On Topic Discussion 2019 Coronavirus (COVID-19/SARS-CoV-2)

[KaraBulut]

While the western world is complaining about their "freedoms" because they were asked to wear a mask or get a vaccine or avoid crowded conditions, in China there has been an actual lockdown as part of their "zero COVID strategy".

This is what a real lockdown looks like:

The Chinese approach includes:

• Restricting all residents in cities to their homes. Where necessary, they lock the residents into their apartments or install fencing to keep them in their homes.
• Food is brought to their homes since they are not allowed out to buy groceries or pick up food at restaurants.
• Anyone who tests positive is removed from their home by the government and taken to a quarantine facility for 2-4 weeks. If necessary, entire families are moved to the quarantine facility. Originally, children were separate from their families and kept in separate areas but after a large outcry, the authorities are allowing families to stay together.
• Because the government is running out of available space at the quarantine facilities, they are "temporarily resettling" people from large apartment buildings so that they can convert their homes into quarantine facilities.
• Anyone who complains on the web about the conditions is picked up by the government. It's not clear where they are taken. Videos that Chinese citizens have been posting on the web are being removed by Chinese censors.

 

[KaraBulut]

The CDC put out an update yesterday that indicates that due to omicron, about 60% of Americans, including 75% of children have been infected with coronavirus. We knew from blood bank surveillance that antibodies to the ultra-contagious delta and omicron variants were showing up in a large percentage of donated blood but this report puts real numbers to the scope of what happened in 2021.

The good news is that because about 65% of the population is fully vaccinated, the omicron cases were mild, often asymptomatic. The bad news is that we still have millions of Americans who are neither vaccinated nor have had COVID, so it remains a potential risk for those people.

The Coronavirus Has Infected More Than Half of Americans, the C.D.C. Reports [NY Times]

Sixty percent of Americans, including 75 percent of children, had been infected with the coronavirus by February, federal health officials reported on Tuesday — another remarkable milestone in a pandemic that continues to confound expectations.

The highly contagious Omicron variant was responsible for much of the toll. In December 2021, as the variant began spreading, only half as many people had antibodies indicating prior infection, according to new research from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

While the numbers came as a shock to many Americans, some scientists said they had expected the figures to be even higher, given the contagious variants that have marched through the nation over the past two years...

By February, three of four children and adolescents in the country had already been infected with the virus, compared with one-third of older adults, according to the new study.

But prior infection does not guarantee protection from the virus, officials said, and Americans should still get vaccinated and boosted.

 

[Kulindahr]

Question: is getting tested still free?

 

[Kyanimal]

Question: is getting tested still free?

https://www.covid.gov/tests/

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/symptoms-testing/testing.html

 

[KaraBulut]

Question: is getting tested still free?

Only if your insurance pays for it. Otherwise, you have to pay.

There's a $10 billion bill pending in Congress. It is being held up by the fight over immigration at the southern border.

In other words, Congress is holding up funding to test and treat Americans for COVID-19 because they want to use COVID-19 to prevent migrants from entering the US. This is the definition of "cutting off your nose to spite your face".

Congress returns to big fights over Ukraine aid, Title 42, COVID-19 relief [USA Today]

But COVID-19 relief talks stalled before spring break because Republicans tried to add amendments related to Biden's decision to reverse Title 42, the Trump-era pandemic order that stopped migrants seeking asylum from crossing the U.S.-Mexico border.

Senators stalled a $10 billion COVID-19 aid package before the recess, despite calls from the White House to approve the relief as money runs out for vaccines.

 

[ruggerladirish]

In the press conference where the immunocompromised 3rd prime shot was announced, they listed some of the more common conditions that qualify (e.g. diabetes, history of cancer, history of heart or lung or kidney disease, pregnancy, et al).

In my thought bubble was, "Oh, so pretty much everyone can get the 3rd shot if they want it, eh?". The official stance was that it's at the discretion of the healthcare provider to decide whether a particular patient qualifies as having "certain medical conditions" that would make them eligible for an additional prime dose or additional booster.

