Official Thread: Coronavirus "COVID-19"

[pax]

Infection rates are increasing but hospitalization rates are steady or dropping. The only reason is because of the vaccine. With only about 15% of the pop here eligible for the vaccine but still hesitating Id slap some pretty strong incentives for them to get it.

Mandates work. At work every orderly and LPN got the shot after they made it obligatory. And their hesitancy rates were about the same as the pop as a whole. They shouldve done that last winter but better late than never.

[Nunz]

I wouldn't say it's the only reason, but it's the main driver

[KAC]

Got boosted. Feeling ok since I am not a pussy.

[Lupine]

So I think I posted that I got my Moderna booster back on Wednesday. No negative side effects other than a bit of a sore arm, and a stuffy nose. My wife got hers Friday afternoon, Pfizer. Headache and general soreness Saturday morning, but was feeling fine by afternoon. I personally don't think its a Moderna vs Pfizer thing, its just that everyone reacts a bit differently, as with other vaccinations. Glad it's done.

My mom sent my wife an Ivermectin missive, to which I responded with this:

https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/science-is-flawed-covid-19-ivermectin-and-beyond

sigh

[Greasy]

I stopped wasting my time with those that refuse to get vaxed. Your body, your problem. Seeing as how all the new variants seem to come from poor countries anyway, there's just no point in arguing with them.

[huskylord]

But it is your problem because those who refused to get vaccinated then start filling the ICU, spread them to more vulnerable folk and then start impacting other valuable hospital resources.

[Greasy]

But it is your problem because those who refused to get vaccinated then start filling the ICU, spread them to more vulnerable folk and then start impacting other valuable hospital resources.

What else can you do? Just let them die at home if they don't show up with their cards? It's sad when their last words are doc, can I get the vaccine now, but hey. **** happens.

Maybe start handing out Darwin awards.

[12Bass]

My mom sent my wife an Ivermectin missive, to which I responded with this:

https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/science-is-flawed-covid-19-ivermectin-and-beyond

sigh

Somehow I doubt that article will change anything for anyone who is convinced Ivermectin works, as most people with such a view did not arrive there via scientific analysis, but more likely via propaganda on social media (which never had any goal of objectivity or truth).

[SubCog]

Compare 2 states with very different approaches to covid, New York & Florida.
You can see here that they have roughly similar death rates:



Now let's compare the death curves over time.

New York got hit incredibly hard in the first wave of the pandemic, before vaccines were available. New York got hit hard early. They implemented strict covid measures, and have had near-zero death-rates since.


Florida miraculously avoided heavy deaths early on, but chose not to really do anything meaningful to stop the virus. They've continued to have ongoing deaths. At this rate it looks like they'll surpass New York in their death rate and just keep going.

[Crawdaddy79]

At this rate it looks like they'll surpass New York in their death rate and just keep going.

Nothing wrong with the rest of what you said, except right now New York has a COVID fatality rate of 21 per 100k over the last two weeks compared to Florida's 6.

[Nunz]

Nothing wrong with the rest of what you said, except right now New York has a COVID fatality rate of 21 per 100k over the last two weeks compared to Florida's 6.

New York is the last ****ing place to be used as an example of doing things "right" clown show of a state government.

The decisions they've made have been atrocious from beginning to end.

[Greasy]

New York is the last ****ing place to be used as an example of doing things "right" clown show of a state government.

The decisions they've made have been atrocious from beginning to end.

[SD-[Inc]]

Nothing wrong with the rest of what you said, except right now New York has a COVID fatality rate of 21 per 100k over the last two weeks compared to Florida's 6.

The data SubCog showed is comparisons of responses across the entire pandemic. Not everyone in Florida is dumb enough to ignore CDC guidelines. So they never suffered the catastrophic number NYC did in the beginning. But they data clearly shows people in NYC took it more serious. NYC was the first place that got caught when no one was doing anything. Reaching 800 deaths per 100K is pretty catastrophic. If everyone ignored advice of scientists the entire country would have suffered the catastrophic numbers NYC saw in the very beginning. Closer to 2.8 million dead. Today it seems like we aren’t happy saving nearly 2 million lives by actually acting.

BTW. If throughout the entire pandemic we were able to keep the death rate below 21 per 100k only about 70K people would have died. So NYC is doing great right now and Florida is burning enough evidence to look good too.

