Covid 19-31 The Mutants Are Coming

[Jon AS]

8 hours ago, Wylla Manderly said:

There is a vaccination centre in every Landkreis in Baden-Württemberg, but the possibility to get an appointment differs greatly. Initially every Landkreis got the same amount of vaccination doses without taking the population into account - this changed a couple of weeks though. But at the local centre there ist still a backlog. Also the booking system is kind of complicated. So there was the either the possibility to make the appointment earlier at a vaccination centre a bit away or to wait at least a couple of weeks.

Ah, that makes more sense. Though I don't know how they've managed to set up vaccination centres in such a way that there's a huge discrepancy between various locations in how quickly you can get an appointment. I know that, for example, in Cologne today it was possible to book appointments for tomorrow.

If there's one thing this pandemic should cure Germans of it's the belief that we're actually good at organising anything.

[SpaceChampion]

1 hour ago, DireWolfSpirit said:

Regarding vaccine side effets for Moderna and Pfizer-

Anecdotally, within our immediate family cluster of roughly a dozen or so, no-one has had so much as a sore arm, with ages rangeing from mid twenties to mid eighties.

I think this means your immune systems are weak.  Strong immune systems don't ignore the protein spikes and roll over, they fight it!  With fever and soreness!  It's what immune systems crave!!

Seriously though, I've been telling people who are worried of "side effects" they want an immune response.  An immune response like those are normal, and indicate things are working.

I might be feverish right now.  Just got my 1st shot 3 hours ago.  It's Cinco de Pfizer today, hooray!

So far the hint of chills and fever, but immediately I have the metallic taste in my mouth that some people reported.  Is that a side effect or an immune response?  No one knows apparently.

[Maithanet]

 

Biden administration is opening up IP for vaccines.  Moderna stocks plummet. 

[Zorral]

Whew!  But we're opening up NYC all the way, hooray!

https://www.cnn.com/2021/05/05/us/oregon-pendleton-covid-vaccine-hesitancy/index.html

The county with the lowest rate of vaccination in the countr:.

Quote

 

....Fiumara recalled a county health investigator recently asking a resident who had been infected with Covid-19 whether they had been vaccinated.

"And the response was they had not received the vaccination because doing so would have made them a Democrat," he said. "I'm really hoping that was said mostly in jest. But the main investigator really didn't think that it was."

Hospitalizations have nearly doubled in the last week, according to Brown. The portion of hospitalized cases in the 18 to 34 age range has increased by almost 50%. The temporary tightening of restrictions could prevent as many as 450 hospitalizations over the next three weeks, she said.

Still, in places like Umatilla County, residents appear to be bucking vaccinations efforts....

 

 

[S John]

2 hours ago, Maithanet said:

That does not match the anecdotal experience of the ~20 people I've talked to about it.  I would say that average for the first dose is arm soreness, maybe minor fatigue, nothing serious.  Second dose is varies more person to person, with some feeling minor symptoms like the first dose, some more unpleasant symptoms like body soreness, severe headache and fatigue, lasting for 1-4 days after the shot. 

I do think it's interesting that when you have moderate/severe side effects from the vaccine that people fall into two camps.  Some people say "if the vaccine is this bad, thank god I didn't get COVID, it would have been terrible!", where others go the opposite direction, confident that COVID wouldn't have been this bad.  I am firmly in the first camp (my second shot is next week). 

Yes anecdotal, of course, but most people I have talked to who have had Pfizer or Moderna had noticeable side effects from the second shot. Everyone in my immediate family had symptoms. Asking around at work I have only spoken to a couple people who didn’t report feeling much of anything from the second shot. And I’m definitely in your first camp as well.

[Zorral]

Quote

 

United States

The number of known coronavirus cases in the United States continues to grow. As of Wednesday morning, at least 32,539,100 people across every state, plus Washington, D.C., and four U.S. territories, have tested positive for the virus, according to a New York Times database, and at least 578,000 patients with the virus have died.

 

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/world/coronavirus-maps.html?

 

Quote

 

New York City[REMAINS] is at a very high risk of exposure to Covid-19.

Cases have decreased over the past week but are still very high. The numbers of hospitalized Covid patients and deaths in the New York City area have also fallen. The test positivity rate in New York City is relatively low, suggesting that testing capacity is adequate for evaluating Covid-19 spread in the area.

Updated May 5

 

 

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/us/new-york-city-new-york-covid-cases.html

 

[Padraig]

3 hours ago, Maithanet said:

Biden administration is opening up IP for vaccines.  Moderna stocks plummet. 

Wow.  Well done USA.  This is a complicated thing and it will be very interesting to see where they end up at.

4 hours ago, Zorral said:

The same, except even more intense, and EVERYWHERE, with unimaginable to you all ramped up overt violence at every sector of society, not just cops. And we wouldn't be vaccinated. 

Sorry.  I didn't state the very well.  I was talking about vaccination.  Trump had more skin in the game on vaccination.   I wonder how much he could have shifted the dial if he cared.

[Zorral]

2 hours ago, Padraig said:

Trump had more skin in the game on vaccination.   I wonder how much he could have shifted the dial if he cared.

