International COVID-19 Megathread

[ملكة كرينجيتوك]

Over a month old but still interesting

https://time.com/6050316/taiwan-covid-19-outbreak-tea/

How a False Sense of Security, and a Little Secret Tea, Broke Down Taiwan's COVID-19 Defenses

After rapidly imposing world-leading infection control measures, Taiwan slowly began to let down its guard last summer. Crowds of thousands of people were allowed to return to concerts, baseball games and religious festivals. Large meals and family gatherings became increasingly common, and masks became rarer as months passed with no local infections.

“Last year, we started to kind of go out, but deal with it in a careful way,” says Freddy Lim, a rockstar turned lawmaker who represents Wanhua in Taiwan’s legislature. “But this year, I think we forgot the part about being careful.”

Taiwan’s outbreak is now proving to be a test of whether a society relatively untouched by COVID-19 can effectively put to use the lessons the rest of the world learned the hard way.

[Mike88]

Portugal update:

Things continue complicated around here. The number of new cases is hovering around 2,000 per day and hospitalizations are also increasing a lot.

The good news is that new deaths are between 0-5 per day, and the vaccination program is speeding up, with Portugal being the country with most jabs given in the last week in the whole EU, and it's expected that during this week the 10 million mark of jabs will be surpassed. Yesterday, jabs for people between 18-29 years old started to be given, and in Madeira, young people above 12 years old are starting to get the vaccine also.

[It’s so Joever]

https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-vaccine-drops-to-64-efficacy-in-stoping-infections-in-israel-as-delta-spreads-1.9971842

Awful news. This is just preeliminary, but so was the study that found an 88% efficacy. By Atlas standards, we should sanction India for allowing such a dangerous new variant to come up with their negligent response. We may be forced back to square one soon.

[YE]

https://twitter.com/bogochisaac/status/1412060322643464196?s=21

[President Johnson]

Yeah, that's totally appropriate with 200 per 100k seven-day incidence. BoJo's flip flopping on Covid policy has always been a hot mess.

https://twitter.com/dwnews/status/1412115057719189517

[Silent Hunter]

I'm having to self-isolate at the moment due to a Covid app notification. I am double jabbed, had a negative PCR test yesterday, having no symptoms bar my usual hayfever and a mild case of annoyance.

Re face masks, it will depend on the circumstances for me too. If someone asks me to, I will wear one.

[Mike88]

Portugal update:

Things continue complicated around here. The number of new cases is hovering around 2,000 per day and hospitalizations are also increasing a lot.

The good news is that new deaths are between 0-5 per day, and the vaccination program is speeding up, with Portugal being the country with most jabs given in the last week in the whole EU, and it's expected that during this week the 10 million mark of jabs will be surpassed. Yesterday, jabs for people between 18-29 years old started to be given, and in Madeira, young people above 12 years old are starting to get the vaccine also.

Info with some charts:

Vaccines and cases
https://twitter.com/MaxCRoser/status/1412323952031158273

[It’s so Joever]

Allowing a virus with already a strong ability to evade current vaccines to spread through a partially vaccinated population is literally the best way to get more vaccine resistant mutations.
Boris Johnson is a complete fool, and we will need booster shots within a year for decent protection from hospitalization due to him, Mark my words.

Looking at the future, it appears we will be playing a game of variant whack a mole. We have the technology to adapt our vaccines relatively quickly, but we will constantly need to keep updating them. In the meantime, poorer nations will continue to struggle to even secure the hardly protective versions from long ago.
The rich and well educated will continue to survive fine, while those in poorer countries and the less educated will be f**ked.

[Silent Hunter]

We're already planning for booster shots in September here.

[It’s so Joever]

We're already planning for booster shots in September here.

Are they going to use an updated version, or just the same one three times?
I know Moderna has already started studies into that and has found promising results.

[CumbrianLefty]

Johnson had maybe his most uncomfortable PMQs for months today. Whilst his backbenchers might bray about "freedom" many other people have questions, and don't appreciate the government just seemingly washing its hands of everything once an arbitrary date has been reached.

[Mike88]

Portugal update:

3,285 new cases today and 8 new deaths. However, hospitalizations have decreased to 603, compared with yesterday's 613.

