Covid 47: Waving Invisibly

[Pebble thats Stubby]

As someone not old enough to qualify for the seasonal booster I can say hand on heart I still want it.  Especially if it's more targeted at omicrom.  Maybe I'm just being silly, I'm under 50 so my risk factors are low for serrious complications.  Most likey it's only a few days sick......

 

Well you know what being sick sucks.  I've had the flu jab every year for I think the last 20 years.  Not because I think it will stop me getting the flu, but it does make the flu I do get milder and over quicker.  

 

I got the swine flu when that was going arround and that at the time was the sickest I could remember being.  That was the year I skipped the flu vaccine cos I wanted to let more vunrable people get it first so I waited longer than normal.  And then it was really hard to get a slot.  I don't qualify for the flu vaccine so I pay for it myself.  Although the last couple of year my work has been giving out the flu vaccine.

 

Covid is not the flu, it's worse.  My risk factors may still be low, but I want to reduce them as much as reasonably possible.  I don't want to skip ahead of others but in the UK those classed as vunrable that are willing to have it have all been done by now.   Do I think I should get the vaccine for free?  I personally would be more than willing to pay for it, but I'm also finacally secure.  Means testing if often not cost effective and I think a minimum waged person in a supermarket is far more likely to be exposed and less likely to afford the expense of paying for the vaccine if possible.

 

I caught covid in the summer.  Sure a I would have liked a recent booster then, but I also did not mind it had only been 6months so I still felt as protected as could be reasonable. 

However I got really sick, breathing was hard work.  I almost went to hospital.  My blood oxygen level kept dropping into the call an ambulance now level then going back up a percentage.  The covid I had in the summer made the swine flu I got a few years ago seem like a walk in the park. Maybe if I had had an omicrom variant vaccine which was not available at the time I would have had a milder case.

 

Do I believe having an up-to-date vaccine  will stop me getting covid?  No.  But I be live it will help keep me out of hospital and help me recover faster.  I think it will also reduce my risk of long covid. 

 

Do I think I should have a vaccine every 6 months?  No.  But once a year especially if the booster is targeted at a varieiant I've not had a vaccine for.  I think that would be reasonable.   It's been over a year since I gave had a booster.  And I'd be willing to pay for it.  

 

On a side note with the current condition of the NHS it's even more important to keep as many people as possible from needing hospital treatment.    My individual risk factor may be low.  But with enough people those risk factors add up to people who lost the odds.  A current booster may be a cheep way of keeping beds available.   

[Derfel Cadarn]

Shit hitting the fan in China, apparently. Assuning this is legit

https://twitter.com/drericding/status/1604748747640119296?s=46&t=Xn1AFiyb8nws487opDFo3Q

[Zorral]

Let who dies, die, get it over with -- exactly what we saw here coming out of the UK and the US -- particularly for the elderly, people with conditions making them particularly vulnerable, etc.  Keep my economy and convenience rolling.  Except neither is rolling in either country, is it, or much of the world due to animal pandemics as well as the human ones.  From sub only Bloomburg Supply Lines newsletter:

Quote

 

Buying Less

Chinese hog prices plunged this week, and farmers are finding that consumption before the Lunar New Year festival in January isn’t as strong as expected. In meat powerhouse Brazil, 67% of people ate less animal protein in the past year as rising food prices curbed purchases. And in the US, Taco Bell said Gen Z diners increasingly want to eat chicken instead of beef.

Bird Pain

Bird flu continues to ravage poultry globally. The virus has reached five South American countries since October and wiped out half of the UK’s free-range turkeys for Christmas.

Luxury turkey prices have remained high in Britain on the back of the bird-flu outbreak and soaring costs of everything from animal feed to energy. But that hasn’t stopped customers from buying them — at high-end butcher shops across the country, many are sold out or almost out of stock.

 

 

[dog-days]

2 hours ago, Derfel Cadarn said:

Shit hitting the fan in China, apparently. Assuning this is legit

https://twitter.com/drericding/status/1604748747640119296?s=46&t=Xn1AFiyb8nws487opDFo3Q

I very much hope it's hugely wrong. 

ETA: 2 million predicted deaths. So that would be 0.14% of the overall population? (Mathematicians help.) Around in every thousand dying, plus many more developing long Covid? 

[Impmk2]

7 hours ago, Derfel Cadarn said:

Shit hitting the fan in China, apparently. Assuning this is legit

https://twitter.com/drericding/status/1604748747640119296?s=46&t=Xn1AFiyb8nws487opDFo3Q

Eric Feigl-Ding tends to post sensationalist rubbish and I would put very little weight on his predictions which are often indispersed with outright misinformation (eg. a doubling time of less than a day from this latest thread). Covid (along with other infectious disease) doom porn is his shtick. Things can be bad enough without making shit up. This is the man who insisted that monkey pox was airborne and we were all about to be infected.

Having said that China is in big trouble.
 

[Fragile Bird]

I finally got my Pfizer bivalent booster on Saturday. My brother and I have done everything together (and in secret, because of my SiL becoming a crazed anti-vaxxer in recent years) but for some reason he was just dragging his feet on this last shot. I think many people are just worn out. I was at the dentist last month and his wife, who works as his receptionist, said she got her two shots and that was that, no more for her.

Anyway, I finally just got fed up and dropped by my doctor’s office on Friday to book an appointment when I discovered they were only doing flu shots, so I booked that shot for Monday (yesterday) and then Saturday morning went on-line to hunt for a Covid-19 shot. I tried a couple of places including Costco but they were booked for days ahead, so I just chose one pharmacy, Shopper’s Drug Mart, and checked every store west of downtown to find a slot. They post three days worth (click for the next three days) and the first 7 or 8 were fully booked, one had a slot open on Sunday, but I was obsessed with getting it done on Saturday, and found a store at a location I go to regularly just a few kilometers away. Holy smokes, was that place busy, people rolling in non-stop to get flu and Covid vaccinations. I know a lot of you guys got both shots at the same time but I wanted to see if I was going to have a reaction to the Pfizer shot. The area around the injection is more sore than from previous shots, but that’s it. Maybe I’ve been a bit tired as well. The nurse who gave me my flu shot told me she had gotten Pfizer shots all along but decided to get the Moderna bivalent shot, and had pain down her entire arm for more than a week, her worse reaction ever.

I had my brother drive me there in case I did have a reaction and used our time together to nag him. I’m sure I can get a spot booked for him soon. 

I just want to thank you, @Zorral, for talking about your partner getting Covid because I think that started nagging at me, until I finally said I can’t wait for my brother anymore. I had to laugh when he told me that my SiL every now and then says things like “thank God she only got the first two shots, if she got any more she’d probably be dead by now, or they would have fooled her with a placebo!” Saying the bivalent shots are just placebos is apparently the big conspiracy thing right now. 

[Zorral]

2 hours ago, Fragile Bird said:

she got her two shots and that was that, no more for her.

I cannot comprehend that attitude.  I honestly just cannot.  Thank goodness the people at my dentist's don't have that state of mindlessness ... particularly the way things are here with the rate of infection, and that I have a dental check-up and cleaning booked for Friday!  If they did, I wouldn't go.

[Fragile Bird]

1 hour ago, Zorral said:

I cannot comprehend that attitude.  I honestly just cannot.  Thank goodness the people at my dentist's don't have that state of mindlessness ... particularly the way things are here with the rate of infection, and that I have a dental check-up and cleaning booked for Friday!  If they did, I wouldn't go.

I know, I know, and I want to say it’s because they’re Polish, but it’s my dentist who’s Polish, her background is Italian. However, his practice is largely drawn from the Polish community and it wouldn’t surprise me to find out the constant pressure from the clients wore her down. Also, her husband is very, very strongly allergic to the vaccine. I know he’s had at least two shots, but I didn’t ask if he’s tried to get more.

I actually think the Polish community in this province might even be worse than Poland itself. I looked up vaccination statistics for the first time in forever and I saw the NYT chart. One shot, fully vaccinated (does that still mean two shots?) and additional shots are 60%, 60% and 40% in Poland. In Canada it’s 92%, 84% and 78%. In the US it’s 80%, 68% and 63%.

