Mega-Thread: Coronavirus Pandemic

[Forogil]

Ok, fine, fuck it - Russia is doing Russia things instead of spending money on something useful.
NTV, RenTV, Rossija 24, Ria Novostji, Vestji Ru are all, uhhh, reporting about the supposed side effects and deaths of Western vaccines. Topics about mistrust in Western countries regarding vaccines (while ignoring that Russia literally does have that problem, only up to 40% wants Sputnik), disproved deaths (like the case with 6 deaths during testing - 4 of which received the placebo... xD), delivered faulty vaccines, high deaths in nursing houses and, of course, how stuff like Pfizer has bad sideeffects like strong pain, paralysis, alergic reactions.

Everything in half truths, "forgetting" full data, twisting it, etc.

Yes, and now others are catching up with the Russian half truths:
https://www.economist.com/science-an...sults-accurate
https://journals.lww.com/americanthe...accine.47.aspx

The most likely explanation is that the results for Sputnik V were wholly or partially faked,

In 50,000 simulated trials of the Sputnik vaccine, 0.026% had all age subgroups fall within the limits of the efficacy estimates described by the published article, whereas 99.974% did not.

(The results for other vaccines seemed ok.)

Coincidentally Russia is also close to the top in terms of excess deaths, at about 0.8-0.9% of the population (Bulgaria, Serbia, and N. Macedonia seem slightly worse off); Peru that was a leader in both excess deaths and reported deaths but is still at 0.66% - the US it at 0.35-0.4%.
https://www.economist.com/graphic-de...aths-estimates

[Edge-]

https://www.tennessean.com/story/new...ne/7699804001/

And Republicans continue their attack on science and medicine, this time with Tennessee Republicans trying to prevent the state from distributing the vaccine to children 1-5.

Now, it's not a HUGE risk for young kids to get covid -

Children have historically faced lower risk than adults from COVID-19, though more than 200 children ages 1-4 have died and 20,000 have been hospitalized with the disease, according to USA Today.

Tennessee reports more than 2 million COVID-19 cases since the beginning of the pandemic, with 187,930 occurring children 10 and under.

But given that there's little to no evidence of risk from the vaccine, which can reduce the chances that the children have a serious case of covid that might require hospitalization.

Zachary said parents who want the vaccine could seek it out from a private doctor but called on Lee to block local health departments from administering the shot to children under 5.

Problem being, especially in many rural areas, that there are few if any private doctors available, much less that many people can afford to go see. They rely on the state health departments for much of their medical information and care. Which is true for the state as well -

The proposed move would decrease the number of vaccine providers available to families with young children in the state, as the department operates 89 primarily rural county health departments. Tennessee's larger, urban health departments operate independently.

Which is a problem, because Republicans in the state have previously threatened to shut down the department overall following their efforts to encourage teens to get vaccinated -

Lawmakers threatened to dissolve the department at a meeting General Assembly's Joint Government Operations Committee in July 2021 because of the department's efforts to encourage teenagers to get vaccinated against COVID-19.

Later that month, the state fired its top vaccination official, Dr. Michelle Fiscus, over what she claimed was an attempt to appease lawmakers over these concerns.

Why? Because these are anti-vaccine, anti-science death cultists -

Zachary is one of several Republican House members who have strongly opposed the COVID-19 vaccine, which has been found safe and effective at protecting against serious COVID-19 illness and death, and other pandemic safety restrictions.

[Masark]

Now, it's not a HUGE risk for young kids to get covid -

Don't worry, they're going to expand their efforts to every other vaccine in existence (along with all future ones) to get that risk bigger.

[Moadar]

I currently have covid. So far it sucks pretty bad but I have the two shots and booster.

[Yunru]

I currently have covid. So far it sucks pretty bad but I have the two shots and booster.

You should be fine. If you have a breathing problems, you should call a doctor so they can put you on machine and save your life.
Also, do not let anyone without some protection near you, as you will just end up being a virus spreader and if possible, alcohol everything you touch.

Anyway:
I have been wearing mask still since they canceled it and numbers still didnt go down here .
Heck numbers went up even with heatwave (sun should be very effective to it) from 245 from june 1 to 541 to 23. june.
And now vacation started and its gona be spread araund countrys even more.

[Moadar]

You should be fine. If you have a breathing problems, you should call a doctor so they can put you on machine and save your life.
Also, do not let anyone without some protection near you, as you will just end up being a virus spreader and if possible, alcohol everything you touch.

Anyway:
I have been wearing mask still since they canceled it and numbers still didnt go down here .
Heck numbers went up even with heatwave (sun should be very effective to it) from 245 from june 1 to 541 to 23. june.
And now vacation started and its gona be spread araund countrys even more.

