International COVID-19 Megathread

[politicallefty]

The EMA has ruled that AstraZeneca is indeed safe and effective, and that there's no causal relationship with the blood clots. Many European countries are resuming its use.

Meanwhile, Biden is approving the export of 1.5 million AstraZeneca doses to Canada, and 2.5 million to Mexico.

Meh, he should also approve to export them to the EU.

I definitely agree with the EMA ruling since there is not even stark evidence the side effects were caused by the vaccine itsself. And even if that was the case, the risk to die from Covid is far greater by not getting vaccinated. The major damage however is not the few days we lost, but the image problem AstraZeneca already had before due to poor communication.

According to this NPR article, our stockpile of AstraZeneca is only 7m. (I'd been under the impression that is was much larger. I'm not sure why the big discrepancy.) I think the reason that it hasn't yet been approved here in the US is because the FDA requires its own specific requirements for trials and those are ongoing.

It also mentions that the US has fully vaccinated 12% of the population, while Canada and Mexico are at 1.7% and 0.5% respectively. I'm assuming the reason they are getting priority is two-fold: they both border us and therefore it's easy to give them what we have and it's also vital to reopening our borders. I'm also assuming the "loan" of the vaccines is similar to how one will go next door to "borrow some sugar/flour". I think the Biden Administration has said that reopening our borders with Canada and Mexico is the highest priority after vaccinating all (or as many as possible) Americans.

I'm not sure what's going on with you guys over in the EU. Suspension of the AstraZeneca vaccine over a few possible adverse cases was completely irresponsible given the current trajectory of cases. I am stunned. Even if it was causing some problems in a few cases out a million, the risk of serious illness or death from COVID is orders of magnitude higher, not to mention the undermining of confidence in vaccination efforts. The US and the UK are now two of the world's best in rolling out vaccine to the people. Go figure that the EU is now faulting the US and the UK for their faulty efforts and near total ineptitude.

[CumbrianLefty]

50% of UK adults have now officially had their first Covid vaccination.

[parochial boy]

Re-the whole EU vaccinating too slowly saga. Interesting thread that would seem to indicate a rather different story to what the narrative has been. Ie, the EU naïvely thought that the US would behave honourably, the Brits were a bit more canny. Trump then put an export ban in place and the EU paid the price

https://twitter.com/DaveKeating/status/1372897635577761803

[Tender Branson]

Yesterday, once again a demonstration with thousands against the dictatorial Covid measures:

[CumbrianLefty]

I thought Austria was majorly "opening up" now?

[Tender Branson]

I thought Austria was majorly "opening up" now?

No.

Only 1 state (Vorarlberg).

And with the 3rd wave picking up some speed here, there's already talk of another Notbremse (= 4th lockdown) soon.

[lfromnj]

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/20/world/europe/europe-vaccine-rollout-astrazeneca.html?

[Tender Branson]

After lagging behind, Austria is now in the top quarter in the EU in vaccinated per capita.

Compared to Israel, USA etc. still far behind though.

11% are immunized with one dose, 4% completely.

[President Johnson]

Not a surprise at all, numbers are back on the rise.

https://twitter.com/dwnews/status/1373666208772321280

[Pericles]

This really is a catastrophic failure. The EU had to get their populations vaccinated before the UK variant sends the numbers back up, yet they have gone through months of lockdowns for very little gain. Now, it will be very hard to sell the lockdown being even longer and stricter to the public. The pressure to relax restrictions will be overwhelming when the science points the other way, because the EU were too incompetent to prepare properly for the threat.

[Vaccinated Russian Bear]

https://twitter.com/YouGov/status/1373920524506644482

Well done, EU-bureaucrats!


White Libs in US managed to convince poor people that schools are dangerous. There will be a disastrous (for poors/minority, not for the White Libs) consequence because of it in years to come.

EU managed to convince people that AstraZeneca. In the middle of 3rd wave. We'll see what the consequences of it will be.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Quite frankly, the way the EU's leaders handled AstraZeneca is childish. First, they complained about slow delivery. Then, they made comments about its safety and efficacy. Then, they banned its export, before banning its administration. Finally, they relent.

And it continues! Yes, we're back to the export ban discourse. Pretty clearly the senior leadership of the organisation should resign in shame and disgrace.

