Day 193: Community Spread Spreads to New Zealand

Israel has passed the China point; the Ukraine is up next. Russia has launched a coronavirus vaccine called Sputnik V, to a mixed reception. Spain is experiencing a disturbing increase in cases, though with Spain it's always hard to tell whether the situation has changed on the ground or merely within their health ministry.

But the big news-maker is #136 New Zealand, which, after 101 days of no community spread, reports four new coronavirus cases in one family. Family member zero had not travelled abroad. Note that New Zealand is an island with a population of 5 million, who are now locked down due to a case rate of 0.8 per million.

In India, the economic downturn caused by unproven lockdowns is causing children to be taken out of school and put to work. And, in a story all too reminiscent of the cows-eating-people theory of mad cow disease, dogs are eating the insufficiently incinerated bodies of coronavirus victims in Adilabad, India—due (allegedly) to officials stinting on the wood and leaving funeral pyres unattended.

In the US, the governor of Guam has tested positive. Case rates are falling in Florida and Texas.

On the theatrical front, PlagueBlog continues to ignore news of weird COVID sex advice out of England (why is it always England?), but cannot ignore our domestic COVID theater: the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources is requiring workers alone at home to wear masks to Zoom meetings. An Illinois school district has forbidden both wearing pajamas to "fake school" and Zooming from bed.

On the feline front, new research has uncovered two infected cats in Texas. A separate preprint shows asymptomatic spread in cats.

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