International COVID-19 Megathread

[President Johnson]

Breaking: Moderna vaccine has been approved by EMA within the entire EU.

[Mike88]

10,027 new cases today here in Portugal.

The Health minister has already ordered that all hospitals in Lisbon to halt all non urgent activities.

[kelestian]

So, as you know, Russia has registered the first vaccine (Sputnik V) in the world. It was a huge win for russian scientists and doctors. But developing vaccine was easy part, now real problems has began.

First of all, Russia can't produce enough dozes even for Russia itself (because of that, we insist on localization of manufacturing of vaccine in foreign countries). Only two of 4 planned factories are working, in many regions number of delivered vaccines is practically zero - like, 0.05% of population in these regions has been vaccinated. If we continue with current tempo, it will take 20 years to vaccinated enough citizens.

Second problem (in regions with enough dozes, like Moscow) is even bigger: anti-vaxx is going absolute bonkers. We are now top-1 vaccine-sceptic country in Europe, with 60% of population with strong opposition to Sputnik-V. I decided to take vaccine (it's really easy in Moscow, no queues or Rush) and literally everyone in my family are strongly against. Don't know where they get anti-vaxx content, probably on some bogus net sites and Facebook soccer moms' posts. I caught my mother several times watching those stupid videos from housewifes-turned-microbiologists. My grandmother, who is huge pro-Putin fan, she sits home all day and watches nothing  but state propaganda on TV is also frightened by vaccination.

All these brings interesting question: is russian state propaganda really effective in any way, when it tries to work Against people's prejustice?

[kelestian]

Also, shotout for Israel for their incredible vaccination speed. Seems like Bibi can get the stuff done after all.

[Mike88]

Portugal: Almost 10,000 new cases again today, 9,927 cases and 95 deaths, and Costa's cabinet met this morning to discuss possible restrictions.

Before Costa's briefing, the media was reporting the government was rejecting any idea of a total lockdown or schools closings. However, in his statement, Costa said that a lockdown like in March is possible, but that he hopes that will not be necessary. Schools closings, however, are off the table. He added that although the panorama is still unclear, the number of cases is surging and more restrictive measures will be taken next week. The only meassure imposed for this weekend is the prohibition of traveling between municipalities.

At the same time, the Azores regional government has decided to close schools and impose curfews in S. Miguel island.

[CumbrianLefty]

As mentioned in another thread, over 1000 virus related deaths recorded in the UK yesterday.

Is this what our PM meant by "world beating"?

[Former President tack50]

Well, my region goes into tougher restrictions. The curfew has been reduced from 1am to 23pm. Reunions are also limited to a maximum of 4 people. Bars and restaurants must close at 23pm.

[Mike88]

It's almost certain that Portugal will enter in a lockdown next week.

The numbers from today show 10,176 new cases and 118 new deaths. At the same time, the Health minister said that 70,000 people have already received the first dose of the Covid vaccine.

[CumbrianLefty]

Its almost more a question of which countries *won't* be in a lockdown soon.

[President Johnson]

Lockdown still doesn't show much of an effect. Over 26,000 cases today and the new record in deaths, over 1,100.

At least the EU has ordered another 300 million shots from Pfizer/Biontech vaccine that's being assigned to countries by population.

Our radio station also reported that Pfizer/Biontech vaccine is effective against both UK and South African mutation.

[Mike88]

It's official. Portugal will enter in a lockdown next week, but new restrictive measures will only be announced on Tuesday.

[parochial boy]

Liechtenstein has been experiencing one of the worst outbreaks in Europe, with cases just starting to decline from a peak over 1000 per 100k over 14 days. By all accounts, it should have been put on Switzerland's quarantine list, except that the country relies on Switzerland for its border and customs controls, parts of its justice system, over half of its workforce, and perhaps most importantly, it relies on Swiss hospitals as an integral part of its own healthcare system. All of which clearly makes closing the border completely impossible as doing so would essentially cause the country to completely cease to function.

Begs the question as to why exactly we don't just stop pretending and revoke it's pseudo-"independent" status once and for all.

[Lord Halifax]

Liechtenstein has been experiencing one of the worst outbreaks in Europe, with cases just starting to decline from a peak over 1000 per 100k over 14 days. By all accounts, it should have been put on Switzerland's quarantine list, except that the country relies on Switzerland for its border and customs controls, parts of its justice system, over half of its workforce, and perhaps most importantly, it relies on Swiss hospitals as an integral part of its own healthcare system. All of which clearly makes closing the border completely impossible as doing so would essentially cause the country to completely cease to function.

