Covid-19 #21 - The Darkness Before the Dawn

[Heartofice]

26 minutes ago, DireWolfSpirit said:

Wow.....just wanted to quote this post in case anyone missed this scary news-

 

Someone correct me if I'm wrong here, but I've read a number of times that anti body immunity to Covid can often drop off quite quickly after infection, a number of weeks after. That would probably explain the above case. That wouldn't mean that the person wasn't immune however, there appears to be T-Cell immunity which is far longer lasting and might explain why some people are mostly immune to the virus.

[rotting sea cow]

14 minutes ago, BigFatCoward said:

The number of people who have contracted twice is still phenomenally small, so unfortunate for her, but hopefully she is just one of the very very unlucky ones. 

The number of confirmed people is extremely small, true, but people working in the front lines suspect there are hundreds more. In fact, I know someone in Spain who claims to have been infected twice. Once in April and again in October. Testing teams told him there are possibly hundreds like him.

[rotting sea cow]

7 hours ago, Clueless Northman said:

That's something I just don't get. If you want to depopulate with covid, it's not working at all, it only hurts countries with already low birth-rates, and still only kills the elderly. You're not going to reduce global population with that, you'd need a 1/3 death ratio if you wanted some serious effect. On the other hand, why would any mad scientist engineer a virus of limited harm to force people to take a deadly vaccine that still wouldn't kill anyone for the next 6-12 months before becoming effective, when you can just engineer a killer virus instead? (not to mention the sheer stupidity of the "killer vaccine" part, it's jus a bad sci-fi trope)

This would be the most convoluted and least efficient way of depopulating the Earth I could ever think of, and if there's one thing I'm not lacking, it's wild imagination.

Well, sometime ago, I woke up in the night with the thought that SARS-CoV-2 was a "doomsday device". It was around the time I learned from a re-infection (see above) and I read some reports that the virus might be carcinogenic. Couple that with other more widespread reports of the virus affecting male fertility and less talked rumours of women with messed up periods. Taking into account that the virus is very difficult to contain and not very (immediately) deadly it made a really scary perspective.

I stopped reading too much stuff I don't understand and I calmed down since then.  

[Chaircat Meow]

I saw the first two words of the title and thought it might be Bakker-themed and rushed here all excited. On closer inspection though, I am disappointed.  

[Clueless Northman]

12 hours ago, Chataya de Fleury said:

As a complete capitalist shill, I can’t think of any worse way for any publicly traded biotech company (or one wanting to go public) to tank its stock (or future IPO) than to put out a “killer vaccine”.

Which is my main argument when people say "That vaccine has been rushed, it's definitely not safe, no way I'm getting vaccinated in the near futurea". Any company that releases a botched version of the most expected pharma product of the last couple of decades has a death wish. Heck, not only that, other big pharma and health offices the world over would be mad at them, because this would only boost the loony anti-vaxxer side and ruin vaccine programs for a very vey long time.

6 hours ago, BigFatCoward said:

They need to do one day in which for every death reported there is a full report and figures released to show exactly what people died of. Too many morons keep saying things such as 'if you die in a car crash but had tested positive 2 weeks earlier its shown as covid'. My gut tells me statistically 99% of covid deaths reported are actually from covid, and idiots need to know this. 

Just look at the big peak in excess mortality graphs. A peak way bigger than official covid deaths, because in every single country, there's a lot of old people who die alone at home without being tested, people who die from strokes due to covid messing up the bloodstream, and other nasty ways of going out. This has been reported so many times that people who still claim covid is less deadly than reported aren't just being contrarian, mostly they're not even just being dumb, they're nasty bloodthirsty pieces of shit.

[BigFatCoward]

18 minutes ago, Clueless Northman said:

 

Just look at the big peak in excess mortality graphs. A peak way bigger than official covid deaths, because in every single country, there's a lot of old people who die alone at home without being tested, people who die from strokes due to covid messing up the bloodstream, and other nasty ways of going out. This has been reported so many times that people who still claim covid is less deadly than reported aren't just being contrarian, mostly they're not even just being dumb, they're nasty bloodthirsty pieces of shit.

