Coronavirus Thread VI: Are We Nearly There Yet? (READ OP)

[CoraSpia]

Has Indiana fucked up its vaccinations? Surely that's 12 % have received both doses, this isn't germany.

that's just Indianapolis
The statewide percentage is slightly above 15%

The link confirmed what I was hoping (otherwise bad), it's fully vaccinated rather than first dose. I get a bit confused because in the UK the news refers to people who've had 1 dose as being 'vaccinated' while those who've had two are 'fully vaccinated.'

[Shazbotdom]

Looks like Florida's been less than honest about their numbers, again.
https://news.yahoo.com/florida-covid-numbers-face-new-scrutiny-090058319.html

Oh look. my Shocked Face.....

[MC United]

Free vaccines, then. Nice.

Likely free defective vaccines if they have to modify the code enough to make it sufficiently different.

What might also happen is that other manufacturers could obtain a license to produce the patented vaccine, and just pay a percentage of their sales to the patent owner. And I'd say that under the circumstances, there's really no good reason for the patent owner not to grant such licenses.

[Kowani]

More than 85 poor countries will not have widespread access to coronavirus vaccines before 2023

n early 2021 three vaccines, from Pfizer (US)-BioNTech (Germany), Moderna (US) and AstraZeneca-Oxford University (UK), will be rolled out on a massive scale in developed countries. Meanwhile, Chinese and Russian vaccines are being rolled out both domestically and to emerging countries such as Egypt, via diplomatic bilateral deals. This will foster so-called vaccine diplomacy—with Russia and China trying to bolster their global status via the delivery of vaccines—this year and beyond.

Countries at the front of the queue—including the UK, the US and most countries in the EU—are expected to have immunised their priority groups by end-March, with other wealthy countries catching up by end-June. We therefore expect that global economic prospects will brighten from mid-2021, with the global economic rebound gaining speed in the third and fourth quarters. However, life will not be back to normal by then, as immunisation programmes for the bulk of the population will continue until mid-2022.

Among middle-income countries, Russia, which has developed its own vaccines, could be on a similar schedule to richer economies, with mass immunisation completed by mid-2022. Other middle-income countries, including Mexico and Brazil, have been promised supplies in return for running clinical trials or housing production factories. This should give them early access to doses for priority groups, although their ability to achieve mass vaccination will depend on other factors including fiscal space, population size, number of healthcare workers, infrastructure and political will. China and India represent special cases; both countries have developed their own shots and are pressing ahead with rollout plans, but the sheer size of their population means that mass immunisation programmes will stretch until late 2022, in line with the expected timeline for most middle-income countries.

Finally, some other middle-income countries and most low-income countries will be relying on COVAX, an initiative led by the WHO that aims to secure 6bn doses of vaccine for poorer countries. The first 2bn of these will be given in 2021, mainly to healthcare workers (COVAX doses will cover only up to 20% of the population of each country). However, COVAX supplies may be slow to arrive, especially if delays in the production for and delivery to richer countries push back delivery dates for poorer nations. In these developing countries, widespread vaccination coverage will not be achieved before 2023, if it happens at all.

[Kannap]

More than 85 poor countries will not have widespread access to coronavirus vaccines before 2023

n early 2021 three vaccines, from Pfizer (US)-BioNTech (Germany), Moderna (US) and AstraZeneca-Oxford University (UK), will be rolled out on a massive scale in developed countries. Meanwhile, Chinese and Russian vaccines are being rolled out both domestically and to emerging countries such as Egypt, via diplomatic bilateral deals. This will foster so-called vaccine diplomacy—with Russia and China trying to bolster their global status via the delivery of vaccines—this year and beyond.

Countries at the front of the queue—including the UK, the US and most countries in the EU—are expected to have immunised their priority groups by end-March, with other wealthy countries catching up by end-June. We therefore expect that global economic prospects will brighten from mid-2021, with the global economic rebound gaining speed in the third and fourth quarters. However, life will not be back to normal by then, as immunisation programmes for the bulk of the population will continue until mid-2022.

Among middle-income countries, Russia, which has developed its own vaccines, could be on a similar schedule to richer economies, with mass immunisation completed by mid-2022. Other middle-income countries, including Mexico and Brazil, have been promised supplies in return for running clinical trials or housing production factories. This should give them early access to doses for priority groups, although their ability to achieve mass vaccination will depend on other factors including fiscal space, population size, number of healthcare workers, infrastructure and political will. China and India represent special cases; both countries have developed their own shots and are pressing ahead with rollout plans, but the sheer size of their population means that mass immunisation programmes will stretch until late 2022, in line with the expected timeline for most middle-income countries.