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

In Italy we have reached 2,500,000 people vaccinated, that is over 4%. Almost 9% of people have received at least one dose of COVID vaccine.
Lombardy is one of the regions with the least proportions of people vaccinated, which sounds pretty bad given that it has been the region worst hit by the virus. Screw Attilio Fontana, really.
The curves of new cases and new deaths have been quite steady in the last week, actually, but I'm not sure what to make of this.
I have mostly renounced on updating myself on the current restrictions at this point - it doesn't make much difference to me.

[Middle-aged Europe]

In Germany it is now 1:00 a.m.

In what is probably the longest-running and most hard-fought "corona summit" since the pandemic began, the heads of the federal and state governments have been negotiating how to deal with the newly rising infection numbers for ten hours now.

Merkel wanted to institute nightly curfews, which was met with heavy resistance from a couple of states. Some state governments then wanted to allow people to go on Easter vacations, which was met with heavy resistance from Merkel. Since the big round of Merkel plus all sixteen minister-presidents ended in a stalemate, it became necessary to reduce it to a much smaller circle consisting of only Merkel, her vice-chancellor/finance minister Olaf Scholz (SPD), Bavarian minister-president Markus Söder (CSU), and Berlin's mayor Michael Müller (SPD).

The first result from the aforementioned quartet after five or six hours of negotiations is a proposed "hard shutdown" over an extended Easter weekend from April 1 to April 6 which would even include closing down all supermarkets and grocery stores during that period. Keep in mind though that this proposed compromise solution will now enter the big circle of all sixteen state leaders again for further debate.

[Middle-aged Europe]

After 12 hours of negotiations German federal and state governments have agreed to shut down supermarkets on April 1 and - at least partially - on April 3. This is probably not the solution necessary to fight a third wave, but the solution everyone could agree upon.

[Vaccinated Russian Bear]

https://twitter.com/MKuefner/status/1374236148793536514

[Middle-aged Europe]

The federal/state governments of Germany have also "asked" the churches to not hold any Easter services (outside of virtual events). The churches have showed themselves "surprised" by this request and at least the Catholic Church has already announced its intention to not abide to it.

[Former President tack50]

Germany's third wave response seems extreme to me tbh. Closing down supermarkets is borderline insane, as well as the "hard lockdown" (presumably meaning stepping outside = fine like it did here last year?)

[Middle-aged Europe]

Germany's third wave response seems extreme to me tbh. Closing down supermarkets is borderline insane, as well as the "hard lockdown" (presumably meaning stepping outside = fine like it did here?)

No, a curfew was successfully vetoed by the state governments yesterday, and even if it had been instituted it only would have been a nightly curfew. The federal-state agreement includes a unspecified ban on "assemblies in public" over the extended Easter weekend now, but nobody really knows what that means because the same agreement also allows for "private gatherings" of two households of five people tops, with couples who don't live together under the same roof being counted as a single household.

Some media have speculated that the ban on "assemblies in public" might mean something similar like the rules in the very beginning of the first lockdown in March of last year when people where allowed to leave their houses but only when they kept moving and didn't stand or sit down somewhere (happened to myself last March, I sat down on a park bench, but then two cops came and asked me to move along). In fact, a second conference of all the state leaders are planned for this evening where they want to discuss and specify what yesterday's agreement actually means in practice. These new rules where agreed upon sometime very late last night and everybody involved probably was pretty tired at that point.

The shutdown of supermarkets will only last one or two days which makes it nonsensical because the effect on the infection rates will probably be close to zero. But, as I said before, that was the measure everyone - both the lockdown supporters and the lockdown critics among the 16 minister-presidents - could agree upon as a compromise.

[palandio]

It should be mentioned again that the conference of chancellor and governors is not an institution designated by any constitution or law. It's resolutions are non-binding. That doesn't mean that the conference is unconstitutional, on the contrary chancellor and governors are free to coordinate their actions if they think that it would make sense. Still, if the outcome is a compromise that leaves everyone unsatisfied, then people should be reminded that the compromise is legally not necessary.

Berlin mayor Michael Müller (SPD) called the resolution a "change of paradigm" into the direction of testing and vaccinations. It that is the case, then the general communication with the repeated focus on closures and restrictions is a total failure.

I don't expect that the new "tightenings" have any significant effect on the pandemic other than annoying the population. What could have an effect are school closures from 27 March to 11 April due to Easter holidays.

