Iceland was the media’s model for COVID response
- How Iceland hammered COVID with science
- How Iceland Beat the Coronavirus: The country didn’t just manage to flatten the curve; it virtually eliminated it.
- How Iceland clamped down to conquer coronavirus
- Finally! Study shows how Iceland model of early testing helped in dealing with coronavirus
Now, understand, I’m not making fun of Iceland. The small nation went hardcore on early testing and contact tracing, requiring isolation for those in contact with COVID positive people rather than imposing lockdown. Almost no businesses were closed. They didn’t mask up. Of course, it is a small nation, not a big population, contact tracing would have been very tough here in the U.S. and many other nations. But, they were also lauded for their vaccination rates as a model for the rest of the world. And now
What Iceland’s rising Covid-19 case count tells us about vaccine efficacy
In Iceland, 96% of females and 90% of males 16 years or older have received at least one dose of a Covid-19 vaccine. Its vaccination rate, one of the highest in the world, makes it a particularly interesting place to look at the incidence and severity of breakthrough infections.
Covid-19 vaccines were first administered in Iceland at the end of 2020; by mid-July, every resident over the age of 16 was offered a shot. Yet tests show an alarming number of domestic Covid-19 infections are still happening with the onset of the delta variant.
In the US, where vaccination rates are lower, officials have described the virus’s ongoing spread as a “pandemic of the unvaccinated.†But given the lopsided numbers of vaccinated versus unvaccinated people in Iceland, the island country is currently seeing more cases of Covid-19 among the vaccinated than the unvaccinated. (snip)
That there are hardly any deaths accompanying the rising case count is a good sign. The data show that vaccinated people who are getting the virus are generally recovering without serious illness.
Iceland provides a case study for how an effective vaccine rollout perhaps doesn’t guarantee herd immunity but prevents hospitalizations and deaths.
Sadly, that last part will not be noticed by the un-vaccinated, they’ll just say “we told you the vaccines don’t really work, people are getting COVID.” Not sure about you, I’d rather feel like I have a mild cold rather than take a risk of ending in the hospital.
What this also shows is that COVID doesn’t care if it was virtually eliminated: it’s changing so fast that it can break through. Which gives high credence to it being created in a lab, not just randomly created by someone eating a bat or pangolin in a wet market and spreading around the world like wildfire. And they’re already talking about Lambda variant, which they think is vaccine resistant, with the head of the “notorious” Wuhan institute warning of even more. Well, he would surely know. Fauci thinks the FDA could give full approval to the vaccines in August, which would mean lots and lots of mandates coming soon.
Read: Iceland, Model For COVID Response, Sees Large Spike In Cases Among Vaccinated »
The United States needs to urgently slash global warming pollution with strictly enforced standards that phase out sales of new gasoline-engine cars and trucks by 2030 and dramatically boost fuel efficiency until then. But the emissions cuts in the auto plan President Biden issued Thursday are too timid – and rely too heavily on automakers’ voluntary commitments to produce electric vehicles. They won’t cut it. (snip)
As soon as the Food and Drug Administration issues a full approval for a COVID-19 vaccine, there will be “a flood” of vaccine mandates at businesses and schools across the nation, Dr. Anthony Fauci told USA TODAY’s editorial board on Friday.
He wishes you could know what it’s like to be arcing high over the Oregon Inlet with your pickup truck’s lights barely cutting the heavy darkness pressing in from all sides. He wishes that you could see the grains of sand flashing across your field of vision then disappearing again. He even wishes that you could strain your eyes attempting to find the center line for just an instant, that you could feel that moment of uncertainty when you wonder if your tires are still on the road.
A Star Wars shop owner in Washington doesn’t “give a s***” about feelings anymore after a confrontation with a transgender councilwoman.
Smoke rolled in about the time I took my 5-year-old grandkids to the splash pad. The air turned a yellowish color and I could feel my lungs fill. A flake of ash landed on one of the twins, but he did not notice. Instead he ran screaming from one water spout to the next, narrowly missing a dunking from the swinging buckets filling and spilling from above. His sister skipped and scrambled from one sprinkler to the next, joining another child in reverie.
