Covid-19 #34 - Alpha, Delta, It’s All Greek to Me!

[Maithanet]

2 minutes ago, Padraig said:

I wonder will Novavax help in the US?  It has used a very proven technique.  But Novavax certainly isn't a brand name.  And it wouldn't be approved for a couple more months.  But if it is more acceptable, better late than never!

I doubt it will make much difference.  Nobody knows or trusts Novavax. 

[Altherion]

1 hour ago, Maithanet said:

I doubt it will make much difference.  Nobody knows or trusts Novavax. 

I wouldn't say that. I was recently trying to convince a neighbor of mine to get vaccinated and he said that his pharmacist told him to wait until Novavax is available because it's less experimental than the others. I had not heard of this idea before, but it appears to be out there among some parts of the population.

[Fragile Bird]

Maryland has reported than every person who died of Covid-19 in June was unvaccinated. In addition to the 100 deaths in the state during the month, 95% of the 2,385 new cases and 93% of the 6,707 new coronavirus hospitalizations during the month were also unvaccinated people.

[Mlle. Zabzie]

So, my extended family is together for the first time in 2 years (we are generally very close).  My cousin (who is more like my sister in terms of closeness to me) is married to a guy who ... has taken a sharp right turn over the past few years.  He has a child from a previous marriage who is also here.  The child is an adolescent and vaccine eligible, but he and their mother have decided to “let them decide” and they have decided to be a vaccine denier (he is vaccinated).  Anyhow, adolescent struggles with having a step mother and young half siblings.  Apparently their new way of acting out is to pretend they are sick when they don’t get their way.  So, the other day they announced they have a sore throat and a fever.  I ask their dad what is going on, and he says “oh it is just a summer cold”.  I confirm the symptoms, and then ask if he’s getting them tested.  He said “no” and got very belligerent, so I left with our (unvaccinated because too young) kids (we are staying in the house next door).  He then tried to make me out as the “bad guy” and “crazy.”  I come to find out that his child made up all the symptoms and he suspected it but didn’t want to admit that his child was making stuff up. Rest of the family told him to shove it, and then he got all crazy about how his child is being made to feel like a “leper” and “unwelcome” and that he was going to leave.  He tried to get my aunt (his MIL) to apologize to him (because of something I did).  Did not fly.  I don’t like him anyway (and the feeling is mutual) so maybe I will never have to see him again ?  (But I do love my cousin).

[Fragile Bird]

Well that sucks.

[Luzifer's right hand]

In the last few days I read a few "the numbers are rising in some places but here are a number of reasons why that is not a problem! " articles that remind me of articles I read last August/September.

But on the good side I got my 2nd shot yesterday and the friend I convinced to get a vaccine is getting his first shot today.

[rotting sea cow]

I'm a bit out of the loop. I got pfizered for first time two weeks ago and I've been kind of down since. I just want to sleep. Otherwise I hardly had any side effect except for a headache the same night and some arm pain.

This is what I think re Delta variant.

The news are bad, to the point that B. Johnson speech sounds like conceding defeat. I'm quite certain the advisers knew about the Israel breakthrough study. Seven hells! 30 points in efficacy reduction for the Pfizer vaccine. How many for the others?

Something as contagious and with such immune escape cannot be contained unless we go full Wuhan lockdown and who wants that now? Nobody! It has certainly thrown the whole EU "safety concept" to the trash bin. You can put only vaccinated and tested people in a room and you are going to have an outbreak.

Vaccines will do their work (hopefully!) and keep the people out of the hospitals. And the rest of the world? They are fucked.

Delta means the end of the pandemic. It will run like wildfire until 90% of the world population get infected. There is no way we can vaccinate faster. A few more waves and this will end. The best we can expect is no new variants appear that escape immunity from Delta. And pray to the Seven or R'hllor that no ADE or something similar will appear.

For me, it shows how rotten are our geo-political, social and economics systems. A few days ago, for example, was reading that you could do as good with a quarter of the Moderna dose as with the full one, meaning that you could have vaccinated four times as many people. Plainly more scientific, political and economic cooperation would have led us to a better outcome and faster.

 

[Luzifer's right hand]

The Olympics are going to happen without spectators. Still not a good idea pandemic wise but at least something.

At least they are a bit smarter about it than we Europeans about football. 

