[SanyBelle]

Monday, 12/13/2021 Update

Numbers from Worldometers.info.

Date...............Total Cases.....Total Deaths....New Cases......New Deaths...Today's Tests
Sun 12/12......... 3,762,392.........62,073
Mon 12/13......... 3,764,368.........62,073..........1,976........... ....NR............201,149

[SanyBelle]

Tuesday, 12/14/2021 Update

Numbers from Worldometers.info.

Date...............Total Cases.....Total Deaths....New Cases......New Deaths...Today's Tests
Mon 12/13......... 3,764,368.........62,073
Tue 12/14.......... 3,767,435.........62,073..........3,067........... ....NR..............NR

[bale002]

Originally Posted by SanyBelle

Tuesday, 12/14/2021 Update

Numbers from Worldometers.info.

Date...............Total Cases.....Total Deaths....New Cases......New Deaths...Today's Tests
Mon 12/13......... 3,764,368.........62,073
Tue 12/14.......... 3,767,435.........62,073..........3,067........... ....NR..............NR

'Tis the season to be jolly.

Humans from colder climates traditionally flock to Florida around this time of the year.

Do your best to stay away from them, the first line of defense.

Apple has closed its store in Brickell. I wonder if the Dadeland Mall store is next.

Several major universities up north have told their students to go home and take their mid-term exams online.

Several professional sports teams have reported outbreaks and many players are on the quarantined reserve list.

Shades of early 2020, then.

This current wave will probably pass relatively quickly.

So in the meantime - and before and after as a matter of course - take care of yourselves, eat real whole food that you prepare with your own hands, get enough sleep, and don't stress, the second line of defense.

Good Luck!

[beachmouse]

Following federal scrutiny, FL education officials returned $878,000 to certain local school boards

https://floridaphoenix.com/2021/12/1...school-boards/

After several months of legal challenges, state sanctions, and a special session that outlawed strict mask mandates in public schools, the Florida Department of Education returned $877,851 in state funds to eight school districts that had been punished over a COVID-related mask controversy.

“It has been put back, so we do have that money,” Russell Bruhn, communication staffer with the Brevard County school district, told the Phoenix.


The return of the money came at a time when the state’s education department was under scrutiny by the U.S. Department of Education over potential violations of federal education laws.

The USDE had filed a cease and desist complaint, over the state withholding money from school boards that had gotten federal grants to cover previous financial penalties.

[SanyBelle]

Numbers from Worldometers.info.

Date...............Total Cases.....Total Deaths....New Cases......New Deaths...Today's Tests
Tue 12/14.......... 3,767,435.........62,073
Wed 12/15......... 3,771,114.........62,191..........3,679........... ..118.............82,926

[WRnative]

Probably this article best explains why the DeSantis administration, alone among all American states to my knowledge, blocks the release of death tolls by Florida county.

<<In the U.S., partisanship is the biggest factor determining vaccination rates. If Democratic voters made up their own country, it would be one of the world’s most vaccinated, with more than 91% of adults having received at least one shot. Only about 60% of Republican adults have done so.

This vaccination gap has created a huge gap in death rates, one that has grown sharply during the second half of the year.

COVID deaths in both swing counties and heavily Biden counties have not risen over the past two months, even as nationwide case numbers have surged, according to data from Charles Gaba, a health care analyst. In heavily vaccinated communities, rising caseloads don’t automatically lead to rising death tolls.>>

https://www.yahoo.com/news/omicron-t...133806868.html

<<“Just since this summer, 150,000 unvaccinated Americans have needlessly lost their lives despite the widespread availability of vaccines,” Dr. Peter Hotez of the Baylor College of Medicine, in Houston, said Thursday.>>

Depending upon the eventual virulency of the omicron variant, much more contagious than the delta variant, death toll rates in highly Republican counties that lag far behind in vaccination rates may soar even higher in coming weeks, according to the article.

<<Finally, omicron appears to be so contagious that even a modest decline in severity — such as the decline estimated in an early analysis from South Africa — could still lead to a large spike in deaths, as Dr. Robert Wachter of the University of California, San Francisco, explained to me.

