Coronavirus in Massachusetts (Boston: property management, dorms, schools)

[yesmaybe]

Past 2.1 million with one dose. Another big numbers increase.

[bohemka]

Is anyone else following @vaccinetime on Twitter? There's either a glitch or there are hundreds of appointments opening up throughout the day. Nonstop notifications today. If you haven't had luck and are eligible, consider following them.

[yesmaybe]

https://www.mass.gov/news/the-common...tion-in-boston

MA is going to ramp up vaccine administration at Hynes with help from FEMA. Says an additional 6k a day there. Doesn't say if this is essentially taking from other sites or additional vaccine supply.

[massnative71]

Originally Posted by mdovell

No it isn't. But the borders are still closed.

https://www.travelandleisure.com/tra...pick-up-in-may

"In January, Biden extended a ban on non-American citizens coming from the UK, many European countries, and Brazil, as well as blocked most travel from South Africa amid the spread of new variants of the virus."

so yes the ban is still on. I'd love to go back to Canada but can't even after I get vaccinated a few weeks. I'd love to go back to Europe but that's on hold indefinitely.

It looks like May is when we expect somewhat of a reopening.

here's the January numbers for Bradley International Airport, the second busiest in the northeast

https://bradleyairport.com/wp-conten...er-Numbers.pdf

enplanements (coming in)
Air Canada zero
Delta zero
United and affiliates zero
Jetblue 208
Aer Lingus (Ireland) zero
204 passengers is the total for international

deplanements (leaving)
Air Canada zero
Delta zero
United Zero
JetBlue 284
Aer Lingus zero

Domestic has been increasing but there's hardly anything out of Bradley. Obviously it isn't JFK or LAX but

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019...countries.html

If you notice President Biden didn't change or modify what Trump did with China.

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-...virus-disease/

Student visas are F1, J1 and M1. None of those are exempt. The ones that are are IR-4, IH-4, A-1,A-2,C-2,C-3,E-1,G-1,G-2,G-3,G-4 Nato1 to nato 4 or nato6. The words "student" "academia" "college", "education" and "university" are not found in any of the executive orders issued by Trump and Biden.

From the arguments I remember last fall with UMass and UConn is that if you are on a student visa you can stay but if you leave you can't come back unless it's a online class. Many chose to stay. Besides it can be costly for airtravel multiple times across continents while attending higher ed for four or so years. In a sense it made more sense to stay because of the vaccines. The US has the highest access to the most effective vaccines.

It might be interesting to read how academia deal with this in 1918 which obviously we did not fly to Europe let alone Asia, it was by boat.

Dude students are still coming over.

[rach5]

4th wave has started https://twitter.com/DrTomFrieden/sta...99544247984132
Including in MA, by the looks of it (again well over 2k cases today). Michigan, which is a bit ahead of us in the 4th wave, is seeing increased outbreaks in schools (and of course the community). 100 cases associated with the UK variant in an outbreak at a childcare facility in Nebraska. Yet Oster et al and even the CDC have called for reducing social distancing in schools - which may be problematic with the new variants (which we've known were coming for literally months) https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-pers...covid-variants.

[rach5]

A couple of weeks ago, I argued that vaccination may the the riskiest exposure for many of our vulnerable and suggested more drive-though events. A Sage report in the UK https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...ve-had-vaccine finds that a lot of hospitalized people seem to have gotten infected around the time of vaccination “Elderly and vulnerable people who had been shielding, may have inadvertently been exposed and infected either through the end-to-end process of vaccination, or shortly after vaccination through behavioural changes where they wrongly assume they are immune,” Median time to symptoms was 5 days after vaccination (isn't that the median time to symptom onset for covid exposure?). The good news (especially for the UK, where they decided to delay second shots) - few cases developed symptoms 2 weeks after the first shot (not many variants other than the UK variant in circulation, however; and we know the vaccines work well for the UK one; the second shot may be more important here).
On a personal note, I risked the exposure and got my first shot (at a CVS). It was well-done (for an indoor clinic). Not sure when or if RI would ever start drive-through events...Saw an ad by the Rhode Island Deparment of Health today for a drive-through clinic and was briefly thrilled - but it was for veterans, in a MA location lol!

[redplum33]

Originally Posted by rach5

Median time to symptoms was 5 days after vaccination (isn't that the median time to symptom onset for covid exposure?).

Exactly what I'm concerned about.

[msRB311]

My cousins wife is from Brazil and she put up something on Facebook that said pray for Brazil. I wondered hmm what's happening in Brazil. Apparently covid is really bad there:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.wsj...sk-11616845889

[BostonMike7]

Is there a good site for tracking vaccine distribution globally that gets updated on a regular basis?

[robr2]

Originally Posted by msRB311

My cousins wife is from Brazil and she put up something on Facebook that said pray for Brazil. I wondered hmm what's happening in Brazil. Apparently covid is really bad there:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.wsj...sk-11616845889

I've lost at least two family members in Brazil to Covid in the past couple of months. Bolsinara has ignored the science, encouraged crowds, denounces masking, and has made anti-vax statements. He just named his fourth health minister in 15 months who has vowed to continue Bolsinaro's plan of no lockdowns and no mask requirements.

Major business leaders who backed his election are now calling on him to step down.