UK
https://covid.joinzoe.com/data#levels-over-time
https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk
20th January
Cases, + 33,355 + 38,905 = 3,505,754
Cases, last 7 days, + 294,182 (down 21.5%)
Hospitalised, + 3,634 + 3,887 = 39,068 (3,947)
Hospitalised, last 7 days, + 28,543 (up, 0.5%)
Deaths, + 1,610 + 1,820 = 93,290
Deaths, last 7 days, + 8,532 (up 14.8%)
UK death certificate deaths, 95,829 (8th January)
Vaccinated, first dose, 4,609,740 (Jan 20th)
Second dose, 460,625
Patrick Vallance
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-disease/coronavirus-covid-news-vaccine-uk-lockdown-deaths-cases-scotland/
When you go into a hospital, this is very, very bad at the moment
with enormous pressure and in some cases it looks like a war zone in terms of the things that people are having to deal with
Vaccines are not doing enough heavy lifting
Secondary school testing
Plans for the daily testing instead of isolation on pause
Public Health England (PHE) and NHS Test and Trace
The balance between the risks and benefits of a daily testing programme in schools was now unclear
Wales
https://www.itv.com/news/wales/2021-01-18/first-minister-defends-intentionally-slower-vaccine-rollout-amid-criticism
Mr Drakeford
There will be no point and certainly it will be logistically very damaging to try to use all of that in the first week and then to have all our vaccinators standing around with nothing to do with for another month
US
Cases, 24,256,319
Deaths, 401,797
CAL.20C, 30 – 50% of California cases
Arizona, Connecticut, Maryland, New Mexico, Nevada, New York, Texas, Utah, Washington and Wyoming, District of Columbia
B.1.1.7, 122 cases identified
Dr. Rochelle Walensky
Infectious diseases specialist at Harvard Medical School
Currently deployed Covid-19 vaccines should still work against the new variants
However, the more-contagious strains might reduce how effectively the vaccines perform
Dr. Walensky expects total of 500,000 COVID-19 deaths by mid-February
https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/534653-incoming-cdc-director-expects-500000-coronavirus-deaths-by-mid-february
Tens of thousands, recovered uncharacterized syndrome
U.S. has not yet seen the ramifications of what happened from the holiday travel
Will lead to high rates of hospitalizations and deaths thereafter
I think we still have some dark weeks ahead
LA county
Air quality officials, lifting restrictions, 700 waiting
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U62WkoY65No
Netherlands
First nationwide curfew since the Second World War
Ban on flights from South Africa, Britain and South America
South Africa
Population, 59 million
Cases, 1,356,716
Deaths, 38,288
https://www.samrc.ac.za/reports/report-weekly-deaths-south-africa
Excess deaths, 6th May to 5th January, 83,918
Brazil
Population, 211 million
https://covid19br.wcota.me/en/
Cases, + 61,342 = 8,580540
Deaths, + 1,148 = 211,600
Recovered, 7,618,080
Vaccinations, 11,470
https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html
Israel
Will allow pregnant women to receive coronavirus vaccines
no evidence of harm resulting from vaccination during the entire pregnancy
In pregnant women who become infected and fall ill with the coronavirus, there is a higher incidence of a severe onset of the disease, than in a similar age population
Global vaccinations
Israel, 2,802,249 (32.37%)
UAE, 2,065,367 (20.88%)
Bahrain, 143,596 (8.44%)
Seychelles, 7,000 (7.14%)
UK, 4,723,443 (6.96%)
USA, 15,707,588 (4.75%)
Denmark, 177,161 (3.06%)
Malta, 11,705 (2.65%)
Lithuania 60,447 (2.22%)
Slovenia, 43,081 (2.07%)
Global vaccine tracker
https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/covid-vaccine-tracker-global-distribution/
US vaccine tracker
https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#vaccinations
Europe vaccine tracker
https://data.spectator.co.uk/city/vaccines
Open letter on Vitamin D
https://vitamindforall.org/letter.html
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpubh.2020.00513/full
Vitamin D modulates thousands of genes and many aspects of immune function, both innate and adaptive.
Higher vitamin D blood levels are associated with lower rates of SARS-CoV-2 infection.
Higher D levels are associated with lower risk of a severe case (hospitalization, ICU, or death).
Intervention studies (including RCTs) indicate that vitamin D can be a very effective treatment.
Many papers reveal several biological mechanisms by which vitamin D influences COVID-19.
Causal inference modelling, Hill’s criteria, the intervention studies & the biological mechanisms indicate that vitamin D’s influence on COVID-19 is very likely causal, not just correlation.
Source