With less than two-thirds the population of the U.S., Brazil logged nearly 4,200 deaths on Tuesday. That is close to the peak U.S. daily death toll of 4,476 recorded on Jan. 12, according to data maintained by Johns Hopkins University.
Holy fucksocks, you guys stay safe down there! I might have hoped that with our piss-poor example of what happens when you ignore this thing, others would do better. But with “The Trump of the Tropics” running things, I guess that would be a forlorn hope.
Wheee. COVID-19 just keeps on giving.
from the article:
Approximately two-thirds of participants in each group will be female, because severe allergic reactions to vaccines in general―and to the Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccines in particular―have occurred mainly in women.
(That’s thumbs-up for studying drug side effects in women; not thumbs up for allergic reactions occurring in women!)
What are they waiting for, bleach injections?
It really is unfair.
Europe’s Vaccine Misfortune
By Josh Marshall | April 7, 2021 4:56 p.m.
Europe is again grappling with a problem we in the US are really lucky to have avoided. European and British regulators now seem to be increasingly confident the AstraZeneca vaccine is associated with a serious but extremely rare blood-clotting side effect. Until now the UK – which has one of the world’s leading vaccination campaigns – has rejected reports of adverse side effects. But now they’re seeing them too and are recommending those under 30 get other vaccines. (There’s some indication younger people may be more susceptible to the side effect; and of course they face less threat from COVID.)
This isn’t just a major setback for Europe. It’s a major setback for the whole world. The global effort to vaccinate the populations of poorer nations (COVAX) relies heavily on the AstraZeneca vaccine because it requires less complex refrigeration and transport technology.
What makes it such a complex problem is that the side effect is so extremely rare. About 34 million people have received the vaccine across Europe and the UK so far. That has yielded 222 cases of the clotting side effect with 18 confirmed fatalities. That’s a rate of around 1 case of the side effects per 100,000 patients. The side effect can be treated. And it is important to note that they are not sure yet that there is a causal connection. They’re just increasingly leaning toward that conclusion.
That’s a risk that is dwarfed by the threat of COVID, especially for all but the very young. If we mapped these preliminary numbers to the US population we’d be talking about a bit over 3,000 people suffering the side effects and perhaps 200 or 300 dying from it. (I stress these are very, very ballpark estimates based on highly tentative estimates.) That’s nothing compared to what will likely be close to three quarters of a million fatalities from COVID. But would you be nervous getting that vaccine? I would, though I grant that that is largely a matter of human beings difficulty thinking rationally about risk. I’d probably still take it, based on what we know now and the vastly lower threat compared to COVID. But at a minimum it would make getting vaccinated much less of a feel good selfie-taking experience. More importantly it would make the vaccine hesitancy issue almost incomparably harder to tackle.
We’re really blessed that to have the three vaccines we do and lucky that they are about as free of serious side effects as is possible. The rare cases of anaphylaxis which have occurred happen within minutes of receiving the vaccine and are readily treatable. The last I heard serious side effects of this kind were something on the order of one in a million (I’ve heard a range of percentages). To the best of my knowledge there’s yet to be a single fatality tied to side effect with any of the three vaccines being used in the US.
Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) is editor and publisher of TPM.
Come to Indiana. One of my daughters got her first shot today, and she was able to walk right in without waiting. She said about half of the tables where they give the shots were empty.
Bolsonaro has to split that one with Duterte
What is? (Honest question. I don’t see unfairness there. Very rare side effects aren’t unfair, as such. Are you referring to US politics regarding ‘nationalisation’ of vaccines?)
Bullshit or is rest of world really that bad?
If by “rest of the world” you mean
the Netherlands, Belgium, Bulgaria, India, the United Kingdom, Latvia, Poland, Romania, Sweden and the Czech Republic.
which is the totality of the non-Finnish countries studied, then maybe? A more interesting list might include (for example) New Zealand, Korea, and/or Taiwan.
I swear some people are willing to believe the biggest loads of horseshit
endless 
.
This shit is exactly why we are where we are.
Meanwhile in Japan where the folks there made a strong effort to not let the cranks control much of the messaging
Did you notice what was happening last weekend in Germany? Stuttgart, in particular, had a demonstration which basically spit on all the rules, and was still allowed to continue. Counterprotests were dissolved. Some public backlash followed. However, and that’s a crucial point, German law is very pro-demonstration for good reasons, and local police and Ordnungsamt need a really sound argument to restrict demonstrations before they happen. (Contrary to public believe, demonstrations are not genehmigt (approved) by the authorities, but everyone can, even spontaneously, announce a demonstration (“eine demonstration anmelden” , i.e. register themselves as a demonstration with a designated person who is responsible for the behaviour of participants, a Versammlungsleiter/Versammlungsleiterin).
I hear that they wander around in large groups without masks!
So yesterday was pretty horrible, as reactions go. Fever, headache, joint and muscle pain, and a very very sore arm. I dozed through the day, waking for water & temperature checks.
I woke up today tired, but I’m always tired; some joint pain, but between the arthritis and fibro, there’s always some, and no fever.
I am a walking miracle of antibody protection!
This must be a Thursday…
