Covid 44: The Sickening

[Clueless Northman]

3 hours ago, rotting sea cow said:

One point I forgot is that many countries had sizeable Delta waves before Omicron hit, which is another confounding effect.

Exactly. Unlike places like UK, Omicron is only replacing Delta right now in some countries (Germany for instance) and US States, so it's not surprising that these places still see rising hospitalizations; it takes time for Delta cases to become bad enough to send people to hospital.

As for 3rd dose, thankfully I only got half a dose of Moderna yesterday, which is why I got a milder fever this time. It also looks like it might disappear a bit faster than for 2nd dose.

[RhaenysBee]

8 minutes ago, Clueless Northman said:

As for 3rd dose, thankfully I only got half a dose of Moderna yesterday, which is why I got a milder fever this time. It also looks like it might disappear a bit faster than for 2nd dose.

For me it lasted the exact same time as the full doses had. I only felt mildly shitty, instead of frighteningly shitty, but it didn’t disappear even half a day sooner. Not to dishearten you, of course, everybody reacts differently. Feel better soon!  

[Padraig]

2 hours ago, Clueless Northman said:

Exactly. Unlike places like UK, Omicron is only replacing Delta right now in some countries (Germany for instance) and US States, so it's not surprising that these places still see rising hospitalizations; it takes time for Delta cases to become bad enough to send people to hospital.

Hospitalisations have gone up significantly in the UK and Ireland.  Although, way less than cases.  Very similar trends really and we are both completely Omicron dominant.  The interesting thing is that ICU beds haven't increased (in Ireland they have actually declined marginally).

Bloomberg has an article on it.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-01-04/omicron-spares-u-s-icus-so-far-mirroring-s-africa-trajectory

There could still be a lag effect.  But that would be a change from previous trends.  And there is a concern that Omicron has mainly hit the younger population so far but then, the older population is more likely to be boosted...

Israel is reporting a big increase in antibodies from its 4th dose, which doesn't say a whole lot but it will encourage the idea of more boosting.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/01/04/israel-fourth-shot-booster/

Quote

“It’s kind of the right answer to the wrong question,” Levine said of the new study results. “That it raises the antibody levels is good news, but first we need to know if there is a need for another shot.”

 

[mcbigski]

On 1/3/2022 at 12:27 AM, Kalsandra said:

Dude, you're arguing with someone who believes vaccines are a hoax, masks don't work and covid is a hoax, and who only replies when he gets drunk. 

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.

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.

When planning my Vegas trip last year, I got an antibody test in  early March, which came back negative, so I got the JnJ shot once it came back on the market.  That Easter (I think) my cousin pointed out that whenever I gave blood, the Red Cross was testing for antibodies.  So looking at my blood donation history, the August '20 donation was covid negative, and October was covid reactive.  I guess by March my antibodies were mostly gone.  (Which doesn't mean a lack of defense, just a lack of current exposure and response).  Now if I had seen the results from my blood donations prior to getting vaccinated, I likely would have skipped the shot.  I believe that the reason that acquired immunity is marginalized is to sell more vaccines and perpetuate the crisis.  It would be a shame to let it go to waste, after all.  Though when I thought I didn't have previous exposure, I got a vaccine.  Did I think that was a hoax?

As for the drinking bit, what gives that away? 

On 1/2/2022 at 11:52 PM, VigoTheCarpathian said:

Check the cost of an ICU stay, versus that on a vaccination - Google says it costs Medicare patients 150x more, per hospitalization. 

Show the math on how making more people go to the hospital instead of paying for cheap and easy preventative care is NOT the very definition of government waste and over-expenditure. 

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.

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.

Now we also have a lot of confounding variables here, since vaccines weren't available over the whole data set of hospitalizations, and vaccines are going to keep some people out of the hospital.  

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.

 

[williamjm]

8 hours ago, rotting sea cow said:

1) As you may know, hospitalizations are rising steeply in many countries (including pediatric). Unfortunately there is little clarity regarding the exact situation. One news outlet is straight out calling you to panic, the next one is saying that there is no reason for that because decoupling and mild.

It is very hard to get a clear assessment of the situation. At least from the distance. How many of these hospitalizations are incidental? How many are in-hospital infections? Age stratification? Vaccination status? Etc.