[Which Tyler]

1 hour ago, Luzifer's right hand said:

At least they are a bit smarter about it than we Europeans about football. 

Low bar

[Fragile Bird]

I am shocked to hear the UK is back at 30,000 new cases a day. You have so many people vaccinated! We are seeing about 600 new cases a day, so with 38 M people v. 68 M, you guys should be at less than 1,200 a day. Holy crap, guys, I wouldn’t be going to the pub.  

[Zorral]

12 hours ago, Mlle. Zabzie said:

He tried to get my aunt (his MIL) to apologize to him (because of something I did).  Did not fly.  I don’t like him anyway (and the feeling is mutual) so maybe I will never have to see him again ?  (But I do love my cousin).

How very unpleasant and disturbing.  It's so sad families have to go through these things due to the insanity virus that stubbornly resists all methods of treatment and prevention.

But the markets getting all upset today with the news of audience cancelled for the Olympics and the global warning issued by W.H.O. due to the vast expansion of Delta incursion -- maybe that will finally get Europe and the US to actually take public health action about masking and vaccination.

Well, I can fantasize with the best. 

[Altherion]

23 minutes ago, L'oiseau français said:

I am shocked to hear the UK is back at 30,000 new cases a day. You have so many people vaccinated!

The delta variant does a good job of breaking through single dose protection and protection from previous infection -- one really needs to be fully vaccinated (including the waiting period after the second dose) to have a good chance of avoiding it. The good news is that even a single dose is not entirely useless if one gets sick: cases are high, but hospitalizations and deaths are still relatively low.

Here in the US, several of my relatives are being ordered to return to the office for at least one day a week and I think I will soon have to do this too. It strikes me as a pretty bad idea given that only half the population in my region is fully vaccinated.

[williamjm]

5 hours ago, rotting sea cow said:

This is what I think re Delta variant.

The news are bad, to the point that B. Johnson speech sounds like conceding defeat. I'm quite certain the advisers knew about the Israel breakthrough study. Seven hells! 30 points in efficacy reduction for the Pfizer vaccine. How many for the others?

Has anyone seen any detail about this Israeli study beyond this headline which seems to be all the news article I've seen mention about it? I haven't seen any information on the confidence intervals in the study or how large it was and without those it's difficult to really assess how to weigh its conclusion against the different conclusions on efficacy seen in the English and Canadian studies which had less of a reduction in efficacy.

[Filippa Eilhart]

Bettel was released today, yay.

The health minister also said that “1,915 people in Luxembourg tested positive after their first jab, while just 433 people had a positive result following their second jab. 298 people tested positive two weeks after their second jab.” which is kinda pointless data without knowing how many people in general tested positive since vaccinations began. 

[Derfel Cadarn]

2 hours ago, L'oiseau français said:

I am shocked to hear the UK is back at 30,000 new cases a day. You have so many people vaccinated! We are seeing about 600 new cases a day, so with 38 M people v. 68 M, you guys should be at less than 1,200 a day. Holy crap, guys, I wouldn’t be going to the pub.  

Rich Tory donors are losing money, so the government has basically surrendered.Let the dead pile high
 

[Padraig]

  

29 minutes ago, williamjm said:

Has anyone seen any detail about this Israeli study beyond this headline which seems to be all the news article I've seen mention about it? I haven't seen any information on the confidence intervals in the study or how large it was and without those it's difficult to really assess how to weigh its conclusion against the different conclusions on efficacy seen in the English and Canadian studies which had less of a reduction in efficacy.

This CNN article has the following.

Quote

In a brief statement issued on Monday, the government said that as of June 6, the vaccine provided 64% protection against infection. In May -- when the Alpha variant dominated in Israel and the Delta strain had not yet spread widely -- it found that the shot was 95.3% effective against all infections.  The government added that the vaccine was now 93% effective in preventing severe disease and hospitalizations, compared to 97% reported in the medical journal The Lancet in May.

The statement cited top line figures, but did not release underlying data or other details about its analysis. A team at Hebrew University said in a separate statement that it was too soon to tell how much the Delta variant was affecting vaccine efficacy.

Sounds like we should be cautious regarding that Israeli info for now.  Especially as there is different data available from Canada and the UK (more consistent with each other).

