COVID-19 Coronavirus UK and World News Update 6th August 2021
The UK added 31,808 cases today and now has recorded a total of over 6 million officially reported cases - 6,014,023. We completed 825,501 tests yesterday.
The counter says 46,961,830 people (88.8% of UK adults) had been given at least one dose of a vaccine in the UK by midnight last night. 39,047,529 people (73.8%) had received 2 doses and are fully vaccinated.
5,631 people were in hospital yesterday 5th August (DOWN from 5,916 a week earlier, up from 5,001 two week earlier / 3,964 three weeks earlier), with 871 using a ventilator (very slightly UP on last week's 869, up from 699 two weeks earlier / 551 three weeks earlier - this will take longer to fall than hospitalisations - younger people especially often take several weeks to have an 'outcome'. Fingers crossed for positive outcomes).
In the 24 hours up until 5pm yesterday, we officially reported the loss of another 92 people who have tested positive to COVID-19 within 28 days, making a total of 130,178 losses of life in all settings.
Rep. Of Ireland 308,800 (+1,781) cases and 5,044 losses of life.
There have now been a total of 202,049,669 reported cases worldwide. The number of people who have lost their lives worldwide to COVID-19 is 4,285,942. Already 181,725,241 people have recovered.
"Great news! All countries & areas in the WHO Western Pacific Region now have enough COVID19 vaccines to protect all of their healthcare workers.
Over 20M of the total doses received were delivered by COVAX, thanks to the support of donors & partners."
The World Health Organisation.
"Rolling out additional booster shots of covid19 vaccines widely is no different than going for a second helping while there’s still a long line of people waiting to get any food at all.
And we’re not even sure whether that feeling in our stomachs is hunger - or just anxiety."
Kai Kupferschmidt, German Science Journalist.
"66,900 hospitalisations have been prevented in England as a result of the COVID-19 vaccination programme, according to PHE's latest figures. This is phenomenal."
Nadhim Zahawi, UK Vaccines Minister.
When you consider that around 1-2 in every 15 may not have gone home, it's even more striking.
Most of the restrictions in Wales come to an end tomorrow. First Minister Mark Drakeford has asked that people don't see it as a free-for-all. Please be sensible.
The latest report of REACT-1from Imperial College, London and Ipsos MORI, which covers England from 24th June to 12th July (so this is already VERY out of date, things are looking better now) found:
- Fully vaccinated people were three times less likely than unvaccinated people to test positive for COVID-19 (0.4% and 1.21%)
- Infections had increased four-fold compared to the last report (20th May to 7th June), from 0.15% to 0.63% positives - 1 in 160 people infected.
- Growth appeared to be slowing (as opposed to exponentially rising).
- Prevalence had soared in 13-17 year olds since the last report, from 0.16% to 1.56%.
The study tested 98,233 randomly selected volunteers, 527 were positive for COVID. Half the positive samples were sequenced, and ALL were Delta Variant.
While the world is busy with COVID, and all the big guys are trying to show how lovely they are, whilst taking all the vaccines they can and still keeping diplomatic relationships in balance, the hackers are having a field day.
In the last few months we've had accusations against China and Russia, various large Government and state databases and secret information has reportedly been taken.
Today US Intelligence claim they have a huge quantity of information from the Wuhan lab. No mention of how they got it. Who knows, could be legit, right? They intend to find out exactly what viruses were being studied there - as obviously they're investigating the lab leak theory. We know they were studying bat Coronaviruses, that won't be a surprise. What would be a surprise would be if they did find SARS-CoV-2 - the coronavirus that causes COVID. It might be a while. They need genomics experts to interpret the data, and they have to be able to read Mandarin. Applicants would probably be very welcome...
UK Medical and Dentistry courses have really suffered under COVID. Some medical students were granted degrees early last year in order to support colleagues, but many of those left behind have struggled to complete the required elements. My daughter reports that they are allowed 4 patients in a room which would usually hold 16, and that sort of COVID safety measure is likely to be in place for at least another year.
The University of Exeter earlier this year was offering £10,000 bursaries and free accommodation to medical students who deferred until September 2022.
Despite this, today the UK Government has announced they are increasing the cap on Medical and Dentistry students, in order to cover the shortfall in staff in the UK.
Frankly this move has come far too late, it should have happened long before COVID, but apparently there is some hidden bonus to the UK importing our medics, and the Government would rather do that. I think this time they've realised it simply won't cover it. Where these people are meant to study though? Best of luck...
The WHO weekly situation report on COVID worldwide shows very clearly the stark difference between Europe and the other continents. Whereas their lines for loss of life continue to follow the same pattern as reported cases, Europe's flattens almost totally. If anyone is in doubt about the difference high levels of vaccination is making, you really can't make it more clear.
(The Americas includes North and South America - Brazil, Peru, Mexico, Chile etc).
Olympic Hopefuls:
The games are almost over, the closing ceremony will take place on Sunday 8th starting at noon (UK time). It's been very costly.
Yesterday Japan extended restrictions to another 8 prefectures.
Today the total case count for Japan has passed the grim milestone of 1 million cases, with positivity rates around 10%, meaning they are not catching them all. Tokyo itself reported another 4,515 cases today - around 1/3 of the record daily total - 15,645.
China is also struggling to control COVID. The famously were incredibly strict when COVID initially broke out, locking thousands of people in their homes for many weeks.
Despite their tough stance on border control, Delta variant has broken out there, and they are currently reporting around 100 new cases a day.
