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midtskogen
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Coronavirus (COVID-19) Thread

20 Nov 2021 15:54

Hm.  If it's going to be like that every six months, count me soon out.  The only sick day I've had in years, was the one due to the Moderna vaccine.  I got a flu shot a few weeks ago.  Nothing.  I also found the vaccine roll-out poorly organised here.  Most people at my age got appointments during the summer holiday, and if the appointment was when you were away, you were expected to cancel your holiday to get the shot.  And if the appointment was the day before you were to do something important and really needed to perform, your problem.
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A-L-E-X
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Coronavirus (COVID-19) Thread

21 Nov 2021 01:11

Separating the J&J vaccine from the other two was especially noteworthy in the CDC report.....so booster shots should be gotten 2 months after the J&J shot, while it's 6 months after the second dose of the other two? 
Yeah, that seems to be the case. Then we'll need to see if and how often additional J&J shots are recommended after that. Hopefully not less than 6 months.
Please let us know how it compares to the 2nd shot.

After my first Moderna I felt nothing.  After the second, I was pretty useless for a day and a half.
First shot was pretty mild, second shot basically did the same to me as to you.

This time I had both the booster and the flu shot, which I had been procrastinating making an appointment for so now I just went ahead and did both. Surprise -- it now feels like I have both COVID and flu symptoms. Chills, nausea, full body aches. Normally I have almost no reaction to the flu vaccine, but apparently the combination of the two makes it hit very differently. So just taking it easy for today. :)
I think the best course of action for those of us who worry about taking all these shots and really do not like needles (like me) is to just stay away from being physically around people.  I never understood why that's an issue for people we do live in an age where we can communicate remotely with anyone and everyone.  I've noticed that when I stay away from other people (especially during the winter!) I never get sick-- except for my allergies of course.

Wat- did you have one in each arm or both in the same arm?
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Coronavirus (COVID-19) Thread

21 Nov 2021 01:13

Hm.  If it's going to be like that every six months, count me soon out.  The only sick day I've had in years, was the one due to the Moderna vaccine.  I got a flu shot a few weeks ago.  Nothing.  I also found the vaccine roll-out poorly organised here.  Most people at my age got appointments during the summer holiday, and if the appointment was when you were away, you were expected to cancel your holiday to get the shot.  And if the appointment was the day before you were to do something important and really needed to perform, your problem.
and could you imagine having to take the J&J one every two months?  I wonder if we will have biomedical trackers soon which will remotely scan and detect who hasn't been vaccinated in 6+ months and then we will have the pleasure of being hauled off to a hospital to get our semiyearly injections.
 
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Coronavirus (COVID-19) Thread

21 Nov 2021 04:01

Wat- did you have one in each arm or both in the same arm?
I chose to get them both in the same arm. Not sure what I was thinking.  :D That night my arm felt like it had been hit by a truck. About 36 hours post shots now, and feeling loads better. Just some very mild soreness remaining. 

All of this helps to remind me how miserable it is to be sick, and how much I don't care to get COVID-19 or flu without being protected. I had the Swine Flu back in 2009 and that was awful.
 
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Coronavirus (COVID-19) Thread

21 Nov 2021 10:48

All of this helps to remind me how miserable it is to be sick
I was working at my computer and eventually I could not do anything useful.  So I thought why not watch some TV which I rarely get to do.  I endured half an hour or so before concluding that I should simply go to bed, which I did, feeling cooked and shivering at the same time.  It felt like a flu.  But it was not a big deal, knowing that it would probably pass in a day based on what I'd heard from others, unlike a flu.  But I'm not sure it really is better to be ill in bed for a day for sure rather than having a 10% chance that I get ill in bed for a week instead.  Especially if the 10% figure only gets moderately reduced.  It's kind of a mediocre insurance deal.  It was the same thing with the swine flu, except that then the vaccine made me feel tired like some illness was brewing for two weeks.  Sure better than the swine flu instead, but most likely I would have dodged it.
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Coronavirus (COVID-19) Thread

26 Nov 2021 05:17

On Austria's lockdown for unvaccinated: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9io1MZz_7E

It's well worth watching through.  It's a good reminder of what it takes for many people to accept that different rules should apply for a minority or people of a different mind, and to lose sympathy for them: difficult times.  In case anyone is wondering how such  things could have happened in the past.
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26 Nov 2021 18:42

New variant B.1.1.529 first identified in South Africa has now been officially designated a variant of concern, and named Omicron. With its behavior seen so far and the number and types of mutations on its spike protein, it may be the most concerning variant to develop since Delta.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-59438723
https://www.who.int/news/item/26-11-2021-classification-of-omicron-(b.1.1.529)-sars-cov-2-variant-of-concern

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27 Nov 2021 03:46

And on one flight arriving in Amsterdam from South Africa more than 10% tested positive.  Which variant is unknown.  But to think that it can be contained is unrealistic.

