Day 243: No One Here Cares

As the world hits 34 million cases, local puritans continue to be surprised at college students' disregard for a disease that poses little threat to them personally. In this case the culprits were unmasked Boston College football players failing to be somber and socially distant in a "tightly packed locker room" after beating Texas State 24–21 in a comeback victory. Since dirty football players are expected to go to locker rooms after games and no grandmas are known to have been killed by COVID-negative athletes, it's not clear what their offense was or what exactly they weren't caring enough about.

In other young immortal news, a 48-year-old senior non-comm in the Army Reserve died of coronavirus, making him only the eighth US service member COVID death. The military’s COVID death rate is around 0.015%, with only one active duty serviceman having died (the sailor from Germ Boat #23).

NPR has been reporting on life in the fake school trenches. You'd think we'd have a hard number, but NPR could only provide an estimate that about 50% of school districts went virtual this fall. NPR is ominous about parents "reaching a breaking point", with moms leaving the remote workforce after failing to both work and parent full-time at home, leaving their kids at home alone with a computer while they go out to work, or paying for daycare to supervise their children's fake school day. The latter is most notable for recreating all the risks of school for the children and their stand-in teachers, at extraordinary expense to their parents. As if all of that weren't bad enough, a second NPR article reports on the compound consequences of parental unemployment and childhood social isolation.

In cute and furry news, a New York company, Applied DNA Sciences, has responded to the crowded COVID vaccine market by creating a vaccine for cats. It's already in clinical trials "upstate". PlagueBlog admires their ingenuity, and also hopes that this doesn't turn into another Lyme disease situation where a vaccine is available for pets but not for humans.

P.S. Massachusetts' cases were up two-fifths of a percentage point again today. The cities and towns data is out and shows some activity on Nantucket and in the north around Lawrence. (Maps tomorrow.)

Day 242: Not Taking COVID Seriously

Despite the recent lockdown, Israel is reported to have the highest weekly infection rate in the world and a daily death rate higher than the US. Though this wasn't their first lockdown, their plan seems to be to continue with socialism lockdowns until it finally works.

Massachusetts cases were up two-fifths of a percentage point today. Missouri (#19) is on the rise and may pass #18 Massachusetts in another day or two. Another steady climber at more than 2,000 cases a day is #21 Wisconsin.

In local news, BU is working itself up to suspend 20 underage students for attending an outdoor "beer party", not because underage drinking is illegal (it is) or because they were anywhere near the limit on outdoor gatherings in Boston (they weren't), but because they "won’t take COVID-19 seriously." (PlagueBlog would not be here blogging today if, back in the day, we'd gotten tossed out of institutions of higher education for taking beer more seriously than AIDS.)

Day 241: One Million Deaths

The news has settled on today as the day to declare a million coronavirus deaths worldwide. COVID-19 now rivals the largely forgotten Hong Kong flu in fatality, and has only 99 million deaths to go to equal the Spanish flu. (Some put the death toll of the Spanish flu at only 50 million, but 'tis the season to put the worst possible spin on everything.)

Florida let 'er rip on Friday and people are still complaining about the bars being packed there since reopening. Dr. Fauci is very concerned.

Massachusetts' cases are up a third of a percentage point today.

Day 240: Madrid Rebels

BNO News has declared a million coronavirus deaths worldwide, while (at the time of writing) Worldometers remains a few hundred deaths short of that milestone. But #2 India has reached six million cases.

Spain (at #7) is having a flare-up in Madrid, with more than double the country-wide average cases per fortnight (and more than seven times the average in the UK). The national health minister called for Madrid to lock down, but the regional government has refused to do so, apparently out of economic concerns. While much of the increase can be attributed to better testing and the death rate is down, ICU capacity in Madrid remains a concern.

In local news, Nantucket's COVID wave continues. Tourists are part of the problem, though some of the new cases are among locals and haven't been traced yet.

P.S. Massachusetts' cases are up four ninths of a percentage point again today.

Day 239: More Vitamin D

The world has reached 33 million coronavirus cases, and is very close to one million deaths (prompting the WHO to prognosticate the next million deaths). India is about to reach 6 million cases, though their death rate is minuscule with not even 95,000 deaths so far. Now #43, Poland has crossed the China line.