Mass testing has begun in Wuhan and Beijing, tourist attractions and cinemas are closed, venues can operate at 75% capacity, and schools have the option to delay reopening after their holiday.
China have administered over 1.72 billion doses of vaccines. 223m of their 1.4 billion population are fully vaccinated. Additional vaccines are being deployed to high risk areas.
Public Health England have updated the CHIME data app. It has information on cases, hospital admissions and losses of life, by area, age, sex, level of deprivation, ethnic group and population density, and it's really user-friendly. Google 'Public Health England CHIME' if you want to find out how many men aged 25-49 caught COVID in the South West in January, or something similar.
Today's indieSAGE was a mixed picture - we really have plateaued, and cases are heading downwards as opposed to rising, this is proven by the drop in hospital admissions, and will soon be reflected in the number of people losing their lives. HURRAH!!
Vaccinations have REALLY slowed though. Around 40% of people in the UK are not fully vaccinated, around 30% (including children) haven't been vaccinated at all. (I think his numbers are a bit mean. I did some maths yesterday and got us to a little over that.)
The UK's Climate Change Minister Alok Sharma is being criticised for travelling to 30 different countries over the last 7 months - quarantine-free. Quite rightly so! Oneruleforthem is trending...
Mongolia have fully vaccinated more of their whole population than the UK - almost 61%. The population may be poor, they may be remote and sprawling, but they know how to work together. They bought as many cheap vaccines as they could from neighbours Russia and China - and the suggestion is that they played them off against each other.... "Russia are giving us 1m doses", "Well, we'll give you 4.5m then". Smart...
If you Google "ONS Excess deaths in your neighbourhood during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic" then you will be taken to a page on the Government Office for National Statistics website, where you can input any English or Welsh postcode and find out how COVID has affected the mortality rate. My own postcode area suffered most in late Spring and late Autumn/Winter last year and over the whole pandemic has lost an extra 19 people above the average expected.
China have said they will donate $100 million to the COVAX global vaccine initiative, as well as giving 2 billion vaccine doses to the world THIS YEAR.
The SinoVac vaccine isn't quite as effective as many others, but with Delta it should still prevent symptomatic illness in around 60% of the people who take it. (Chilean study 58.5%) Nice one.
Have you seen what Tom Daly of the UK Olympic Diving Team has been knitting while he sits poolside? A fabulous white Team GB cardigan. Didn't I tell you it would be the Year Of The Cardi? See! Even our children's sporting heroes know it...
Have a good weekend. Do NOT forget your treat - it's a thing now. You need to have something special for you, because you did well, and you earned it, and it's too easy to just think of everyone else. The situation in the UK is steady, and it really does look like it may be on the decline, and staying that way. Summer, and the school holidays are on our side, but that race we're running, at the moment we are ahead of the virus. It isn't over though, so, as Mark Drakeford said, be sensible. COVID can still make you very poorly.
Wear A Cardi, Open A Window, Save The NHS.
Some numbers. All just people who wanted to get on with their lives undisturbed:
Countries / Cases / Losses of life (since midnight GMT. In larger countries some states /provinces have yet to report today):
USA 36,305,074 (+3,330) 631,899 (+20)
India 31,884,819 (+29,036) 427,149 (+364)
Brazil 20,066,587 not yet reported today 560,801
Russia 6,402,564 (+22,660) 163,301 (+792)
France 6,233,876 not yet reported today 112,098
UK 6,014,023 (+31,808) 130,178 (+92)
Turkey 5,846,784 not yet reported today 51,875
Argentina 4,989,402 not yet reported today 107,023
Colombia 4,821,603 not yet reported today 121,899
Spain 4,588,132 (+21,561) 82,006 (+75)
Italy 4,383,787 (+6,599) 128,187 (+24)
Iran 4,092,671 (+34,913) 93,086 (+458)
Germany 3,790,515 (+1,074) 92,257 (+2)
Indonesia 3,607,863 (+39,532) 104,010 (+1,635)
Mexico 2,922,663 (+21,569) 243,165 (+618)
.
Sources:
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/
Daily hospital admissions
https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/statistical-work-areas/covid-19-hospital-activity/
https://twitter.com/WHOWPRO/status/1423560141203394560?s=19
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/react-study-shows-fully-vaccinated-are-three-times-less-likely-to-be-infected
https://twitter.com/nadhimzahawi/status/1423325322628509704?s=19
https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/05/politics/covid-origins-genetic-data-wuhan-lab/index.html
https://twitter.com/jh_heather/status/1423387395194511370?s=19
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/extra-places-on-medical-and-dentistry-courses-for-2021
https://twitter.com/kakape/status/1423376666957647873?s=19
https://www.who.int/publications/m/item/weekly-epidemiological-update-on-covid-19---3-august-2021
https://www.arcgis.com/apps/dashboards/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6
Japan: https://twitter.com/i/events/1423361547091468290
https://analytics.phe.gov.uk/apps/chime/
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/articles/excessdeathsinyourneighbourhoodduringthecoronaviruscovid19pandemic/2021-08-03
https://twitter.com/i/events/1422919623243182082
https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/sinovacs-covid-19-vaccine-585-effective-preventing-illness-chile-real-world-2021-08-03/
https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202108/06/WS610c6e44a310efa1bd666f81.html
http://www.ecns.cn/news/2021-08-06/detail-ihaptpct3742054.shtml
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-58112621
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-58112093
https://ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinations
https://www.thebrickcastle.com/2021/07/covid-19-coronavirus-uk-and-world-news_30.html
No comments:
Post a Comment
Thank you for taking the time to leave a comment. I read every one and try my best to reply!