Finally, some other middle-income countries and most low-income countries will be relying on COVAX, an initiative led by the WHO that aims to secure 6bn doses of vaccine for poorer countries. The first 2bn of these will be given in 2021, mainly to healthcare workers (COVAX doses will cover only up to 20% of the population of each country). However, COVAX supplies may be slow to arrive, especially if delays in the production for and delivery to richer countries push back delivery dates for poorer nations. In these developing countries, widespread vaccination coverage will not be achieved before 2023, if it happens at all.

(Image)

Shit like this is how we know this pandemic isn't going away anytime soon.

[-SARS-]

More like stupidity. Something tells me that DeSantis would support a private business refusing service to LGBT people, but he doesn’t believe that a private business has a right to refuse service to anti-Vaxxers

It's really just a case of DeSantis doing the right thing for the wrong reasons then. I'm sure that's what he believes and it would make him a hypocrite. But the idea of COVID passports in the United States where things exactly like this get abused by authority and used to marginalize or further discriminate against marginalized groups is always the first thing that comes to mind for me. Sure, it seems like a good idea on paper, but I fear the reality of implementing them will only harm people, and not the anti-vaxxers (though they'd be harmed by it too, but I don't particularly care on that front).

This is a good point. People whose living situation is less stable are more likely to lose important documentation like a vaccination card, they might have more trouble getting vaccinated in the first place, and store owners that want an excuse to turn someone away might accuse them of using a fake vaccine card. You know if someone walks in and says they forgot their card at home, there are going to be double standards, and people who do that are going to get different treatment depending on how "respectable" they look.

There are also people who can't be vaccinated for legitimate medical reasons, such as being allergic to an ingredient in the vaccine, so you'd have to decide how to handle that.

It's one thing to require vaccination for international travel, where people already need to worry about passports and visas and whatnot, but it shouldn't be needed for everyday shopping.

[Kowani]

Pfizer says their Covid vaccine is 100 percent effective in children 12 to 15

Pfizer says its Covid-19 vaccine is safe and 100 percent effective in preventing the illness in teenagers ages 12 to 15. The company plans to request emergency use authorization for 12- to 15-year-olds in the coming weeks, "with the hope of starting to vaccinate this age group before the start of the next school year," Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla said in a statement.

The findings, which were announced Wednesday in a news release, have not been peer-reviewed.

More than 2,200 young teenagers were enrolled in the Pfizer vaccine trial in the U.S. About half got the real shots, while the others got placebo shots. (The adult trial was much larger, with more than 43,000 participants.) Pfizer said 18 cases of Covid-19 were reported among the teenagers who got the placebo, compared with none in those who got the real vaccine.

Side effects generally mirrored those in adults, such as a sore arm, fatigue and headache.
What's more, teens in the trial who got the vaccine were later found to have levels of neutralizing antibodies — needed to wipe out the virus — similar to levels in older teens and young adults who had been vaccinated.

"Will it be 100 percent efficacious in the real world? Who's to say? But what we know is that when we move this vaccine down into teenagers, it behaves the exact same way that it does in adults, or even better," Creech said.

Pfizer's Phase 3 clinical trial in adults found that the vaccine was around 95 percent effective in preventing symptomatic illness. That ticked down slightly, to 90 percent, in real-world data released Monday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Creech said he looks forward to seeing the full data from the trial.

"There may be subtle differences there that we really have to keep an eye on for children," he said. "If there are slightly higher rates of fever, or if there's slightly higher rates of muscle or joint aches, that has a different meaning in children than in adults."

Pfizer is also studying how well the vaccine works in children ages 6 months to 11 years old. The first doses in that trial were administered last week.

[New Visayan Islands]

Data for PH as of March 31st, 1600 PHT/0400 EDT.

Detailed update. Also:

• Beware of fake Coof Shots.
• "We need a fresh Alphabet Soup of Coof Control, this one's stale!"
• "Even your pets can have Coof Shot, comrade!"
• CN: But we gave the WHO all of our Coof Data!

[Kowani]

US on track to vaccinate all adults by July 4th

July 4 this year could also be America’s Independence Day from Covid-19.

At current rates, America is administering nearly 2.8 million Covid-19 vaccine doses a day — roughly enough to vaccinate every adult (18 and older) in the country by July 4.

