The Coronavirus

[Eric the Green]

(04-11-2021, 08:28 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(04-10-2021, 01:05 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Meanwhile yesterday new cases in the USA were over 85,000, CA added 3600 and NY over 8000. The pandemic isn't going anywhere yet. New variants and pandemics could happen too. This existential threat, one among several, remains. Our Cold Civil War 4T will continue until the blue side wins the great divide and the red tide recedes, or we have put together some kind of division of the USA.

We haven't mandated vaccination so far, but it's fully legal for the Federal government to do it.  That was settled by the Supremes in 1905.  If we never get to herd immunity due to RW intransigence, that's an option that still exists.

 
I hope the option would be exercized.

David Wrote:

Eric Wrote:The greatest dangers I see now are the Republican drive to suppress the vote, leading to possible Republican congress takeover in 2022, Manchin's current unwillingness to support Democratic Party senate reforms and bills, and Kamala Harris's possible nomination in 2024 which would assure Republican victory for the White House.

Manchin represents the second most pro-Trump state in the US.  Don't expect too much from him -- unless he grows a pair and decides to take one for the team. Kristen Sinema has a bit more running room, so pressure may be enough with her.  I'm beginning to doubt that Kamala Harris will ever run for POTUS. 

It's not all bleak.

I hope you are right.

[Eric the Green]

#......Country.........Total Cases....New Cases....Total Deaths....New Deaths
.........World...........136,630,863....+633,649.....2,949,339.......+8,161
1.......USA................31,918,601......+47,874.......575,829..........+276
2.......India...............13,525,379....+169,914.......170,209..........+904
3.......Brazil.............. 13,482,543.....+37,537.......353,293........+1,824
4.......France...............5,058,680.....+34,895.........98,750..........+176
5.......Russia...............4,641,390........+8,702.......102,986..........+337
6.......UK....................4,369,775........+1,730.......127,087..............+7
7.......Turkey..............3,849,011......+50,678.........33,939..........+237
8.......Italy..................3,769,814......+15,746.......114,254..........+331
9.......Spain................3,347,512............................76,328
10.....Germany...........3,009,541.......+16,738........78,964...........+106
11.....Poland..............2,574,634........+21,706........58,420...........+244
12.....Colombia...........2,536,198.......+17,483.........65,889...........+281
13.....Argentina..........2,532,562........+15,262........57,779...........+132
14.....Mexico..............2,278,420..........+6,356......209,212.............+51
15.....Iran..................2,070,141........+21,063........64,490...........+258

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

[pbrower2a]

Video... and I thoroughly love sources well academically renowned. It's hard to surpass Harvard!






Personal comment:

1.  Even if you are young and survive, you can mess up such vital organs as your lungs. Such can mess up your life badly. So let us suppose that you dream of a career playing centerfield for the Boston Red Sox... get COVID-19 and you may lose much of your lung capacity and never make the majors. (Your chances are low anyway). OK, so you dream of being a clarinetist with the Boston Symphony? Your lung capacity shrinks and so does your ability to play the clarinet  -- and it is far too late to try to become a string player as an alternative. 

2. The scary one. If you are eighteen and you spread COVID-19 to a five-year-old sibling or cousin, then your young relative might infect your eighty-year-old grandmother... and the infection could kill her. 

Either way you will have years to regret not getting vaccinated when you have the chance. Guilt and regret are hard to live with. 

Contrast my situation. I am running out of time in which to make the rest of my life good for myself. If I can't succeed at that, then death solves all my problems unless I am damned to Hell for eternity. (I consider it blasphemous to accuse a God of cruelty that damns people for eternity for having the wrong religion or minor offenses. Such a god is on par with tyrants and gangsters who really belong in a Hell... most people have had some mess-up in their lives and have made some very bad decisions in life or been drawn into something sordid that they can't get out of). I have certain abilities that would have made me a spectacularly-dangerous criminal had I chosen or drifted into such a path. Well, at the least I avoided that.  

But think of what it is like for someone now young. Many desired career choices can vanish. Many peak experiences become impossible. For people with long memories like mine (as much a curse as a blessing), such means life-draining guilt and regret. Your earnings may be impaired, and your life may be shortened.

Not getting vaccinated when you have the chance is just not worth the ugly consequences that can arise! 