His strategy was to keep the US in such chaos and turmoil that he'd sail into re-election. Keeping people unvaccinated was part of that as much as preventing people from voting and the votes being counted was.

Why don't people abroad get this stuff?  I guess this nation's insanity quotient is too high for anyone outside to comprehend. 

[Arakan]

8 hours ago, Jon AS said:

If there's one thing this pandemic should cure Germans of it's the belief that we're actually good at organising anything.

Sorry I disagree. The problem was and is to overcomplicate things and make everything bulletproof and perfect from the beginning. Typical overengineering. In that Sense, yes a Little Bit more pragmatism would be nice. That said, anecdotal evidence to the contrary notwithstanding, the vaccine operation overall is running smoothly now, key indicators are looking good. In the end, vaccine availability is 90% of everything. 
 

In other news, it seems that the US is now finally supporting the freezing of vaccine licenses. About time. Pfizer and Moderna cannot complain anyway. They already made billions in profits with these vaccines. 

[Jon AS]

35 minutes ago, Arakan said:

The problem was and is to overcomplicate things and make everything bulletproof and perfect from the beginning.

I'd say it's the opposite: there's rarely any evidence of planning more than five minutes ahead, which requires constant course corrections. Communication has also been generally abysmal.

The vaccination campaign is running reasonably well but is constructed very inflexibly, leading to long waiting times in some places, while in others capacities go unused.

[DireWolfSpirit]

11 hours ago, SpaceChampion said:

I think this means your immune systems are weak.  Strong immune systems don't ignore the protein spikes and roll over, they fight it!  With fever and soreness!  It's what immune systems crave!!

Seriously though, I've been telling people who are worried of "side effects" they want an immune response.  An immune response like those are normal, and indicate things are working.

I might be feverish right now.  Just got my 1st shot 3 hours ago.  It's Cinco de Pfizer today, hooray!

So far the hint of chills and fever, but immediately I have the metallic taste in my mouth that some people reported.  Is that a side effect or an immune response?  No one knows apparently.

My 2nd jab is Friday, we shall know more then. But like I said, none of the family members have claimed any side effects so far.

[Arakan]

43 minutes ago, Jon AS said:

I'd say it's the opposite: there's rarely any evidence of planning more than five minutes ahead, which requires constant course corrections. Communication has also been generally abysmal.

The vaccination campaign is running reasonably well but is constructed very inflexibly, leading to long waiting times in some places, while in others capacities go unused.

Those problems exist everywhere. Good/bad is always relative. What you complain about is the lack of centralized approach. And admittedly the ack of digitalization in many public administrations is a problem. True. But it goes both ways. The German fetish with data protection is and always will be a hindrance to efficiency. 

As of now we are at 800,000 vaccinations per day (7 day average) or 1000/100k per day. That’s highspeed. Only counting week days we are well above 1 million per day. The much praised Biden admin, with maximum access to the vaccines, reached  at its best 800/100k. 

[Jon AS]

11 minutes ago, Arakan said:

And admittedly the ack of digitalization in many public administrations is a problem.

A massive, massive problem. One that's emblematic of the "not planning ahead" approach I criticised earlier.

The scale of failure here is unbelievable.

13 minutes ago, Arakan said:

The German fetish with data protection is and always will be a hindrance to efficiency. 

Dear god, no. Data protection is incredibly important and should always be taken into consideration, especially when planning massive IT projects. But since our dear leaders are always looking for short term fixes instead of sitting down and developing a proper strategy (and maybe asking people who are actual experts in the relevant fields) it tends to take a backseat in implemented solutions, which usually gets combined with shoddily constructed software, sold to ignorant politicians with bullshit jargon. Some of the latest examples being Luca and Ubirch (the latter of which now apparently pretends that they never made some of their most mocked claims, despite archived versions of their own website showing just that).

I shudder to think what we'd be saddled with without this "fetish".

29 minutes ago, Arakan said:

As of now we are at 800,000 vaccinations per day (7 day average) or 1000/100k per day.

Yes, but clearly the distribution is still very uneven. It's in some ways similar to how even within individual cities, covid incidence varies wildly, with wealthier quarters being down to near zero while poorer ones have rates that far outstrip the national average.

And yet the "fairness" debate in the country focuses on who gets to go for a midnight stroll or who can get a haircut without getting tested.

[Arakan]

3 hours ago, Jon AS said:

Dear god, no. Data protection is incredibly important and should always be taken into consideration, especially when planning massive IT projects.

Sure. Though then don’t complain why separate government or health care agencies or doctors cannot exchange data via a common system. It’s simply forbidden by data protection. I like data protection but it hinders efficiency. 
 

Same goes for tracking apps. Everyone was fawning about South Korea and their efficient manner in virus containment and surpression. And they did a good job but impossible over here. Here is the thing. The Koreans didn’t give a shit about data protection. Tracking apps were mandatory. Same in Israel (another country everyone is fawning over). They have centralized health information about their citizens. Mandatory apps with mandatory status etc.

Its always easy to criticize and certain things must be criticized but more often than not people just don’t think it true. 

