Category Archives: Corona Virus

Confirmed cases of COVID-19 have passed 184.6 million globally, according to Johns Hopkins University. The number of confirmed deaths stands at more than 3.99 million. More than 3.25 billion vaccination doses have been administered globally, according to Our World in Data.

A mass rapid-testing scheme in Liverpool, England, reduced COVID-19 cases by more than a fifth, researchers announced.

South Korea has reported its second-highest number of daily new COVID-19 cases ever, prompting officials to consider reintroducing restrictions.

European Union countries have ordered nearly 40 million additional doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.

From 16 August, fully vaccinated adults and all children in England will not need to self-isolate after close contact with someone who tests positive for COVID-19.

New Zealand's health regulator has given provisional approval for the Janssen COVID-19 vaccine.

Mexico has reported its highest jump in new COVID-19 cases since late February.

Indonesia has prepared backup medical facilities should the current surge in cases worsen further, an official said. It comes as the country reported a record number of fatalities.

Greece has reported a jump in new COVID-19 infections after several weeks of declines.

As part of work identifying promising technology use cases to combat COVID, The Boston Consulting Group recently used contextual AI to analyze more than 150 million English language media articles from 30 countries published between December 2019 to May 2020.

The result is a compendium of hundreds of technology use cases. It more than triples the number of solutions, providing better visibility into the diverse uses of technology for the COVID-19 response.

To see a full list of 200+ exciting technology use cases during COVID please follow this link.

New South Wales state Premier Gladys Berejiklian has extended a lockdown in Sydney for at least another week. Strict stay-at-home measures had been due to end on Friday, but will now stay in place until at least 16 July.

Berejiklian warned that Australia's biggest city was bound to see a rise in new cases as a result of the highly infectious Delta variant.

"This Delta strain is a game-changer, it is extremely transmissible and more contagious than any other form of the virus that we've seen," she told reporters.

Daily new confirmed COVID-19 cases per million people in Australia

Image: Our World in Data

The World Health Organization has recommended using arthritis drugs from Roche and Sanofi with corticosteroids for COVID-19 patients.

The move comes after data from 11,000 patients suggested they cut the risk of death and the need for mechanical ventilation.

"We have updated our clinical care treatment guidance to reflect this latest development," WHO Health Emergencies official Janet Diaz said.

The WHO analysis showed the risk of dying within 28 days for patients getting one of the arthritis drugs with corticosteroids such as dexamethasone is 21%, compared with an assumed 25% risk among those who got standard care. For every 100 such patients, four more will survive, the WHO said.

Written by

Joe Myers, Writer, Formative Content

The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and not the World Economic Forum.

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COVID-19: What you need to know about the pandemic on 7 July - World Economic Forum

HONOLULU (KHON2) Folks who are fully vaccinated in the United States may enter Hawaii without pre-travel testing or quarantine starting Thursday, July 8. Lt. Gov. Josh Green is hopeful this will streamline the process at the airports.

They anticipate a lot of front-end clearance. The airlines have been doing a good job by clearing people with wristbands. We anticipate shorter lines once people start using their vaccination cards because otherwise, it will be a little clunky, said Green.

Greg Maples of the Hawaii Restaurant Association (HRA) told KHON2 they think this means there is going to be more people who come to Hawaii because it is easier to get here.

And thats just going to cause even more trouble for restaurants, because right now, and let me be very clear, we have three big problems for the restaurants right now: capacity, staffing, supply chain, said Maples.

The state says the size of social gatherings will be expanded to 25 people indoors and 75 outdoors. Restaurants will also be able to increase capacity to 75% all of which will begin on Thursday.

The 75% capacity, really without a change in the 6-feet social distancing wont do much for restaurants, said Maples. For example at our restaurant, were still at 50% capacity because we have to maintain six feet.

Capacity restrictions and staffing issues have plagued Scratch Kitchen and Meatery.