[pbrower2a]

The tragedy is not entirely American. India is getting hit hard.

NEW DELHI (AP) — India put oxygen tankers on special express trains as major hospitals in New Delhi begged on social media on Friday for more supplies to save COVID-19 patients who are struggling to breathe. More than a dozen people died when an oxygen-fed fire ripped through a coronavirus ward in a populous western state.

India’s underfunded health system is tattering as the world’s worst coronavirus surge wears out the nation, which set a global record in daily infections for a second straight day with 332,730.

India has confirmed 16 million cases so far, second only to the United States in a country of nearly 1.4 billion people. India has recorded 2,263 deaths in the past 24 hours for a total of 186,920.

The fire in a hospital intensive care unit killed 13 COVID-19 patients in the Virar area on the outskirts of Mumbai early Friday.

The situation is worsening by the day with hospitals taking to social media to plead with the government to replenish their oxygen supplies and threatening to stop admissions of new patients.

A major private hospital chain in the capital, Max Hospital, tweeted that one of its facilities had one hour’s oxygen supply in its system and had been waiting for replenishment since early morning. Two days earlier, they had filed a petition in the Delhi High Court saying they were running out of oxygen, endangering the lives of 400 patients, of which 262 were being treated for COVID-19.

The government started running Oxygen Express trains with tankers to meet the shortage at hospitals, Railroad Minister Piyush Goyal said. The air force also airlifted oxygen tanks and other equipment to areas where they were needed, and flew doctors and nurses to New Delhi, the government said.

“We have surplus oxygen at plants which are far off from places where it is needed right now. Trucking oxygen is a challenge from these plants,” said Saket Tiku, president of the All India Industrial Gases Manufacturers Association. “We have ramped up the production as oxygen consumption is rising through the roof. But we have limitations and the biggest challenge right now is transporting it to where its urgently needed. ”

The Supreme Court told Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government on Thursday that it wanted a “national plan” for the supply of oxygen and essential drugs for the treatment of coronavirus patients.

The Press Trust of India news agency said the Defense Ministry will fly 23 mobile oxygen generating plants from Germany to help with the shortage. Each plant will be able to produce 2,400 liters of oxygen per hour, it said.

The New Delhi government issued a list of a dozen government and private hospitals facing an acute shortage of oxygen.

At another hospital in the capital, questions were raised about whether low oxygen supplies had caused deaths.

The Press Trust of India news agency reported that 25 COVID-19 patients had died at Sir Ganga Ram Hospital in the past 24 hours and the lives of another 60 were at risk amid a serious oxygen supply crisis. It quoted unidentified officials as saying “low pressure oxygen” could be the cause of their deaths.

MORE COVID-19 NEWS:
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– Maui to begin 2nd virus test for travelers in early May
Ajoy Sehgal, a hospital spokesperson, would not comment on whether the 25 patients died from a lack of oxygen. He said an oxygen tanker had just entered the hospital complex and he hoped it would temporarily relieve the depleted supplies.

The New Delhi Television channel later cited the hospital chairman as saying the deaths cannot be ascribed to a lack of oxygen.

On the outskirts of Mumbai, the fire early Friday was the second deadly incident involving COVID-19 patients at a hospital this week.

The fire on the second-floor ICU was extinguished and some patients requiring oxygen were moved to nearby hospitals, said Dilip Shah, CEO of Vijay Vallabh hospital. Shah said there are 90 patients in the hospital, about 70 kilometers (43 miles) north of Mumbai, India’s financial capital.

The cause of the fire is being investigated, he said. An explosion in the ICU air conditioning unit preceded the fire, PTI quoted government official Vivekanand Kadam as saying.

On Wednesday, 24 COVID-19 patients on ventilators died due to an oxygen leak in a hospital in Nashik, another city in Maharashtra state.

In New Delhi, Akhil Gupta was waiting for a bed for his 62-year-old mother, Suman. On April 2, she tested positive and was asymptomatic for 10 days. Then she developed a fever and started experiencing difficulty breathing.

For the next two days, her other sons, Nikhil and Akhil, drove around the city, visiting every hospital in search of a bed. Sometimes they took their mother with them, sometimes they went on their own. They looked everywhere to no avail.

On Friday, they got their mother into the emergency room at the Max Hospital in Patparganj, where she was put on oxygen temporarily as she waited in line for a bed to open up inside.