Also, the government's "Risk Matrix" had to be enlarged because the current virus incidence no longer fits in the previous matrix:

https://twitter.com/expresso/status/1412761048281669635

Covid-19. Eight deaths and almost 3200 infected in 24 hours in Portugal. Incidence and R(t) rise, risk matrix has been expanded

(...)
The incidence of covid-19, disclosed in this Wednesday's update, rose again, now standing at 247.3 in the national territory and 254.8 in the Mainland - the highest values recorded since March 15, when the public disclosure of these data began. In relation to the R(t), it maintains at 1.20 in the entire national territory and there is an increase to 1.20 also in the Mainland. Last Monday the incidence registered was 224.6 in the national territory and 231 in mainland Portugal. As for R(t), the values were 1.19 in the entire national territory and 1.20 in mainland Portugal.

With this, the matrix had to be extended, because the maximum incidence it covered was precisely 240 - if the previous model was maintained, the brands would be out of scale.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Many of the remaining restrictions are onerous and of decidedly dubious medical or public health benefit - I don't think there is any case for retaining those. What there an argument is for the rest: is it absolutely necessary to end all restrictions in one go? Might it make more sense to keep a few that probably do have a benefit until vaccinations in young adults have hit a higher level? Of course instead we get presented with this idea that the 'debate' is between 'everything in one go' and what amounts to scaremongering lunacy.

[Sir Mohamed]

Olympic games will be without spectators, the Japanese govt just announced.

https://twitter.com/axios/status/1413127498389499906

[CumbrianLefty]

They are still going ahead, right?

Cancelling them this late would be a massive national humiliation though.

[President Johnson]

We're already planning for booster shots in September here.

Are they going to use an updated version, or just the same one three times?
I know Moderna has already started studies into that and has found promising results.

I thought booster shots will only be for elderly people, whose immune system is weaker and who were vaccinated earlier than others. At least that's what they've been saying here.

Biontech also said they could "update" their vaccine within weeks if new variants manage to escape the current vaccine. However, so far they don't see valid data that makes it necessary so far.

[Silent Hunter]

Many of the remaining restrictions are onerous and of decidedly dubious medical or public health benefit - I don't think there is any case for retaining those. What there an argument is for the rest: is it absolutely necessary to end all restrictions in one go? Might it make more sense to keep a few that probably do have a benefit until vaccinations in young adults have hit a higher level? Of course instead we get presented with this idea that the 'debate' is between 'everything in one go' and what amounts to scaremongering lunacy.

Mask wearing has its uses - in close proximity and in conjunction with other measures.

I'm just under two hours away from ending a five-day self-isolation because I sat too close to a positive case somewhere on Monday last week... and they don't even shorten the period of self-isolation if you test negative on a PCR. It's stuff like that which damages public co-operation.

[President Johnson]

Germany again has declared Spain a "risk area" due to rising infection rates, which means the foreign ministry advises against travel. Practically it hasn't much of an impact, as you already need a negative test for returning to Germany unless you're vaccinated or immunized through infection. However, it raises concerns in the tourism industry, especially as Spain heavily depends on tourism.

I just hope nothing changes in or about Greece now as we booked a vacation on Rhodes in just ten days. Greece already has closed most nightclubs as several infectins among younger people were reported recently.

[Former President tack50]

Yeah, the situation here isn't great at all; and in fact my home region has registered the highest number of cases so far in the pandemic. Granted this peak is at 250 cases per 100k in 14 days if I remember correctly while much of mainland Spain was much worse in the winter peak, but apparently this summer wave has hit my region quite hard.

Thankfully since it is mostly focused on young people, not many are dying or hospitalized, and it seems that for better or worse restrictions will not be quite as severe (no curfews for instance; in fact our Regional Superior Court has almost gone full trumpist and saying that closing indoor dining is illegal lol)

[Mike88]

Portugal update:

70% of the adult population has already at least one dose of a Covid vaccine, the government announced today. Around 5,8 million people above 18 years old have already at least one vaccine. 4 million are fully vaccinated. In total, as of today, around 10,100,000 jabs have already been given.

In terms of cases, new cases at still above the 3,000 mark: 3,162 today. Hospitalizations are at 632 and ICUs at 144.

