How the virus encourages a sedentary lifestyle – Decline in hospitalizations – Scandal in Peru – Evening statistics
With the impeachment trial over and a more responsible administration in charge of the national response to the virus, political concerns can take on more of a background role. It is now possible to concentrate on other things, since as the effects that the virus has on day-to-day living. For instance: orthopedists and chiropractors are, unsurprisingly, reporting an increase in spinal issues among their patients. As a result of the virus-related restrictions and the struggle to avoid crowds, people are confining themselves indoors more frequently and often sitting for hours on end, leading to weight gain, poor posture, muscular atrophying, and so on. For people in my situation it’s easy enough to get out and walk, but in the poorer, disadvantaged communities that it’s much less safe to go along the neighborhood blocks. I’ve tried to maintain a certain level of activity, but I’ve had lapses: long hours of sitting on end, or days when the weather is so discouraging that I’ve spent most of the day indoors. It’s easy to find excuses not to venture outside and to self-indulge with comfort food when a pandemic is raging.
The number of daily cases is declining and hospitalizations continue to go downward. At this point every state is seeing fewer hospitalizations than before, and in all but five states the decline of hospitalizations is greater than 10% over the past week. In addition, for the first time in many weeks, the daily death toll today was less than 1,000. As the weather grows warmer, people will be going out of doors more frequently, which should lower the rate of infection still further. One mustn’t paint too rosy a picture. The vaccines may prove to be less effective against the recent variants in the virus that have emerged. And there are various shoals, or potential occasions for super-spreader events, that we will have to pass: spring break in March, Easter celebrations in April, and so on. On the whole, however, the prospects seem to have improved. Our health care professionals have been magnificent throughout the pandemic, so it is good to know that they are getting some relief at last.
Peru has been reeling from news of various politicians covertly receiving vaccines before they are allocated to health care workers, which was supposed to be the original plan. Elizabeth Astete, foreign minister, resigned today amid uproar over government officials being secretly vaccinated against coronavirus. The Peruvian health workers, who have faced a resurgence in the pandemic, are supposed to have the highest priority in getting vaccinated. On the previous Thursday, the former president Martín Vizcarra (who was dismissed by Congress on November 9th over a corruption allegation) confirmed a newspaper report that he and his wife had secretly received shots of a vaccine from the Chinese state pharmaceutical company Sinopharm in October. Pilar Mazzetti resigned as health minister on Friday after legislators accused her of concealing information about the vaccine. Peru has been heavily affected by the virus. Nearly 4% of the population has caught the disease. That might sound like a relatively small proportion compared with our own; but its mortality rate is 3.5%, more than twice as high as ours. The health care professionals in particular have taken heavy losses as a result of the pandemic: over 20,000 of them caught the infection, 306 doctors and 125 nurses dying from the disease.
Today’s statistics as of 8:00 PM – # of cases worldwide: 109,665,710; # of deaths worldwide: 2,418,025; # of cases U.S.: 28,317,568; # of deaths; U.S.: 498,200.