International COVID-19 Megathread

[President Johnson]

50,000 cases per day passed today. A new all time record.

I think we need much stricter rules right now, especially moving to 2G rules (vaccinated and recovered only) in as much public places as possible and more remote working again, whereever possible.

[President Johnson]

This Corona winter will be probably the last Corona winter where I don't emigrate from Germany.  My countrymen have become to stupid to endure. Spain seems nice. Better weather too.

In other news, a meeting of the Conference of Minister-Presidents is scheduled for next Thursday where "2G" will (probably) be implemented for the entire country the following week. At that point, this will (probably) come three or four weeks too late. At least the measure seems to be effective in Austria: https://www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft/corona-virus-in-oesterreich-zahl-der-impfungen-steigt-deutlich-a-f75b6627-37e8-489a-b716-6721b9f9cdbc

Yeah, I don't get it either. I expected my countrymen to be smarter as a collective. Especially since Germans like to joke about Americans and Trump supporters for their anti-intellectualism.

[President Johnson]

It's only getting worse here so far.

https://twitter.com/dwnews/status/1460886424501186560

[President Johnson]

Germany largely implementing the so called 2G rule after Merkel and Scholz held a virtual summit with Minister-Presidents of the states. That means the unvaccinated are pretty much locked out of public life such as restaurants, barber shops, clubs etc. Exact rules will be determined by states and depend on hospitalization rate.

The president of the RKI (German CDC) Lothar Wieler made waves yesterday during an online summit with Saxony Minister-President Michael Kretschmer with frustrated remarks over the current situation. He criticized both unvaccinated people and politicians for neglance. He also said that 52,000 new infections yesterday would cause at least 400 people to die in a couple of weeks no matter what. "There's nothing we can do about these people, they're inevitably lost."

https://twitter.com/dw_politics/status/1461400997964701701

[President Johnson]

Austria moving into a 20 day lockdown for everyone and an universal vaccine mandate starting in February.

If Germany had balls, we would do the same.

[President Johnson]

100,000 deaths now.

https://twitter.com/dwnews/status/1463770707276353545

[President Johnson]

Meh....

https://twitter.com/dwnews/status/1463910809675911174

[President Johnson]

The variant already reached Europe, as one infection in Belgium was confirmed.

https://twitter.com/dwnews/status/1464295295932588036

[President Johnson]

There have now been a couple of cases of Scary New Variant confirmed in the UK.

Same in Germany, two cases already confirmed. A third is likely. I'm sure it's already in the US and elsewhere as well.

https://twitter.com/dwnews/status/1464654383057031175

[President Johnson]

And Switzerland has banned entry from half the world, which is great, doesn't disrupt plans that I had been making for months and months or anything

we're never going back to normal are we? Every year we're going to have a new scary variant, and lockdowns and travel bans and panics about the vaccine no matter how mild or how many people vaccinated there might be. I'm completely fucking sick of this.

I actually consider this situation as a result of the collective ignorance by decent junk of the population. If there were >90% fully vaccinated, the situation in German-speaking countries wouldn't be as bad as it is now. Spain is a good example how to get it done, or Israel, which started booster shots early on. Secondly, wealthy countries have not nearly done enough in aiding Africa and others with the vaccine campaigns. Allowing the virus to spread free in poorer countries inevitably leads to more variants emerging within a relative short period of time. Everyone knows now that the more infections happen, the more likely are new variants that may escape immunity to a degree. Unfortunately, the situation we're in today also affects a majority of people that have listened to science, reduced personal contacts and activities for nearly two years and got vaccinated.

At this point I'm in favor of a general vaccine mandate. However, I'm afraid we're just talking about it until numbers go down in spring, then people will forget, we have a somewhat normal summer before infections rise again by fall and everyone is wondering how that happened.

[President Johnson]

And Switzerland has banned entry from half the world, which is great, doesn't disrupt plans that I had been making for months and months or anything

we're never going back to normal are we? Every year we're going to have a new scary variant, and lockdowns and travel bans and panics about the vaccine no matter how mild or how many people vaccinated there might be. I'm completely fucking sick of this.

I actually consider this situation as a result of the collective ignorance by decent junk of the population. If there were >90% fully vaccinated, the situation in German-speaking countries wouldn't be as bad as it is now. Spain is a good example how to get it done, or Israel, which started booster shots early on. Secondly, wealthy countries have not nearly done enough in aiding Africa and others with the vaccine campaigns. Allowing the virus to spread free in poorer countries inevitably leads to more variants emerging within a relative short period of time. Everyone knows now that the more infections happen, the more likely are new variants that may escape immunity to a degree. Unfortunately, the situation we're in today also affects a majority of people that have listened to science, reduced personal contacts and activities for nearly two years and got vaccinated.

