Covid-19 Delta variant has wrecked hopes of UK herd immunity, warn scientists
https://gizmodo.com/the-dixie-fire-is-no...1847459144
INTRO: The Delta variant has wrecked any chance of herd immunity in Britain, a panel of experts including the head of the Oxford vaccine team said as they called for an end to mass testing so Britain can start to live with Covid-19.
Scientists said it was time to accept that there was no way of stopping the virus spreading through the entire population, and monitoring people with mild symptoms was no longer helpful.
Professor Sir Andrew Pollard, who led the Oxford vaccine team, said it was clear that the Delta variant could infect people who had been vaccinated, which made herd immunity impossible to reach even with high vaccine uptake.
It comes as Angela Merkel became the first major world leader to announce the end of free testing, with the provision set to stop in Germany from October 11... (MORE)
Florida is ablaze with COVID-19—and its case data reporting is a hot mess
https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/08/...-hot-mess/
INTRO: With the hypertransmissible delta variant on the rampage, Florida has become the epicenter of transmission in the US. The state is experiencing its largest surge of COVID-19 cases yet in the pandemic. Hospitalizations have reached record levels, and deaths are on the rise.
But instead of focusing on the response to the dire public health emergency, state officials appear to be squabbling over pandemic data and health measures.
On Monday night, Florida's health department blasted media outlets for reporting the state's most recent daily COVID-19 cases counts—as the counts were relayed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The CDC, which gets its data from Florida's health department, reported that the state had recorded all-time highs of nearly 24,000 new cases on August 6 and over 28,000 daily new cases on both August 7 and August 8. But the health department, which doesn't actually publish its own daily case numbers, disputed the CDC's numbers. According to the health department's Twitter account, the state had only logged 21,500 cases on August 6, 19,567 cases on August 7, and 15,319 on August 8. The health department claimed that the CDC had split three days' worth of new case totals across only two days in error... (MORE)
https://gizmodo.com/the-dixie-fire-is-no...1847459144
INTRO: The Delta variant has wrecked any chance of herd immunity in Britain, a panel of experts including the head of the Oxford vaccine team said as they called for an end to mass testing so Britain can start to live with Covid-19.
Scientists said it was time to accept that there was no way of stopping the virus spreading through the entire population, and monitoring people with mild symptoms was no longer helpful.
Professor Sir Andrew Pollard, who led the Oxford vaccine team, said it was clear that the Delta variant could infect people who had been vaccinated, which made herd immunity impossible to reach even with high vaccine uptake.
It comes as Angela Merkel became the first major world leader to announce the end of free testing, with the provision set to stop in Germany from October 11... (MORE)
Florida is ablaze with COVID-19—and its case data reporting is a hot mess
https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/08/...-hot-mess/
INTRO: With the hypertransmissible delta variant on the rampage, Florida has become the epicenter of transmission in the US. The state is experiencing its largest surge of COVID-19 cases yet in the pandemic. Hospitalizations have reached record levels, and deaths are on the rise.
But instead of focusing on the response to the dire public health emergency, state officials appear to be squabbling over pandemic data and health measures.
On Monday night, Florida's health department blasted media outlets for reporting the state's most recent daily COVID-19 cases counts—as the counts were relayed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The CDC, which gets its data from Florida's health department, reported that the state had recorded all-time highs of nearly 24,000 new cases on August 6 and over 28,000 daily new cases on both August 7 and August 8. But the health department, which doesn't actually publish its own daily case numbers, disputed the CDC's numbers. According to the health department's Twitter account, the state had only logged 21,500 cases on August 6, 19,567 cases on August 7, and 15,319 on August 8. The health department claimed that the CDC had split three days' worth of new case totals across only two days in error... (MORE)