Theyre asking for minimum plus bonus plus tips and all that kind of stuff, said General Manager Richard Wong. They want more and whoever is going to give them the best deal is who is going to get to be able to hire people.

Retailers are also affected by the 6-foot social distancing guideline.

So you have long lines outside. Nobody likes to stand out in the hot sun, said Tina Yamaki of Retail Merchants of Hawaii. So we are seeing, you know, businesses, transactions being lost that way too. So if the distance is shorter, we can have more people in our stores.

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Coronavirus restrictions relaxing in Hawaii for travel, gatherings. Are things about to get even busier? - KHON2

LONDON, July 7 (Reuters) - Britain said on Wednesday it would provide genomic sequencing support to Brazil, Ethiopia, Kenya, Nigeria and Pakistan to help identify, assess and track new variants of the novel coronavirus.

The novel coronavirus, which has killed 4 million people globally since it emerged in China in late 2019, mutates around once every few weeks, slower than influenza or HIV, but enough to require tweaks to vaccines.

Public Health England will extend support to Britain's partners through the New Variant Assessment Platform Programme which tracks changes in the virus.

About a third of all SARS-CoV-2 sequences submitted to the international GISAID database on influenza viruses have been from the United Kingdom.

"The UK is a science superpower and it is right we support the worldwide fight against COVID-19," Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said.

"We are sharing the UKs genomics expertise with Brazil, Ethiopia, Kenya, Nigeria, Pakistan, Singapore, and the Africa Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, boosting disease surveillance and helping countries identify, track and respond to COVID-19 variants, which are of concern globally."

British health officials said robust genomic surveillance was vital to identify new variants of the novel coronavirus and then counter them.

Public Health England has already sequenced samples from Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Albania, and the programme will be extended.

"New SARS-CoV-2 variants are a major threat and it is important to remember that in a global pandemic, no country is safe until all countries are safe," said Dr Jenny Harries, chief executive of the UK Health Security Agency.

Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge; editing by Michael Holden

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Excerpt from:

UK to track COVID-19 variants with genomic sequencing across the world - Reuters

The nightmare is returning.

In Indonesia, grave diggers are working into the night, as oxygen and vaccines are in short supply. In Europe, countries are slamming their doors shut once again, with quarantines and travel bans. In Bangladesh, urban garment workers fleeing an impending lockdown are almost assuredly seeding another coronavirus surge in their impoverished home villages.

And in countries like South Korea and Israel that seemed to have largely vanquished the virus, new clusters of disease have proliferated. Chinese health officials announced on Monday that they would build a giant quarantine center with up to 5,000 rooms to hold international travelers. Australia has ordered millions to stay at home.

A year and a half since it began racing across the globe with exponential efficiency, the pandemic is on the rise again in vast stretches of the world, driven largely by the new variants, particularly the highly contagious Delta variant first identified in India. From Africa to Asia, countries are suffering from record Covid-19 caseloads and deaths, even as wealthier nations with high vaccination rates have let their guard down, dispensing with mask mandates and reveling in life edging back toward normalcy.

Scientists believe the Delta variant may be twice as transmissible as the original coronavirus, and its potential to infect some partially vaccinated people has alarmed public health officials. Unvaccinated populations, whether in India or Indiana, may serve as incubators of new variants that could evolve in surprising and dangerous ways, with Delta giving rise to what Indian researchers are calling Delta Plus. There are also the Gamma and Lambda variants.

Were in a race against the spread of the virus variants, said Prof. Kim Woo-joo, an infectious disease specialist at Korea University Guro Hospital in Seoul.

The political debates underway from Malaysia to the Seychelles whether to institute lockdowns and mask requirements are starting to echo in countries with far more resources, including plentiful vaccines. On Monday, health officials in Los Angeles County, where Delta variant infections are climbing, urged residents, even immunized ones, to wear masks indoors. (Many scientists, however, say masks are not necessary for the fully immunized in areas where the virus is not widespread.)

But while the new images from Nepal or Kenya of overflowing intensive-care units and dying doctors dredge up terrible memories for the West, it is not clear whether they also provide a glimpse into the future.

