International COVID-19 Megathread
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FrancoAgo
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« Reply #2475 on: January 22, 2021, 05:11:42 AM »


it's available by est/west or by land?
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FrancoAgo
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« Reply #2476 on: January 22, 2021, 05:15:43 AM »

Portugal now the worst affected country on the planet (ignoring Gibraltar) in terms of cases.

UK, Portugal and Czechoslovakia with the highest deaths per capita.

Worldometers data for the 21st January

top cases
Andorra 121,279 per million
Gibraltar 115,214  " "
Montenegro 90,745 " "
Czech 85,579 " "
San Marino 83,395 " "

top deaths
San Marino 1,913 per million
Belgium 1,771 " "
Gibraltar 1,752 " "
Slovenia 1,580 " "
Czech 1,405 " "
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Mike88
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« Reply #2477 on: January 22, 2021, 06:04:22 AM »

Portugal now the worst affected country on the planet (ignoring Gibraltar) in terms of cases.

UK, Portugal and Czechoslovakia with the highest deaths per capita.

Worldometers data for the 21st January

top cases
Andorra 121,279 per million
Gibraltar 115,214  " "
Montenegro 90,745 " "
Czech 85,579 " "
San Marino 83,395 " "

top deaths
San Marino 1,913 per million
Belgium 1,771 " "
Gibraltar 1,752 " "
Slovenia 1,580 " "
Czech 1,405 " "

According to Our World in Data website, Portugal is at the top:
https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus

And yeah, there's no words to describe the current situation in Portugal right now. Sad
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Middle-aged Europe
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« Reply #2478 on: January 22, 2021, 06:07:33 AM »


Not really, but given the numbers for the AfD voters I'd strongly suspect that opposition to Corona restrictions is higher in the Eastern states. I mean, higher opposition to restrictions was already one of the explanations discussed why they became the current infection hotspots.
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CumbrianLefty
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« Reply #2479 on: January 22, 2021, 08:40:41 AM »

UK, Portugal and Czechoslovakia with the highest deaths per capita.

What about the US?
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Tender Branson
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« Reply #2480 on: January 22, 2021, 09:11:27 AM »

Portugal now the worst affected country on the planet (ignoring Gibraltar) in terms of cases.

UK, Portugal and Czechoslovakia with the highest deaths per capita.

Worldometers data for the 21st January

top cases
Andorra 121,279 per million
Gibraltar 115,214  " "
Montenegro 90,745 " "
Czech 85,579 " "
San Marino 83,395 " "

top deaths
San Marino 1,913 per million
Belgium 1,771 " "
Gibraltar 1,752 " "
Slovenia 1,580 " "
Czech 1,405 " "


I use the NYT chart, which uses only the last 7-days as an indicator - not the total since the start in February 2020.
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Tender Branson
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« Reply #2481 on: January 22, 2021, 09:14:57 AM »

UK, Portugal and Czechoslovakia with the highest deaths per capita.

What about the US?

The US is ranked 11th in per-capita cases in the last 7 days, 9th if you exclude joke countries like Andorra or territories like Gibraltar.

In terms of deaths per capita in the last 7 days, the US ranks 15th (excluding Andorra and Gibraltar).

Germany is actually ahead of the US right now ...

In late November, Austria had the highest per capita death rate on the planet ...

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/world/coronavirus-maps.html
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palandio
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« Reply #2482 on: January 23, 2021, 04:21:27 AM »

Follow-up on the skiing discussion from some weeks ago:

Austrian skiing areas are open, but hotels are closed for tourists, hence there should be only day tourism now, which is probably fine because the infection risk outside is not elevated.

Hotels are still open though for professionals and there seems to occur an increasing number of COVID-19 clusters among courses for would-be skiing instructors. Several of these clusters include British would-be skiing instructors, despite there being entry restrictions because of the B.1.1.7 mutation.
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Middle-aged Europe
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« Reply #2483 on: January 23, 2021, 06:11:46 AM »




Infection rate has started to go down this week in Germany. Therefore we have started the same game we're always playing: The first politicians have gone on the record saying that we must start to phase out the lockdown in mid-February, while others urge caution. Just like last April this will probably dominate the debate from this point forward.
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President Johnson
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« Reply #2484 on: January 23, 2021, 06:27:03 AM »
« Edited: January 23, 2021, 06:30:44 AM by President Johnson »

The problem with lifting restrictions is the same as I said last spring: As soon as restrictions are taken back or eased, cases start rising again.

