 dose of the SARS-CoV-2 vaccine.
In Spain, record snowfall across the central region of the country reportedly delayed vaccination distribution and operations. Approximately, 350,000 doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine arrived this week at airports across the country, but the inclement weather resulted in the doses destined for Madrid to be diverted to the northern city of Vitoria. A senior government health expert indicated that he expected the overall impact to be limited in terms of the total doses administered, but future plans will need to be adapted to increase efforts in the affected areas. According to the Ministry of Health, Spain has administered approximately 60% of its 1.13 million doses.
To aid vaccine rollout in Germany, mass vaccination sites are being established in sports venues and concert halls, with the aim of establishing national capacity to administer 300,000 doses per day. Many of these facilities remain empty, however, as long-term care facilities remain the priority. Like many other countries, Germany’s vaccination effort has experienced delays. In the first 2 weeks of the vaccination campaign, only 533,000 doses were administered, approximately 40% of the 1.3 million doses it received. Germany is expected to receive 5.3 million doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine by mid-February as well as another 2 million doses of the Moderna vaccine by the end of March. Additionally, Germany is in the process of establishing new production facilities and converting existing facilities to manufacture various SARS-CoV-2 vaccines, some of which could be operational in the coming weeks.
AFRICA
The African Vaccine Acquisition Task Team announced that it has provisionally secured access to 270 million doses for African countries, including 50 million that are expected to be available by June. The allotment will include doses from multiple manufacturers, including AstraZeneca (via the Serum Institute in India), Pfizer, and Johnson & Johnson. These efforts are intended to supplement the doses provided through COVAX, which may only be enough to cover frontline healthcare workers. Acquiring enough doses is a financial concern for many African countries, and the Africa CDC director has encouraged countries with surplus supply to donate to countries in need to supplement the efforts of COVAX and Gavi to support 92 low- and middle-income countries, more than half of which are in Africa.
South Africa reportedly expects to receive 1 million doses of the AstraZeneca/Oxford University vaccine in January, with another 500,000 doses in February, manufactured by India’s Serum Institute. This total is expected to cover approximately half of South Africa’s Phase 1 priority group, frontline healthcare workers (1.25 million). Phase 2 will expand eligibility to other essential workers, individuals living in congregate settings, adults aged 60 and older, and those with underlying health conditions. The AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine is not currently authorized for use in South Africa, but regulatory officials will reportedly leverage the authorizations in other countries (e.g., UK, India) to permit the emergency use of an unregistered product. According to a report published in The Wall Street Journal, no vaccine manufacturers have yet filed applications for any kind of authorization; but this may not necessarily delay the vaccines’ availability for use in South Africa.
ASIA
Indonesia reportedly initiated its SARS-CoV-2 vaccination campaign after receiving shipments of China’s Sinovac vaccine. Indonesia will prioritize its frontline healthcare workforce (approximately 1.5 million people), largely due to high COVID-19 mortality among this group. Like other countries, Indonesia is facing challenges regarding vaccine hesitancy and opposition, including among healthcare workers, particularly in light of the recent Phase 3 clinical trial results from Brazil. Indonesian President Joko Widodo publicly received his vaccination this week in an effort to bolster community support. We have not identified a definitive list of priority groups for Indonesia, but new media outlets have reported multiple different strategies, including healthcare workers, older individuals, and younger individuals. Several news media reports indicate that social media “influencers” are among the highest priority groups. While many of these individuals are younger and at lower risk for severe COVID-19 disease and death, Indonesia hopes this approach can help build support for vaccination among the public and mitigate the effects of vaccine hesitancy and opposition.
China is also establishing large mass vaccination sites in an effort to scale up vaccine administration capacity. A recent surge in transmission—which has prompted regional “lockdowns,” including in Beijing—is a driver of the increased vaccination efforts. Concerns regarding the efficacy of Chinese-developed vaccines, as well as the lockdowns themselves, could be posing barriers to vaccination; however, analysis by Reuters indicates that China’s vaccination program is scaling up rapidly, surging from 1.5 million doses administered from July-November 2020 to 10 million doses as of January 13.
OCEANIA
Australia and New Zealand have both demonstrated the ability to effectively contain their respective COVID-19 epidemics. Considering their success in limiting transmission, both countries are reportedly delaying their vaccination campaigns until mid-to-late February. This extra time will allow health and regulatory officials to gather more information on the efficacy and safety of the various SARS-CoV-2 vaccines and vaccine candidates. Additionally, the delay will provide both countries an opportunity to better prepare their distribution plans.
In Australia, the government has announced that they plan to administer the Pfizer vaccine candidate to their highest priority groups and largely use the AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine for the broader population. The rationale for this decision seems to be based on the anticipation that Australia will receive the Pfizer vaccine first, but that the AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine will be manufactured domestically. The Australian first priority group includes, quarantine and border workers, frontline health care workers, and long-term care facility residents and workers, which could include approximately 700,000 people. The Australian government aims to vaccinate 80,000 people per week initially, with the goal of covering the entire country’s population by the end of 2021, using community partners like drug stores. In New Zealand, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced plans to vaccinate the country’s entire population (5 million), largely in the second half of 2021. New Zealand could begin with border control personnel and first responders in the spring, and it will prioritize areas with ongoing COVID-19 outbreaks, including healthcare workers, household contacts, and the general public in affected areas. New Zealand has actually developed phased vaccination priority groups for 3 different scenarios, based on the level of community transmission.
