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

[Rickrock]

As rareboy said, it looks like everyone will get covid at some point now. I guess that we need to protect ourselves as best we can and then get on with our lives and hope for the best.

 

[Kulindahr]

Can someone explain the shield-type front of this mask?

 

[belamyi]

'Deltacron': Cyprus Identifies New COVID Mutation That Combines Omicron And Delta Variants

 

[KaraBulut]

As rareboy said, it looks like everyone will get covid at some point now. I guess that we need to protect ourselves as best we can and then get on with our lives and hope for the best.

To reframe this a bit...

It's inevitable that everyone will be exposed to COVID at some point. What happens after that will vary.

The studies on omicron that we're getting out of the UK say that people who have received 3 doses of the vaccine are 88% less likely to be hospitalized than the unvaccinated. People who have received 2 doses of the vaccine are about 65% less likely to be hospitalized compared to the vaccinated, mostly because antibody levels drop off over time.

Even the hospitalization numbers are misleading because the hospitals are testing 100% of patients for COVID, so if you are in a car accident and you are taken to the hospital where you test positive, that gets reported. Some hospitals are reporting that a much as half of the reported cases of patients who are positive for COVID were not actually there for a COVID-related diagnosis.

There is still a significant danger for children under age 12 who have not been fully vaccinated. There's still a risk for people over age 65 who are vaccinated, largely because they are more likely to have higher-risk conditions like COPD, diabetes, et al. There's still a risk for people with conditions that weaken their immune system- like a history of cancer, a history of organ transplantation or who are on medications that suppress the immune system.

We're still trying to figure out the employment situation. For healthcare workers or for workers who are in constant in-person contact with the public, the risk is not severe illness and death like it was in 2020. The risk is that if we have too many people who are out sick, the operation of the business is at risk, particularly when it comes to hospitals and essential businesses like grocery stores.

We're still trying to figure out what the future looks like but it probably looks like the situation with influenza: we will probably need periodic boosters to keep our immunity up. We may need to take precautions during peak seasons like the holidays. We may need to be more aware that people who are sick need to stay home, regardless of whether they have COVID or influenza or a cold.

 

[rareboy]

^ Just fucking waiting for it to become endemic and self-aware enough to only make the host feel like shit instead of killing us.

But I actually do believe the virologist from Mayo (?) who said that Omicron is soooooooooooooooooo infectious....it is inevitable that every person will get it...and I am enough of a dumb virology no-nothing optimist to hope that it is finally the variant that for the people with some protection will help develop a degree of immunity in humans likewe have with the common cold or other Corona viruses.

What this should underscore though, is how many people we accept dying each year of influenza.

I do worry now about the children, but I also noted in 2020 that when this starts to kill children, then people will get get fucking serious about prevention. Hopefully.

Even Republicans have children and grandchildren that they didn't devour after they were born.

 

[cityboy-stl]

Well, whatta ya know? The fun never stops at Fox.

HARD Evidence Needed!

Tucker Carlson, Fox News Doctor Discuss Viagra as Possible Treatment for COVID [Newsweek]

Fox News host Tucker Carlson and Dr. Marc Siegel, a medical contributor with the popular cable network, discussed the possibility that Viagra could be a viable treatment for COVID-19, citing an anecdotal example and a study out of Chile.

 

[KaraBulut]

^ Just fucking waiting for it to become endemic and self-aware enough to only make the host feel like shit instead of killing us.

There's no waiting. It is endemic. It became endemic to North American in 2020 when Brazil and the US allowed it to become entrenched in their populace. As long as politicians continue to demagogue the issue and refuse to do what it takes to get people vaccinated, the unvaccinated over age 4 will continue to create a risk to the rest of us.

But I actually do believe the virologist from Mayo (?) who said that Omicron is soooooooooooooooooo infectious....it is inevitable that every person will get it...and I am enough of a dumb virology no-nothing optimist to hope that it is finally the variant that for the people with some protection will help develop a degree of immunity in humans likewe have with the common cold or other Corona viruses.