Here's the list of "certain medical conditions" that qualify people for a booster:
People with Certain Medical Conditions

Included in the "certain medical conditions" is "moderately or severely immunocompromised":
Who Is Moderately or Severely Immunocompromised?

Thanks. Very informed/informative.

R

 

[belamyi]

 

[KaraBulut]

Last week, the White House Correspondent's Dinner was held in Washington DC. Over 2,000 people attended.

Cue the postive COVID tests...

Fortunately, attendees at the dinner had to provide proof of vaccination, including a booster. Of note, Biden called out Fox News who had a table of their top hosts at the dinner as being fully vaccinated and boosted.


Journalists from multiple news outlets test positive after White House Correspondents Dinner weekend [CNN]

Trevor Noah joked about the event becoming a superspreader — and now the cases are rolling in. The annual White House Correspondents Dinner, along with the festivities held in the days before and after it, have led to the inevitable spread of Covid.

In the days since WHCD weekend, reporters and staffers from CNN, ABC News, NBC News, CBS News, Politico, and other participating news organizations have tested positive for the virus. Most notably, ABC’s Jon Karl, who shook hands with President Biden and who sat next to Kim Kardashian, has fallen ill, as Politico’s Maxwell Tani first reported.

There is no exact data to indicate precisely how many people have caught the virus from the weekend. But, anecdotally speaking, much of Tuesday afternoon seemed to consist of attendees trading text messages and emails about colleagues and friends and people they had seen who had tested positive. That’s almost certainly going to continue in the days ahead…

Virus Cases Grow After White House Correspondents Dinner [NY Times]

Jonathan Karl tests positive for Covid after sitting next to Kim Kardashian [Politico]

Antony Blinken Tests Positive For Covid After Attending White House Correspondents Dinner [Forbes]

 

[KaraBulut]

In the return to normal...

From a Garth Brooks concert this week in Baton Rouge.

 

[belamyi]

14.9 million excess deaths associated with the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021

 

[Kulindahr]

In the return to normal...

From a Garth Brooks concert this week in Baton Rouge.

I've never understood wanting to go to a concert in an outdoor sports stadium.

Now, even less.

 

[belamyi]

^ But you would pay to attend an indoor Garth Brooks... event?

It's a show, not a "concert". People do not care if you sing like Shania Twain or like... who does actually have a voice?

 

[KaraBulut]

14.9 million excess deaths associated with the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021

The US is about to hit 1,000,000 dead (according to Johns Hopkins' stats). Eventually, we're going to discover that we probably hit 1,000,000 in late 2021 (or earlier).

I'm not sure India will ever figure out how many people died of COVID-19. Because they cremate immediately after death, and the local officials and crematoriums lost control of the situation during the Delta surge, most of the deaths were not properly documented.

Russia, of course, has been lying about their deaths.

I've never understood wanting to go to a concert in an outdoor sports stadium.

Now, even less.

Garth Brooks puts on a good show but that stadium is huge. It's doubtful that anyone could hear him. And given the crowd density, it was a super-super-spreader event.

I mean- the whole point of the vaccine campaigns were to get us back to normal, but why was putting this many people into a crowded venue ever "normal"?

 

[belamyi]

^ That's a rather inconsiderate comment towards the sound people working in that sort of event. It's a pop concert, for Lord Fuck's sake, not the Met... and, again, people do not attent that sort of "concert" for the music... heck, they do not do it at the opera anymore either.
And let the people have a little fun before the long XXth century of mass entertainment is definitely over.

 

[KaraBulut]

^ That's a rather inconsiderate comment towards the sound people working in that sort of event...

You've not been to a concert lately, have you?

It's nearly impossible to hear the performer because of all of the people screaming, talking and singing along (all of which spread respiratory viruses, by the way).

