Day 171: Moral Panic

A week ago, South Africa was at #10 in coronavirus cases, but over the past week it shot up through the ranks to its current #5 position (displacing Peru). At 373,000 cases, it still has fewer than half of what it needs to displace #4 Russia, but, despite the low rankings of other African nations, the WHO sees ominous signs in South Africa for the rest of the continent.

The US is approaching 4 million cases, almost 2 million of them resolved. Massachusetts cases are up a fifth of a percentage point today, not to gloat. Both Pennsylvania and North Carolina are making slow progress in their quest for our #9 slot.

The federal government's internal struggle over COVID-19 case data gets some elucidation in Politico, and a new coronavirus data website, HHS Protect, is born. Because we didn't have enough of them already...

Also in the US, the moral panic prompted by this spring's sudden and unexpected discovery that people occasionally die of communicable diseases rages on. The New York Times maps masks across the US and reveals that Americans are more masked than the Taiwanese, not to mention Canadians, Brits, and Australians. And yet the demon anti-maskers still receive the lion's share of the blame for our coronavirus deaths.

While the forces of "science" may be resting on their mask-mandating laurels, the debate over reopening the schools rages on. The Economist joins the growing pro-school ranks with an article on the dangers of keeping schools closed. On the other hand, the Florida branch of the American Academy of Pediatrics bucks the parent organization's pro-school stance with their anti-school letter to the governor. Likewise, Reuters reports that the Florida teachers union has sued to stop schools from opening in August.

On the science front, there are more cases of reinfection popping up, one in South Africa and at least one in Israel, both after three months. Renewed symptoms were not noted in the reports. The CDC still hasn't found evidence of actual reinfection and presumes that any positive tests during the first 90 days after infection are detecting remnants of the original viral particles, though they might sit up and take notice for actual symptoms. (The 3-month standard was adopted from another beta coronavirus for which immunity lasts only 90 days.)

A preliminary, positive report is out on the ChAdOx1 vaccine:

ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 showed an acceptable safety profile, and homologous boosting increased antibody responses. These results, together with the induction of both humoral and cellular immune responses, support large-scale evaluation of this candidate vaccine in an ongoing phase 3 programme.