I'm probably going to see my doctor on Monday. I ended vacation early and drove 9 hours back home while coughing my lungs out and aching all over.

It ran through the vacation house like wildfire and all of us had the shots and booster. Unfortunately before any of us knew we were sick we went to a giant seafood place that crams everyone in shoulder to shoulder and probably spread it to countless people. We have become too complacent and are paying the price. I just hope anyone we ran into were vaccinated.

[Mayhem]

looks like ba.4 and ba.5 are going to be replaced by be.1 within the next months

[Rasulis]

Case numbers are slowly declining but still high here. I am surprised the numbers are not higher considering all the events going on. In the last month we have had Warriors' party & parade, Stern Grove, CorgiCon, Pride Parade, all the Roe v. Wade almost daily protests, etc. I am surprised it has not exploded out of control.

[Edge-]

Case numbers are slowly declining but still high here. I am surprised the numbers are not higher considering all the events going on. In the last month we have had Warriors' party & parade, Stern Grove, CorgiCon, Pride Parade, all the Roe v. Wade almost daily protests, etc. I am surprised it has not exploded out of control.

Good news is hospitals still seem like they're doing alright in CA.

But very much yeah, life is returning to normal for the most part it seems. I'm still avoiding shit in the hopes I can keep my streak going, but the net is closing. Few friends have avoided it have been exposed recently as well so hopefully they won't get it, but every week more and more folks I know are either getting it (mostly mild-moderate symptoms, no hospitalizations or anything because yay vaccines).

What's maybe worrying is that they're apparently seeing some monkeypox or whatever in the wastewater in the bay area, so I hope we don't have to contend with both at once : |

[Rasulis]

Good news is hospitals still seem like they're doing alright in CA.

But very much yeah, life is returning to normal for the most part it seems. I'm still avoiding shit in the hopes I can keep my streak going, but the net is closing. Few friends have avoided it have been exposed recently as well so hopefully they won't get it, but every week more and more folks I know are either getting it (mostly mild-moderate symptoms, no hospitalizations or anything because yay vaccines).

What's maybe worrying is that they're apparently seeing some monkeypox or whatever in the wastewater in the bay area, so I hope we don't have to contend with both at once : |

I have not paid too much attention to the Monkey Pox. It is my understanding that transmission requires direct contact?

[Edge-]

I have not paid too much attention to the Monkey Pox. It is my understanding that transmission requires direct contact?

Honestly...I haven't looked at all. It just came up on a work call and apparently it's pretty nasty looking or something, but like...until it becomes something I have to worry about, I kinda don't have the brainspace for another plague right now.

[Rasulis]

Honestly...I haven't looked at all. It just came up on a work call and apparently it's pretty nasty looking or something, but like...until it becomes something I have to worry about, I kinda don't have the brainspace for another plague right now.

Same here. My parents are visiting for 2 months. I feel bad for them. The only places I took them are outdoor places with no crowd. Although we did go to CorgiCon. It was held at Ocean Beach. I figured as long as we stay away from the crowd, since it was outdoor and real windy, we will be okay.

[Forogil]

I have not paid too much attention to the Monkey Pox. It is my understanding that transmission requires direct contact?

It is believed so; but some are investigating if it may spread through air as well.
The number of cases worldwide are still slowly increasing - but current trends continuing it will be several months (or years) until it poses a significant threat.

[Edge-]

https://www.wgbh.org/news/national-n...-health-powers

Damn, down to page two. But not surprising, it seems to have faded a bit in the news despite cases still being high, in large part due to plenty of other "exciting" new things to freak people out.

This is a long read, but it's pretty scary how conservative legal groups have basically used covid to systematically attack government authority and limit what can be done to protect public health - which is genuinely a very important part of a governments job.

The government - federal, state, and local - is going to be less prepared, and less capable to having the authority to battle upcoming pandemics - yes there will be more - and that's gonna be dangerous as fuck.

We've already seen misinformation doing significant damage and that the phrase, "Avoid it like the plague" is no longer relevant given how we literally are still in a plague and a large number of people have done everything to pretend it doesn't exist and not take it seriously. The only silver lining is that those folks should shrink in terms of raw numbers as we go through more pandemics that they refuse to treat seriously.

[Forogil]

Some good and bad news are coming out regarding covid

Good vaccine-news:

Possibly 20 million lives have been saved by covid-vaccines (mostly AZ and Pfizer/BioNTech) during 2021(*) - which is about the same as the estimated number of deaths so far; and based on the pandemic this year I would guess that the number of lives saved may be double that. (Although it's not just about saving lives; vaccines also allow people to actually live.)

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/l...320-6/fulltext
https://www.economist.com/graphic-de...eir-first-year

The estimate is that about the same number of lives were saved in covax-countries (poor ones) as in rich countries.