Most existing vaccines appear to be effective against the Delta variant, and initial research indicates that those who are infected are likely to develop mild or asymptomatic cases. But even in the wealthiest countries except for a handful of nations with small populations fewer than half the people are fully vaccinated. Experts say that with new variants spreading, markedly higher vaccination rates and continued precautions are needed to tame the pandemic.

The smoke rising once more from crematories in less affluent nations has highlighted the gulf between the worlds haves and have-nots. Vast inequalities in economic development, health care systems and despite the promises of world leaders vaccine access have made the latest surge much bigger and much deadlier.

The developed countries used up the resources available because they own the resources and they want to protect their people first, said Dono Widiatmoko, a senior lecturer in health and social care at the University of Derby and a member of the Indonesian Public Health Association. Its natural, but if we look it from a human rights point of view, every life has the same value.

And as the public health officials keep repeating, and the pandemic keeps proving, as long as one region is afflicted, no part of the world is safe.

As the Delta variant wreaked havoc in India this spring, when the pandemic killed more than 200,000 people there an official count that is widely seen as too low and paralyzed the economy, it also leapt national borders, infecting climbers on Mount Everest, pro-democracy protesters in Myanmar and travelers to Londons Heathrow Airport. Today, it has been detected in at least 85 countries and is the dominant strain in parts of Europe, Asia and Africa.

July 7, 2021, 10:42 a.m. ET

The variants ferocious transmissibility was on full display in Indonesia, the worlds fourth-most-populous country.

In May, infections there were at their lowest point since the country was gripped by the pandemic last year. By late June, Indonesia was suffering record caseloads as the Delta variant took hold after a religious holiday scattered travelers across the archipelago. On Tuesday, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent warned that the country was on the edge of catastrophe.

Fewer than 5 percent of Indonesians have been fully vaccinated, and frontline medical workers were immunized with Sinovac, the Chinese-made vaccine that may be less effective than other inoculations. At least 20 Indonesian doctors who received both doses of Sinovac have died. But with Western countries hoarding what appear to be more potent vaccines, countries like Indonesia and Mongolia have had no choice but plentiful Chinese-made alternatives.

Last week, the Hong Kong authorities suspended passenger flights from Indonesia, and they are doing the same with travel from Britain starting on July 1.

In May, Portugal tried to resuscitate its tourism industry by welcoming back sun seekers from Britain, despite reports of the Delta variants spread there. Within a few weeks, the British government had instituted a quarantine for travelers from Portugal, including returning vacationers.

With Delta variant cases sharply increasing, Lisbon went into weekend lockdown, and Germany deemed Portugal a virus variant zone. Now Portugal has backed away from its tourist welcome and is requiring unvaccinated British travelers to quarantine.

Some Portuguese hoteliers are despondent. Isabel Pereira, a guesthouse owner, said half of her bookings have been canceled, and she understands the tourists concerns.

I cannot unfortunately even tell them for sure what to expect tomorrow, let alone next week, she said.

For others, the past is repeating itself with turbocharged velocity.

In Bangladesh, scientists found that nearly 70 percent of coronavirus samples from the capital, Dhaka, taken between May 25 and June 7 were the Delta variant. Coronavirus test positivity rates this week have hovered around 25 percent, compared to 2 percent in the United States.

On Wednesday, Bangladesh recorded its highest-ever daily case count. The numbers look set to climb higher as migrant workers return to their villages ahead of a July 1 nationwide lockdown, potentially exposing those communities to the virus.

The nationwide shutdown means that all domestic public transportation networks will be suspended and all shops closed for at least a week. But with Bangladeshs export-driven economy battered by the pandemic, the government has refrained from idling garment factories and mills.

They are hard-working people, said Mohammed Nasir, the former vice president of the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association. Their immune systems are stronger.

If pandemic history is any precedent, such crowded quarters, just like prisons or mass religious gatherings, can turn into petri dishes of infection. Many garment workers, though, are desperate to keep their jobs, especially with annual bonuses due soon.

