Somehow, the Jyväskylä cases from Wednesday have been distributed over several days. Jyväskylä still didn’t have any super spike that would get it into the daily TOP3.
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I noticed the same thing and was a bit curious about these numbers anyway. It occurred to me that could the statistics have something to do with it?
I noticed that at least the numbers of positive tests reported by the Pirkanmaa Hospital District (the region’s own lab tests at Fimlab) have been lower than the numbers for Tampere, the region’s largest city, in THL’s statistics.
Could it be that the Jyväskylä student parties caused infections in students whose home municipality is in other cities, and the infections in THL’s statistics ended up under other municipalities than Jyväskylä? As I understand it, in THL’s statistics, the place of infection is determined by the person’s home municipality. So if the records are elsewhere, the infection goes there.
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According to media reports, these were parties of foreign exchange students in Jyväskylä. They probably don’t have a place of residence in Finland at all, and that’s why they don’t appear in any statistics.
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That had gone by me. According to Keskisuomalainen, there were indeed a large number of exchange students present. That certainly explains the numbers in part. I’m sure a few native Finns had also wandered in there, though.
Information from the THL website, meaning that the location is determined at the latest by the laboratory (would that explain some of Helsinki’s numbers or where are those labs anyway?).
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Morning numbers (infections/deaths): 103.13M / 2.23M
New infections (+501,099) and deaths (+12,638) continued to decline sharply yesterday, as is typical for a weekend. No new records were seen on the top infection list. In the USA (+140,732), the trend in infection numbers continues to decline sharply, but the trend in deaths (+2,889) has so far remained steadily high. In Europe (+148,317), the infection situation remains stable. With Spain’s figures missing, France (+24,392) moved to the top of the continent’s daily infection list, narrowly overtaking the United Kingdom (+23,275), which remained in second place.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced yesterday an order requiring people to wear masks on all public transport. The order will come into effect late on Monday. The 11-page document details the specifics of the order, such as when a mask may be temporarily removed. The order obliges transport operators to enforce the mask mandate to the best of their ability and to remove individuals who violate it from public transport. “Requiring masks on public transportation will protect Americans and provide confidence that we can travel safely even during this pandemic,” the document reads. A footnote to the order states that the CDC reserves the right to enforce the order “under penalty of criminal punishment,” but a spokesperson for the agency said the order relies heavily on voluntary compliance.
Anthony Fauci said yesterday that his South African colleagues had told him that some patients had been reinfected with the virus due to a new variant. “When we were on the phone with many of our scientific colleagues and public health colleagues, they were telling us, 'Something’s going on here. We’re seeing people get reinfected with the variant, which is very disturbing,” Fauci told NBC News. “That means that the immune response that may have been induced by natural infection may not be protective against the variant.” Fauci, however, stated that vaccines provide broader protection against the new virus variant than natural immunity from having been sick.
On the US West Coast, in Seattle, a peculiar scene unfolded during the night between Thursday and Friday. Long queues of people in all sorts of attire snaked through the city streets in the middle of the night. People dressed in bathrobes and pajamas queued for vaccines in the middle of the night after local media announced around 11 p.m. that vaccinations were available to all who arrived at the vaccination site immediately. Several hospitals helped distribute the vaccines, and all doses were eventually in people’s arms by 3:30 a.m. The whole commotion was caused by a freezer breaking down at Kaiser Permanente hospital, which put 1,600 doses of vaccine at risk of spoiling. The incident was just one of many similar events where equipment failures, bad weather, or expiring vaccine doses have caused headaches for healthcare. The storage requirements for currently approved coronavirus vaccines, together with large quantities of vaccines, are a major challenge for hospital systems around the world.
John Bell, an Oxford University professor who was part of the development team for the AstraZeneca vaccine, expressed his astonishment at comments made by French President Emmanuel Macron in a BBC radio broadcast. Bell said, “I don’t know where he got that information from,” referring to Macron’s comment on the ineffectiveness of the AstraZeneca and Oxford vaccine for those over 65. Bell stated that only 12% of participants in the vaccine trials were over 65, which skews the results. “The reactions in older people were equivalent to the reactions in other age groups, and the vaccine protects all age groups,” Bell continued. Macron’s comments were widely criticized in the British media yesterday and were linked to the dispute between the UK and the EU over vaccine deliveries. “This was probably just demand management on Macron’s part,” Bell said, and, when pressed by the journalist, continued, “If you don’t have the vaccine, the best thing you can do is manage demand.”
