The evidence is growing that the delta variant from India that has taken over Britain matters very much, especially if the English had been unable to catch up giving out second doses (though they seem to be doing pretty well at that).

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/06/08/fauc...n-america.html

This means that in Canada, for example, if the delta strain were to get a foothold, it could cause a dramatic spike in cases because while 57.5% have received one or more doses (more than in the US now), only 5.8% have received a second dose. The numbers in Britain used to be like that also but no longer: They have made a big push to get those second doses into people. And the continued restrictions on peoples' activity, which are being so criticized here, seem designed to give them time to do that.

It's depressing when people post what they really don't understand.

Made it to Kangerlussuaq, and swiftly placed into the quarantine dorm where I will remain for the next 5 days. I'm allowed out of my room to go to the bathroom, do laundry, and go on solo exercise, with restrictions:
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/pw...-no?authuser=0

62.6% and 8.8% now, respectively.

Regardless, once even a single dose of vaccination is taken into account, case numbers on their own don't mean much anymore. A 33% efficacy against symptomatic illness with the Delta variant still provides >33% protection against serious illness resulting in hospitalization or death.

Case in point: infection numbers are on the rise in the UK, but hospitalizations and deaths have not followed suit (also in part because the rise has been in under-30s, who are largely still not eligible for their first dose there). Covid cases without serious illness or death aren't a problem.

Well the numbers are actually 63% (72% above 12 years) with a first dose and 9% (10% above 12 years) with a second dose for Canada but by the end of July there will be enough vaccine to get up to 80% with both doses. per capita, Canada has the same amount of covid cases and much less deathS than the US currently. Cases are falling faster now in Canada than the US as well. Canada will most likely reach 70% (80% over age 12) for first dose and 30% (35% over age 12) by the end of June.

My source, which says what I said it says as of when I said it, is https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/c...-distribution/

Yours?

I don't see this as an issue. Nobody disagrees you are better off with even just 33% protection but the point is that the delta variant seems significantly more resistant to the immunity conferred by existing vaccines and especially if you've had only one dose. So 10023 is quite wrong that the variants don't matter.

Furthermore, it is in exactly the environment like the UK where one strain, the so-called UK variant, was dominant and now that is being replaced by another variant, the delta strain, that you can get multi-variant strains which are potentially the most dangerous of all.

So it makes sense to do what the UK has done: suppress social interaction as much as possible until as many people as possible can be fully vaccinated. "As many people as possible" doesn't mean everybody and perhaps it can be said that you have reached that point when the rate of vaccination slows dramatically as it seems to be doing in the US (unless a new effort can re-energize it). But Britains still seem to be showing up for shots at a good rate so I don't think they are there yet.

Again: Your source?

Anyway, this isn't a Canada vs US contest. This is a question of whether variants matter and whether they matter more if you've only had a single dose, and they do.

In an environment where new variants are actively taking over and/or arrising, it's probably necessary to be more cautious about lifting social distancing measures.

:rolleyes:

I don’t understand?

Cases are rising a bit but people are not, and will not, die in numbers that justify lockdowns because most of the vulnerable have been vaccinated, and the ones that haven’t have chosen not to be.

You are welcome to wear a mask and socially distance forever. I’m sure no one cares. For the rest of us this is over.

here is my source: https://covid19tracker.ca/vaccinationtracker.html

the CNN article is taking the numbers from the Government of Canada site which has stats which are 1 to 2 weeks old. The link above is updated every time the provinces report their daily updates.
Their sister site tracks covid infections across Canada as well: https://covid19tracker.ca/index.html

Death is not the only bad thing about having covid and what justifies what distancing measures is a matter of opinion. You've made it clear you think almost nothing does.

What you do keep ignoring is the oft-stated point that wearing a mask is not about self-protection as much as it is about protecting others. Therefore, you cannot "protect yourself" adequately by wearing one. The person sitting next to you on the bus or at the bar needs to be wearing one too.