US VACCINE PRIORITIZATION Last week, the incoming Biden Administration announced that it intends to make nearly all of the existing US SARS-CoV-2 vaccine inventory available to states, rather than the current plan of reserving vaccine to ensure availability for second doses. Following the release of the Biden Administration plan, US Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar announced that the federal government will begin distributing the remaining reserve inventory to states even before President-Elect Biden takes office. Secretary Azar also recommended that states expand eligibility to all adults aged 65 and older as well as adults under the age of 65 with underlying health conditions that could put them at risk for severe COVID-19 disease or death. As part of this recommendation, the federal government will allocate doses to states based on their respective populations aged 65 and older. Secretary Azar argued that some states’ strict adherence to limited initial priority groups has slowed vaccinations and that the new policy would speed progress.
The sudden policy shift, with little warning and little financial or operational support for state and local officials responsible for implementing mass vaccination campaigns, has raised concerns among some experts. States are already conducting vaccination operations using their own priority groups—with substantial variation from state to state—some of which have caused confusion among the public regarding who is eligible or how to get vaccinated. Notably, this bulk expansion could include approximately 150 million adults nationwide, nearly half of the entire US population, all at once. Current production estimates project that the US could have 200 million doses available by the end of March; however, this is only enough to provide 2 doses for 100 million people, well short of the eligible population.
The new policy also deviates from the most recent guidance from the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, which recommends expanding to adults aged 75 and older and essential workers in Phase 1b—approximately 49 million people. Under the ACIP plan, adults aged 65 and older and adults with underlying health conditions would be included in Phase 1c. The absence of essential workers (e.g., those who cannot work remotely) from the new HHS guidance could delay vaccination for those who are most likely to be exposed, many of whom are racial and ethnic minorities who have been disproportionately affected during the pandemic. The change to expand eligibility more broadly does align with comments from some experts, who argue that the complex eligibility requirements from ACIP were too difficult to implement and could slow vaccination progress, but this is not necessarily the only consideration in terms of establishing priority groups. At this point, it is unclear how states will respond to the new recommendations.
US CDC TRAVEL & TESTING REQUIREMENTS The US has implemented COVID-19-related travel advisories and restrictions for most countries around the world (including the US itself) for many months, but it recently updated screening and testing requirements for inbound travelers. The new policy, which takes effect on January 26, requires all airline passengers arriving from another country to have a negative SARS-CoV-2 test or documentation of prior infection before they are permitted to enter the US. The negative test must be administered within 3 days of the flight’s departure, and in order to document prior infection, travelers must provide both the test results and a written letter from a licensed healthcare provider that attests to the traveler’s recovery. The new order supersedes a similar order issued in December that applied only to travelers arriving from the UK. The order explicitly addresses the emerging B.1.1.7 variant, although not by the lineage nomenclature, which provides indication that the new travel restrictions aim to limit the introduction of new, more transmissible variants to the US.
The B.1.1.7 variant has already been detected in numerous US states, including in individuals with no recent international travel. In particular, the variant was recently identified in a patient in New York state, which prompted New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio to call for a complete ban on travel from the UK. Notably, prohibiting travel from other countries will not prevent the introduction to the US, particularly because it is already circulating to some degree among the general public. With the advance warning from the UK and other countries, it is critical to use any time gained by the new testing requirements to expand surveillance capacity capable of detecting the emerging variants (e.g., genomic sequencing) before the variant is widespread. Additionally, recommended public health measures—including enhanced hygiene, physical distancing, and mask use—will be important tools to mitigating community transmission and limiting the impact of emerging variants on the public’s health as vaccination efforts continue to scale up.
EMA CYBERATTACK In December, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) was the victim of a cyberattack that targeted communications and data related to its SARS-CoV-2 vaccine evaluation and authorization process. The EMA immediately initiated an investigation to determine the extent of the breach and to identify the perpetrators. On January 12, the EMA issued an update indicating that some of the documents accessed during the attack had been published publicly on the internet. In an update issued today, the EMA reported that some of the leaked documents were altered prior to their publication. Notably, the update states that some of these correspondence were “manipulated by the perpetrators...in a way which could undermine trust in vaccines.” These deliberate efforts to spread disinformation are highly concerning, particularly in light of concerns about the existing level of hesitancy and opposition to the new SARS-CoV-2 vaccines. The statement makes it clear that the EMA and EU countries have not compromised in any way regarding the safety and efficacy of the vaccines available in Europe. The EMA is coordinating with law enforcement officials, and the investigation is ongoing.
VACCINATION INCENTIVES As vaccine eligibility in the US expands beyond Phase 1a to include members of the broader public, some employers are evaluating options that aim to encourage employees to get vaccinated once they become eligible. As we have covered previously, there are growing concerns regarding the level of hesitancy and opposition to SARS-CoV-2 vaccination, in the US and around the world. In an effort to combat vaccine hesitancy and opposition, some businesses are offering incentives for those who get vaccinated. For example, a hospital system in Houston, Texas, is reportedly offering employees a US$500 bonus if they get vaccinated. Similarly, Dollar General, which operates a national chain of retail stores, is offering its employees 4 hours’ pay to enable them to get vaccinated. As opposed to a bonus-style payment, this effort aims to allow employees who earn hourly wages the ability to take time off of work in order to get vaccinated without negatively impacting their income. Some experts and elected officials have proposed similar programs that would pay all individuals who get vaccinated, but none have yet come to fruition, at least not in the US.
Some experts have raised concerns about these kinds of payments, noting that they could be viewed as efforts to coerce individuals because the vaccines are risky or dangerous, which can feed existing anxiety and concern in others. The use of financial incentives could “unfairly tak[e] advantage of those...who have lost jobs, experienced food and housing insecurity, or slipped into poverty during the pandemic” and who may then view vaccination as a necessity “in order to...purchase food or pay rent.” The prospect of financial payment or other incentives could also potentially lead some individuals to deliberately delay vaccination in hopes of future compensation.
https://covid19.who.int/
::
EPI UPDATE The WHO COVID-19 Dashboard reports 91.49 million cases and 1.98 million deaths as of 7am EST on January 15.
