How are you all dealing with coronavirus and the restrictions many of us have to live

And the nominee for covidiot yesterday, our health undersecretary Paula Daza who said we shouldn't close off the borders again (after being shown a crowded airport, that I am sure is full of people bringing in variants). There seems to be a consensus among epidemiologists that we should have done that a while ago. She said she "was sure" that anyone traveling now was doing it because of something urgent they needed to do. Yeah, right of course, since people have shown to be SO responsible this past year.

Then she went on about how we can't because it would affect the arrival of cargo. Last year, they allowed cargo shipments when the border was closed. I am sure it is easier to keep track of the crew members of a cargo plane (quick googling shows 2-4 people) or a truck driver or two that are going to be delivering the freight and than going to their next location. I mean, just send the plane crew to one of the airport hotels to sleep, eat and shower before their next flight. They could probably set up a similar place for truck drivers. It's sure a lot less risky than 150 people getting off a plane and dispersing to who knows where after only 5 days of quarantine. It looks like the crew of a cargo ship can be 20-25 people but they have living quarters on the ship, so wouldn't necessary for them all to disembark. The unloading is mechanized, so that is low contact. Maybe a few crew members would have to leave to stock up on supplies, but I am sure there would be to arrange that without it being too high risk.


It reeks of wanting to prop up LATAM airlines to me.

The end of this month they are no longer mandatory the face mask. However those who chose not to wear the face mask. Might be yelled at. Last weekend I went to a restaurant and a customer who had walk in wasn't wearing a face mask and they were yelled at the employee just assume that the person who came in didn't have a face mask on. I felt horrible for the bad service they receive and they walk explaining they didn't want their service after the way they were treated. They never consider the fact that maybe once inside they might have went to place a mask on what if the person had asthma or had anxiety and can't wear the mask.

Well they are supposed to approve now the Can Sino vaccine in April and have ordered 1.8 million doses. Another vaccine with no phase 3 studies published in recognized medical journals. My sister has said that is a point of concern. I guess our country has decided to buy vaccines from the irregular clothing bin or something like that.

I am feeling more optimistic this week. Lockdown is very slowly lifting and now we can meet up to 6 outdoors. I met my friend today who had covid in January, I hadn't seen her since December- we went for a picnic in the park. It was wonderful! Lots of people meeting up who hadn't seen each other for some time.

Many of my friends have been vaccinated once now (3 months between doses here so only 3 million or so have had 2 doses and 30 million just one dose). I wasn't sure about the 3 month spacing at first but it does seem to have worked well, it enabled more people to get a 1st dose quickly and even seems to maximise the immune response.

The only down side is there are now almost 30 million 2nd doses to be done and it seems logical to me that was always going to slow things down unless capacity and supply expanded greatly. This is without the supply issues we seem to have.

So it's going to be at least another month to my vaccination as under 50s are not to be vaccinated throughout April unless they are clinically vulnerable.

So I'm enjoying the freedom of seeing friends and family after 3 very hard long months but I'm not too relaxed yet.

Well, yet another fiasco. Today is the first day that travelers have to do the hotel quarantine for 5 days and whoever's job it was to calculate how many travelers are coming in and make arrangements with hotels screwed up. People are stuck at the airport waiting for transport because there aren't enough rooms! the airport is getting crowded. Who knows how much Covid is circulating there?

Both my husband and I just had to laugh a bit at the absurdity, stress relief I guess. Just another day down the rabbit hole with a completely inept government. Here we say "tragicómico" both tragic and comical at the same time. I sure there are plenty of empty hotels that would love to strike a deal to receive these travelers. It would not have been too hard to have some extra rooms in reserve to make sure everyone is covered.

Wow, so there was an article on a major news site that compares us after 56 days of mass vaccinations with the other countries that have also been vaccinating quickly.

Israel (all Pfizer)

peak of 8,624 new daily cases in January.
After 56 days of vaccinations this fell to 5,000
Their maximum of intensive care beds was 420 in January
After 56 days of vaccinating this fell to 375

UK (mainly AstraZeneca)

New daily cases declined from 59,000 to 23,000
ICU beds used fell from 4,077 to 683

USA (Pfizer/Moderna)

ICU beds used went from 30,000 to 19,000
There was no information on new cases


Here after 56 days vaccinating we reached the peak for ICU beds being used and new daily cases and we had vaccinated a higher percentage of the population than the US and UK had in that time period.


