[OFF TOPIC] Coronavirus Pandemic

[heywoodu 15,135]

Meanwhile things aren't exactly going splendidly here  

 

Basically everything was recently reopened, in the case of things like night clubs and dance places one needs to have a negative test, something which a lot of young people have avoided with fake test results and forged QR codes and such

 

The expected result of opening the night clubs and such too early is a little obvious in the numbers of the past few days:

 

 

July 2nd: 941
July 3rd: 1125
July 4th: 1215
July 5th: 1519
July 6th: 2209
July 7th: 3646
July 8th: 5431

[Orangehair43 251]

America will surge soon. We in the UK are surging and we have 86% of adults having one dose and 64% fully vaccinated.  America has a lot more unvaccinated including many more at High risk of serious complications than the UK whose over 70 vaccination rate has been incredible.

[rybak 3,217]

Meanwhile in Poland we have average less than 100 cases daily since two weeks and we are living like before March 2020 besides wearing masks inside public transport and closed spaces. But the vaccination process is now way slower as almost nobody more doesnt want be vaccinated...

[Agger 1,662]

Sadly it does seem more and more like only a few countries will reach satisfying numbers. More and more countries are starting to struggle finding unvaccinated people willing to get it. 
I do have high hopes for Denmark where it does seem likely that we'll get to 90 % of the eligible people (maybe not among the 12-15 year olds). Numbers are climbing again now that we have the Pfizer shots from Romania.

Covid numbers are increasing right now with the Delta variant starting to dominate. Spontaneous football celebrations may be to blame for parts of it, but of course a generally more open society will mean slightly more as well.

However only very few hospitalizations and barely any deaths any longer (the last was reported 5 days ago)

[Quasit 865]

2 hours ago, Agger said:

Sadly it does seem more and more like only a few countries will reach satisfying numbers. More and more countries are starting to struggle finding unvaccinated people willing to get it. 
I do have high hopes for Denmark where it does seem likely that we'll get to 90 % of the eligible people (maybe not among the 12-15 year olds). Numbers are climbing again now that we have the Pfizer shots from Romania.

Covid numbers are increasing right now with the Delta variant starting to dominate. Spontaneous football celebrations may be to blame for parts of it, but of course a generally more open society will mean slightly more as well.

However only very few hospitalizations and barely any deaths any longer (the last was reported 5 days ago)

A Danish online friend has told me the other day he's not willing to get vaccinated anymore (he wanted to before) because apparently a notable Danish doctor said something like "Young people, don't get vaccinated. We don't know what it'll do to you long-term."

He didn't mention who this doctor was and how credible it is. Have you heard anything about it?

 

But yeah, something like this can influence lots of people too.

[Orangehair43 251]

2 hours ago, Agger said:

Sadly it does seem more and more like only a few countries will reach satisfying numbers. More and more countries are starting to struggle finding unvaccinated people willing to get it. 
I do have high hopes for Denmark where it does seem likely that we'll get to 90 % of the eligible people (maybe not among the 12-15 year olds). Numbers are climbing again now that we have the Pfizer shots from Romania.

Covid numbers are increasing right now with the Delta variant starting to dominate. Spontaneous football celebrations may be to blame for parts of it, but of course a generally more open society will mean slightly more as well.

However only very few hospitalizations and barely any deaths any longer (the last was reported 5 days ago)

I imagine Sweden and Norway will also get to similar high numbers of vaccinated people. The Uk might just fall short of 90%  - maybe the announcement of quarantine free travel will provide the boost needed to get that extra 1%. 

[Grassmarket 3,403]

2 hours ago, Quasit said:

A Danish online friend has told me the other day he's not willing to get vaccinated anymore (he wanted to before) because apparently a notable Danish doctor said something like "Young people, don't get vaccinated. We don't know what it'll do to you long-term."

He didn't mention who this doctor was and how credible it is. Have you heard anything about it?

 

But yeah, something like this can influence lots of people too.

The risk/benefit calculations are definitely different for us oldies than for younger people. But anybody that says they know exactly is not telling the truth.  During my early career I had some marginal involvement with AIDS campaigns & it was a long time between the disease being first diagnosed - circa 81-82 - until we reached the full modern understanding of how it worked - circa 88-89. So we are still only on the foothills with COVID.