Despite initial concerns about public health and healthcare infrastructure in many countries, the continent of Africa continues to represent a small fraction of the global daily COVID-19 incidence. But while many African countries have demonstrated prolonged success in terms of containing COVID-19, daily incidence and mortality in Africa have been increasing sharply since early December. Daily incidence has increased by nearly 150% and daily mortality has more than tripled since December 1.
As a whole, Africa’s daily incidence has increased 36% over the past 2 weeks, but this trend is not consistent across all countries. Much of the recent surge has been focused geographically in the southern part of the continent as well as the coastal portion of West Africa. In total, 23 countries have reported increases in daily incidence of more than 50% over the past 2 weeks. Excluding the island nations, all but 4 of these—Burundi, Chad, Sudan, and Tanzania—are located in the South or West regions of Africa. The countries reporting steady or declining daily incidence over the past 2 weeks are more evenly distributed geographically, with 12 of the 16 located in the East, Central, and North regions; 2 in the South region; and 2 in West Africa.
At the highest end of the scale, 11 countries in Africa have reported increases in daily incidence of more than 300% over the past 2 weeks, including São Tomé and Principe at 3,400% and Liberia at 1,533%. São Tomé and Principe is currently reporting only 12 new cases per day, and Liberia is reporting 14; however, the drastic proportionate increase over the past several weeks is certainly cause for increased attention. While it is actually near the middle of African countries in terms of the relative change in daily incidence, South Africa (46% biweekly increase) continues to represent the majority of the daily incidence in Africa. South Africa is currently reporting 18,031 new cases per day, approximately 56% of the continent’s daily total. In terms of total daily incidence, Tunisia is #2 (2,663; 37% biweekly increase) and Nigeria is #3 (1,363; 57% increase). On a per capita basis, Seychelles is #1 in Africa with 369 daily cases per million population (587% increase), followed by South Africa (304) and Tunisia (225). In total, 24 African countries are reporting fewer than 5 new daily cases per million population, including 10 with fewer than 2.
UNITED STATES
The US CDC reported 22.97 million total cases and 338,351 deaths. Since January 8, the average US daily incidence has hovered between 240-250,000 new cases per day, and it appears as though the daily incidence could be leveling off to some degree. Looking at the monthly average, which smooths out some of the effects of delayed holiday reporting, the US could be approaching a peak or plateau. That being said, it has been less than 3 full weeks since the Christmas holiday weekend and less than 2 weeks since the New Year’s holiday weekend, so we are likely not yet seeing the full effects of holiday travel and gatherings on the national scale.
On January 12 and 13, the US reported 4,131 and 4,096 deaths, respectively. These are the second and third highest daily totals to date*, and this is the first time since the onset of the pandemic that the US reported more than 4,000 deaths on consecutive days. The current average daily mortality (3,357 deaths per day) is 17.5% higher than the peak of the initial US surge in April, and the average mortality has remained higher than the initial peak for 6 consecutive days. The US reported 23,502 new COVID-19 deaths in the past week, which exceeds the estimated 22,000 seasonal influenza deaths for the entire US 2019-20 influenza season. If the US is, in fact, approaching a peak or plateau in terms of daily incidence, we can expect mortality to continue increasing for at least the next 2-3 weeks.
*With the exception of April 15, when New York City reported more than 3,700 previously unreported probable deaths from the onset of its epidemic.
The US CDC reported 30.63 million vaccine doses distributed and 11.15 million doses administered (36.4%), including 1.23 million administered in long-term care facilities (LTCFs). The CDC vaccine tracker now includes data on the total number of people who have received at least 1 dose (9.69 million) and those who have received 2 doses of the vaccine (1.34 million people). These data are also available at the state level. The CDC also added a breakdown of the administered doses by manufacturer, with 6.53 million doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine and 4.62 million doses of the Moderna vaccine.
The Johns Hopkins CSSE dashboard reported 23.36 million US cases and 389,581 deaths as of 12:30pm EST on January 15.
VACCINE TRIALS & AUTHORIZATION On January 12, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) received the conditional marketing application for AstraZeneca/Oxford University’s SARS-CoV-2 vaccine. A press release from the EMA indicated that the application “will proceed under an accelerated timeline,” with the EMA issuing its recommendation as early as January 29. The short timeline is possible as a result of the EMA’s rolling review process, which enabled EMA officials to evaluate interim Phase 3 clinical trial data as they became available.
Additional reports of clinical trial results for the vaccine candidate developed by Sinovac (China) continue to emerge. Researchers conducting Phase 3 clinical trials conducted in multiple countries have reported varying levels of efficacy over the past several weeks. Previously, researchers in Turkey reported 91%, Brazil reported 78% efficacy, and Indonesia reported 65%. Multiple news media reports indicate that, earlier this week, researchers from Brazil’s Butantan Institute released new efficacy analysis that is considerably lower than previous estimates. The newest results estimate the Sinovac to be 50.4% efficacious at preventing COVID-19 disease. While this is still above the generally accepted threshold for a successful vaccine, it is much lower than the estimates for other vaccines currently in use, and the inconsistency in the Sinovac trial results, coupled with relatively low value in the most recent results, has raised concerns. Notably, the individual clinical trials utilized their own study designs, so the efficacy estimates may not be directly comparable between trials. To our knowledge, neither the full datasets nor peer-reviewed analysis have been published for any of the Phase 3 trials of the Sinovac vaccine. Following the announcement, officials in Malaysia and Singapore reportedly indicated that more data would be required before finalizing existing purchase agreements.