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.

 

[The Anti-Targ]

On 1/4/2022 at 1:24 PM, Mlle. Zabzie said:

I come out a different door than you do.  We need to be doing everything we possibly can to keep kids in schools.  The data are overwhelming that virtual is absolutely no substitute and that the harm to kids - including a recent study showing the huge learning and behavioral gaps coming out of Belgium (which shut down less that most parts of the US).  And in the US public schools provide many, many, more social services than in lots of other parts of the world.  I’ve spent a fair bit of time discussing this with my sister, who is a public school administrator (and classroom teacher if needed for subbing) in the school system of a small city.  She thinks it is perfectly apparently what the right answer is, and she certainly has convinced me that this point, the public health balance is in favor of schools being open unless we are facing the zombie apocalypse (and we’re not, to be clear).

I acknowledge that NYC private schools are requiring testing to come back (took my son this morning; daughters are testing on their first day back from break).  I’m actually not sure that is the right answer.  NYC Private schools are doing whole population tests once a week and for re-entry.  It’s incredibly expensive, and I’m not sure it’s a good allocation of testing resources, especially as most NYC private schools are vaccine- and mask-required and are also going to require boosters (inevitably).  (I’m also not sure it is a good use of private school resources from a fiduciary perspective - my guess is that we’ll be at sampling soon and then it will fall away).  

How can studies be finding that when there hasn't been anywhere near long enough to measure any real educational deficit, if any? The effects of loss of school time can only really be measured 5, 10 and 15 years after the event. Any short term deficit may be entirely overcome within a couple of years.

There are certainly plenty of examples of children who had a very late start to education who have ended up achieving high educational standards, millions of refugees children over the years, who when they have settled in stable and supportive communities have performed well educationally and socially even though they may have started 2, 3 or more years behind. It's really the commitment and motivation of the individual, their parents and the education system that will be the long term determinant of outcome, not the loss of several months of school, when education can and should be ongoing anyway.

[Zorral]

My sense of this is the crucial loss of these pandemic years in education for pre-school on up won't be what they don't imbibe in terms of subject matter. It's the loss of socialization experience and skills that being with others in one's age cohorts teaches us.  It's too bad that our societies are set up in such ways that kids tend to get this almost entirely or at least primarily via school.  But with pandemic even if we had other ways for kids to interact together for hours out of every day, they can't, or haven't been, able to do that either.  That is the real loss and tragedy.  One can catch up with everything else, really quickly if there is the support by communities to do so when it is safe. But this, I don't know .... and I'm one who totally believes the health and mental well being of teachers and staffs' children and families, and that the teachers and staff themselves are just as important as the education of the privileged children of the wealthy who have the wherewithall for private, not public education -- which of course the republicans in thrall to the capitalists who are all the wealth possible all the time, have been making war upon for decades.

But the social development and social interaction skills, are really hard to provide when a certain amount of time is lost.

 

[mcbigski]

1 hour ago, The Anti-Targ said:

How can studies be finding that when there hasn't been anywhere near long enough to measure any real educational deficit, if any? The effects of loss of school time can only really be measured 5, 10 and 15 years after the event. Any short term deficit may be entirely overcome within a couple of years.

There are certainly plenty of examples of children who had a very late start to education who have ended up achieving high educational standards, millions of refugees children over the years, who when they have settled in stable and supportive communities have performed well educationally and socially even though they may have started 2, 3 or more years behind. It's really the commitment and motivation of the individual, their parents and the education system that will be the long term determinant of outcome, not the loss of several months of school, when education can and should be ongoing anyway.

By the same token, how can we know than mRNA treatments for kids, the vast majority of whom are at less risk than being in an automobile, are still going to be safe 5, 10, or 15 years out?  I always tend agaisnt centralized solutions, but when CDC said that vaccines are safe and long lasting, but there's not proof that getting infected provides long lasting future immunity, I said WTF?  

Apart from the covid, I'm inclined to believe that 0-10 year olds looking at masks instead of faces aren't going to be optimally adjusted for the rest of their lives.