It's not over until new cases are not a daily event. There are actually places in the US right now where that's true but not yet in the denser urban areas. If another 10% of the population or so would get vaccinated, we'd probably get there.

But I urge the unvaccinated to adopt your attitude. Go out there and get covid as soon as possible. That's the other way we can end it.

Great news for 10023:

https://www.sfgate.com/local/article...P-CP-Spotlight

More non-news from our in house Howard Hughes.

Nothing to see here. You continue to come from a position of dreaded "what-ifs" and cherry pick the news for like-minded articles

^ The delta variant is nothing of concern, and it is not more resistant to diddly squat. To the fully vaccinated public this is a non-issue, except for a few babbles from an old man in his basement who has declared that he will never ride in an Uber or a train again

The variants don't matter. 10023 is correct. Get the vaccine and live your life. Perhaps get a booster again in a year. And then a modified vaccine to address some new COVID strains in another few years.

Nothing more to see here.

Sorry, but no virologist of significance agrees with you and I am beginning to feel sorry for your patients. They have a practitioner who doesn't believe in science it seems.

Now go do what you accuse me of doing and find the one virologist in America who denies the importance of the variants.

^ I believe in science more than you do, I just understand things with a clearer head than you do.

Discussions about viral mutation should be taking place in academic circles and among health care policy makers, not posted in scary after scary article by amateurish journalists and Internet forums by freaked out old men

So you can't find even one scientific source to argue variants don't matter. But I admit you are good at calling names ("freaked out old men") and other irrelevant, ugly clap-trap.

Meanwhile, here's a bit of science for you from the prestigious scientific journal Nature:

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01390-4

But I would emphasize that the importance of variants lies not in the variants that have so far emerged, which do not seem to change the overall picture that people who are vaccinated are still well protected, at least from a public health standpoint, but in the potential for new and nastier variants to emerge in populations that have not been vaccinated, whether those populations are in countries like the US where millions have been but other millions have not or in places like the developing world where almost nobody has yet been.

^ Cool story.

Once again, a good topic to follow for the experts.

The general public, in their infinite ignorance, paranoia, and utter lack of perspective have no hope in interpreting the implications of any of this. Of that I am certain.

Now go back to double masking in your basement while ordering DoorDash for all of your meals

The public has the right to whatever publicly available scientific information they want. Personal liberties and filtering news (because you don't like what conclusions people may draw from it) don't really go hand in hand. News articles may be trying to induce hysteria to sell, but as long as they are stating the facts about transmissibility and not saying it's 60% more contagious when it's actually 30, then that is entirely within their prerogative.

^ Sure they do. But just because they have a right to see the facts doesn’t mean that I expect any less than a clusterfuck of misinterpretation to come out of it.

Patients can see their own lab results almost instantly now, and I get questions about misinterpretations fearing worst case scenarios from normal or slightly abnormal lab results every single day.

This “have it your way”, “right to know” society is not really any better off or wiser than a time when we simply trusted the experts to make the right decisions. In my world I have a daily window into just how problematic it all is.

From ABC7:

California announces changes to mask guidance ahead of June 15 reopening

From Disneyland to big box stores like Target, we've broken down California's mask rules for when the state fully reopens.

By Josh Haskell
Wednesday, June 9, 2021 3:18PM

UPDATE: June 9, 2:30 p.m.: California officials have provided additional information about when masks will be required following the June 15 reopening date. Unvaccinated people will still have to wear masks in most indoor settings, Dr. Ghaly said in a teleconference. California is also requiring vaccinated people to wear masks in some high-risk settings, including on transit and in schools. See the full details on when you'll need a mask and how businesses are supposed to enforce the rules below.

California officially reopens next week on June 15 after over a year of restrictions and closures due to the COVID-19 pandemic. So you can ditch your masks right? Not so fast.

Dr. Mark Ghaly, California's Health and Human Services Secretary, announced more details on what California's mask mandate will look like after the June 15 reopening.

Those fully vaccinated will be allowed to do almost everything they did pre-pandemic without wearing a mask including grocery shopping, drinking at a bar, and going to the gym.