“Now the doctors are asking us to take her away because they don’t have enough oxygen to keep her in the emergency room. But we’re not even getting any ambulance with oxygen to transport her to some other facility,” said Akhil Gupta.

Full Coverage: Coronavirus pandemic
The family decided to stay at Max and continue waiting for a bed.

“What else can we do?” said Akhil.

A year ago, India was able to avoid the shortages of medical oxygen that plagued Latin America and Africa after it converted industrial oxygen manufacturing systems into a medical-grade network.

But many facilities went back to supplying oxygen to industries and now several Indian states face such shortages that the Health Ministry has urged hospitals to implement rationing.

The government in October began building new plants to produce medical oxygen, but now, some six months later, it remains unclear whether any have come on line, with the Health Ministry saying they were being “closely reviewed for early completion.”

Tanks of oxygen are being shuttled across the country to hotspots to keep up with the demand, and several state governments have alleged that many have been intercepted by other states to be used for their needs.

Ashok Kumar Sharma, 62, was finally put on oxygen on Monday in his home in West Delhi. It only happened after days of frantically searching for an oxygen cylinder from various hospitals, clinics and private distributors.

“I called at least 60 people looking for oxygen, but everyone’s numbers were switched off,” said Kunal, Sharma’s son.

Kunal’s father was diagnosed with pneumonia on April 14, and a few days later, tested positive for COVID-19. The doctors recommended he be put on oxygen immediately. When Kunal could not find any, he put out an SOS on social media.

“But there is so much black marketeering going on. People contacted me selling cylinders for 3 times, 4 times the original price,” said Kunal. He finally acquired one from a personal contact.

“It’s horrible how people are taking advantage of our helplessness,” he said.

___

Associated Press writers Aijaz Hussain in Srinagar, India, and Patrick Quinn in Bangkok contributed to this report.

https://apnews.com/article/india-hospita...6ca80419b1

[pbrower2a]

America is still at war -- or at least reeling from casualties.

From another news thread (Talk Elections, connected to Leip's Election Atlas... and this is not my work:

Quote:The updated numbers for COVID-19 in the U.S. are in for 4/23 per: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/

I'm keeping track of these updates daily and updating at the end of the day, whenever all states finish reporting for that day.

ΔW Change: Comparisons of Weekly Day-to-day Growth or Decline of COVID-19 Spread/Deaths.
IE: Comparing the numbers to the same day of last week, are we flattening the curve enough?

Σ Increase: A day's contribution to overall percentage growth of COVID-19 cases/deaths.
IE:What's the overall change in the total?

Brackets []: These represent the total change for the day, including backlogged reports, if any.
These numbers are inflated relative to the actual reports for the day, so they are not used to calculate the comparative percentage shifts.

Older Numbers (Hidden in spoiler mode to make the post more compact)
Spoiler alert! Click Show to show the content.Show


4/11 (Last Sunday Holiday): <Sunday>
Cases: 31,918,591 (+48,611 | ΔW Change: ↑27.50% | Σ Increase: ↑0.15%)
Deaths: 575,829 (+293 | ΔW Change: ↑5.40% | Σ Increase: ↑0.04%)

4/12: <M>
Cases: 31,990,143 (+56,522 [+71,552] | ΔW Change: ↑12.31% | Σ Increase: ↑0.22%)
Deaths: 576,298 (+469 | ΔW Change: ↑11.67% | Σ Increase: ↑0.08%)

4/13: <T>
Cases: 32,070,784 (+77,720 [+80,641] | ΔW Change: ↑24.79% | Σ Increase: ↑0.25%)
Deaths: 577,179 (+819 [+881] | ΔW Change: ↓9.60% | Σ Increase: ↑0.15%)

4/14: <W>
Cases: 32,149,223 (+78,439 | ΔW Change: ↑2.13% | Σ Increase: ↑0.24%)
Deaths: 578,092 (+913 | ΔW Change: ↑4.58% | Σ Increase: ↑0.16%)

4/15: <Þ>
Cases: 32,224,139 (+74,916 | ΔW Change: ↓0.36% | Σ Increase: ↑0.23%)
Deaths: 578,993 (+901 | ΔW Change: ↑3.33% | Σ Increase: ↑0.16%)

