Tag: coronavirus

Social distancing, masks still necessary after getting COVID-19 vaccine: Fauci

Dr. Anthony Fauci said Sunday that it will still be necessary to social distance, wear masks and take other COVID-19 precautions after a vaccine becomes available to Americans.

“I would recommend to people to not to abandon all public health measures just because you’ve been vaccinated,” Fauci told CNN anchor Jake Tapper on “State of the Union.”

“Because even though for the general population it might be 90 to 95 percent effective, you don’t necessarily know for you how effective it is.”

Keep reading

Biden COVID Advisory Board Member: Indoor Dining, Gyms, and Gatherings in Homes Should Be Targeted ‘for Closures’

During an interview aired on Friday’s broadcast of the Fox Business Network’s “WSJ at Large,” Biden COVID-19 Advisory Board member Dr. Celine Gounder stated that “places that we know are big contributors to transmission are indoor restaurants, bars, gyms, and also private social gatherings of friends and family in the home” “are really the places we need to target for closures” while prioritizing keeping other services, like schools, open.

Gounder said that the advisory board’s “consensus” is that “the draconian lockdowns, shutdowns that we had in the spring,” are unneeded, and that increased knowledge means we can “be much more targeted about how we tighten up some of our measures. I think of it like a dimmer switch, whereas before we had an on and off light switch. So, we can dial up and dial down in a much more granular fashion. So, some of the places that we know are big contributors to transmission are indoor restaurants, bars, gyms, and also private social gatherings of friends and family in the home. So, those are really the places we need to target for closures while keeping other services, for example, schools that are — have not been major contributors to transmission, they’re not zero-risk, but they are much lower risk, and they’re an essential service. And so, we’re really prioritizing keeping schools, for example, open.”

Keep reading

Joe Biden, the New York Times, ‘Dark’ Winters, and ‘Terrifying Surges’

In the United States, testing is increasingly convenient to get, plus it’s more and more free. Just a few weeks ago the Wall Street Journal’s Holman Jenkins reported that over 150 million coronavirus tests had been administered in the United States. One guesses that number is dated at this point. That it is, and that the New York Times reports daily about a “raging” coronavirus is arguably related. And it doesn’t take a doctor or statistician to understand this.

Stating what should be obvious, the coronavirus “rages” in the U.S. only insofar as Americans have the curiosity and means to be tested for it. If you test hundreds of millions of people you’re going to happen on lots of cases. And even all those U.S.-based tests likely don’t scratch the surface. As Jenkins pointed out after the Kamala Harris/Mike Pence debate, her lament that 7.5 million Americans had contracted the virus was probably off by something like 70 million.

Keep reading

Black market for negative COVID-19 tests pops up across the globe

A black market for negative COVID-19 tests has popped up across the globe as more countries require travelers to prove their negative status before entering, a report said Wednesday.

In France, seven people were arrested last week for allegedly hawking doctored coronavirus tests at Charles de Gaulle International Airport, the Associated Press reported. The suspects, who were not identified, were charging up to $360 for the fake tests.

Authorities tracked the ring down after finding a man bound for Ethiopia with a fake test, according to the report. The alleged scammers face up to five years in prison if convicted.

Keep reading