Begs the question as to why exactly we don't just stop pretending and revoke it's pseudo-"independent" status once and for all.

Does the Swiss constitution allow a canton to be a monarchy?

[parochial boy]

Liechtenstein has been experiencing one of the worst outbreaks in Europe, with cases just starting to decline from a peak over 1000 per 100k over 14 days. By all accounts, it should have been put on Switzerland's quarantine list, except that the country relies on Switzerland for its border and customs controls, parts of its justice system, over half of its workforce, and perhaps most importantly, it relies on Swiss hospitals as an integral part of its own healthcare system. All of which clearly makes closing the border completely impossible as doing so would essentially cause the country to completely cease to function.

Begs the question as to why exactly we don't just stop pretending and revoke it's pseudo-"independent" status once and for all.

Does the Swiss constitution allow a canton to be a monarchy?

Nope, and there is even a precedent, Neuchâtel was a principality with the King of Prussia as head of state until the revolution and constitution of 1848. A coup d'état to restore the monarchy failed in 1856 which led to a final acceptance of the 1848 constitution with the Swiss confederation as guarantor of its status as a republic.

So as of the 1848 constitution, it is effectively impossible for any Swiss canton to have a royal family.

[Lord Halifax]

Liechtenstein has been experiencing one of the worst outbreaks in Europe, with cases just starting to decline from a peak over 1000 per 100k over 14 days. By all accounts, it should have been put on Switzerland's quarantine list, except that the country relies on Switzerland for its border and customs controls, parts of its justice system, over half of its workforce, and perhaps most importantly, it relies on Swiss hospitals as an integral part of its own healthcare system. All of which clearly makes closing the border completely impossible as doing so would essentially cause the country to completely cease to function.

Begs the question as to why exactly we don't just stop pretending and revoke it's pseudo-"independent" status once and for all.

Does the Swiss constitution allow a canton to be a monarchy?

Nope, and there is even a precedent, Neuchâtel was a principality with the King of Prussia as head of state until the revolution and constitution of 1848. A coup d'état to restore the monarchy failed in 1856 which led to a final acceptance of the 1848 constitution with the Swiss confederation as guarantor of its status as a republic.

So as of the 1848 constitution, it is effectively impossible for any Swiss canton to have a royal family.

Then I don't see how their "pseudo-independence" could be ended since being a monarchy is Liechtenstein's whole raison d'être and backed by nearly all of the population.

[parochial boy]

Liechtenstein has been experiencing one of the worst outbreaks in Europe, with cases just starting to decline from a peak over 1000 per 100k over 14 days. By all accounts, it should have been put on Switzerland's quarantine list, except that the country relies on Switzerland for its border and customs controls, parts of its justice system, over half of its workforce, and perhaps most importantly, it relies on Swiss hospitals as an integral part of its own healthcare system. All of which clearly makes closing the border completely impossible as doing so would essentially cause the country to completely cease to function.

Begs the question as to why exactly we don't just stop pretending and revoke it's pseudo-"independent" status once and for all.

Does the Swiss constitution allow a canton to be a monarchy?

Nope, and there is even a precedent, Neuchâtel was a principality with the King of Prussia as head of state until the revolution and constitution of 1848. A coup d'état to restore the monarchy failed in 1856 which led to a final acceptance of the 1848 constitution with the Swiss confederation as guarantor of its status as a republic.

So as of the 1848 constitution, it is effectively impossible for any Swiss canton to have a royal family.

Then I don't see how their "pseudo-independence" could be ended since being a monarchy is Liechtenstein's whole raison d'être and backed by nearly all of the population.

Basically tell them they need to fend for themselves when it comes to their justice and healthcare systems, border controls, customs, regulatory environment, tell them they can no longer use the Swiss franc and revoke the agreement on cross border commuters. Faced with the reality of how completely dependent on Switzerland they actually are, it would basically leave them with the choice of complying, or their country completely collapsing in on itself.

Of course, it's all a complete fantasy and would never happen, but I think the dissapearance of Liechtenstein would be a net positive for the world. On balance.