Researchers conducting clinical trials for the Johnson & Johnson (J&J)/Janssen candidate SARS-CoV-2 vaccine published interim Phase 1/2a trial data in The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM). The early-stage trials demonstrated that the J&J/Janssen vaccine generated neutralizing antibody response in 90% of participants after 29 days and in 100% after 57 days, and the vaccine exhibited an acceptable safety profile. This is encouraging news, but Phase 3 trial data will be important in terms of assessing the vaccine’s efficacy. The Phase 1/2a trials consisted of only 805 participants, but officials from J&J indicated that the results from much larger Phase 3 trials could be released by the end of January. In contrast to the vaccines already in use, the J&J/Janssen vaccine requires only a single dose, which could be an important tool in speeding vaccination efforts. A report published in The New York Times indicated that existing production capacity for the J&J/Janssen vaccine has not met the expected timeline, potentially 2 months behind schedule, which could slow its initial release once authorized for use.
INTERNATIONAL VACCINATION
EUROPE
Earlier this week, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced that vaccination operations will be conducted around the clock. He also indicated that vaccine production and supply are the biggest barriers currently, as opposed to vaccine administration. Public Health England reported that more than a third of adults aged 80 years and older in England have received at least 1 dose of the SARS-CoV-2 vaccine.
In Spain, record snowfall across the central region of the country reportedly delayed vaccination distribution and operations. Approximately, 350,000 doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine arrived this week at airports across the country, but the inclement weather resulted in the doses destined for Madrid to be diverted to the northern city of Vitoria. A senior government health expert indicated that he expected the overall impact to be limited in terms of the total doses administered, but future plans will need to be adapted to increase efforts in the affected areas. According to the Ministry of Health, Spain has administered approximately 60% of its 1.13 million doses.
To aid vaccine rollout in Germany, mass vaccination sites are being established in sports venues and concert halls, with the aim of establishing national capacity to administer 300,000 doses per day. Many of these facilities remain empty, however, as long-term care facilities remain the priority. Like many other countries, Germany’s vaccination effort has experienced delays. In the first 2 weeks of the vaccination campaign, only 533,000 doses were administered, approximately 40% of the 1.3 million doses it received. Germany is expected to receive 5.3 million doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine by mid-February as well as another 2 million doses of the Moderna vaccine by the end of March. Additionally, Germany is in the process of establishing new production facilities and converting existing facilities to manufacture various SARS-CoV-2 vaccines, some of which could be operational in the coming weeks.
AFRICA
The African Vaccine Acquisition Task Team announced that it has provisionally secured access to 270 million doses for African countries, including 50 million that are expected to be available by June. The allotment will include doses from multiple manufacturers, including AstraZeneca (via the Serum Institute in India), Pfizer, and Johnson & Johnson. These efforts are intended to supplement the doses provided through COVAX, which may only be enough to cover frontline healthcare workers. Acquiring enough doses is a financial concern for many African countries, and the Africa CDC director has encouraged countries with surplus supply to donate to countries in need to supplement the efforts of COVAX and Gavi to support 92 low- and middle-income countries, more than half of which are in Africa.
South Africa reportedly expects to receive 1 million doses of the AstraZeneca/Oxford University vaccine in January, with another 500,000 doses in February, manufactured by India’s Serum Institute. This total is expected to cover approximately half of South Africa’s Phase 1 priority group, frontline healthcare workers (1.25 million). Phase 2 will expand eligibility to other essential workers, individuals living in congregate settings, adults aged 60 and older, and those with underlying health conditions. The AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine is not currently authorized for use in South Africa, but regulatory officials will reportedly leverage the authorizations in other countries (e.g., UK, India) to permit the emergency use of an unregistered product. According to a report published in The Wall Street Journal, no vaccine manufacturers have yet filed applications for any kind of authorization; but this may not necessarily delay the vaccines’ availability for use in South Africa.
ASIA
Indonesia reportedly initiated its SARS-CoV-2 vaccination campaign after receiving shipments of China’s Sinovac vaccine. Indonesia will prioritize its frontline healthcare workforce (approximately 1.5 million people), largely due to high COVID-19 mortality among this group. Like other countries, Indonesia is facing challenges regarding vaccine hesitancy and opposition, including among healthcare workers, particularly in light of the recent Phase 3 clinical trial results from Brazil. Indonesian President Joko Widodo publicly received his vaccination this week in an effort to bolster community support. We have not identified a definitive list of priority groups for Indonesia, but new media outlets have reported multiple different strategies, including healthcare workers, older individuals, and younger individuals. Several news media reports indicate that social media “influencers” are among the highest priority groups. While many of these individuals are younger and at lower risk for severe COVID-19 disease and death, Indonesia hopes this approach can help build support for vaccination among the public and mitigate the effects of vaccine hesitancy and opposition.
China is also establishing large mass vaccination sites in an effort to scale up vaccine administration capacity. A recent surge in transmission—which has prompted regional “lockdowns,” including in Beijing—is a driver of the increased vaccination efforts. Concerns regarding the efficacy of Chinese-developed vaccines, as well as the lockdowns themselves, could be posing barriers to vaccination; however, analysis by Reuters indicates that China’s vaccination program is scaling up rapidly, surging from 1.5 million doses administered from July-November 2020 to 10 million doses as of January 13.