[up and down 82]

https://www.scmp.com/sport/article/3141546/athletes-village-85pc-covid-19-vaccination-rate-enough-ensure-safe-tokyo

 

 

Threat of Covid-19 spreading grows at Tokyo Olympics with three infections at athletes village. What happened to 85 per cent vaccination rate pledge?
More than a dozen Olympic-related positive tests have been recorded in Tokyo since visitors started arriving for the 2020 Games, including a first case at the Athletes Village

It started with a Ugandan coach testing positive for coronavirus on arrival in Tokyo on June 20. Three days later, an athlete in the same team returned a positive result.

A Serbian rower tested positive on arrival on July 4 and a Lithuanian was next five days later. On July 14, seven staff members at a hotel in Hamamatsu housing Brazilian athletes were shown to be infected.

On Friday, a member of the Nigerian delegation became the first Olympic visitor to be hospitalised, and the next day, organisers revealed that the coronavirus had finally penetrated the Athletes Village – set to accommodate 11,000 people over two weeks – where an unnamed person tested positive and was sent to a hotel for isolation. By Sunday morning, the cases of infection had risen to three. If that wasn’t enough, International Olympic Committee (IOC) member Ryu Seung-min, of South Korea, tested positive after arriving in Tokyo. Saturday’s official tally alone was 15 infections, before Ryu’s case was revealed.

The Japanese capital is still under a state of emergency amid a six-month-high surge in new Covid-19 cases but the IOC is standing firm in the face of widespread calls to cancel the Games, promising a safe and secure Olympics with at least 85 per cent of all athletes and officials to be fully vaccinated.

 

Covid-19 cases at the Olympics may, for now, be a trickle, but does the 85 per cent vaccination pledge offer adequate protection to prevent a flood and a potential catastrophe of Olympic proportions? It just about does, said Fabian Lim Chin Leong, associate professor of exercise physiology at the Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine in Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.

 

“The ideal is always to strive for 100 per cent of vaccination rate, but this may not be possible for practical reasons,” Lim told the Post. “For example, people with health conditions that may not be suitable for vaccination, people who do not consent to the vaccination, and differences in availability of vaccines among countries taking part in the Olympic Games.

 

“In most public health settings, 70 to 80 per cent of a vaccination rate would be accepted as the level that achieves herd immunity.”

 

Around 11,000 athletes and 7,000 officials are expected to arrive for the Tokyo Games, which open on July 23 and runs until August 8. IOC President Thomas Bach said this month that 85 per cent of athletes and officials living in the Olympic Village would be fully vaccinated, rising from a June prediction of 75 per cent.

The IOC also said in March, when vaccines were not widely available, that 270 world championships and world cups held between September 2020 and March this year resulted in no outbreaks, despite involving more than 30,000 athletes.

It is not mandatory for participants to be vaccinated but Olympic advisers have said it hardly mattered because vaccination had never been the primary strategy against an outbreak in the first place. Medical and sports analysts have said the 85 per cent rate offered an acceptable coverage considering the herd immunity threshold of 75 to 80 per cent set by most countries.

Measures to prevent the spread of the virus – with the Olympics deemed a potential superspreader event by some doctors ­– remain paramount.

“Eighty-five per cent is what we’re working with. It is good enough because that’s what we have. It is better than 84 per cent. It will substantially reduce the risk even more,” said Brian McCloskey, a public health adviser to the IOC who chairs an independent expert panel that developed Covid-19 countermeasures for the Games.

“I would doubt whether you could calculate a statistically significant difference between the effect of 85 per cent and 90 per cent. It just wouldn’t make a huge difference. When [the IOC] started planning the kind of measures that we would use for the Games, we did not consider vaccination as part of that. So vaccination is a bonus on top of these measures.”

All Olympic participants will observe a strict regimen of testing, masking and social distancing as outlined in the IOC’s “playbook” that provides safety guidelines for the Games. They must undergo daily coronavirus screening and will be sent to the Athletes Village’s fever clinic if they have a temperature of 37.5 degrees Celsius or higher or test positive. In Japan, their locations must remain traceable by GPS and they should stay within the village, competition venue or training grounds. No cheering, hugging and high-fives are permitted.