Germany's biggest problem at this point is a lack of enough available vaccine doses. The EU ordered a little too late since they negotiated prices down and because Biontech is actually start-up company that just needs its production capabilities build up. A major production facility in Marburg is expected to get started in February. Israel has done a much better job with vaccinations, even the US under Trump ordered more doses early on. We quickly need to get that fixed so that mass vaccination is done by next fall. At least to a degree that we can get out of this permanent lockdown that has already exhaused people and ruined several businesses.
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Tender Branson
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« Reply #2485 on: January 23, 2021, 06:29:56 AM »

Follow-up on the skiing discussion from some weeks ago:

Austrian skiing areas are open, but hotels are closed for tourists, hence there should be only day tourism now, which is probably fine because the infection risk outside is not elevated.

Hotels are still open though for professionals and there seems to occur an increasing number of COVID-19 clusters among courses for would-be skiing instructors. Several of these clusters include British would-be skiing instructors, despite there being entry restrictions because of the B.1.1.7 mutation.

The situation here is pretty stable right now and hospitalisations are down to October levels before the massive 2nd wave.

The thing with the ski areas being open was actually handled pretty well so far during the winter in most ski areas with people having to wear mandatory FFP2 masks all the time and long lines being the exception than the rule.

In that sense, ski areas and gondolas are no different to mass transit in densely-populated urban areas. The risk of getting infected is much higher in a crowded inner-city bus or subway than in some open-area gondola in a ski area.

The cases that you mention involved groups of British ski instructors who brought the UK strain with them, then party'd hard but mostly only in their own group, so the UK strain in Jochberg (Tyrol) was isolated and didn't spread from the ski instructors to the general population.

The same in the Zillertal region, where more than 10 cases of the South African strain were found.

Eventually, the spread of these variants cannot be prevented anyway I guess.

The thing with the hotels being closed and visitors from abroad still being here can probably be explained with A) day visitors who don't really care about quarantine measures or B) people who had the virus in the fall and are now immune or C) business people or fake business people who have some sort of letter from their "bosses" with them that they are on some kind of "business trip" in the region. Imagine a self-employed German or Brit travelling to Austria for skiing with a paper like that because he's his "own boss". Hotels in Austria can accept business tourists, but not regular tourists during the lockdown right now. Such a business trip letter is enough for them to accept them as guests. And some people are also quartered in private locations or RVs where no checks whatsoever are performed, unless a suspicious neighbour calls the police.

Don't ask, don't tell.
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palandio
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« Reply #2486 on: January 23, 2021, 06:53:29 AM »

[...]

Infection rate has started to go down this week in Germany. Therefore we have started the same game we're always playing: The first politicians have gone on the record saying that we must start to phase out the lockdown in mid-February, while others urge caution. Just like last April this will probably dominate the debate from this point forward.
This opening/closing dualism and the medial and political focus on it are in my opinion a sign of intellectual laziness.

We should divert our energies towards more complicated and challenging questions:
- How can contact tracing contribute to keeping the numbers down more efficiently? What has been done since August/September/October when evidently contact tracing was unable to keep numbers down despite an incidence far below 50? Are we ready? Do we need better (IT) infrastructure or better processes and strategies? What can we learn from e.g. South Korea?
- Which restrictions need to remain in place to make contact tracing easier? Travelling seems to have been a problem. And it is clear that contact tracing is much easier now when many people have only 1-5 contacts than it was when people had 50-100 contacts.
- Are there any concepts to make schools and kindergartens safer? What measures could enable us to return to a state that is tolerable regarding educational, social and emotional development?
- Keeping numbers down will help to protect vulnerable groups but what can we do additionally?
- Vaccinations are probably the way out if we don't want to reach herd immunity through natural spread and its consequences. Can we get this done?
- Political communication can't work the same way that it worked during the first wave. And it's not enough that a majority applauds (independently from what they do in private and at work).
- A lot has been done to alleviate the social, economic, psychological and health effects of the pandemic and the fight against it. Can there be done more?
- ...
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palandio
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« Reply #2487 on: January 23, 2021, 07:16:00 AM »

Follow-up on the skiing discussion from some weeks ago:

Austrian skiing areas are open, but hotels are closed for tourists, hence there should be only day tourism now, which is probably fine because the infection risk outside is not elevated.