The well-known benefits of Vitamin D continue to appear in studies, including this PLOS ONE article that concluded:

The association between lower SARS-CoV-2 positivity rates and higher circulating 25(OH)D levels remained significant in a multivariable logistic model adjusting for all included demographic factors (adjusted odds ratio 0.984 per ng/mL increment, 95% C.I. 0.983–0.986; p<0.001). SARS-CoV-2 positivity is strongly and inversely associated with circulating 25(OH)D levels, a relationship that persists across latitudes, races/ethnicities, both sexes, and age ranges. Our findings provide impetus to explore the role of vitamin D supplementation in reducing the risk for SARS-CoV-2 infection and COVID-19 disease.

Unfortunately, impetus is far from proof of the efficacy of vitamin D supplementation, though this study did go pretty far in separating out vitamin D levels from other confounding factors.

Fortunately, a previous study (dated next month but previously PlagueBlogged) already showed the efficacy of administration of vitamin D in treating hospitalized COVID-19 patients.

Massachusetts' cases are up four ninths of a percentage point today.

Day 238: Wantonly or Recklessly

On the international COVID scene, the news puts Spain at 700,000 cases after a week of about 10,000 cases a day (fueled by improved testing). Worldometers already has them at 735,000 cases (and at #7); #11 France is also experiencing record case counts, bringing them close to 500,000 cases total. Hospitalization and death rates there are also three to four times higher now than in August. Lower down on the list, #44 Poland is rapidly approaching the China mark.

In domestic news, Virginia Governor Dr. Ralph Northam and his wife have tested positive for coronavirus. He claims to be asymptomatic; they may have caught it from the hired help at the Executive Mansion.

In Michigan, 500,000 residents are petitioning to revoke the open-ended Emergency Powers of Governor Act, one of two Michigan laws permitting the Governor to declare a state of emergency. If they succeed (either by the legislature voting in favor of it or, failing that, by ballot initiative), the remaining law will require that a state of emergency be renewed by the legislature on a monthly basis. It seems the Republican legislature is expected to approve the petition, but it may take up to 100 days for the government to certify at least 340,047 of the signatures.

The New York Times reports the Massachusetts grand jury indictment of superintendent Bennett Walsh and medical director Dr. David Clinton, formerly of the Holyoke Soldiers' Home.

Each man was indicted on five counts for two charges; the specific charges were for caretakers who “wantonly or recklessly” permit or cause bodily injury and abuse, neglect or mistreatment of an older or disabled person.

P.S. Massachusetts' cases were up three sevenths of a percentage point again today.

Day 237: Variolation

In world news, the recent Israeli lockdown is getting tighter after the first week of lockdown produced 7,000 cases a day and stressed hospital capacity. Unemployment there is currently at 11%.

The Guardian reports a "nearly 100% accuracy" rate for COVID sniffer dogs in Helsinki, and it's also cheaper and easier than laboratory testing. The exact mechanism is unknown, but a prior study suggests the sweat of the infected smells different.

Here at PlagueBlog Headquarters, we've been intentionally ignoring the variolation story for a couple of weeks now as too silly to report, but it made ProMED earlier this week so here goes nothing: A "perspective" in the New England Journal of Medicine compares "universal facial masking" to variolation. While it's interesting as an admission that dose matters, as well as an implied admission that SARS-CoV-2 is getting through your face masks, it's less interesting in its examples of masking successes in crowded, germy settings like hospitals and ships. In reality, any of the host of COVID precautions can reduce viral loads, and the degree of reduction is poorly understood for novel approaches like universal mask usage or lockdowns. PlagueBlog is duly impressed that 2020, the year that keeps on giving, has managed to produce a vaccination technique that's even less reliable than the 15th-century institution of variolation.