If you're not vaccinated, you're still going to have to wear a mask in "indoor public settings." That includes grocery stores, shops, restaurants, movie theaters and other indoor businesses.

There are other situations and places where masks will be required regardless of vaccination status. It all can be a bit confusing, so we've broken down the rules below.

Masks still required for everyone in the following places in California:

Any form of public transportation (think commuter buses and railroad systems) including airports and planes. The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) extended their mask requirement through September 13, 2021. So yes, you will be required to wear a mask for your next trip out of LAX, regardless of whether you are vaccinated or not.

Hospitals and long-term care facilities: Even if you are fully vaccinated, you are still required to wear a mask in healthcare settings like hospitals and long-term care facilities such as assisted living and nursing homes. When the new mask guidance for vaccinated individuals was initially released in May, the American Hospital Association (AHA) asked for a clarification to which the CDC emphasized that new masking recommendations for people fully vaccinated against COVID-19 do not apply to health care settings.

Indoors at K-12 schools and childcare facilities: Dr. Ghaly announced Wednesday that people, including teachers and students, who are vaccinated are still going to need to wear masks when they are indoors. However, they don't have to wear masks while outdoors, like on a playground.

Prisons and homeless shelters: In accordance with CDC guidance, masks will still be required in correctional and detention facilities as well as homeless shelters.

Indoor workplaces (with one important exception): Last Thursday, the California Occupational Safety and Health Standards Board approved controversial rules that will require masks to stay on in the workplace for the time being. The exception? Workers can go maskless only if every employee in a room is fully vaccinated against the coronavirus.

Disneyland: If you want to visit the most magical place on Earth, you're still going to need to mask up even after the June 15. The only thing that will change after California's reopening is that the capacity limits at Disneyland and Disneyland California Adventure will be lifted.

Masks required for unvaccinated individuals:

Dr. Ghaly announced that unvaccinated Californians will still have to wear masks at all indoor public settings, like stores, restaurants, salons and the like. This is an update that goes further than CDC guidance, which suggests masking but doesn't require it.

Additional information you should know regarding mega events:

Indoor mega events (examples: NBA games, Staples Center events, or any other indoor conventions, conferences, expos or concerts)
Verification of fully vaccinated status or pre-entry negative test result will be required of all attendees. If you do not meet these requirements, you will not be admitted to the event or venue.

Outdoor mega events (examples: MLB games at Dodger Stadium, Hollywood Bowl concerts or any music or food festivals, car shows, marathons, etc.)
Verification of fully vaccinated status or pre-entry negative test result will be strongly recommended for all attendees per state guidance, but not required. However, if you are not fully vaccinated nor have a pre-entry negative COVID-19 test, you will still be admitted to the event as long as you wear a mask.

How will businesses verify if customers are vaccinated or not?

If you don't need a mask when you're vaccinated, but you do need one if you're not -- how is a business supposed to know? They have three choices, according to Dr. Ghaly:

-Allow individuals to "self attest" they've been vaccinated
-Implement a vaccine verification system
-Require everyone to wear a mask

If a business has information posted visibly about the new guidelines (that unvaccinated people still need to wear masks) and someone walks into a business without a mask on, that should be interpreted as someone self attesting they are vaccinated, Ghaly said.

Link: https://abc7.com/california-mask-man...irus/10745411/

Let's see how things go. I will be coming back less than two weeks from now.

My condo board just sent out an email saying that masks will no longer be required indoors as of June 11 (Illinois Phase 5 day). We will continue to maintain single elevator occupancy and unvaccinated people are requested to continue to wear masks (kind of doubtful there are many in my building...). Anyway I won't be back until July 22nd so I guess I'll see how it goes!

We are waiting for the SF Dept of Health to tell us what to do which they need to do before the state rules relax on June 15.

My main concern is the elevators. I don't trust the unvaxed, if any, to own up to it so I really don't want to ride in an elevator with people I don't know. But the rules in your building seem good and I hope we do something similar. I'm tired of wearing a mask to go to the trash room alone. I rarely even see anybody else in the hall.

