Coronavirus - International stories and thoughts

Exclusive: How amateur sleuths broke the Wuhan Lab story and embarrassed the media

 

Correction: Taiwan is getting vaccines from outside the country: from Japan. Taiwan is getting over 1.2 million doses of AstraZeneca vaccine. It's enough for over 5% of the population.

Taiwan, feuding with China, gets vaccines from Japan

One thing doesn't make sense--why is Japan giving away vaccines to other countries if they are trying to "accelerate their own slow rollout ahead of the Olympics in July"?

 

Thanks for sharing this. I asked my wife about it today and she said that Japan is helping Taiwan because Taiwan has helped Japan with tsunami relief. That's the version from her father, anyway. Worldometer is showing Taiwan with 10k total cases and 187 deaths. These numbers are exponentially higher than they were just a couple months ago. Still, compare that with Florida (similar population) and its 2.3 million cases and 63k deaths.
Good news is that while world cases were skyrocketing in April, they have been decreasing since the start of May. It appears that the world is beginning to follow the positive trajectory of the U.S.

 

China's vaccine is apparently not very good. Countries that are using the vaccine and have large numbers of people vaccinated have been having large Covid outbreaks, with a significant percentage of the victims having had the Chinese vaccine.

China's COVID-19 vaccines are being called into question after infections surged in countries using Chinese shots

For comparison, I think I read that in the U.S., about 1% of people that get hospitalized for Covid have been vaccinated.

 

The new Delta valiant of Covid, first discovered in India, is now being described as "Covid on steroids". That doesn't sound good.

The delta variant adds a speed bump to the pandemic escape route

Maybe the anti-vaxxers are waiting for a "Covid on supersteroids" to come out before they consider the vaccine.

 

Taiwan gets 2.5 million Moderna vaccines from the U.S.

The US has tripled its vaccine donations to Taiwan - CNN

 

Indonesia's health care workers (over 350 of them) are coming down with Covid after getting the Chinese vaccine. It's a bad time to catch Covid in Indonesia, because the Delta variant from India, which is very aggressive, is prevalant over there right now.

More than 350 Indonesian healthcare workers vaccinated with China's Sinovac vaccine got COVID-19 and dozens are hospitalized, raising questions about the vaccine's efficacy on variants

 

Israel just instituted a quarantine for someone who was infected with that variant and those that person case into contact with.

 

China’s vaccine is alike a lot of things from there. Garbage.

 

That sucks, but was completely predictable for those who don't have their heads in the sand.

 

India has more problems with Covid: fake vaccines, some of which are administered by real doctors.

India Covid-19: Scammers gave thousands of people fake vaccine shots, authorities say - CNN

 

Australia was almost virus clear and was open. It had had stringent entry requirements even for its own citizens. I have been following this.

 

Pure evil.

 

They will have to engage in strong distancing and mask measures. Go back to fundamentals. Let see if they get this under control. But It might not be enough if Delta spread faster than they can contact trace. And if Delta spreads outside that is a game changer.

 

I agree.