16 2GM Saturday November 14 2020 | the times
News
Coronavirus infections rose to new
levels in the US this week and there
were warnings of a shortage of hospital
beds in midwestern states as record
numbers were admitted for treatment.
More than 150,000 new cases were
reported yesterday after a steep rise in
infections that began early last month
and ten days ago climbed past 100,
a day, according to the Covid Tracking
Project. Other organisations have
reported different data sets: the World
Health Organisation reported just over
142,000 new cases yesterday.
The rate of hospital admissions has
also surpassed the peaks in April when
the virus crippled New York and the
northeast of the country, and late July
when it tore through Sun Belt states.
Deaths have climbed well past 1,000 a
day this week although the daily toll
remains about half the peaks reached
earlier this year.
There has been a loose patchwork of
state-imposed measures and paralysis
in Washington DC, where President
Trump has refused to accept the results
of the election.
Last night Mr Trump acknowledged
the high number of infections but said it
reflected an expanded testing regime.
He said he expected that Pfizer’s prom-
ising vaccine would be available
“extremely soon”, and that it would be
distributed first to elderly and vulner-
able members of the population. He
said it would be widely available across
the country by April. Moncef Slaoui,
the scientific head of the White House
vaccination programme, Operation
Warp Speed, said that subject to emer-
US hospitals
at bursting
point as cases
hit 150,
gency approval by the Food and Drug
Administration, the vaccine could be
distributed from next month to 20 mil-
lion to 30 million people a month.
Days before voting ended Mr Trump
cast warnings about the virus as “the
unified chant of the Fake News Lame-
stream Media” and predicted that “they
will talk about nothing else until Nov-
ember 4th when the Election will be
(hopefully!) over. Then the talk will be
how low the death rate is, plenty of hos-
pital rooms”.
The prediction has not proved cor-
rect and some governors who had
adopted laissez-faire policies towards
virus control have begun to sound the
alarm. Doug Burgum, the Republican
governor of North Dakota, said that the
state’s hospitals were full and added:
“You don’t have to believe in Covid, you
don’t have to believe in a certain polit-
ical party or not, you don’t have to be-
lieve whether masks work or not. You
can just do it because you know that
one thing is very real. And that’s that
100 per cent of our capacity is now
being used.”
In Minnesota officials said a record
number of cases had filled hospitals
almost to capacity. Jon Pryor, president
of a hospital network, said the virus had
“never been this pervasive”. He told the
Star Tribune that “if we don’t act deci-
sively it threatens to spiral out of con-
trol”. Last night the state limited social
gatherings to ten people and imposed a
curfew on bars and restaurants.
A dozen states have imposed some
restrictions on businesses and social
gatherings, but only New Mexico has
imposed a mandatory shutdown. JB
Pritzker, the governor of Illinois, said
that he might soon impose a stay-at-
home order, amid signs that citizens
were not complying with an order to
wear masks. San Francisco stopped
indoor dining this week and suspended
plans to bring children back to school,
and San Diego barred indoor activities
in gyms and churches from today.
Face-to-face tuition has been halted
in schools in Boston, Detroit, Indian-
apolis and Philadelphia. The New York
City school system could be closed if
infection rates continue to rise there.
Michael Osterholm, director of the
Center for Infectious Disease Research
and Policy at the University of Minne-
sota, who has joined the coronavirus
advisory board assembled by Joe Biden,
has suggested a four to six-week
national lockdown, saying that the
piecemeal measures in place would not
halt “this runaway train”.
But he added that he had not dis-
cussed this with the advisory board and
did not expect it to happen. Vivek Mur-
thy, the surgeon-general under Presi-
dent Obama who has been appointed
co-chairman of Mr Biden’s advisory
board, said that targeted restrictions
could be effective. “I don’t think that
this is [about] a lockdown or not locking
down,” he told ABC News. “The way we
should be thinking about this is more
like a series of restrictions that we dial
up or down depending on how bad the
spread is in a specific region.”Will Pavia New York
US rules
Businesses
Mostly open Mixed Mostly closedMasks
No restrictions Sometimes required
MandatoryStay at home orders
No restrictions Advisory
Order or curfewAs of Nov 12
Source: New York TimesPassengers in full
protective overalls
at Fiumicino
Airport, Rome,
yesterdayNews Coronavirus Wo r l d
Swedish “herd immunity” is lower than
previously thought, Anders Tegnell,
the architect of the country’s approach
to fighting the pandemic has disclosed.
Hospital admissions are surging with
the fastest rate of growth in Europe,
amid fears that the virus is spreading in
care homes again.
A 10pm curfew on bars and pubs was
introduced this week and 17 of 21
Swedish regions are subject to stricter
restrictions issued by the country’s
public health agency and Dr Tegnell,
the state epidemiologist.
He was forced to admit on Thursday
night, after previously playing down
the risk, that Sweden is fighting a
second wave in the pandemic.
“It is a different situation than we had
in the spring when it was more local.
Now we have a community spread in
many regions at the same time, which is
partly a reason why we see such high
numbers,” he said.
In August, the scientist attributed
low infection rates to the emergence of
protection through herd immunity
generated earlier in the spring when
Sweden’s light-touch pandemic regime
was blamed for one of the highest per
capita death rates in the world.
“The number of people we don’t find
with diagnostics is, with high probabili-
ty, smaller than we thought,” he said.
Relative to the size of its population,
Sweden has suffered many times more
Covid deaths than its Nordic neigh-
bours, though not as many as Europe's
worst-hit nations, such as Belgium,
France, Spain and Britain.
The coronavirus death rate in Swe-
den is seven times that of Norway andtwice that of Denmark, across the
Oresund Bridge. Compared with Fin-
land, Sweden’s infection rate is almost
nine times higher.
The per capita death rate since the
start of the pandemic has been more
than three times the Norwegian level,
where the infection rate is 140 cases per
100,000 compared with 485 in Sweden.
Norway has recalled its “home
guard” forces to patrol the land border
with Sweden, Europe’s longest frontier,
to enforce travel restrictions.
“Sweden’s restrictions are much loos-
er than the ones of our neighbours,”
Lena Einhorn, a filmmaker, author and
former virologist, said.
“The theory put forward by the
public health agency was that we were
paying a price in the spring but the
benefit was that we were going to get
high immunity and so the second wave
would be milder. That’s not happening,our situation is now again much worse
than in our neighbouring countries.”
Some of the shine is coming off Dr
Tegnell, who has a high profile interna-
tionally, especially among opponents
to lockdown restrictions across Europe.
“Numbers are really rising. He was a
hero last week, but I don’t know how
much of a rock star he is right now,” Ms
Einhorn said. “Sweden was regarded by
many as a good example when case
numbers and deaths were down but
that immediately changed when they
were up.”
She claimed that Sweden’s public
health agency had been slow to
acknowledge the changing circum-
stances and spread of the virus or to ad-
mit error, especially on facemasks,
which in the summer were dismissed as
“unhelpful” by Dr Tegnell. “They are
extremely stubborn and they are
reluctant to admit mistakes,” she said.Herd immunity lower than thought
Bruno Waterfield Covid-19 in the Nordic nations
4003002001000New cases per 100,000 populationJan Apr Jul OctSweden10- 5
5.2.0New deaths per 100,000 populationJan Apr Jul OctDenmark
Norway
FinlandSource: WHO