For why new strains now, the English strain was first detected in September but nobody cared much until Christmas. Now that strains are a hot topic they get reported more. I’m not sure that explains the whole explosion in new strains, but maybe part of it.
I wonder if there was a new and more infectious strain in Europe last spring. They could explain part of why it spread so much faster in Europe and the Americas than in East Asia. Although in that case I would have expected the European strain to have reached Asia eventually.
I feel like restaurants suing so they can have indoor dining says something bad about America. European restaurants just don’t do that, so restrictions don’t need to be lawsuit-proof. That said the UK had the very inadvisable “Eat Out to Help Out” scheme in August, so maybe different countries just decide that boosting restaurants outweighs everything else at different times.
I think you’re being unfair on the smokers thing. It’s the kind of thing that happens when you take a general principle (vaccinate people with chronic conditions) and don’t add a bunch of exceptions. We don’t have time for exceptions. Just going by age would still be better, but getting shots into arms is more important, so let’s not get outraged about some undeserving smokers getting vaccinated.
Just as a side note, the word “scheme” doesn’t have a negative connotation in the UK.
As of Jan. 21 2021, Our World in Data reports that ~52% of all confirmed COVID cases in the world have happened since Nov. 1, and ~74% have happened since Sep. 1. This maybe makes it a bit less surprising that we’d see more mutations over the past five months, since the amount of circulating virus in the world is much higher.
(Though there’s also more testing now than there was in the past.)
I feel like restaurants suing so they can have indoor dining says something bad about America. European restaurants just don’t do that, so restrictions don’t need to be lawsuit-proof.
Not all of Europe’s restaurants don’t do that. In Germany there have been in most states lawsuits against Covid restrictions of all types, e.g. against restaurant closures.
The White House has released a “National Strategy for COVID-19” (pdf) that should be worth critiquing along with the day 1 priorities. I will take it as a good sign that the tweet has “aggressive, coordinated” before “equitable”.
On an other note, I wonder what your current best estimate for the increase in R with the new strain is. Has the UK managed to get R below one because the different is smaller than the 0.7 we thought, or just because the control system / lockdown is so powerful?
For why new strains now, the English strain was first detected in September but nobody cared much until Christmas. Now that strains are a hot topic they get reported more. I’m not sure that explains the whole explosion in new strains, but maybe part of it.
I wonder if there was a new and more infectious strain in Europe last spring. They could explain part of why it spread so much faster in Europe and the Americas than in East Asia. Although in that case I would have expected the European strain to have reached Asia eventually.
I feel like restaurants suing so they can have indoor dining says something bad about America. European restaurants just don’t do that, so restrictions don’t need to be lawsuit-proof. That said the UK had the very inadvisable “Eat Out to Help Out” scheme in August, so maybe different countries just decide that boosting restaurants outweighs everything else at different times.
I think you’re being unfair on the smokers thing. It’s the kind of thing that happens when you take a general principle (vaccinate people with chronic conditions) and don’t add a bunch of exceptions. We don’t have time for exceptions. Just going by age would still be better, but getting shots into arms is more important, so let’s not get outraged about some undeserving smokers getting vaccinated.
Just as a side note, the word “scheme” doesn’t have a negative connotation in the UK.
As of Jan. 21 2021, Our World in Data reports that ~52% of all confirmed COVID cases in the world have happened since Nov. 1, and ~74% have happened since Sep. 1. This maybe makes it a bit less surprising that we’d see more mutations over the past five months, since the amount of circulating virus in the world is much higher.
(Though there’s also more testing now than there was in the past.)
Not all of Europe’s restaurants don’t do that. In Germany there have been in most states lawsuits against Covid restrictions of all types, e.g. against restaurant closures.
The White House has released a “National Strategy for COVID-19” (pdf) that should be worth critiquing along with the day 1 priorities. I will take it as a good sign that the tweet has “aggressive, coordinated” before “equitable”.
On an other note, I wonder what your current best estimate for the increase in R with the new strain is. Has the UK managed to get R below one because the different is smaller than the 0.7 we thought, or just because the control system / lockdown is so powerful?