For why new strains now, the English strain was first detected in September but nobody cared much until Christmas. Now that strains are a hot topic they get reported more. I'm not sure that explains the whole explosion in new strains, but maybe part of it.
I wonder if there was a new and more infectious strain in Europe last spring. They could explain part of why it spread so much faster in Europe and the Americas than in East Asia. Although in that case I would have expected the European strain to have reached Asia eventually.
I feel like restaurants suing so they can have indoor dining says something bad about America. European restaurants just don't do that, so restrictions don't need to be lawsuit-proof. That said the UK had the very inadvisable "Eat Out to Help Out" scheme in August, so maybe different countries just decide that boosting restaurants outweighs everything else at different times.
I think you're being unfair on the smokers thing. It's the kind of thing that happens when you take a general principle (vaccinate people with chronic conditions) and don't add a bunch of exceptions. We don't have time for exceptions. Just going by age would still be better, but getting shots into arms is more important, so let's not get outraged about some undeserving smokers getting vaccinated.
Just as a side note, the word "scheme" doesn't have a negative connotation in the UK.
I'm looking forward to tomorrows edition. Especially:
The actions would have made (some) sense if we were supply constrained on vaccines. If supply is severely limited, you want to incentivize ordering only what you will definitely use, and you want to be very careful about using each dose in the most effective way.
It seems everyone assumed we'd be supply constraint and then never updated when it turned out distribution is the bottleneck. Actually, do we have strong evidence that vaccine supply is not currently limited in the US?
One reason I'm asking is that the UK seems to be doing much better in theory: Simpler rules, mostly based on age, no silly fights between governors and mayors, not a lot of scandals. Still, in shots per capita they are only slightly ahead. Is UK vaccine use slow in a less publicly embarrassing way, or are they supply limited while the US is not?
Minor nitpick, but it's RNA vaccines in English (or mRNA). I take it ARN is the French word order.
Any advice for those of us in southern England? :-/
Everyone seems surprisingly relaxed here, although we're in a pretty hard lockdown. Schools are closed, etc.
I wonder if these things happen more in cultures with a tradition of religious sacrifice.
A few questions:
When are these likely to pay out? Will I have to wait until January 20 or even later?
For the Secretary of State and Attorney General, what happens if Biden becomes president but the senate refuses to confirm his nominees?
Finally, why does PredictIt ask for so much personal information, and can I get away with entering fake info?
As someone who has not been following this threads and only read the last two, can I throw in some criticism? Do stop me if I am violating norms here.
The style seems to assume that the reader has read many previous threads and agree with you on every aspect of covid. I'm not sure I disagree with you on anything, but I would like some motivations. Combining this with a lot of sarcasm actually makes it hard to understand what positions you are arguing for sometimes.
On the topic itself, I am hopeful that the public discussion will get less partisan after the election. Unfortunately, a virus can spread far in three weeks.
How could an outside observer tell the difference between this, and a cult trying to stifle criticism?
The White House has released a "National Strategy for COVID-19" (pdf) that should be worth critiquing along with the day 1 priorities. I will take it as a good sign that the tweet has "aggressive, coordinated" before "equitable".
On an other note, I wonder what your current best estimate for the increase in R with the new strain is. Has the UK managed to get R below one because the different is smaller than the 0.7 we thought, or just because the control system / lockdown is so powerful?