Covid #35: I am the Alpha and the Omega.

[Caligula_K3]

I'm wary of this push for booster shots in wealthy countries. I absolutely get that we should protect our most vulnerable (hell, as someone who's immunocompromised, I would benefit), but there's a limited number of vaccines. With the exception of the Chinese vaccines, nearly all of them have gone to North America, Europe, and a few middle eastern countries. If we keep hoarding them, the world will suffer (and we in turn will suffer when a new variant emerges).

Anyway, all in all this past week's news has got me very down. I'm in Canada, so pretty much everyone in my social and family group has gotten their second dose within the last month and a half (and none of my friends or close family members are anti-vaxxers). I had basically one week of thinking I could safely visit my parents and grandparents inside, or maybe relax a little and have a meal at a restaurant outside. I was still very willing to wear masks in public, keep up social distancing with strangers; I didn't care about going to indoor bars. But now it seems even basic normalcy is being ripped away again.

I know that even the most pessimistic data suggests that the vaccines are effective at preventing hospitalization, but... "mild COVID" seems to have a lot of range, from cold symptoms to the worst flu you've had in your life to long COVID. I've managed to stay relatively upbeat throughout this pandemic, mainly because I saw vaccines as being a light at the end of the tunnel. Right now, though, it's starting to feel pretty hopeless. It doesn't help that I go back to work in person next month, working mainly with 18-29 year olds, Canada's least vaccinated age group...

[Maithanet]

48 minutes ago, Caligula_K3 said:

I'm wary of this push for booster shots in wealthy countries. I absolutely get that we should protect our most vulnerable (hell, as someone who's immunocompromised, I would benefit), but there's a limited number of vaccines. With the exception of the Chinese vaccines, nearly all of them have gone to North America, Europe, and a few middle eastern countries. If we keep hoarding them, the world will suffer (and we in turn will suffer when a new variant emerges).

Agree completely.  Particularly when we don't have good data on how effective booster shots are at this point, and most of what we do know comes from the companies themselves, who would much rather sell vaccines to US/Europe who can pay more than move down the list to serving the billions of people living in countries unable to pay top dollar. 

[Padraig]

2 hours ago, Caligula_K3 said:

Anyway, all in all this past week's news has got me very down. I'm in Canada, so pretty much everyone in my social and family group has gotten their second dose within the last month and a half (and none of my friends or close family members are anti-vaxxers). I had basically one week of thinking I could safely visit my parents and grandparents inside, or maybe relax a little and have a meal at a restaurant outside. I was still very willing to wear masks in public, keep up social distancing with strangers; I didn't care about going to indoor bars. But now it seems even basic normalcy is being ripped away again.

I'd be cautiously hopeful.  Canada has delayed this wave, which has allowed it to get the vaccination rate quite high.  That level of vaccination is not going to stop COVID but hopefully you'll avoid the kind of waves that have afflicted other countries.

I'd agree on boosters also.  But, I think that argument is being lost.  Countries are formulating their plans.  Here is the leaked German plans.  The UK have their own.  Ireland too.  I'm sure there are many more.  Most plans seem to be focused on elderly and front line staff but one could easily see that expanded.

So yes.  Very difficult times for most of the world.

[Maithanet]

Getting a breakthrough infection doesn't scare me that much for myself now that I am fully vaxxed.  I expect that I will get COVID at some point given how infectious delta is even for people who are vaccinated. 

The problem for me personally is my son has some history of heart and lung problems and he isn't vaccinated.  Vaccines will not be available until November at the earliest, and possibly several months more.  So my wife and I are agonizing over how locked down we need to be for the next 4-8 months.  Should he be going to in-person school?  How much social interaction is enough for a child?  Our doctors haven't been able to give a straight answer on how dangerous COVID would be for him specifically. 

There aren't a lot of good options.  It's very hard to contemplate shutting things down for another indefinite amount of time. 

[Luzifer's right hand]

It looks like our approach of testing a lot but opening things seems to work at least somewhat. Numbers did not rise as much as feared. Soon the PCR gargle test system that is already used in Vienna and uses REWE stores as the drop off points should go live in the entire country. Together with the 10 rapid self tests you get each month and the pharmacies offering rapid tests on site testing will be as easy as possible. I dunno if it will keep the cases low enough but I hope that it does. 