Critica internacional al escenario en Chile: ?Que pasaba en otros paises a los 56 dias de empezar a vacunar? | Emol.com

Yesterday there were two reports of people that were fully vaccinated, a nurse and a regional health director, that have severe Covid and are hospitalized. The health director had to be airlifted to a hospital in the capital. Due to their jobs, they would have received their first vaccine in early February at the latest, so they would have maximum protection by now. Later, the information about them having been vaccinated was removed from the articles on more than one website. There was no note about it being a correction, it was just gone.

We have been told all this time, that the vaccine being used here was supposedly not so effective at preventing transmission but very good at keeping you out of the hospital. Did the government tell them to remove that information because it goes against the narrative they are promoting? If so, I guess we are living in a dictatorship.

And, today, they are announcing even more restrictions on our lives. We're about a step from the government coming to weld shut our doors so we can't get out.

Oh that is so fishy @rechu and the removal of that news article is very very concerning.

Really this should be an international headline.

What I have noticed throughout the pandemic is that in the UK we don't read much at all about anything other than selected countries (Europe a little, US, Australia, but very little else. I am so glad you are at least sharing this here.

The Washington Post and the NY times have reported on the Chilean paradox of a high rate of vaccination and increasing virus cases and there have been articles in other places. However, the articles I have read always say something like we are using a mix of Pfizer and Sinovac. It's kind of misleading since it's almost all Sinovac and very little Pfizer. The last numbers I saw were a 94% Sinovac/6% Pfizer split. Some articles say we are also using AstraZeneca, which has been ordered but has not arrived. The articles I see always blame people letting down their guard over the summer and the vacation permits. That's a factor in the rise in cases, but I can't get it out of my head that the type of vaccine plays a part too Why are we getting no traction whatsoever when you see what has happened in the other countries above?

When asked about the articles, the Health Minister just gets mad and says they devalue the work of the health workers that are doing the vaccinations. He won't address the content.

This inevitable, each area or group of countries pay their attention to its area of influence or dependency.

In Spain is even worse, they pay attention mainly to a Community, Madrid, because of political reasons. This is very sad and say very little of mass media.

Guys, and what do you think about some cases in some countries where they have pretended to vaccinate an elderly person but they didn’t administrated the vaccine. Only an empty syringe. I can’t believe it my eyes.

The info about USA is not exactly correct. In more than half the states cases are going up. It’s unvaccinated younger people ignoring precautions, spring break, and in these states hospitalization is going up too.

Nammu - Just to clarify, the article was comparing 56 days after the start of vaccinations in those countries since we recently hit 56 days. I did notice the curve in the US is shifting up a bit lately, as you said, Spring Break plays a role. But, still the US is way off the highs from last year. Here we are hitting record high case numbers every day. Today it was almost 8,000, (7,380, highest of the pandemic) and we are over 1 million total cases.


They FINALLY closed us off for international travel, but that is way overdue. Then there are a ton of confusing new rules. You can still go out twice a week but not both days of the weekend. A whole bunch of products cannot be purchased either in-person or online in areas in phase 1 or 2, including clothing and beauty products. I have no idea how they plan to enforce that. Will they be opening our packages? Curfew is now 9 PM, which means that the stores that can open will likely close earlier. They are closing at 7 now. Our authorities let things get out of control and now they don't have a clue about what to do. None of the doctors in high positions in the government are epidemiologists.

I am glad at least my husband went to the store yesterday and bought things. W alsoe have an online supermarket order and beer coming today.

Those restrictions make no sense at all to me @rechu and I'm no epidemiologist either.

I'm glad you're doing okay for supplies!

Where is this reported to have happened @AzulOscuro I haven't read about this yet?

I would think it should be a criminal offence to do such a thing. Medical fraud, and wilful neglect of duty of care.

What cases are those? I never heard such a thing. It sounds like bogus news, yellow press. Is this for real? What sources reported that?

I found a few articles about the syringes:

'Shots of air': Brazilian health workers accused of giving fake COVID vaccinations with empty syringes | National Post

Kroger mistakenly used empty syringes instead of COVID-19 vaccine at Midlothian store

A spokesperson initially told CBS 6 multiple people were mistakenly given a shot of saline instead of a Coronavirus vaccine at the Midlothian location, but now Kroger says that's not the case.
"After a thorough investigation we just received new information that customers were injected with empty syringes and not saline," said a Kroger Mid-Atlantic spokesperson.

Actually 7,830 new cases. It won't let me edit.

Covid: Man charged after woman, 92, given fake vaccine - BBC News

I remembered this case from back in January, luckily he was caught. The charge was assault.