OCEANIA
Australia and New Zealand have both demonstrated the ability to effectively contain their respective COVID-19 epidemics. Considering their success in limiting transmission, both countries are reportedly delaying their vaccination campaigns until mid-to-late February. This extra time will allow health and regulatory officials to gather more information on the efficacy and safety of the various SARS-CoV-2 vaccines and vaccine candidates. Additionally, the delay will provide both countries an opportunity to better prepare their distribution plans.
In Australia, the government has announced that they plan to administer the Pfizer vaccine candidate to their highest priority groups and largely use the AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine for the broader population. The rationale for this decision seems to be based on the anticipation that Australia will receive the Pfizer vaccine first, but that the AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine will be manufactured domestically. The Australian first priority group includes, quarantine and border workers, frontline health care workers, and long-term care facility residents and workers, which could include approximately 700,000 people. The Australian government aims to vaccinate 80,000 people per week initially, with the goal of covering the entire country’s population by the end of 2021, using community partners like drug stores. In New Zealand, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced plans to vaccinate the country’s entire population (5 million), largely in the second half of 2021. New Zealand could begin with border control personnel and first responders in the spring, and it will prioritize areas with ongoing COVID-19 outbreaks, including healthcare workers, household contacts, and the general public in affected areas. New Zealand has actually developed phased vaccination priority groups for 3 different scenarios, based on the level of community transmission.
US VACCINE PRIORITIZATION Last week, the incoming Biden Administration announced that it intends to make nearly all of the existing US SARS-CoV-2 vaccine inventory available to states, rather than the current plan of reserving vaccine to ensure availability for second doses. Following the release of the Biden Administration plan, US Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar announced that the federal government will begin distributing the remaining reserve inventory to states even before President-Elect Biden takes office. Secretary Azar also recommended that states expand eligibility to all adults aged 65 and older as well as adults under the age of 65 with underlying health conditions that could put them at risk for severe COVID-19 disease or death. As part of this recommendation, the federal government will allocate doses to states based on their respective populations aged 65 and older. Secretary Azar argued that some states’ strict adherence to limited initial priority groups has slowed vaccinations and that the new policy would speed progress.
The sudden policy shift, with little warning and little financial or operational support for state and local officials responsible for implementing mass vaccination campaigns, has raised concerns among some experts. States are already conducting vaccination operations using their own priority groups—with substantial variation from state to state—some of which have caused confusion among the public regarding who is eligible or how to get vaccinated. Notably, this bulk expansion could include approximately 150 million adults nationwide, nearly half of the entire US population, all at once. Current production estimates project that the US could have 200 million doses available by the end of March; however, this is only enough to provide 2 doses for 100 million people, well short of the eligible population.
The new policy also deviates from the most recent guidance from the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, which recommends expanding to adults aged 75 and older and essential workers in Phase 1b—approximately 49 million people. Under the ACIP plan, adults aged 65 and older and adults with underlying health conditions would be included in Phase 1c. The absence of essential workers (e.g., those who cannot work remotely) from the new HHS guidance could delay vaccination for those who are most likely to be exposed, many of whom are racial and ethnic minorities who have been disproportionately affected during the pandemic. The change to expand eligibility more broadly does align with comments from some experts, who argue that the complex eligibility requirements from ACIP were too difficult to implement and could slow vaccination progress, but this is not necessarily the only consideration in terms of establishing priority groups. At this point, it is unclear how states will respond to the new recommendations.
US CDC TRAVEL & TESTING REQUIREMENTS The US has implemented COVID-19-related travel advisories and restrictions for most countries around the world (including the US itself) for many months, but it recently updated screening and testing requirements for inbound travelers. The new policy, which takes effect on January 26, requires all airline passengers arriving from another country to have a negative SARS-CoV-2 test or documentation of prior infection before they are permitted to enter the US. The negative test must be administered within 3 days of the flight’s departure, and in order to document prior infection, travelers must provide both the test results and a written letter from a licensed healthcare provider that attests to the traveler’s recovery. The new order supersedes a similar order issued in December that applied only to travelers arriving from the UK. The order explicitly addresses the emerging B.1.1.7 variant, although not by the lineage nomenclature, which provides indication that the new travel restrictions aim to limit the introduction of new, more transmissible variants to the US.
The B.1.1.7 variant has already been detected in numerous US states, including in individuals with no recent international travel. In particular, the variant was recently identified in a patient in New York state, which prompted New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio to call for a complete ban on travel from the UK. Notably, prohibiting travel from other countries will not prevent the introduction to the US, particularly because it is already circulating to some degree among the general public. With the advance warning from the UK and other countries, it is critical to use any time gained by the new testing requirements to expand surveillance capacity capable of detecting the emerging variants (e.g., genomic sequencing) before the variant is widespread. Additionally, recommended public health measures—including enhanced hygiene, physical distancing, and mask use—will be important tools to mitigating community transmission and limiting the impact of emerging variants on the public’s health as vaccination efforts continue to scale up.
EMA CYBERATTACK In December, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) was the victim of a cyberattack that targeted communications and data related to its SARS-CoV-2 vaccine evaluation and authorization process. The EMA immediately initiated an investigation to determine the extent of the breach and to identify the perpetrators. On January 12, the EMA issued an update indicating that some of the documents accessed during the attack had been published publicly on the internet. In an update issued today, the EMA reported that some of the leaked documents were altered prior to their publication. Notably, the update states that some of these correspondence were “manipulated by the perpetrators...in a way which could undermine trust in vaccines.” These deliberate efforts to spread disinformation are highly concerning, particularly in light of concerns about the existing level of hesitancy and opposition to the new SARS-CoV-2 vaccines. The statement makes it clear that the EMA and EU countries have not compromised in any way regarding the safety and efficacy of the vaccines available in Europe. The EMA is coordinating with law enforcement officials, and the investigation is ongoing.
