Covid 44: The Sickening

[Heartofice]

41 minutes ago, RhaenysBee said:

How severely ill covid makes you seems to be entirely down to luck - or thus far unidentified scientific secrets (such as how direct your contact was, how much of a pathogen dose you were exposed to, genetics, etc). If you have mild covid it’s because you’re lucky not because the virus isn’t dangerous or you’re young/healthy. 

There is also an element of luck, but it's mainly a factor of risk. If you are young and healthy your risk of having serious outcomes from the virus is very low. The infection fatality ratio for the under 17s is still about 0.002%, its absolutely tiny. Its more like 9-10% for the over 65's (although I think this number might be not taking vaccination into account, it would still be higher than for children though) 

We do know that across the board, vaccination has reduced the death toll massively, as well as all the learnings we've had from treating people with the virus. Things are clearly better than the first and second waves. 

There are a lot of positive signs to focus on. It is becoming increasingly likely that the virus will become a very low level threat for most people and it won't be something that we will be especially worried about in the future. I feel like at this point, we should all be feeling pretty positive, rather than terrified.

[RhaenysBee]

36 minutes ago, Luzifer's right hand said:

You can get a grip on the situation. Places like Japan, New Zealand or Taiwan seem to be doing pretty ok without being dictatorships. It is just our egoistic and non-compliant cultures and non-enforcement by our incompetent governments that makes it really difficult. You got to look out for yourself. The vaccines make things far better than it would be otherwise. That is the science. Just because the west has failed does not mean that all of mankind has. 

 

New Zealand, Japan and Taiwan are islands. I have a feeling this geographical advantage has more to do with their success of containing the coronavirus than their political systems. If we want to know how dictatorships deal with covid we shouldn’t be looking at the western world because there aren’t any there. I’m sure there are or will be studies focusing on the relation between political system and covid management success though. I’m not saying mankind has failed, I’m saying it’s time it ate some humble pie and stopped pretending it’s divinely powerful and in control. 

26 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

There are a lot of positive signs to focus on. It is becoming increasingly likely that the virus will become a very low level threat for most people and it won't be something that we will be especially worried about in the future. I feel like at this point, we should all be feeling pretty positive, rather than terrified.

I want to believe you, I just wish I didn’t read 30 headlines arguing to the contrary every single day. At some point it gets really difficult to believe that the world is getting better when everything and everyone are breaking their backs to convince you otherwise. 

[Knight Of Winter]

1 hour ago, RhaenysBee said:

How severely ill covid makes you seems to be entirely down to luck - or thus far unidentified scientific secrets (such as how direct your contact was, how much of a pathogen dose you were exposed to, genetics, etc). If you have mild covid it’s because you’re lucky not because the virus isn’t dangerous or you’re young/healthy. 

Without trying to sound like a confrontational asshole, I think this is way overly simplistic view of the infection process. If if were "entirely down" to luck, then there would be no regularities whatsoever in cross section of the infected population. Thanks to overwhelming number of studies done, we know that this is not so. For example:

- if it was down to luck, person in any age group would have an equal chance of getting infected - which is not the case. Covid mortality varies wildly (and I mean wildly: we're talking about thousands or tens of thousands times lower/higher the chance) between various age groups. So age is a (huge) factor

- vaccination status is a big factor as well (self-explanatory)

- comorbidities play a role as well. People with obesity, various conditions or diseases have worse chance of symptomatic infection, hospitalization and death.

- so does genetics, for that matter. I've heard about a study that tied various mortality rates across the world to the presence of particular neanderthalic gene, which (I can't remember) either helps of hurts against covid infection

- etc.

So, all in all, it's way more complicated that simple reduction to luck element. Choices we make (like being vaccinated; or trying to live healthily), as well as other circumstances we can't control (like age or genetics) all play a part. So, yes - being young/healthy plays a big part in avoiding the worst consequences of covid. And while it's obviously not a 100% guarantee - all of us have heard of otherwise healthy 20 and 30 year olds who ended up in hospitals and died - it still contributes a lot. 