Despite promises from various countries and international organizations, vaccine deliveries to Bangladesh have been underwhelming. Fewer than 3 percent of Bangladeshis have been fully vaccinated.

We are working to make a balance, Mr. Nasir said, between lives and livelihoods.

Reporting was contributed by Muktita Suhartono and Richard C. Paddock in Bangkok, Raphael Minder in Madrid, Amy Chang Chien in Taipei, Taiwan and Yu Young Jin in Seoul.

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As Delta Variant Surges, Outbreaks Return in Many Parts of the World - The New York Times

After administering fewer than 800,000 doses since vaccinations began in March - enough for a single dose for just 3% of the population - Ivorian health authorities are now aiming to inoculate a million people in Abidjan over the next 10 days.

While acknowledging that will be a tall order, they hope to pick up the pace by targeting some of Abidjans most frequented places, especially its vast open-air markets where most of its 5 million residents shop for food and clothing.

At the market in the district of Adjame, which municipal officials say is visited by more than one million people a day, mostly female vendors and customers lined up to be vaccinated in an air-conditioned truck.

We are very happy about the convenience of the vaccines. It suits everyone, said Minigna Keita, who promotes cosmetic products at the market.

In the Treichville district, health workers roamed the market with megaphones, encouraging people to get vaccinated.

This morning it was a little slow, but people have started to show up in large numbers after seeing that the first people vaccinated did not have any problems, said Sylvie Sie, who coordinates vaccinations in the district.

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Record number of cases recorded across Africa as it happened - The Guardian

Another 12coronavirus cases have been reported across the state, Maine health officials said Wednesday.

The number of coronavirus cases diagnosed in the past 14 days statewide is 350. This is an estimation of the current number of active cases in the state, as the Maine CDC is no longer tracking recoveries for all patients. Thats down from 389 on Tuesday.

No new deaths were reported Wednesday, leaving the statewide death toll standing at 858.

Wednesdays report brings the total number of coronavirus cases in Maine to 69,033,according to the Maine CDC. Thats up from 69,021 on Tuesday.

Of those, 50,487have been confirmed positive, while 18,546were classified as probable cases, the Maine CDC reported.

The new case rate statewide Wednesday was 0.09 cases per 10,000 residents, and the total case rate statewide was 515.79.

Maines seven-day average for new coronavirus cases is 24.4, down from 25.1 a day ago, down from 30.4 a week ago and down from 111.7 a month ago. That average peaked on Jan. 14 at 625.3.

The most cases have been detected in Mainers younger than 20, while Mainers over 80 years old make up the majority of deaths. More cases and deaths have been recorded in women than men.

So far, 2,073 Mainers have been hospitalized at some point with COVID-19, the illness caused by the new coronavirus. Of those, 30 are currently hospitalized with 18 in critical care and eight on a ventilator. Overall, 78 out of 384 critical care beds and 226 out of 319 ventilators are available. Meanwhile, 451 alternative ventilators are available.

The total statewide hospitalization rate on Wednesday was 15.52 patients per 10,000 residents.

Cases have been reported in Androscoggin (8,410), Aroostook (1,902), Cumberland (17,252), Franklin (1,388), Hancock (1,376), Kennebec (6,608), Knox (1,147), Lincoln (1,081), Oxford (3,645), Penobscot (6,349), Piscataquis (588), Sagadahoc (1,474), Somerset (2,285), Waldo (1,052), Washington (943) and York (13,533) counties.

Out of 2,867 COVID-19 tests reported to the Maine CDC in the previous 24 hours, 0.7 percent came back positive. Overall, 2,736,060 tests have been administered and the statewide positivity rate is 2.77 percent.

An additional 2,491 Mainers have been vaccinated against the coronavirus in the previous 24 hours. As of Wednesday, 744,649 Mainers have received a first dose of the vaccine, while 785,098 have received a final dose.

