philippine covid news

Alas mainly links since my computer is being used elsewhere.

Strategy page has a good summary here about the covid epidemic and China using it to push people around. Make nice or no vaccine for you.

https://www.strategypage.com/qnd/phillip/articles/20201209.aspx

They also have a nice article on the geopolitical implications of the epidemic.

https://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htmurph/articles/20201209.aspx

The data from the cruise ship Diamond Princess and the aircraft carrier USS Roosevelt give a good idea of spread and infection rate.

Worse than influenza, but not that much worse.

The main problem is it hits all at once so overwhelms care givers, hence the shutdowns to slow the spread...

The FDA finally managed to get around to approve the Pfizer vaccine, something they could have logically done in Sept since the stage 3 data was so good. (the Chinese and Russian vaccines were released after stage 2 showed they worked...if this criteria was used in the US, the vaccine could have been approved by March and released in early summer as China did with their partly tested vaccine).

BUT the antivax hyateria encouraged by Russian and Chinese fake news posters, not to mention the hysteria flamed by anti trump media and even people like Andrew Cuomo who knew better, will result in blowback...a lot of healthy people will refuse to take any vaccine, and not just in the US ...

One suspects some of this, especially on Cuomo's part, was to smear Trump who might have gotten votes if the vaccine was released in October...the press prefers not to notice his good job getting several vaccines made so quickly. 

So how many died from the delay? 

The  latest fake news by ant vaxers is that the vaccine will make you sterile, a variarion on the "HCG in tetanus/measles/ etc vaccine are sterilizing poor people" story thar has been around since at least the early 1990s.

And some other of their arguments sound scientific until you think about it.

So as one scientific sounding argument insists,   that since China refused to release information about the entire viral genome, therefore any vaccine night not work due to lack of data.

But the argument assumes no western lab can get the virus and do their own sequencing. 

Strangely they don't argue that the virus has mutated into several different strains, so the vaccine might not work on all of them. Luckily this does't seem to be true.

https://www.businessinsider.in/science/news/pfizers-and-modernas-vaccines-likely-work-for-all-existing-coronavirus-strains-dont-worry-about-mutations-for-now-scientists-say-/articleshow/79284779.cms

The other part of the "we need China's genome because without a complete genome information we can't make a vaccine" that is absurd? 

Well, they have been making vaccines against viruses for 200 years, a century before anyone knew what a virus was. They used observation.(Jenner noted milkmaids had immunity against smallpoc and figured out it was because the had been infected with cowpox) or logic (Pasteur weakening the virus to induce immuity for rabies).

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/jenner-tests-smallpox-vaccine

https://clickamericana.com/topics/health-medicine/how-louis-pasteur-created-the-first-rabies-vaccine-1885

In other news, you tube facebook and google are removing those who question the American election.

And it is censorship like that that results in ordinary folks not trusting experts on the vaccine...often the same experts who applauded left wing riots peaceful protests but won't allow churches to open.

My take?lots of good reports on churches causing outbreaks due to closed air circulation.

So hold outdoor services or find if UV lights with airfilters could lower the spread.

Here the rules about church and family gatherings here...limit numbets inside churches and distance outdoors.

https://www.msn.com/en-ph/news/national/churches-to-hold-multiple-dawn-masses/ar-BB1bDBlf

https://www.philstar.com/headlines/2020/11/22/2058568/church-faithful-dont-let-covid-19-lock-down-christmas

But the really bad news....no whistles for new year.

https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1370469/dont-use-trumpets-whistles-to-welcome-2021-doh-warns-public

Guess the kids will have to just use old fashioned fire crackers.