Day 213: No Health Service

India is making the news in its press to reach #2 in case counts by breaking all daily records with almost 80,000 cases yesterday. They also recently beat Mexico to become #3 in total deaths. (To be fair, Mexico has less than 10% of the population of India.) Elsewhere over the weekend, Oman and Kuwait surpassed China, leaving #38 Belgium as the last straggler, currently only six cases behind China.

In Britain, the NHS (National Health Service, though an alternate interpretation of the acronym is included in the title of this post) is even further behind on providing health care than usual, with the Telegraph reporting a two-year wait for a phone call from a specialist. The Daily Mail appears confused by Deputy Chief Medical Officer Jenny Harries admission that the evidence for masks is weak.

In Australia, a Perth resident is on his way to jail for sneaking out of a quarantine hotel to infect visit his girlfriend using a ladder and an accomplice. His lawyer claims the quarantine rules were "confusing." PlagueBlog recommends rethinking the legality of any plan that requires a ladder and an accomplice, unless home repair is also involved.

Also in Australia, there appears to be a black market for the experimental feline infectious peritonitis drugs PlagueBlog covered last week. GS-441524 in particular is being produced in China for illegal sale to Australian cat owners, who spend up to $5000 (Australian) per cat to save their lives. Government warnings about the dangers of the unapproved drugs fall on deaf ears, since the alternative is a dead cat, and no drug companies seem interested in producing the drug for legal sale in any cat market, never mind the Australian one. There does appear to be some interest in using GS-441524 against COVID-19 in people, however, as it is closely related to remdesivir.

In local news, the Commonwealth has mandated flu vaccine for students, including college students, this fall, leading to a bit of a backlash from parents. Considering that 80% of minors in Massachusetts already get the flu vaccine (never mind mandatory vaccines), the reaction seems a bit misplaced. PlagueBlog is more concerned about the largely unvaccinated college population depleting needed vaccine supplies than anything else.

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