Coronavirus Briefing: What Happened Today

by



[ad_1]

With Thanksgiving on the horizon, politicians and public health officials have warned of gatherings of family and friends, calling them a major driver of new coronavirus infections. And they’re right that you should minimize your risk this week.

Data on infections, however, suggests that the main drivers of infection are not small gatherings, but rather the usual culprits: long-term care facilities, food processing factories, prisons, restaurants and bars. .

So why have social gatherings become such a popular target for politicians? Partly because they are the path of least resistance.

For some politicians, it is easier to point fingers at the individual actions of private citizens rather than enact politically onerous public health rules that can actually make a difference, like shutting down businesses and requiring a mask. .

In some states, this disconnection leads to draconian policies that are not backed by science. Vermont, for example, has banned neighbors from getting together for a socially distant and masked walk, but allows them to dine indoors at restaurants before 10 p.m. Minnesota has banned people from different households from meeting in inside and out, although evidence has always shown outside events to be relatively certain.

My colleague Apoorva Mandavilli, who reported this story for The Times, said the takeaway shouldn’t be that celebrating Thanksgiving is safe this year.

“What the story says is that social gatherings are not the main source of the spread,” Apoorva said. “But we can also do our part, and especially now that we’re in a situation where the virus is everywhere, really staying home is the safest thing to do.”

Drugmaker AstraZeneca has announced that early analysis of late stage clinical trials has shown its coronavirus vaccine to be effective in preventing Covid-19. The results suggest the world may soon have three effective vaccines, after Pfizer and Moderna reported a positive result this month.

Scientists at AstraZeneca, which developed the vaccine with the University of Oxford, said there were no serious safety concerns with its product – a reassuring sign after trials were briefly suspended this fall when a participant developed a neurological disease.

Participants in the company’s trial were given one of two regimens: either a half dose followed by a full dose one month later, or two full doses one month apart. The researchers found that the half-dose regimen was 90% effective, while the full double-dose regimen was only 62%, with an average effectiveness of 70%.

However, it can be difficult to compare the effectiveness of AstraZeneca’s vaccines with those from Pfizer and Moderna, as the companies have taken different approaches to evaluate them. AstraZeneca researchers counted infections by swabbing participants every week. This would likely have revealed more infections than trials conducted by Moderna and Pfizer, which only tested people who developed symptoms of coronavirus.

One difference stands out: AstraZeneca’s vaccine costs around $ 4, a fraction of the price of others, and the company is committed to making it available at cost worldwide until at least July.

  • Nine states – Arizona, California, Delaware, Louisiana, Maryland, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Pennsylvania and Vermont – report more than twice as many new cases per day than two weeks ago. Officials warn the situation will only get worse if people ignore warnings about travel and gatherings during the holidays.

  • In New YorkGovernor Andrew Cuomo announced new restrictions and issued a grim warning that the state was on track for another resurgence of the virus.

  • Bulgaria, after imposing a strict lockdown in the spring and largely containing the spread of the virus, is now facing an outbreak of infections that is straining an already underfunded healthcare system.

  • Seoul closes nightclubs, bans late-night restaurants South Korea tightens guidelines to tackle rising infections.

Here’s a roundup of restrictions in the 50 states.

We cannot travel safely to visit our four grown children on the West Coast, or their grandmother in Ohio, for the holidays. So one of the things we plan to do together is plant a red amaryllis flower bulb indoors on Thanksgiving Day. (We mailed them to every house.) We will keep track of their growth and flowering during those darker months of the year.

– Malinda Bergamini Chapman, Ticonderoga, New York State

Tell us how you are dealing with the pandemic. Drop us a line here, and we might post it in a future newsletter.

Sign up here to receive the briefing by email.

Send your thoughts to [email protected].

[ad_2]

Source link