Massachusetts' cases were up three sevenths of a percentage point today. Yesterday's cities and towns data shows the usual pattern of small town outliers, tourism COVID, and above-average case rates in some of the larger cities, though not in all of the Stop The Spread cities (the ones with dotted outlines):

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Day 236: Think of the Children

The world has reached 32 million cases. Massachusetts' cases were up two fifths of a percentage point today. Despite no appreciable change in our coronavirus status in the past two months, the governor of Maine has finally relented and will now allow Massachusetts residents to visit without a COVID-19 test. The governor has provided no sane reason for the change, though there seem to be some hallucinatory reasons:

Maine health officials said Massachusetts now resembles other exempt states like Connecticut, New York and New Jersey in terms of COVID-19 prevalence and positivity rate.

PlagueBlog is unsure how that can represent a change, unless the tri-state areas numbers have recently been getting worse.

Nature reports on a rise in stillbirth rates in some countries (none of which are the US) and attributes it entirely to COVID panic interfering with routine prenatal care. Note that the CDC has yet to report any overall change in the stillbirth rate in the US, though they have reported, inconclusively, again, about the risks of COVID-19 infection in pregnant women.

A report out of Sweden found little difference in pregnancy outcome between COVID-19 patients and uninfected patients in labor. There was slightly more pre-eclampsia among the infected and a bit more induction among the uninfected, but otherwise the deliveries and infants were similar or the same. They also noted that 65% of infected mothers were asymptomatic.

Day 235: Still Not Dining In

PlagueBlog apologizes for the COVID fatigue that ate days 231–234. In the meantime, the world has reached 31.5 million cases, with the US (still #1) at 7 million cases, #2 India at 5.5 million cases, and #3 Brazil at 4.5 million cases. The United Arab Emirates (#41) and Guatemala (#42) have surpassed the ever-dropping China point (#43). In the US, Michigan has reached 130,000 cases, pushing us (that is, Massachusetts) down to #18.

Indoor dining has still not come to New York City, although it is currently scheduled to return on September 30th at 25% capacity. According to the New York Post, that's not enough to replace the outdoor dining capacity that's quickly going the way of summer weather. They note that 87% of bars and restaurants in the city were already unable to make their August rent, and a third of those made no payment at all. An estimated 150,000 hospitality industry workers are still out of work, although COVID-19 rates remain below 1% across the state. This story made Hacker News, where it was compared to the Onion article Study Finds Most Restaurants Fail Within First Year Of It Becoming Illegal To Go To Them.

The LA Times warns of a coming "tsunami" of hotel closures:

Nationwide, it’s not clear how many hotels are behind on their loan payments. But figures are available on hotel loans that have been bundled and sold to investors as commercial mortgage-backed securities. Payments on 16.77% of those loans are more than 30 days late, according to Fitch Ratings — up dramatically from less than 2% before the industry began feeling the pandemic’s financial effects.

P.S. Massachusetts' cases were up a seventh of a percentage point today. They were up a third of a point on Friday, nearly half a point on Saturday, two sevenths of a point on Sunday, and a fifth of a percentage point on Monday.

Also, PlagueBlog feels the need to warn Cambridge residents and their neighbors that the Cantabrigian pointless outdoor mask requirement comes back into effect at midnight tonight (although "midnight on September 22, 2020" is embarrassingly imprecise, even by COVID panic standards).

Day 230: Should Fido Wear a Mask?

The Netherlands have jumped a couple of places past China (now #41) over the course of the week. Next up to surpass China are Guatemala and the United Arab Emirates. Michigan also surpassed Massachusetts this week, pushing us down to #18 in the US. Next up is Maryland, though Missouri and Wisconsin are moving faster at the moment.

Today's title question is an apparently serious one from Reader's Digest: Should Your Dog Be Wearing a Pet Mask? The answer, of course, is no. Dogs need to pant as well as breathe, and some of them have been bred to be dangerously bad at the latter even without a mask. Of course no one asks whether your cat should wear a mask because clearly your cat will refuse.

On the science front, not only does smoking protect you from COVID-19, but wearing glasses does as well, at least according to this report in JAMA Ophthalmology.

Massachusetts' cases are up a third of a percentage point today. Here's the graph of the cities and towns data from Wednesday; things are still happening in Williamstown and on the islands, as well as in Worcester, Lawrence, Revere, and New Bedford:

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Day 229: No Comment

Massachusetts' cases were up a quarter of a percentage point again today.