As for you last section - of course corona will be here until it's run its course - every pandemic in history was there until it has run its course. What human science and resourcefulness can do is to help it run its course faster and with fewer casualties. I'm trying to put this into historical context - and I see that humanity had suffered worse, much worse. Diseases waaay deadlier than covid (plague, measles, smallpox, spanish flu...take your pick) in times when there were no cures and no vaccines; as well as no epidemiologists, immunologists, infectiologists and other experts who got a grip on a situation and quickly started telling us what to do to minimize the consequences of current pandemic. We (the humankind) have been through much worse, with way more casualties - and somehow we survived and thrived. We'll survive this one as well, so I hope I've been able to show why I think, in the long run, some optimism is in order  

[Luzifer's right hand]

53 minutes ago, RhaenysBee said:

New Zealand, Japan and Taiwan are islands. I have a feeling this geographical advantage has more to do with their success of containing the coronavirus than their political systems. If we want to know how dictatorships deal with covid we shouldn’t be looking at the western world because there aren’t any there. I’m sure there are or will be studies focusing on the relation between political system and covid management success though. I’m not saying mankind has failed, I’m saying it’s time it ate some humble pie and stopped pretending it’s divinely powerful and in control. 

I want to believe you, I just wish I didn’t read 30 headlines arguing to the contrary every single day. At some point it gets really difficult to believe that the world is getting better when everything and everyone are breaking their backs to convince you otherwise. 

The island argument does not really work because the UK failed nearly as bad as we and has a lower population of Japan. It is first and foremost a culture and government thing  that is why Australia and New Zealand did not do as well as some Asien countries. There are a number of countries in Asia that are doing better but they are limited democracies at best. South Korea is as good as an island when it comes to their border I guess too.

It is a failure of our individualistic way of life imho.

I do feel like we have reasonable tools to keep the pandemic under control for the compliant part of society.

With our culture we will fail utterly at handling the climate crisis though so I'm not optimistic in the long term.

[Luzifer's right hand]

Interestingly 24 locations connected to vaccination certificate forging were just raided by the police in Austria.

We are not fighting the virus alone but also the people who try their utmost to make that fight as difficult as possible.

I still find it sad the everybody seems more willing to let harm befall chronically ill and the disabled instead of anti-vaxxers. At least in Germany orgs that support disabled and chronically ill are fighting the current approach which usually means that their treatments are cancelled and anti-vaxxers get priority during triage. Just looking at outcomes means people in ill health are sacrificed to free ressources for people who could not care less about the rest of society. I do not believe that that is the lesser evil.

Edit: Obviously I'm writing from an Austrian point of view as I'm not from a magic fairyland like the UK where most people mask and are otherwise compliant even if they are anti-vaxxers.

[VigoTheCarpathian]

13 hours ago, mcbigski said:

Ok, but there are far more vaccinations done than there are people that have an ICU stay.  There are roughly 90k ICU beds in the US.  Assuming an average stay of 3 days, then that's 7.2 million potential ICUs admissions a year. (Avg stay in the ICU is about 3 days.)  However, nationwide only about 2/3 of those beds are in use at any given time (if I'm reading  Johns Hopkins's chart correctly), so that's about 4.8 million admissions, but at the worst time over the last year, only about 40% ICU admissions were due to Covid, (per the same data).  So let's call that 2 million ICU admissions due to Covid and I'm being way generous there.  The US has used around 500 million vaccine doses so far, that is, 250X.  

CDC on total Covid hospitalizations  Note that this total of 260k hospitalizations is from networks covering about 10% of the US population, and that sounds like it also includes non-ICU, and covers roughly 21 months.  But even assuming same cost of stay, still more money on the vaccine side.

Your data sourcing and maths are all f*cked up and wrong.

But even with that, my figure of 150x for an ICU stay versus vaccination (excluding non-icu, hospital capacity and the other random you threw out) is cheaper - 500M doses is not equal to 500M people kept out of the hospital.  Assuming 2 doses for vaccination (I think mine included boosters), your ass-pull math still shows vaccines to be cheaper (250/2 = 125).