VACCINATION INCENTIVES As vaccine eligibility in the US expands beyond Phase 1a to include members of the broader public, some employers are evaluating options that aim to encourage employees to get vaccinated once they become eligible. As we have covered previously, there are growing concerns regarding the level of hesitancy and opposition to SARS-CoV-2 vaccination, in the US and around the world. In an effort to combat vaccine hesitancy and opposition, some businesses are offering incentives for those who get vaccinated. For example, a hospital system in Houston, Texas, is reportedly offering employees a US$500 bonus if they get vaccinated. Similarly, Dollar General, which operates a national chain of retail stores, is offering its employees 4 hours’ pay to enable them to get vaccinated. As opposed to a bonus-style payment, this effort aims to allow employees who earn hourly wages the ability to take time off of work in order to get vaccinated without negatively impacting their income. Some experts and elected officials have proposed similar programs that would pay all individuals who get vaccinated, but none have yet come to fruition, at least not in the US.
Some experts have raised concerns about these kinds of payments, noting that they could be viewed as efforts to coerce individuals because the vaccines are risky or dangerous, which can feed existing anxiety and concern in others. The use of financial incentives could “unfairly tak[e] advantage of those...who have lost jobs, experienced food and housing insecurity, or slipped into poverty during the pandemic” and who may then view vaccination as a necessity “in order to...purchase food or pay rent.” The prospect of financial payment or other incentives could also potentially lead some individuals to deliberately delay vaccination in hopes of future compensation.
https://covid19.who.int/
-
ponchi101
- Site Admin
- Posts: 14952
- Joined: Mon Dec 07, 2020 4:40 pm
- Location: New Macondo
- Has thanked: 3910 times
- Been thanked: 5729 times
- Contact:
Re: Covid-19 Updates & Info
Ok, so Australia and NZ have been successful with delaying the pandemic. And that is reason enough to delay vaccination? I don't know...
Ego figere omnia et scio supellectilem
-
Togtdyalttai
- Posts: 676
- Joined: Thu Dec 10, 2020 8:59 pm
- Location: Maryland
- Has thanked: 83 times
- Been thanked: 124 times
Re: Covid-19 Updates & Info
UC San Diego doesn't allow you to make an appointment. They're only "inviting" people to come get a vaccine. Maybe I'm too skeptical, but it seems to me like it would be a great system to allow for rampant corruption.shtexas wrote: ↑Fri Jan 15, 2021 5:32 amTry UC San Diego anyway. See if you can open a patient portal for her and then request an appointment. One hospital system here is now allowing that.Togtdyalttai wrote: ↑Fri Jan 15, 2021 4:24 am California announced yesterday that it's allowing seniors 65+ to get the vaccine now. However, our counties aren't exactly stock full of vaccine. There's two places in San Diego that I know of which are giving out vaccine to people 65+, the grocery store Ralph's and UC San Diego. I tried to get an appointment at Ralph's for my mom (gracie on TAT1) but there's none to be had, and she's not a patient in UC San Diego's health system so I doubt she can get in. I have a feeling the situation won't change much in the near future.
-
ti-amie
- Posts: 23774
- Joined: Wed Dec 09, 2020 4:44 pm
- Location: The Boogie Down, NY
- Has thanked: 5438 times
- Been thanked: 3378 times
-
Honorary_medal
Re: Covid-19 Updates & Info
Vaccine reserve was already exhausted when Trump administration vowed to release it, dashing hopes of expanded access
States were anticipating a windfall after federal officials said they would stop holding back second doses. But the approach had already changed, and no stockpile exists.
by
Isaac Stanley-Becker and
Lena H. Sun
Jan. 15, 2021 at 1:06 p.m. EST
When Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar announced this week that the federal government would begin releasing coronavirus vaccine doses held in reserve for second shots, no such reserve existed, according to state and federal officials briefed on distribution plans. The Trump administration had already begun shipping out what was available beginning at the end of December, taking second doses directly off the manufacturing line.
Now, health officials across the country who had anticipated their extremely limited vaccine supply as much as doubling beginning next week are confronting the reality that their allocations will remain largely flat, dashing hopes of dramatically expanding access for millions of elderly people and those with high-risk medical conditions. Health officials in some cities and states were informed in recent days about the reality of the situation, while others are still in the dark.
Because both of the vaccines authorized for emergency use in the United States are two-dose regimens, the Trump administration’s initial policy was to hold back second doses to protect against the possibility of manufacturing disruptions. But that approach shifted in recent weeks, according to the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter.
These officials were told that Operation Warp Speed, which is overseeing the distribution of vaccines, stopped stockpiling second doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine at the end of last year. The last shots held in reserve of Moderna’s supply, meanwhile, began shipping out over the weekend.
The shift, in both cases, had to do with increased confidence in the supply chain, so that Operation Warp Speed leaders felt they could reliably anticipate the availability of doses for booster shots — required three weeks later in the case of the Pfizer-BioNTech product and four weeks later under Moderna’s protocol.
But it also meant there was no stockpile of second doses waiting to be shipped, as Trump administration officials suggested this week. Azar, at a Tuesday briefing, said, “Because we now have a consistent pace of production, we can now ship all of the doses that had been held in physical reserve.” He explained the decision as part of the “next phase” of the nation’s vaccination campaign.
Those in line for their second shots are expected to get them on schedule since states are still getting regular vaccine shipments. But state and local officials say they are angry and bewildered by the shifting directions and changing explanations of supply.
The health director in Oregon, Patrick M. Allen, was so disturbed that he wrote Azar on Thursday demanding an explanation. “Earlier today, we became concerned when we discovered there were no additional doses available for allocation,” he said in the letter, which was reviewed by The Washington Post.