56 minutes ago, Zorral said:

My sense of this is the crucial loss of these pandemic years in education for pre-school on up won't be what they don't imbibe in terms of subject matter. It's the loss of socialization experience and skills that being with others in one's age cohorts teaches us.  It's too bad that our societies are set up in such ways that kids tend to get this almost entirely or at least primarily via school.  But with pandemic even if we had other ways for kids to interact together for hours out of every day, they can't, or haven't been, able to do that either.  That is the real loss and tragedy.  One can catch up with everything else, really quickly if there is the support by communities to do so when it is safe. But this, I don't know .... and I'm one who totally believes the health and mental well being of teachers and staffs' children and families, and that the teachers and staff themselves are just as important as the education of the privileged children of the wealthy who have the wherewithall for private, not public education -- which of course the republicans in thrall to the capitalists who are all the wealth possible all the time, have been making war upon for decades.

But the social development and social interaction skills, are really hard to provide when a certain amount of time is lost.

 

Mostly agree I think.  Anecdotal, but among the kids I've known over the last 15 years or so that are the most out going socially and self confident are my friend's who home schooled.  6 kids aged currently 26 to 8.  My friend, the dad, is very much a Walden/Shumacher/Pirsig guy.  But there's certainly something to be said that if you want kids to learn how to be adults, socializing across wider age ranges is better than lord of the flies playground sort of stuff.

[Fragile Bird]

So…a million people reported positive today in the US.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

25 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

So…a million people reported positive today in the US.

Totally predictable. Still blows my mind seeing a doctor on the news this morning (I think the clip was a day or two old though) saying we should just treat this like how parents do when their kids get chickenpox. Time for an infection party! 

[mcbigski]

15 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

So…a million people reported positive today in the US.

Let's check fatalities 3-4 weeks out. 

My sister had to line for tests up in actual not metric high teen temperature this morning to be able to fly back to India in the next 3 days.  The Panic Button has been pushed here such that in my town, people were lining up 3 hours early on Sunday for a take home test.  Which take home test doesn't count for flying if my sister has the right of it, and doesn't count for work in a medical facility, if my special lady friend has the right of it.  But it's probably mostly accurate.

Though a guy I know who works for a bio tech company was cautiously optimistic that their test would get approved for wider distribution.  Problem is, it's a single digit person company, regardless of how well it might work.

[mcbigski]

5 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Totally predictable. Still blows my mind seeing a doctor on the news this morning (I think the clip was a day or two old though) saying we should just treat this like how parents do when their kids get chickenpox. Time for an infection party! 

How many people have died with omicron world wide?  And how many with out multiple co morbidities?

How many of either of those groups were under 18 with out lung, obesity, or immune issues?

Spoiler

Zero.

Chicken pox kills more people than omicron so far.  I'd rather get omicron than work with Alec Baldwin.

[polishgenius]

5 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.

 

Good for you? 
I had a co-worker, 18 years old and as far as anyone knows in good health, got it at the start of last year. Off work for two months, took another two or so to get back to full strength. 

Not to mention the multiple world-level sportsmen, gentlemen not known for their overall ill-health, who spent 3-6 months recovering from a bout. 

I've never had Covid though (touch wood) so I guess I should just declare it not real. 

 

[Heartofice]

7 minutes ago, polishgenius said:

 

Good for you? 
I had a co-worker, 18 years old and as far as anyone knows in good health, got it at the start of last year. Off work for two months, took another two or so to get back to full strength. 

Not to mention the multiple world-level sportsmen, gentlemen not known for their overall ill-health, who spent 3-6 months recovering from a bout. 

 

 

Such as? I’m sure for every one you list off there will be many many more who have had covid and were playing at full capacity within a couple of weeks. Even 2 years into this we still don’t know the extent of ‘long covid’ or if it’s even a thing. Even if it is a thing it is the exception, not the norm. 
 

3 hours ago, mcbigski said:

By the same token, how can we know than mRNA treatments for kids, the vast majority of whom are at less risk than being in an automobile, are still going to be safe 5, 10, or 15 years out?  I always tend agaisnt centralized solutions, but when CDC said that vaccines are safe and long lasting, but there's not proof that getting infected provides long lasting future immunity, I said WTF?