New Hampshire reported 26 new cases on Wednesday and no deaths. Vermont reported four new cases and no deaths, while Massachusetts reported 63 new cases and one death.

As of Wednesday morning, the coronavirus had sickened 33,654,602 people in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands and the U.S. Virgin Islands, as well as caused 604,510 deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins University of Medicine.

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12 more coronavirus cases have been reported across Maine - Bangor Daily News

Oregon health officials announced 230 new coronavirus cases and seven COVID-19 deaths Tuesday, the day before Oregonians will no longer have to wear masks in most settings.

Oregon is lifting all state emergency pandemic restrictions Wednesday after Gov. Kate Brown announced Friday it was no longer necessary to wait until at least 70% of adults had received at least one shot of a COVID-19 vaccine. As of Tuesday, about 19,000 Oregonians had to get a shot for the state to reach that benchmark.

Some restrictions will remain in place, however, in accordance with federal rules and guidance. Among other restrictions, that means people will still have to wear masks at the airport and when on public transportation and in health care settings.

SEE STATE AND COUNTY COVID-19 TRENDS

Vaccines: Oregon reported 5,545 newly administered doses, which includes 2,773 Monday and the remainder from previous days.

Where the new cases are by county: Baker (2), Clackamas (12), Columbia (3), Coos (1), Crook (2), Curry (2), Deschutes (7), Douglas (14), Harney (1), Hood River (3), Jackson (12), Jefferson (7), Josephine (7), Klamath (7), Lane (25), Lincoln (4), Linn (9), Marion (23), Multnomah (31), Polk (5), Tillamook (1), Umatilla (21), Union (2), Washington (25) and Yamhill (4).

Who died: Oregons 2,764th death connected to the coronavirus is a 92-year-old Curry County man who tested positive June 18 and died June 28 at his residence. The state is confirming whether he had underlying medical conditions.

Oregons 2,765th death is a 67-year-old Coos County man who tested positive June 24 and died June 26 at Mercy Medical Center Mt. Shasta.

Oregons 2,766th death is a 42-year-old Lane County woman who tested positive June 17 and died June 25 at her residence.

Oregons 2,767th death is a 64-year-old Multnomah County man who tested positive May 13 and died June 19 at Kaiser Sunnyside Medical Center.

Oregons 2,768th death is a 57-year-old Washington County man who tested positive April 11 and died May 2 at Oregon Health & Science University Hospital. The state is confirming whether he had underlying medical conditions.

Oregons 2,769th death is a 61-year-old Washington County man who tested positive Nov. 25 and died May 18 at Legacy Meridian Park Medical Center.

Oregons 2,770th death is a 99-year-old Washington County woman who tested positive Jan. 2 and died Jan. 8 at her residence.

Unless otherwise noted, all who died had underlying medical conditions.

Hospitalizations: 149 people with confirmed cases of COVID-19 are hospitalized, down 11 from Monday. That includes 35 people in intensive care, down four from Monday.

Since it began: Oregon has reported 208,446 confirmed or presumed infections and 2,770 deaths, among the lowest per capita numbers in the nation. To date, the state has reported 4,378,757 vaccine doses administered, fully vaccinating 2,147,617 people and partially vaccinating 235,638 people.

-- Fedor Zarkhin

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Coronavirus in Oregon: 230 new cases and 7 deaths as Oregon sits on verge of reopening - OregonLive

All this leaves a lot of possibilities open and a lot of confusion.

Since most pandemics have been due to zoonotic events, emerging from animals, is there reason to doubt lab involvement? Maybe if you look at all of human history. A better period of comparison is the time since the advent of molecular biology, when it became more likely for scientists to cause outbreaks. The 1977 pandemic was tied to research activities, while the other two pandemics that have occurred since then, AIDS and the H1N1 swine flu of 2009, were not.