That would mean 80 percent of the population would be able to get a vaccine. We don’t know for certain if that’s enough for herd immunity, when enough of the population is immune to the disease, through vaccines or natural infection, that the virus can no longer sustain its spread. But it’s in the range that experts typically mention.

Since a vaccine isn’t yet approved for children younger than 16, this is also close to the highest level of vaccination we can expect for the time being. (The estimates in this story don’t include 16- and 17-year-olds who are eligible for vaccines.)

As of Tuesday, March 30, about 96 million adults in the US have received at least one shot. More than 53 million, around 21 percent of adults, have been fully vaccinated, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

At current rates, then, America could fully vaccinate up to 255 million people by July 4 — covering the entire adult population. (This is assuming about one-third of doses are the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, which, unlike the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines, requires one shot instead of two.)

The rollout is likely to speed up even more. In the coming weeks, drug companies are expected to deliver as many as 4 million doses a day to the federal government. If the companies deliver and states can turn those doses into shots in arms, it’d be enough to meet President Joe Biden’s goal to have enough vaccine supply for all adults by the end of May and, potentially, vaccinate all adults by June. [...] A lot can still go wrong. Maybe the drug companies won’t be able to deliver on the supply they’ve promised. Maybe cities, states, and the feds won’t clear all the logistical hurdles to get shots in arms. Maybe something else will break in a fairly complicated supply chain.

And as supply increases, it’s likely vaccine hesitancy will become a bigger issue as more adults simply refuse a vaccine. Overcoming that — to continue increasing the nationwide rate of vaccinations — will require creative education and awareness campaigns, focused on local pockets of resistance. That will pose its own logistical challenges.

The country is also seeing a recent increase in Covid-19 cases. If that marks the beginning of a fourth surge, it could lead to another wave of illness, hospitalizations, and deaths. It could also give the virus the room it needs, through millions more replications as it jumps from host to host, to mutate into another variant. So far, the current vaccines seem to work well against the variants, but that could change if the virus is allowed to mutate once again — and upend the US’s vaccination efforts.

[Daddy Max]

US on track to vaccinate all adults by July 4th

July 4 this year could also be America’s Independence Day from Covid-19.

At current rates, America is administering nearly 2.8 million Covid-19 vaccine doses a day — roughly enough to vaccinate every adult (18 and older) in the country by July 4.

That would mean 80 percent of the population would be able to get a vaccine. We don’t know for certain if that’s enough for herd immunity, when enough of the population is immune to the disease, through vaccines or natural infection, that the virus can no longer sustain its spread. But it’s in the range that experts typically mention.

Since a vaccine isn’t yet approved for children younger than 16, this is also close to the highest level of vaccination we can expect for the time being. (The estimates in this story don’t include 16- and 17-year-olds who are eligible for vaccines.)

As of Tuesday, March 30, about 96 million adults in the US have received at least one shot. More than 53 million, around 21 percent of adults, have been fully vaccinated, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

At current rates, then, America could fully vaccinate up to 255 million people by July 4 — covering the entire adult population. (This is assuming about one-third of doses are the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, which, unlike the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines, requires one shot instead of two.)

The rollout is likely to speed up even more. In the coming weeks, drug companies are expected to deliver as many as 4 million doses a day to the federal government. If the companies deliver and states can turn those doses into shots in arms, it’d be enough to meet President Joe Biden’s goal to have enough vaccine supply for all adults by the end of May and, potentially, vaccinate all adults by June. [...] A lot can still go wrong. Maybe the drug companies won’t be able to deliver on the supply they’ve promised. Maybe cities, states, and the feds won’t clear all the logistical hurdles to get shots in arms. Maybe something else will break in a fairly complicated supply chain.

And as supply increases, it’s likely vaccine hesitancy will become a bigger issue as more adults simply refuse a vaccine. Overcoming that — to continue increasing the nationwide rate of vaccinations — will require creative education and awareness campaigns, focused on local pockets of resistance. That will pose its own logistical challenges.

The country is also seeing a recent increase in Covid-19 cases. If that marks the beginning of a fourth surge, it could lead to another wave of illness, hospitalizations, and deaths. It could also give the virus the room it needs, through millions more replications as it jumps from host to host, to mutate into another variant. So far, the current vaccines seem to work well against the variants, but that could change if the virus is allowed to mutate once again — and upend the US’s vaccination efforts.

Aight

[Sharania]

There are some anti-lockodown folks even in this thread. Hope they'll limit themselves just to angry talk, instead of...