[Nunz]

NYC was one of the first states to implement mandates and guidelines.. and people took it extremely serious there. If you didn't have a mask on, even if just walking alone outside, people WOULD say something to you. Your post almost makes it sound like people in NYC did not take COVID seriously at first, but that isn't true, I can tell you that from experience. Maybe I'm misreading what you're saying, I dunno.

Source for the claim that Florida is "burning evidence"?

[Jay20016]

NYC was one of the first states to implement mandates and guidelines.. and people took it extremely serious there. If you didn't have a mask on, even if just walking alone outside, people WOULD say something to you. Your post almost makes it sound like people in NYC did not take COVID seriously at first, but that isn't true, I can tell you that from experience. Maybe I'm misreading what you're saying, I dunno.

Source for the claim that Florida is "burning evidence"?

Link

Talks about the most recent change to how we count things which in tandem with no daily report and no more dashboard, doesn't make it easy to figure out what our numbers are. Which is the point though isn't it? Don't want to share away people from their Florida vacations....

The response by the Florida governor has been abysmal and he has sought to downplay and obstruct any meaningful change to keep people safe. Oh, and he also gave the first round of vaccines to his high dollar donors, worked with a store to be the exclusive provider of them, and then when it became political to get them, actively downplayed their use and effectiveness which is why we're still losing as many people as we are.

If New York isn't an example, neither, should Florida.

[Greasy]

First confirmed case of Omicron in NC is a student at UNCC. Officials have already confirmed it's much more wide spread here though by analyzing waste water.

[Nunz]

Oh trust me, I think Florida is a terrible example. Thank you for the link will check it out

[huskylord]

My brother tested positive despite being boosted a month ago.
Always concerned given his crohnes/immune system issues, but so far doing well. His wife tested positive, but his 3 kids are negative.

[huskylord]

What else can you do? Just let them die at home if they don't show up with their cards? It's sad when their last words are doc, can I get the vaccine now, but hey. **** happens.

Maybe start handing out Darwin awards.

I'm not saying do nothing, just making the point that there is a bigger picture to this all. Doing nothing, ignoring this, just putting hands up in the air and saying whatever is just going to lead to cancer patients not getting their treatment, emergency rooms filled 10:1 with covid issues crowding out the folks with concussions, sick kids, etc......never mind the fact that alot of people will die or have long-term health repercussions because odds are they lean a certain way politically and that's the stance they're taking.

[SD-[Inc]]

NYC was one of the first states to implement mandates and guidelines.. and people took it extremely serious there. If you didn't have a mask on, even if just walking alone outside, people WOULD say something to you. Your post almost makes it sound like people in NYC did not take COVID seriously at first, but that isn't true, I can tell you that from experience. Maybe I'm misreading what you're saying, I dunno.

Source for the claim that Florida is "burning evidence"?

NYC got caught before anyone took it serious. They were first. After the initial wave they took it very serious (as the data shows).

[AllexxisF1]

Talked to my brother today. He's an OBG out in Indiana. He says his hospital's ICU is full of covid patients, and not a single one were vaccinated. His hospital has zero vaccinated ICU patients. If you're not vaccinated yet, go get vaccinated.

This truly is a pandemic of the unvaccinated, and Omicron is going to seek them out and pile them up.

[dodger]

I must live in Pfizer town, only thing they got and this time I was at a hospital walk in clinic after a visit to my PCP. Hospital was a lot stricter about the 15 min wait afterwards. Not looking forward to the rest of the day.

Edit: Wow the arm soreness 3rd time around hit earlier and harder this time around. So far feel fine otherwise. Like to mention the vaccine clinic was pretty busy. There wasn't really a line but people constantly walking to various stations to get the paperwork done and finally the shot. Good sized 15min waiting room while not completely full had plenty of folk in it (I'd say about half a basketball court size)

[ugly]

Paper claiming a lack of evidence COVID-19 lockdowns work is retracted

A paper in Springer Nature’s Scientific Reports claiming there was essentially no evidence that lockdowns prevented COVID-19 deaths has been retracted.

As of late Monday US Eastern time, while the PDF of the paper was marked “RETRACTED ARTICLE,” a link to the retraction notice’s DOI that had appeared on the page — but did not resolve to anything — had disappeared. The notice appeared at approximately 7 a.m. US Eastern on Tuesday.

Here’s the retraction notice, provided to us by Springer Nature Tuesday morning before it went live:

The Editors have retracted this Article.

