COVID 45: Those Are Rookie Numbers

[Luzifer's right hand]

They expect us to hit more than 30k positive cases today.

Mobility is lower than during the last lockdown according to phone data. People are avoiding public transport on top of that if they can. Some restaurants and bars are closing because consumer numbers are dropping. I guess keeping the economy running does not work if both sides start avoiding things.

[Luzifer's right hand]

New recommendations from our interior ministry for people working in vaccination centers.

Leave work in groups, watch out for letter bombs, don't wear work clothes in puplic.

But we still appease the anti-vaxxers.

It is disgusting what happened to my country and I honestly don't want to be part of it anymore.

[The Anti-Targ]

A group of people taking the govt to court to try to force them to remove availability of vaccine for 5-11 year olds because the WHO website still says there is insufficient evidence to support safety and efficacy for that age group. The WHO web https://www.who.int/news-room/feature-stories/detail/who-can-take-the-pfizer-biontech-covid-19--vaccine page still says this:

Quote

There are currently no efficacy or safety data for children below the age of 12 years. Until such data are available, individuals below 12 years of age should not be routinely vaccinated.

The reason stated by a WHO rep when approached by news reporters here was that they want countries to prioritise older more vulnerable age groups and to consider global vaccine distribution equity. However to try to achieve these quite reasonable goals by essentially lying (or more charitably failing to update the information on recommendations of vaccinating 5-11 year olds) is extremely irresponsible given the degree and vehemence and even violence of anti-vaxxers. Every day this statement remains on the WHO website after the USA, Canada, the EU, and other countries have approved the vaccine and there are millions of children in that age group who have been safely vaccinated is simply giving aid and comfort to anti-vaxxers and COVID conspiracists.

Another disappointing failure of responsibility and leadership by the WHO.

[Zorral]

E-mail received from AOC yesterday:

Quote

 

So it happened, [Our Names]

I got COVID, probably omicron. As of today I am thankfully recovered and wrapping up quarantine, but COVID was no joke. For a while I’ve noted the term “mild” is misleading when the bar is hospitalization and death. Even “mild” cases can result in long COVID, which includes a range of conditions like cognitive impairment, postural-orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS), and chronic fatigue.

This isn’t to be a downer or induce fear, just a reminder that we need to be careful — wear N95s in crowded indoor spaces like stores — and if you do get it, it’s key to care for yourself and REST. The idea of forcing people to work just five days after symptoms start is sociopathic and 100 percent informed by a culture that accepts sacrificing human lives for profit margins as a fair trade. The good news is that we have an antidote: community.

If you’ve noticed, much of the emphasis of media conversations on COVID are individualistic: wear a mask, get vaccinated to protect yourself, go back to work even with symptoms because you’re fine — and even if you’re not. And while some of these recommendations are good — like getting a vaccine and wearing masks where appropriate, the motivations for them shouldn’t just be selfish. It should also be because we actually give a damn about other people, like our disabled neighbors or our coworkers who haven’t said (and shouldn’t feel obligated to say) that they’re immunocompromised.

It’s truly bizarre to me that caring about other people is a polarizing political stance, but my dad used to say that life makes you repeat lessons until you learn them. And if there’s one lesson I think we as a country are repeating until we learn, it’s that community and collective good is our best shot through our greatest challenges — way more than discorded acts of “rugged individualism” and the bootstrap propaganda we’ve been spoon-fed since birth.

Individualism is inadequate for planetary forces like climate change or global pandemics, and even less for societal ones like healthcare, economic inequity and racism. But WE, as a collective, can confront them. In a world of MEs, let’s build team WE.

Anyways that’s enough for today, stay healthy and blessed and let’s keep building.

Love & solidarity,

AOC

P.S. You can help ensure your health and safety, as well as that of others, by getting yourself tested frequently. You can order four free COVID rapid antigen tests per household to be delivered to your home from the USPS here (while supplies last).

 

 

[Mudguard]

32 minutes ago, The Anti-Targ said:

A group of people taking the govt to court to try to force them to remove availability of vaccine for 5-11 year olds because the WHO website still says there is insufficient evidence to support safety and efficacy for that age group. The WHO web https://www.who.int/news-room/feature-stories/detail/who-can-take-the-pfizer-biontech-covid-19--vaccine page still says this:

The reason stated by a WHO rep when approached by news reporters here was that they want countries to prioritise older more vulnerable age groups and to consider global vaccine distribution equity. However to try to achieve these quite reasonable goals by essentially lying (or more charitably failing to update the information on recommendations of vaccinating 5-11 year olds) is extremely irresponsible given the degree and vehemence and even violence of anti-vaxxers. Every day this statement remains on the WHO website after the USA, Canada, the EU, and other countries have approved the vaccine and there are millions of children in that age group who have been safely vaccinated is simply giving aid and comfort to anti-vaxxers and COVID conspiracists.