Measles is the benchmark for a highly infectious respiratory disease with an R[sub]0[/sub] of somewhere in the 12-16 range: each person with measles is expected to infect 12 to 16 other people if they are not isolated.

My guess is that omicron in an unvaccinated person is equal to or higher than the R[sub]0[/sub] for measles. I would agree that every unvaccinated person is likely to get it unless they avoid contact with people for the next 2 months. That's probably not a bad thing since it is forcing herd immunity on the unvaccinated which, at the current rate of infection, means that in the next 6 weeks, they will get immunity, at least to omicron and that immunity will last them about 3-4 months before they are at risk of re-infection.

With vaccinated people, it's a different situation. From the anecdotal stories that we're hearing, the unvaccinated and boosted are either largely asymptomatic or aren't testing antigen-positive after very intimate and prolonged exposures. For example, I know a family of four adults who were boosted who were exposed to someone who tested positive over the holidays- 1 of them tested positive and the other 3 tested antigen-negative on two consecutive tests during their quarantine period. If you're boosted, being exposed doesn't always result in a communicable infection.

There's a large number of boosted people who are having cold symptoms and aren't sure whether it's a cold, allergies, a mild case of the flu or COVID-19. If not for the quarantine period, most of the people who are getting exposed or who are testing positive would be like anyone else exposed to the other 200+ common cold viruses that circulate periodically.

What this should underscore though, is how many people we accept dying each year of influenza.

We've been very sloppy with influenza vaccination. Most people don't get their flu shots and we've stuck with archaic technologies to develop flu vaccinations that are 50-60% effective at the best. We're going to see acceleration of vaccine development, with vaccines being developed for a lot of the respiratory viruses that we've allowed to circulate unchecked for years.

Thankfully, with the exception of a few strains of Flu A, most of us have enough inherited or acquired immunity to influenza to make it an unpleasant but not lethal infection. That's where we're headed with SARS-CoV-2.

We'll also see improved COVID-19 vaccines that are targeted more broadly against the coronavirus family. The initial round of vaccines were focused on creating immunity to the "S" spike on the virus, because this is what was triggering the pneumonias that were causing the lethal cases of pneumonia and other high-mortality problems like blood clots. The next generation of vaccines will include the "S" antigen but will be expanded to include other antigens common in coronaviruses.

I do worry now about the children, but I also noted in 2020 that when this starts to kill children, then people will get get fucking serious about prevention. Hopefully.

I was reading an article about "Operation Underground Railroad" - the bogus charity that is collecting thousands of dollars, it claims, to stop "child trafficking" - trafficking that doesn't exist and is just a front for the faux charity's grift.

Anything that endangers children drives people to irrational paranoia. This might be where the the public's patience with the anti-vaxxers ends since we are seeing record numbers of really sick children with COVID-19.

The adult hospitals are under stress at the moment not because a high percentage of COVID-19 patients are getting acute illness; they're under stress because because of the high number of unvaccinated adults who are contracting omicron. The chlidren's hospitals didn't have a large population of COVID-19 patients in 2020 with the original strains; with each new strain, the incidence of acute illness in children is getting higher, as the virus adapts to find new vulnerable populations.

If I were to point to something that keeps me up at night, it would be the large global population that has not received any vaccination or who received substandard Russian or Chinese vaccines (which are 50% effective on a good day). We've also turned a blind eye to the 10 million HIV-infected people in sub-Saharan Africa who are a petri-dish for new variants.

Last week's "reported" case weekly global case count was 16,566,388 -five times the weekly counts from October. We've administered 9,404,571,611 doses of vaccine worldwide to a population of 7.8 billion people, so we're at best, half-way to getting everyone vaccinated.
.

 

[KaraBulut]

Well, whatta ya know? The fun never stops at Fox.
Tucker Carlson, Fox News Doctor Discuss Viagra as Possible Treatment for COVID

Since Tucker won't provide his vaccination status, it will be interesting to see if he claims that he's avoided COVID-19 because he's on ED meds.

 

[belamyi]

 

[pornoboy]

it would be funny if it wasn´t so sad...

​

 

[Kulindahr]

'Deltacron': Cyprus Identifies New COVID Mutation That Combines Omicron And Delta Variants

I've been hoping that very thing wouldn't happen but given how widespread the two strains were it was kind of inevitable.

 

[KaraBulut]

Week ending 8-Jan-2022:

Global COVID-19 Weekly Mortality/Morbidity

• Global Cases reported: 306,458,415 (up from 289,892,027 / 5.7%) - *‬16,566,388 new cases this week
• Global Deaths: 837,264 (up from 825,986) - **44,529 people died this week

US COVID-19 Weekly Mortality/Morbidity

• Cases reported in the US - 59,767,342 (up from 55,020,425 / 8.6%), +4,746,917 new cases, 28.7% of world's new cases were in the US
• Deaths reported in the US - 5,487,422 deaths, 11,278 deaths this week , 25.3% of the world's deaths this week were in the US

US Vaccination Weekly Stats

• Approx number of US doses distributed
  - 639,717,695 (up from 615,358,465 / +24,359,230 ) - 81.0% US doses have been administered
  
  Total US residents vaccinated
• 1st dose: - 246,447,823 (up from 243,527,564 / +2,920,259) - 74.7% of US population
• 2nd dose: - 207,452,448 (up from 205,811,394 / +1,641,054) - 62.9% of US population
• 3rd dose: - 74,617,848 (up from 68,810,709 / +5,807,139) - 22.8% of US population
  
  US residents over age 5 vaccinated
• 1st dose: - 246,405,068 (up from 243,486,660 / +2,918,408) - 78.9% of US population > 5 yo
• 2nd dose: - 207,442,344 (up from 205,801,409 / +1,640,935) - 66.4% of US population > 5 yo
  
  US residents over age 12 vaccinated
• 1st dose: - 238,991,810 (up from 236,721,306 / +2,270,504) - 84.3% of US population > 12 yo
• 2nd dose: - 202,651,117 (up from 201,577,599 / +1,073,518) - 71.5% of US population > 12 yo
  
  US residents over age 65 vaccinated
• 1st dose: - 56,118,100 (up from 55,856,546 / +261,554) - 95.0% of US population >65 yo
• 2nd dose: - 48,108,603 (up from 47,992,505 / +116,098) - 87.8% of US population >65 yo
• 3rd dose: - 28,969,461 (up from 27,920,100 / +1,049,361) - 60.2% of US population >65 yo

Coronavirus weekly cases/deaths in active countries (preference to countries with JUB members):