I totally agree, but people (cretins) say a lot of excess deaths are due to other medical interventions being neglected due to covid such as cancer treatments etc. 

[Heartofice]

11 minutes ago, BigFatCoward said:

I totally agree, but people (cretins) say a lot of excess deaths are due to other medical interventions being neglected due to covid such as cancer treatments etc. 

I think we just need better data, and more transparency. It is all too easy to draw conclusions because the data we have and the data we are being shown is simply too broad. A lot of Anti Vaxxer motivation is derived from a lack of trust in authority, but that isn't being helped if there is a problem with transparency or the data we are being given. 

[karaddin]

The thing I keep coming back to with the US figures is that so much of this spread and death is the consequence of having a long lame duck period. Just not having someone competent take over is bad enough, but the lame duck session let's a malicious actor actively sabotage the response if they desire.

The chance to exert even a moderate amount of control over the spread was still long but existed at the time of the election, but by the time Biden takes over there's going to be very little left.

The worst figures tend to be on the Friday in the US, given Weds just set new records it's very ominous for the Friday numbers 

[Mudguard]

On the other end of the spectrum, you have Sweden with it's relatively high trust in authority.  The Swedish health authority has taken a very contrarian approach, which I've been following with interest due to how bizarre it was.  They still do not recommend wearing masks in public, unlike essentially the rest of the world, claiming that the evidence that supports mask usage is very weak.  At this point, it's pure idiocy, and practically a Trump level of denialism.  As a result, there are recent pictures of people packed in public transportation where virtually no one is wearing masks.  How can anyone, much less the public health authority in Sweden, still think this is a good idea?  Had Sweden adopted the strategies of its neighbors, they could have probably avoided about 80% to 90% of their COVID-19 related deaths.

Latest reports claim that public support for the Swedish public heath authority is dropping, but it's still above 50%.  Tegnell, the head of the health authority, is still claiming that it's still early to tell whether his approach has failed.  He has consistently been essentially advocating a herd immunity based approach, with the goal of protecting the elderly and letting the disease run rampant through the relatively low risk population.  He's been claiming since the beginning of the summer that herd immunity was imminent and that this would prevent a second wave.  The claims were laughable when they were made and based on trash modelling and widely optimistic extrapolations of sparse testing data.  

This demonstrates how just one person at the top can cause so much damage.  Trump in the US and Tegnell in Sweden are responsible for a large number of deaths in their countries.  In the US, vaccination is going to take quite a bit of time, so we have to ride out this winter with most people unvaccinated.  I'm not sure how many vaccine shots Sweden has acquired, but I assume that they are in a similar situation.  It's going to be very bad for both our countries, and so much of this was preventable.

 

[Heartofice]

I'm not quite sure what the situation with Sweden is, it is pretty interesting. I do think think that a lot of their deaths were explained by some pretty bad mistakes around care homes early on, which is why their model was held up as a good example of not locking down. That made sense for a few months because their death rate was actually incredibly low.

However their death rate has jumped massively since November. I don't know enough about what changed in Sweden to make that happen. I do remember Swedish epidemiologists suggesting that they had simply front loaded their deaths and it would be unlikely to be a huge second wave, but there really has been.

So what changed in November?

[IheartIheartTesla]

What has been surprising to me is just how many heads of state have got COVID (Macron is the latest to succumb). You'd think with so many staff members they could maintain a bubble easily and have their work facilitated to a degree that in-person contact was minimized, but apparently not.

Regarding Sweden, the King himself has come out with a statement that they failed the public, which is pretty unusual for him (like Elizabeth II, he rarely makes 'rogue' statements out of step with the elected government). Also, if herd immunity in the US was their intent, they should have come out and said it rather than have the orange cheeto make his mealy-mouthed pronouncements of things disappearing by Easter/Memorial Day/Thanksgiving etc.