Another disappointing failure of responsibility and leadership by the WHO.

I don't know if things at the WHO were different in the past, but certainly the currently leadership at the WHO has been very slow to update their SARS/covid guidance.  Same thing happened with masking recommendations.  They claimed until July 2020 or so, well after even the US started recommending masking up, and the US was slow itself, that there wasn't any substantial evidence that masks worked to stop the spread of a respiratory based infection.  And they (any many others) even used a similar excuse around lack of supply to try and justify their early recommendation against masking up.  Not surprised that they doing the same thing again.

The WHO has its place and does good work in many areas, but for this pandemic, they really haven't been able to do much good.  Vaccine access has been poor in less privileged nations, and I don't think they've done much to speed things up.  They lack any real power to compel countries to do anything.

[Which Tyler]

https://www.euronews.com/2022/01/19/czech-singer-dies-after-intentionally-catching-covid-for-a-health-pass

 

Quote

A well-known Czech folk singer has died after deliberately contracting COVID-19 in order to obtain a health pass without getting vaccinated.

Hana Horka -- from the band Asonance -- passed away on Sunday at the age of 57, her family confirmed.

Her son Jan Rek told Czech media that his mother had refused to get the COVID vaccine and had exposed herself to infection to obtain a health pass.

Czech citizens need to be fully vaccinated or have recently recovered from the virus to enter bars, restaurants, and most cultural venues.

...

ARTICLE CONTINUES

The Darwin Awards are going to have a LOT of candidates

[Fragile Bird]

1 minute ago, Which Tyler said:

https://www.euronews.com/2022/01/19/czech-singer-dies-after-intentionally-catching-covid-for-a-health-pass

 

 

Idiot.

[Zorral]

They Are Saying that the trajectory of omicron drop in NYC is paralleling that of South Africa's.

Quote

 

.... If we choose December 9th as a somewhat arbitrary start date we can then see that the peak comes almost four weeks to the day later on January 8th, when there were 47,591 covid cases. Again, vagaries in test reporting and uncertainty over just when to date the start of the surge make these chronologies at least somewhat fuzzy. But almost any way you measure it, you come out with a duration of roughly four weeks. There’s a similarly rapid decline for the subsequent 10 days, though in absolute numbers, cases remain at least five times higher than at the beginning of Omicron.

Much of the northeast seems to be on something like this trajectory with other parts of the country one or two weeks behind. ....

 

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/fast-and-furious-2

Nevertheless the hospitals remain overwhelmed due to the sheer numbers --

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/01/16/world/omicron-covid-vaccine-tests#in-reporting-a-drop-in-daily-cases-hochul-sees-reason-for-optimism

Quote

 

... while officials say that the number of people admitted to hospitals for Covid is slowing, hospitals remain under tremendous strain, struggling to manage staffing shortages that leave doctors and nurses no choice but to make difficult decisions about whose care to prioritize.

Although scientists believe Omicron can cause less severe disease than previous variants, the sheer number of cases has created a tsunami of patients seeking care. Cases remain extremely high in New York and elsewhere, and the United States is averaging a staggering 805,000 daily cases.

About half of all patients in hospitals across the city have Covid-19.

On Thursday, nurses working at overwhelmed city hospitals held a news conference and issued a plea for help. They shared stories of emergency rooms overrun and patients lying on stretchers in hallways as they wait for care — stories that could have been from the earliest days of the coronavirus pandemic. ....

 

Of course there are those who love showing off their massive asshole who find these numbers, including the victims who are sharing their experience, who contracted breakthrough covid, and found even their 'mild' case very nasty, and thus are so very very very grateful they were vaccinated, to be very big jokes, why yes, they do find that very very very funny, as we see, even here.  Shame on those people, just -- shame.  But they don't feel shame, so wtf.

 

[Altherion]

2 hours ago, The Anti-Targ said:

The reason stated by a WHO rep when approached by news reporters here was that they want countries to prioritise older more vulnerable age groups and to consider global vaccine distribution equity. However to try to achieve these quite reasonable goals by essentially lying (or more charitably failing to update the information on recommendations of vaccinating 5-11 year olds) is extremely irresponsible given the degree and vehemence and even violence of anti-vaxxers. Every day this statement remains on the WHO website after the USA, Canada, the EU, and other countries have approved the vaccine and there are millions of children in that age group who have been safely vaccinated is simply giving aid and comfort to anti-vaxxers and COVID conspiracists.