2 hours ago, L'oiseau français said:

I am shocked to hear the UK is back at 30,000 new cases a day. You have so many people vaccinated! We are seeing about 600 new cases a day, so with 38 M people v. 68 M, you guys should be at less than 1,200 a day.

Its going to hit everywhere i'm afraid.  Maybe a little later in Canada, which will help.  I'm glad we slowed the removal of restrictions here.  We are far from a lockdown but with vaccinations, hopefully it will be enough to keep things manageable.  Cases have increased but not skyrocketed like other countries.  But early days still!

[Fragile Bird]

35 minutes ago, Padraig said:

 

Its going to hit everywhere i'm afraid.  Maybe a little later in Canada, which will help.  I'm glad we slowed the removal of restrictions here.  We are far from a lockdown but with vaccinations, hopefully it will be enough to keep things manageable.  Cases have increased but not skyrocketed like other countries.  But early days still!

Oh no, Delta has been the leading variant for weeks and weeks now in Canada. One region about 100 km from where I live was not allowed to enter Phase 2 on June 30th because they had the highest Delta case levels in the province, and this morning I heard there’s now another breakout in a tourist area to the north. Toronto has had Delta hotspots for two months, which led the city to do targeted vaccinating. Every single neighbourhood in the city is now 50% fully vaccinated.

[The Anti-Targ]

On 7/8/2021 at 2:16 AM, Zorral said:

 

. . . . The pandemic had hit late but hard in the Appalachian highlands — the mountainous region that includes Southwest Virginia and Northeast Tennessee — and over the winter many of its victims had ended up on ventilators tended by Boucher and her fellow nurses at Johnston Memorial Hospital.

They were enduring the traumas known to ICU workers across the world: days filled with death, nights ruined by dreams in which they found themselves at infected patients’ bedsides without masks. But they were also enduring a trauma that many doctors and nurses elsewhere were not: the suspicion and derision of those they risked their lives to protect.

Conspiracy theories about the pandemic and lies recited on social media — or at White House news conferences — had penetrated deep into their community. When refrigerated trailers were brought in to relieve local hospitals’ overflowing morgues, people said they were stage props. Agitated and unmasked relatives stood outside the ICU insisting that their intubated relatives only had the flu. Many believed the doctors and nurses hailed elsewhere for their sacrifices were conspiring to make money by falsifying covid-19 diagnoses.

Boucher and her colleagues were pained by those attacks — and infuriated by them. Unlike their exhaustion, that anger rarely showed on their faces, but it was often there: as they scrolled Facebook to see local ministers saying God was greater than any virus, or stood in line with unmasked grocery shoppers who joked loudly about the covid hoax. . . . 

I don't think they can lay COVID hoax conspiracies at the door of the White House. At no time, that I know of, did the Trump administration ever suggest COVID-19 wasn't real. They did a shitload wrong when it came to responding to and communicating the severity of the pandemic, but the never denied its existence.

[Padraig]

3 hours ago, L'oiseau français said:

Oh no, Delta has been the leading variant for weeks and weeks now in Canada. 

I hope you are right.  It took weeks for the UK to end up where it is right now also and it has even higher rates of vaccination.  It would be nice if there was a formula that didn't involve a lockdown.

I imagine such countries will avoid the fatality rates seen previously at least.

[Zorral]

53 minutes ago, The Anti-Targ said:

I don't think they can lay COVID hoax conspiracies at the door of the White House. At no time, that I know of, did the Trump administration ever suggest COVID-19 wasn't real. They did a shitload wrong when it came to responding to and communicating the severity of the pandemic, but the never denied its existence.

You are quite, quite, quite mistaken, at best, in your statements of what tRump and Co. said and did, which was always to say it was nothing more than a bad cold, maybe -- don't wear masks or do anything at all to keep safety protocols, and sure as hell didn't practice any safety themselves in private and certainly not on public -- see all the video of people inside, clustered together, with no masking or distance. He admitted in private it was dangerous early on, and then did everything to tell his followers it wasn't, because all the numbers of sick and hospitalized and dead made him look bad, so they did their best to cover up numbers and deny, deny, deny.  This is on record, many, many, many records. The books are being published right now. The only thing he tried to do via covid was make a profit out of it. And tell lies as to remedies like bleach that kill people.