This is reported by the STA. In Ljubljana (Slovenia) a man came to the parliament building with a chainsaw to express his disagreement with the introduction of a lockdown. Earlier, the Slovenian authorities decided to tighten the quarantine regime from April 1 to April 11.

https://twitter.com/LukaSvetina/status/1376948617915826184?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1376948617915826184%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fsharij.net%2Fmuzhchina-s-benzopiloj-prishel-k-parlamentu-slovenii-iz-za-lokdauna-video

According to police officers who were on duty at the building, no one was injured as a result of the incident.

During the arrest, the man shouted: "I'm tired of the lockdown!". Besides a chainsaw, he also took his dog to the "protest" near the parliament building.

[Daddy Max]

a man came to the parliament building with a chainsaw to express his disagreement with the introduction of a lockdown

gravlen?

[The Archbishop Of Oz]

The Shmovid pandemic does not exist, it is just a trick by the bourgeois satanic liberals to divert attention away from what they are really doing.

[Daddy Max]

The Shmovid pandemic does not exist, it is just a trick by the bourgeois satanic liberals to divert attention away from what they are really doing.

Ok buddy don’t let your foil hat get too big.

[Lumio Magika]

The Shmovid pandemic does not exist, it is just a trick by the bourgeois satanic liberals to divert attention away from what they are really doing.

Funnily enough, my stepmother didn't say that when she tested positive yesterday. Neither did my brother, who passed away because of COVID. Trust me, it's very real.

[Kowani]

Johnson and Johnson halts future vaccine shipments in the U.S. after about 15 million doses were ruined by a factory mixup

Workers at a Baltimore plant manufacturing two coronavirus vaccines accidentally conflated the vaccines’ ingredients several weeks ago, ruining about 15 million doses of Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine and forcing regulators to delay authorization of the plant’s production lines.

The plant is run by Emergent BioSolutions, a manufacturing partner to both Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca. Federal officials attributed the mistake to human error.

The mixup has halted future shipments of Johnson & Johnson doses in the United States while the Food and Drug Administration investigates. Johnson & Johnson has moved to strengthen its control over Emergent BioSolutions’ work to avoid further quality lapses. It does not affect Johnson & Johnson doses that are currently being delivered and used nationwide. All those doses were produced in the Netherlands, where operations have been fully approved by federal regulators. But all further shipments of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine — projected to total tens of millions of doses in the next month — were supposed to come from the massive Baltimore plant.

Those shipments are now in question while the quality control issues are sorted out, according to people familiar with the matter.

Federal officials still expect to have enough doses to meet President Biden’s commitment to provide enough vaccine by the end of May to immunize every adult. The two other federally authorized manufacturers, Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna, are continuing to deliver as expected.

[Fartsniffage]

Johnson and Johnson halts future vaccine shipments in the U.S. after about 15 million doses were ruined by a factory mixup

Workers at a Baltimore plant manufacturing two coronavirus vaccines accidentally conflated the vaccines’ ingredients several weeks ago, ruining about 15 million doses of Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine and forcing regulators to delay authorization of the plant’s production lines.

The plant is run by Emergent BioSolutions, a manufacturing partner to both Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca. Federal officials attributed the mistake to human error.

The mixup has halted future shipments of Johnson & Johnson doses in the United States while the Food and Drug Administration investigates. Johnson & Johnson has moved to strengthen its control over Emergent BioSolutions’ work to avoid further quality lapses. It does not affect Johnson & Johnson doses that are currently being delivered and used nationwide. All those doses were produced in the Netherlands, where operations have been fully approved by federal regulators. But all further shipments of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine — projected to total tens of millions of doses in the next month — were supposed to come from the massive Baltimore plant.

Those shipments are now in question while the quality control issues are sorted out, according to people familiar with the matter.

Federal officials still expect to have enough doses to meet President Biden’s commitment to provide enough vaccine by the end of May to immunize every adult. The two other federally authorized manufacturers, Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna, are continuing to deliver as expected.

I wonder how former ambassador to the UK, and Johnson and Johnson heir, Woody Johnson is dealing with this news. I bet he's' taking it hard.

[San Lumen]

Johnson and Johnson halts future vaccine shipments in the U.S. after about 15 million doses were ruined by a factory mixup

Workers at a Baltimore plant manufacturing two coronavirus vaccines accidentally conflated the vaccines’ ingredients several weeks ago, ruining about 15 million doses of Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine and forcing regulators to delay authorization of the plant’s production lines.

The plant is run by Emergent BioSolutions, a manufacturing partner to both Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca. Federal officials attributed the mistake to human error.

