Category: America
American Coronavirus News
Europe suddenly ablaze with Covid – it could be the biggest wave yet
We predicted here and here that we would see a fresh Covid wave after October 19th, but even we didn’t expect Europe to ignite into a raging inferno within a couple of days. It is beginning to look like Europe may be the epicentre of the biggest global Covid wave yet this coming winter.
So much for an ‘endemic’ phase of Covid – large parts of Europe are seeing sudden huge increases in infections:
Morocco today banned flights to the UK, Germany and the Netherlands in response to the growing infection numbers.
What will happen with North America? It’s just coming out of a fairly major wave that peaked in September 2021. We should know within two weeks whether it has been spared a full-blown winter wave, but we doubt it. Relaxations in international travel over the summer will almost certainly mean a spillover from Europe to the US and Canada, which is exactly what happened in March 2020.
Winter is here. Three European nations see their highest ever Covid case rates
Mexico: Patient coinfected with MU and Delta Covid variants at the same time
The governor of the state of Hidalgo, Mexico, reported that the Ministry of Health has detected the presence of COVID-19 Delta and Mu variants in the same patient. The state president assured that it is an unprecedented event in Mexico, since the two variants had never been detected in the same case of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus.
The finding was confirmed by the Institute for Epidemiological Diagnosis and Reference (INDRE) of the federal Ministry of Health, as well as by a third laboratory.
La secretaría de @Salud_Hidalgo ha detectado la presencia de las cepas Delta y Mu en el estado. Derivado de diferentes análisis a través del #INDRE de @SSalud_mx y un tercer laboratorio se detectaron ambas variantes en 1 mismo paciente, hecho inédito hasta el momento en México.
— Omar Fayad (@omarfayad) October 16, 2021
Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay
Preprint: Increases in COVID-19 are unrelated to levels of vaccination across 68 countries and 2947 counties in the United States
“At the country-level, there appears to be no discernable relationship between percentage of population fully vaccinated and new COVID-19 cases in the last 7 days. In fact, the trend line suggests a marginally positive association such that countries with higher percentage of population fully vaccinated have higher COVID-19 cases per 1 million people.
Notably, Israel with over 60% of their population fully vaccinated had the highest COVID-19 cases per 1 million people in the last 7 days. The lack of a meaningful association between percentage population fully vaccinated and new COVID-19 cases is further exemplified, for instance, by comparison of Iceland and Portugal. Both countries have over 75% of their population fully vaccinated and have more COVID-19 cases per 1 million people than countries such as Vietnam and South Africa that have around 10% of their population fully vaccinated.”
Preprint: Increases in COVID-19 are unrelated to levels of vaccination across 68 countries and 2947 counties in the United States
Image by Frauke Riether from Pixabay
Preprint: Breakthrough SARS-CoV-2 infections in 620,000 U.S. Veterans – protection decreased from 92% to 54%
We compared SARS CoV-2 infection by vaccination status from February 1, 2021 to August 13, 2021 in the Veterans Health Administration, covering 2.7% of the U.S. population. Vaccine protection declined by mid-August 2021, decreasing from 91.9% in March to 53.9%. Declines were greatest for the Janssen vaccine followed by PfizerBioNTech and Moderna. Patterns of breakthrough infection over time were consistent by age, despite rolling vaccine eligibility, implicating the Delta variant as the primary determinant of infection.
Preprint: Breakthrough SARS-CoV-2 infections in 620,000 U.S. Veterans, February 1, 2021 to August 13, 2021
Texas embalmer: “COVID is unlike anything I’ve seen before”
“I was having people that had only been dead for a few hours and there were major clotting issues. The clots were the size of pancakes ― you never, never see those with someone who didn’t die of COVID.”
“These folks were so swollen they were completely unrecognizable. We get bodies out of ICU regularly, but not in the condition that these COVID bodies are in. They’re tremendously swollen. If they’ve been on a ventilator, that often completely runs down their immune system. It also opens them up to a lot of sepsis and secondary infections that tend to hang around hospitals, like penicillin-resistant staph infections.”
“I’ve been doing this for 30 years and pretty much everywhere I’ve worked has been medium to high volume. I’m not one of those embalmers that works at a place that just does 50 or 60 bodies a year. So I’ve done this long enough and I’ve seen enough that I would know when something different pops up. COVID is unlike anything I’ve seen before.”