I’ve received two voice mails from the Ministry of Health asking me to go get my bivalent vaccine, the most recent last week, and I guess that together with your story pushed me to get it.

[Mudguard]

On 12/19/2022 at 10:53 AM, Derfel Cadarn said:

Shit hitting the fan in China, apparently. Assuning this is legit

https://twitter.com/drericding/status/1604748747640119296?s=46&t=Xn1AFiyb8nws487opDFo3Q

i take all twitter threads with a massive grain of salt.  pandemic covid modeling has been shown to be relatively unreliable and frankly of little practical use.  we will just have to wait and see how things go there.  

i think china has little choice but to give up on the zero covid policy, so some surge is to be expected.  how bad will it get, who knows.  the vaccination rate in china is a lot higher than the us, for example, but the vaccines they used were of lower efficacy.  it's not clear how well their vaccines will protect against serious disease and death.

[Zorral]

Well, how about this, hmmmmm?

It’s Time for New Yorkers to Mask Up Again, Mayor Adams Says
Donning a mask, Mayor Eric Adams urged New Yorkers to protect themselves against a swirl of viral illnesses in the city, including Covid-19, flu and R.S.V.

"The number of Covid cases has jumped since Thanksgiving and now stands at about 3,600 per day .... "

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/20/nyregion/nyc-covid-flu-rsv-eric-adams.html

Quote

 

Mayor Eric Adams put his face mask on again on Tuesday and encouraged New Yorkers to do the same.

Mr. Adams held a news conference at City Hall to urge residents to take precautions in the face of a winter surge of Covid-19 cases and other illnesses.

“With the holiday season in full swing and cases of Covid-19, flu and R.S.V. rising, we are asking New Yorkers to protect themselves and their loved ones once again,” Mr. Adams said.

It was the mayor’s first Covid briefing in months, and he does not typically wear a mask in public. City health officials issued an advisory earlier this month strongly recommending that people wear masks in both public indoor settings and crowded outdoor environments, but many New Yorkers who are weary of pandemic restrictions have not complied.

City health officials again encouraged New Yorkers on Tuesday to get vaccinated and boosted, noting that more than 80 percent of people who are dying from the coronavirus are unvaccinated. They also recommended that people get tested before gathering for the holidays.

Mr. Adams, a Democrat pseudo Democrat who is nearing the end of his first year in office, received his second booster shot on camera in September. He has been eager to move on from the pandemic and its economic devastation of the city, and has resisted bringing back mask mandates. ....

.... The number of Covid cases has jumped since Thanksgiving and now stands at about 3,600 per day, according to city data. The real caseload is much higher, though, because that number does not include at-home testing, which is now prevalent. ....

 

If anyone here in NYC blathers about how worn out they are about getting vaccinated, having gotten one or two shots, I just want to kick them.  It's so frakin' easy here to get the shots.  You just make an appointment at a pharmacy.  The same with flu shots.

But yet again, for third Christmas in a row, the infection rate is so high, we will be spending together -- which will be nice of course -- but it would be even nicer if we could be spending it as we used to, with our friends.

 

[Impmk2]

On 12/2/2022 at 5:51 PM, Impmk2 said:

https://twitter.com/ScienceMagazine/status/1598414246416629761?s=20&t=S5eXqCFCcPcL8IKM--aFdg

Very very interesting study. Haven't had time to properly read and digest, but is evidence that Omicron evolved in isolation in West Africa, rather than suddenly emerging from an immunocompromised / animal host. That was always one of the options, though was largely dismissed given how interconnected the world is.

Just saw this paper has now been retracted. Looks like the analysis was based on contaminated samples.

[The Anti-Targ]

18 hours ago, Fragile Bird said:

I finally got my Pfizer bivalent booster on Saturday. My brother and I have done everything together (and in secret, because of my SiL becoming a crazed anti-vaxxer in recent years) but for some reason he was just dragging his feet on this last shot.

