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midtskogen
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Coronavirus (COVID-19) Thread

01 Sep 2021 05:41

Looks like everyone is moving onto Booster shots now
Alternatively, everyone could face the fact that the vaccines aren't as efficient against the pandemic as advertised and rather focus on why it is so.
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Coronavirus (COVID-19) Thread

01 Sep 2021 10:37

Looks like everyone is moving onto Booster shots now
Alternatively, everyone could face the fact that the vaccines aren't as efficient against the pandemic as advertised and rather focus on why it is so.
Everyone is frustrated here because they are forced to go back to mask wearing.  Particularly with children.  The new hope is that once children under 12 are able to be vaccinated there will be a sharp downturn in infection rate, that approval is about a month away.
 
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Coronavirus (COVID-19) Thread

08 Sep 2021 14:17

New research seems to show the vaccines aren't effective for long with the new variant.  My contacts in healthcare have been telling me they are even getting fully vaccinated patients into their hospitals and having to intubate them.
(Moved from another thread)

Well, I suppose I get to test whether the vaccine works as advertised.  We will have spent almost two weeks together in a small space.  I keep the cabin well ventilated and we minimise the time we're within an arm's reach of each other so if I were unvaccinated transmission should not have been certain, but certainly quite possible.  Since the vaccines are the official strategy, I'm not in any kind of quarantine despite sharing this small space with someone with covid.  I refrain from social activities in this situation, though.

Few get severely ill here.  And she's telling me that she doesn't feel any illness at all.  She does occasionally cough, though, but hours apart.  It seems that the vast majority children experience it as a mild cold, sometimes with a loss of smell and taste.  The official strategy now is to lift the final restrictions as the adult population is mostly fully vaccinated and reasonably protected against serious disease, whilst covid lingers on mainly in school age population.  Quarantine has been replaced with testing in schools, and the focus has been moved away from new cases to hospitalisations instead, so the number of new cases has now been allowed to reach an all-time high for the pandemic.  This means near normality for a part of the population, but for children and their parents the situation now is possibly more disruptive than ever.
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Coronavirus (COVID-19) Thread

08 Sep 2021 15:16

New research seems to show the vaccines aren't effective for long with the new variant.  My contacts in healthcare have been telling me they are even getting fully vaccinated patients into their hospitals and having to intubate them.
(Moved from another thread)

Well, I suppose I get to test whether the vaccine works as advertised.  We will have spent almost two weeks together in a small space.  I keep the cabin well ventilated and we minimise the time we're within an arm's reach of each other so if I were unvaccinated transmission should not have been certain, but certainly quite possible.  Since the vaccines are the official strategy, I'm not in any kind of quarantine despite sharing this small space with someone with covid.  I refrain from social activities in this situation, though.

Few get severely ill here.  And she's telling me that she doesn't feel any illness at all.  She does occasionally cough, though, but hours apart.  It seems that the vast majority children experience it as a mild cold, sometimes with a loss of smell and taste.  The official strategy now is to lift the final restrictions as the adult population is mostly fully vaccinated and reasonably protected against serious disease, whilst covid lingers on mainly in school age population.  Quarantine has been replaced with testing in schools, and the focus has been moved away from new cases to hospitalisations instead, so the number of new cases has now been allowed to reach an all-time high for the pandemic.  This means near normality for a part of the population, but for children and their parents the situation now is possibly more disruptive than ever.
It might be poorer antecedent health conditions in America that is leading to a worse outcome (higher BMI and rates of diabetes and asthma among others).  What is the vaccination rate there?  It is 75% in the US for the first dose and over 80% in my county (Nassau County, NY.)  Have you heard about the idiots here experimenting with horse dewormer (Ivermectin)?  And even viper venom now? The lack of intelligence and high degree of ignorance among some members of society still amazes me.  Even more alarmingly, I read a report of horse dewormer Ivermectin being given to prisoners in an Arkansas jail without their knowledge.  Brings back memories of what was done in the past to prisoners without their knowledge; perhaps not left behind in the past.
Hope you all are staying safe!  How much time do you have left in that small space?  10 more days?

