International COVID-19 Megathread

[Mike88]

25 December updates:

Austria: 1.851 new cases yesterday, 38 new deaths
Germany: 25.533 new cases yesterday, 412 new deaths

Portugal: 4,146 new cases yesterday, 65 new deaths

[Tender Branson]

All EU countries have received doses of vaccines today and will start vaccinating tomorrow.

Except for Hungary, which broke the agreement and already started vaccinating today ...

https://orf.at/stories/3195080/

[CumbrianLefty]

Doing it just a day earlier suggests "gesture politics" at its silliest.

[Middle-aged Europe]

All EU countries have received doses of vaccines today and will start vaccinating tomorrow.

Except for Hungary, which broke the agreement and already started vaccinating today ...

https://orf.at/stories/3195080/

The county of Harz in Saxony-Anhalt also decided to start with the vaccinations a day early. Germany's first vaccinated person on Saturday was a 101-year-old resident of a retirement home in the city of Halberstadt.

[Tender Branson]

Theresia Hofer is the 1st vaccinated person in Austria:

[Mike88]

In Portugal, the first person to be vaccinated was the director of infection diseases in St John Hospital in Porto city, António Sarmento:

https://twitter.com/saude_pt/status/1343141127277473792

[CumbrianLefty]

Oxford vaccine to be available in the UK from early January.

[Middle-aged Europe]

In Germany, various politicians from CSU, SPD, FDP, and the Left have criticized the low number of available vaccine dosages. It is estimated that until late March only about five million Germans could be vaccinated at current production rates. This led to calls to significantly ramp up vaccine production, specifically that other pharmaceutical companies with unused capacities should be allowed to produce the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine too, for example through licensing agreements.

Radical suggestion from me: Either we have a national emergency right now or we don't. If we don't, then we can immediately lift all lockdown measures. If we do, then Article 14 Subsection 3 of the German consitution allows for nationalizations if they're in the interest of the public good. Nationalize BioNTech and then distribute the vaccine patents among all pharmaceutical companies.

[Mike88]

4,601 people were given the 1st dose of the Covid vaccine during today in Portugal, all of them front line workers in the NHS. (doctors, nurses, other staff) Another shipment of 70,200 vaccines will arrive this Monday.

[Tender Branson]

With the Christmas week ending yesterday, weekly deaths have dropped below 500 here.

Down from more than 900 the week before ...

There's a lot less testing and autopsies going on of course during Christmas, but it seems all indicators now have peaked and are going down fast.

[CumbrianLefty]

I suppose mixing at Xmas might cause them to go up again?

[Silent Hunter]

Maybe a bit, but the results of Thanksgiving in the US were mixed.

[LAKISYLVANIA]

The COVID-19 pandemic in Vietnam is part of the ongoing worldwide pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). On 23 January 2020, the first known case of COVID-19 in Vietnam was reported.[2][4] As of 28 December 2020, the country had 1,451 confirmed cases, 1,318 recoveries, and 35 deaths. More than 1.35 million tests have been performed.[5][6] Da Nang, as of December is the most-affected city with 413 confirmed cases and 31 deaths.[1]

Vietnam has suspended the entry of all foreigners from 22 March 2020 until further notice to limit the spread of COVID-19. The measure will not apply to diplomats, officials, foreign investors, experts, and skilled workers. For foreigners that entered the country before 1 March including those with temporary residence permits will also be entitled to extensions till 30 June but must present health declarations.[7]

Vietnam is cited by global media as having one of the best-organized epidemic control programs in the world,[8][9] along the lines of other highlights such as Taiwan and South Korea.[10] Despite inferior economic and technological capacity, the country's response to the outbreak has received widespread international acclaim for its immediacy, effectiveness and transparency, in contrast to censorship in China, and the poor preparation and widespread outbreaks in the United States and in European countries.

Wow!

[Sir Mohamed]

^^ Most Asian countries have more experience in dealing with virus diseases and pandemics. That said, I wouldn't put too much faith into official data from Vietnam or the PRC. These regimes are not known for their transparency, nor is free and indpendent reporting possible.