If nearly impossible to see the performer because everyone is standing up and recording the show with their phone. They're not watching the performance; they're watching it on their phone.

I've seen that stadium up close. It holds over 100,000 people! It was designed for football games, not live performances. It's also a respiratory virus' dream.

 

[belamyi]

You've not been to a concert lately, have you?

It's nearly impossible to hear the performer because of all of the people screaming, talking and singing along (all of which spread respiratory viruses, by the way).

If nearly impossible to see the performer because everyone is standing up and recording the show with their phone. They're not watching the performance; they're watching it on their phone.

I've seen that stadium up close. It holds over 100,000 people! It was designed for football games, not live performances. It's also a respiratory virus' dream.

You haven't read the rest of my comment, have you.
I said, MORE THAN ONCE, that it is all about the SHOW, the entertainment, not about whatever music might be thrown in.

Notice the complaining idiots in the background who went there 'for the music':

You go there for her voice?

And I do not mean to volume, not even the [lack of] quality, but the mere, plain, existence.

FFS, remember Marlene Dietrich's shows?!

 

[belamyi]

It is precisely all the sound... magic... displayed in the shows that help Shania pass for a legit "singer": the first time I listened to her sing "off the record" was in some a cappella moment in some piece of advertising for her first shows in Vegas. Shock and horror.

Even Harry is more of a singer there:

So you are asking people to think (about their health, about the music) in the moments in which they "let themselves go" because they are tired of thinking about bills, family or job problems or whatever... Good luck with that.

 

[KaraBulut]

There is some new research coming out about long COVID-19 in both the unvaccinated and vaccinated population.

"Long-haul" or "long-COVID" has an official name: PASC or "post-acute sequelae of Covid-19".

• Between 30-40% of people who had a COVID-19 infection developed one or more symptoms of PASC.
• Most of the studies to date were looking at infections in people who were not fully vaccinated. The limited research on vaccinated people so far indicates that being vaccinated reduces the chance of getting PASC by about 50-80% (in other words, if you get COVID-19 after being vaccinated your risk of PASC drops to 5-20%).
• The other preliminary finding in vaccinated people with PASC is that their PASC symptoms are milder and decline in severity much quicker when compared to people who were not vaccinated
• The assumption has been that children don't get severe cases of COVID-19. However, as adults are increasingly vaccinated, the virus has mutated and up to 75% of children may have been exposed to COVID-19 in school, we are seeing children with PASC.

.

Research has found several risk factors that might determine which COVID-19 patients may develop PASC:

1. High viral load - if the patient has a high level of COVID-19 RNA in their system, they are at higher risk of developing PASC. Since the vaccines block viral replication, the vaccines would be expected to keep viral load low.
2. Auto-immune triggers - patients who have existing auto-immune disease or who test positive for genetic markers for auto-immune diseases seem to be at higher risk for PASC.
3. Prior Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) infection - EBV is the virus that causes mononucleosis. After infection, the virus doesn't completely go away in some patients. For some reason, COVID-19 seems to reactivate latent EBV infections in some patients.
4. Certain chronic medical conditions - We already had research that showed that patients with certain medical conditions were at higher risk for severe complications of COVID-19 (including higher risk of dying). The research is saying that those same chronic conditions can put patients at risk for PASC, even if they have mild COVID infections.

 

[belamyi]

OH, BTW, this was going on in BCN a couple of weeks agos

The ICU are at their lowest in covid treatment, but there has been a noticeable increase in cases for the past two or three weeks. The government of Catalonia stopped searching for and registering cases almost two months ago, so now only the more vulnerable, elderly or people with certain conditions, are being reported as new cases. The Rt was almost at 2 a few days ago.

 

[KaraBulut]

OH, BTW, this was going on in BCN a couple of weeks agos...

Fortunately, Spain is 85% fully vaccinated and 52% boosted.

Louisiana (where that stadium is located) is 53% fully vaccinated.

Thinning the herd.