*That 75% figure for the entire country is deceptive as the antiscience states are still less than 50% vaccinated.  Notably, Idaho is now in triage conditions, they are only offering healthcare to those in life threatening situations.  And states like Texas and Florida are discouraging vaccinations in favor of treatment with antibody transplants (the governor of Florida actually owns shares in the company that makes it and they also contributed millions to his campaign, talk about a conflict of interest there-- he's also likely to make a presidential run next time.)
 
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Coronavirus (COVID-19) Thread

08 Sep 2021 15:33

What is the vaccination rate there?
Currently (entire population) 72.7% for first dose, 61.5% for two.

Number of doses per 100 in different age groups:
85+   182.9
75-84 196.2
65-74 189.2
55-64 164.9
45-54 136.3
40-44 114,5
25-39 96.6
18-24 104.5
16-17 22.1
0-15  0.2

As for self medication, it surprises me that those who find the vaccines too experimental (to which some truth may be admitted) at the same time accepts experimental medication.

We're stuck here until the 15th after 10 days, but we were away from home two days before that as well, which luckily saved her siblings for getting stuck in quarantine.
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Coronavirus (COVID-19) Thread

08 Sep 2021 16:08

What is the vaccination rate there?
Currently (entire population) 72.7% for first dose, 61.5% for two.

Number of doses per 100 in different age groups:
85+   182.9
75-84 196.2
65-74 189.2
55-64 164.9
45-54 136.3
40-44 114,5
25-39 96.6
18-24 104.5
16-17 22.1
0-15  0.2

As for self medication, it surprises me that those who find the vaccines too experimental (to which some truth may be admitted) at the same time accepts experimental medication.

We're stuck here until the 15th after 10 days, but we were away from home two days before that as well, which luckily saved her siblings for getting stuck in quarantine.
There is no logic when it comes to people who make those decisions, except they listen to certain voices and not to others.
Would you recommend a booster shot be taken for anyone who is about to go on a trip?  I found this information about the booster shot, which is interesting (and we now have a Mu variant that is spreading.)
https://www.wbaltv.com/article/covid-19 ... y/37029420

 

 

Although it's not clear what the FDA will do and when, Ray said he's glad Pfizer has a booster option ready to go.

That booster formula is different than the two-dose series already being administered.

"It's different because they've put some of the elements of the delta variant into that vaccine, the sequence of it, so your immune system will recognize the delta variant better than if it works if it only saw the first version of the vaccine," Ray said.

So far, we're only hearing about a Pfizer booster, but what if your initial vaccination series was Moderna or Johnson & Johnson? Ray said it would be no problem to switch it up for a booster.

"And for some of the vaccines that might actually be advantageous because your immune system sometimes develops a more robust response when it sees a different structure," he said. "Sometimes, it's good to mix it up a little bit and see how someone else would teach you because maybe the immune system learns some extra tricks from that other product."

Ray suspects that just like last winter, any rollout of a booster would happen very quickly, once it is authorized by the FDA.
 
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Coronavirus (COVID-19) Thread

09 Sep 2021 01:23

I think there is a growing credibility issue.  First, the message was "flatten the curve, and gradually we'll have herd immunity".  Then "bear with the restrictions a little bit more, the vaccines are soon here and we'll be out of this".  Then "once 2/3 of adults are vaccinated, we're through".  Then "once 90% are vaccinated, we're through".  And now "we'll fix this with a booster dose".  And soon "maybe there will be more boosters".  And there is no admitting being wrong about the strategy at any point.  The easy solution is to blame new variants.
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Coronavirus (COVID-19) Thread

09 Sep 2021 02:32

It is almost like they are trying to hold back panic by saying whatever they think people want to hear.

Meanwhile when it was found that this is airborne it should have been told, instead of being kept private.
 
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Coronavirus (COVID-19) Thread

13 Sep 2021 03:52

In the opening post of this thread I said, with emphasis and a link to an expert, "our response must be viewed as a long war." I highly recommend rewatching that interview now with the benefit of hindsight and see how accurate he was:

[youtube]dcJDpV-igjs[/youtube]

Long, because it is necessary to slow the spread to prevent health care system collapse, because it takes time to develop, test, and distribute vaccines, and because herd immunity is a myth if the virus mutates sufficiently quickly. Which it did not take long to discover that it does. All our measures that act to slow the spread of the virus are also measures that select for more transmissible variants. Yes, that means our year of lockdowns and social distancing increased the odds of faster-spreading variants like alpha and delta growing to dominate. Vaccination generates a selective pressure for immune-evading variants, too. 