[urutzizu]

The first doses beginning to slow in many European countries now due to beginning to reach the limits of those who do not need convincing to get vaccinated. France is the western European country with the most anti-vaccine sentiment, and is therefore most at risk from the delta variant surge likely to happen soon (only 53% of population with at least 1 dose). So Macron announces that France is going to be the first European country to my knowledge to make life much harder for the unvaccinated:
-mandatory vaccines for care workers
-Health certificate (negative test, recovered or vaccinated) mandatory for most aspects of public life including long distance trains, bars, restaurants, Shopping centers und Hospitals
-PCR tests will cost money unless prescribed

https://www.lefigaro.fr/politique/covid-19-variant-delta-pass-sanitaire-vaccination-des-soignants-ce-qu-il-faut-retenir-des-annonces-de-macron-20210712

I wonder if this is going to be necessary across Europe to stay open. Other western European countries however don't have such high levels of vaccine skepticism (will likely reach about 80% of adults vaccinated). And while in France the vaccine skepticism is high, it is not high enough where Macron's risk of losing votes from anti-vaxxers (which presumably won't vote for him in large numbers anyway) will be a greater risk to him, than not keeping the pandemic under control. That is possibly a different equation in places like Romania or Poland where Governments have more to lose from losing the votes of anti-vaxxers. Which is a problem of course, because in a Europe that is integrated that presents a health risk to the rest of Europe as well.

[Edu]

I got my first dose of the vaccine today. It's Sinopharm. Second dose should happen in 3 months or so.

Whole thing took me like 20-25 minutes since I entered the vaccination station (in this case the theater San Martin, 6 blocks away from home). Now I'll wait patiently for side-effects if any.

I'm also announcing that I'll vote for Fernandez in november. Viva Perón and 习近平万岁

[CumbrianLefty]

So apparently the Dutch PM has apologised for fully reopening too early......

[Sir Mohamed]

So apparently the Dutch PM has apologised for fully reopening too early......

Something you won't hear from BoJo, I'm sure.

[Former President tack50]

Idk if this fits better on the Spanish politics thread or here, but I'll put it here.

Today, there has been a bit of a landmark ruling by Spain's constitutional court; deciding upon a Vox complaint about the first state of alarm and its associated restrictions (which lasted from late March to late May).

Spain's constitutional court has declared that it was unconstitutional, by a 6-5 vote with I think some ideological crossing (3 conservatives voting against, 1 progressive in favour; the makeup of the court is 7 conservatives to 4 progressives I think)

The ruling is quite simple to understand actually. Spain's state of alarm only allows the government to restrict, but not completely abolish fundamental liberties (in this case, freedom of movement). And the court understands that Spain's restrictions in April, when you could not leave your house at all except for very limited exceptions, exceed the limits of the state of alarm; and that instead the government should have used the more restrictive "state of exception" (the 2nd of 3, more severe than alarm but less so than the "state of siege")

That is an state that has never been (legally) used in Spanish history, not even during the 2017 Catalan crisis (though it was floated as an option at the time), the 1981 military coup or the darkest days of ETA terrorism.

To be honest, I actually agree with the ruling, though it's a situation where the Sánchez government was screwed no matter what he did.

Had Sánchez opted to go for the state of exception, there are 2 main problems with it:

a) It is harder to activate, since it requires Congress to vote on it before it actually goes into place. So the covid restrictions would have taken a couple more days to be implemented

b) Perhaps more importantly, the state of exception is a bit too far-reaching. It obviously gives the government the power to eliminate the right to freedom of movement; but it also gives the government many exceptional powers that would have seen Sánchez (rightly) decried as a dictator, including:

-Police can now arrest people for up to 10 days before habeas corups (under normal times this is 3 days)
-Police can get into houses and what not with no court orders
-Police can intervene telecommunications with no court orders
-The government can supress the emission of propaganda, TV and radio programs, etc
-The government can stop any sort of meeting other than those from political parties, labour unions or business associations
-The Spanish Congress can, via majority vote, supress any sort of strike


So while I agree with the ruling, perhaps Spain's exceptional state systems need a bit of a reform; perhaps with some intermediate state between alarm and exception. Though this would require a constitutional reform so no way it actually happens.

In terms of actual effects, I think the only thing that will happen is that the 1 million fines issued during said state of alarm will be rendered moot and the state will have to pay them back. But nothing else.

TL;DR: Sanchez's initial covid restrictions have been ruled unconstitutional. I agree with that but it was a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation.