COVID Catharsis Corner - Reports from around the world from today, Saturday 22nd of May:
- World: 166,274,816 confirmed cases and 3,446,101 confirmed deaths.
- India: Announces outbreaks have stabilised in some states, but daily deaths remain at 4,000+
- Hydroxychloroquine: World expert in uncovering flaws in scientific studies, who identifies key failures in original study which said hydroxychloroquine was a treatment for COVID faces legal action from the writers of that original paper. Multiple trials have gone on to at best say it doesn't do anything and at worse makes COVID infections worse. The expert has suffered multiple Doxxing and other threatening behaviours from followers of the scientists who wrote the original paper. The bitter irony here is this expert also found errors and issues in some of the trials which went on to prove hydroxychloroquine doesn't do anything, too, showing they don't care about the subject of the science, they only care about the science.
- UK: Former chief aid to the Prime Minister Dominic Cummings, who during height of Lockdown drove 260 miles with two infected persons in the car to see out the infection in Durham, reveals in monster 40+ part tweet that, amongst other things, in contrary to government statements on the early part of their Pandemic planning that Herd Immunity was never the intention there are official government documents which state "Herd Immunity by September" on them, going on to accuse the media of failing in their scrutiny in not picking up on that detail. Mr Cummings is due to give evidence to a committee on Wednesday on the early handling of the pandemic.
- UK: Vaccine age limit lowered to those of 32 years old and above.
- Germany: Bans UK persons from entering the country as concerns remain over circulating variants.
- Vaccines: Chief Exec of AstraZeneca states UK had priority to the Oxford/AZ vaccine in deal with Oxford University in return for investment to develop of the treatment, and says the vaccine is only slightly less effective against B.1.617 (first seen in India) than it is against B.1.1.7 (first seen in Kent UK) which it is effective against.
- Mount Everest: An expert climbing guide estimates over 100 climbers and support staff have had COVID while at the mountain. Apparently it is the first attempt at getting a number of how large the outbreak there has been.
- Argentina: Begins new 9 day lockdown to tackle rising cases.
- Scotland: Digital COVID vaccination certificates found to be easily editable with computer software after download allowing data to be changed such as names, dates and vaccinated status.
- England: Expands sewage testing to cover two thirds of the population for a better view of where new variants are getting a foothold.
- Thailand: Finds first cases of B.1.351 (First seen in South Africa).