Day 228: Can the Neighbors Tell?

The US has reached 200,000 dead. Michigan is creeping up to Massachusetts in case count. Massachusetts' cases are up a quarter of a percentage point today, along with more grousing from the neighbors about Boston College's coronavirus outbreak.

Forbes reports on the partly-rolled-out Sara tracking project from Mitre.

Day 227: No Lifeline

Israel will be locking down again for three weeks starting Friday. The timing (for the high holidays) is both unfortunate and precautionary.

The Atlantic reports on the poor performance of Tenet in the US and what it means (DOOM!) for movie theaters in general:

If things were already looking bleak for American cinemas, the immediate future now looks catastrophic. This past weekend, the total domestic box office was less than $15 million—Indiewire estimates that sum amounts to $5,000 per theater, which isn’t enough to pay for basic operating costs. As studios grow more skittish about releasing major films, those numbers will only dwindle. Tenet was supposed to be the industry’s lifeline; for now, Hollywood has nothing else to pin its hopes on.

Here in Massachusetts, cases were up a fifth of a percentage point.

Day 226, Otherwise Known As 1600000000

The world has reached 29 million cases. The Unix Epoch has reached 1600000000. The Australian government is under fire for a double standard that keeps the average person from attending their parents' funerals but lets Tom Hanks tramp into the country unimpeded.

Commentary in BMJ Global Health speculates that ADE (antibody-dependent enhancement) contributed to the severity of cases in Italy. It's fairly speculative, with no evidence that ADE is increasing the disease burden, and no way to distinguish between that case and one that would look the same such as previous immunity to other coronaviruses reducing the disease burden elsewhere. PlagueBlog would have thought we were beyond such basic speculation at this point, but apparently we are not.

An interesting paper in Science uses the genetics of SARS-CoV-2 to investigate flaws in the early pandemic response in the US and Europe:

Our results suggest that rapid early interventions successfully prevented early introductions of the virus into Germany and the US from taking hold. Other, later introductions of the virus from China to both Italy and to Washington State founded the earliest sustained European and North America transmission networks. Our analyses demonstrate the effectiveness of public health measures in preventing onward transmission and show that intensive testing and contact tracing could have prevented SARS-CoV-2 from becoming established.

There's also a University of Arizona press release about the paper.

Massachusetts' cases are up two ninths of a percentage point today.

Day 225: Even the Peeps

Another day, another criticism of the Sturgis study. Or two.

Halloween peeps have been "paused" (as the kids say) for this year due to coronavirus, so that Just Born, the peep company, can focus on their Easter and year-round candy lines. Halloween peeps are scheduled to return next fall.

The Boston College outbreak has grown to 81 students, with lots of complaints about poor planning and communication of the school's COVID response. Overall, Massachusetts' cases are up four ninths of a percentage point today.

In non-COVID news, the City of Somerville has tweeted a case of West Nile virus.

Day 224: 9/11

Aside from the obvious analogy of a misdirected overreaction (in the wars on terror and coronavirus), 9/11 and COVID also share flight from Manhattan and an economic threat to the World Trade Center.

On the science front, the Lancet questions improbable fomite research, while others question the Lancet paper about Sputnik V:

“There are very strange patterns in the data,” Enrico Bucci, a biology professor at Temple University in the U.S. who has published an open letter highlighting the concerns told The Moscow Times.

“By strange patterns I mean there are duplicate values for different [groups of] patients … which cannot be,” Bucci said, in reference to results concerning the production of antibodies by groups of patients who had been tested with different formulations of the vaccine.

The cities and towns data for this week has a few tiny town outliers (most notably Montgomery), but also some activity in the bigger cities, in Williamstown (where Williams College is mostly in session, albeit with a reduced course load and activities), and on the Cape and islands:

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P.S. Massachusetts' cases were up a third of a percentage point again today.

Day 223: Danger of Suffocation

In #6 Columbia, police killed an unmasked lawyer using a stun gun, leading to riots that killed seven more innocent civilians. In #26 Canada, a flight was grounded when a 19-month-old child refused to put on his mask. According to the airline, it was the three-year-old who refused to wear a mask, but the parents maintain the three-year-old was under the mask, and only the 19-month-old refused. (Children under 2 are not required to wear masks in Canada, due to the danger of suffocation.) The hostile toddlers were removed from the plane, but the flight crew apparently refused to fly after the commotion.

