The Evening Report - June 29th
Denmark’s vaccination program gets new influx of vaccine doses
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Good news for Denmark’s vaccination timeline. It just received a major boost. Denmark’s Health Minister Magnus Heunicke and Foreign Affairs Minister Jeppe Kofod announced this evening a deal has been reached to buy 1.17 doses of the Pfizer vaccine from Romania. They say the new influx of vaccine doses will “accelerate” the Danish vaccination effort.
Health Minister Magnus Heunicke says:
“With the vaccines purchased from Romania, more Danes can be vaccinated more quickly. This is important now that we unfortunately have a more contagious Delta variant, which is currently spreading rapidly in Denmark and the rest of the world.”
Heunicke also notes that Romania is offloading vaccine due to low rates of vaccine uptake in the country. As for the impact in Denmark, he told DR, it means the last vaccination group, those 30 to 34 years old will begin to get vaccination invitations within the next two weeks.
Foreign Minister Jeppe Kofod:
“Just as Denmark has continuously donated and lent excess vaccines to other countries, this agreement is also a strong signal of European and international cooperation in the fight against corona.”
The Staten Serum Institut is tackling the logistics to get the doses from Romania to Denmark and while planning is still being done, it hopes to see shipments arrive as early as this week.
The Danish National Board of Health is updating the vaccination calendar to factor in the extra injection of vaccine doses.
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Figures from the Staten Serum Institut show that even though overall infections are dropping, the number of Delta variant cases are rising quickly. It shows that one-fifth of all new infection cases are B.1.617.2. The increase is most visible in the week-to-week share of infections. In the space of one week, the number of Delta variant infections went from 6.6% of sequenced results to 20.4%. And that number is expected to increase as not all test samples have been analyzed yet.
So far, 348 Delta variant infections have been confirmed, with 38 new cases identified since the last variant report. While Delta cases are being found all over Denmark, most of the activity seems to be centered in Metro Copenhagen and the surrounding Sjælland island area.
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As the sun shines and infections drop, Denmark’s Health Minister Magnus Heunicke has thrown a caution flag on the field. Heunicke tweeted today that the COVID contact number (reinfection rate or R0) has risen slightly to 0.9. This is up from 0.8 of the last three weeks. He says Denmark still has a “declining epidemic” but “the figure is more uncertain” due to testing changes, summer holidays, etc.
The Danish Agency for Patient Safety is responsible for contact tracing any infected person’s close contacts. The agency is noting as restrictions disappear, the number of contacts for each infection case is steadily rising.
Denmark is reporting 243 COVID infections and one more coronavirus death in the last day.
Yesterday, there were 306,301 total corona tests done, 68,919 PCR and 237,382 rapid, for a (PCR only) positivity percentage of 0.34%.
COVID hospitalizations (62) have declined again (-3) while the number of infected people in an ICU (14) is unchanged day to day and of those, the number on a ventilator (12) has inched upward (+1).
On the vaccination front to date, there have been 3,281,015 1st-dose vaccinations (56.1% of the population) administered while 1,884,244 people (32.2%) are now fully vaccinated.
Yesterday, there were 64,031 total vaccinations done.
Region Syddanmark received 104,120 vaccine doses this week. Again, most of them were Pfizer doses. The doses on hand will be used for first and second doses for those 16 to 24 and 40 to 64 years of age. In addition, the health authority says priority group 10d3 is now being invited to get vaccinated. Those are people aged 25 to 29 years old and 35 to 39. The first invitations for this group have been sent out this week.
To date, the Southern Denmark Health Authority says 667,679 people (54.5%) in the region have had a first dose, while 394,864 people (31.8%) are now fully vaccinated.
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The Copenhagen Zoo is looking for volunteers to check each guests coronapas. In a press release today, the zoo says it is in a tough financial battle. It has had extra expenses to abide by all the COVID rules, including hiring extra staff to check visitor’s coronapas. At the same time, it has seen a significant downturn in people coming to the zoo, so as expenses have increased, revenue has dropped. The zoo says it will likely continue using the volunteers even after the pandemic is over.
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Sweden has added 847 infections and another seven coronavirus deaths since Thursday’s update.
Continue to take the numbers with a grain of salt as the Swedish Public Health Agency is STILL warning of an infection reporting lag. This time it is due to its troubled SmiNet infectious-disease database getting a security update.
To date, 4,741,697 1st doses (57.9% of the population) and 2,989,493 2nd vaccine doses (36.5%) have been administered.
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Region Stockholm says it has added 306 new infections and had five virus deaths since June 22.
Chief Physician Elda Sparrelid:
“Today, the hospitals report that we have 11 patients with COVID in need of intensive care. We have not had so few in intensive care since October 25 last year. But then the second wave took off and the need for healthcare increased very quickly. Experience from other countries has shown that the infection has been able to increase rapidly again, even in countries with many vaccinated. Therefore, I would like to ask you to continue to follow our basic advice for a while and to get vaccinated with both doses of vaccine as soon as it is offered to you.”
