Covid-19 #41: Collateral Damage

[Fury Resurrected]

3 hours ago, Mlle. Zabzie said:

Was boosted at a hospital on Thursday (third Moderna). I was monitored for the 15 min. Very, very sore arm this time (worse than originals).  Mild exhaustion yesterday. No rash though. Still tired today but basically back to normal. Husband gets boosted Weds. 

glad to hear it!

[VigoTheCarpathian]

Had my booster a week and a half ago (due to work), and both kids (7 and 10) vaccinated last Monday.

On a slightly shittier note, my 8, 3, and one yo nieces (brothers daughters) were staying with their maternal grandparents, who weren’t feeling well but didn’t tell the the parents - and turned out they were breakthrough COVID cases.  The 8 year old was scheduled for her vaccine next Monday, but now has tested positive, and pending results for the younger kids.  Now, instead of family Thanksgiving with us, they’re getting to quarantine.

[Luzifer's right hand]

In light of what is happening here in the heart of Europe social distancing as much as you can while keeping your mental health in mind might be prudent until you had the booster and your immune system had time to do its thing.

I know I tend to be a bit of a doomer but things are getting worse than I ever expected post-vaccine.

Surgeries are being cancelled left and right. An uncle can hardly walk and they cancelled his hip surgery. He understands but the rage he feels right now against the anti-measure people is incredible and understandable. He is a farmer he can't work anymore right now.

Mainly people who called medical professionals criminals a short time ago are overwhelming the system.

Edit: Assuming that the USA has seen its last peak seems incredible optimistic to me.

[Luzifer's right hand]

 

An US view of our situation

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

Canada has just approved vaccinations for kids 5-11 years old. Pfizer I think. 

The vaccination table on the Alberta website has been updated to include rows for 0-4 years and 5-11 years. Interesting detail: 5-11 year olds make up the largest single age cohort in this province at 391,584 persons. This is equal to more than 10% of the 12+ population, which is 3.76 million. If we can get 1/2 to 2/3rds of those kids vaccinated, which should be pretty easy, that'll boost our overall percentage to over 80%. We're at 75% first doses now. 

[Raja]

Lots of other data shows it too- but would be great if we could stop with the Vaccines don't work bit

[Luzifer's right hand]

Yeah that is bullshit. Don't let anecdotal evidence cloud your judgment.

[Jaxom 1974]

Whelp. One of my half vaxxed nieces has tested positive.  Her mom, my sister, is a nurse and vaccinated with the booster... though it's likely caught through school, despite their mask policy.  It was caught through the school's weekly testing.

So now they're not coming to Thanksgiving and my folks will likely not be able to either, as my niece had stayed with with them this weekend...

[The Anti-Targ]

12 hours ago, Raja said:

Lots of other data shows it too- but would be great if we could stop with the Vaccines don't work bit

One big takeaway for me is that one dose is 99% as effective at reducing ICU risk as 2 doses. I wonder what the hospitalisation risk is with 1 dose compared to 2? The report is only about critical care patients.

Our vaccine passport has a 6 month expiry. Not sure I agree with that, esp if you can only re-apply if you have had a booster. In 6 month's time this is going to cause a huge logistical problem, for not much benefit. I think the govt is going to have to give some grace period for people to arrange a booster and update their vaccine passport otherwise people are going to find their ability to go places suddenly restricted. And what are they going to do with people who already have had a booster now, but who still have a vaccine pass with a 6 month expiry? Is there any evidence of need for another booster? We don't have a programme for already boosted people to get another booster.

[Raja]

2 minutes ago, The Anti-Targ said:

One big takeaway for me is that one dose is 99% as effective at reducing ICU risk as 2 doses. I wonder what the hospitalisation risk is with 1 dose compared to 2? The report is only about critical care patients.

There is a long-ish* road from admission to hospital to getting to the ICU. Generally following a trend of just oxygen, then perhaps high flow oxygen or CPAP - lots of hospitals would do all that before you get to the ICU and are ventilated. 1 dose will not be 99% effective at preventing hospitalization, that I can guarantee you .