A horrifying thought, right? Were we doing all the wrong things?

No. These were all the right things to do, for two reasons. First, because again what we really don't want is a collapsed health care system. Second, a selective pressure for more transmissible or immune-evading variants would exist anyway even if we did nothing. Why? Because the more people who are infected and recovered, the smaller the fraction of people remaining for the virus to jump to, so of course the ones that spread more easily or evade immunity will be the ones that win out.

The benefit of going through all the pain of the lockdowns and social distancing and so forth is that fewer people have had to face the virus with an unprepared immune system, let alone so many people all at the same time. In addition to the vaccines we also now have better remedies than before, and in the US I think there has been a fair emphasis on both. The counter-culture of trying things like Ivermectin and whatnot is of course ridiculous. Treatments with actual benefit include Remdesivir and monoclonal antibodies. But best not to rely only on therapies like that in lieu of vaccination and other basic health measures, because as we've seen the case rates and hospital loads can become extremely high extremely fast.
 
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Coronavirus (COVID-19) Thread

13 Sep 2021 06:03

I highly recommend rewatching that interview
He recommends the elbow bump.  Soon two years into this and the bump doesn't seem to have been questioned.  The virus is airborne, so why recommend a greeting which brings people at half an arm's length rather than a full arm's length as with a handshake?  A knuckle bump would be better.  Same distance as a handshake minus the hand contact.  Of course, transmission through such brief contact is somewhat theoretical.  And we've always washed hands before touching food, haven't we?
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Coronavirus (COVID-19) Thread

13 Sep 2021 08:14

Airborne viruses spread very easily through hand contact, since the virus is in the respiratory droplets and nasal discharge, and many people unconsciously touch their noses very often or cover their sneezes/coughs with them. It's also a very good way to transmit the common cold. Basically, these viruses have hijacked how we use our hands. So elbow bump actually has some logic to it over a handshake. Masks help break that transmission mechanism in multiple ways as well as through the air. But better to not greet with close proximity or contact at all, and the more contagious variants and recognition that larger droplets can move farther through the air only bolster that. A better pandemic lesson is that our social greeting norms needed to change.

What else did you think from the interview? You expressed some frustration that experts had lead you or others to expect various measures to essentially end the pandemic much more quickly. Yet I don't think that's entirely accurate. Indeed, the key message of this video was to expect it to be a lengthy affair, and that it may even remain with us in perpetuity. We also talked a lot about the hammer and the dance idea, the basis of which is that we never eradicate it, and instead learn how to manage and mitigate repeating waves.
 
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Coronavirus (COVID-19) Thread

13 Sep 2021 10:33

What else did you think from the interview? You expressed some frustration that experts had lead you or others to expect various measures to essentially end the pandemic much more quickly.
What I say is that they could have been more honest about things.  One thing that he did get wrong in the interview is the timing of the vaccines.  He predicted that they would be around about now and only in limited numbers.  And that would be normal procedure.  He did not predict their fast track approval.  I think the message should have been more "here's a vaccine, we think it works, we think it's safe, but we have less data than we usually have and we still hope you will take it".  I would certainly still considered it a very low risk, and the fact that there were several vaccines rolled out in parallel, the bar for stopping a vaccine could be set low, such as for the AZ vaccine.

In the interview he's hedging his statements quite a bit, which is prudent considering the many unknowns at the time.  It's also an easy solution.  He basically says that if this blows up, then it's because people didn't take sufficient counter action.  If it magically goes away, it would have proven that people collectively had the power to stop the spread.  In hindsight he was perhaps a bit naive in thinking it was at all practically possible to keep the virus away before vaccines became available.
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Coronavirus (COVID-19) Thread

13 Sep 2021 12:15

In the opening post of this thread I said, with emphasis and a link to an expert, "our response must be viewed as a long war." I highly recommend rewatching that interview now with the benefit of hindsight and see how accurate he was:

[youtube]dcJDpV-igjs[/youtube]

Long, because it is necessary to slow the spread to prevent health care system collapse, because it takes time to develop, test, and distribute vaccines, and because herd immunity is a myth if the virus mutates sufficiently quickly. Which it did not take long to discover that it does. All our measures that act to slow the spread of the virus are also measures that select for more transmissible variants. Yes, that means our year of lockdowns and social distancing increased the odds of faster-spreading variants like alpha and delta growing to dominate. Vaccination generates a selective pressure for immune-evading variants, too. 