Plus, once a rare event, like a pandemic, has happened, one has to consider all the potential paths to it. Its like investigating a plane crash. Flying is usually very safe, but when a crash does happen, we dont just say mechanical errors and pilot mistakes dont usually lead to catastrophes and that terrorism is rare. Rather, we investigate all possible paths, including unusual ones, so we can figure out how to prevent similar events.

Perhaps the biggest question has been what to read into the location of the outbreak, a thousand miles from the closest known viral relatives yet close to a leading research institution.

Sometimes the curiosity around the location has been waved away with the explanation that labs are set up where viruses are. However, the Wuhan Institute of Virology has been where it is since 1956, doing research on agricultural and environmental microbiology under a different name. It was upgraded and began to focus on coronavirus research only after SARS. Wuhan is a metropolis with a larger population than New York Citys, not some rural outpost near bat caves. Dr. Shi said the December 2019 outbreak surprised her because she never expected this kind of thing to happen in Wuhan, in central China. When her lab needed a population with a lower likelihood of bat coronavirus exposure, they used Wuhan residents, noting that inhabitants have a much lower likelihood of contact with bats due to its urban setting.

Still, location itself is not proof, either. Plausible scenarios implicating research activities dont rule out other options.

This week, Jesse Bloom, an associate professor at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, told me that when he recovered and analyzed a set of partial early Wuhan genetic sequences that had been removed from a genomic archive, it supported substantial existing evidence that SARS-CoV-2 was circulating in Wuhan prior to the seafood market outbreak. Both the early reports from Chinese scientists and the more recent W.H.O. investigation this winter found many of the early cases had no connection to the seafood market, including the earliest acknowledged case so far, on Dec. 8, 2019. So the seafood market may not have been the original location of the outbreak.

Its also plausible that an outbreak could have started someplace else and was detected in Wuhan simply because it was a big city. Testing blood banks from across China, especially in areas near wildlife farms and bat caves, would help, but with limited exceptions, the Chinese government has not carried out such research or allowed the sharing of the results if it has.

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Opinion | Where Did the Coronavirus Come From? What We Already Know Is Troubling. - The New York Times

Each week, we answer frequently asked questions about life during the coronavirus crisis. If you have a question you'd like us to consider for a future post, email us at goatsandsoda@npr.org with the subject line: "Weekly Coronavirus Questions." See an archive of our FAQs here.

Do vaccinated people still need to wear masks? If so, when?

Don't toss your masks out just yet. As the more transmissible delta variant takes hold, and some countries are reinstating precautions, even vaccinated people may want to mask up in certain situations.

"People cannot feel safe just because they had the two doses. They still need to protect themselves," Dr. Mariangela Simao, World Health Organization assistant director-general for access to medicines and health products, told reporters on Friday. "Vaccine alone won't stop community transmission. People need to continue to use masks consistently, be in ventilated spaces, hand hygiene ... the physical distance, avoid crowding. This still continues to be extremely important, even if you're vaccinated when you have a community transmission ongoing."

"WHO is recommending wearing masks even if vaccinated because breakthrough infections will happen with any of the vaccines and if spread into a highly unvaccinated community (because the majority of the world has not been vaccinated) there could be widespread disease that occurs and new outbreaks developing," says Dr. Jill Weatherhead, assistant professor of adult and pediatric infectious diseases at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, in an email. "This is true for any variant, but because the delta variant is highly transmissible it will more readily spread throughout communities."

The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health is also recommending masking up indoors due to the delta variant.

But not all public health agencies are as cautious. In the U.S., guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention no longer require you to wear a mask in most settings if you're fully vaccinated (that means two weeks after the final dose), and most states have lifted restrictions as well. (Transportation hubs and medical facilities still require everyone to mask up, as do some businesses.)

So with the WHO urging vaccinated people to mask up and the CDC saying it's up to you, confusion is understandable. Essentially it means that most vaccinated Americans have a choice to make.

They "need to make the decision that's best for them and their family at this point," says Dr. Leana Wen, an emergency physician and public health professor at George Washington University. "It's this in-between time in the pandemic, when there's no one-size-fits-all answer. Everybody has different values and risk tolerances. If you're vaccinated, you can choose in terms of whether to wear a mask or not."