Meanwhile in Norway the number of new cases are the highest ever by far and the concern the least for the whole pandemic.
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The use of domestic covid pass is still just talk (my guess is that it will remain so).  Nobody wants to go back to restrictions, but as an example of what politicians are doing is that here in Oslo they decided that all doors on the underground should open automatically at the stations.  Sure.  A good idea.  But guess why.  Because they think covid spreads by many people touching the same button.  Sigh.  It's good of course because you get an exchange of air.  But no, that is not the reason, and the company wont do it anyway.  The reason: The underground is getting pretty packed again, and they fear that people might be surprised and fall out of the door at the stations (how would they not be surprised if somebody on the outside suddenly pushes the button?)  So it's fine to open automatically when the cars are almost empty (and there's no important reason to exchange the air), but they must be closed when the car is packed (and the need to exchange the air is critical).  There is no mask mandate.

If you get covid, you still have to isolate here.  I think it's for 5 days now since the onset of symptoms if you're feeling ok again.  Boosters will be offered the 65+ age group by the end of the year.  Later probably also the 45+ group.
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27 Nov 2021 14:45

 Nobody wants to go back to restrictions, but as an example of what politicians are doing is that here in Oslo they decided that all doors on the underground should open automatically at the stations.  Sure.  A good idea.  But guess why.  Because they think covid spreads by many people touching the same button.  Sigh.
This just makes my head hurt. How can they not understand how COVID primarily spreads after all this time?

Yes, it's absolutely unrealistic to expect Omicron to be kept out. That's yet another lesson authorities should have learned repeatedly. By the time a new variant is detected and monitored to a degree that it can even be classified as concerning, it is already everywhere. Thank air travel. (I was happy to see a question about whether Omicron was already in the US raised to our CDC director on the news the other night, and she basically said exactly that.)
 
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Coronavirus (COVID-19) Thread

27 Nov 2021 14:58

This just makes my head hurt. How can they not understand how COVID primarily spreads after all this time?
It's how things works in politics.  So they can say "Yes, this is a problem and we're taking this very seriously.  Look, we're doing, uhm, things".  So many pointless actions.  If the actions actually work, the chances that it's for other reasons are high.
Need I mention climate in politics?
Yes, it's absolutely unrealistic to expect Omicron to be kept out.
But we don't really know yet whether this Omicron actually is a bigger threat yet, do we?  New variations are inevitable.  And this is also how a pandemic like this could end.  The virus could eventually mutate into a dead-end.  Some variant which spreads and is pretty harmless or can only mutate into something harmless.
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Coronavirus (COVID-19) Thread

27 Nov 2021 18:24

But we don't really know yet whether this Omicron actually is a bigger threat yet, do we?
More unknowns than knowns so far. What we do know, and the reason it was declared a variant of concern, is that it has some kind of competitive advantage over the other variants, because it is making up a growing proportion of sequences over time. But whether that's because it's more infectious, or sufficiently mutated so that the immune system is less good at recognizing it after prior infection or vaccination, or some combination of both, remains to be seen. The expectation is that there will likely be some drop in vaccine and antibody treatment efficacy, because the spike protein has so many mutations. Pfizer is currently testing its mRNA vaccine against it, and we can expect some answers in the next few weeks. If the drop in efficacy is severe enough, then the mRNA vaccines may be updated accordingly, and that could then be ready after a few months (but global distribution could take longer.)

There are thousands if not millions of variants around the world, but most never show up often enough in sequences to get names (not even a letter and number like B.1.1.529). Most variants that do still lack a sufficiently strong evolutionary advantage to compete with others, and don't get the Greek letter names.
And this is also how a pandemic like this could end.  The virus could eventually mutate into a dead-end.  Some variant which spreads and is pretty harmless or can only mutate into something harmless.
Possible, but not the most likely. Or, about as likely as a variant that is more transmissible or evasive and causes more severe illness. The reason is that there is not a strong selective pressure for a variant to cause either milder or more severe illness. The nature of a virus is that it is good at transmitting before it kills, if it does. SARS-CoV-2 is especially good at that. It is very good at spreading before the host even shows signs of illness, even if the illness does become fatal. It also doesn't feel a strong pressure to become milder for the elderly, because it spreads very easily across all ages.

What there is a strong selective pressure for are variants that spread more easily and are sufficiently different from prior variants that the immune system doesn't recognize them. Delta totally had the transmissibility factor down, and over time what we expect are more variants that are good at causing reinfection and evading older vaccine and antibody treatments. Much like the flu.

It's a misconception that viruses tend to evolve to cause less severe illness. What happens more is that the population is increasingly exposed and recovered, and our immune systems deal with them better. Those viruses are usually still quite dangerous to populations that were never exposed before.
 
