Covid-19

Scarcely 60% of the world’s population is vaccinated against Covid. Vaccine supplies are now more ample. Yet worldwide vaccination rates have fallen steadily since late 2021, now to a rate at which it would take four and a half years to give everyone in the world a new jab, or a first if they’ve had none. Part of the reason is difficulties of distribution and take-up, part of it that governments (with a few exceptions: Vietnam, Japan, Norway...) have given up. Outside China most people have had Covid by now, and have some protection from that earlier infection. Yet vaccination remains a good...

Mostly the countries of recent high Covid rates — South Korea, Finland, Norway, Australia, Greece, countries which suffered less in 2020 — now have those rates declining. But Japan is at its highest rate of Covid deaths in the whole pandemic. The Northern Hemisphere winter may see only small flare-ups. But we can’t know whether there will be new Covid variants, or surges of other viruses. At present the NHS is too starved of resources to manage well even with relatively low summer sickness rates. We need: • restore NHS funding and repeal privatisation • requisition private hospitals to augment...

Covid rates in South Korea and Finland are rocketing, but in the other recent high-Covid-rate countries (ones that had low rates in 2020 — New Zealand, Australia, Taiwan, Japan, Norway, etc.) they are now ebbing. Covid hospital admissions rates in Britain have decreased steadily since early July. They remain quite high. We can’t know what will happen in winter, with other viruses and possible new Covid variants. We need to demand preparations in the next months: • restore NHS funding and repeal privatisation • requisition private hospitals to augment NHS resources • a sustained public-health...

Island countries which closed their borders rigidly in 2020-21, and thus suffered few Covid deaths then, currently have the highest counted Covid death rates in the world, with the BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants: New Zealand, 4.73; Taiwan, 2.68; Australia, 2.62 per million per day. In Australia, hospitals are stopping non-emergency treatments because of a Covid influx, but state governments are rejecting medical advice to reinstate work-from-home advice and mask mandates in indoor crowds. Australia is also seeing a big flu season (though, since Omicron-Covid is much more infectious than flu, less...

By the measure of weekly Covid death-count per million, two of the countries which have done best across the pandemic, Taiwan and New Zealand, are now worst in the world (29 and 21), and Norway, which has done among the best of countries unable to close their borders rigidly, is now among the worst in Europe (14, with Belarus on 15 and Greece on 17. The UK is 7. All lower than before mass vaccination, e.g. UK 127 in early 2021). That shows that comparisons between countries need to take the long term (e.g. in Europe, by the measure of excess deaths since early 2020, Sweden at 4% has done...

Recent research suggests that Omicron subvariant infections, though milder than previous variants, add little to immunity against Omicron re-infection. Israel and Germany have new spikes which may rise as high as Portugal’s mid-May to mid-June one. Rates are rising in Britain. Even if this spike is small, others will come. So, prepare: • a sustained public-health testing-and-surveillance system • good sick pay for all • restore NHS funding and repeal privatisation • requisition private hospitals to augment NHS resources • bring social care into the public sector with NHS-level pay and...

George Davey Smith, professor of clinical epidemiology at Bristol University, talked to Martin Thomas from Solidarity . In my view, we should refer to post Covid conditions rather than “long Covid”. which makes it sound as though the disease is continuing. It is a really heterogeneous group of phenomena which gets put under these headings. There is a very tiny number of cases where people have very long infection, and they’re actually infected with the virus for a very long time, but everything else which has been called long Covid is different. There are people like the writer Michael Rosen...

Scotland now has rising Covid rates; maybe the BA.4 and BA.5 subvariant surge is coming now, rather than earlier as we expected. We can reasonably hope it will be smaller than Portugal’s, which in turn looks shorter and shallower than previous surges. But new variants are certain to come in due course, and may be fiercer than Omicron. So, prepare: • a sustained public-health testing-and-surveillance system • good sick pay for all • restore NHS funding and repeal privatisation • requisition private hospitals to augment NHS resources • bringing social care into the public sector with NHS-level...

In Portugal, a country with a better vax rate than Britain, and mostly a better record with Covid, the Covid death rate has doubled since early May, to higher than early 2020, and the Covid hospital patient count has also doubled. That’s down to BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants of Omicron. We had expected a surge in Britain, too, with BA.4 and BA.5. That hasn’t happened. But Portugal reminds us that the pandemic isn’t over. Whole new variants, not just sub-variants, will come in time, and may be fiercer. To prepare: • a sustained public-health testing-and-surveillance system • good sick pay for all •...

Covid deaths and cases are falling almost everywhere besides China and North Korea. It may be sensible now to ease even light Covid curbs, like masks, except for those working directly with more vulnerable people, so that as many as possible have some immunity from previous mild infection as well as from vaccination before winter and before the next variant comes. But Covid is (as the WHO officially recognises) still a pandemic. That new variant will come, and it may be fiercer than Omicron. We push for: • a sustained public-health testing-and-surveillance system • good sick pay for all •...