Paris may face new lockdown as ICUs fill up

[DonViejo]

Source: The Associated Press/Politico


Special medical planes dispatched patients from the Paris area to less-saturated regions over the weekend.

By ASSOCIATED PRESS

03/14/2021 09:20 AM EDT

PARIS — Officials say the Paris region may be headed toward a new lockdown as new variants of the virus fill up intensive care units and limited vaccine supplies drag down inoculation efforts.

Special medical planes dispatched patients from the Paris area to less-saturated regions over the weekend.

“If we have to lock down, we will do it,” the head of the national health agency, Jerome Salomon, said on BFM television Sunday. “The situation is complex, tense and is worsening in the Paris region.”

Salomon acknowledges that a nationwide 6 p.m. curfew “wasn’t enough” in some regions to prevent a spike in cases, notably of the variant first identified in Britain.

Read more: https://www.politico.com/news/2021/03/14/covid-lockdown-paris-france-475818

[progree]

1. Unfortunately, the world overall is heading up: +18.5% in daily new cases (7 day mvg avg)

between the local bottom of 363,299 on Feb 21 to 430,569 on March 13. Though that's all still way down from the 739,237 peak on January 10. (All numbers are daily new cases, 7 day moving average)
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/world/coronavirus-maps.html

Every time I look at the map, Europe looks worse (redder and darker).
Some countries in daily new cases PER 100,000 population, 7 day moving average
U.S.: 17 and still headed down
U.K.: 9 (great news since it was a hot spot a month or two ago, and home of the U.K. variant)
France: 35
Italy: 37
Czech Republic: 107

The Latin America map also looks worse every time I look at it
Brazil: 34
Chile: 27
Argentina: 15

U.S. map, tables:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/coronavirus-us-cases.html

[speak easy]

2. The UK is still in lockdown.

About 35% of the population have received at least one vaccine shot, but, for once, they are being cautious.

[róisín_dubh]

20. Yeah it sucks still being in lockdown, but it's the best course of action...

for once the Tories seem to have done something right. I can't believe I just typed those words.

[speak easy]

3. 'home of the U.K. variant'

I shouldn't laugh but this sounds like something straight out of sports.

[progree]

4. LOL. Sounds better than "the U.K. mutant" though, something out of Star Trek or

the bar scene in Star Wars (talk about a superspreader event )

[speak easy]

5. 'the bar scene in Star Wars'

OMG. Vaccine Wars. Who shot first.

[LovingA2andMI]

6. But many are getting the shot right....

Why is this happening?

[progree]

7. My impression is that Europe is lagging the U.S. in vaccination rate

and the faster-spreading variants are dominant in most all of Europe. It takes awhile for the vaccinations to work too.. Next month will hopefully look a lot better.

[Ace Rothstein]

17. The EU has around 30% more population but has done less than half the vaccinations than us.

Not a good situation for them. We probably have considerably more natural immunity here as well.

[Renew Deal]

9. Like 10%

That leaves a lot of other people that either never had the shot, never had it before, and the percent that the shot doesn't work for.

[LisaL]

12. Europe has been slow to vaccinate.

They are behind US in vaccination efforts.

[BigmanPigman]

14. I check Worldometers daily and noticed the same thing.

A doctor on MSNBC said that he is worried about the variants and he has a prediction. He said the variants will hit the US beginning in April and last until July. Not good. He has been correct in all his predictions.

Italy and France are both high again and there is an overall increase around the world now.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

[Renew Deal]

8. I saw yesterday that Italy is headed to "hard lockdown"

I guess we're going to take one more shot at this.

[Steelrolled]

18. What country could be more experienced in dealing with COVID-19

than Italy? Yet this is (at least) their 3rd spike.

I have long ago stopped trying to figure out who to blame.

Maybe it is just a nasty virus that really feeds on peoples' behavior, and the power of health agencies, governments, etc., is limited.

[Renew Deal]

19. Maybe I should have worded it differently.

Like another round on the carousel... I'm not blaming them. I'm also not not blaming them.

[ananda]

10. The key is vaccination.

We have to develop a vaccine for variants
as well as the original Covid.. and we have
to make enough for the whole global pop
and deliver it quickly.

Humanity can do this.. but all desire for
profits have to be set aside.

[LisaL]

11. It's easy to develop vaccines for variants, once the sequence is known.

All they have to do is to change original sequence for that of the variant.
Testing is the longer part of this whole thing.

[madville]

15. How do you re-vaccinate billions of people every 6 months

Every time a new variant emerges? It’s not a practical process

[DFW]

13. Great timing

I was supposed to run down there this week.

[dalton99a]

16. Kick