Hotels are still open though for professionals and there seems to occur an increasing number of COVID-19 clusters among courses for would-be skiing instructors. Several of these clusters include British would-be skiing instructors, despite there being entry restrictions because of the B.1.1.7 mutation.

The situation here is pretty stable right now and hospitalisations are down to October levels before the massive 2nd wave.

The thing with the ski areas being open was actually handled pretty well so far during the winter in most ski areas with people having to wear mandatory FFP2 masks all the time and long lines being the exception than the rule.

In that sense, ski areas and gondolas are no different to mass transit in densely-populated urban areas. The risk of getting infected is much higher in a crowded inner-city bus or subway than in some open-area gondola in a ski area.

The cases that you mention involved groups of British ski instructors who brought the UK strain with them, then party'd hard but mostly only in their own group, so the UK strain in Jochberg (Tyrol) was isolated and didn't spread from the ski instructors to the general population.

The same in the Zillertal region, where more than 10 cases of the South African strain were found.

Eventually, the spread of these variants cannot be prevented anyway I guess.

The thing with the hotels being closed and visitors from abroad still being here can probably be explained with A) day visitors who don't really care about quarantine measures or B) people who had the virus in the fall and are now immune or C) business people or fake business people who have some sort of letter from their "bosses" with them that they are on some kind of "business trip" in the region. Imagine a self-employed German or Brit travelling to Austria for skiing with a paper like that because he's his "own boss". Hotels in Austria can accept business tourists, but not regular tourists during the lockdown right now. Such a business trip letter is enough for them to accept them as guests. And some people are also quartered in private locations or RVs where no checks whatsoever are performed, unless a suspicious neighbour calls the police.

Don't ask, don't tell.
As I said, day trips are probably fine. It's mostly an outdoor activity like several other outdoor activities.

The whole stories about skiing instructor courses, "business people", etc. are ridiculous, though. I don't want to judge on the Alpine regions and their population in general and I understand that many of them are economically highly dependent on tourism. They must be supported. The level to which the Austrian ÖVP-led governments are in the bag of the tourism industry is irresponsible, though. They knew what they had to expect and they didn't do anything against it. "Cannot be prevented anyways" doesn't really fit with the usual ÖVP talking points ("inner-city bus"). Until recently the Kurz government has been very outspoken about not letting the virus in from e.g. the Balkans.
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Tender Branson
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« Reply #2488 on: January 23, 2021, 08:18:40 AM »

Follow-up on the skiing discussion from some weeks ago:

Austrian skiing areas are open, but hotels are closed for tourists, hence there should be only day tourism now, which is probably fine because the infection risk outside is not elevated.

Hotels are still open though for professionals and there seems to occur an increasing number of COVID-19 clusters among courses for would-be skiing instructors. Several of these clusters include British would-be skiing instructors, despite there being entry restrictions because of the B.1.1.7 mutation.

The situation here is pretty stable right now and hospitalisations are down to October levels before the massive 2nd wave.

The thing with the ski areas being open was actually handled pretty well so far during the winter in most ski areas with people having to wear mandatory FFP2 masks all the time and long lines being the exception than the rule.

In that sense, ski areas and gondolas are no different to mass transit in densely-populated urban areas. The risk of getting infected is much higher in a crowded inner-city bus or subway than in some open-area gondola in a ski area.

The cases that you mention involved groups of British ski instructors who brought the UK strain with them, then party'd hard but mostly only in their own group, so the UK strain in Jochberg (Tyrol) was isolated and didn't spread from the ski instructors to the general population.