There were a few scams went around involving giving payment details in order to 'book' an appointment which of course wasn't real.

The worst thing was the very elderly and scared/confused being targeted. That is how those people get their money sadly.

Apparently we've stopped using AZ again for people under 60 or women under 60. I don't even know what's happening anymore. Are we ever going to get out of this?

The question mark over the very small number of rare clotting disorder in younger people (women?) does not seem to be going away. In the UK AZ is the main vaccine and it's being given to most people, my sister got hers today, her partner yesterday.

It is confusing I agree @BreakForTheLight and hard to work out what is happening.

In the UK we are being told the Moderna and Novovax are coming next month onwards and also the Janssen one. I guess Germany is similar?

Well, this is kind of interesting. My dad e-mailed me today and he asked me about the vaccination situation here and when I thought I'd get one. I told him I qualify next week and that I have been giving a lot of thought about what to do because the only option being used widely here is Sinovac and I do not feel comfortable receiving it. I said, I've been careful all this time and haven't gotten sick. I guess maybe I could have had an asymptomatic case, but that seems unlikely. We are severely locked down and I work from home. Apart from my husband, my contacts with others is only brief interactions like receiving a package or buying something at the pharmacy. So, I said since it looks like we will be getting more variety of vaccines in the relatively near future, I have decided to continue with self-care measures and wait a bit more to see what options become available.

I was sort of anticipating pushback. My dad is a retired chemist and I know he's been keeping up to date on the vaccine developments. I thought he'd start with the spiel of I should get whatever vaccine is available. Instead his response was to keep doing what I'm doing. It doesn't sound like he has much faith in Sinovac either.

(((Rechu))) it's not fair you feel you have to take this gamble but I understand why.

Chile imposes lockdowns to fight new Covid wave despite vaccination success | Global development | The Guardian

I saw this article today and wonder what you would say in reply to it?

I notice it only says Chile is using Sinovac and Pfizer, not the proportions of each used. It doesn't detail the lower efficacy of the Sinovac either.

@Discombobulated - The articles never indicate this. It gives the impression that they are more or less equal. There are even some international press reports that say we are using AstraZeneca and that we have J&J on order. AstraZeneca has been approved and ordered, but nothing has arrived. I read recently they were negotiating with J&J but last I heard the negotiations were stalled. I don't know who is giving them this incorrect information. The last I read was that 94% of vaccines given here were Sinovac and only 6% were Pfizer. Pfizer was given to the first healthcare workers vaccinated and now it's for teachers, health workers, under-18s with conditions that make them vulnerable and people on dialysis. Supposedly the most recent shipments are for general use since priority groups have been vaccinated, but it's only a few hundred thousand doses. You'd have to be very lucky to get one.


Maybe there is success in numbers vaccinated, but we are not seeing ANY result. The government remains firm that we are going to get to herd immunity by June. I have no faith in that. I believe it's not going to happen and we are going to see this pressure cooker we are living in explode. Apart from the border closure, the recent measures have very little support. We feel like we're in a plane and the pilot put on a parachute and jumped out. There is no leadership.

People are so sick of how our Health Minister starts off each press conference saying thanks to everyone but doesn't address real issues. This is how it started off yesterday (my translation): “As always, even though it bothers some people that work for the TV channels and morning programs, I thank the radio stations, I thank the TV channels, I thank the workers at the Presidential Palace and the Health Ministry.

And, if someone is bothered by my thanks, they’ll have to keep complaining because I am not going to listen to them." Clown show!

Now that you mention Moderna - I don't know what's happening with that one. It's already been approved in the EU but you don't hear much about it. We're also waiting on the Janssen one. Novavax still needs to get approval and I think they're looking into approving the Russian one, too.

Back home not even my 90+ year old gran has had hers. She would've been eligible for getting it at a vaccine center but she's not mobile enough to get there so has to wait until GPs start vaccinating I think?

I'm very curious about what people in Germany think about the whole AZ situation. It seemed like younger people were resisting AZ as their only option two months ago with the govt. strongly pushing it and now a complete reversal by the authorities? In some ways, it is good to know that the govt. will correct earlier guidance based on new information but it also leaves you a little wary of taking their advice immediately.

Cases have doubled in the past week where I am. 30% of the population has been vaccinated, mostly Pfizer and Moderna, only over 50s and healthcare/teachers. Case counts are highest in the young people who have not had access to the vaccines. Vaccine refusal is also high in some areas and I will be curious to see what the case counts are like a month from now.