Most people would agree that 2020 sucked! With the rollout of safe and effective vaccines 2021 was eagerly anticipated with some optimism; unfortunately, we have to do quick a reality vs optimism check. In what people are calling COVID-19’s last (hopefully!)…
assault, the virus is surging in the US and in many places around world.
Currently there are over 90 million confirmed COVID-19 cases worldwide and almost 2 million deaths. It is the deadliest period of the coronavirus pandemic so far and records for global daily deaths have been set on numerous occassions in the New Year. A quick look around the world indicates major restrictions, lockdowns, and rescheduling or cancellation of events. In the UK panic buying is back, and there talks of increasing social distancing to 3 metres (instead of 1.5). The army has been called in with an aim of vaccinating 200, 000 people per day by next week. Ireland had the world’s highest rate of COVID-19 infections last week, and Israel (which is doing a great job of vaccinating the population), is facing lockdown. In Greece, the warmest January in 50 years has lured people to the beach ignoring COIVD-19 restrictions.
In Australia, we have had minor scares with the UK variant resulting in a brief lockdown of the state of Brisbane; the cricket is going ahead, the Australian open tennis tournament will go ahead with strict rules and quarantine arrangements, however, the grand prix has been postponed. In good news, the vaccination program has been brought forward to mid-February (with an aim to vaccinated 80,000 people per week; ~25% of the population by the end of March). In Victoria, which was the hardest hit state, return to office plans are in place for workers in the Melbourne offices starting next week.
In Malaysia, a state of emergency has been declared, and the Hebei district in China is facing restrictions to contain an outbreak. Similarly, cases are surging in Japan leading to restrictions, limitation to travel, and the Olympics have been once again called into question (80% of people surveyed don’t believe the Tokyo Olympics should or will go ahead in 2021). Canada is also experiencing a surge in COVID-19 cases; curfews are planned in Ontario and the cities’ hospital CEO has resigned from COVID-19 advisory duties after holidaying in the Caribbean!
In the US, the year has started with thrilling run-off elections which are typically boring and unimportant; this time the Georgian elections were covered by every major (and minor) news outlet. Apart from an election, there was extra disturbing drama associated with the “event”; these have been well documented; events awakened comments by Ex-Presidents George W. Bush, Barrack Obama, and Arnie, all rightfully highlighting their discontent. The fallout has been enormous with banning’s from social media, murmurs of failed coups, resignations, discussion of invoking 25th Amendments, and ultimately leading to an impeachment.
In the meantime, COVID-19 has been surging all around the country with cases, hospitalizations, and deaths continuously setting records; over 4,000 deaths per day have been recorded in the past week. The situation is particularly dire in California with over one million cases in the last month. The hospitalization situation is at the level where ambulance staff have been briefed to not transport people with a slim chance of survival; San Bernadino County has called upon the army to assist in combatting the surging cases of COVID-19, in San Diego, gorillas at the zoo have tested positive for COVID-19.
In different news, after extensive consultation with the WHO, international experts will investigate the origins of coronavirus in China in the coming weeks. Further, large-scale studies are being initiated to study long-term effects of infection with SARS-CoV-2; neurological effects and cognitive decline will be a priority. Regarding potential therapeutics, two arthritis drugs – tocilixumab and sarilumab – may be promising; have been shown to reduce the risk of dying from severed COVID-19. The antiparasitic, ivermecting may also be promising and studies are pursing investigations with Vitamin D. Correctly, most of the focus is on the vaccination programs which are slowly but surely rolling out; everyone is scrambling to secure doses with the EU recently securing an additional 300 million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. Thankfully it appears that the vaccines will be effective against the new UK variant of SARS-CoV-2 (some questions still outstanding with South African variant), and side effects are mostly mild; severe allergic reactions are very rare (early numbers suggest in the vicinity of 1 in 100,000). To assist with monitoring and tracking, the FDA has approved a number of new raid at-home COVID-19 tests.
In other interesting news the technology industry is developing some “good” COVID-19 related products for 2021; smart (connected) face masks, air purifiers, ultraviolet light-based accessories to kill germs and doorbells that can sense fever. Finally, to return to some kind of normality, the Las Vegas Strip is planning ahead for a big return in winter this year with Barry Manilow booked for June! KFC has made a big improvement in producing a new fried chicken sandwich, and Ben & Jerry’s is launching an ice-cream for dogs!
So it is not all bad for 2021 … and in an exciting development “Magical Disneyland” will be tansformed into a mega vaccination site in California starting next week!
Until next time … Tranquilo Polymaths.