The same in the Zillertal region, where more than 10 cases of the South African strain were found.

Eventually, the spread of these variants cannot be prevented anyway I guess.

The thing with the hotels being closed and visitors from abroad still being here can probably be explained with A) day visitors who don't really care about quarantine measures or B) people who had the virus in the fall and are now immune or C) business people or fake business people who have some sort of letter from their "bosses" with them that they are on some kind of "business trip" in the region. Imagine a self-employed German or Brit travelling to Austria for skiing with a paper like that because he's his "own boss". Hotels in Austria can accept business tourists, but not regular tourists during the lockdown right now. Such a business trip letter is enough for them to accept them as guests. And some people are also quartered in private locations or RVs where no checks whatsoever are performed, unless a suspicious neighbour calls the police.

Don't ask, don't tell.
As I said, day trips are probably fine. It's mostly an outdoor activity like several other outdoor activities.

The whole stories about skiing instructor courses, "business people", etc. are ridiculous, though. I don't want to judge on the Alpine regions and their population in general and I understand that many of them are economically highly dependent on tourism. They must be supported. The level to which the Austrian ÖVP-led governments are in the bag of the tourism industry is irresponsible, though. They knew what they had to expect and they didn't do anything against it. "Cannot be prevented anyways" doesn't really fit with the usual ÖVP talking points ("inner-city bus"). Until recently the Kurz government has been very outspoken about not letting the virus in from e.g. the Balkans.

The ÖVP is not „in the bag“ of the tourism industry, the ÖVP is the tourism and skiing industry.

Some of these developments would have always taken place, you cannot keep the virus out 100%, nor can you keep the different variants out in a globalized world.

We need to find ways to keep the economy kinda running (which includes tourism and skiing), without the total destruction of work places and revenue, while also keeping the virus under control.

Mistakes are made, but bashing the ÖVP here is ridiculous (I’m not an ÖVP voter btw).
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palandio
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« Reply #2489 on: January 23, 2021, 09:07:45 AM »

I know that you're not an ÖVP voter and I know that some allegations against the ÖVP are polemic. Some of them are justified, though.

Variants will spread eventually but we could at least try to slow down the spread until spring, when better weather conditions will help us and insetting effects of the vaccination campaign among the vulnerable groups will lower death and hospitalization numbers. Instead the South African variant was found among lift employees in Zillertal of all places. It was quite likely that it would eventually arrive there, but do we really have to speed things up?

I agree that we need to keep our economies running and to propose to close down certain sectors is much easier from the outside. Still, the difference between tourism and most other economic sectors is that tourism inherently relies on:
- People travelling (and by that I mean not just some employees), thereby spreading variants
- (Depending on the exact type of tourism) many people having contact (not just some employees)
In other industries people have contacts, too. But the number of different contacts (employees and customers) generated per employee is usually much lower than in tourism and it's usually the same colleagues you see every day and not people from all over the world. (And remember that it's to a large degree about contacts that are not between employees.)

I know that it's easier to say that from the outside, but closing down the tourism industry is more efficient than closing down other sectors.
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Mike88
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« Reply #2490 on: January 23, 2021, 12:37:14 PM »
« Edited: January 23, 2021, 12:42:24 PM by Mike88 »

Portugal: Police controlling who's on the road but there are some people who don't want to be controlled:


PS: That car crashed a few kilometres from that place.
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Tender Branson
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« Reply #2491 on: January 24, 2021, 08:28:07 AM »

All major European countries now see declining 7-day running case numbers.

Except for Portugal, Spain and France.

In Portugal, the situation is dramatic.

It now has the world’s highest 7-day running death rate too (the UK has fallen from 1st to 2nd).
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Mike88
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« Reply #2492 on: January 24, 2021, 09:45:22 AM »

All major European countries now see declining 7-day running case numbers.

Except for Portugal, Spain and France.

In Portugal, the situation is dramatic.