I haven't worn a mask in three weeks.

NYC has been poppin' lately.

As the weeks go by, areas like TS see increases in folks.

;)

Happened to check the cams at just the right moment in space-time.

https://aws1.discourse-cdn.com/busin...f810c6a98.jpeg

Is Covid really impacting anyone's lives in America at this point? I mean, really?

I mean, there were 449 new deaths today.

*deaths

well how ‘bout that -

the latest ohio vax-a-million winner is a greater clevelander kid:


https://twitter.com/GovMikeDeWine/st...158727168?s=20

Every day here in Chicago feels more and more back to normal. I was in the West Loop tonight on a date, and it felt extremely lively, with very few people wearing masks around, with many not wearing them inside now.

It may be worthwhile telling your condo board that you'd prefer to keep single-party occupancy in elevators. At least in my building, it's hardly ever an inconvenience due to the elevator to resident ratio.

Yesterday was the first day of Ontario's Stage 1 "reopening". At this point, only patios are open and non-essential is permitted to 15% capacity. Salons, gyms, etc. aren't opening until July, and "full" reopening won't happen until August. Which is of course some pretty insane risk-aversion given that we're already 72% vaccinated and averaging only 500 new cases/day - at this time last year things were substantially more open with a 0% vaccination rate.

Still, after enduring the world's longest lockdown (things have been shut in Toronto since last November, while we'll have been in some form of partial lockdown from September 2020-August 2021 when all is said & done), we'll take what we can get! The city feels positively euphoric right now. People have been largely disregarding the restrictions for months now, but now that there are actual things to do again, a great sense of liveliness has returned with it. Just being able to do simple things like eat on patio is enough to bring a tear to the eye. :happysad:


https://i.imgur.com/QaNOpgQ.jpg
https://www.blogto.com/eat_drink/202...ning-lockdown/

I don't think it's been an inconvenience for us either. My building is doubtless bigger: 450 units. But we have a total of 6 elevators for those and I live on one of the two floors where they "rest" (that is where they automatically stay when not in use). I just wish we had stairs you could use at least to walk down (too exhausting to walk up regularly), but although we do have them for emergency use, they are alarmed with an awful shrieking siren when somebody goes out that way and opens the door on the street level.

Unfortunately, the building is "mixed use" with offices on the second floor and stores on the first. When those offices open back up and lots of people who don't live in the building start using the elevators to get to them, I foresee a problem. But we are having very few cases of covid these days (13-15 per day in the entire city) and maybe soon it will be none and everything, even the elevators, can go back to normal.

That's odd that they won't let you use your stairwells as non-emergency exits. Is it a security reason? It's usually more important to leave quickly to be on time somewhere than to get back to your unit quickly.

Yes--security. We have 24/7 security and they want everybody coming and going from the residential part of the building to pass the security desk. Usually there are 3 guards on duty and when somebody sets off the alarmed doors they send one of them to investigate. But one always stays behind the desk you have to pass to enter or leave unless you want to set off the alarm (which I have done once or twice without consequence to me when I was in a huge hurry and the elevator just didn't come).

The exception to all this is if you take the elevator directly to the residential garage. That part of the garage has a security gate you need a key fob to enter so it's supposed to be secure although a few times somebody has snuck in after a car entered. In that case, they are usually immortalized on video.

San Francisco's supposedly "terrible Tenderloin" on a covid Saturday afternoon (today):

https://uniim1.shutterfly.com/ng/ser...537251/enhance

This is the part known as "Little Saigon", hence the Vietnamese dogs on pedestals.

SF vaccination rates by neighborhood (range 82% in the Financial District and South Beach to 39% in the Lakeshore District in the far southwest corner of the city, a real standout underperformer.

https://uniim1.shutterfly.com/ng/ser...543786/enhance
https://data.sfgov.org/stories/s/uue2-6gdn

| = Castro/Upper Market

|| = Historically African-American Neighborhoods

||| = Lone Mountain/University of SF

Westwood Village is starting to get more vibrant each weekend. Maybe more UCLA students are getting ready to return?