On a call with Perna earlier the same day, Allen wrote, the four-star Army general had “informed us there is no reserve of doses, and we are already receiving the full allocation of vaccines.”
“If true, this is extremely disturbing, and puts our plans to expand eligibility at grave risk,” Allen added. “Those plans were made on the basis of reliance on your statement about “releasing the entire supply” you have in reserve. If this information is accurate, we will be unable to begin vaccinating our vulnerable seniors on Jan. 23, as planned.”
HHS spokesman Michael Pratt confirmed in an email that the final reserve of second doses had been released to states for order over the weekend but did not address Azar’s comments this week, saying only, “Operation Warp Speed has been monitoring manufacturing closely, and always intended to transition from holding second doses in reserve as manufacturing stabilizes and we gained confidence in the ability for a consistent flow of vaccines.”
He also said states have ordered only about 75 percent of what is available to them.
Azar’s comments followed a Jan. 8 announcement by President-elect Joe Biden’s transition team that his administration would move to release all available doses, rather than holding half in reserve for booster shots. Biden’s advisers said the move would be a way to accelerate distribution of the vaccine, which is in short supply across the country.
When Azar embraced the change four days later — after initially saying it was shortsighted and potentially unethical to put people at risk of missing their booster shots — he did not say the original policy had already been phased out, or that the stockpile had been exhausted. Signaling to states that they would soon see expanded supply, he also urged them to begin vaccinating adults 65 and older and those under 64 with a high-risk medical condition. Officials in some states embraced that directive, while others said suddenly putting hundreds of thousands of additional people at the front of the line would overwhelm their capacity.
In subsequent conversations with state and local authorities, federal officials sought to temper those instructions, said people who participated in the conversations. Gustave F. Perna, chief operating officer of Operation Warp Speed, spoke directly to officials in at least two of the jurisdictions receiving vaccine supply, explaining that allocations would not increase and that they did not have to broaden eligibility as they had previously been told, according to a health official who was not authorized to discuss the matter.
The revised instructions led additional jurisdictions to hold off on broadening their priority groups. One state health official noted that the updated eligibility guidance announced Tuesday did not appear on the website of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, even though it was stated as federal policy by Azar and by Robert R. Redfield, the CDC director, in their remarks earlier this week. Under the original recommendations, adults 65 and older and front-line essential workers were to comprise the second priority group, known as phase 1b, in line after medical workers and residents and staff of long-term care facilities.
But the issue of supply was most troubling to state health officials.
“States were shocked and surprised that they did not see an increase in their allocations, and when they asked for explanations, some of them were told there was not a large stockpile of second doses to draw from,” said an official working with numerous states on vaccination planning who spoke on the condition of anonymity to recount sensitive conversations. “They thought they were getting more doses and they planned for more doses and opened up to 65 and up, thinking they were getting more.”
In an email that reached some state officials on Friday morning, Christopher Sharpsten, an Operation Warp Speed director, called it a “false rumor” that “the federal government was holding back vaccine doses in warehouses to guarantee a second/booster dose.”
But it had been Azar who said Tuesday that “we are releasing the entire supply we have for order by states, rather than holding second doses in physical reserve.”
There was additional confusion. Another change Azar announced this week — making allocation of doses dependent on how quickly states administer them — would not take effect for two weeks, he said.
But Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont (D) on Thursday tweeted that federal officials had notified the state that it would receive an additional 50,000 doses next week “as a reward for being among the fastest states” to get shots into arms. West Virginia, meanwhile, which is moving at the fastest clip based on CDC data, did not get any additional doses, said Holli Nelson, a spokeswoman for the state’s National Guard.
In a sign that the incentive structure may not be long-lived, a senior Biden transition official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to address ongoing deliberations, said this week the team did not look kindly on a system that “punishes states.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2 ... e-used-up/
States were anticipating a windfall after federal officials said they would stop holding back second doses. But the approach had already changed, and no stockpile exists.
by
Isaac Stanley-Becker and
Lena H. Sun
Jan. 15, 2021 at 1:06 p.m. EST
When Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar announced this week that the federal government would begin releasing coronavirus vaccine doses held in reserve for second shots, no such reserve existed, according to state and federal officials briefed on distribution plans. The Trump administration had already begun shipping out what was available beginning at the end of December, taking second doses directly off the manufacturing line.
Now, health officials across the country who had anticipated their extremely limited vaccine supply as much as doubling beginning next week are confronting the reality that their allocations will remain largely flat, dashing hopes of dramatically expanding access for millions of elderly people and those with high-risk medical conditions. Health officials in some cities and states were informed in recent days about the reality of the situation, while others are still in the dark.
Because both of the vaccines authorized for emergency use in the United States are two-dose regimens, the Trump administration’s initial policy was to hold back second doses to protect against the possibility of manufacturing disruptions. But that approach shifted in recent weeks, according to the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter.
These officials were told that Operation Warp Speed, which is overseeing the distribution of vaccines, stopped stockpiling second doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine at the end of last year. The last shots held in reserve of Moderna’s supply, meanwhile, began shipping out over the weekend.
The shift, in both cases, had to do with increased confidence in the supply chain, so that Operation Warp Speed leaders felt they could reliably anticipate the availability of doses for booster shots — required three weeks later in the case of the Pfizer-BioNTech product and four weeks later under Moderna’s protocol.
But it also meant there was no stockpile of second doses waiting to be shipped, as Trump administration officials suggested this week. Azar, at a Tuesday briefing, said, “Because we now have a consistent pace of production, we can now ship all of the doses that had been held in physical reserve.” He explained the decision as part of the “next phase” of the nation’s vaccination campaign.
