Here are the key provisions of the latest COVID-19 stimulus bill passed yesterday by US Congress. https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/20/politics/stimulus-latest-shutdown-deadline/index.html Direct payment checks of up to $600 per adult and child Aid for struggling small businesses, including more than $284 billion for forgivable Paycheck Protection Program loans and $15 billion "in dedicated funding for live venues, independent movie theaters, and cultural institutions" $300 per week for enhanced unemployment insurance benefits $25 billion for rental assistance and an eviction moratorium extension $82 billion for education providers like schools and colleges, including aid to help reopen classrooms safely $10 billion to help with child care assistance $13 billion in increased Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and child nutrition benefits $7 billion to bolster broadband access to help Americans connect remotely during the pandemic Funding totaling in the billions of dollars to support coronavirus vaccine distribution, testing and contract tracing efforts and health care workers A tax credit "to support employers offering paid sick leave"
As of this morning there is still travel between the US and UK. This new variant is something else for my friends in Northern Ireland to worry about..
With Covid out of control here in the US there’s no telling how many mutations have already taken place that we have no idea about because of how crippled our health and scientific infrastructure is right now. My understand though is that it’s the T Cell binding code that really makes Covid what it is and it’s unlikely that the virus could really ever change that much, and the MRNA vaccine is recognizing that spike protein above all in the genetic code. Covid mutating a lot was one of the things i thing a lot of epidemiologists actually thought could be a blessing in disguise if it mutated in a way that lessened the weird and deadly affects of vascular inflammation. All I know is this virus really is something and just reminds me of that black goo from the movie Prometheus. Unfortunately I think we are in this fight for years to come. Hope I’m wrong and the vaccine can wipe it out in 4 months.
I don't know if they are still going to do this but Delta a few weeks ago had said they were working out a travel plan that would allow Americans to fly to Rome and Amsterdam without quarantining there. This would require having a negative COVID-19 test 5 days before travel and quarantining in the intervening 5 days. It would apply to non-stop flights from Atlanta.
Over the summer, I tuned into a webinar with an editor of Scientific American and he said one of the biggest risks of a mutation is if something changed with the spike protein so the virus attached some other way because all the vaccines in the pipeline were targeting the spike protein. But other than that, the probability of the virus getting significantly worse was very low per mutation but certainly the more times we keep spreading it, the more times we are rolling the dice.
Is the Trump admin just giving up since they're dead men walking? Or is it to deter panic? I don't really know much about this new strain except other countries and people seem to be seriously alarmed.
Yes that's kind of what I was wondering. Whatever strain is going around is overcoming spots that had things controlled or that weren't getting hit before.
Interesting read. First hand experience from an informed source. Insights into testing. https://www.npr.org/sections/health...ve-for-the-coronavirus-whats-that-really-mean
https://thehill.com/policy/healthca...ting-to-new-strain-advises-against-banning-uk Fauci warns against 'overreacting' to new strain, advises against banning UK flights
This would likely put Russia in the same tier as US, UK, Spain, France, Italy, etc in deaths per million. I'd be willing to bet places like Ukraine, Lithuania, Serbia, etc that are publishing deaths per million in the range of what Russia is publishing are actually higher and on the same level as those first countries I mentioned. I'm going to see if I can figure it out for curiosity sake. https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2020...-deaths-in-october-deadliest-month-yet-a72256 Russia Recorded Almost 50K Excess Deaths in October – Deadliest Month in Decade The country’s excess death toll now stands above 160,000 — many times more than accounted for in official coronavirus fatalities Russia recorded more than 47,000 excess deaths in October — the sharpest monthly rise in fatalities since the start of the coronavirus pandemic — according to official statistics published Thursday. Russia’s state statistics agency (Rosstat) said Russia recorded more than 205,000 total fatalities in October — 30% more than during the same month last year. It was the single most deadly month in Russia for more than a decade — surpassing the previous high set in August 2010, when devastating wildfires swept across much of the country, killing tens of thousands. Between March and the end of October — the last date for which such data is available — Russia recorded just shy of 165,000 excess deaths. Less than half have been accounted for by Russia’s official Covid-19 fatality numbers.
This is going come back to him like masks won't help that much. It is a airborne virus how would masks not help. It never made sense he said that. Not sure why they these flights weren't banned immediately. You know someone is going to come here with the new strain, and it will be everywhere soon. The vaccine should be distributed in the next few months why not just be cautious.
More evidence that the USA is on pace for a record number of deaths thus year. https://www.tampabay.com/news/healt...e-in-the-us-during-2020-by-far-the-most-ever/
It would nice if we have a robust screening, tracking and isolation system for incoming traveler. The variant is already detected in Australia, Denmark, Italy, Iceland and the Netherlands. It might already be here and elsewhere.
About the new strain : 23 mutations - much higher than other new strains. Covid is having 2 new mutations per month. 6 of those are useless (don't change any protein) but 17 do. (14 mutations and 3 deletions) So alarm about the effectivity of vaccines. Suggested that the new variant may have arisen in an immunocompromised person who was chronically infected, with the virus able to replicate and evolve in them over a long period of time https://www.theguardian.com/comment...riant-coronavirus-genomic-sars-cov-2-pandemic It targets more the upper respiratory system: According to Prof Robert Dingwall, the new variant is more transmissible because those who contract it produce more of the infection in their nose and mouth, meaning they will breathe more of it into the air. Dingwall, who is a committee member on the New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group (Nervtag), said: “My understanding of it is that you are producing more of the infection in the upper respiratory tract and the virus is reproducing faster so that there is more to go into the air, to pass from one person to another. “It doesn’t travel further, but having produced more it also has properties that make it easier to take over cells in a person that it enters into.” https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/dec/22/covid-infections-eden-cumbria-new-strain .. So I am saying..maybe it's not ALL that bad. If the new variant has evolved to target the upper respiratory system that means that fewer people in the general population will develop pneumonia. On the other hand the vulnerable who are in higher risk of death will get infected 70% more likely. And then they most probably end up developing pneumonia. So if in the next weeks we see a change in the hospital admissions and there are much fewer under 65s admitted then that could be something.
He already responded to the mask thing by saying it was to prevent a mask shortage by creating a toilet paper-like run on them when doctors, nurses, first responders, etc. may need them. He also said they realized later that there was asymptomatic spread. As for someone coming here with the new strain, I can't imagine that someone already isn't here with the new strain, but who knows.
lockdown coming again https://www.google.com/amp/s/abc13.com/amp/galveston-county-lockdown-coronavirus-cases-covid-19-up-300-in-houston-curfew/8978248
