Omicron Variant – “the Good, the Bad and the ‘Intriguing'” – Warning

(Art design: Jean-Dominique Lavoix-Carli Photo: Gerd Altmann) This brief article is an updated warning about the threat created by the Omicron variant. It is assessed with 15, 22 and 23 December 2021 information. It concerns a series of indications related to the risks of hospitalisation, to vaccination and to incubation period for the Omicron variant. …

Omicron Variant – “Major, Imminent Threat” Warning

(Art design: Jean-Dominique Lavoix-Carli Photo: Gerd Altmann) This brief article is a warning assessed over 15 to 18 December 2021 about the very serious, indeed “major, imminent threat” created by the Omicron variant (Neil Ferguson in Emily Head, Dr Sabine L. van Elsland, “Omicron largely evades immunity from past infection or two vaccine doses“, ICL …

Long COVID and the Fifth Wave – The Hidden Pandemic

(Art design: Jean-Dominique Lavoix-Carli) More than 110 million people have experienced or still suffer from Long COVID since the start of the pandemic (Chen Chen et al., full references and detail of calculation below). This is the number that follows from the findings of a study systematically reviewing the research done on Long COVID until …

The Fifth Wave of the COVID-19 Pandemic and Lethality

(Art design: Jean-Dominique Lavoix-Carli) As the global fifth wave of the COVID-19 pandemic has now started, should we be worried about it? How lethal will it be? This article and the next will focus on direct health-related impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic fifth wave. Indeed, these effects are those that determine all others. Here, we …

Losing Texas to Climate Change and the COVID-19?

(Art design: Jean-Dominique Lavoix-Carli) From Texas with Cold In February 2021, a “polar vortex ” swept through the U.S. and triggered a “perfect (winter) storm” that ravaged Texas (Johny Diaz, Guilia Mc Donnell, Nieto del Rio, Richar Faussett, “ Texas extreme cold snap has killed residents in their homes, cars and backyards”, SBS News, 20 …

China, the “Health Silk Road” of Vaccines, and Security

Beyond the proliferation of the Chinese vaccine Enters Sinopharm On 14 January, Hungary’s government signed an agreement with the giant company Sinopharm in order to purchase millions of doses of the Chinese CoronaVac (CCV) (“In EU first, Sinopharm Coronavirus vaccine approved by Hungary”, Nikkei Asia, 31 January, 2021). One week before, it had made a …

COVID-19 Vaccinations, Hope or Mirage?

(Art design: Jean-Dominique Lavoix-Carli Photo: torstensimon) The world has started a race for immunisation against the COVID-19. Vaccines are now perceived as the universal panacea, the miracle that will save us all from the pandemic. We shall, finally, be able to find back our old life. Are we right to hope? Or are we likely to …

How China Could Win the War against the Covid-19 Pandemic

(Art design: Jean-Dominique Lavoix-Carli) As 2021 starts, Europe struggles again against a COVID-19 new wave and the spread of new SARS-CoV-2 variants. Japan strengthens its state of emergency against the COVID-19. The U.S. reports 4.462 deaths on 12 January 2021, i.e. almost precisely 1,5 time 9/11. Meanwhile, China also fights a rise in new symptomatic …

Is the COVID-19 Second Wave coming to China?

The second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic is sweeping through the world. It reached first the U.S., Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. By mid-November 2020 it started being visible in Eastern Asia (e.g. Reuters Covid-19 Global Tracker: World and Asia and the Middle East). By the end of November 2020, South Korea and …

France and 3 Scenarios for the COVID-19 Second Wave

Design: Jean-Dominique Lavoix-Carli Eleven months into the COVID-19 pandemic the second wave spreads. More than 50 million people were contaminated globally by 9 November 2020 (COVID-19 Dashboard by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University). More than 1.25 million people had died by then (ibid.). On 10 November, Europe crossed …

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