Honestly i think this is a reasonable fear to have, and it’s also stupid and dangerous to dismiss this fear as being anti vax. We don’t and can’t know the long term effects of these vaccines. We do however have some good information that is unlikely, very unlikely that there will be long term effects that pop up in the future decades. Side effects for vaccines tend to show up within the first few months and after that it doesn’t happen. We probably would know quite soon if there was anything and happening with vaccines. We’ve also got a massive sample size of the entire planet to work from. 
 

But at the same time, that doesn’t mean we need to be vaccinating children. Given that Covid affects you differently based on your age and health profile, young healthy kids have very little to fear from the virus , and the big push to vaccinate kids, especially when there doesn’t seem to be much benefit when it comes to preventing spread, doesn’t make a ton of sense and just feeds into peoples fears. 

 

5 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.

Like what though? Many of the ‘treatments’ often mentioned are either not proven to work as well as vaccines , provide no long term protection, are even more expensive than vaccines or like ivermectin are just pure garbage that has almost not evidence behind it at all.

I get  the fear of profit motive behind big pharma, and I am a little suspect of a business model that needs the entire planet to take a vaccine multiple times a year to provide maximum protection. But if Pfizer wanted to make real money they could have produced products that provided less protection rather than vaccines and made more money. 

[polishgenius]

Just now, Heartofice said:

Such as? I’m sure for every one you list off there will be many many more who have had covid and were playing at full capacity within a couple of weeks.

 

Obviously. You don't base your reaction to a disease based on those lucky enough to get the mildest symptoms though. 

 

Allan Saint-Maximin was out for ages if I recall, and another Newcastle lad. Cody Garbrandt tested positive in August 2020, was still suffering symptoms in November and didn't fight again till the next May. Meanwhile Khamzat Chimaev tested positive in November, was still suffering symptoms in March, and didn't return till October. Oonagh Cousins (a British rower) has essentially had to retire, she got it in March 2020 and in July 2021 was still incapable of training properly. 
That doesn't count any athletes who did return, but took time to get up to speed, since obviously that's a bit harder to measure unless they actively say 'no I wasn't ready yet' since there could be other reasons. 

That's all pretty anecdotal of course and I'm sure someone will jump in saying that, but the point is 'it's not dangerous to the young and healthy' just because McBiski didn't get a serious case is obvious bollocks. 'we still don't know the extent of long Covid' is not a reason to take it less seriously (and it's not at all clear how much of an exception it is; it's hard to say since so far much of the data is self-reported surveys, and they may struggle to tell the difference between real long-term symptoms and the fatigue usually involved in recovering from being truly properly sick for the first time, but some of those surveys have between 15% to as much as a third still having symptoms after three months). 

[Heartofice]

St Maximin was out for less than 2 months and has been pretty good since, well as good as he can be! I’ve had colds that lasted longer.

13 minutes ago, polishgenius said:

That's all pretty anecdotal of course and I'm sure someone will jump in saying that, but the point is 'it's not dangerous to the young and healthy' just because McBiski didn't get a serious case is obvious bollocks. 'we still don't know the extent of long Covid' is not a reason to take it less seriously (and it's not at all clear how much of an exception it is; it's hard to say since so far much of the data is self-reported surveys, and they may struggle to tell the difference between real long-term symptoms and the fatigue usually involved in recovering from being truly properly sick for the first time, but some of those surveys have between 15% to as much as a third still having symptoms after three months). 

The problem there is that statistically it really isn’t all that dangerous to the young and healthy. I don’t think it’s helpful to try and argue that it is. The virus clearly is more dangerous to older, less healthy individuals, that has been true from the very beginning.
 

As you say most data on long covid is self reported and doesn’t tend to differentiate between symptoms people had from covid and had anyway, such as fatigue or headaches. Again it’s one of those things that gets pulled out when anyone dares to argue that Covid is less dangerous for young people.. and I don’t think it’s all that helpful when there isn’t good data to prove it’s a common effect of the virus.

[DireWolfSpirit]

Her freedom experiment has hit a detour.