Winners will not have medals placed around their necks but must take them off a tray during the presentation ceremony. Organisers have threatened to fine or disqualify rule-breaking athletes, and even expel them from Japan.

 

While officials have come under fire for insisting on staging the Games amid a pandemic, other big events have been held this year such as grand slam tennis tournaments the French Open and Wimbledon.

The European Championship football tournament that ended in July had spectators returning to stadiums at reduced capacities. Fans were asked to mask up and keep a distance of at least 1.5 metres, while certain stadiums required proof of a negative coronavirus test. For the final, fans were asked to show proof of full vaccination or a negative coronavirus test with London’s Wembley Stadium allowing 60,000 spectators in to watch England lose on penalties to Italy.
Still, social-distancing measures were ignored as maskless supporters gathered after the match. The WHO warned that Euro 2020 crowds could become superspreader events and authorities in England, Scotland and Denmark reported an uptick in coronavirus cases because of those games.

 

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson defended the decision of allowing more than 60,000 spectators to attend the final, as the vaccines had created “a considerable wall of immunity”.

Yet for the Olympic Games, organisers had always planned for a “bubble”. Striving for a 100 per cent vaccination rate minimises the risks but is not possible for multiple reasons, said Brett Toresdahl, a sports medicine doctor at New York’s Hospital for Special Surgery.

“A vaccination rate of over 80 per cent combined with the other prevention measures have lowered the risk of Covid-19 to a level that is acceptable to the vast majority of athletes and their medical teams,” Toresdahl said.

“The estimated vaccination rate of over 80 per cent within the Olympic and Paralympic Village is currently higher than in any other country,” he added.
As vaccines become more readily available, the IOC and manufacturers have worked to ensure national delegations have ready access to jabs. The Chinese Olympic Committee in March offered to provide China-made vaccines for athletes going to Tokyo 2020 and the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics. Russia has also offered the Sputnik V vaccine to some African nations.

In May, the IOC struck a deal with German vaccine developer BioNTech and US pharmaceutical company Pfizer to provide their Covid-19 vaccine. Inoculation hubs were set up in the capitals of Rwanda and Qatar for delegations whose countries couldn’t provide injections locally.

Two out of five Afghan athletes were inoculated with the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, under the IOC’s agreement with the companies, in the Qatar vaccination hub, its National Olympic Committee told the Post.

Tracking down the vaccination rates of each nation’s delegations is also an uphill task. The IOC declined to reveal the number of vaccines provided to each country. Most Olympic committees did not respond to the Post’s requests for comment. The few that did decline to reveal the number of athletes who have already received jabs.

In Hong Kong, close to 100 per cent of its 46 athletes competing in the Olympics will be vaccinated. Yet, the exact figure remains undisclosed, deemed by the Hong Kong Sports Institute as “very personal and related to athletes’ privacy”.

The US Olympic and Paralympic Committee is also not tracking or mandating its 800-plus athletes to be vaccinated but replies from responsive Olympic committees offer a glimpse into the difficulties of getting athletes and staff inoculated.

Slovakia has around 90 per cent of its 41 athletes vaccinated, its Olympic committee said. “Just a few members were not interested in getting vaccinated. Some were infected by Sars-CoV-2 in February or March, so they were still within the 180 days period of natural immunisation,” its spokesman said, using the coronavirus’ scientific name.

As for Malawi, one out of its five taking part athletes is underage. The 15-year-old will attend the Games unvaccinated. The delegation was inoculated with the AstraZeneca jab under its country’s vaccine roll-out, and the WHO has not recommended it for those aged under 18.

Despite the risks, the IOC is absolving itself of any responsibility should an athlete contract the virus. All athletes must sign a waiver – said to be typical for major sports events – but with wording that releases organisers from any Covid-19 liability.

Certain sports could also be at a greater risk of Covid-19 infection, especially close-contact indoor sports such as fencing, boxing and wrestling, according to Lisa Brosseau, a respiratory-protection research consultant for the University of Minnesota’s Centre for Infectious Disease Research and Policy.

 

Any sport that takes place outdoors with no close contact, such as archery, golf and surfing, are at low risk. Current safety measures also do not recognise the exposure to human-generated aerosols, or small particles, in indoor spaces, said Brosseau. In shared spaces and in proximity to others, Brosseau warned the current safety measures are not effective.