• US: 59,767,342 (up from 55,020,425 / +4,746,917 / 8.6%) - 837,264 deaths (+11,278) - avg daily: cases (+678,131) / deaths (+1,611)
• France : 11,921,925 (up from 10,355,341 / +1,566,584 / 15.1%) - 126,337 deaths (+1,407) - avg daily: cases (+223,798) / deaths (+201)
• UK : 14,422,371 (up from 13,309,651 / +1,112,720 / 8.4%) - 150,537 deaths (+1,213) - avg daily: cases (+158,960) / deaths (+173)
• Italy : 7,281,297 (up from 6,328,076 / +953,221 / 15.1%) - 138,881 deaths (+1,235) - avg daily: cases (+136,174) / deaths (+176)
• Spain : 7,164,906 (up from 6,294,745 / +870,161 / 13.8%) - 89,934 deaths (+529) - avg daily: cases (+124,309) / deaths (+76)
• India: 35,528,004 (up from 34,889,132 / +638,872 / 1.8%) - 483,790 deaths (+2,020) - avg daily: cases (+91,267) / deaths (+289)
• Argentina: 6,237,525 (up from 5,674,428 / +563,097 / 9.9%) - 117,465 deaths (+284) - avg daily: cases (+80,442) / deaths (+41)
• Australia : 972,987 (up from 462,825 / +510,162 / 110.2%) - 2,366 deaths (+107) - avg daily: cases (+72,880) / deaths (+15)
• Turkey: 9,918,695 (up from 9,521,251 / +397,444 / 4.2%) - 83,529 deaths (+1,023) - avg daily: cases (+56,778) / deaths (+146)
• Germany : 7,518,403 (up from 7,208,790 / +309,613 / 4.3%) - 113,999 deaths (+1,838) - avg daily: cases (+44,230) / deaths (+263)
• Canada : 2,514,156 (up from 2,228,924 / +285,232 / 12.8%) - 30,764 deaths (+363) - avg daily: cases (+40,747) / deaths (+52)
• Netherlands : 3,409,015 (up from 3,217,646 / +191,369 / 5.9%) - 21,552 deaths (+127) - avg daily: cases (+27,338) / deaths (+18)
• Ireland: 978,104 (up from 811,840 / +166,264 / 20.5%) - 5,952 deaths (+40) - avg daily: cases (+23,752) / deaths (+6)
• Switzerland : 1,483,212 (up from 1,332,615 / +150,597 / 11.3%) - 12,349 deaths (+124) - avg daily: cases (+21,514) / deaths (+18)
• Columbia: 5,300,032 (up from 5,169,855 / +130,177 / 2.5%) - 130,288 deaths (+302) - avg daily: cases (+18,597) / deaths (+43)
• Belgium: 2,231,686 (up from 2,105,343 / +126,343 / 6.0%) - 28,459 deaths (+128) - avg daily: cases (+18,049) / deaths (+18)
• Mexico: 4,113,789 (up from 3,988,916 / +124,873 / 3.1%) - 300,303 deaths (+778) - avg daily: cases (+17,839) / deaths (+111)
• Russia: 10,470,006 (up from 10,358,099 / +111,907 / 1.1%) - 309,787 deaths (+5,503) - avg daily: cases (+15,987) / deaths (+786)
• Israel: 1,498,367 (up from 1,394,400 / +103,967 / 7.5%) - 8,265 deaths (+21) - avg daily: cases (+14,852) / deaths (+3)
• Sweden: 1,416,650 (up from 1,314,784 / +101,866 / 7.7%) - 15,377 deaths (+67) - avg daily: cases (+14,552) / deaths (+10)
• South Africa: 3,521,572 (up from 3,472,436 / +49,136 / 1.4%) - 92,371 deaths (+1,143) - avg daily: cases (+7,019) / deaths (+163)
• Lebanon: 769,400 (up from 732,733 / +36,667 / 5.0%) - 9,267 deaths (+113) - avg daily: cases (+5,238) / deaths (+16)
• Brazil: 22,328,252 (up from 22,295,621 / +32,631 / 0.1%) - 619,654 deaths (+287) - avg daily: cases (+4,662) / deaths (+41)
• South Korea : 664,391 (up from 639,083 / +25,308 / 4.0%) - 6,037 deaths (+343) - avg daily: cases (+3,615) / deaths (+49)
• Japan: 1,756,202 (up from 1,733,229 / +22,973 / 1.3%) - 18,398 deaths (+7) - avg daily: cases (+3,282) / deaths (+1)
• Iran : 6,206,405 (up from 6,196,913 / +9,492 / 0.2%) - 131,878 deaths (+198) - avg daily: cases (+1,356) / deaths (+28)
• New Zealand: 14,675 (up from 14,257 / +418 / 2.9%) - 51 deaths (+0) - avg daily: cases (+60) / deaths (+0)

 

[Kulindahr]

We've been very sloppy with influenza vaccination. Most people don't get their flu shots and we've stuck with archaic technologies to develop flu vaccinations that are 50-60% effective at the best. We're going to see acceleration of vaccine development, with vaccines being developed for a lot of the respiratory viruses that we've allowed to circulate unchecked for years.