Snopes takes on the question of the alleged 260,000 COVID cases from the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally, but doesn't fully debunk it.

In local news, 13 Boston College swimmers have tested positive for COVID-19. The affected teams are, as the kids say nowadays, "paused." Massachusetts' cases are up a third of a percentage point today.

Day 222: On the Brink

The world has reached 28 million coronavirus cases. Portugal had a bit of a spike today with 646 confirmed cases, the highest since April 20th.

Time reports that the daycare industry is on the brink of collapse:

Millions of American parents, who are already struggling to shell out an average of about $10,000 per toddler per year for childcare, may wonder why their daycare center is in such dire financial straits. But the industry as a whole was barely profitable even before the pandemic hit.

Unlike call centers that were able to cut down on building expenses by downsizing or going remote or retail stores that skimped on staffing, daycare facilities went into the pandemic with little fat to trim. State regulations require that they keep high adult-to-child ratios, maintain ample square footage for space to play and learn, and in some places, hire staff that are trained in early childhood development. These measures are important: Research indicates that early childhood education shapes everything from adult brain volume to reading proficiency. “That has an impact on our future labor force and their economic potential, which ultimately is tied to our country’s economic potential,” explains Katica Roy, a gender economist.

But childcare providers perform this crucial service for pennies on the dollar. The average daycare operator grosses just $48,000 a year, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, whereas the standard daycare worker makes just $24,000. Usually these jobs come with little or no paid time off, and no employee-sponsored healthcare.

It's one of those industries where COVID-unemployment pays better than having a job, so hiring back unemployed workers is proving to be something of a challenge.

The largest fake numbers of the pandemic so far are those being modeled for the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally, a harmless outdoor event in South Dakota that has, allegedly, infected about half the number of people who attended (260,000 vs. 500,000). The state of South Dakota has attributed only 124 cases and one death to exposure at the rally, and the governor has expressed some ire at being the target of extreme COVID modeling.

Here in Massachusetts, the state labor relations board has ruled that teachers in the Andover school system accidentally went on an illegal strike back on August 31st when their union got about half of them to refuse to enter schools for training on safety grounds. Also, cases were up about 0.15% today.

Day 221: Constitutional Issues

Sweden, a nation of ten million people, has finally surpassed China, a nation of one billion people and the source of the novel coronavirus, in case count, putting them at #38 and #39 respectively. In #3 Brazil, Senator Flávio Bolsonaro, son of the president, has recovered from coronavirus with the help of hydroxychloroquine. In #41 the Netherlands, three more mink farms have been found infected and are being culled. (PlagueBlog hopes they don't do the same with people.)

Germ Boat #34 is HMS Queen Elizabeth, a UK aircraft carrier, currently grounded in Portsmouth over "fewer than ten" cases among the crew.

Here in the US, both Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have "walked back" their promised national mask mandate over that pesky constitution thing. Also, the right to bear nerf arms is under attack in Colorado, where a 12-year-old's green nerf gun was spotted briefly during fake online school, leading to a police visit, a five-day suspension, and his eventual withdrawal from the Hitler Youth school.

Massachusetts' cases are up a seventh of a percentage point today.

Day 220: Labor Day

It's a holiday here at PlagueBlog Headquarters. The biggest news is that, as usual, practically everyone is deficient in Vitamin D and would be doing better every day in every way if they just took a whole lot more of it. (PlagueBlog recommends 4,000 IU a day or more.) A couple of recent studies consider it in coronavirus in particular, but the answer is the same as for every other ailment: more is better.

Massachusetts' cases are up a fifth of a percentage point today.

Day 219: Death in Mexico

India has reached #2. The New York Times reports that #8 Mexico has racked up 122,000 excess deaths, in addition to their 67,000 official coronavirus deaths. They even ran out of death certificates in several areas of the country.

Massachusetts' cases are up three-tenths of a percentage point today.

