Mega-Thread: Coronavirus Pandemic

[Forogil]

Less people with symptoms, means there are less people seeking for help so less positive tests, also Israel droped the number of tests lately, wich is indicative of what i said.

Yes, but my point is that they vaccinated are not only without symptoms (or less severe symptoms), but also less infectious than the ones without the vaccine (this was hoped for but wasn't a given); because the large number of non-vaccinated clearly don't get the disease.

[PhaelixWW]

Which in return increases the likeliness of it mutating into something really terrible.

Okay, I'll say this again: any effort to fight off a virus will do the same. I'm honestly not sure what you think the alternative is. Complete eradication was never a possibility.

The flu kills how many in a bad year despite being around for centuries? A worse variant of the flu could turn into the next pandemic and we are now creating something besides the flu that could just do the same.

Influenza is a segmented virus and is prone to reassortment, which is why it's so prone to mutation and pandemic status. SARS-CoV-2 is not. And as I pointed out, SARS-CoV-2 won't be a novel virus for long, so its harmful effects will be greatly diminished in subsequent seasons.

The "flu" season is actually about more than just influenza, you know. And yes, "flu" season will get more dangerous going forward. But COVID is also more prone to being blocked by a vaccine, so the mostly worst case scenario is a yearly shot, just like the flu, with far more beneficial effect than the flu shot has.

[Mayhem]

I hope you are right.

[PhaelixWW]

I hope you are right.

I will point out that humanity has been living with four other coronaviruses for a long time, but which are relegated mostly to background noise in the flu season. Those viruses have all had far, far, far more opportunities to mutate into a pandemic strain, yet haven't.

There's very little reason to suspect that SARS-CoV-2 won't simply just join them as time progresses. We have far more reason to worry about zoonotic viruses than pre-existing human viruses.

[szechuan]

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/04/09/trum...s-reveal-.html

[Edge-]

I...think I missed the official update about pandemic deaths that included the "yipppee!!!"

Jesus christ on a fuckin stick, what a ghoul.

[Mayhem]

I will point out that humanity has been living with four other coronaviruses for a long time, but which are relegated mostly to background noise in the flu season. Those viruses have all had far, far, far more opportunities to mutate into a pandemic strain, yet haven't.

There's very little reason to suspect that SARS-CoV-2 won't simply just join them as time progresses. We have far more reason to worry about zoonotic viruses than pre-existing human viruses.

There is a vast difference between cov and sars-cov though.

Remember sars-cov-1? It was too aggressive and killed too fast so it effectively eradicated itself. It came with almost immediate symptoms so it was easier to identify who's infected and who isn't. But sars-cov-2 is here to stay, and we really don't know how that will affect humanity.

[PhaelixWW]

Remember sars-cov-1? It was too aggressive and killed too fast so it effectively eradicated itself. It came with almost immediate symptoms so it was easier to identify who's infected and who isn't. But sars-cov-2 is here to stay, and we really don't know how that will affect humanity.

I mean... we have a pretty good idea.

[Forogil]

I...think I missed the official update about pandemic deaths that included the "yipppee!!!"

I'm not sure if you misread it as I first did.

But to be clear: they didn't change the first line from a CDC report to say that - they changed the first line to something, and internally said "yipppee!!!"

[szechuan]

Ted Nugent Wants to Know Where the Shutdowns Were for COVID-1 Through COVID-18 — No, Really
Yeah.....

lmao

[Santti]

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-h...-idUSKBN2BT2ZI

"Yeah, but just 1% change to kill you!"

Sigh...

[Spectral]

"Yeah, but just 1% change to kill you!"

Sigh...

Unsurprisingly, this is basically journalistic malpractice. Here's the study (https://www.thelancet.com/journals/l...4-5/fulltext):

Among 236 379 patients diagnosed with COVID-19, the estimated incidence of a neurological or psychiatric diagnosis in the following 6 months was 33·62% (95% CI 33·17–34·07), with 12·84% (12·36–13·33) receiving their first such diagnosis.

So about two thirds of the people affected were already affected prior to getting COVID-19.

Most diagnostic categories were more common in patients who had COVID-19 than in those who had influenza (hazard ratio [HR] 1·44, 95% CI 1·40–1·47, for any diagnosis; 1·78, 1·68–1·89, for any first diagnosis) and those who had other respiratory tract infections (1·16, 1·14–1·17, for any diagnosis; 1·32, 1·27–1·36, for any first diagnosis)

Put another way, "people infected with COVID-19 are about 16% more likely to have neurological or mental disorders than people who have had any other respiratory tract infection".

[Forogil]

Unsurprisingly, this is basically journalistic malpractice. Here's the study:

Thanks for the link, unfortunately the formatting of the URL was broken for - the slashes before the parenthesis should just be removed as follows (might be some tool issue, might be that they changed their web-site):

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/l...084-5/fulltext

Put another way, "people infected with COVID-19 are about 16% more likely to have neurological or mental disorders than people who have had any other respiratory tract infection".

And the most common disorder seemed to be anxiety disorder.

However, I don't think it was just journalistic malpractice, but also that the researchers weren't that clear.

[Spectral]

And the most common disorder seemed to be anxiety disorder.

However, I don't think it was just journalistic malpractice, but also that the researchers weren't that clear.

Oops, fixed, thanks.

Any single instance of a journalist screwing up the story I could accept as a problem with the phrasing study, but the error always goes the same direction. The actual finding is that anxiety and depression are common, induced to some extent by respiratory viruses, and that COVID-19 is slightly worse than other respiratory viruses on that front. Turning that into this "one in three!" headline... well, I suppose I could grant that journalists don't understand results very well, but I don't see the abstract as being that unclear.

[Forogil]

Oops, fixed, thanks.

Any single instance of a journalist screwing up the story I could accept as a problem with the phrasing study, but the error always goes the same direction. The actual finding is that anxiety and depression are common, induced to some extent by respiratory viruses, and that COVID-19 is slightly worse than other respiratory viruses on that front.

Well, and with headlines like this I can understand that people get anxiety.

A study saying that 10% of mild cases get long-term symptoms - and not even cognitive ones, but mostly loss of smell; is clearly less spectacular.

[Easo]

Four cases of rare clots have been found with the Janssen vaccine although it is not yet clear whether there is a causal association with the vaccine. Fingers crossed that this is not related to the vaccine but it is worth noting that even if clots are a side effect the risk is very low.

https://www.ema.europa.eu/en/news/me...6-9-april-2021

Just to point out - there are discussions about Sputnik too regarding ocasional deaths. Might be that all of the vaccines of this type have the risk of clots.
P.S.
Slovakia saying that the delivered Sputnik is different from what was published in Lancet does not help the vaccination drive too, I suppose. Russia has demanded doses are returned and that it is a lie.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/08/w...e-sputnik.html

[PACOX]

Curious that the JJ vaccine may also be mirroring the AZ vaccine since they use similar technology.

[Verdugo]

Slovakia saying that the delivered Sputnik is different from what was published in Lancet does not help the vaccination drive too, I suppose. Russia has demanded doses are returned and that it is a lie.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/08/w...e-sputnik.html

Apparently scientists figured the same in Hungary... and were promptly ignored by the government.

[Pann]

Some potentially bad news for the J&J vaccine as US regulators pause the rollout.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-56733715

Hopefully this will turn out to be a case of over-caution rather than an issue caused by the vaccine.

[Shadowferal]

Aren’t AZ and J&J the same vaccine tech or something? It’s why I was expecting the same thing to happen to the J&J one.

Yup. I mentioned that earlier too.