The mixup has halted future shipments of Johnson & Johnson doses in the United States while the Food and Drug Administration investigates. Johnson & Johnson has moved to strengthen its control over Emergent BioSolutions’ work to avoid further quality lapses. It does not affect Johnson & Johnson doses that are currently being delivered and used nationwide. All those doses were produced in the Netherlands, where operations have been fully approved by federal regulators. But all further shipments of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine — projected to total tens of millions of doses in the next month — were supposed to come from the massive Baltimore plant.

Those shipments are now in question while the quality control issues are sorted out, according to people familiar with the matter.

Federal officials still expect to have enough doses to meet President Biden’s commitment to provide enough vaccine by the end of May to immunize every adult. The two other federally authorized manufacturers, Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna, are continuing to deliver as expected.

how does someone make a mistake like that on such a huge scale?

[Fartsniffage]

Johnson and Johnson halts future vaccine shipments in the U.S. after about 15 million doses were ruined by a factory mixup

Workers at a Baltimore plant manufacturing two coronavirus vaccines accidentally conflated the vaccines’ ingredients several weeks ago, ruining about 15 million doses of Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine and forcing regulators to delay authorization of the plant’s production lines.

The plant is run by Emergent BioSolutions, a manufacturing partner to both Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca. Federal officials attributed the mistake to human error.

The mixup has halted future shipments of Johnson & Johnson doses in the United States while the Food and Drug Administration investigates. Johnson & Johnson has moved to strengthen its control over Emergent BioSolutions’ work to avoid further quality lapses. It does not affect Johnson & Johnson doses that are currently being delivered and used nationwide. All those doses were produced in the Netherlands, where operations have been fully approved by federal regulators. But all further shipments of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine — projected to total tens of millions of doses in the next month — were supposed to come from the massive Baltimore plant.


Those shipments are now in question while the quality control issues are sorted out, according to people familiar with the matter.

Federal officials still expect to have enough doses to meet President Biden’s commitment to provide enough vaccine by the end of May to immunize every adult. The two other federally authorized manufacturers, Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna, are continuing to deliver as expected.

how does someone make a mistake like that on such a huge scale?

Have you never met people?

The good thing is that the quality checking picked it up.

[San Lumen]

how does someone make a mistake like that on such a huge scale?

Have you never met people?

The good thing is that the quality checking picked it up.

I don't disagree its a good thing. Im just flabbergasted a mistake like that got made.

[The New California Republic]

Johnson and Johnson halts future vaccine shipments in the U.S. after about 15 million doses were ruined by a factory mixup

Workers at a Baltimore plant manufacturing two coronavirus vaccines accidentally conflated the vaccines’ ingredients several weeks ago, ruining about 15 million doses of Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine and forcing regulators to delay authorization of the plant’s production lines.

how does someone make a mistake like that on such a huge scale?

Tbh I'm surprised that more mistakes haven't been made, as consider that the manufacturing process is now almost entirely automated, and a single person at one of the control stations quite easily has the ability to screw up millions of vaccines with a single mistake.

[Postauthoritarian America]

More than 85 poor countries will not have widespread access to coronavirus vaccines before 2023

n early 2021 three vaccines, from Pfizer (US)-BioNTech (Germany), Moderna (US) and AstraZeneca-Oxford University (UK), will be rolled out on a massive scale in developed countries. Meanwhile, Chinese and Russian vaccines are being rolled out both domestically and to emerging countries such as Egypt, via diplomatic bilateral deals. This will foster so-called vaccine diplomacy—with Russia and China trying to bolster their global status via the delivery of vaccines—this year and beyond.

Countries at the front of the queue—including the UK, the US and most countries in the EU—are expected to have immunised their priority groups by end-March, with other wealthy countries catching up by end-June. We therefore expect that global economic prospects will brighten from mid-2021, with the global economic rebound gaining speed in the third and fourth quarters. However, life will not be back to normal by then, as immunisation programmes for the bulk of the population will continue until mid-2022.

Among middle-income countries, Russia, which has developed its own vaccines, could be on a similar schedule to richer economies, with mass immunisation completed by mid-2022. Other middle-income countries, including Mexico and Brazil, have been promised supplies in return for running clinical trials or housing production factories. This should give them early access to doses for priority groups, although their ability to achieve mass vaccination will depend on other factors including fiscal space, population size, number of healthcare workers, infrastructure and political will. China and India represent special cases; both countries have developed their own shots and are pressing ahead with rollout plans, but the sheer size of their population means that mass immunisation programmes will stretch until late 2022, in line with the expected timeline for most middle-income countries.