You can find plenty of decent data that looks at hospitalization with one dose compared to both doses - some of it has been posted in previous iterations of this thread - pretty sure I've posted it before

*This can be rather short too

[Luzifer's right hand]

3 hours ago, Raja said:

There is a long-ish* road from admission to hospital to getting to the ICU. Generally following a trend of just oxygen, then perhaps high flow oxygen or CPAP - lots of hospitals would do all that before you get to the ICU and are ventilated. 1 dose will not be 99% effective at preventing hospitalization, that I can guarantee you .

You can find plenty of decent data that looks at hospitalization with one dose compared to both doses - some of it has been posted in previous iterations of this thread - pretty sure I've posted it before

*This can be rather short too

Extracorporeal membrane oxygenation is the last step I guess although that is an even more limited resource than ventilation.

[RhaenysBee]

Mum got boosted last week, sister and I are scheduled to get it at the end of this week. It kinda sucks because there’s s a campaign and people can turn up without registration, so there are 1-2 hour queues. Not sure if I should reschedule, because standing among 100 people for hours is… well, not particularly safe, is it?

[Luzifer's right hand]

3 hours ago, RhaenysBee said:

Mum got boosted last week, sister and I are scheduled to get it at the end of this week. It kinda sucks because there’s s a campaign and people can turn up without registration, so there are 1-2 hour queues. Not sure if I should reschedule, because standing among 100 people for hours is… well, not particularly safe, is it?

Well the booster shot line I was in on Friday here in Austria was very disciplined and everyone was masked.

The first shot line not so much but Security kept them in line. 

[Raja]

9 hours ago, Luzifer's right hand said:

Extracorporeal membrane oxygenation is the last step I guess although that is an even more limited resource than ventilation.

Yeah - the average person isn't getting ECMO; There are I think what - 5 hospitals that do it in the UK? I don't know the specific inclusion criteria used but I would wager that very few older people get it - I doubt anyone older than 65 gets it

[RhaenysBee]

2 hours ago, Luzifer's right hand said:

Well the booster shot line I was in on Friday here in Austria was very disciplined and everyone was masked.

The first shot line not so much but Security kept them in line. 

In March and April the military helped with managing vaccination campaigns to relieve the hospital staff from all the admin and coordination. I’m not sure they are out there this time. But colleagues who got their original vaccines then had said it was a quite quick and effective process that way. 
 

Also the double vaccinated friend who had covid before tested negative thank goodness. It took an entire week for her to get a subsidized test result, by the way. 1 day to reach the GP, 3 days to get an appointment, 3 days to get the result. *sarcastic chef’s kiss* 

[Paxter]

The Canadian Public Health Agency said today that it "hopes" to keep the number of wasted doses of COVID-19 vaccines to under five per cent. 

Let's say 5% of the 73.7m doses distributed so far in Canada were wasted, that would amount to 3.7m doses. Enough to fully vaccinate the entire adult population of Namibia. 

[Luzifer's right hand]

3 hours ago, Raja said:

Yeah - the average person isn't getting ECMO; There are I think what - 5 hospitals that do it in the UK? I don't know the specific inclusion criteria used but I would wager that very few older people get it - I doubt anyone older than 65 gets it

That is not a lot. Not a lot at all. I honestly do not know how many we can treat that way. Maybe more per capita than the UK.  I have not heard it mentioned often outside of stuff focused on Germany and Austria but that is the stuff I tend to focus on.

Edit: just looked up actual numbers 53 % of deaths of Covid-19 patients where on non-ICU stations so most people did not even see the ICU.

[KingintheNorth4]

I received my booster at Jewel-Osco several minutes ago. I'm just waiting a few more minutes to see if I get any side effects.

[The Anti-Targ]

The government has officially announced the date of 3 December (11:59PM 2 Dec) for the move from alert levels, established under an elimination strategy / policy, to the new and shiny traffic light system that is designed to manage COVID that is here to stay.