It now has the world’s highest 7-day running death rate too (the UK has fallen from 1st to 2nd).
Yeah, the situation here is very, very bad. Today's numbers are 11,721 new cases, but deaths continue to break record after record, 275 new deaths.
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Tender Branson
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« Reply #2493 on: January 24, 2021, 11:01:10 AM »

All major European countries now see declining 7-day running case numbers.

Except for Portugal, Spain and France.

In Portugal, the situation is dramatic.

It now has the world’s highest 7-day running death rate too (the UK has fallen from 1st to 2nd).
Yeah, the situation here is very, very bad. Today's numbers are 11,721 new cases, but deaths continue to break record after record, 275 new deaths.

Austria, a country of comparable population size, had 29 today (or better, yesterday).

We never had 275 on a single day, even when we were the world's most deadly COVID country in late-November, with 150 per day.

In US terms, that would be 8.800 daily deaths.

So this is really bad.
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urutzizu
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« Reply #2494 on: January 25, 2021, 09:13:00 AM »

Things have the potential to get very ugly on the Vaccine front soon, I fear. There is a lot of anger in Europe at Pfizer and AstraZeneca, as both companies have now said that they are not going to be able to deliver as many doses to the EU as originally agreed. So far so bad, but what riling distrust particularly, is the fact that AstraZeneca at least is both refusing to give a proper reason (only blaming vague "problems in the European supply chain") and only cutting commitments to the EU - other Countries, in particular the UK, are not affected for some reason. Making things worse is simmering anger/distrust over Brexit. The EU will now introduce a advance registration requirement for all exports to third countries, and some member states, such as the German Health Minister and many in the EU parliament are for calling for restricting or banning the exports of Vaccines entirely.

Clearly it is unacceptable for AstraZeneca to not keep it's commitments to the EU but to other countries without a proper reason, and if they cannot, they should be held legally accountable considering how much the EU invested in them for research and production capacity. But doing things like this is extremely irresponsible in my view. Mixing politics and vaccines is never a good idea, but especially not like this. If Europe would block the export of Biontech/Pfizer from it's European plants, other Countries would (such as the UK with AstraZeneca) respond entirely tit-for-tat, and crucial supply chains for the Vaccine distribution everywhere would be disrupted. It is a lose-lose for everyone. And it's feels like a cheap attempt to distract for the failures of the Government in the Vaccine rollout in many European countries, especially in Germany.
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Middle-aged Europe
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« Reply #2495 on: January 25, 2021, 09:27:53 AM »

Things have the potential to get very ugly on the Vaccine front soon, I fear. There is a lot of anger in Europe at Pfizer and AstraZeneca, as both companies have now said that they are not going to be able to deliver as many doses to the EU as originally agreed. So far so bad, but what riling distrust particularly, is the fact that AstraZeneca at least is both refusing to give a proper reason (only blaming vague "problems in the European supply chain") and only cutting commitments to the EU - other Countries, in particular the UK, are not affected for some reason. Making things worse is simmering anger/distrust over Brexit. The EU will now introduce a advance registration requirement for all exports to third countries, and some member states, such as the German Health Minister and many in the EU parliament are for calling for restricting or banning the exports of Vaccines entirely.

Clearly it is unacceptable for AstraZeneca to not keep it's commitments to the EU but to other countries without a proper reason, and if they cannot, they should be held legally accountable considering how much the EU invested in them for research and production capacity. But doing things like this is extremely irresponsible in my view. Mixing politics and vaccines is never a good idea, but especially not like this. If Europe would block the export of Biontech/Pfizer from it's European plants, other Countries would (such as the UK with AstraZeneca) respond entirely tit-for-tat, and crucial supply chains for the Vaccine distribution everywhere would be disrupted. It is a lose-lose for everyone. And it's feels like a cheap attempt to distract for the failures of the Government in the Vaccine rollout in many European countries, especially in Germany.