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Coronavirus (COVID-19) Thread

27 Nov 2021 19:41

But we don't really know yet whether this Omicron actually is a bigger threat yet, do we?
More unknowns than knowns so far. What we do know, and the reason it was declared a variant of concern, is that it has some kind of competitive advantage over the other variants, because it is making up a growing proportion of sequences over time. But whether that's because it's more infectious, or sufficiently mutated so that the immune system is less good at recognizing it after prior infection or vaccination, or some combination of both, remains to be seen. The expectation is that there will likely be some drop in vaccine and antibody treatment efficacy, because the spike protein has so many mutations. Pfizer is currently testing its mRNA vaccine against it, and we can expect some answers in the next few weeks. If the drop in efficacy is severe enough, then the mRNA vaccines may be updated accordingly, and that could then be ready after a few months (but global distribution could take longer.)

There are thousands if not millions of variants around the world, but most never show up often enough in sequences to get names (not even a letter and number like B.1.1.529). Most variants that do still lack a sufficiently strong evolutionary advantage to compete with others, and don't get the Greek letter names.
And this is also how a pandemic like this could end.  The virus could eventually mutate into a dead-end.  Some variant which spreads and is pretty harmless or can only mutate into something harmless.
Possible, but not the most likely. Or, about as likely as a variant that is more transmissible or evasive and causes more severe illness. The reason is that there is not a strong selective pressure for a variant to cause either milder or more severe illness. The nature of a virus is that it is good at transmitting before it kills, if it does. SARS-CoV-2 is especially good at that. It is very good at spreading before the host even shows signs of illness, even if the illness does become fatal. It also doesn't feel a strong pressure to become milder for the elderly, because it spreads very easily across all ages.

What there is a strong selective pressure for are variants that spread more easily and are sufficiently different from prior variants that the immune system doesn't recognize them. Delta totally had the transmissibility factor down, and over time what we expect are more variants that are good at causing reinfection and evading older vaccine and antibody treatments. Much like the flu.

It's a misconception that viruses tend to evolve to cause less severe illness. What happens more is that the population is increasingly exposed and recovered, and our immune systems deal with them better. Those viruses are usually still quite dangerous to populations that were never exposed before.
Wat, why can't we come up with some kind of biomimicry vaccine that actually mutates along with the virus?  So basically as the virus mutates so would the vaccine to match this?  Is this possible-- it would have so many applications if we could do this rather than having to create a new vaccine after the fact (this would also be great for the flu, for which we need a new vaccine every year.)
 
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Coronavirus (COVID-19) Thread

27 Nov 2021 21:09

Wat, why can't we come up with some kind of biomimicry vaccine that actually mutates along with the virus?  So basically as the virus mutates so would the vaccine to match this? 
Vaccines don't mutate, since they don't reproduce and change their information as they do. If they did, that would invite all sorts of problems and concerns.
 
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Coronavirus (COVID-19) Thread

27 Nov 2021 23:53

Wat, why can't we come up with some kind of biomimicry vaccine that actually mutates along with the virus?  So basically as the virus mutates so would the vaccine to match this? 
Vaccines don't mutate, since they don't reproduce and change their information as they do. If they did, that would invite all sorts of problems and concerns.
I know but why isn't it possible to invent a type of vaccine that can change to respond to mutations of the virus it's supposed to treat.  I read that research was being done to develop a universal flu vaccine, it has to have some capacity to respond to all the different variants to be able to do this.  There's also a universal covid vaccine in the works.
https://www.mountsinai.org/about/newsro ... ve%20found.
Mount Sinai Researchers Advance a Universal Influenza Virus Vaccine. A vaccine that induces immune responses to a wide spectrum of influenza virus strains and subtypes has produced strong and durable results in early-stage clinical trials in humans, Mount Sinai researchers have found.Dec 7, 2020

https://health.mountsinai.org/blog/moun ... -research/

Mount Sinai’s previous NIAID contracts have led to many advances. In response to the 2009 H1N1 flu pandemic, Dr. García-Sastre; Peter Palese, PhD, Chair of the Department of Microbiology; and Dr. Krammer launched their seminal work in developing a universal influenza vaccine. The vaccine— administered only once or twice in an individual’s life, rather than each year—has now undergone two phase 1 clinical trials and is expected to move toward a human challenge trial.

Since COVID-19, like influenza, will probably remain within the human population, Dr. García-Sastre says there may be a need to develop a universal COVID vaccine as well.
 
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Coronavirus (COVID-19) Thread

28 Nov 2021 00:07

I know but why isn't it possible to invent a type of vaccine that can change to respond to mutations of the virus it's supposed to treat.  I read that research was being done to develop a universal flu vaccine, it has to have some capacity to respond to all the different variants to be able to do this.
I think you're misunderstanding what it means for the vaccine to "respond" to different variants. The vaccine does not stay in the body and change according to how viruses change (that would be an extremely bad idea.) Rather, the vaccine is designed to trigger an immune system response that is more broadly sensitive to a particular type of virus. So even as the virus mutates, the immune system doesn't care, because it recognizes something about the virus that does not change. It would be like training a program to recognize the word recognize, even if it's in a different color and italicized.

Such a vaccine may or may not be feasible with SARS-CoV-2. I imagine it is still an area of very active research. Indeed, since the pandemic started there were many different methods used to try to develop a vaccine for it. Some were effective, others not so much. There could still be room for improvements.

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