[IheartIheartTesla]

Regarding allergic reactions, the Moderna VP for pharmacovigilence has said they looked at 30000 cases in their phase III trials and found 1 allergic reaction each in placebo group and vaccine group. The one in the vaccine group happened 60 days after the vaccine was administered (doesnt say 1st or 2nd, I assume 1st) and found to be associated with a different medical procedure the person was undertaking. The person had a history of asthma and allergic reaction to shellfish.

I mean, it sounds almost too good to be true and better than the Pfizer vaccine based on the sparse data we have so far.

[Fragile Bird]

29 minutes ago, IheartIheartTesla said:

Regarding allergic reactions, the Moderna VP for pharmacovigilence has said they looked at 30000 cases in their phase III trials and found 1 allergic reaction each in placebo group and vaccine group. The one in the vaccine group happened 60 days after the vaccine was administered (doesnt say 1st or 2nd, I assume 1st) and found to be associated with a different medical procedure the person was undertaking. The person had a history of asthma and allergic reaction to shellfish.

I mean, it sounds almost too good to be true and better than the Pfizer vaccine based on the sparse data we have so far.

But didn’t both of them screen out people with allergies in their Phase 3 trial? I think we need to see the Moderna vaccine administered to the general public first before we can say it will perform better than Pfizer’s vaccine with regard to reactions.

[IheartIheartTesla]

Apparently not in the Moderna trial, since they had that person who was allergic to shellfish.

[Zorral]

1 hour ago, karaddin said:

The thing I keep coming back to with the US figures is that so much of this spread and death is the consequence of having a long lame duck period. Just not having someone competent take over is bad enough, but the lame duck session let's a malicious actor actively sabotage the response if they desire

And most of all that the official WH plan, intention and desire was to infect as many people as possible as fast as possible, because "herd immunity" was the only way to go.  They are still doing it, every day in every way, even all around the world they travel while positive and / or sick, doing rallies, parties, etc. and all without masks. or distance or ventilation.

They hid as much information as possible, sabotaged and blocked data gathering and medical assistance and trace and test, and LIED LIED LIED constantly.  They know and knew from the beginning how deadly this was, and decided to lie about it.

Nearly a quarter million new cases here yesterday.  Today I decided I'm no longer picking up my books from the library.  They can sit there and and I lose my access to them.  They put in new procedures instead of our Grab 'n Carry which worked so well -- no physical interactions with anybody at all, and took all of 60 seconds, if that many.

But now we have our temperature read by a machine when we enter -- and it never works, not for me and not for very many others. The 'guard' comes over right next to us to futz with our stance and the machine, finally admits it won't read us, then shoots our forehead with a temp gun.  This takes quite a few minutes. Then we pick up our materials and physically take them to be physically checked-out.  I can't risk this any longer, and nobody else should be either.  Again, a totally stupid innovation that makes things LESS SAFE, not more.  What's wrong with everybody supposedly IN CHARGE of anything being utterly stupid?

 

 

[Mlle. Zabzie]

3 minutes ago, Chataya de Fleury said:

Well. My office just closed for four weeks because some idiots actually went to work WITH SYMPTOMS. And I think were told to go take a covid test, which came back positive.
 

This is why we can’t have nice things...

Omfg.  OMFG.  OMFJHCG.

At this point all I want is to be able to see my parents.  This summer maybe?

[rotting sea cow]

3 hours ago, Heartofice said:

I'm not quite sure what the situation with Sweden is, it is pretty interesting. I do think think that a lot of their deaths were explained by some pretty bad mistakes around care homes early on, which is why their model was held up as a good example of not locking down. That made sense for a few months because their death rate was actually incredibly low.

However their death rate has jumped massively since November. I don't know enough about what changed in Sweden to make that happen. I do remember Swedish epidemiologists suggesting that they had simply front loaded their deaths and it would be unlikely to be a huge second wave, but there really has been.