I can put more time into it, but suspect “but what about the effects of mRNA!!!” might be the response.  My response is “Look up the effects of a stay in the hospital”

[Padraig]

7 hours ago, Heartofice said:

We don’t and can’t know the long term effects of these vaccines. 

I think this is misleading and just heightens people's fears unneccessarily.  Sure, we can't "know" anything that hasn't happened yet.  But, every day we make predictions based on what has happened in the past.  We can be very confident about most of them.  So while we can't be "100% sure" about anything in the future, the probability of being wrong across many decision points is so small that we shouldn't be particularly worried.

As you say yourself, we have a huge amount of information about how vaccines work.  And while the mRNA vaccine is a little different, its still a vaccine.  It doesn't even stay in ones body beyond a couple of days.  The idea that it will come back to haunt people in 5 years (or whatever) is rather fanciful.  Not impossible, because practically nothing is impossible, but why should we focus on that?

This leads to the question regarding giving kids the vaccine.  There is a very low risk of side-effects.  There is also a very low risk of having a bad response to COVID.  I think most medical people recognise that the case for vaccinations wasn't as good for children but I don't see why anyone would focus on the former and ignore the latter.  Omicron has muddied the waters a little bit but they are still saying that being recently vacciated does reduce the risk of getting COVID (circa 70%).  Even if you get it, you have lighter sympthoms and have less chance of spreading it to older family/relatives.

Humans aren't particularly good when it comes to risks though.

14 hours ago, mcbigski said:

Assuming an average stay of 3 days, then that's 7.2 million potential ICUs admissions a year. (Avg stay in the ICU is about 3 days.) 

By coincidence, there was a report released today on ICU use in Ireland.  I'm sure each country is different but there are always some similarities.

Quote

The fourth wave covers the period 27 June 2021, to 25 December last.

The median age of admission was 59 years.

In all, 55% of the ICU admissions were discharged alive, while over 31% died.

The report shows that over 79% of those in ICU had an underlying condition.

The most common underlying conditions were hypertension (46%), chronic heart disease (35%) and chronic respiratory disease (29.5%).

The average length of stay for those discharged from ICU was eight days, but ranged from one to 90 days.

The average length of stay for those who died was 11 days but ranged from one to 62 days.

https://www.rte.ie/news/coronavirus/2022/0105/1269939-coronavirus-hspc-statistics/

Nothing shocking but interesting stats.

[Heartofice]

10 minutes ago, Padraig said:

I think this is misleading and just heightens people's fears unneccessarily.  Sure, we can't "know" anything that hasn't happened yet.  But, every day we make predictions based on what has happened in the past.  We can be very confident about most of them.  So while we can't be "100% sure" about anything in the future, the probability of being wrong across many decision points is so small that we shouldn't be particularly worried.

Well I think it's simply stating a fact. I don't think it's helpful to try and pretend otherwise. Everyone knows we don't have a time machine. Even if we are very confident of the vaccines safety long term, and there are good reasons to be confident, it is not surprising that people would be cautious of vaccinating their children. 
 

12 minutes ago, Padraig said:

This leads to the question regarding giving kids the vaccine.  There is a very low risk of side-effects.  There is also a very low risk of having a bad response to COVID.  I think most medical people recognise that the case for vaccinations wasn't as good for children but I don't see why anyone would focus on the former and ignore the latter.  Omicron has muddied the waters a little bit but they are still saying that being recently vacciated does reduce the risk of getting COVID (circa 70%).  Even if you get it, you have lighter sympthoms and have less chance of spreading it to older family/relatives.

In the UK, the JVCI have said that they will only vaccinate young children if the 'vaccine benefits the children themselves, balanced against any potential harms' So far they have determined that the benefits to children from vaccinating them are pretty marginal and haven't recommended it yet. 