At this point I'm in favor of a general vaccine mandate. However, I'm afraid we're just talking about it until numbers go down in spring, then people will forget, we have a somewhat normal summer before infections rise again by fall and everyone is wondering how that happened.

For God's sake, please stop looking for a boogeyman.

Vaccines (in general) might even be "forcing" pathogens to mutate so they can survive.

Just as antibiotics breed resistance in bacteria, vaccines can incite changes that enable diseases to escape their control. Researchers are working to head off the evolution of new threats.

https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-vaccines-can-drive-pathogens-to-evolve-20180510/

Think Vaccines will help you stop it from spreading? Refer to my post above regarding Portugal and Ireland, the 2 most vaccinated countries on the continent. Their Covid Cases right now look like the .com bubble before it burst.

Vaccines are important to prevent hospitalizations and strain on the healthcare system, NOT to stop the spread or mutations, that's impossible.

Vaccines still reduce the spread as documented in various studies, as the so called virus load is reduced in a shorter period of time. So vaccinated people are still less likely to spread virus than unvaccinated. That's also why German states with a lower vaccination rate have more cases. There's clearly a connection.

Furthermore, the whole purpose of vaccinations and contact restrictions is not to halt the spread anymore, that's impossible, it's just to prevent hospitals from collapsing.

[President Johnson]

Good.

https://twitter.com/dwnews/status/1465768846699245569

[President Johnson]

Germany update: We're moving closer to a general vaccine mandate coming February or March. After Chancellor-designate Olaf Scholz (SPD), members of the Greens and CDU politicians warmed up to the idea, FDP-Leader and incoming Finance Minister Christian Lindner has finally reversed his stance, saying that 68% vaccinated is not sufficient. In a brand new poll, 71% of the public supports a vaccine mandate. Other polls showed support in the mid or high 60s as well.

Furthermore, unvaccinated are now essentially locked out of all stores except for basic needs such as supermarkets and drug stores. Yesterday, another 73,000 cases were reported and hospitals in Bavaria and Saxony in particular are overloaded. The Air Force has moved over two dozens ICU Covid patients to other states. Even France already offered to take patients now we helped our neighbors in previous waves.

[President Johnson]

It amazing how orderly people die in Russia, virtually the same number every day.  What a country!

What I find most stunning about Russia is the low vaccination rate. Usually you would expect more people to follow Putin's wishes. May actually be a strong indicator that he's actually not very popular despite his "election results".

[President Johnson]

Situation in London seems pretty bad with Omicron.

https://twitter.com/BBCLondonNews/status/1472224209300561920

[President Johnson]

Another vaccine approved for Europe. It's a protein vaccine similar to most flu vaccines. Some in the media think it may convince soft vaccine skeptics to get a shot. Novavax is already working on an adjusted version for Omicron.

https://twitter.com/dwnews/status/1472919018164166656

[President Johnson]

New contact restrictions ahead in Germany. While I support the measure, the pandemic is so tiresome. Hopefully this is the last winter we're having this. The vaccine mandate needs to come.

https://twitter.com/dwnews/status/1473351742272294926

[President Johnson]

Great Britain for the first time in a while reports over 100,000 new cases in a single day. Omicron is dominating now.

[President Johnson]

Some good news: BioNtech, Pfitzer's German partner in vaccine development, begun producing an adjusted vaccine for Omicron. First deliveries expected for March.

BioNtech also developed a method for fast detection of new variants:

https://twitter.com/Reuters_Health/status/1480955224395239434

[President Johnson]

Some good old Austria posting:

https://twitter.com/emilyrs/status/1484233681745100804

[President Johnson]

The next meeting of the German federal and state governments on COVID is scheduled for Wednesday. On the table is a proposal that would see a repeal of most of the restrictions in three phases, beginning now and ending on March 20. Beyond March 20, only few COVID rules would remain, specifically the mask mandates. Keep in mind that this is just a propsal and basis of discussion for the upcoming meeting.

https://twitter.com/dw_politics/status/1493997463790931974

[President Johnson]

China's zero Covid policy has pretty much failed at this point.

https://twitter.com/cnni/status/1503804127901622276

[President Johnson]

Germany has ended most of its COVID restrictions - except for stuff like mask mandates in public transportation and hospitals - this weekend. Mandatory quarantines for infected people will end May 1.

From what I've gathered most people continue to wear masks in supermarkets and shops voluntarily though. That's probably because according to polls a majority of the population actually opposes lifting the restrictions.

Yeah, in some stores I'll probably continue to wear a mask, although I find it uncomfortable. However, at work, in our entire office building nobody really seemed to care anymore today (though there's still a lot of remote working and Covid measures were strictly enforced before).