Finally, some other middle-income countries and most low-income countries will be relying on COVAX, an initiative led by the WHO that aims to secure 6bn doses of vaccine for poorer countries. The first 2bn of these will be given in 2021, mainly to healthcare workers (COVAX doses will cover only up to 20% of the population of each country). However, COVAX supplies may be slow to arrive, especially if delays in the production for and delivery to richer countries push back delivery dates for poorer nations. In these developing countries, widespread vaccination coverage will not be achieved before 2023, if it happens at all.

(Image)

So if you're thinking about taking a cruise in the next couple years maybe Europe would be best...

[Stellar Colonies]

Real-economy stirrings show U.S. leaves Europe in the dust (Reuters)

*Edited out wording pertaining to images within the article, although the images of course add more context

PARIS/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Real-time data on everything from sit-down restaurant meals to job hirings shows American business and consumers leaping to take advantage of a fast vaccine rollout even as their European counterparts languish in extended lockdowns.

And while some U.S. health experts express concern at the loosening or outright dropping of COVID-19 restrictions by many states, the outcome for now is that it is widening the U.S. head start in the post-pandemic recovery.

Even after an uptick this month for the first time since January, new U.S. infections at 131 per 100,000 over seven days are lower than those in Germany, France and Italy, the top three euro economies, the Reuters COVID-19 Global Tracker shows.

Coupled with a faster vaccine rollout than any in Europe aside from Britain’s, that has prompted a tangible return of activity across a U.S. economy already forecast by the International Monetary Fund to return to pre-pandemic health months before the euro area can.

Take restaurants and retail. Diner visits recorded on the OpenTable State of the Industry site show, unsurprisingly, that numbers have continued to flat-line in Germany since late 2020 when lockdown measures were introduced.

In the United States, meanwhile, the chart has regained its habitual pattern of weekend spikes as the overall curve inches closer to its pre-pandemic level.

Google Mobility read-outs on movement trends confirm the same picture for retail as a whole. U.S. mobility levels leapt in January and broke further away from European comparisons in mid-February as Italy and then Germany and France saw declines.

While many European countries still have stringent travel restrictions in place - and some are considering additional ones - the number of U.S. air passengers screened topped 1.5 million this month for the first time in a year.

With some states open for leisure travel despite federal guidance to the contrary, U.S. airline executives see concrete signs of a domestic leisure travel recovery and are optimistic about the summer season.

The buoyant mood is reflected in job postings recorded on the Indeed website, with the U.S. tally having now since January pushed strongly past its February 2020 level while those in France and Germany remain below it.

Finally, a similar disconnect is seen in the composite weekly tracker compiled by the OECD think tank from Google search behaviour in areas such as consumption, labour markets, housing, trade, industrial activity and economic uncertainty.

Such snapshots of economic behaviour must be interpreted carefully. OECD economist Nicolas Woloszko noted for example that drops in mobility over the past two to three months were having smaller effects on activity as firms and households adapted to the new conditions.

Yet the overall picture, combined with faster U.S. vaccine rollout and new Biden administration stimulus of $1.9 trillion, is already enough for many forecasters to start penciling in a widening of the growth gap between the United States and the euro zone in the first three months of this year.

Already, the Federal Reserve’s projection of a 6.5% growth rate for the United States in 2021 compares with a mere 3.7% forecast for the European economy.

Worse, economists such as Gilles Moec at AXA Group see the euro area battling with further restrictions in the second quarter too until vaccine campaigns start to accelerate and cap new infections as promised by European Union officials.

“What is in balance is the fate of the third quarter, since at the current pace of vaccination reaching collective immunity by the summer definitely is a challenge,” Moec noted.

As with everything else we have seen from this pandemic, things can however shift rapidly.

[CoraSpia]

how does someone make a mistake like that on such a huge scale?

Tbh I'm surprised that more mistakes haven't been made, as consider that the manufacturing process is now almost entirely automated, and a single person at one of the control stations quite easily has the ability to screw up millions of vaccines with a single mistake.

Especially as they're working to a hurry up schedule. These things will happen.

[New Visayan Islands]

Data for PH as of April 1st, 1600 PHT/0400 EDT.

Detailed update. Also:

• Taiwan x Palau: Coof Bubble!
• WHO: Hurry it up, Europe!
• SARS-CoV-2: You activated my trap card!
• IOW: Stick to the priority list for Coof Shots, and it'll be alright.