4/16: <F>
Cases: 32,305,912 (+81,773 | ΔW Change: ↓4.21% | Σ Increase: ↑0.25%)
Deaths: 579,942 (+887 [+949] | ΔW Change: ↓9.86% | Σ Increase: ↑0.16%)

4/17: <S>
Cases: 32,372,119 (+63,581 [+66,207] | ΔW Change: ↓5.40% | Σ Increase: ↑0.20%)
Deaths: 580,756 (+738 [+814] | ΔW Change: ↓1.99% | Σ Increase: ↑0.14%)

4/18: <Sunday>
Cases: 32,404,454 (+32,335 | ΔW Change: ↓33.48% | Σ Increase: ↑0.10%)
Deaths: 581,061 (+305 | ΔW Change: ↑4.10% | Σ Increase: ↑0.05%)

4/19: <M>
Cases: 32,475,043 (+51,560 [+70,589] | ΔW Change: ↓8.78% | Σ Increase: ↑0.22%)
Deaths: 581,542 (+481 | ΔW Change: ↑2.56% | Σ Increase: ↑0.08%)

4/20: <T>
Cases: 32,536,470 (+61,427 | ΔW Change: ↓20.96% | Σ Increase: ↑0.19%)
Deaths: 582,456 (+914 | ΔW Change: ↑11.60% | Σ Increase: ↑0.16%)

4/21: <W>
Cases: 32,602,051 (+65,581 | ΔW Change: ↓16.39% | Σ Increase: ↑0.20%)
Deaths: 583,330 (+874 | ΔW Change: ↓4.27% | Σ Increase: ↑0.15%)

4/22 (Yesterday): <Þ>
Cases: 32,669,121 (+67,070 | ΔW Change: ↓10.47% | Σ Increase: ↑0.21%)
Deaths: 584,226 (+896 | ΔW Change: ↓0.55% | Σ Increase: ↑0.15%)

4/23 (Today): <F>
Cases: 32,735,209 (+66,088 | ΔW Change: ↓19.18% | Σ Increase: ↑0.20%)
Deaths: 585,033 (+807 | ΔW Change: ↓9.02% | Σ Increase: ↑0.14%)

My morbid city comparison: the death toll, if a city, would be the 32nd-largest in the United States, between Albuquerque (32nd at 560,513) and Milwaukee (31st at 590,157). The cities get scarcer at this point, but coincidentally Baltimore (30th at 593,490) will be surpassed  a few days after Milwaukee... as if that is any achievement. This is based on 2019 Census estimates. 

If you have yet to get vaccinated, then WTF are you waiting for? The Grim Reaper?

I have volunteered at a site at which over 700 people got vaccinated in one day. That was a mixture of first and second doses. 

[Eric the Green]

#.....Country.......Total Cases.......New Cases.....Total Deaths...New Deaths
........World.........146,222,038.......+897,252......3,098,948.......+14,249
1......USA.............32,735,704.........+66,515........585,075............+790
2......India............16,602,456.......+345,147........189,549.........+2,621
3......Brazil............14,238,110.........+65,971........386,623........+2,866
4......France............5,440,946.........+32,340........102,496..........+332
5......Russia............4,744,961...........+8,840........107,501..........+398
6......Turkey...........4,550,820..........+49,438..........37,672.........+343
7......UK.................4,401,109............+2,678.......127,385............+40
8......Italy...............3,935,700..........+14,758.......118,699..........+342
9......Spain..............3,468,617.........+11,731..........77,591...........+95
10.....Germany........3,261,764.........+23,710..........81,936..........+243
11.....Argentina.......2,824,652.........+27,884..........61,176..........+556
12.....Poland...........2,742,127.........+10,863..........64,709..........+541
13.....Colombia.......2,740,544.........+19,925..........70,446...........+420
14.....Iran...............2,358,809.........+22,904..........68,746..........+380
15.....Mexico...........2,319,519...........+3,708........214,095..........+498

Countries that have incompetent governance are at higher risk. The USA did; Brazil, Turkey, India and Russia still do. UK's Johnson started out incompetent but improved (since he got sick from covid).