[President Johnson]

Russia apparently has "corrected" their death toll, German Tagesschau reports. Official numbers now say 186,000 people died from Covid in Russia, was 53,000 before.

[Pericles]

Russia apparently has "corrected" their death toll, German Tagesschau reports. Official numbers now say 186,000 people died from Covid in Russia, was 53,000 before.

Interesting, the only surprise is that they admitted it. On a per capita basis, that death toll is slightly higher than most major countries including the US and the UK, but close enough that it doesn't necessarily mean Russia did even worse (but still did terribly of course).

[2952-0-0]

^^ Most Asian countries have more experience in dealing with virus diseases and pandemics. That said, I wouldn't put too much faith into official data from Vietnam or the PRC. These regimes are not known for their transparency, nor is free and indpendent reporting possible.

To be fair, Vietnam is a good deal freer than China, even if it's still a nasty dictatorship. There's some independent reporting allowed, as long as they don't attack the Party itself. Foreign journalists in Vietnam have been free to visit hospitals and interview doctors unaccompanied by minders, and they did report nothing out of the ordinary. Even in the most repressive dictatorships, the regime can't completely cover up mass deaths. So I'm inclined to believe Vietnam's official numbers are more credible than not.

[LAKISYLVANIA]

Vietnam GDP growth to be among world’s highest in 2020: IMF

in GDP, it went from 34 to 23.

[FrancoAgo]

Russia apparently has "corrected" their death toll, German Tagesschau reports. Official numbers now say 186,000 people died from Covid in Russia, was 53,000 before.

Worldometers give 55,265, have you a russian source for this?

[Hnv1]

Russia apparently has "corrected" their death toll, German Tagesschau reports. Official numbers now say 186,000 people died from Covid in Russia, was 53,000 before.

Worldometers give 55,265, have you a russian source for this?

Deputy PM said the excess death figures means that at least 186K died from Covid. I don't know if they will officially update it.

We already know Iran underreported massively and probably Brazil as well. I suppose global death toll is more around 3 million

[FrancoAgo]

Russia apparently has "corrected" their death toll, German Tagesschau reports. Official numbers now say 186,000 people died from Covid in Russia, was 53,000 before.

Worldometers give 55,265, have you a russian source for this?

Deputy PM said the excess death figures means that at least 186K died from Covid. I don't know if they will officially update it.

We already know Iran underreported massively and probably Brazil as well. I suppose global death toll is more around 3 million

i'm not 100% sure but no one count Covid deaths based on excess death,
Agree on the under reporting, probably much higher of 3 milion

[Tender Branson]

You can easily see how Russia's current reported death number is a joke:

Even in Austria we'll have a 10% overmortality this year (91.000 vs. 83.000 last year).

Russia has 2 million deaths each year, so yeah, +10% would be around 200.000 additional deaths of which the large majority will be because of COVID.

[jaichind]

You can easily see how Russia's current reported death number is a joke:

Even in Austria we'll have a 10% overmortality this year (91.000 vs. 83.000 last year).

Russia has 2 million deaths each year, so yeah, +10% would be around 200.000 additional deaths of which the large majority will be because of COVID.

Russia is not necessary the only one.  This guy (https://dkobak.github.io/) produced a chart of excessive deaths vs official COVID-19 deaths of some countries



Which puts Russia's death rate as almost twice the USA death rate.  Note that a lot of developing countries also have a much higher death rate than official numbers.  For those that we can infer the de facto death rate they are aloo well above USA levels For countries that has some sort of lockdown I suspect these numbers are inflated since the lockdown also means people that need medical attention are not going to hospitals for necessary medial treatment and are dying early as a result.

[Tender Branson]

The situation in neighbouring Czechia is spiralling out of control again ...

They reported 16.400 new daily cases today, which is ca. 10x more than Austria, with roughly the same population size.

[President Johnson]

First day with over a thousand deaths in Germany reported. 1,129 to be exact. Signs are pointing to a continued shutdown beyond January 10, which is the current expiration date.

Meanwhile, Great Britain has approved AstraZeneca vaccine.