Following publication of this Article concerns have been raised about the methodological approach developed by the Authors to evaluate the impact of stay-at-home policies on the reduction of COVID-19-related fatalities. In particular, Meyerowitz-Katz et al.1 show that the approach fails to detect any signal when tested on a synthetic dataset where the ground truth is known, and under specific cases of data subsetting. In addition, Meyerowitz-Katz et al.1 failed to replicate the original results using a synthetic dataset. These suggest that the false negative rate of the approach is prohibitively high to allow for meaningful conclusions to be drawn regarding the impact of stay-at-home policies on COVID-19 fatality rates. The results of Meyerowitz-Katz et al.1 are further confirmed by Góes2 who, using a pure correlation analysis, shows that the coefficients for the impact of stay-at-home policies using the methodological approach developed by the Authors can be zero even with diametrically opposing indices of staying-at-home. Given these concerns, the Editors no longer have confidence that the conclusions presented are adequately supported.

R.S. Savaris, G. Pumi, J. Dalzochio and R. Kunst do not agree with this retraction.

Risks of myocarditis, pericarditis, and cardiac arrhythmias associated with COVID-19 vaccination or SARS-CoV-2 infection

As has always been the case, getting COVID is a higher risk than getting the vaccine. So if you aren't afraid of the virus, then you definitely shouldn't be afraid of the vaccine.

Abstract
Although myocarditis and pericarditis were not observed as adverse events in coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccine trials, there have been numerous reports of suspected cases following vaccination in the general population. We undertook a self-controlled case series study of people aged 16 or older vaccinated for COVID-19 in England between 1 December 2020 and 24 August 2021 to investigate hospital admission or death from myocarditis, pericarditis and cardiac arrhythmias in the 1–28 days following adenovirus (ChAdOx1, n = 20,615,911) or messenger RNA-based (BNT162b2, n = 16,993,389; mRNA-1273, n = 1,006,191) vaccines or a severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) positive test (n = 3,028,867). We found increased risks of myocarditis associated with the first dose of ChAdOx1 and BNT162b2 vaccines and the first and second doses of the mRNA-1273 vaccine over the 1–28 days postvaccination period, and after a SARS-CoV-2 positive test. We estimated an extra two (95% confidence interval (CI) 0, 3), one (95% CI 0, 2) and six (95% CI 2, 8) myocarditis events per 1 million people vaccinated with ChAdOx1, BNT162b2 and mRNA-1273, respectively, in the 28 days following a first dose and an extra ten (95% CI 7, 11) myocarditis events per 1 million vaccinated in the 28 days after a second dose of mRNA-1273. This compares with an extra 40 (95% CI 38, 41) myocarditis events per 1 million patients in the 28 days following a SARS-CoV-2 positive test. We also observed increased risks of pericarditis and cardiac arrhythmias following a positive SARS-CoV-2 test. Similar associations were not observed with any of the COVID-19 vaccines, apart from an increased risk of arrhythmia following a second dose of mRNA-1273. Subgroup analyses by age showed the increased risk of myocarditis associated with the two mRNA vaccines was present only in those younger than 40.

[huskylord]

Good podcast from Sam Harris on the state of the pandemic:

https://www.samharris.org/podcasts/making-sense-episodes/270-what-have-we-learned-from-the-pandemic

In this episode, Sam Harris speaks with Nicholas Christakis about the lessons of the COVID pandemic. They discuss our failures to coordinate an effective response, the politics surrounding vaccination, vaccine efficacy, vaccine safety, how to think about scientific controversies, the epidemiology of excess deaths, transmission among the vaccinated, natural immunity, selection pressures and new variants, the failure of institutions, the lab-leak hypothesis, the efficacy of lockdowns, vaccine mandates, boosters, what would happen in a worse pandemic, and other topics.

Nicholas A. Christakis, MD, PhD, MPH, is the Sterling Professor of Social and Natural Science at Yale University, where he directs the Human Nature Lab and is the Co-Director of the Yale Institute for Network Science. He was elected to the National Academy of Medicine in 2006, the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2010, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2017.

He is the author of several books—Connected: The Amazing Power of Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives, Blueprint: The Evolutionary Origins of a Good Society, and most recently Apollo’s Arrow: The Profound and Enduring Impact of Coronavirus on the Way We Live.

[Lupine]

I stopped wasting my time with those that refuse to get vaxed. Your body, your problem. Seeing as how all the new variants seem to come from poor countries anyway, there's just no point in arguing with them.

The problem is that the misinformation is just as virulent as the virus.