This has been the problem from the very start of the pandemic: assorted health agencies (most notably the WHO, but also many national ones) have constantly cherry picked evidence and even outright lied to advance some agenda of theirs. Most of the conspiratorial ideas have backing from some agency statement issued somewhere at some time (and long since discarded... but much too late). Honestly, it's not clear that for this pandemic, the world as a whole would have been worse off without the WHO altogether. There must still be some decent teams there (e.g. for assisting poorer countries with specific diseases or something like that), but that organization obviously needs massive reforms -- it's not clear how it could have failed more thoroughly where Covid is concerned.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

Possibly our next president:

 

[Varysblackfyre321]

40 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Possibly our next president:

 

What about their individual right to be reckless idiots without any person asking  them to be rational?

/s

 

[The Anti-Targ]

Good to see freedom of speech is alive and well in Florida.

[Padraig]

3 hours ago, Altherion said:

Honestly, it's not clear that for this pandemic, the world as a whole would have been worse off without the WHO altogether. There must still be some decent teams there (e.g. for assisting poorer countries with specific diseases or something like that), but that organization obviously needs massive reforms -- it's not clear how it could have failed more thoroughly where Covid is concerned.

I don't think that is true at all.  Sure, some of what they have said is incorrect but they have little actual influence on policy in the US (CDC and FDA are far more important) or Europe (EMA is far more important).  So who cares?  If that laughable court case wins in NZ, it is not the WHO that is the problem

On the other hand, it is correct that they do a huge amount in poor countries.  The vast majority of countries don't have an EMA/FDA type body.  They rely on the WHO to regulate these medicines.  Its easy for us to say get rid of the WHO.  We have our own agencies to fill that void.  But most countries don't.

And we did need some international body to kept reminding us that we need to give vaccines to poorer countries.  We still failed in that regard but again, that's on us.  Not the WHO.  And they are correct that there is a major ethical issue with giving vaccines to kids when nurses and doctors in some countries haven't been offered a vaccine.

I don't like playing the privilege card but these posts above on the WHO are a good example of it.

And they were slow on masks but that wasn't just the WHO.  There was that very good article that I linked in my last post that went into the why's of resistance to masking.

I agree that reforming the WHO is not a bad idea but any multinational body is going to have issues by design.  The UN is the classic example with the Security Council vetos.  Powerful countries want to protect themselves.  You can't blame the UN for that (not that anyone is here).  I'm less familiar with how the WHO is set up.  But any body that has to try to be above politics and yet be emmeshed in politics is never going to have an easy time.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

2 hours ago, The Anti-Targ said:

Good to see freedom of speech is alive and well in Florida.

Did you see my post in the U.S. pol thread about the other thing he just did that's grabbing national attention? 

[Teng Ai Hui]

Today, the family got a knock on the door at 7am.  That was our 8th test in the last 12 days.

[The Anti-Targ]

18 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Did you see my post in the U.S. pol thread about the other thing he just did that's grabbing national attention? 

I tend to stay away from the US pol thread these days. It was a more depressing read than the COVID thread last time I was there, and I really don't need that. The ominous vibe of what you say here reinforces my reluctance to click on that thread.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

53 minutes ago, The Anti-Targ said:

I tend to stay away from the US pol thread these days. It was a more depressing read than the COVID thread last time I was there, and I really don't need that. The ominous vibe of what you say here reinforces my reluctance to click on that thread.

Same dumb motherfucker is pushing to prevent white kids in FL from learning about anything that could make them feel uncomfortable about the past. 

[Jaxom 1974]

6 hours ago, Fragile Bird said:

Cov-idiot.

Fixed it for you...

[The Anti-Targ]

Quote

She [defense counsel] said he [defendant] was also now unemployed because of the Covid-19 vaccine mandate.

"You won't get vaccinated?" Judge Ruth asked Fensom.

"I have got no sympathy for him," said the judge, adding that he was putting everyone at risk.

"These nutcase views will not be accepted in this court. You should be ashamed of yourself," said Judge Ruth.

He said, what most of us are thinking.

[Fragile Bird]

I just saw an interview with the president of a wastewater testing company, Biobot. She was saying that they saw the rise of Omicron in wastewater well before the rise in case numbers in the US (a couple of weeks) and now they are seeing a sharp drop in wastewater. They are taking that as a good sign. And the move in both cases started in the east and moved west, a pattern we’ve seen before.