Day 218: But Will They Fix the Toilet?

The world has reached 27 million coronavirus cases. Despite breaking another daily record, India remains at #3 behind Brazil.

In Massachusetts, cases are up about a third of a percentage point today. Also in local news, eleven students were "dismissed" from Northeastern University in Boston for failing to socially distance themselves in their temporary dorm space at an unnamed Westin in Boston (presumably the Westin Copley Square, as the Westin Waterfront is further away and rumored to be completely closed). Their tuition and housing fees for the semester will not be refunded.

Speaking of which, Pew Research reports that a majority of American young adults are living with their parents for the first time since the Great Depression. That's 52% of 18–29-year-olds. There are more gory details at the link.

The Mises Institute contemplates America's new landlord, the CDC. PlagueBlog seriously doubts that the CDC will address tenants' plumbing issues in a timely manner.

Day 217: The Vaccine

India has also reached 4 million cases, is still setting daily records, and is looking to take over the #2 slot from Brazil any minute now. The news is all over #4 Russia's "Sputnik V" vaccine, especially the Lancet paper that no one actually links to.

New Zealand has had their first COVID-19 death of the winter, a man in his 50's who was part of the Aukland community outbreak. An editorial out of Britain looks at the coronavirus moral panic (or failure of nerve, as the author puts it) from a non-crackpot perspective, not that crackpots haven't made the same arguments (when they're not talking about Bill Gates' microchips).

In the US, Salongate continues to entertain; PlagueBlog has heard rumors of constituents stringing up curlers and hair dryers outside her house. In New York City, there's now a $2 billion class action lawsuit against Governor Cuomo and Mayor de Blasio over the ongoing ban on indoor dining in the city.

The New York Times reports on layoffs becoming permanent. Bloomberg reports that stocks are down.

P.S. Massachusetts cases are up a sixth of a percentage point today.

Day 216: More Zombies

Yesterday's data change at the MDPH not only raised 4 COVID-19 victims from the dead, but also set Massachusetts back about 7,750 cases. A mysterious lack of such CDC-based corrections in other states means that Massachusetts is suddenly #16 in case counts, newly behind #13 Alabama, #14 Ohio, and #15 Virginia, with #17 South Carolina close behind. [They surpassed us as well later in the day.]

The cities and towns data considers only confirmed cases, so should not be affected by this change. Watch this space.

P.S. Massachusetts' cases are up a third of a percentage point today. Some cities and towns are up a bit as well this week, but the increase doesn't particularly correspond to the Stop the Spread cities any more. The map:

(Pop out.)

Day 215: Is That Even Legal?

It's not the first time we at PlagueBlog Headquarters have asked ourselves whether some random governmental action allegedly against coronavirus is legal, but this one is an all-caps kind of moment: The CDC Issues Sweeping Temporary Halt On Evictions Nationwide Amid Pandemic. You can read some kind of preliminary copy of the order here. (It's in Courier, so it must be official.) It's effective from publication later this week to December 31st. No compensation to landlords is included, though one imagines that banks will not want to foreclose on such properties and become the unfortunate landlords themselves.

PlagueBlog eagerly awaits the coming lawsuits.

P.S. Massachusetts' cases were down 6% today due to a change in the definition of probable case that the state has applied retroactively. (Worldometers seems to have dug up the revised numbers, reporting 22 deaths and 288 new cases, which is up about a quarter of a percentage point as usual.)

Day 214: Pinteresting

Russia (at #4) has hit one million cases, while #2 Brazil is nearing 4 million. Belgium has taken over China's #37 spot. In the US, #14 Alabama is creeping up on Massachusetts and may beat us tomorrow if they're unlucky. (Massachusetts' cases are up about a quarter of a percentage point again today.)

Pinterest has eaten the $90 million fee to get out of their future lease of a future office building in San Francisco, the latest in an ongoing flight from the city not paralleled in similar markets elsewhere.

On the drug front, a paper in Clinical Medicine Journal extols the virtues of heparin against COVID-19. Although they merely speculate about its benefits, they do cite a preprint of a retrospective study that provides some evidence of its antiviral and anti-inflammatory effects in the wild.