“Masks are not effective at limiting the emission or inhalation of small infectious particles generated during breathing or talking,” said Brosseau. “I believe transport will occur in small buses. I am concerned about the bus driver who will have the highest exposure – meeting many people in a day.”

Furthermore, not all staff, volunteers and members of the media would be fully vaccinated during the Games, said Toresdahl. The IOC said 70 to 80 per cent of the media representatives would be vaccinated while all 70,000 volunteers were expected to be inoculated.

“While the available vaccines are very effective, Covid-19 infections can still occur,” said Toresdahl.

Lim from Singapore said extra precautions athletes must take at the Games may also lower their protection levels. “Another risk is the impact that travelling, time zone differences and competition stress have on the immune system. That may lower the resistance to counter the effects of the Covid-19 virus,” said Lim, though he said there was insufficient data to fully understand its risks.

McCloskey, the independent health adviser to the IOC, however, said there was little evidence to suggest the coronavirus could be spread at a sporting event. “We had positive cases at the tennis and football tournaments, but those happened from people being infected at home, not during the field of play,” he said.

Even before vaccines were widely available, many indoor contact sporting events were held with minimal Covid-19 transmission when testing and prevention measures were implemented, said Toresdahl.

“As the pandemic continues and sporting events resume, event organisers and medical staff are learning more about how to minimise the risk of Covid-19 to an acceptable level,” said Toresdahl.

[up and down 82]

Like it or not Tokyo Olympics have become the place whereby covid cases have been spreading very fast by now although the Olympics have not started.  Tokyo Olympics will only start on 23rd July 2021 with the Opening Ceremony.

 

However the unfortunate part is that there are some officials, athletes and coaches who have been detected as positive covid. However IOC refused to reveal the names and the status of the athletes, coaches and officials due to privacy reason.

 

So the question is simple. Should Olympics be held during pandemic time? Is it a wise thing to do? Yes it is alright to have Olympics as it is a grand and prestigious events. However to have Olympics during pandemic time will only encourage the widespread of the virus and endanger the athletes life.

[up and down 82]

https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/east-asia/article/3141551/tokyo-olympics-three-athletes-test-positive-covid-19

 

 

Tokyo Olympics: South African cases raise fear of Covid-19 cluster at athletes villages

Organisers on Sunday reported 10 new cases connected to the Olympics including media, contractors and other personnel

Infection rates are climbing among the general population of the capital, topping 1,000 new cases for four consecutive days

 

Tokyo Olympics organisers on Sunday reported that two South African footballers and a video analyst had tested positive for Covid-19 in the Olympic Village, raising fears of a cluster just days before the opening ceremony.

Players Thabiso Monyane and Kamohelo Mahlatsi and analyst Mario Masha are in isolation after testing positive, Team South Africa said, adding that the whole delegation had been following anti-coronavirus rules.

“They have been tested on arrival, daily at the Olympic Village and complied with all the mandatory measures,” a statement said.

Athletes and delegations from around the world have begun arriving for the Games, amid mounting concerns that Japan’s Covid-19 cases, already experiencing an uptick, will rise even further.

Organisers reported 10 new cases in total connected to the Olympics on Sunday including media, contractors and other personnel. That compares with 15 new cases on Saturday, which included the first case of infection at the Olympic Village, a complex of flats and dining areas that will house 6,700 athletes and officials at its peak.

An International Olympic Committee member from South Korea tested positive for the coronavirus on landing in Tokyo. Ryu Seung-min, a former Olympic athlete, is vaccinated, reflecting the infection risk even from vaccinated attendees.

 

Tokyo 2020 Olympic Village opens to the media

Meanwhile, the Tokyo metropolitan government reported 1,008 daily coronavirus cases on Sunday, topping the 1,000 mark for the fifth straight day and adding to signs that the capital is seeing a fifth wave of the virus. The figure compares with 1,410 infections confirmed the previous day, the highest single-day spike since January 21.

The seven-day rolling average of new cases in Tokyo, which is currently under a fourth Covid-19 state of emergency, was up 45.6 per cent from the previous week at 1,068 per day.