The health region reports it has identified 157 cases of the Delta variant. But it also cautions that a sequencing backlog means the data is from a week or two ago.
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A Swedish study conducted by Umeå University and the Karolinska Institutet has concluded protecting seniors in long-term care homes is crucial in preventing COVID deaths. The study’s goal was to better understand why so many seniors in care in Sweden have died in the pandemic. About half of all coronavirus deaths in the country were in long-term-care homes.
The study, involving 3,731 residents with a median age of 87, found that mortality rates were higher for older men than women. Age also played a role with the older a person was, the higher chance of dying from COVID. The study also found diabetes, urinary and bowel incontinence, chronic kidney disease, previous history of pneumonia, and impaired cognitive and physical functions all increased chances of dying when infected with the coronavirus.
The study concludes “these findings suggest that reducing transmission of COVID-19 in long-term-care homes will likely prevent a considerable number of deaths.”
This is a lesson come very late to Sweden, where the pandemic claimed an inordinate amount of lives among seniors in care. The rate of coronavirus death in seniors homes in Sweden is five times that of Denmark, 11 times higher than Norway and Finland.
An independent commission of inquiry struck to investigate the pandemic death toll in care homes concluded that Sweden’s strategy to protect seniors in care failed.
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Norway has added 293 infections and had no new corona deaths since yesterday’s update.
COVID hospitalizations (19) and ICU numbers (8) are down (both -4) ventilator numbers (6) are also down (-2).
To date 46.28% of Norwegians have had one dose and 28.64% have had both.
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Finland has registered 219 new infections since yesterday’s update.
We will get a weeks worth of hospitalization and fatality numbers tomorrow.
To date, 3,227,042 1st doses (57.8% of the population) have been administered while 986,115 people (17.7%) have had both doses.
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After months of falling infection numbers, COVID cases have begun to rise in Finland over the past week. Not coincidentally, over the same period, hundreds of football fans returning from St. Petersburg were allowed to cross the border without being tested. So far there are around 300 confirmed infections, with 222 of them in Finland’s capital region of Helsinki and Uusimaa. The number in quarantine has now risen to 783. Health officials in Finland fear those numbers will continue to rise.
The super-spreader event also likely sad a serious influx of Delta variant cases into Finland, according to Virology Professor Ilkka Julkunen, who spoke to YLE.
“The Delta variant spreads more easily and it will probably take over other virus strains, as it did in Britain.”
Finnish Social Services Minster Krista Kiuru speaking to YLE called for the football fans “act responsibly.”
“When the [coronavirus tracking] authorities call, it is essential that the phone is answered and that every method is employed to untangle this mess. The government's instructions are clear - travel to these matches is not recommended, the danger is considerable.”
St. Petersburg, which is seeing record-high COVID numbers, is scheduled to host another European Championship game.
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For a second straight day, the United Kingdom has recorded more than 20,000 new coronavirus infections, numbers not seen since the end of January as the Delta variant spreads. The number of infections, fatalities, and hospitalizations all continue to trend upward over the last seven days in one of the world’s most vaccinated countries.
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The Delta variant has arrived in Indonesia, as it sees record high numbers of new infections and a sharply rising number of corona deaths. Today, it has reported 20,467 new cases and 463 new deaths. Hospitals are filling up and the countries Red Cross is warning of a pandemic catastrophe.
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Moderna says its latest studies show its vaccine protects against a number of variants, including the concerning Beta strain. The studies focused on the vaccine efficacy against a number of variants and it says the vaccine was successful “against all variants tested” including the Beta (first identified inSouth Africa), Kappa (B.1.617.1), the Delta, Eta, A.23.1, and A.VOI.V2 variants.
CEO Stéphane Bancel:
“As we seek to defeat the pandemic, it is imperative that we are proactive as the virus evolves. We remain committed to studying emerging variants, generating data and sharing it as it becomes available. These new data are encouraging and reinforce our belief that the Moderna vaccine should remain protective against newly detected variants. These findings highlight the importance of continuing to vaccinate populations with an effective primary series vaccine.”
The company is working on a new vaccine formula tailored at emerging variants.
This study follows a similar one released a few days ago from Pfizer/BioNTech also claiming its vaccine performs well against the Delta variant.
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Canada reported 660 new infections yesterday while suffering another 11 coronavirus deaths pushing its total to date pandemic death toll to 26,238.
On the Canadian vaccination effort to date, 25,609,849 1st doses (67.27% of the pop) have been administered while 10,588,485 people (27.81%) are now fully vaccinated.
In Ontario today it reported 299 infections and 25 more virus deaths. However provincial authorities note there was some “data clean up” involved with cases and deaths from previous weeks involved.
Quebec reported 71 infections and another four deaths.
In Atlantic Canada, New Brunswick registered three new infections. Nova Scotia has one. Newfoundland and Labrador had none.
Manitoba saw 61 infections yesterday.
There were 17 infections and no new corona deaths in Saskatchewan yesterday.
Alberta registered 128 infections and another two deaths
In B.C. there were 145 infections and five more deaths reported yesterday.