Avoiding the flu shot baffles me given the efforts made to get people to get theirs! A store with a pharmacy here was offering a free turkey if a person spent $150, or if they spent $100 and got a flu shot, making the effective value of that shot $50. Another was offering 10% off a shopping cart full of groceries if the customer got a flu shot. (Both had earlier offered $10 off any purchase if the customer got a COVID shot.)

Thankfully, with the exception of a few strains of Flu A, most of us have enough inherited or acquired immunity to influenza to make it an unpleasant but not lethal infection. That's where we're headed with SARS-CoV-2.

It's nice to hear some sound explanation of things given how many people I've heard blathering about this being the start of the plagues from Revelations or whatever!

 

[KaraBulut]

Here's some numbers to describe what is happening in the US.

• In the original Wuhan strain and Alpha strain at the end of 2020, about 1.2% of the people who contracted COVID-19 died.
• In July, 2021 when vaccines had rolled out in the summer of 2021, cases dropped by 90% and mortality dropped to 0.6%.
• Delta caused a 571% increase in the weekly number of cases between July and September but mortality only increased to 0.8%.
• Omicron increased weekly cases by 426% between September and January but mortality is at its lowest point (less than 0.5%) and the estimated mortality may be even lower since the case numbers are grossly understated because people are either not sick enough to get tested or are taking home tests.
• Looking at the graphs of cases and deaths, cases are off-the-charts due to Omicron but the number of deaths is not flat and is not rising to match the case numbers.

Comparisons of the U.S. Alpha, Delta and Omicron surge in the U.S.

Wuhan/Alpha Surge: Weekly Case/Deaths in the United States: - overall vaccination rate 2.0%

• 05-Dec-2020: 1,344,599 new cases / 15,159 deaths
• 12-Dec-2020: 1,477,290 new cases / 16,616 deaths
• 19-Dec-2020: 1,573,859 new cases / 18,217 deaths
• 26-Dec-2020: 1,312,248 new cases / 15,748 deaths
• 02-Jan-2021: 1,452,702 new cases / 18,179 deaths
• 09-Jan-2021: 1,732,988 new cases / 22,451 deaths
• Avg number new cases per week: 211,754
• Avg number deaths per week: 17,728 (1.2%)

Pre-Delta Surge: Weekly Case/Deaths in the United States: - overall vaccination rate 50.4%

• 10-Jul: 134,343 new cases / 1,631 deaths
• 17-Jul: 217,394 new cases / 1,742 deaths
• 24-Jul: 360,515 new cases / 1,953 deaths
• 31-Jul: 552,140 new cases / 2,323 deaths
• 07-Aug: 761,225 new cases / 3,562 deaths
• Avg number new cases per week: 289,374
• Avg number deaths per week: 1,602 (0.6%)

Delta Surge: Weekly Case/Deaths in the United States: - overall vaccination rate 54.9%

• 14-Aug: 911,721 new cases / 4,575 deaths
• 21-Aug: 1,014,864 new cases / 6,982 deaths
• 28-Aug: 1,087,492 new cases / 8,965 deaths
• 04-Sep: 1,186,200 new cases / 11,226 deaths
• 11-Sep: 1,012,671 new cases / 11,475 deaths
• 18-Sep: 1,099,712 new cases / 13,542 deaths
• Avg number new cases per week: 703,644
• Avg number deaths per week: 5,818 (0.8%)

Omicron Surge: Weekly Case/Deaths in the United States: - overall vaccination rate 62.9%

• 04-Dec: 860,313 new cases / 11,734 deaths
• 11-Dec: 830,160 new cases / 8,953 deaths
• 18-Dec: 935,812 new cases / 9,167 deaths
• 25-Dec: 1,454,540 new cases / 10,219 deaths
• 01-Jan: 2,737,094 new cases / 9,376 deaths
• 08-Jan: 4,746,917 new cases / 11,278 deaths
• Avg number new cases per week: 1,927,473*
• Avg number deaths per week: 10,121 (0.5%)

*Number doesn't include people who are testing positive at home using rapid tests.

