1/9 - “We are mobilising every health resource at our disposal. But there is a limit, and people have to know that we are very close to that limit,’ Marta Temido, health minister and one of the best-known figures of Portugal’s fight against coronavirus...” ft.com/content/fbeb62…
2/9 - “...Her appeal for the country to respect the rules of a second national lockdown came as record numbers of new cases and hospitalisations threatened to overwhelm a national health service struggling to find more beds and more staff.”
3/9 - “Health services were coming under “brutal pressure” and doctors suffering “burnout and moral anguish” from having to make complex and difficult decisions over prioritising patients.”
4/9 -“In March and April, Portugal won international praise for its rapid and effective response to the first wave of the pandemic. But it has since become one of the European countries hardest hit by a second wave that took hold in Nov and has surged to record levels this year.”
5/9 - “Ricardo Mexia, an epidemiologist, attributes the recent surge in cases to a “perfect storm” of conditions, including a failure to flatten the growth curve of infections sufficiently in the autumn, winter respiratory illnesses and a cold spell.”
6/9 - “Health experts criticised the government for relaxing confinement measures at Christmas too far, lifting travel restraints and allowing families to decide for themselves how many households and people could gather.”
7/9 - “Portugal’s track and trace system for identifying chains of infection was also struggling to cope, with thousands of people who should be in isolation not being monitored.”
8/9 - “Under fire from doctors and epidemiologists for not imposing more restrictive measures sooner and not enforcing them effectively, the government is appealing to people to stay at home.”
9/9 - “The government has ruled out closing schools or universities, which were shut during the first lockdown. Some epidemiologists argue this is only postponing their inevitable closure as the pandemic worsens.”
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1/7 - “The Biden administration has identified critical supply shortages of 12 items needed to help fight the #COVID19 pandemic and promised to use wartime powers to help solve them.” ft.com/content/d54bde…
2/7 - “We have identified 12 immediate supply shortfalls that are critical for the pandemic response right now, like N95 and high-quality surgical masks, isolation gowns, nitrile gloves, sample testing swabs, test reagents, pipette tips, laboratory analysis machines and more.”
3/7 - “Joe Biden, who took office as president on Wednesday, will on Thursday sign an executive order instructing US government agencies to use the Defense Production Act to increase supplies [of these 12] items.”
2/21. Denmark is landing towards its #COVID19 safety zone (R-eff=0.68), at medium levels of activity, still increasing in mortality at very high levels, for 7 more days.
School closed.
3/21. Ireland is landing towards its #COVID19 safety zone (R-eff=0.78), at high levels of activity, increasing in mortality at alarming levels, for 7 more days.
Schools closed.
2/21. Denmark is landing towards its #COVID19 safety zone (R-eff=0.68), at medium levels of activity, still increasing in mortality at very high levels, for 7 more days.
School closed.
3/21. Ireland is landing towards its #COVID19 safety zone (R-eff=0.77), at high levels of activity, increasing in mortality at alarming levels, for 7 more days.
Schools closed.
1/5 - “The University of Liverpool’s Andrew Hill and others carried out a meta-analytical breakdown of 18 studies that found that ivermectin was associated with reduced inflammation and a faster elimination of #SARSCoV2 , the virus that causes #COVID19.” ft.com/content/e7cb76…
2/5 - “In six of these trials, the risk of death was reduced by 75 per cent in a subset of patients with moderate to severe #COVID19. [...] The drug could make it harder for people to be infected and it could be harder for those with the disease to infect anyone else.”
3/5 - “Ivermectin is technically not an antiviral, though these results suggest that the drug may enjoy antiviral properties. It is usually used to treat lice and scabies infestations as well as more serious parasites such as river blindness.”
1/10 - USA. Jan 20 to Jan 26-
The #COVID19 situation will be getting better in most states, although most of them still remaining at high levels of activity, and very high levels of mortality.
9 states detailed in: renkulab.shinyapps.io/COVID-19-Epide…
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2/10 - Massachusetts will be slowly landing towards its #COVID19 safety zone (R-eff=0.87), at high levels of activity, with very high levels of mortality, for 7 more days.
3/10 - Vermont is still increasing in its #COVID19 epidemic activity (R-eff=1.06), at high levels, with very low levels of mortality, for 7 more days.
2/21. Denmark is landing towards its #COVID19 safety zone (R-eff=0.67), at medium levels of activity, still increasing in mortality at very high levels, for 7 more days.
3/21. Ireland is slowly landing towards its #COVID19 safety zone (R-eff=0.68), still at very high levels, increasing in mortality at very high levels, for 7 more days.