As a volunteer at THW I can assure you that planning and organization on local and regional level was excellent. But as soon as the higher up tiers get involved, which always means a plethora of independent agencies, thinks get complicated. Exchange of crucial information (eg from one state to another) is actively not possible in many cases. That’s data protection for you. (not related but German law enforcement agencies on federal and state level and intelligence agencies cannot by default exchange information). 

 

[Luzifer's right hand]

Well here in Austria they extended the date between mRNA vaccinations to 42 days now despite the fact that not even all high risk and risk patients are fully vaccinated yet. Well you got to vaccinate people asap because the current approach is that people are considered adequately protected 22 days after the first shot(by the local experts not the manufacturer). Nothing can stop the gastronomy, tourism and anti-home office train in Austria I guess. Well I guess all politicians already got their shots and now it is really time for the weak to perish.

Edit: The cards you get after your first shot still recommend 3 weeks and it is really confusing people. 

 

[Jon AS]

3 hours ago, Arakan said:

Sure. Though then don’t complain why separate government or health care agencies or doctors cannot exchange data via a common system. It’s simply forbidden by data protection. I like data protection but it hinders efficiency. 

I think you're falling for a strawman if you think data protection has been major block to more efficiency in combating the pandemic. We don't need tracking apps for that, we need decent management operating with a little foresight, which we mostly didn't have at the higher levels. When I think of glaring inefficiencies in this context, I think of labs not being hooked up to established, functional systems for digitally transferring their test results months into the pandemic.

And yes, there have been amazing feats of organisation at the local level. When I accompanied my mother to the local vaccination site a few weeks ago I found it to be very well run, and you could easily imagine it buzzing with people being moved through the building as if on a conveyor belt. But the thing is, I had to rely on my imagination, because the place was mostly empty. Not because of some lack of capacity: it had been no trouble at all to book an appointment for my mother the day before, plenty of slots available. I don't think that was the fault of anyone at ground level, the seeds for that were sown higher up the chain, which is where the important decisions are when facing a global pandemic.

That's where we've been falling short since day one and the only reason the death toll isn't much higher than it is right now is because we got lucky, not because we were particularly good at organising a response. If you could look at any of the MPKs this past year and think that that was about the level of leadership and management that should be expected given our political system, then I think you're simply more of a pessimist than I am.

[IheartIheartTesla]

9 hours ago, Arakan said:

As of now we are at 800,000 vaccinations per day (7 day average) or 1000/100k per day. That’s highspeed. Only counting week days we are well above 1 million per day. The much praised Biden admin, with maximum access to the vaccines, reached  at its best 800/100k. 

The US was administering 3.3 million vaccinations per day just last month? Recall that Biden reached his goal of 100m doses in 57 days rather than 100 days, which could only be accomplished after a slow rollout if the number per day easily exceeded 1 million, which it did for quite a while in the last few months.

[Which Tyler]

On 5/5/2021 at 3:55 PM, Which Tyler said:

2nd jab just received.
I did well, brief rush of adrenaline as I entered the hospital; but the phobia generally failed to materialise today.
Bus was fine, despite being busier than 12 weeks ago - no pair of seat had more than 1 person in it, everyone was masked and the windows were open for ventilation. The only problem today was the return journey bus being about 20 minutes late (and I was about an hour early, just missing the earlier bus) - Kingsholm is not the nicest neck of the woods to stand around randomly waiting for a bus.

Now we wait and see if I get any adverse effects - I've booked tomorrow off work; and I've cried off from walking rugby tonight, as you just know I'd be receiving lots of aggressive tackles to my left upper arm otherwise.

I must say, my wifi strength seems to have improved, and I saw an ad for those new SurfaceGo tablets - looks good...

Quick update for those interested in the adverse effects.

left arm is sore - but only about a 2" diameter patch and only really when I think about it - and I'm tired, but not achey, and not shattered. It just feels like I've had no sleep last night - back in February, it felt like I hadn't slept in weeks.

I could comfortably work through this if I'd needed to.

[SpaceChampion]

So no one else here had/has the metallic taste in your mouth?  I guess it means the 5G signal is going to be strong in me. 

The current wait for the 2nd dose in Ontario is 112 days last I checked -- August 25th for me.  Which I'm okay with but some of my friends are up in arms about.

 

[Fragile Bird]

3 minutes ago, SpaceChampion said:

So no one else here had/has the metallic taste in your mouth?  I guess it means the 5G signal is going to be strong in me. 

The current wait for the 2nd dose in Ontario is 112 days last I checked -- August 25th for me.  Which I'm okay with but some of my friends are up in arms about.

 

Not to worry, vaccine is flooding in. My prediction is that we'll soon hear Pfizer saying it's going to up deliveries again, because the US is awash in vaccine. My 2nd dose of Pfizer is scheduled for July 26, but I expect I'll get it in June, possibly early June. I am also going to be curious to see if we have fewer side effects reported, I wonder if 21 and 28 days for the second shots is actually too early.

In the meantime, I saw new numbers for Canada with regard to vaccine hesitancy. Now only 12% of the population say they don't want to be vaccinated, and I wouldn't be surprised if that dips below 10%, like in the UK.