Image by Gisela Merkuur from Pixabay
October 19th – 23rd could be crucial in determining how bad Covid-19 will be this winter
We have already posted our prediction for the start of the next global Covid-19 wave here, and the October 23rd date we mentioned as being the start of the next wave also seems to be close to an inflexion point for global Covid deaths too. In 2020, the global death rate started to accelerate from October 19th. The next two weeks will be crucial in determining how severe Covid-19 will be this winter.
Our forecast is for the next global wave to start on or around 23rd October 2021:
The inflexion point for an increase in global deaths was on the 19th October 2020. Will vaccines and herd immunity help reduce the size of the next winter wave?
Below is the interactive OurworldinData chart for global biweekly deaths.
You can see clearly that the first global Covid wave from October 2020 to February 2021 was larger than the second Covid wave from February to June 2021. The global cases chart shows a collapsed first peak due to limited recording over the winter holidays. Cases may not have been recorded in that period, but deaths, of course, were, giving an indication of just how large the first Covid-19 wave really was.
Below is the interactive chart for global biweekly cases, with a trough expected around 23rd October 2021. Note the collapsed peak of the first wave due to the lack of recording over the winter holidays.
A visualization of what the first global peak in Covid cases would probably have looked like were it not for the lapse in recording from Thanksgiving 2020 through New Year of 2021.
Sadly, we don’t think that the three declining global peaks we have seen so far represent a trend that will continue into this coming winter of 2021. We should be able to tell by mid-November 2021 just how severe the next global Covid winter wave will be, and we will update Coronaheadsup.com in a new post around that time.
12th October 2021: An early indication from Britain of where we are headed?
Quick reaction to today’s weekly deaths data in this thread from @ActuaryByDay. Deaths remain unusually high again this week, as illustrated here.
Detailed analysis of death rates compared to pre-pandemic will follow later today from Continuous Mortality Investigation (CMI). https://t.co/iWoatCoUtA pic.twitter.com/2ncFs9OdI7
— COVID-19 Actuaries Response Group (@COVID19actuary) October 12, 2021
USA: 25% vaccine breakthrough in New Jersey – 13,762 cases of which 3,414 were in fully vaccinated people
From Sept. 13 through Sept. 17, the most recent week of data available, of the total of 13,762 positive cases, 3,414 were of fully vaccinated people. There were 42 breakthrough hospitalizations out of a total of 1,000. And of the 121 COVID deaths during that time period, two of the deaths were of fully vaccinated people, Governor Murphy said.
New Jersey historical vaccine breakthrough information:
10th June 2021 report, 1,319 cases, 92 hospitalized, 14 deaths. Link
10th August 2021 report, 7,112 cases, 212 hospitalized, 50 deaths. Link
22nd September 2021 report, 22,226 cases, 457 hospitalized, 111 deaths. Link
6th October 2021 report, 30,267 cases, 629 hospitalized, 158 deaths. Link
Photo by Joey Pedras on Unsplash
USA: Covid-19 vaccine breakthrough case in a tiger
There’s a headline we never thought we would write.
A partially vaccinated 11-year-old tiger at the Brookfield Zoo has tested positive for COVID-19. The zoo received confirmation of Amur tiger Malena’s positive test this week after she started showing mild respiratory symptoms, including coughing and sneezing, late last week. Those symptoms are consistent with what other zoos have seen in big cats infected with COVID-19, according to a statement from the Chicago Zoological Society.
USA: Six African lions, a Sumatran tiger and two Amur tigers infected with Covid in Washington Zoo
Photo by Frida Bredesen on Unsplash
Is Covid-19 on a four monthly global wave cycle?
Sars-CoV-2 global attacks have come in regular four monthly waves in 2021. Will the next wave trough, or CovidMinimum, be on or around 23rd October 2021, with about 5.18 million biweekly infections? Place your bets!
We think that the first wave shown above, from October 2020 to February 2021, had a collapsed peak caused by a lack of reporting over the Thanksgiving, Christmas & winter holidays. The wave was probably at least as big, if not bigger, than the second wave from February to June 2021.
The winter peak for Covid cases in 2020/2021 would probably have looked something like this if case recording hadn’t been interrupted by the winter holidays:
Have a go yourself with the interactive chart below! The 
button is pretty cool. To update it, press the date in the bottom right corner of the chart.
Covid-19 pandemic used to test propaganda techniques on Canadians
Canadian military leaders saw the pandemic as a unique opportunity to test out propaganda techniques on an unsuspecting public, a newly released Canadian Forces report concludes. The federal government never asked for the so-called information operations campaign, nor did cabinet authorize the initiative developed during the COVID-19 pandemic by the Canadian Joint Operations Command, then headed by Lt.-Gen. Mike Rouleau.