 

[KaraBulut]

And news on vaccines for Omicron. Pfizer is preparing one for testing but it will probably not be of much value vaccinated adults in the US and Europe:

Pfizer CEO predicts omicron vaccine will be ready in March [The Hill]

Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla on Monday said that his company is aiming to have a vaccine that targets the omicron variant as well as other COVID-19 variants ready in March...

Pfizer will produce the doses to be ready in case countries want the shots, but Bourla noted that it was unclear if a vaccine targeting variants was necessary or how exactly it would be used.,,

Last month, Anthony Fauci, the White House chief medical adviser, said that he did not see a need for an omicron-specific vaccine.

 

[Kulindahr]

And news on vaccines for Omicron. Pfizer is preparing one for testing but it will probably not be of much value vaccinated adults in the US and Europe:

Pfizer CEO predicts omicron vaccine will be ready in March [The Hill]

So is it easier to make a vaccine that covers multiple variants using the RNA method?

 

[KaraBulut]

So is it easier to make a vaccine that covers multiple variants using the RNA method?

mRNA vaccines contain messenger genetic code that instructs the body to produce an antigen in order to "train" the immune system.

Once the vaccine developers identify the virus protein(s) they want to attack, they can usually turn around an mRNA vaccine in a few weeks.

What they're working on currently is an mRNA vaccine that would provide multiple instructions to train the immune system to fight viruses from the coronavirus family. Pfizer and Moderna only trigger antibodies to one specific coronavirus protein on the "spike" on the surface of SARS-CoV-2. The "omicron" version would create a single antibody to the omicron version of the spike protein.

By creating a vaccine that triggers antibodies to multiple coronvirus proteins, the virus would find it harder to mutate around the immunity provided by the new version of the vaccine.

 

[Kulindahr]

mRNA vaccines contain messenger genetic code that instructs the body to produce an antigen in order to "train" the immune system.

Once the vaccine developers identify the virus protein(s) they want to attack, they can usually turn around an mRNA vaccine in a few weeks.

What they're working on currently is an mRNA vaccine that would provide multiple instructions to train the immune system to fight viruses from the coronavirus family. Pfizer and Moderna only trigger antibodies to one specific coronavirus protein on the "spike" on the surface of SARS-CoV-2. The "omicron" version would create a single antibody to the omicron version of the spike protein.

By creating a vaccine that triggers antibodies to multiple coronvirus proteins, the virus would find it harder to mutate around the immunity provided by the new version of the vaccine.

MIRV

Multiple Independent RNA Vaccine

 

[KaraBulut]

^ Just fucking waiting for it to become endemic and self-aware enough to only make the host feel like shit instead of killing us.

But I actually do believe the virologist from Mayo (?) who said that Omicron is soooooooooooooooooo infectious....it is inevitable that every person will get it...and I am enough of a dumb virology no-nothing optimist to hope that it is finally the variant that for the people with some protection will help develop a degree of immunity in humans likewe have with the common cold or other Corona viruses.

What this should underscore though, is how many people we accept dying each year of influenza.

Below is a link to an opinion piece on CNN from an infectious disease doctor. He does a really good job of "thinking out loud" about the struggle that society is having between people's selfish motives vs doing things that are for the betterment of society as a whole.

I was relieved when my sons got mild Covid-19. Then I thought about this. [CNN]

I thought the last two paragraphs were very good:

In truth, public health officials can never give the correct advice to everyone every time, so they settle for most of the people most of the time -- an imperfect fit, especially in a time of screaming need like during a pandemic.

This unresolvable tension between the needs of the person and the needs of the public didn't bother Josef Stalin at all; in fact, he exploited it. According to many, he observed that "one death is a tragedy; a million is a statistic," seeking to hide his cruelty under a welter of numbers and percentages. For those interested in humanity, however, this will never do.

 

[belamyi]

People discovering the trite fundamentas of politics and social order through personal experience the hard way