[urutzizu]

In Ireland they have now announced that currently 25% of positive tests sequenced (week ending Jan 3rd) are linked the British Variant. Friday *last week* the announcement was that it was 10% of positive tests sequenced, from which they estimated 5-17% of current infections in the Community. Ireland is currently going through a quite extreme surge in infection rates generally, which is surely at least partially responsible, but that is still one hell of an increase.

In Denmark this is what an Epidemiologist says in an Interview with Danish Public Television:

We have about 75 new cases per day with B117 right now, but only 12% of them have been found as we only sequence about 12% of the positive samples.

Provided I am interpreting this correctly, Denmark was recording about 3000 positive tests daily a week ago (adjusting for data lag, it is about 2k now), of these they sequence about 12%, so about 360, and of these about 75 are of the British Variant. So one week ago they were finding the British Variant in roughly *20%* of sequenced positive tests?

(EDIT: I think I may have misinterpreted/translated this, I think he is saying that they estimate 75 new daily cases, but they only find 12% of those due to sequencing, so the percentage of new cases linked to new variant is likely much smaller than 20%.)

Not to be a doomer but this seems really problematic to me. The main Issue is we have very little Idea of the extent of the Problem we are facing because except the Danes barely anyone in mainland Europe sequences. If the above numbers and the progression in the UK are applicable across Europe (big if), I could genuinely see the British strain being the dominant one across much of Western Europe as early as mid February and being in a similar Situation regarding the Hospitals not long after. This should really be an reason to accelerate Vaccine rollout.

[Tender Branson]

The situation in Austria has been very stable for the past 3 weeks.

The only significant development is that deaths have declined by a lot.

[CumbrianLefty]

Over 1000 virus related deaths in the UK for three days in a row now

[Mike88]

More awful news from Portugal:

More 7,502 new cases in Portugal and 102 new deaths. Hospitalizations grew by 215 compared with yesterday. ICUs also grew to 558, from 540 yesterday.

In just 5 days, the country has had almost 50,000 new cases of Covid and new deaths have been above 100 for the last 3 days.

[Former President tack50]

Basically tell them they need to fend for themselves when it comes to their justice and healthcare systems, border controls, customs, regulatory environment, tell them they can no longer use the Swiss franc and revoke the agreement on cross border commuters. Faced with the reality of how completely dependent on Switzerland they actually are, it would basically leave them with the choice of complying, or their country completely collapsing in on itself.

Of course, it's all a complete fantasy and would never happen, but I think the dissapearance of Liechtenstein would be a net positive for the world. On balance.

Couldn't they just switch to Austria for those needs?

It's not like Liechtenstein is an independent enclave inside Switzerland like San Marino or Vatican City

[parochial boy]

Basically tell them they need to fend for themselves when it comes to their justice and healthcare systems, border controls, customs, regulatory environment, tell them they can no longer use the Swiss franc and revoke the agreement on cross border commuters. Faced with the reality of how completely dependent on Switzerland they actually are, it would basically leave them with the choice of complying, or their country completely collapsing in on itself.

Of course, it's all a complete fantasy and would never happen, but I think the dissapearance of Liechtenstein would be a net positive for the world. On balance.

Couldn't they just switch to Austria for those needs?

It's not like Liechtenstein is an independent enclave inside Switzerland like San Marino or Vatican City

Probably, although the transition time would be pretty destructive. Even then, it would require them adopting the Euro and joining the EU customs union. Which I doubt is especially popular as an idea. Plus geographically and culturally it doesn't make a lot of sense. The population lives overwhelmingly along the Swiss border, while the Austrian side is basically a load of high mountains; and the cultural, economic, social ties the people in the country have are already tied up in Eastern Switzerland - so simply changing everything over to Austria would be difficult.

[President Johnson]

Seems like Israel was already vaccinated 20% of their population, according to German news sources. If true, this would be incredible. If this continues, cases and deaths should severely drop in a few months. I'm no fan of Bibi by any means, but seems like he's actually doing a good job on this one.

[FrancoAgo]

First italian Covid-19 case go back to November 2019
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/bjd.19804

[Samof94]

Seems like Israel was already vaccinated 20% of their population, according to German news sources. If true, this would be incredible. If this continues, cases and deaths should severely drop in a few months. I'm no fan of Bibi by any means, but seems like he's actually doing a good job on this one.

They have a rather small population tbh.