A horrifying thought, right? Were we doing all the wrong things?

No. These were all the right things to do, for two reasons. First, because again what we really don't want is a collapsed health care system. Second, a selective pressure for more transmissible or immune-evading variants would exist anyway even if we did nothing. Why? Because the more people who are infected and recovered, the smaller the fraction of people remaining for the virus to jump to, so of course the ones that spread more easily or evade immunity will be the ones that win out.

The benefit of going through all the pain of the lockdowns and social distancing and so forth is that fewer people have had to face the virus with an unprepared immune system, let alone so many people all at the same time. In addition to the vaccines we also now have better remedies than before, and in the US I think there has been a fair emphasis on both. The counter-culture of trying things like Ivermectin and whatnot is of course ridiculous. Treatments with actual benefit include Remdesivir and monoclonal antibodies. But best not to rely only on therapies like that in lieu of vaccination and other basic health measures, because as we've seen the case rates and hospital loads can become extremely high extremely fast.
Wat, with specific emphasis on this part:
Because the more people who are infected and recovered, the smaller the fraction of people remaining for the virus to jump to, so of course the ones that spread more easily or evade immunity will be the ones that win out.

What do you think of all the reinfections?  Is that a major concern?  I've seen reports of people who are vaccinated and afterwards get infected two or more times after that (case in point, the New York Yankees.)  I think all of the cases have been mild though and none required hospitalization, which is the main concern.  But they can still spread it to the unvaccinated adults and children who can't be vaccinated yet and for them it can be serious.
 
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Coronavirus (COVID-19) Thread

13 Sep 2021 12:18

I highly recommend rewatching that interview
He recommends the elbow bump.  Soon two years into this and the bump doesn't seem to have been questioned.  The virus is airborne, so why recommend a greeting which brings people at half an arm's length rather than a full arm's length as with a handshake?  A knuckle bump would be better.  Same distance as a handshake minus the hand contact.  Of course, transmission through such brief contact is somewhat theoretical.  And we've always washed hands before touching food, haven't we?
Not enough people wash hands here, especially not those who handle food (ick!)  As for elbow bumps and the like, why do any form of contact at all?  A smile and waving one's hand while passing by has always been good enough for me!
 
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Coronavirus (COVID-19) Thread

13 Sep 2021 12:20

Airborne viruses spread very easily through hand contact, since the virus is in the respiratory droplets and nasal discharge, and many people unconsciously touch their noses very often or cover their sneezes/coughs with them. It's also a very good way to transmit the common cold. Basically, these viruses have hijacked how we use our hands. So elbow bump actually has some logic to it over a handshake. Masks help break that transmission mechanism in multiple ways as well as through the air. But better to not greet with close proximity or contact at all, and the more contagious variants and recognition that larger droplets can move farther through the air only bolster that. A better pandemic lesson is that our social greeting norms needed to change.

What else did you think from the interview? You expressed some frustration that experts had lead you or others to expect various measures to essentially end the pandemic much more quickly. Yet I don't think that's entirely accurate. Indeed, the key message of this video was to expect it to be a lengthy affair, and that it may even remain with us in perpetuity. We also talked a lot about the hammer and the dance idea, the basis of which is that we never eradicate it, and instead learn how to manage and mitigate repeating waves.
Yes, most scientists (90%) expect this to become endemic with lessening severity with time as our immunity builds up.  Is either getting the virus or getting vaccination what will eventually slow the rate of mutation of the virus, Wat?  I am using the 1918 Pandemic as a model for this and that lasted for 3 years did it not?  We should expect this pandemic to last for a similar length of time.

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