[Zorral]

Better late than not at all!

https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/02/politics/white-house-covid-push/index.html

Quote

 

. . . .The White House announced Monday afternoon that the nation hit the milestone of 70% of US adults getting at least one Covid-19 vaccination shot -- nearly a month after Biden's initial goal of hitting that benchmark by July Fourth. That number was not yet reflected in US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data.After updating Biden, the group of public health officials is scheduled to take questions from reporters. Although these appearances initially happened three times a week, they were scaled back in recent months as officials felt there were fewer updates to share. The recent surge of the Delta variant has changed that thinking.

The White House made a deliberate choice to hold their public briefing on Monday this week with the hope of developing a clearer line of messaging for the days ahead. . . 

 

And another ccn report:

https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/02/health/us-coronavirus-monday/index.html

Quote

 

Vaccination rates rising with spread of Delta variant

A "silver lining" of the surge in Covid-19 cases caused by the Delta variant is that more Americans appear to be at the tipping point of understanding the importance of Covid-19 vaccinations, Collins said Sunday on CNN.

"People are waking up to this," he said. "That's what desperately needs to happen if we are going to get this Delta variant put back in its place, because right now it is having a pretty big party in the middle of the country."

 

These two things are giving me a teeny bit of sunshine in what, let's face it, has been dreadful US covid news these last 2 - 3 weeks. Of course there is De Santis and Abbot et al. to keep my despair alive.

[Fragile Bird]

43 minutes ago, Zorral said:

Better late than not at all!

https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/02/politics/white-house-covid-push/index.html

 

So, in other words, 70% of people over the age of 18 according to the 2019 population. I know those are the parameters because they've been published numerous times.

I can't even find out what that number is in Canada, the federal government publishes statistics of those vaccinated who are 12 and older. But using the 2021 population (about 1.7% higher than the 2019 population), and subtracting the population below 19, you get a number just below 30 M. Rounding it up to 30 M, Canada has 83% of the population over the age of 18 vaccinated, which heartens me, because I think the Brits have 80% of the adult population vaccinated with at least one dose. Britain has just started to vaccinate those 12-18, I believe, so it was hard to compare apples to apples. Including those 12+, the number for Canada is 81.04%.

I know the federal government goal is to get 90% of the eligible population vaccinated, but that's going to be slow going, if it gets done at all.

[Pebble thats Stubby]

15 minutes ago, L'oiseau français said:

So, in other words, 70% of people over the age of 18 according to the 2019 population. I know those are the parameters because they've been published numerous times.

I can't even find out what that number is in Canada, the federal government publishes statistics of those vaccinated who are 12 and older. But using the 2021 population (about 1.7% higher than the 2019 population), and subtracting the population below 19, you get a number just below 30 M. Rounding it up to 30 M, Canada has 83% of the population over the age of 18 vaccinated, which heartens me, because I think the Brits have 80% of the adult population vaccinated with at least one dose. Britain has just started to vaccinate those 12-18, I believe, so it was hard to compare apples to apples. Including those 12+, the number for Canada is 81.04%.

I know the federal government goal is to get 90% of the eligible population vaccinated, but that's going to be slow going, if it gets done at all.

The UK is only vaccinating almost 18 year olds  ( I think its 17 and 9+months)  or 12+ with high risk medial conditions and high exposure risk  (got to be both ).   So its not open to all children over 12.  There is no plan to expand this.

[Zorral]

No wonder Louisiana re-instated state-wide mask mandate.

https://abcnews.go.com/Health/live-updates/covid-delta-variant/?

Quote

 

Aug 02, 2:14 pm
Louisiana respiratory therapist: ‘We see families destroyed’
In Louisiana, which has the nation's highest case rate per 100,000 residents, COVID-19 hospitalizations are reaching peak levels, with more than 1,700 patients now receiving care.

"We're seeing people that are way too young to be so sick," David Wrightson, a respiratory therapist and ECMO (extracorporeal membrane oxygenation) specialist for the Willis-Knighton Health System in Shreveport, Louisiana, told ABC News. "We see families destroyed. We see children without one or more parent because of this virus. We see a new mom who will never go home to see her newborn, will never see her child grow up."

He went on, "When you see someone that's 30 years old with no medical problems at all, nobody knew anything was wrong, and we have this person literally on death's doorstep, doing everything in our power to turn them around and return them to their family. The vaccine is something worth getting."

More people need to see and understand the reality of this disease, he said.

"I wish I could show them a few steps in our day to see what we see and to see what we have to do, and to go home at night and, and have nightmares about those things, and sometimes cry yourself to sleep," he said.

 

Also: Vaccinated Lindsey Graham has tested positive and is currently mildly ill with covid.