Kelly Ernby, a presumed candidate for the state Assembly in 2022, was only 46 years old. According to the Los Angeles Times, she fell ill shortly after speaking out against vaccine mandates at a rally organized by Turning Point USA on Dec. 4.

https://news.yahoo.com/california-deputy-da-fought-vaccine-131753710.html

[Luzifer's right hand]

46 minutes ago, DireWolfSpirit said:

Her freedom experiment has hit a detour.

Kelly Ernby, a presumed candidate for the state Assembly in 2022, was only 46 years old. According to the Los Angeles Times, she fell ill shortly after speaking out against vaccine mandates at a rally organized by Turning Point USA on Dec. 4.

https://news.yahoo.com/california-deputy-da-fought-vaccine-131753710.html

The tree of liberty has been refreshed I guess.

Sorry that it had to end that way for her though.

[RhaenysBee]

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. 

As for the number of deaths, we are also in near total darkness because there are too many variables. The healthcare infrastructure, the general health of the public, vaccination rate, human resources and only god knows what else all contribute to how many deaths a wave or a new variant will bring. Delta was supposed to bring a lower number of deaths because of the vaccine. In some places it did, in other places, it didn’t. We had nearly 10000 people die in the delta wave and are on the top 5 list of most deaths/population globally. Why is that? We don’t have the best vaccination rate but it’s decent, far better than some countries with far fewer deaths. We don’t have the best healthcare system, but I suppose there must be worse in the world. Allegedly most countries measure covid deaths similarly enough that it’s comparable. So what’s happening and why? It’s all a guessing game. 

When, how and to what effect the virus will further mutate? We have absolutely no idea. When, how we can expect to control it? We have absolutely no idea. Maybe we are already controlling it, but you’d never know for the communication. Maybe we never will and that’s something we should learn to accept and live but you’d never know  for the communication. 

Im sorry for being a downer, but I have lost all trust in the idea that we have any grip whatsoever on this situation. It’s just a wild goose chase that will end when nature wills it and not a minute sooner no matter what we do. That doesn’t mean I won’t wear a mask everywhere or check stats or get even a fourth shot in due time, but I don’t believe we’ll get out of this via human science or discIpline or resourcefulness. If and when it ends, it’ll be because it’s run it’s course.

 

[Luzifer's right hand]

23 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. 

As for the number of deaths, we are also in near total darkness because there are too many variables. The healthcare infrastructure, the general health of the public, vaccination rate, human resources and only god knows what else all contribute to how many deaths a wave or a new variant will bring. Delta was supposed to bring a lower number of deaths because of the vaccine. In some places it did, in other places, it didn’t. We had nearly 10000 people die in the delta wave and are on the top 5 list of most deaths/population globally. Why is that? We don’t have the best vaccination rate but it’s decent, far better than some countries with far fewer deaths. We don’t have the best healthcare system, but I suppose there must be worse in the world. Allegedly most countries measure covid deaths similarly enough that it’s comparable. So what’s happening and why? It’s all a guessing game. 

When, how and to what effect the virus will further mutate? We have absolutely no idea. When, how we can expect to control it? We have absolutely no idea. Maybe we are already controlling it, but you’d never know for the communication. Maybe we never will and that’s something we should learn to accept and live but you’d never know  for the communication. 

Im sorry for being a downer, but I have lost all trust in the idea that we have any grip whatsoever on this situation. It’s just a wild goose chase that will end when nature wills it and not a minute sooner no matter what we do. That doesn’t mean I won’t wear a mask everywhere or check stats or get even a fourth shot in due time, but I don’t believe we’ll get out of this via human science or discIpline or resourcefulness. If and when it ends, it’ll be because it’s run it’s course.

 

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. 

Fake vaccinations are a big thing here in Austria(the even discovered that some employees at the biggest vaccination center in Austria were involved) and I would not be surprised if it was to case in your country too. The only person I know who admitted to getting one got in Bosnia and Herzegovina though. People underestimate the criminal energy of anti-vaxxers in our part of the world by a lot I feel. All those cases I read about in Austria were discovered by doctors and pharmacy staff not because the goverment is trying. I would not be surprised if a significant part of the severe breakthrough cases in our part of the world are actually connected to fake vaccinations. That is how some of the cases here were discovered because the doctors were surprised by the severeness of the cases and either patients or their relatives admitted that the vaccine certificates were fake.