Sigh.
Berlin halts AstraZeneca vaccines for under 60s
Doom, you say? I see your doom and raise you chaos and calamityâŠ
We got the ânew COVID case in your childâs schoolâ call twice yesterday from an increasingly dejected sounding principal. My email in February warned him in no uncertain terms that he was facilitating a disaster; heâs probably looking forward to meeting me⊠
Itâs not quite 9am so the school boardâs COVID tracker still shows yesterdayâs numbers⊠2 more school closed and just shy of 50% with active cases.
Our mayor Bonnie Crombie (Annointed Successor to Her Worshipful Majesty, Mayor Hazel McCallion, long may they rule over us) is on the ball. She has called out the province for shorting us on vaccines, getting our allotment up from 7% of the total.
[our main hospital] is over 100 per cent capacity, with 53 COVID-19 patients hospitalized and 18 of those in the intensive care unit. ⊠Peel accounts for 10 per cent of Ontarioâs population and 20 per cent of all COVID-19 cases â and yet, it is only receiving nine per cent of the provinceâs vaccines.
(Iâm sure that the Easter weekend had nothing to do with it.)
Canadaâs done the same:
What makes people think the over-55s are going to be enthusiastically taking the Astrazenica vaccine, I wonder. I know my parents would really rather not. What a mess.
Speaking of messes, BC has triggered a circuit breaker:
Just in time for Easter. My general sentiment is âabout timeâ. Although enforcement of restrictions here has been fairly ineffectual:
If that number is accurate, then that pause seems justified. The FDA would do the same for a drug or device in a study, and probably even an approved one if it wasnât already part of the known risk profile.
Well, we are officially official.
German vaccine commission recommends AstraZeneca for over 60s only
ETA:
Germany restricts use of AstraZeneca vaccine to over 60s only
That might be the carrot to use to convince her. As more transportation companies, border control agencies, and governments set policies to check for vaccination status, that might be harder to do in the future. The costs involved in testing and mandatory quarantine for those who havenât been vaccinated might be another good motivator. One of my aunts who was on the fence changed her mind because she wants to be able to take a cruise next year.
Gaaaah!! Who would do that after the disasters we all saw very very recently??? I will never understand some people.
(ugh, do I post to the GOP Asshat Events thread or this one? choices, choices)
Oh, I cannot believe they scheduled it and advertised it (or that she bought tickets). These travel companies are desperate to get back to business as usual. This particular event is an annual jazz cruise that sells out a year in advance. Already this year, organizers of 1Q and 2Q annual events that were canceled twice because of the pandemic are trying to figure out a Plan B. My aunt did purchase the insurance, and we hope there wonât be enough sales for the trip to proceed.
Iâm really hoping New Zealand does something like if a visitor is vaccinated, no quarantine. She really likes NZ. Meanwhile I waffle between letting her have her ill considered choices pointing out how selfish she is acting. And being angry. There is a lot of that.
Also the Nordic countries. Ironically, in the face of total bans in Norway and Denmark, Swedenâs Anders Tegnell â architect of his countryâs famous minimalist strategy â had to defend his decision to keep giving the vaccine to people over 65.
By the way, I appreciate the updates on the situation in Brazil. Even though it is the second most important populous country in the Americas, we get relatively little news about it up here (even in the âbigâ papers like the WaPo).
It is nice reading the news here. I can get info fom US, Finland, Germany, Sweden and some other places. It is good, because he have a lot of disinformation in Brazil. Some people spread fake nes about other countries and it is sometimes difficult to find information in Portuguese about countries other than the United States.
This clipping by Boing Boing, curated by readers, makes peopleâs lives a lot easier.
And of course, as soon as I posted this(*) the Wapo put up a front page story:
(*) Actually, half an hour before, so I canât take credit.
New Brazilian Minister of Health talks about a campaign to âsave oxygenâ in hospitals as the cases of COVID soars and the country is facing a shortage of gas and medication for patients who need to be intubated.