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Former President tack50
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« Reply #2496 on: January 25, 2021, 10:07:29 AM »

Things have the potential to get very ugly on the Vaccine front soon, I fear. There is a lot of anger in Europe at Pfizer and AstraZeneca, as both companies have now said that they are not going to be able to deliver as many doses to the EU as originally agreed. So far so bad, but what riling distrust particularly, is the fact that AstraZeneca at least is both refusing to give a proper reason (only blaming vague "problems in the European supply chain") and only cutting commitments to the EU - other Countries, in particular the UK, are not affected for some reason. Making things worse is simmering anger/distrust over Brexit. The EU will now introduce a advance registration requirement for all exports to third countries, and some member states, such as the German Health Minister and many in the EU parliament are for calling for restricting or banning the exports of Vaccines entirely.

Clearly it is unacceptable for AstraZeneca to not keep it's commitments to the EU but to other countries without a proper reason, and if they cannot, they should be held legally accountable considering how much the EU invested in them for research and production capacity. But doing things like this is extremely irresponsible in my view. Mixing politics and vaccines is never a good idea, but especially not like this. If Europe would block the export of Biontech/Pfizer from it's European plants, other Countries would (such as the UK with AstraZeneca) respond entirely tit-for-tat, and crucial supply chains for the Vaccine distribution everywhere would be disrupted. It is a lose-lose for everyone. And it's feels like a cheap attempt to distract for the failures of the Government in the Vaccine rollout in many European countries, especially in Germany.



Wait, we are 5th? Huh

Nice to see us performing well for once I suppose
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Sir Mohamed
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« Reply #2497 on: January 25, 2021, 11:09:21 AM »

Surprised the UAE is that much ahead, though I knew from family members back in Dubai. My general concerns in the US and elsewhere is not enough people taking a shot due to skepticism. Fauci said that 85% of the US vaccinated would be his ideal goal.
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palandio
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« Reply #2498 on: January 25, 2021, 12:42:53 PM »

Things have the potential to get very ugly on the Vaccine front soon, I fear. There is a lot of anger in Europe at Pfizer and AstraZeneca, as both companies have now said that they are not going to be able to deliver as many doses to the EU as originally agreed. So far so bad, but what riling distrust particularly, is the fact that AstraZeneca at least is both refusing to give a proper reason (only blaming vague "problems in the European supply chain") and only cutting commitments to the EU - other Countries, in particular the UK, are not affected for some reason. Making things worse is simmering anger/distrust over Brexit. The EU will now introduce a advance registration requirement for all exports to third countries, and some member states, such as the German Health Minister and many in the EU parliament are for calling for restricting or banning the exports of Vaccines entirely.

Clearly it is unacceptable for AstraZeneca to not keep it's commitments to the EU but to other countries without a proper reason, and if they cannot, they should be held legally accountable considering how much the EU invested in them for research and production capacity. But doing things like this is extremely irresponsible in my view. Mixing politics and vaccines is never a good idea, but especially not like this. If Europe would block the export of Biontech/Pfizer from it's European plants, other Countries would (such as the UK with AstraZeneca) respond entirely tit-for-tat, and crucial supply chains for the Vaccine distribution everywhere would be disrupted. It is a lose-lose for everyone. And it's feels like a cheap attempt to distract for the failures of the Government in the Vaccine rollout in many European countries, especially in Germany.



Wait, we are 5th? Huh

Nice to see us performing well for once I suppose
That's not quite the right way to read the chart.

The chart is displaying the ten countries with the most vaccinations (total number), i.e. most smaller coutries will not be displayed except if they have an extraordinarily high number of vaccinations. What is shown then is the number of vaccines doses per 100 people (relative number). If all countries were shown, Spain, Germany, etc. would not be in 5th and 7th place respectively. I get why you would do a chart like that, but it seems that it leads many people to false conclusions.
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President Johnson
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« Reply #2499 on: January 25, 2021, 04:08:52 PM »

Embarrassing that Germany lags behind, given Pfizer/Biontech vaccine was actually developed here. The federal government and EU need to get their act together quickly. Also, the malefactors need to speed production up.

At least it seems numbers of daily cases are dropping again, while deaths remain at a high level. From today on, Germany has a stricter mask mandate, requiring medical or FFP2 masks in transportation and stores, some states also require said masks in working places. These masks not just protects others, but yourself. However, they're more expensive and can only be worn for a couple of hours.
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