H5N1

Russia's daily COVID-19 death toll hovers near all-time high

Via Reuters: Russia's daily COVID-19 death toll hovers near all-time high.

MOSCOW, Oct 11 (Reuters) - Russia reported 957 coronavirus-related deaths on Monday, close to the all-time high of 968 reported two days earlier.  

The government coronavirus task force also said it had recorded 29,409 new cases in the last 24 hours, an increase from 28,647 cases on Sunday.  

Moscow, which reported 5,002 cases on Monday, said it was launching free "express" antibody-based tests for COVID-19 at a number of locations including shopping malls in an attempt to avert a new wave of restrictions.  

The number of people hospitalised over the last two weeks in the capital has doubled in comparison with the previous fortnight, the Interfax news agency quoted the city's COVID-19 task force as saying.

I can't get through to the Russian ministry of health website, which I hope will have more details on the situation there. Journals like Pravda and Argumenti i Fakti scarcely mention the pandemic, except to tout the Sputnik V vaccine.

Russia's daily COVID-19 death toll hovers near all-time high

Via Reuters: Russia's daily COVID-19 death toll hovers near all-time high.

MOSCOW, Oct 11 (Reuters) - Russia reported 957 coronavirus-related deaths on Monday, close to the all-time high of 968 reported two days earlier.  

The government coronavirus task force also said it had recorded 29,409 new cases in the last 24 hours, an increase from 28,647 cases on Sunday.  

Moscow, which reported 5,002 cases on Monday, said it was launching free "express" antibody-based tests for COVID-19 at a number of locations including shopping malls in an attempt to avert a new wave of restrictions.  

The number of people hospitalised over the last two weeks in the capital has doubled in comparison with the previous fortnight, the Interfax news agency quoted the city's COVID-19 task force as saying.

I can't get through to the Russian ministry of health website, which I hope will have more details on the situation there. Journals like Pravda and Argumenti i Fakti scarcely mention the pandemic, except to tout the Sputnik V vaccine.

Russia's daily COVID-19 death toll hovers near all-time high

Via Reuters: Russia's daily COVID-19 death toll hovers near all-time high.

MOSCOW, Oct 11 (Reuters) - Russia reported 957 coronavirus-related deaths on Monday, close to the all-time high of 968 reported two days earlier.  

The government coronavirus task force also said it had recorded 29,409 new cases in the last 24 hours, an increase from 28,647 cases on Sunday.  

Moscow, which reported 5,002 cases on Monday, said it was launching free "express" antibody-based tests for COVID-19 at a number of locations including shopping malls in an attempt to avert a new wave of restrictions.  

The number of people hospitalised over the last two weeks in the capital has doubled in comparison with the previous fortnight, the Interfax news agency quoted the city's COVID-19 task force as saying.

I can't get through to the Russian ministry of health website, which I hope will have more details on the situation there. Journals like Pravda and Argumenti i Fakti scarcely mention the pandemic, except to tout the Sputnik V vaccine.

New Zealand braces for rising Covid cases as expert warns of potential explosion

Via The Guardian: New Zealand braces for rising Covid cases as expert warns of potential explosion. Excerpt:

New Zealand is bracing for increasing numbers of Covid-19 cases after recording 94 new infections over the weekend, while pandemic modellers say that if the government stays its current course new cases will quickly top 100 a day.  

“We are on the exponential growth curve,” an epidemiologist and public health professor, Michael Baker, said. “If you look at the trend, it’s clearly going up in Auckland, and it’s not just the total cases but also the unexplained cases, which suggests transmission in the community is increasing.”  

Baker said that if the government kept its current restrictions, or loosened them further by reopening schools, as announced last week, “there’s only one way it can go and that’s up”.  

“This is really simple. This is where every epidemiologist and disease modeller will agree 100%. Don’t do it.”  

Case numbers began rising steadily soon after the government loosened restrictions in Auckland, the centre of the Delta outbreak, from a level 4 to level 3 lockdown. Cases have since spread beyond the city’s borders, cropping up in Northland and Waikato.  

On Monday, the government announced another 35 cases, all in Auckland, taking the total number of cases in the outbreak to 1,622. According to the Ministry of Health, 29 of the previous day’s cases were infectious in the community, and 21 of the cases announced had not yet been linked to existing cases.  

Last week, the government announced a new “steps” system for Auckland to reduce restrictions ​​in the coming weeks, subject to case numbers: first allowing outdoor gatherings, then gradually reopening some schools and allowing retail and hospitality to restart.  

Baker said that with Auckland’s outbreak growing, following those steps would be a mistake and could cause the outbreak to explode.  

“You go down the alert level system when the outbreak is coming under control,” he said. “You don’t go down the system when the outbreak is increasing. This is basic infectious disease epidemiology.”

Brazil's unvaccinated president misses soccer match

Via Reuters: Brazil's unvaccinated president misses soccer match.

SAO PAULO, Oct 10 (Reuters) - Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro said on Sunday he was not allowed to attend a league match between Santos and Gremio because the home club did not allow unvaccinated supporters into their stadium.  

The soccer match was Santos' first with supporters present since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, but the club insisted it would only permit entry of vaccinated people or those who had a negative PCR test.  

"I wanted to watch the Santos game now and they told me you have to be vaccinated," Bolsonaro said in a video posted on the website of the Metropoles news portal. "Why?"  

Bolsonaro, who has refused to get vaccinated and encouraged others to follow his lead, claimed he had antibodies because he had already contracted COVID-19.  

It was unclear whether Bolsonaro, a keen football fan who spent the weekend near Santos, tried to go to the game or whether his complaint was a general one about the need for what he called "vaccine passports."  

A spokesman for Santos said the club had not been approached by the president's team and that all fans must follow the country's sanitary regulations.  

More than 600,000 people have died from COVID-19 in Brazil.