Westwood was one the deader parts of LA during peak covid, for obvious reasons.

No, but if I visit Chicago I'm gonna wear my mask all over the suburbs!

Maybe you guys can install one of those rotating cage they use at subway stations (where you can't go the other way due to bars) in the hallway leading up to an exit door. Although it's probably not that cheap.

Not sure how accurate this is, since the neighboring zip code is reporting over 100% wiith a first dose (could be a population change since the population base for the estimate thing), but according to https://data.cityofchicago.org/Healt...e-Do/c28u-q29v, my zip code has 99% of people with a first dose, and 85% fully vaccinated, so the residents in my building are overwhelmingly likely to be vaccinated (also gives you an idea of how few under-12's there are, I guess).

But many of the people come into my building (food or furniture delivery, contractors, movers, etc.) live elsewhere and may be less likely to be vaccinated, so I'm glad we're keeping the elevator occupancy requirement for now.

In the burbs of Chicago things are in full swing.

Went to an outdoor bar to grab a drink overlooking a gorgeous lake in Wauconda, IL and it was jam packed.

Then came back with the fam later on for dinner and they were “full”.

So we drove to another town, Mundelein, to an Italian restaurant downtown and were asked if we had a reservation. We said “no” and they said we could sit indoors but that the patio was booked (live band). Had a great time nonetheless.

Prior to Covid we were on top of weekend dinner plans and nearly always made reservations. I guess, with the pandemic, we had sort of forgotten about all of that stuff.

Life not being scared and paranoid like Howard Hughes is so wonderful! Great to be in the US right now, I’m so glad I’m not in Canada or the UK.

The US recorded the lowest number of cases since March 19th, 2020.
The lowest number of *deaths* since March 25th, 2020. (*Unlike other countries, we actually count all deaths with Covid viral particles in the body, as a Covid death, whether or not Covid killed them).

https://media.giphy.com/media/hLUiXoGKNIVb2/giphy.gif
giphy

Weekend stats are generally worthless though and excess death data does not indicate that that COVID-19 deaths are systematically overestimated (see e.g. https://www.aamc.org/news-insights/h...-s-complicated as a good article on how COVID-19 deaths are counted) .

^ Why are weekend stats “worthless”?

Reporting is very hit or miss on weekends and states/hospitals likely vary their policies with time (or randomly), so they're not very like for like compared to weekday stats. Best thing is to sum over a week.

I mean I don't deny that COVID deaths are slowly going down, they are, but focusing on weekend stats is misleading since they have much higher variance for reasons having nothing to do with COVID.

7 day rolling average is the much more worthwhile stat compared against any single given day.

And going by the 7 day rolling average, US covid deaths are falling.

Tunnel, meet light.


Things are starting to feel awfully damn normal here in Chicago.

Atlanta
 

Masks disappeared pretty quickly in Atlanta. They are still around, but much much less. Still quite a bit in grocery stores, and, I travel a lot, so still mandatory in airports and on flights, but in my little commercial node of East Atlanta Village, the bars and restaurants and shops are largely fully open and maskless now.

Wauconda 4eva!!

While, when I see these test positivity numbers, I'm always left wondering what self-selection factors are causing people to get tested and how that skews the results, for what it's worth:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/positiv...d=hp_lead_pos5

The U. of California and California State University systems are going to require all students and staff to be fully vaccinated once vaccines receive full FDA approval.

I'm hoping this might be incentive for upper division (juniors/seniors) high school students to get vaccinated as well since it takes 5 or 6 weeks from the time you get your first shot until you are considered "fully vaccinated".

Pfizer has already applied for such approval for its vaccine but the process can take 8 months so I am expecting such approval to come in the middle of the 20121-2022 academic year. It would therefore be prudent for students expecting to enter college in the California system and not wanting any disruption in their studies to get fully vaccinated before matriculation.

Also, this probably isn't unusual. I expect quite a few colleges and universities not already requiring vaccination to do the same as California.