My wife and I are very pro covid-19 mitigation, which means masking, distancing, and vaccination. Not surprisingly, our kids hold basically the same views, because that is what they hear all the time. Unfortunately the same holds true for the anti crowd. I see it in our local school, where many of the kids of "freedom" parents are now being disrespectful to teachers in class, and openly defying the rules. Enforcement, which is required at the state level, is decried, with "freedom" parents demanding that the school "stand up against the tyranny" of the state. Loonyville.

Your body your problem falls apart because of the infectious nature of this disease. I liken it a bit to secondhand smoke, where your actions are absolutely impacting those around you. Would sure be easier if their decision to not mask, not distance and/or not vaccinate only impacted themselves. Then fine ... do whatever you want. Your problem. Unfortunately, that's the not the case here.

[SubCog]

Paper claiming a lack of evidence COVID-19 lockdowns work is retracted



Risks of myocarditis, pericarditis, and cardiac arrhythmias associated with COVID-19 vaccination or SARS-CoV-2 infection

As has always been the case, getting COVID is a higher risk than getting the vaccine. So if you aren't afraid of the virus, then you definitely shouldn't be afraid of the vaccine.

Hey guys, here's a paper that shows that people spread just as much virus over the telephone as they do while breathing on each other in the real world!

[pax]

This truly is a pandemic of the unvaccinated, and Omicron is going to seek them out and pile them up on our shoulders.

Fixt

[Ziklitschli]

I had covid twice. Wife is a teacher so hard to dodge heh.

First time, we were for quarantined for 2 weeks, untill friday and had a small party scheduled the day after (planned weeks before though, not during q). We informed the guests but none cared so hey, if you're not scared. I drank a bit, maybe 400ml of booze, was ok but three days later developer a strong back pain. It was after a night of some pvp so I thought it's just accentuated my 12h days on laptop. Did my back problems healing routine of pushups with 30kg kid on the back and stair walking with full backpack. Also considered my primary back pain solution of going to the mountains (esp after 2 weeks break), this was next on my list btw



I'd be so dead heh. Anyway, next day pain got so severe and no position helped so I kind of knew, went to test and was positive. Later had stomach symptomps, never enough air in the room (though normal saturation, so maybe the heavy dyspepsia was doing it, idk), fever etc but most prominent was the obvious attack on the nerves. So, it was generaly mild but very unpleasant, and neurological symptomps felt intense. My theory is that I was infected but non symptomatic at the time of the party, and the booze fired it up.

Second time was 6 months after the first, the story at the time was that it's 8 months to life immunity, and we were playing it safe, so I didn't expect it. I returned from a quick weekend hike (not exactly a small hill either though ) and had a slight throat pain, rather typical, so did my throat healing routine of whiskey heh, not much, a 50ml drink or two, not sure. Immediately felt it worsen, and it progressed the next few hours into very strong, non familiar pain. Next day attacked my sinuses, later stomach, had photophobia, loss of smell etc, and then sth like 3 months of weird symptoms like tachycardia, sudden body temp and blood pressure changes, demotivation etc, that I seem to have completly recovered from.

So TLDR, don't drink too much or over exert yourself in the middle of the covid wave heh, just in case. I think I'd be very mild or non symptomatic if it wasn't for those.

[pax]

I dont think exertion would be related to severity of illness. If anything sounds like you are fit as a fiddle climbing mountains and that would have much more weight as to outcome.

[Ziklitschli]

They say there is few hours+ (depending on intensity) of reduced immunity right after exertion though, which would partly explain the fast onset of symptoms the 2nd time.

First time I exercised vigourously when already infected, which similarly to flu, might be a bad idea and believe worsened it too.

Similar with vodka, I had the impression from my symptoms that covid is really aggressive on weak points, so would straight go for mucous membrane irritated/ damaged by alcohol.

Btw if true, both would be specific to covid in my case, I got caught by upper respiratory infection in the middle of a long, intensive scramble a few times, but it never seemed to worsen after because of it. Booze again, while doesn't always help heh, never significantly worsened my infection.

But yes it's just anecdote/ speculation on my part, took it to heart though and haven't touched alcohol through entire delta wave, and measure temp or test with antigen before mountain trips.

[Ziklitschli]

Btw 2, anecdotal again, I used famotidine with ceterizine for self treatment, it was speculated at the time that blocking both histamine receptors can modulate the immune response and prevent cytokine storm. While I think I saw it both rejected and confirmed in later studies, it seemed to ease my symptoms and never progressed after I starter those. Obviously can't say if that really was it or not, both safe and common meds though, zyrtec otc here actually, so might be a good recommendation to try.