[Middle-aged Europe]

It should be mentioned again that the conference of chancellor and governors is not an institution designated by any constitution or law. It's resolutions are non-binding. That doesn't mean that the conference is unconstitutional, on the contrary chancellor and governors are free to coordinate their actions if they think that it would make sense. Still, if the outcome is a compromise that leaves everyone unsatisfied, then people should be reminded that the compromise is legally not necessary.

Berlin mayor Michael Müller (SPD) called the resolution a "change of paradigm" into the direction of testing and vaccinations. It that is the case, then the general communication with the repeated focus on closures and restrictions is a total failure.

I don't expect that the new "tightenings" have any significant effect on the pandemic other than annoying the population. What could have an effect are school closures from 27 March to 11 April due to Easter holidays.

Germany's federalism worked reasonably well as long everyone could agree on what needs to be done. Since this is not the case anymore and our political elite has increasingly become divided into hardline restrictioners and restriction lifters our political system has at the same time become increasingly dysfunctional. We're kind of resemblingthe EU now, only on a smaller scale.

[President Johnson]

New rulings in Germany are beyond ridiculous at this point. Two additional "rest days" around Easter make zero sense and won't have an impact other than hurting the economy and creating bureaucracy. My employer for example finishes the fiscal year on March 31 and we have an April 6 deadline to invoice all goods and services to that day. Due to Easter weekend, it was already a tough deadline and now by making April 1 a de facto holiday takes us another day away. Instead, we have to apply for holiday work if necessary to keep the deadline, creating more bureaucratic hurdles. And all of this while most of the employees are already working from home, causing no additional risk for virus spreading.

Don't take my word for it, several virologists have concluded the same about the inefficiency of these rules. Closing supermarkets on these days but allow them to open on Easter Sunday is equally without any sense; it will just lead to longer lines that day and the subsequent days. And the most ridiculous issue remains Germans being allowed to travel on the Beleares but not within the country. Sometimes it feels like we're a Banana Republic.

[Tender Branson]

Contrary to Germany, Austria yesterday night decided to do ... nothing.

Neither more relaxations, nor more restrictions.

Cases are slowly rising, as are hospitalisations and ICU - but there are a lot more middle-aged people now crowding the ICUs and for much longer.

[President Johnson]

Contrary to Germany, Austria yesterday night decided to do ... nothing.

Neither more relaxations, nor more restrictions.

Cases are slowly rising, as are hospitalisations and ICU - but there are a lot more middle-aged people now crowding the ICUs and for much longer.

I think Austria actually wanted to open outdoor gastronomy at some point, but then went back because the situation is not improving.

[palandio]

It should be mentioned again that the conference of chancellor and governors is not an institution designated by any constitution or law. It's resolutions are non-binding. That doesn't mean that the conference is unconstitutional, on the contrary chancellor and governors are free to coordinate their actions if they think that it would make sense. Still, if the outcome is a compromise that leaves everyone unsatisfied, then people should be reminded that the compromise is legally not necessary.

Berlin mayor Michael Müller (SPD) called the resolution a "change of paradigm" into the direction of testing and vaccinations. It that is the case, then the general communication with the repeated focus on closures and restrictions is a total failure.

I don't expect that the new "tightenings" have any significant effect on the pandemic other than annoying the population. What could have an effect are school closures from 27 March to 11 April due to Easter holidays.

Germany's federalism worked reasonably well as long everyone could agree on what needs to be done. Since this is not the case anymore and our political elite has increasingly become divided into hardline restrictioners and restriction lifters our political system has at the same time become increasingly dysfunctional. We're kind of resemblingthe EU now, only on a smaller scale.

I fear that I disagree with some of your premises.

Yes, sometimes there is an overlap of responsibilities or there are other reasons for coordination. But in cases like the one on hand the competence to enact most restrictions explicitly is at the state level. The federal government should try to do its homework (digital infrastructure, coordination with the RKI and international institutions, testing strategies, vaccine orders) instead of wasting time and energy on the attempt to force detailed unitary restrictions onto the states. If federalism means that everyone has to agree, then there is no need for federalism.

Delegating the vaccine orders to the EU is another example where a task was delegated to a political level that was not adequately equipped to fulfill the task. Letting 27 members decide on a question like this automatically means that politics will follow the most hesistant and reluctant members like Poland and Bulgaria. And it hurts particularly because it was unnecessary.