[pbrower2a]

[David Horn]

(04-29-2021, 11:02 PM)pbrower2a Wrote:

Optimism hasn't won the day, so this ideal seems out of reach.  Many places have finally given in to bribery, thinking any vaccine increase is a net plus.  In NYC, get a jab and get a free joint.  It's working, and the use of public transport limits the knock-on effects. 

[Eric the Green]

#......Country.....Total Cases........New Cases....Total Deaths...New Deaths
........World........151,126,297.......+904,625.....3,178,846.......+15,257
1......USA.............33,044,068........+59,269........589,207............+870
2......India............18,754,984......+386,888........208,313.........+3,501
3......Brazil...........14,592,886........+69,079........401,417..........+3,074
4......France...........5,592,390........+26,538........104,224............+306
5......Russia...........4,796,557..........+9,284........109,731............+364
6......Turkey..........4,788,700........+37,674..........39,737............+339
7......UK................4,414,242..........+2,445.........127,502.............+22
8......Italy..............4,009,207........+14,319.........120,544...........+288
9......Spain............3,514,942.........+10,143..........78,080...........+137
10.....Germany......3,379,387.........+27,913..........83,338...........+320
11.....Argentina.....2,954,943.........+26,053..........63,508...........+561
12.....Colombia......2,841,934.........+17,308..........73,230..........+505
13.....Poland..........2,785,346..........+8,420..........67,073...........+541
14.....Iran..............2,479,805........+19,899..........71,351...........+385
15.....Mexico..........2,336,944..........+3,818........215,918...........+371

[pbrower2a]

India seems to be getting as serious as the USA. 

India launches effort to inoculate all adults against COVID


NEW DELHI (AP) — In hopes of taming a monstrous spike in COVID-19 infections, India opened vaccinations to all adults Saturday, launching a huge inoculation effort that was sure to tax the limits of the federal government, the country’s vaccine factories and the patience of its 1.4 billion people.

The world’s largest maker of vaccines was still short of critical supplies — the result of lagging manufacturing and raw material shortages that delayed the rollout in several states. And even in places where the shots were in stock, the country’s wide economic disparities made access to the vaccine inconsistent.

Only a fraction of India’s population will be able to afford the prices charged by private hospitals for the shot, experts said, meaning that states will be saddled with immunizing the 600 million Indian adults younger than 45, while the federal government gives shots to 300 million health care and front-line workers and people older than 45.

So far, government vaccines have been free, and private hospitals have been permitted to sell shots at a price capped at 250 rupees, or around $3. That practice will now change: Prices for state governments and private hospitals will be determined by vaccine companies. Some states might not be able to provide vaccines for free since they are paying twice as much as the federal government for the same shot, and prices at private hospitals could rise.

Since state governments and private players compete for shots in the same marketplace, and states pay less for the doses, vaccine makers can reap more profit by selling to the private sector, said Chandrakant Lahariya, a health policy expert. That cost can then be passed on to people receiving the shots, increasing inequity.

“There is no logic that two different governments should be paying two prices,” he said.

Concerns that pricing issues could deepen inequities are only the most recent hitch in India’s sluggish immunization efforts. Less than 2% of the population has been fully immunized against COVID-19 and around 10% has received a single dose. Immunization rates have also fallen. The average number of shots per day dipped from over 3.6 million in early April to less than 2.5 million right now.

In the worst-hit state of Maharashtra, the health minister promised free vaccines for those ages 18 to 44, but he also acknowledged that the shortage of doses meant immunization would not start as planned on Saturday. States say the paucity of shots is one reason why immunizations have declined.

India thought the worst was over when cases ebbed in September. But mass gatherings such as political rallies and religious events were allowed to continue, and relaxed attitudes on the risks fueled a major humanitarian crisis, according to health experts. New variants of the coronavirus have partly led the surge. Deaths officially surpassed 200,000 this week, and the true death toll is believed to be far higher.

The country’s shortage of shots has global implications because, in addition to its own inoculation efforts, India has promised to ship vaccines abroad as part of a United Nations vaccine-sharing program that is dependent on its supply.

Indian vaccine makers produce an estimated 70 million doses each month of the two approved shots — the AstraZeneca vaccine made by the Serum Institute of India and another one made by Bharat Biotech.

The federal government is buying half of those vaccines to give to states. The remaining half can then be bought by states and private hospitals to be given to anyone over 18, but at prices set by the companies.