In Asia (+75,141), the pandemic situation has been significantly better than in Europe and America for a long time, but the pandemic is tightening its grip there as well. Taiwan (+10) announced its first COVID death since May last year, bringing the country’s death toll to eight. The deceased patient was over 80 years old and one of four new cases linked to a hospital cluster in Taoyuan. Taiwan has reported 909 infections throughout the pandemic. Malaysia (+5,728) set its second consecutive infection record yesterday. Indonesia (+14,518) also reported its infection record on Saturday. The country has now recorded over 1.06 million infections.
In Australia (+3), life has returned to near normal after an epidemic suppressed by strong restrictions and containment measures. The Australian Open tennis tournament will allow 30,000 spectators per day. This was announced by Victorian Health Minister Martin Pakula and the head of the country’s tennis federation, Craig Tiley. Already on Friday, an unusual sight for the pandemic era was seen when 4,000 tennis fans had gathered to watch the world’s tennis stars warm up – and it was difficult to find masks among the crowd of fans. Among those present were Rafael Nadal, Serena Williams, and Naomi Osaka, who had emerged from their 14-day quarantine and played exhibition matches before the start of the first Grand Slam tournament of the year.
Today marks one year since the daily morning reporting started in this thread. The morning reports developed quite quickly into their current form. The words “Morning numbers (infections/deaths)…” that have become familiar to everyone were first seen on February 6, 2020. By early March 2020, the format of the morning report already strongly resembled the current one. According to statistics, the most liked morning report, with 169 likes, was seen on July 20. There have been a couple of even more liked posts, but they merely encouraged OldFeki to keep writing – and the encouragement worked wonderfully. On approximately 250 days, over 50 readers have liked what they read.
So things got out of hand a long time ago. I couldn’t let down dozens of daily readers, so I continued, and continued, and still continue. This hobby has taken over 600 hours of my time, even by a conservative estimate. There have been difficult moments regarding continuation, as in the mornings there would certainly be other things to do than wake up to write about the pandemic. But… the feedback has been absolutely wonderful throughout the past year, and as I may have mentioned before, I am genuinely proud of it. A big thank you to everyone else who supported the thread. The Wuhan Coronavirus thread has been an excellent source for following the development of the pandemic, and it is, perhaps somewhat surprisingly, one of the most informative threads on the entire forum. A big thank you also to the Inderes team for providing a great forum for investors and others – and for all the support. Hopefully, we will also see the pandemic subside in the coming months.
I almost forgot… In Finland, the epidemic situation shows signs of acceleration. Yesterday, 469 new infections were confirmed in at least 74 municipalities. Most infections were in Helsinki (+97), Vantaa (+54), and Espoo (+43). 
Johns Hopkins, Worldometers , Reuters1 , COVID tracker, TheBaselab , WHO1 , WHO2 , NYC tracker , COVID daily USA , THL map (THL kartta), FHM map (Sweden) (FHM kartta (Ruotsi)), Bloomberg , rt.live (USA state tracking) , EndCoronavirus , CoronaVirusIndex(yonzzu), Koronabotti (Twitter), Vaccination status worldwide (Rokotustilanne maailmalla), Vaccination status (THL) (Rokotustilanne (THL))
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Thanks!
Where is the best place to follow the development of the situation in Israel?
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Thank you so much for your morning reviews so far, @OldFeki! I’ve routinely read almost all of them with my morning coffee before work. 
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These are a good start >
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Jyväskylä has now climbed to the top 3. Still not the numbers that were reported as daily infections back then, though. I guess we’ll never know where that peak was recorded in the statistics. I didn’t follow Jyväskylä’s situation before the news, so I can’t say if it’s been scattered across previous days according to testing, or if a large part of it is recorded somewhere else.
Some young people from Jyväskylä and Kangasniemi were out cottaging. This was in Keskisuomalainen yesterday, but it was behind a paywall.
More on Jyväskylä:
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Fauci, however, stated that vaccines provide broader protection against the new virus variant than getting sick, i.e., natural immunity.
Is there any peer-reviewed information on this? Sometimes it appears that getting sick doesn’t provide good enough immunity, and sometimes it appears that one’s own body has started to maintain immunity. Surely by getting sick, one gets the same spike proteins as from the vaccine, right? I can’t understand the difference that deeply. What’s the truth in this case?
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Fauci commented on immunity to the newly mutated virus – and based on South Africa’s experiences. All approved vaccine manufacturers claim their vaccines also protect against it, although the efficacy is not as good as against the original virus. Vaccine manufacturers have also advertised their vaccines as working on a wide scale from the beginning. The virus mutations are already counted in the thousands – and apparently this “wider scale” protection means those. Your own body can also maintain immunity, but perhaps not as well if the pathogen mutates beyond the reach of protection.
Now it seems possible that natural immunity may no longer be able to protect against this South African version. Is this a similar decrease in effectiveness as with vaccines? Nobody knows…
There are certainly no ready and peer-reviewed studies available on this yet. It would be good if they could even identify these – for example, in the USA. In a way, we are constantly shooting at a moving target.
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Thanks from here too to @OldFeki! I’m also one of those people who ended up on the Inderes forum just because of this thread, and this is the only discussion I follow. This thread is really the most efficient and fastest way to get an overview of where we are in the pandemic!
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I couldn’t link just the video.
The situation in Jyväskylä is discussed. Graphs and sources of infection, etc.
E: Week 4. 7.3% of samples positive in the picture. He mentioned something like 9-10%.
E2: Over 50s have few infections. Over 65s only a few infections. 16-25 year olds have a lot of infections.
E3: The situation was explained very well
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Morning numbers (infections/deaths): 103.52M / 2.24M
New infections (+395,465) fell below 400,000 yesterday for the first time since October last year. Deaths (+9,292) were also clearly decreasing. The biggest single factor for the decrease in infections was the USA (+107,816), where infection numbers dropped to their lowest since early November. Europe (+123,140) also saw significantly calmer figures recently. The continent’s deaths (+2,837) fell to their lowest in weeks. The UK (+21,088) took the top spot for infections in Europe.
In the USA, the number of Covid-19 patients hospitalized on Saturday was 97,561. The number of cases requiring hospitalization has clearly decreased in recent weeks. The last time hospital patients were below 100,000 was on December 1, 60 days ago. According to data from the country’s Centers for Disease Control (CDC), over 31 million vaccine doses have now been administered in the country. That is 62.3% of the nearly 50 million doses distributed to vaccination centers. Already 5.6 million people have received a second vaccine dose. The number of daily vaccinations in the country has now risen to about 1.5 million per day. At this rate, President Biden’s goal, considered too low by many, to vaccinate 100 million people in 100 days will be met considerably ahead of schedule.
The US vaccine distribution, despite all its chaotic aspects, has not looked much different from other Western countries, but despite the challenges of vaccine availability and distribution disruptions, the vaccination program is progressing quite quickly. The latest reports show a clear glimmer of light, which may be due to vaccinations. According to federal data, the number of nursing home infections has clearly decreased over the past four weeks. In the week ending January 17, 17,584 Covid cases were reported in nursing homes in the country. A month earlier, on December 20, 32,500 cases were reported in nursing homes. Dr. Ashish K. Jha, dean of Brown University, said that nursing home cases reflect the surrounding community. Nursing home infection rates drop when infection rates are also falling elsewhere. However, he says that nursing home infection rates began to decline before other population groups, which is likely a result of prioritizing vaccinations. “This combination makes me think that this is not just a broad national pattern, but that vaccines likely play a role in it,” Jha said.
One doesn’t need to be a fortune teller to guess one of this week’s main news topics in the USA: the Covid relief package. The familiar struggle from the Trump era has begun again, and newspaper pages are overflowing with comments on the package and the opposing party’s counter-proposals. These are huge sums of money, and members of Congress must please their own constituents amidst everything, which makes the package’s approval a grand spectacle in both the House and the Senate. However, the highlight of the week in the country is next Sunday’s culmination of the American football season, the Super Bowl, which Americans consider the world’s biggest sporting event – after the Olympics. “Attending large gatherings increases your risk of getting and spreading Covid-19. The safest way to watch the Super Bowl this year is at home with family members,” reads the guidance published by the CDC. Whatever the guidance, where bars are allowed to be open, they will be packed on Sunday, and the police will not intervene.
In Belgium (+2,717), police report arresting 400 demonstrators in the capital Brussels. The demonstrators had emerged from their hideouts after mass calls for anti-coronavirus restriction demonstrations had circulated on social media. According to a police spokesperson, most arrests were made at Brussels train stations, and police stated that participants in the protest were released after identification. Belgium improved its preparations for protests banned due to gathering restrictions after the riots and vandalism in neighboring Netherlands. Last week, Belgium banned non-essential travel to and from the country until early March. Social media has in recent months become an effective way to get people involved in mass foolishness – surprisingly easily. This has certainly not gone unnoticed by actors promoting national security, or its destabilization, around the world.
Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine has raised its profile as the world suffers from a vaccine shortage. German Health Minister Jens Spahn said he was open to Russian and Chinese vaccines to ease the vaccine shortage in Europe. “If a vaccine is safe and effective, it can help overcome the pandemic, regardless of the country of manufacture,” Spahn told Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung on Sunday, adding that the vaccines must be approved by the European Medicines Agency (EMA). Russia announced on Friday that it could send 100 million vaccine doses to the EU during the second quarter, which could vaccinate 50 million people. Algeria is the latest country to launch a Sputnik V vaccination campaign. The country has ordered half a million doses of the Sputnik V vaccine for its 44 million citizens. The country was also awaiting an AstraZeneca vaccine shipment on Sunday.
Israel (+4,646) said it would send 5,000 vaccine doses to the Palestinian (+403) administration for the vaccination of medical personnel. The announcement came after several countries around the world had called on Israel to ensure that Palestinians also receive the vaccine. Israel has so far vaccinated about three million of its nine million citizens with the first dose of the vaccine. The country still has a high number of daily infections, but the seven-day average of infections is clearly decreasing. The effect of vaccinations will become more apparent in the statistics during February-March. Palestine has not officially requested Israel’s help, but the state has signed agreements with four vaccine manufacturers, including Russia’s Sputnik V.
In Sweden, too, AstraZeneca’s (AZ) outreach to the EU made headlines yesterday after a week of tough wrangling. AZ’s vaccine will ultimately deliver an additional 9 million doses already in the first quarter. For some reason, British vaccine hoarding has not been widely criticized in the Western media. The country has now vaccinated 9 million people with at least the first dose of the vaccine. That is already 13% of the country’s population. The EU announced yesterday that it wants to vaccinate 70% of its population by the end of summer. Vaccinations will not help Denmark’s minks, as the country’s government announced yesterday that the rest of the country’s minks will also be culled. The deadline for culling the animals is tomorrow. In Finland, the epidemic has clearly picked up new momentum in recent days. Many infection clusters have originated from people’s indifference, and the price for that can be high. Yesterday, 367 new infections were reported in the country. Most infections were reported in Helsinki (+85), Jyväskylä (+40), and Tampere (+31).Johns Hopkins, Worldometers , Reuters1 , COVID tracker, TheBaselab , WHO1 , WHO2 , NYC tracker , COVID daily USA , THL map (THL kartta), FHM map (Sweden) (FHM kartta (Ruotsi)), Bloomberg , rt.live (USA state tracking) , EndCoronavirus , CoronaVirusIndex(yonzzu), Koronabotti (Twitter), Vaccination status worldwide (Rokotustilanne maailmalla), Vaccination status (THL) (Rokotustilanne (THL))
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Confirmed infections, it’s like they’ve halved over the weekend.
Yesterday, the second on the list, Jyväskylä, almost dropped off the entire list. Only 2 infections.
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Monday’s numbers are always small - apparently, updating registries is slower on weekends. A week ago, the number reported on Monday was 192, and two weeks ago it was 168. So, in that regard, we are in a strong growth trend, as 244 cases were reported today.
Those Jyväskylä numbers don’t seem to add up to me. Yesterday Yle (source: Leviämisvaiheessa oleva Jyväskylä kiristää koronarajoituksia: alle 18-vuotiaiden liikuntaharrastukset keskeytetään sekä museot ja kirjastot suljetaan kahdeksi viikoksi | Yle ) reported that the weekly sum in Jyväskylä would be 240. So, either many of them are still unreported in THL’s (Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare) numbers, or they have been reported under some other city/municipality. We’ll see what kind of pile ends up in the statistics tomorrow.
Edit: According to the Yle source above, last week’s total was 240 cases in Jyväskylä by Sunday morning. According to current statistics, HS (Helsingin Sanomat) only finds 168 cases for Jyväskylä from THL’s data for the last two weeks. So, over a hundred cases are likely still unregistered somewhere (or registered in municipalities other than Jyväskylä).
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We’ll be closer to the truth between Tuesday and Thursday.
Morning numbers (infections/deaths): 103.93M / 2.25M
New infections (+392,565) and deaths (+9,210) continued their slight decline. In the USA (+125,454), infection rates and deaths (+1,904) saw a slight increase but remained significantly below the average of recent weeks. In Europe (+117,378), infection rates slightly decreased, despite Spain (+25,867), which moved to the top of the continent’s daily infection statistics, reporting its weekend numbers. The pandemic week started exceptionally calmly, but the pace is sure to pick up again towards the end of the week.
Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), said yesterday that the U.S. ability to detect new virus variants has increased tenfold, although it is still below expert recommendations. The U.S. capacity to sequence viruses has been heavily criticized in recent weeks. Walensky, speaking at a White House Covid-19 briefing, said that collaborating laboratories aim to analyze 7,000 samples per week. On January 10, only 251 samples were analyzed. Last week, 2,238 samples could be analyzed. The laboratories analyzing the samples are still scaling up their capacity and have stated that they can double the number of samples by mid-this month.