However, that assumes that the covax-countries used the vaccines wisely - and vaccinated the elderly and not children. If the poorer countries used the vaccines less wisely millions fewer lives may have been saved.

Bad news - including vaccines:

More than hundred million of children in poor countries have been home from school for a long time - 2 years and counting in some places; with really bad effects

Before the pandemic 57% of ten-year-olds in low and middle-income countries could not read a simple story.... That figure may have risen to 70%... The share of ten-year-olds who cannot read in Latin America, probably the worst-affected region, could rocket from around 50% to 80%

There are even estimates that it will reduce GDP by 0.9% - not this year, but every year by 2040, and not in one country - but globally; at a cost of 20 trillion $ loss in earning for those children (or 30 times the current market cap of Tesla), compared to the minor estimated 0.15 trillion $ spent on covid-vaccines (in a few years).

https://www.economist.com/internatio...lobal-disaster

And it is not only lack of school, but tens of millions of children also lack the vaccination they would normally have, causing another set-back that may destroy their future:
https://www.who.int/news/item/15-07-...-three-decades

*: Well, not exactly 2021 - it was from Dec 8 2020 to Dec 8 2021.

[Rasulis]

With my parents in town, I ended up talking to some of the more remote family members.

I found out my 93 years old aunt in Chicago had asymptomatic Covid. She found out during her regular health checkup. It went away by itself. At 93, she still drives and goes to store to do her shopping. Good gene, I guess.

One uncle, early 80s, his immune system went haywire when they gave him the vaccine. Not sure which one. He ended up with wounds on his legs that took months to heal. They ended up having to use hyperbaric treatment to force blood flow to his legs. That was out of the left field. My father speculates that it may have something to do with his diabetes.

[Corvus]

Australia is going through a new major covid wave, which is coinciding with a pretty bad winter flu season. Health officials are saying we need mask mandates back, people working at home again, though the governments aren't showing much interest in it. This all despite a very high vaccination rate.

The problem is that its new Omicron sub-variants doing the round, BA 4 and BA 5. BA 5 is now the dominant variant in Australia, and seems to be very capable at evading previous immunities coming from vaccination or previous infections. Hospitalisations are up 63% in the last month.

Sometimes I think this won't end until we all end up in Quarian style encounter suits.

[Forogil]

The problem is that its new Omicron sub-variants doing the round, BA 4 and BA 5. BA 5 is now the dominant variant in Australia, and seems to be very capable at evading previous immunities coming from vaccination or previous infections. Hospitalisations are up 63% in the last month.

That it evades prior vaccinations is a bit of a simplification - as covid-vaccines normally protect more against death than against infection; and you expect the protection from previous vaccination or infection to be strongest against the serious consequences (as it gives the immune system a head start and then it can start hypermutating).

And some countries are already seeing signs that the latest covid-wave is declining even for hospitalizations, like Spain and Israel (the latest 2 weeks); and neither country seem to have done any policy changes the latest months. The number of deaths in this wave is a small fraction compared to previous waves, so something is still significantly reducing the risk. (It might be that Omicron is milder which also reduces the risk.)

Cases is more messy as testing protocols have varied wildly and many countries have scaled back testing; and death-numbers are generally a bit delayed.

[Tentim]

That it evades prior vaccinations is a bit of a simplification - as covid-vaccines normally protect more against death than against infection; and you expect the protection from previous vaccination or infection to be strongest against the serious consequences (as it gives the immune system a head start and then it can start hypermutating).

And some countries are already seeing signs that the latest covid-wave is declining even for hospitalizations, like Spain and Israel (the latest 2 weeks); and neither country seem to have done any policy changes the latest months. The number of deaths in this wave is a small fraction compared to previous waves, so something is still significantly reducing the risk. (It might be that Omicron is milder which also reduces the risk.)

Cases is more messy as testing protocols have varied wildly and many countries have scaled back testing; and death-numbers are generally a bit delayed.

It isn't even proven to prevent death to be fair. How effective it is will be up for debate for a while. I admit I expected public trust to be eroded a lot more given all the shit they pulled to push the vaccine. I hate living in a world where 4chan trolls eating horse paste were in fact getting rather good treatment and prevention...

[Forogil]

It isn't even proven to prevent death to be fair.

For the previous variants it is clear that the vaccine reduce deaths, even the bad Chinese ones, https://ourworldindata.org/covid-deaths-by-vaccination

However, one problem with simple studies and just looking at deaths is that vaccinations have (at least in most countries) been targeted at the ones most at risk - so 65-year olds are more like to have 3 or 4 vaccines doses than the population at large, and still die more often than 20-year olds, since the base risk is thousand times higher. Compensating for that makes it more difficult.