That choice may depend on extenuating circumstances, including whether you live with unvaccinated kids or immunocompromised people, the rate of community transmission in your area, and the rate of vaccination in your area.

For many people, it will mean masking up in certain situations.

"If you are vaccinated with one of the vaccines authorized in the U.S., you are well-protected from COVID-19," Wen says. "This protection is not 100%, and especially with the rise of the more contagious delta variant, some who are inoculated may choose to wear masks in indoor, crowded settings when they are around others who are not known to be vaccinated. ... People need to decide the level of risk that they are comfortable with."

For Wen, that means she and her husband continue to wear masks in places where they're not sure everyone is vaccinated, such as the grocery store and church, since their children aren't old enough to be vaccinated. Play dates happen outside, she says. They live in Baltimore, where the test positivity rate currently qualifies as low.

Weatherhead, who also has children too young to be vaccinated, employs similar caution.

"Even though we've had a decrease in cases and especially hospitalizations there's still ongoing transmission in the environment so there is still a risk," she says. "We're certainly not through the pandemic at this point. We're improving, but there's still ongoing community transmission in much of the country. Particularly with the increase of the delta variant, there are going to be breakthroughs even if you're vaccinated. Unvaccinated people are certainly at the highest risk, but there still can be breakthrough infections as delta gains increase in prevalence."

If you do choose to wear a mask, there's probably no need to worry that others will take it as a sign you're unvaccinated: "I actually think that the people wearing masks now tend to be the vaccinated and people understand that," Wen says. And since some people, such as kids under 12, can't be vaccinated at this time, mask-wearing could be a sign people are trying to protect the unvaccinated, she says.

Even when the current pandemic threat fades, you may want to stash your masks somewhere handy. Weatherhead and Wen say they hope that it will become more socially acceptable to wear masks in the U.S. to ward off the flu and other viruses.

"It might be something people will choose to want to wear, though not required," Weatherhead says. "Culturally we have never worn masks before here. In other countries it's more common, but it's never been something we've done here. There's probably been a little shift where people feel more comfortable wearing masks in public to protect themselves" or others, she notes, if you have to go out in public while under the weather. (Of course, she adds, "If we've learned one thing from the pandemic, it's that when you're sick, you shouldn't be in public!")

If you're looking forward to giving up a pandemic precautionary routine, make it the hand sanitizer and disinfectant wipes: There shouldn't be a need to wipe everything down going forward, Weatherhead says. Washing your hands with soap and water, however? "That's always appropriate."

Sheila Mulrooney Eldred is a freelance health journalist in Minneapolis. She's written about COVID-19 for many publications, including Medscape, Kaiser Health News, Science News for Students and The Washington Post. More at sheilaeldred.pressfolios.com. On Twitter: @milepostmedia.

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Do Vaccinated People Still Need To Wear Masks? If So, When? : Goats and Soda - NPR

Cape Town, South Africa From his 10-bed private clinic in western Johannesburg, Bayanda Gumende is more used to treating renal diseases than COVID-19. But with the citys hospitals full, patients lingering in casualty wards for days and ambulances stuck waiting in car parks, that is beginning to change.

The 27-year-old chief nephrology technologist says he has been swamped with calls from patients desperate for oxygen and who cannot find it elsewhere. But with supply being limited, he is forced to prioritise.

It has taken a toll on me. It is very emotional to watch people taking their last breath. Some people are gasping for air. There is literally nothing you can do about it. You cannot save everybody, he says.

South Africa accounts for close to 40 percent of all COVID-19 deaths on the continent, with 60,038 officially recorded fatalities so far. It is currently in the midst of a third wave, driven by the rapid spread of the Delta variant, first detected in India, which is fast becoming the dominant strain.

Professor Salim Abdool Karim, a world-leading epidemiologist and former co-chair of South Africas Ministerial Advisory Committee on COVID-19, believes that a mutation related to furin an enzyme that cleaves the spike protein makes this variant particularly dangerous.

