Your Weekly Pandemic Update 24.10.21:

On 17th October 2021, Government of India has come out with its first new guideline of isolation incorporating vaccination status and more aggressive testing protocol. Although it is applicable to international travellers only, it can be adapted for Indian citizens exposed to Covid positive cases in the country.

They should self isolate for 14 days and observe their health, even if they are fully vaccinated.
if not vaccinated they will self isolate for 14 days. In addition, they should be tested twice at a gap of 7 days during this period.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/113DrUKXHAR1FVF_WF4S09G-J07Fj5RRV/view?usp=drivesdk

The Good, the Bad and the mystery that has happened during the week just gone by..

The good:

Finally the weekly Death toll of the world due to Covid-19 has fallen below 50,000 after more than a year.

CDC of USA recommends Booster (3rd) shot for Pfizer vaccine for US citizens
- All 65 years and above
- All 50-64 years with certain medical conditions.
- On October 26, CDC will be meeting to consider heterologous booster shots: Mixing and matching

Covid Pill
- Merck comes out with Molnupiravir– an oral pill that reduces the risk of hospitalisation by 50%.

The Bad:

Total death is just 50,000 short of 50 lakhs. This is the number on record.
Worldwide Covid Deaths stands at 49,62,546 . That is not a number. They are 49.6 lakhs wives, husbands, Sons and daughters of someone.
Covid has now affected more than 23 Crore people in 221 countries making it one of the worst scourge of mankind on record.
84-year-old Colin Powell the former US Secretary of State and chairman of joint Chief of Staff died from Covid-19. He was fully vaccinated.
He was suffering from Multiple Myeloma, a type of blood cancer.
That brings us this eternal query

Does vaccination protect ?

Covid vaccination does not prevent transmission. But it definitely reduces the chance of death due to Covid-19 by 12 times among the vaccinated.
Now it has been proved that transmission from the vaccinated case is 6 times less than transmission from an unvaccinated case. ( Link given below)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2021/09/10/moderna-most-effective-covid-vaccine-studies/

Message of the Week:

If the world doesn’t share the vaccine, it has to share the virus.

WHO has announced that this Pandemic may stretch for one more year, because the poor nations are not vaccinated and can transmit the virus among themselves. This will be a source of virus for the vaccinated population of the rich nations.

No-one is safe until every one is safe.

The Mystery:

Do we know all that we should know about the transmission of this virus ?
Do we know all that we still do not know about this virus ?
Do we at least know all that wrong assumptions we have made about this virus.

One of the worst assumption we have made is about the vaccine efficacy. The human trial of Pfizer and Moderna vaccines have announced vaccine efficacy of 95%.

Alas! How wrong they were !

Points to Ponder

Why does a surge start in a country ?
Why does the surge peak at one particular point ? No idea.
Why does the surge subside and cases fall from that point ?
At least we don’t have the answer for any of the above three queries.

Here are 3 examples. Please analyse and make your inference.

India:

In Oct 2020, daily new cases of INDIA has reached 97,000/day. By Feb 2021, it fell to 11,000/day. India’s vaccination has started on January 16, 2021. Yet by April 2021, ( even 3 months after vaccination ) the number of daily New cases has reached 400,000/day. Then in mid June it started falling on its own. It is a trickle now, below 20,000/day. What good thing have we accomplished in this quarter ? It is presumed that this is a Delta surge which automatically subsided. Unless a more virulent variant emerges, India will remain free.

USA:

USA has quickly achieved 57% vaccination. Yet its daily new cases started picking up from August 2021 ( 6 months after its vaccination drive) and reached 200,000 new cases/day. In this October, it has fallen to 75,000. Do they have any explanation ?

The surge is due to Delta virus whose transmission has slowed down automatically.

UK & EU:

UK and few rich nations of EU has reached complete vaccination of more than 70% population. Yet their daily new cases have started peaking in this October. Daily new cases in UK have touched 50,000/day inspite of their high vaccination. Why ?

Japan:

In Japan the new cases peaked up immediately after Tokyo Olympics. Shinzo Abe, Japan’s longest serving PM had to resign in September. Then suddenly cases in Japan started dropping off from 20,000/day to sub 500. Even Japan is puzzled.

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2021-10-18/japan-puzzled-coronavirus-control-success.

This is the Puzzle called Covid-19 that has brought us the Homo sapiens on their knees in front of a tiny virion.

4.2. Learning Lesson

Ian Mackey’s Swiss Cheese Model