 

I dunno if I am being intolerant, probably yes, but if my wife became a crazed anti-vaxxer it would be grounds for divorce for me. So I have to say that your brother is better than I in this regard.

[Zorral]

This Party Season, You Don’t Have to R.S.V.P., Just Test
As rising Covid rates collide with a return to holiday festivities, hosts are coming up with inventive compromises.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/23/health/covid-holidays-parties.html

Quote

 

.... “I wrote on the invitation that the windows are going to be open, and I want people to test before they come,” said Dr. Dan Bauman of Manhattan, who is hosting a New Year’s Day open house for the first time in three years and plans to spend next week baking cookies and making his famous caramel-covered Cheetos. (Yes, you read that correctly: “People go nuts about them,” he said.)

In a defiant nod to the pandemic, his invitations implored friends to “join me in super-spreading holiday cheer.”

Perhaps surprisingly, many experts endorse rapid testing as a wise strategy for holiday partyers. At-home antigen tests can detect active infections with a high degree of accuracy, even if they are far from foolproof. ....

 

This has been our experience, and that of others we know too, who have been successful in handling large groups w/o the group per se getting infected, if one is.  Constant testing (as well as masks and ventilation, of course).  Plus vaccinations too.

[Paxter]

Pretty incredible reports coming out of China. The FT ran an article today that mentioned a quarter of a billion infections in the last three weeks alone.

One wonders what the true human cost of this will be and to what extent a proper vaccine rollout could have prevented it.

[The Anti-Targ]

Sooo that means 100% of China infected within the next 15 weeks. >99% survival rate. Mostly old people dying, of which China was starting to worry about them being such a large proportion of the population. If you are thinking like a Chinese communist and remembering the cultural revolution you are probably thinking this is not such a bad prospect. Weather this ~4 month storm and things will get back on track before they hit the last quarter of 2023.

[JGP]

21 hours ago, The Anti-Targ said:

Sooo that means 100% of China infected within the next 15 weeks. >99% survival rate. Mostly old people dying, of which China was starting to worry about them being such a large proportion of the population. If you are thinking like a Chinese communist and remembering the cultural revolution you are probably thinking this is not such a bad prospect. Weather this ~4 month storm and things will get back on track before they hit the last quarter of 2023.

I read earlier that 37 million people allegedly got infected in one day?

Prayers or whatever up for China everybody. 

[JGP]

And this might be cold, but supporting China through what's coming would be win all around every level, with medium type cooling benefit beside. Maybe.

 

Merry Christmas, y'all. I'm checking out for a few. 

[DireWolfSpirit]

I'm skeptical that chivalry is a good strategy when one is elgible to get a booster.

Your Anthony Fauci types probably would encourage you to get the shot as soon as elgible without any calculous to whether your vulnerable neighbors are foot dragging or not.

If everyone were to behave that way it could create a dangerous and unnecessary bottleneck.

If the health guidelines say its your turn, its your turn and has been determined by planners versed with more information than the general public.

Waiting serves noone imo.

[Zorral]

I heard from 5 different friends, ranging from the Chesapeake to TX to Seattle to Indiana, whose family Christmas Day get-together has been canceled due to covid.  One of them got notice from two separate parts of her family that a family member tested with it last night, and the other this morning. In each case the covid arrived via one of the children.

 

[Iskaral Pust]

Our lead guy on COVID (and he has some heavy credentials in govt preparedness and response to epidemics) is very concerned about China.  The current variants are just too virulent, especially in a population with low antibodies.  Plus their hospital capacity per capita is much lower than the west.  Their saving grace is that the current variants are also much less severe and less fatal, so the most likely outcome is a huge number of non-fatal infections.  Hopefully overcrowded hospitals don’t result in many preventable deaths.

As @The Anti-Targ said, a really sociopathic realpolitik by Xi here would say it’s a way to make the people regret protesting his paternalistic protective policies and, at worst, at a tolerable cost of deaths among very oldest which helps solve the growing dependency ratio problem.  When you view your society as an ant colony, you have a very different policy calculus.