The federal government is buying shots at 150 rupees each, or $2. The Serum Institute will sell the shots to states at 300 rupees each, or $4, and to private players at 600 rupees each, or $8. Bharat Biotech said it will charge states 400 rupees, or less than $5.50 for a shot, and private players 1,200 rupees, or more than $16.

By comparison, the European Union paid $2.15 per dose for the AstraZeneca vaccine. The company says that price is discounted because the EU contributed to the vaccine’s development.

The strain is mounting on the Serum Institute, which in addition to being India’s main supplier is also a critical supplier of the U.N.-backed initiative known as COVAX, which more than 90 countries are depending on. The institute paused exports in March.

“The urgent demand for vaccines in India is bad for the rest of the world,” said Ravi Gupta, a professor of clinical microbiology at Cambridge University.

Some experts warned that conducting a massive inoculation effort now could worsen the surge in a country that is second only to the United States in its number of infections — more than 19.1 million.

“There’s ample evidence that having people wait in a long, crowded, disorderly queue could itself be a source of infection,” said Dr. Bharat Pankhania, a senior clinical lecturer specializing in infectious diseases at Britain’s University of Exeter. He urged India to first stop the circulation of the virus by imposing “a long, sustained, strictly enforced lockdown.”

Pankhania cautioned that immunization efforts alone would not help immediately stem the current spike of COVID-19, since shots “only start to bear fruit in about three months’ time.” Vaccination would help prevent future waves of infection, he said.

India is also importing shots from the Russian makers of Sputnik V. The first batch was due to arrive Saturday. Another 125 million doses of Sputnik V will be distributed by an Indian pharmaceutical company later this year.

Given the urgent need for vaccines, some experts said rationing available doses is critical.

“Vaccines need to be delivered to the areas with the most intense transmission,” Gupta said, explaining that vaccines should be used as “emergency control measures” in specific regions of India rather than offering doses to all adults across the subcontinent.

Pankhania said the widely seen images of Indian virus patients gasping for air and smoke billowing from makeshift funeral pyres should spur rich countries to share their vaccines more freely. He criticized the approach taken by many Western countries that are attempting to vaccinate all citizens, including younger people at low risk, before sharing any doses.

“It is better globally to immunize all the (vulnerable) people that need to be protected rather than to immunize entire populations in only some countries,” Pankhania said.

___

Cheng reported from London. Associated Press writers Daria Litvinova in Moscow and Krutika Pathi in New Delhi contributed to this report.

https://apnews.com/article/india-busines...9867c95d18

[pbrower2a]

Pro-Trump web forums are abuzz with directions to forge Covid vaccine cards

Some states put templates online, spurring pro-Trump and anti-vaccination forums to start spreading tips for how to create fake cards.

Specific directions showing how to forge Covid-19 vaccination cards have proliferated on conspiracy, pro-Trump and anti-vaccination forums throughout the internet in recent weeks, as users have exploited a largely makeshift verification system.

The cards, distributed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, have been handed out to the more than 140 million Americans who have already received at least one dose of a Covid-19 vaccination. The Biden administration has declared it wouldn't create a federal vaccination database, citing privacy concerns, paving the way for the cards to become the country’s default national way to verify if someone has been vaccinated.

And while one state — New York — has embraced a vaccination verification app, there is scant evidence that others are close behind.

While much of the country is in the early stages of deciding how to ask employees, students and travelers to prove they've been vaccinated, most of those entities that have already established a plan rely on those cards. The Silicon Valley company Salesforce announced earlier this month that employees returning to work in person will need to show their cards, and United Airlines said it will require the same of its employees.

Seven universities that already have plans in place to ask students to be vaccinated before attending this fall — American University, Bowdoin College, the University of Colorado Boulder, Fairleigh Dickinson University, Fort Lewis College, Rutgers University and Wesleyan University — all said the verification process would consist of asking students to upload their CDC cards, at least if they're coming from out of state.

But since the cards are marked by hand, don't contain much information, are printed on easily obtainable heavy white paper and are impossible to quickly verify, it leaves an opportunity for the anti-vaccine community to beat the system by sharing directions on how to forge them.

"It's a cardboard paper card," said Alyssa Miller, a cybersecurity expert who specializes in protecting large organizations. "There's absolutely nothing about it that would prevent you from reproducing it."