[Kalbear]

Motherfuckers over here watched - they FUCKING WATCHED - India get absolutely wrecked by this and what, they thought that it wasn't any big thing? That people that were young were in hospital and the rivers choked with bodies and that was just lol India?

Fuck them all and their myopic, insular asses. 

[Luzifer's right hand]

27 minutes ago, Kaligator said:

Motherfuckers over here watched - they FUCKING WATCHED - India get absolutely wrecked by this and what, they thought that it wasn't any big thing? That people that were young were in hospital and the rivers choked with bodies and that was just lol India?

Fuck them all and their myopic, insular asses. 

The US really seems to have the highest Covid-19 deniers rate in the first world. 

Canada must look really sweet nowdays as they have overtaken you on the vaccine side even with your massive head start. 

[A True Kaniggit]

 

1 hour ago, Zorral said:

No wonder Louisiana re-instated state-wide mask mandate.

https://abcnews.go.com/Health/live-updates/covid-delta-variant/?i

I can’t read your link, but Worldometer’s 7 day average shows my state’s reported infections-per-day as already being worse than at any time during the pandemic, while still on a steep incline. 
 

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/usa/louisiana/

I guess we can only hope that better treatments will help keep the infection to death ratio down. 

[Zorral]

10 minutes ago, A True Kaniggit said:

I can’t read your link,

That's odd -- I can't either.

But you can get to the story by clicking

https://abcnews.go.com/Health/live-updates/covid-delta-variant/?id=79213051&cid=clicksource_4380645_1_heads_hero_live_hero_hed

We really really really hope Louisiana gets the lead out on this.  We were hoping to take a lot of people to visit / eat / hear music of all kinds March next year.  The travel tour that was supposed to happen in March 2020.  Now, we don't know. We've already decided that no matter what we had to drop the Cajun music visit off the schedule because the meffers out there are absolutely nutz about denying covid, and certain if it exists they can just shoot it.  Our friends in Cajun country say they never go out at night, and hear gunshots the whole time.  We managed to do a big subscribed Cajun event via Zoom for a whole weekend last October and the people adored it. They want to go there in person so badly and spend their money, but there ya go.  Or rather, there we don't go.  

[Maithanet]

The good news is that COVID-19 vaccine denial is much lower in the 50+ and especially the 65+ crowd nationwide.  So even in states with less than 50% vaccination rate, the 65+ rate could still be close to 70%.  So yes, there is every reason to hope that the death rate from this wave will be much lower than the last two.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

17 minutes ago, Chataya de Fleury said:

It’s already been said - death isn’t the worst thing that can happen.

Long covid and complete disability for someone aged 30 is, IMO, less terrible than someone who is 90 dying.

Everybody dies sometime. 

The stories of people with long term Covid "fogginess" are rather terrifying. 

[Fragile Bird]

So tell us, our American friends, what are your days like? Do you go to work, do you dine out, to you go to clubs, do you wear masks when you are out?

[A True Kaniggit]

1 hour ago, Chataya de Fleury said:

Everybody dies sometime. 

Only because scientists haven't figured out immortality yet.

[A True Kaniggit]

17 minutes ago, L'oiseau français said:

So tell us, our American friends, what are your days like? Do you go to work, do you dine out, to you go to clubs, do you wear masks when you are out?

I do go to work. I’ve dined out 3 times in the last 4 months. I do not go to clubs (but then again, I never have) I wear masks depending on the situation. 

[SpaceChampion]

Has any employer been sued yet for allowing non-vaccinated employees to come to work?

[VigoTheCarpathian]

37 minutes ago, L'oiseau français said:

So tell us, our American friends, what are your days like? Do you go to work, do you dine out, to you go to clubs, do you wear masks when you are out?

Still wearing masks indoors, and forcing kids to - we ate at some restaurants earlier in the summer, but are back to carry-out, unless there’s a spectacular outdoors venue that isn’t too crowded (hard to find).

Work at home for me has just officially been extended until January - earlier in the year, they were talking about September.  They still haven’t figured out how they will be doing home/office splits, compensating employees for internet/office set-ups, and some other logistics that should have been addressed months ago.

 The multi-state health system (240K employees) I work for announced today that employees who want to continue to work will need to be vaccinated, or have their medical/religious exemptions in by end of month and get tested 2x a week.  Physicians were at a 95% vaccine rate, and rest of employees were  around 74%.  I am glad they are putting hard consequences behind it.