So what changed in November?

I think it's pretty much the same. Half of the deaths are in nursing homes, again, like in practically every country. Either, countries have  massively failed to adequately protect them or it's simply too difficult when the virus is running rampant through the community. It might well be both.

 

2 hours ago, Fragile Bird said:

But didn’t both of them screen out people with allergies in their Phase 3 trial? I think we need to see the Moderna vaccine administered to the general public first before we can say it will perform better than Pfizer’s vaccine with regard to reactions.

In my understanding yes. I saw somewhere the list of requirements to participate in the Pfizer trial (or was AZ?) and they excluded people with a number of risk factors. I'm too lazy to google that again.

 

[Clueless Northman]

2 hours ago, Zorral said:

Again, a totally stupid innovation that makes things LESS SAFE, not more.  What's wrong with everybody supposedly IN CHARGE of anything being utterly stupid?

As Chattaya's post shows: because most humans are utterly and irredeemably stupid, and just can't walk and chew bubble gum at the same time. Some might say that natural selection has stopped too long ago and it shows, but I also have the feeling (and my readings of past history tend to confirm it) that this has actually been the sorry state of mankind for centuries and millennia.

 

5 hours ago, BigFatCoward said:

I totally agree, but people (cretins) say a lot of excess deaths are due to other medical interventions being neglected due to covid such as cancer treatments etc. 

Which would also be Covid-induced deaths. At some point either you treat patients with covid or patients with other health issues, but in such a situation, one group eventually dies. That said, this is also if not mostly a human epic failure; better preparations in case of some health disaster (pandemic for instance), better organization and better and bigger hospital infrastructure might help as well - as, for instance, having 2 fully separated and isolated buildings, one for covid, one for "others".

[Mudguard]

3 hours ago, Heartofice said:

I'm not quite sure what the situation with Sweden is, it is pretty interesting. I do think think that a lot of their deaths were explained by some pretty bad mistakes around care homes early on, which is why their model was held up as a good example of not locking down. That made sense for a few months because their death rate was actually incredibly low.

However their death rate has jumped massively since November. I don't know enough about what changed in Sweden to make that happen. I do remember Swedish epidemiologists suggesting that they had simply front loaded their deaths and it would be unlikely to be a huge second wave, but there really has been.

So what changed in November?

Well, in October Sweden told the elderly that they didn't need to quarantine themselves anymore, because the numbers were relatively low, as compared to the peak in the spring.  This is despite seeing a rise in numbers of infection, which was the start of their second wave.  Of course, Tegnell denied at the time that the increase was part of the second wave, because he believed that they had already reached herd immunity.  Idiot.

Quote

Sweden tells elderly to end isolation even as new virus cases rise
By Reuters Staff

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - Swedish senior citizens no longer need to isolate themselves, the government said on Thursday, pointing to lower COVID infection rates than in spring and a growing toll on the mental health of its elderly as behind the new recommendation.

The move to ease the burden on the elderly comes as many countries across Europe are reimposing restrictions to get to grips with surging infections, but the Health Agency has said it does not see evidence of a second wave in Sweden.

Sweden has taken a different approach to most other European countries in fighting the pandemic, relying on voluntary measures to promote social distancing, though it did isolate nursing homes after high levels of deaths among residents.

The number of new cases in the Nordic country has risen steadily in recent weeks though they remain at lower levels relative to the size of the population than in many countries in Europe, where new records are being set daily.

Sweden has seen around 107,000 cases in total and roughly 5,900 deaths. It registered 975 new cases on Wednesday and seven additional deaths, far lower than during the spring peak but still well above the case load during summer.

 

[Zorral]

Sweden's king is very angry, so much so he broke with the usual condition and has commented to the public, rebuking those who have been making the immunity policy and the open up and drop restrictions policies.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/17/king-sweden-failed-covid-strategy-rare-royal-rebuke-lockdown-hospitals-cases