[rotting sea cow]

15 hours ago, williamjm said:

I was reading this thread earlier which answers many of those questions from a UK perspective. I think it's fair to say there are a lot of moving parts when trying to understand the big picture at the moment.

Thanks a lot for that twitter thread. It really clarifies things. Well, I'm fine if it's still from the UK's perspective. Turns out that UK has excellent data collection systems, which allow that kind of analysis. Data from US is on the other hand underwhelming.

The increase of the cases in older adults is certainly concerning.

 

[Week]

15 hours ago, mcbigski said:

Cloth masks don't do shit.  Well, they're unsanitary and anti-social, but looking at the size of the weave versus the size of a virus, a cloth mask is just going to make you exhale a finer mist instead of heavier droplets.  How that's helpful, I have no idea, as Covid is spread primarily from breathing in viral particles rather than licking the floor.

Ah-ha! A time-traveler from 2020 -- welcome to the future! Single cloth masks have not been recommended for quite some time. Cloth masks are more effective than no mask -- though people often double mask or add a filter to increase effectiveness. Of course, nothing in 100%. Ideally, a well-fitted N-95 mask is what we all wear, but that is not realistic due to supply, expertise/adherence in fit and wearing, and viewers like you.

As for unsanitary, well, your underwear is pretty unsanitary if you never change or wash it. I suggest changing and washing masks if you are wearing a cloth mask (I suspect you don't, however the possibility of cleaning doesn't seem to have occurred to you.)

https://www.pnas.org/content/118/4/e2014564118

Studies noted in the above link found 79%+ effectiveness in reducing transmission.10 As well as below: 

Quote

Leffler et al. (29) used a multiple regression approach, including a range of policy interventions and country and population characteristics, to infer the relationship between mask use and SARS-CoV-2 transmission. They found that transmission was 7.5 times higher in countries that did not have a mask mandate or universal mask use, a result similar to that found in an analogous study of fewer countries (30). Another study looked at the difference between US states with mask mandates and those without, and found that the daily growth rate was 2.0 percentage points lower in states with mask mandates, estimating that the mandates had prevented 230,000 to 450,000 COVID-19 cases by May 22, 2020 (31).

The approach of Leffler et al. (29) was replicated by Goldman Sachs for both US and international regions, finding that face masks have a large reduction effect on infections and fatalities, and estimating a potential impact on US GDP of 1 trillion dollars if a nationwide mask mandate were implemented (32). Although between-region comparisons do not allow for direct causal attribution, they suggest mask wearing to be a low-risk measure with a potentially large positive impact.

https://mobile.twitter.com/RexChapman/status/1478073908041506817 -- video showing increasing effectiveness of masks from unmasked (your preference) to N-95 (recommended).

15 hours ago, mcbigski said:

I had Covid myself two Septembers back.  Somewhat muted sense of taste and smell for about 36 hours.  A little tired.  Not a hoax, but rather oversold for the otherwise healthy.

Congratulations -- you were fortunate due to a variety of reasons (viral load, variant, potentially anti-bodies from previous corona viruses, etc.) that many people with a similar risk profile. Truly, this is extremely disrespectful to other board members (*ahem* and members of the human race) that have had worse bouts of COVID. Even vaccinated. 

15 hours ago, mcbigski said:

[confused math about ICU]

Your entire ICU vs. vaccination argument is completely fallacious. No consideration or discussion of the economic impact of thousands of people in the ICU? Huge reduction in labor force, unwillingness to re-enter the labor force with that risk, loss of income/job (for the many that won't get it while sick), loss of caretakers for children for days/weeks/permanently, etc.

15 hours ago, mcbigski said:

And as an aside, I would expect that three vaccine manufacturers are going to do a better job at corrupting the NIH and CDC than 7,000 US hospitals.  But I'm only arguing here over who is more effective in exercising greed.