Some basic arithmetic makes the point: Imagine that the risk of death is 30% lower from an omicron case than a delta case — but that omicron leads to a tenfold increase in cases. This combination would lead to a substantial increase in deaths.>>

[WRnative]

While blocking vaccine and mask mandates, the DeSantis administration has relied on "natural immunity" acquired by previous infection and monoclonal antibody treatments to reduce hospitalizations and deaths.

Both appear likely to be less effective against the omicron variant, expected to sweep across Florida and the U.S. in coming weeks.

<< A previous Covid-19 recovery provides little shield against infection with the omicron variant, a research team from Imperial College London showed in a large study that underlines the importance of booster shots. >>

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/othe...?ocid=msedgntp

Booster shots are necessary to raise the effectiveness of vaccinations.

<<Having had Covid probably only offers 19% protection against omicron, the study showed on Friday. That was roughly in line with two doses of vaccine, which the team estimated were as much as 20% effective against omicron. Adding a booster dose helped dramatically, blocking an estimated 55% to 80% of symptomatic cases.>>

Frighteningly, the UK study says there is no evidence that an omicron infection is less severe than a delta variant infection, according to the article.

German researchers say that leading monoclonal antibody treatments lose most of their effectiveness against omicron infections. A third antibody treatment from GlaxoSmithKline remains effective against the omicron variant.

https://www.reuters.com/business/hea...on-2021-12-14/

With case counts again increasing in Florida, it's possible that Florida will shortly experience an omicron surge.

[SanyBelle]

Numbers from Worldometers.info.

Date...............Total Cases.....Total Deaths....New Cases......New Deaths...Today's Tests
Wed 12/15........ 3,771,114.........62,191
Thur 12/16........ 3,777,960.........62,191..........6,846........... ....NR.............84,508

[WRnative]

The omicron variant represents almost 100 percent of the COVID strains detected in recent Orange County wastewater samples.

<<A sampling this week showed that omicron represented almost 100% of the strains in the samples from the wastewater facilities, Orange County Utilities spokesperson Sarah Lux said in an email. >>

https://news.yahoo.com/omicron-domin...173842553.html

It's too early to draw conclusions, but omicron infected patients haven't yet shown up at Orlando County hospitals, according to the article. It would be an extremely positive development if omicron infections don't result in hospitalizations, or death.

<<“Those who are hospitalized are being primarily infected by the delta variant,” Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings said Wednesday at a news conference held at the Orlando International Airport....

They said it’s too soon to draw conclusions since the variant is quite new and hospitalizations can lag weeks behind infections.>>

The omicron variant spread in the UK weeks before in the U.S. A large study of all omicron cases identified in the UK for several weeks beginning in November indicated that there is no evidence of lessened virulency (e.g., hospitalization rates) in omicron versus delta infections.

<<There was no evidence of omicron cases being less severe than delta, based on the proportion of people testing positive who had symptoms or went to the hospital, the team said. >>

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/othe...?ocid=msedgntp

If this conclusion in the UK study about virulence proves accurate, it is a very ominous development given the greater contagiousness of the omicron variant and it's ability to evade both natural and vaccination acquired immunity, as discussed in the above article.

[wizrap]

From Gainesville Sun article dated 12/12/21:

“The number of new COVID-19 cases in the state of Florida rose for the third week in a row from 10,892 to 13,530, according to FDOH's Friday (12/10/21) report.

In the same time period, vaccinations rose by a few thousand people to 104,995. About 70% of Florida's eligible population and 66% of its total population has now been vaccinated.

Throughout the state, the report showed, senior Floridians ages 65 and older made up the most vaccinated age group, at 90%, while young Floridians ages 5-11, who only recently became eligible for vaccination, made up one of the lowest vaccinated groups at 11%.

Meanwhile, the state added 325 more COVID-19 deaths to its cumulative total for 62,026 throughout the pandemic.

According to the latest variant of concern data available to The Sun, which includes data through Dec. 2, about 73% of Florida's reported 48,271 VOC cases are from the delta COVID-19 strain. Around 2% of those have resulted in hospitalization, and just under 1.4% have died.”

BTW, county deaths and other related COVID data is reported to the CDC and can be found on its dashboard.