[pax]

Antihistamines can make sense once you stop testing positive as symptoms can outlast the actual infection for some time.

But the cytokine storm was more an issue before the vaccine. We dont hear about it much here anymore.

[Ziklitschli]

Makes sense for the long symptoms, I actually stopped as zyrtec makes me drowsy after a while but not in the way I like heh. Those prolonged symptoms were irritating to say the least and what I dread the most from covid, as I had a long pause from activity and had to visit a good few doctors to check for complications. The meds seemed to help with the early malaise too though, even famotidine alone as that was first that I got. There were no vaccines when I got it 1st time, and 2nd they were giving it to 60+ age group first at the time afair.

[ugly]

Some good news on long covid after vaccination:
Reduced Incidence of Long-COVID Symptoms Related to Administration of COVID-19 Vaccines Both Before COVID-19 Diagnosis and Up to 12 Weeks After

Abstract
Both clinical trials and studies leveraging real-world data have repeatedly confirmed the three COVID-19 vaccines authorized for use by the Food and Drug Administration are safe and effective at preventing infection, hospitalization, and death due to COVID-19 and a recent observational study of self-reported symptoms provides support that vaccination may also reduce the probability of developing long-COVID. As part of a federated research study with the COVID-19 Patient Recovery Alliance, Arcadia.io performed a retrospective analysis of the medical history of 240,648 COVID-19-infected persons to identity factors influencing the development and progression of long-COVID. This analysis revealed that patients who received at least one dose of any of the three COVID vaccines prior to their diagnosis with COVID-19 were 7-10 times less likely to report two or more long-COVID symptoms compared to unvaccinated patients. Furthermore, unvaccinated patients who received their first COVID-19 vaccination within four weeks of SARS-CoV-2 infection were 4-6 times less likely to report multiple long-COVID symptoms, and those who received their first dose 4-8 weeks after diagnosis were 3 times less likely to report multiple long-COVID symptoms compared to those who remained unvaccinated. This relationship supports the hypothesis that COVID-19 vaccination is protective against long-COVID and that effect persists even if vaccination occurs up to 12 weeks after COVID-19 diagnosis. A critical objective of this study was hypothesis generation, and the authors intend to perform further studies to substantiate the findings and encourage other researchers to as well.

[koralis]

Get your damned booster shot, people...

https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/12/current-vaccines-are-enough-to-fight-omicron-but-massive-wave-is-coming-fast/

In a White House press briefing Wednesday, top infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci reviewed the early laboratory and real-world data on vaccine effectiveness. Numerous laboratory studies have all shown that levels of neutralizing antibodies from two doses of a vaccine are significantly lower against omicron—potentially so low that they do not protect against the variant. But studies looking at neutralizing antibodies after a third dose consistently find a substantial increase in protection. One study found a 38-fold rise in the level of neutralizing antibodies against omicron after a third dose of an mRNA vaccine.

Fauci also presented fresh, unpublished data from the National Institutes of Health, which found that a third dose of a Moderna vaccine restored neutralizing antibodies "well within the range of neutralizing omicron," Fauci said.

The laboratory findings are bearing out in real-world clinical data, Fauci noted. Researchers in South Africa reported this week that protection against infection from two doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine fell from 70 percent to 33 percent amid the omicron wave. But data from the United Kingdom found that getting a Pfizer-BioNTech booster dose restored protection, increasing vaccine effectiveness to 75 percent against symptomatic infection.

[pax]

Chances of needing hospitalization are high and worse with the nonvaccinated crowd... Getting boosters to everyone needs to happen in the next few weeks. but not sure thats possible.

Again the main problem is the flooding of hospitals by acutely ill people...

[12Bass]

BC is still holding to their October plan... minimum six month wait from second dose. Hoping that they will be proactive and reduce that to try to slow the Omicron tsunami coming in the next couple of weeks.

[CurrentlyPissed]

I definitely have Phantosmia after Covid. I'm constantly smelling cigaret smoke without anyone around me who has smoked. That or a burnt chemical smell, I work at a dealership so I'm constantly walking into the shop trying to find out what the smell is, then I just figured it out. Looked it up, it's about a 6% chance after covid. Great, thankfully it doesn't appear to be permanent.

It's incredibly annoying though, it's that same burnt smell that kinda burns your nostrils on inhale just like you walked into a bar of heavy smokers.

[acroig]

Yuch!

[AllexxisF1]

The transmissibility metrics from the UK are bananas. Omicron is gonna be everywhere and soon.

You have to be a blithering idiot not to get vaccinated.