I am fine, thank you.
Vaccinations continue apace here, but we are in total quarantine, the ICUs are on the edge of broken and the figures continue to rise.
Even on the ground it is difficult to be sure what is going on.
Firstly we are being vaccinated with Sinovac. In the UK it would appear that the figures started to drop about 20 days after vaccination accelerated. That aligns fairly well with the statements that AZ & Pfizer begin to give protection 14 days after first jab.
However, here that has not happened. Not even slightly.
Firstly we are led to believe that Sinovac begins to give protection 14 - 21 days after the second jab. Disappointing, but even then we should have started seeing some impact 2 or 3 weeks ago. We didn't.
Obviously that leads to worry about Sinovac especially given that we do have P1 here and Sinovac doesn't distinguish itself against P1. However, Turkey, which has a fine and sophisticated medical, health and science infrastructure says that Sinovac is 85% (ish) effective. And they're not usually wrong. It is unclear how much P1 we have here, other than the fact that it is more than none. However, it doesn't seem to be a particularly dominant strain, just a nasty one.
However, if we consider the public statements in Chile that Sinovac protection is 3 weeks after the second jab, then three weeks ago they were giving 60+ their second jab. (They're down to 50+ first jab at the moment).
It would appear that most infections are in the 25 - 55 age group. So that might fit with the delay. We can also see that >50% of people in ICU are under 55. So that might fit also.
What we can't see is the age distribution of hospital admissions at this time. And that would be really interesting.
Additionally in Jan and Feb the Chileans sod off to the beach. In their entirety for as long as they can. The Chileans are funny about their holiday period. In a not funny at all sort of way.
For example we had the horrendous riots, burnings, military on the street etc etc. 18 months ago. Millions of protestors swearing this was the most inportant thing they'd ever dealt with and they would die for the cause (literally).
And it was awful, until W3 December. And then it stopped dead. They might be prepared to die for the cause, but they weren't going to give up their summer holidays.
Last year the Chileans were being pretty sensible about COVId-19 overall. Until W3 December, when care stopped dead and they all pssed off to the beach and rubbed up against each for weeks on end.
Then a bunch of things happened together. W3 & W4 Feb everybody returns to the cities to start the new year. Schools returned with kids on W1 March. Autumn started and daily temperatures dropped from mid 30s to low 20s (unusually low for this time of year, and W4 Feb the Government allowed bars & restaurants to open for service *inside*.
So, unsurprisingly, COVID-19 exploded and continues to explode. Hospitals are overloaded, ICUs are all but full. Last report I saw said they had 4 days capacity left.
For Easter, and this is a lip-service Catholic country, The Government said that each person could apply for one pass to go out once. 6.5 million passes were issued - that's 35% of the population! How that is supposed to help I just don't know.
12,500 cars were prevented from leaving the city and 4,000 people were arrested. You couldn't make it up.
The only glimmer of hope is that yesterday and today the 7 & 14 day Case averages and the 7 & 14 day fatality averages both dropped slightly. So slightly that it could mean nothing.
On the other hand it is the first time the figures have done anything other than climb exponentially since 20th Feb.
We sit, we wait, we watch and we hope. But right now it is not great.
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