That cutting process is critical. It enables the virus to enter cells more easily, and therefore spread faster, he says. This variant is about twice as transmissible as the other variants of concern.

Science has translated into policy. In a televised address on Sunday, President Cyril Ramaphosa announced a raft of new restrictions, including the banning of all alcohol sales and gatherings, as well as an expansion of curfew hours from 9pm to 4am.

For Gumende, it need not have got to this point. Waiting until the virus has spread uncontrollably has forced us to move into a far harsher lockdown than was necessary, he says. They knew that the Delta variant was spreading across India. They should have banned flights from India to South Africa.

For now, Gauteng province home of the countrys financial hub, Johannesburg, and its administrative capital, Pretoria has been the epicentre of this third wave, accounting for more than 60 percent of new cases. As of Monday, the province had 81,399 active cases.

During a press briefing last week, provincial Premier David Makhura said, We are struggling. We are under extreme pressure. The pandemic is everywhere.

The situation in Johannesburg in particular has been aggravated after the 1,000-bed Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Academic Hospital was forced to close following a fire in April. But many believe the authorities are not entirely blameless.

Where is the preparedness of the existing system regarding ICU, oxygen, diagnostics and treatment? tweeted Tlaleng Mofokeng, the United Nations special rapporteur on the right to health.

Some large health facilities in Johannesburg, such as the Nasrec field hospital and the AngloGold Ashanti Hospital, sit empty. There are a lot of unemployed doctors and nurses, says Gumende. It just seems ridiculous to me that the government has not prepared at all.

If there is still some debate as to how South Africa became the worst-hit country on the continent, the way out of this crisis is clear, according to Karim.

The reality is that vaccination is a critically important part of trying to control the virus. We have to combine vaccination with some of our public health prevention measures.

While Ramapahosa has been among the leading global voices calling for vaccine equity and a waiver of production patents, his governments vaccination campaign has been slow. South Africa has administered just 2.9 million doses so far, despite receiving a total of 7.4 million vaccines. Less than 5 percent of the population have received a single dose.

Government critics, including opposition parties, say the rollout has been slow because of poor planning. But in his address on Sunday, Ramaphosa alluded to vaccine hesitancy.

There is still a lot of misinformation being circulated about the COVID-19 vaccine. False stories are being spread on WhatsApp groups, on social media, and by word of mouth about the COVID-19 vaccine, claiming that the vaccine is not safe, that it can make you sick, or that it doesnt work, the president said.

I have said it before, and I wish to say it again: Please think long and hard before you press share or send, he told South Africans. You are spreading panic, fear and confusion at a time when we can ill-afford it.

Still, the slow rollout has left many frustrated.

Celeste Bortz is a 59-year-old teacher from Johannesburg. Her husband has been in hospital, on oxygen, for the past six weeks.

My husband is 61 and missed the beginning of the vaccination programme by one week. If the government had been more on top of its game, things could have been so much better, she said.

In general, I like Ramaphosa. Last year he took the reins and locked down quickly. But I think the government could have handled this third wave better.

A series of corruption scandals related to COVID-19 spending have also shaken public confidence in the governments response to the pandemic.

In September 2020, a report (PDF) from the auditor general found serious shortcomings in the financial management of the governments COVID-19 initiatives from procurement of personal protective equipment, to hospital beds, to social relief grants.

Earlier this month, Health Minister Zweli Mkhize was placed on fully-paid special leave after awarding contracts to Digital Vibes, a communications company staffed by his former associates. An investigation is ongoing.

If, according to the presidency, this third wave could be the longest yet, Karim says it will certainly not be the last.

Were going to see more effective variants of the Delta and then were going to move on to the next one. Its basically humans versus the virus and its variants. Right now, the virus is gaining the upper hand. It is able to keep one step ahead of us.

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South Africas third COVID wave could be the worst yet - Al Jazeera English