As of nearly 7 months ago, 96% of doctors in the US were vaccinated (prior to any mandates). It is incontrovertible at this point that 2-shots and a booster are required until additional long-term immunity can be confirmed or the virus controlled. It seems pretty likely that we're all getting it (I'm here waiting for a rapid test this afternoon). It's unclear whether annual boosters or additional shots for the elderly, immunocompromised, etc. is necessary -- broadly folks are pretty skeptical, contrary to your perception.

https://www.ama-assn.org/press-center/press-releases/ama-survey-shows-over-96-doctors-fully-vaccinated-against-covid-19

15 hours ago, mcbigski said:

The real crime against humanity here is more likely how cheap, effective, off-patent treatments get demonized and shunted aside to keep EUA going for experimental gene therapies.  I know a lot of moms that won't give their kid a GMO apple, but are proud to give them an mRNA vaccine.  Mind boggling.

Name names. Provide studies that justify procuring and administering these drugs are effective. Double-blind peer-reviewed studies. I have read that in some cases vitamin D may reduce the risk of disease (more study required), but none of HQC, dewormer, etc. 

To do harm, as a doctor, is a crime. To prescribe these drugs without any justification or understanding of how they may work to help is malpractice. Vaccines and monoclonal antibodies, etc. work via mechanisms within cellular biology and virology that we understand and have been working with since Salk.

Also, cute of you to take a quick snipe at women. Don't ever miss an opportunity to punch down and show who you really are.

15 hours ago, mcbigski said:

As for the drinking bit, what gives that away? 

Well, it's when you really let your freich flag fly.

 

To summarize, most of your information and understanding suggests that you stopped paying attention to this thread, general media, or other coverage at some point in the middle of 2020. Confusion over mask recommendations, lack of understand of the changing variants, the dearth of studies support whack treatments, etc. The funniest/saddest to me is that you believe that you are a truth-teller that is pointing out the "sheeple" where the truth is that most of your assumptions about the "sheeple" are wrong (other than your convenient anecdotes - fun!). Yet YOU have been clearly convinced and march to the tune set by faux-intelligentsia contrarians on the Right. 

[Week]

By the way, recommendation for at-home rapid tests -- https://www.getroman.com/on-go-covid-19-antigen-self-test/ -- ordered this morning and apparently should arrive tomorrow. I've had no such luck this week with Amazon, Walmart, cvs, walgreens, or local covid testing (other than an $85 test I finally found that I could schedule for today).

[Zorral]

44 minutes ago, Week said:

As for unsanitary, well, your underwear is pretty unsanitary if you never change or wash it. I suggest changing and washing masks if you are wearing a cloth mask (I suspect you don't, however the possibility of cleaning doesn't seem to have occurred to you.)

I, and probably many others, have told him this many times over these pandemic years.  Ha!  He's just a troll who has nothing worth reading about anything.

Plus you know, cloth masks per se, went out as soon as most of us, who are responsible and care about others and ourselves, were able to get higher quality, non-cloth.  Over and over the public health advice is that even a one-time disposable surgical mask is better than cloth, but cloth over that disposable is even better than the surgical alone.  As many of us who have been able to have gotten higher protection masks ever since availability. Stuck in a time loop indeed.  But self-medication does that.

[rotting sea cow]

5 hours ago, RhaenysBee said:

I want to believe you, I just wish I didn’t read 30 headlines arguing to the contrary every single day. At some point it gets really difficult to believe that the world is getting better when everything and everyone are breaking their backs to convince you otherwise. 

I think it's mostly they want to scare people into compliance. I don't think it's a good tactic. Honesty has been in short supply during the pandemic and has only created further skepticism.

 

4 hours ago, Knight Of Winter said:

Without trying to sound like a confrontational asshole, I think this is way overly simplistic view of the infection process. If if were "entirely down" to luck, then there would be no regularities whatsoever in cross section of the infected population. Thanks to overwhelming number of studies done, we know that this is not so. For example:

I think she meant that despite the known risks there are always that odd case of a young health adult being badly hit by the disease despite all precautions. Or those elderly who have at the most blinked to the virus.

 

[Week]

11 minutes ago, rotting sea cow said:

I think it's mostly they want to scare people into compliance. I don't think it's a good tactic. Honesty has been in short supply during the pandemic and has only created further skepticism.