"How are you going to make someone at the opposite end, the ones who are supposed to be verifying these, to look at one and determine if it's legitimate or if it's fake?" she said.

In March, the FBI released a public warning that creating or buying a fake vaccine card is illegal.

On conspiracy and anti-government forums throughout the web, users have linked to card templates that were left visible on the websites of state governments, including high-resolution PDFs from the websites of both the Wyoming and Missouri health departments.

The CDC has since delivered guidance to states to pull the templates from their sites, citing “misuse” by the anti-vaccine community, according to state officials.

"CDC has consistently advised states not to post the vaccine card template publicly," CDC spokesperson Kate Grusich said in a statement.

The instructions for how to create forged cards have appeared in high-ranking comments and posts on pro-Trump forums, like TheDonald.win, which was rebranded to Patriots.Win after its userbase urged one another to storm the Capitol in the days before the Jan. 6 riot.

On the extremist forum 4chan, users were told to download a template from Wyoming’s Department of Health website, then given specific directions for the thickness of cardstock needed to replicate the cards. The directions note that some vaccination centers affix stick-on labels on cards to denote the date, so the recommended resolution for the printed labels is also provided.

Versions of the instructions, which have also been posted to gun forums and QAnon forums, remind users to write the date in a blue ballpoint pen, and not to be too neat with their handwriting, emulating a rushed or tired nurse. Some instructions provide potential batch numbers of the Pfizer or Moderna shots that align with dates they were distributed.

The posts usually link to templates that were publicly available and posted on the back end of the websites of several states.

https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/c...on-rcna802

Comment: how can people be so stupid?

[pbrower2a]

Fair warning:


US govt warns that buying fake COVID-19 vaccine cards is a crime
By 
Sergiu Gatlan
 

• March 30, 2021
   
  
• 02:50 PM
   
  
• 2
  

US federal agencies have warned today against making or selling fake COVID-19 vaccination record cards as this is breaking the law.
The FBI, the Department of Health and Human Services, and the Office of Inspector General (HHS-OIG) issued the warning today in the form of a public service announcement published on the Internet Crime Complaint Center.
Additionally, using fake vaccination record cards could also put others at risk, increasing the chance of contracting COVID-19 or infecting others.

"If you did not receive the vaccine, do not buy fake vaccine cards, do not make your own vaccine cards, and do not fill-in blank vaccination record cards with false information," the federal agencies warned today.
"By misrepresenting yourself as vaccinated when entering schools, mass transit, workplaces, gyms, or places of worship, you put yourself and others around you at risk of contracting COVID-19."
The agencies also warned against using official government agency seals to create forged vaccination records since this is a crime punishable under Title 18 United States Code, Section 1017, and other applicable laws.
Government and private organizations were also advised to keep using personal protective equipment and maintain social distancing whenever possible, seeing that individuals using fake vaccine cards may increase the risk of inadvertently contracting COVID-19.

Avoid sharing vaccination cards on social media

This warning comes after previous alerts issued by the FBI and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) warning not to post CDC COVID-19 vaccination cards on social media platforms.
Scammers can use photos of vaccination record cards shared on social media to forge vaccination cards that get sold for profit.
Doing this also drastically increases the chance of having your personal information stolen and falling victim to identity thieves that could use it to commit fraud.
Identity thieves can use stolen personal info to open new accounts in your name, fraudulently claim tax refunds for themselves, and engage in other forms of identity theft.

"If you did receive the vaccine, we recommend you do not post photos of your vaccine card to social media websites—your personal information could be stolen to commit fraud," the PSA added.
You can report suspicious activity involving fake vaccination record cards by contacting the HHS-OIG (at 1-800-HHS-TIPS or www.oig.hhs.gov) or the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center (at www.ic3.gov).
The FTC said in February that the number of identity theft reports has doubled last year compared to 2019, reaching a record of 1.4 million reports within a single year.

According to stats provided by the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC), over 372,000 Americans have reported financial losses of more than $365 million after falling victims to COVID-19-related scams since the start of 2020.

[pbrower2a]

The death toll has now surpassed Milwaukee, the 31st-largest city in the United States according to the 2019 Census estimate.

Nothing to be proud about. The death toll is slowing, but I am in no position in which to estimate the final toll.