Essentially from 3 December there will be no more lockdowns, except in localised areas if hospitalisation is getting out of control. That is the biggest change. But also a big change is bringing in regulations which control how many people can be gathered in one location (retail, entertainment, hospitality, gyms, religious and cultural services, weddings, funerals) based on vaccination status. The govt is not mandating proof of vaccination for any particular activity or location, it will be up to businesses and organisations to decide whether they can practically operate under no-vax proof conditions or proof of vax conditions. Some businesses regarded as essential to basic living (like grocery stores) won't be allowed to require proof of vaccination and will need to manage COVID-19 risk through limiting numbers, enforcing masks etc, most of those essential public facing businesses are mandating vaccination for all their employees.

In terms of vax mandates for health care. My friend who is the managing nurse at an aged care facility said that the facility had to let go 4 out of 50 staff for not being vaccinated. The good thing is that the 4 staff were 2 kitchen staff and 2 non-professional care workers. So no medically trained staff had to be let go. They have already replaced the kitchen staff and they are in the process of appointing replacement care workers. They were understaffed before so they won't be at full strength, but at least they will be back to a just workable level of understaffing. The unvaxed care workers will not be able to find work anywhere as care workers, so they will face a career change. I think the kitchen staff will also have a hard time finding work, as I expect pretty much all food businesses might end up requiring staff to be vaccinated. The number of cafes and restaurants that won't operate with a proof of vaccination requirement I expect to be very small. Other commercial kitchens that do not serve the public may be willing to operate with unvaccinated workers, but I think a lot of businesses just won't want to take the risk.

Perhaps one beneficial use of mis-information might be to promote non-dangerous, methods of "de-vaccination" that are being promoted in the anti-vax community. A bunch of people think they can game the system by getting the vaccine to be able to join the rest of society / keep their job, but then book in a detox / cupping session to "remove the vaccine" from their body. They can believe  the delusion that they remain a vaccine virgin and think they have stuck it to the man, but they will also still be vaccinated and contribute the the reduction of spread and illness.

Totally freakin' lucky right?

Quote

Incredible new data out of Japan has left experts convinced the nation of 125 million has successfully eradicated the Delta variant of Covid-19.

New research out of Japan's National Institute of Genetics suggests the strain drove itself towards a "natural extinction" there after several mutations led to it being unable to make copies of itself.

The tightly packed Japanese population has been on high alert since the beginning of the pandemic, especially after the highly transmissible Delta variant broke through its borders in 2021.

During the peak of its fifth wave, Japan was recording around 26,000 cases per day as countries around the globe reintroduced strong lockdowns to squash the Delta curve.

But in November, the nation has seen an amazing recovery, recording under 200 cases in recent weeks and on Friday registered its first day without a Covid death in 15 months.

According to a "potentially revolutionary" theory put forward by Professor Ituro Inoue, a genetics expert, the Delta variant simply accumulated too many mutations to the virus' error-correcting protein called nsp14.

Prof Inoue says the virus struggled to repair the errors in time and ultimately caused its own "self-destruction".

Same thing could happen anywhere, might explain why some places are getting it worse than others simply because of random mutation attenuating the virus in some places but not in others. However it does not mean the bad strain can't be re-introduced into a population and run rampant. So does japan close its borders or accept that the highly contagious and deadly version will come back.

Also some conjecture (I read elsewhere but don't have a link) that things are not as bad in large parts of Africa as once feared because endemic diseases, such as malaria, are interfering with the virus and / or causing people's immune systems to not react so strongly to the virus and thus not causing the severity of disease that is seen elsewhere, at least not to the same extent.

[RhaenysBee]

Manager’s small child is ill, stayed home today. But since the small child is not too bad and the manager really must come to the office, he might come in tomorrow, if he isn’t unwell himself. Though maybe they should get rapid tests for covid.

For crying out loud, stay bloody home until the poor child is fully recovered and you are certain (by means of 14 days’ time or a negative PCR) that you don’t have infectious covid. I’m supposed to get a booster on Thursday, may I not spend 3 hours of meetings with a potentially ill person? If he messages that he’ll come in tomorrow, I won’t.