But military commanders believed they didn’t need to get approval from higher authorities to develop and proceed with their plan, retired Maj.-Gen. Daniel Gosselin, who was brought in to investigate the scheme, concluded in his report.
The propaganda plan was developed and put in place in April 2020 even though the Canadian Forces had already acknowledged that “information operations and targeting policies and doctrines are aimed at adversaries and have a limited application in a domestic concept.”
USA: Ferret in Florida tests positive for COVID-19
A Florida ferret has tested positive for COVID-19, officials with the U.S. Department of Agriculture confirmed Friday. The USDA’s National Veterinary Services Laboratories confirmed in a prepared statement that samples were taken after the animal showed clinical signs of COVID-19, including coughing and sneezing.
Florida’s Bronson Animal Disease Diagnostic Laboratory performed the ferret’s test, and authorities suspect that a human infected the animal, WPLG reported. Lab officials also confirmed that the Florida ferret is the first in the country to test positive for the virus.
CDC: 30% of Covid-19 patients reporting long covid symptoms
In a random sample of recovered COVID-19 patients in Long Beach, California, one third of participants reported post-acute sequelae 2 months after their positive test result, with higher rates reported among persons aged ≥40 years, females, persons with pre-existing conditions, and Black persons.
CDC: Masks in schools help prevent Covid-19 outbreaks and spread
Covid-19 outbreaks are far more likely in schools that don’t require students and staff to wear masks, new data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows. Two studies released Friday support the agency’s recommendation for universal indoor masking in schools.
One study in Arizona showed schools with no masking requirement were about 3.5 times more likely to have a Covid-19 outbreak than schools that had a universal masking requirement.
A second study showed counties across the US where schools required mask use also had less transmission of the virus in the community in general.
Vaccine breakthrough cases in Oregon by variant to 23rd September 2021
Vaccine breakthrough data for Oregon state by Sars-CoV-2 variant up to 23rd September 2021.
The Delta variant is currently responsible for the majority of vaccine breakthrough cases in Oregon. Oregon state is currently sequencing about 5% of their case samples.
Vaccine breakthroughs in Oregon to 23rd September 2021. The cumulative total is now 22,879 breakthrough cases.
| 23rd Sept 2021 Variant | Lineage | Number of Vaccine Breakthrough Cases With Variant | Increase From Previous Week |
|---|---|---|---|
| Alpha | B.1.1.7 | 143 | 3 |
| Gamma | P.1 | 55 | 8 |
| Epsilon | B.1.427/429 | 38 | 0 |
| Delta | B.1.617.2 | 763 | 73 |
| Iota | B.1.526 | 29 | 0 |
| Beta | B.1.351 | 16 | 0 |
| Sequenced | Sequenced | 1044 | 84 |
| Weekly Total of all VB cases | Weekly Total of all VB cases | 2778 | 146 |
Vaccine breakthroughs in Oregon to 16 September 2021. The cumulative total is now 19,549 breakthrough cases.
| 16th Sept 2021 Variant | Lineage | Number of Vaccine Breakthrough Cases With Variant | Increase in Number of Breakthroughs From Previous Week |
|---|---|---|---|
| Alpha | B.1.1.7 | 140 | 0 |
| Gamma | P.1 | 47 | 1 |
| Epsilon | B.1.427/429 | 38 | 0 |
| Delta | B.1.617.2 | 690 | 111 |
| Iota | B.1.526 | 29 | 0 |
| Beta | B.1.351 | 16 | 0 |
| Sequenced | Sequenced | 960 | 112 |
| Weekly Total of all VB cases | Weekly Total of all VB cases | 2632 | -242 |
Vaccine breakthroughs in Oregon to 09 September 2021. The cumulative total is now 16,417 breakthrough cases.
| 9th Sept 2021 Variant | Lineage | Number of Vaccine Breakthrough Cases With Variant |
|---|---|---|
| Alpha | B.1.1.7 | 140 |
| Gamma | P.1 | 46 |
| Epsilon | B.1.427/429 | 38 |
| Delta | B.1.617.2 | 579 |
| Iota | B.1.526 | 29 |
| Beta | B.1.351 | 16 |
| Sequenced | Sequenced | 848 |
| Weekly Total of all VB cases | Weekly Total of all VB cases | 2874 |
Source: Oregon Vaccine Breakthrough file
Image by Free-Photos from Pixabay