[David Horn]

(05-02-2021, 05:30 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: The death toll has now surpassed Milwaukee, the 31st-largest city in the United States according to the 2019 Census estimate.

Nothing to be proud about. The death toll is slowing, but I am in no position in which to estimate the final toll.

Have we passed Wyoming?

[Bob Butler 54]

(04-10-2021, 07:55 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(04-09-2021, 02:20 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: The death toll has now surpassed Milwaukee, the 31st-largest city in the United States according to the 2019 Census estimate.

Nothing to be proud about. The death toll is slowing, but I am in no position in which to estimate the final toll.

Have we passed Wyoming?

Not quite, but close.  I have Wyoming at population 578,759 in 2019 and 573,021 COVID deaths.

But it is getting to be that as most of Wyoming is red, do they count?

[pbrower2a]

Adults with at least one vaccine dose via CDC:

Top 10:
NH 73%
MA 69%
CT 67%
VT 67%
ME 66%
HI 66%
NJ 65%
NM 65%
RI 64%
PA 62%

Bottom 10:
SC 46%
AR 46%
ID 45%
GA 45%
WV 44%
WY 44%
TN 44%
LA 42%
AL 41%
MS 40%
1:46 PM · Apr 30, 2021·

Yes, there seems to be a pattern.

Don't be a schmuck -- take it in your arm for:

yourself
your loved ones
your employer
the public good
having some self-confidence
your neighbors
your friends
your co-workers
your customers
the people who serve you ins stores and restaurants
your pets
keeping the budget deficit from skyrocketing

The calculus is simple. The inoculation is free because the system wants you to stay away from the hospital, the ventilator, and the morgue. .

[Eric the Green]

I guess CA just misses the top 10, at 61%
https://abc7news.com/covid-vaccine-calif...e/9567632/

There seems to be a pattern, ha ha. I doubt anyone here can't spot it.

Mr. Brower, where do these stats on states come from? I can't find any reliable stats by state on google.

[pbrower2a]

It comes from a tweet... but there was no link.

[Eric the Green]

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ May 3 2021
#......Country.........Total Cases.........New Cases......Total Deaths...New Deaths
........World............154,191,657........+673,970........3,226,906......+10,613
1......USA................33,230,992..........+39,938...........591,514...........+445
2......India...............20,275,543........+355,828...........222,383........+3,438
3......Brazil..............14,791,434..........+36,524...........408,829........+1,054
4......France..............5,656,007............+3,760..........105,130...........+311
5......Turkey..............4,900,121..........+24,733............41,191...........+347
6......Russia...............4,831,744...........+8,489...........111,198...........+336
7......UK....................4,421,850...........+1,649...........127,539...............+1
8......Italy..................4,050,705...........+5,945...........121,433...........+256
9......Spain................3,540,430...........+5,354.............78,293.............+25
10....Germany...........3,435,877.........+10,279.............84,020...........+194
11....Argentina..........3,021,179.........+15,920.............64,792...........+540
12....Colombia...........2,905,254.........+11,599............75,164............+464
13....Poland..............2,805,756...........+2,525............68,105..............+37
14....Iran..................2,555,587.........+20,732............72,875............+391
15....Mexico..............2,348,873...........+1,093..........217,233..............+65

India and Brazil undercounted.

[Eric the Green]

California has the most coronavirus cases during the pandemic, but only 16 states have fewer cases per M population than California.

The states with the most cases per M population are:
1. North Dakota
2. Rhode Island
3. South Dakota
4. Iowa
5. Tennessee
6. Utah
7. Arizona
8. Nebraska
9. Oklahoma
10. New Jersey
11. South Carolina
12. Arkansas

9 of these 12 states voted for Donald Trump in 2 elections, and a tenth voted for him once. All of these states had at least 111,000 cases per M. CA had 95014. Hey, that's the zip code of the city in which Apple Computer is headquartered (Cupertino CA).

Those with the least cases per M, ranked from the least (between 23,200 and 91,500 cases):
1. Hawaii
2. Vermont
3. Oregon (which is having a surge now, though)
4. Maine
5. Washington (surging now)
6. DC
7. Maryland
8. Virginia
9. Colorado
10. Alaska
11. Pennsylvania

10 of these states including DC voted for Joe Biden, 9 of them for Hillary Clinton.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/ as of May 6, 2021