In the U.S., discussions about the next Covid relief package are heating up. President Biden said he would discuss the contents of the relief package with Republican representatives, but there is no desire among Democrats to reduce the proposed $1,900 billion package. “Republicans want to climb out of a four-meter pit with a two-meter ladder,” said an aide to a Democratic senator. “We don’t have time to wait for them to take this seriously,” he continued. Anthony Fauci continued his warnings yesterday regarding the possibility of people who have had the disease getting it again due to new virus variants. He said that the number of such cases is “very high” based on South African experiences and urged everyone who has had the disease to also get vaccinated. “The vaccine is critical,” Fauci said.
The Biden administration yesterday encouraged everyone, regardless of immigration status, to get vaccinated on time. A Homeland Security statement said that the federal government would not seek out undocumented immigrants at or near vaccination centers. This is a big difference from the previous administration’s actions, which sought to catch and deport undocumented immigrants by any means necessary. Vaccinations in the U.S. are now progressing at an accelerating pace. Over 32 million vaccine doses have been injected, and the daily pace is expected to increase from approximately 1.5 million doses. “If these variants weren’t looming over us, we’d be in a good situation,” said Peter Hotez, a scientist and physician specializing in vaccine development, who works at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. “If these variants take over before spring – it changes everything. We need to vaccinate Americans by late spring or early summer,” Hotez said.
Europol warned on Monday about criminals forging vaccination certificates, which several countries require for entry. In an “Early Warning” sent to European police forces, Europol states that several vaccination certificates sold by criminals have already been found. A counterfeiting ring was apprehended at Paris’s Charles de Gaulle Airport, selling vaccination certificates for $180 - $360. In the UK, Europol intelligence had found “scammers selling Covid-19 test documents with the name of a legitimate laboratory but with fake certificates, for $135.” Forgeries are available across Europe, for example, at airports and online, on paper or on a mobile device, for as little as about 50 dollars. Europol said it expects counterfeits to appear as long as travel restrictions are in place and warned that many forgeries are of high quality.
Unlike in Finland, the German (+6,630) government has informed its citizens of its goals for completing vaccinations. Chancellor Angela Merkel said yesterday that she has received the necessary assurances to reiterate her promise to offer a vaccine to all Germans by the end of summer. “We will be able to offer all Germans a vaccine by the end of the third quarter,” Merkel said, stating that the government had received assurances from vaccine manufacturers regarding the sufficiency of vaccine quantities and the amounts arriving each quarter. Germany’s overall incidence rate, which measures infections per 100,000 inhabitants over a week, has fallen and is now 91.
In Asia (+67,480), the pandemic has remained relatively well under control despite recent infection peaks in several countries. The celebration of the Lunar New Year, which will be observed in a few Asian countries next Thursday, is feared to worsen the continent’s infection situation. Preparations for the celebration have been made, for example, in Vietnam (+33), a model country in pandemic control, where schools were closed well in advance of next week’s festivities. Japan (+2,776) is expected to extend the state of emergency in Tokyo and other areas of disease spread, with hospital capacity at its limits. Japan is moving towards tightening restrictions despite the worst infection peak subsiding. Japan’s public broadcaster NHK reported that the country’s government would decide on restrictions later this week after consulting an expert panel.
In Sweden, statistics from the weekend are eagerly awaited, as last week ended with infections turning into a clear decline. The country is following Israel’s vaccination situation with interest, as all sensible people understand that acquiring herd immunity by getting Covid-19 is complete nonsense. In Israel, 750,000 people over 60 have been fully vaccinated, of whom only 0.07% (531) have tested positive after vaccination. Three people have died from the vaccinated group. In Finland, infections were temporarily lower than in previous days, with 244 cases. Six deaths were recorded. Finnish mink farmers have been enjoying high demand, as several countries have restricted the business due to infections in mink farms. Yesterday, Poland joined in, announcing immediate measures to cull farmed mink. During the pandemic, few industries have flourished in Finland, but mink farming is one such industry so far. Yesterday, Helsinki (+56) once again led the country’s municipal infection statistics. Neighboring cities Vantaa (+42) and Espoo (+32) were found in the next positions.Johns Hopkins, Worldometers , Reuters1 , COVID tracker, TheBaselab , WHO1 , WHO2 , NYC tracker , COVID daily USA , THL map (Finland), FHM map (Sweden), Bloomberg , rt.live (USA state tracking) , EndCoronavirus , CoronaVirusIndex(yonzzu), Koronabotti (Twitter), Vaccination situation globally, Vaccination situation (THL)
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