Those in line for their second shots are expected to get them on schedule since states are still getting regular vaccine shipments. But state and local officials say they are angry and bewildered by the shifting directions and changing explanations of supply.
The health director in Oregon, Patrick M. Allen, was so disturbed that he wrote Azar on Thursday demanding an explanation. “Earlier today, we became concerned when we discovered there were no additional doses available for allocation,” he said in the letter, which was reviewed by The Washington Post.
On a call with Perna earlier the same day, Allen wrote, the four-star Army general had “informed us there is no reserve of doses, and we are already receiving the full allocation of vaccines.”
“If true, this is extremely disturbing, and puts our plans to expand eligibility at grave risk,” Allen added. “Those plans were made on the basis of reliance on your statement about “releasing the entire supply” you have in reserve. If this information is accurate, we will be unable to begin vaccinating our vulnerable seniors on Jan. 23, as planned.”
HHS spokesman Michael Pratt confirmed in an email that the final reserve of second doses had been released to states for order over the weekend but did not address Azar’s comments this week, saying only, “Operation Warp Speed has been monitoring manufacturing closely, and always intended to transition from holding second doses in reserve as manufacturing stabilizes and we gained confidence in the ability for a consistent flow of vaccines.”
He also said states have ordered only about 75 percent of what is available to them.
Azar’s comments followed a Jan. 8 announcement by President-elect Joe Biden’s transition team that his administration would move to release all available doses, rather than holding half in reserve for booster shots. Biden’s advisers said the move would be a way to accelerate distribution of the vaccine, which is in short supply across the country.
When Azar embraced the change four days later — after initially saying it was shortsighted and potentially unethical to put people at risk of missing their booster shots — he did not say the original policy had already been phased out, or that the stockpile had been exhausted. Signaling to states that they would soon see expanded supply, he also urged them to begin vaccinating adults 65 and older and those under 64 with a high-risk medical condition. Officials in some states embraced that directive, while others said suddenly putting hundreds of thousands of additional people at the front of the line would overwhelm their capacity.
In subsequent conversations with state and local authorities, federal officials sought to temper those instructions, said people who participated in the conversations. Gustave F. Perna, chief operating officer of Operation Warp Speed, spoke directly to officials in at least two of the jurisdictions receiving vaccine supply, explaining that allocations would not increase and that they did not have to broaden eligibility as they had previously been told, according to a health official who was not authorized to discuss the matter.
The revised instructions led additional jurisdictions to hold off on broadening their priority groups. One state health official noted that the updated eligibility guidance announced Tuesday did not appear on the website of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, even though it was stated as federal policy by Azar and by Robert R. Redfield, the CDC director, in their remarks earlier this week. Under the original recommendations, adults 65 and older and front-line essential workers were to comprise the second priority group, known as phase 1b, in line after medical workers and residents and staff of long-term care facilities.
But the issue of supply was most troubling to state health officials.
“States were shocked and surprised that they did not see an increase in their allocations, and when they asked for explanations, some of them were told there was not a large stockpile of second doses to draw from,” said an official working with numerous states on vaccination planning who spoke on the condition of anonymity to recount sensitive conversations. “They thought they were getting more doses and they planned for more doses and opened up to 65 and up, thinking they were getting more.”
In an email that reached some state officials on Friday morning, Christopher Sharpsten, an Operation Warp Speed director, called it a “false rumor” that “the federal government was holding back vaccine doses in warehouses to guarantee a second/booster dose.”
But it had been Azar who said Tuesday that “we are releasing the entire supply we have for order by states, rather than holding second doses in physical reserve.”
There was additional confusion. Another change Azar announced this week — making allocation of doses dependent on how quickly states administer them — would not take effect for two weeks, he said.
But Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont (D) on Thursday tweeted that federal officials had notified the state that it would receive an additional 50,000 doses next week “as a reward for being among the fastest states” to get shots into arms. West Virginia, meanwhile, which is moving at the fastest clip based on CDC data, did not get any additional doses, said Holli Nelson, a spokeswoman for the state’s National Guard.
In a sign that the incentive structure may not be long-lived, a senior Biden transition official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to address ongoing deliberations, said this week the team did not look kindly on a system that “punishes states.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2 ... e-used-up/
“Do not grow old, no matter how long you live. Never cease to stand like curious children before the Great Mystery into which we were born.” Albert Einstein
-
ti-amie
- Posts: 23774
- Joined: Wed Dec 09, 2020 4:44 pm
- Location: The Boogie Down, NY
- Has thanked: 5438 times
- Been thanked: 3378 times
-
Honorary_medal
Re: Covid-19 Updates & Info
Now we know why Tiny wouldn't share Covid info with the Biden transition team. There is no punishment too great for these people to be subjected to.
I wonder who the Wonder Boy sold it to and what his and Tiny's cut was.
Some are calling it incompetence. It's not that at all. It's criminals criming in plain sight.
I wonder who the Wonder Boy sold it to and what his and Tiny's cut was.
Some are calling it incompetence. It's not that at all. It's criminals criming in plain sight.
“Do not grow old, no matter how long you live. Never cease to stand like curious children before the Great Mystery into which we were born.” Albert Einstein
-
shtexas
- Posts: 138
- Joined: Wed Dec 09, 2020 4:29 pm
- Location: USA
- Has thanked: 33 times
- Been thanked: 38 times
Re: Covid-19 Updates & Info
I went out to pick up some Chinese food and passed a Church with a packed parking lot. First, I shuddered thinking of all those people in one place. Then, I got angry. This is one of the reasons the numbers are rising.
Who is online
Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 4 guests