With the opening ceremony set to take place on Friday, public concern remains high that the games could become a superspreader event amid the spread of the highly contagious Delta variant of the coronavirus, first detected in India.

The approval rating for Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga’s cabinet has fallen to 35.9 per cent, the lowest level since he took office last year, a Kyodo News poll showed on Sunday, adding to signs of public discontent with the government’s determination to hold the Tokyo Olympics despite the coronavirus pandemic.
The disapproval rating rose to 49.8 per cent, the highest on record for the Suga administration. In the previous survey conducted last month, the support rate stood at 44.0 per cent, while 42.2 per cent disapproved of the cabinet.

Covid-19 cases rise despite Games pledge of 85 per cent vaccination rate

 

On Saturday, International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach appealed for Japanese fans to get behind the Games, saying he was “very well aware of the scepticism” surrounding the event.

Many worry that increased precautions such as mandatory apps, GPS tracking and “minders” for Olympic visitors will not be nearly enough to stop the introduction of fast-spreading variants to a largely unvaccinated population already struggling with mounting cases.

“It’s all based on the honour system, and it’s causing concern that media people and other participants may go out of their hotels to eat in Ginza,” Takeshi Saiki, an opposition lawmaker, said of what he called Japan’s lax border controls. So far, most Olympic athletes and other participants have been exempted from typical quarantine requirements.

But they are subject to a restrictive environment at the village, with daily testing, social distancing and no movement possible outside the Olympic “bubble”. They are under orders to leave Japan 48 hours after their event.

There have been regular breakdowns in security as the sheer enormity of trying to police so many visitors becomes clearer. Photos and social media posts show foreigners linked to the Games breaking mask rules and drinking in public, smoking in airports – even, if the bios are accurate, posting on dating apps.

“There are big holes in the bubbles,” said Ayaka Shiomura, another opposition lawmaker, speaking of the so-called “bubbles” that are supposed to separate the Olympics’ participants from the rest of the country.

But as the restrictions are tested by increasing numbers of visitors, officials have been blamed for doing too much, and too little.
The government and the Games’ organisers “are treating visitors as if they are potential criminals,” Chizuko Ueno, a professor emeritus of sociology at the University of Tokyo, said on YouTube.

There is also lingering resentment over a widespread sentiment that Japan is facing this balancing act because the International Olympic Committee needs to have the Games happen, regardless of the state of the virus, to get the billions of dollars in media revenue critical to its survival.

Will Tokyo Olympics with no fans affect how athletes perform?

 

“The Olympics are held as an IOC business. Not only the Japanese people, but others around the world, were turned off by the Olympics after all of us saw the true nature of the Olympics and the IOC through the pandemic,” mountaineer Ken Noguchi told the online edition of the Nikkan Gendai newspaper.

One of the highest-profile security problems came last month when a Ugandan team member arriving in Japan tested positive for what turned out to be the more contagious Delta variant. He was quarantined at the airport, but the rest of the nine-person team was allowed to travel more than 500km (300 miles) on a chartered bus to their pre-Olympics camp, where a second Ugandan tested positive, forcing the team and seven city officials and drivers who had close contact with them to self-isolate.

On Friday, a Uganda team member went missing, raising more questions about the oversight of Olympic participants. On Saturday, organisers said the first resident of the Olympic Village had tested positive for Covid-19. Officials said it was not an athlete, but was a non-resident of Japan.

For the first 14 days in Japan, Olympic visitors outside the athletes’ village are banned from using public transport and from going to bars, tourist spots and most restaurants. They cannot visit anywhere that is not specifically mentioned in activity plans submitted in advance. There are some exceptions authorised by organisers: specifically designated convenience stores, takeaway places and, in rare cases, some restaurants that have private rooms.

Athletes, tested daily for the coronavirus, will be isolated in the athletes’ village and are expected to stay there, or in similarly locked-down bubbles at venues or training sites. Those who break the rules could be sent home or receive fines and lose the right to participate in the Games.

Everyone associated with the Olympics has to install two apps when entering Japan. One is an immigration and health reporting app, and the other is a contact tracing app that uses Bluetooth. They will also have to consent to allowing organisers to use GPS to monitor their movements and contacts through their smartphones if there’s an infection or violation of rules.