This is a big one. Unfortunately, the combination of dishonesty and mismanagement starting 1/2020 has made it very difficult for many people to parse the difference between that behavior and regular uncertainty. Uncertainty is always hard to deal with and we need some collective trust (faith even) to move forward. The scientific method provides a path for those with the intestinal fortitude and full- transparent honesty -- it's not pretty in public in our society though. 

[Week]

Also worth adding the B-cells and T-cells are also a part of the immune system tuned by vaccines -- antibodies are a first defense most needed by folks with weak immune systems. (I'm now over my skis on the science -- I'm sure someone here can elaborate/correct)

 

[LongRider]

6 hours ago, Luzifer's right hand said:

Interestingly 24 locations connected to vaccination certificate forging were just raided by the police in Austria.

 

Good!   I have anti-vaxx family members who have bought fake vaxx certs to go to a big wedding.  They also had been discovered with ivermectin tubes (for horses, of course) earlier so who knows what else they do.   They remain healthy so for, but it's scary and I'd like to see them busted for the fake certs.   

[LongRider]

4 hours ago, Padraig said:

We don’t and can’t know the long term effects of these vaccines. 

Well, the long-term effects of polio and smallpox vaccines were the eventual eradication of those diseases.  These two vaccines also had worldwide distribution and were given to children.   I remember the polio sugar cube and have a little scar from the smallpox vacc on my right arm from when I was vaxxed for these as a wee child.  I stepped right up for the Covid vaxx, wasn't worried at all.  Yes there are concerns, but it is risk management, no?  And, I trust science.  

[RhaenysBee]

7 hours ago, Luzifer's right hand said:

The island argument does not really work because the UK failed nearly as bad as we and has a lower population of Japan. It is first and foremost a culture and government thing  that is why Australia and New Zealand did not do as well as some Asien countries. There are a number of countries in Asia that are doing better but they are limited democracies at best. South Korea is as good as an island when it comes to their border I guess too.

And the UK as good as mainland. That’s the culture part. There are always exceptions to a rule. Being an island is still a blatantly obvious advantage at controlling the influx, in ways a mainland country, with mainland neighbors on all sides never can. 

[Padraig]

3 hours ago, Heartofice said:

Well I think it's simply stating a fact. I don't think it's helpful to try and pretend otherwise. 

But you have to understand the context around any fact.

It is extremely unlikely that there will be any long term effects from taking a COVID vaccine but, like any forward looking statement, we can't be 100% sure.  That is as factual as your statement but I believe it is less likely to be misinterpreted.

4 hours ago, Heartofice said:

In the UK, the JVCI have said that they will only vaccinate young children if the 'vaccine benefits the children themselves, balanced against any potential harms' So far they have determined that the benefits to children from vaccinating them are pretty marginal and haven't recommended it yet. 

I'm actually quite ok with this.   I think its one of those things that you could fall easily on either side of the argument.  The case isn't overwhelming.  The JVCI has changed its approach with other age groups and may do so again with the younger children.  Or not.

I mainly disagree with making definitive statements around it.

1 minute ago, RhaenysBee said:

And the UK as good as mainland.

Hungary certainly had a disadvantage geographically.  Finland and Norway are the best countries in Europe for handling COVID.  I'm sure their government, their restrictions, people's behaviour all played a role in this. But being a little isolated helped too.

[RhaenysBee]

2 hours ago, rotting sea cow said:

I think it's mostly they want to scare people into compliance. I don't think it's a good tactic. Honesty has been in short supply during the pandemic and has only created further skepticism.

Perhaps that’s the reason why authorities and governments and scientist choose to always highlight the absolute worst. If that’s a chosen tactic, it’s certainly done awfully poorly. And yes, it’s also a questionable choice that was bound to backfire. But I don’t think it’s just that, a wrong mean to a right end, it’s also a wrong mean to a wrong end, fueled by personal gain, political interest, lack of responsibility and capital. And let’s not even mention the media.