Mega-Thread: Coronavirus Pandemic

[Orange Joe]

Works both ways. When Trump was pushing the vaccine it was the left who was against it. People aren't following the facts but rather their own party affiliation.

Source please.

[Poopymonster]

Source please.

The source was Kirk Johnson. In his wikipedia article you can find where the source was pulled from.

[jonnysensible]

What's this Walter Reed vaccine then? I swear if you mericans invent the cure all and don't share it with the world.

[PhaelixWW]

What's this Walter Reed vaccine then? I swear if you mericans invent the cure all and don't share it with the world.

US Army Creates Single Vaccine Effective Against All COVID & SARS Variants, Researchers Say

Walter Reed’s Spike Ferritin Nanoparticle COVID-19 vaccine, or SpFN, completed animal trials earlier this year with positive results. Phase 1 of human trials, which tested the vaccine against Omicron and the other variants, wrapped up this month, again with positive results that are undergoing final review, Dr. Kayvon Modjarrad, director of Walter Reed’s infectious diseases branch, said in an exclusive interview with Defense One.

Unlike existing vaccines, Walter Reed’s SpFN uses a soccer ball-shaped protein with 24 faces for its vaccine, which allows scientists to attach the spikes of multiple coronavirus strains on different faces of the protein.

The next step is seeing how the new pan-coronavirus vaccine interacts with people who were previously vaccinated or previously sick. Walter Reed is working with a yet-to-be-named industry partner for that wider rollout.

Interesting, but it just finished phase 1 trials, so it's not going to be through phase 2/3 for a while.

Well, actually, the transmissibility of omicron may get phase 2/3 to their endpoint more quickly than previous vaccine candidates.

[Rasulis]

Health Experts Look At How Omicron Could Impact Bay Area’s Collective Immunity

Health experts say there may be a silver lining in the omicron surge. It’s going to touch a lot of people, and it probably won’t make them very sick.

“If, in fact, it is relatively benign,” said Marin County Health officer Dr. Matt Willis. “So let’s say it’s a much less severe illness and the rate of people becoming hospitalized who are infected is much lower than delta.”

Willis said, for the vaccinated, encountering the variant might simply produce a mild immune response – not unlike a booster.

“It’s almost like a vaccine,” Willis said. “It provides a layer of immunity, across the entire population.”

A strange way of looking at it. Rutherford was a bit more cautious.

“Even though we are boosted already, and we will not necessarily be susceptible, we are going to get exposed to it and that is going to kick our immunity up even more,” sid UCSF Epidemiologist Dr. George Rutherford. “We don’t have to get infected to get our immunity boosted.”

And that could help push the Bay Area towards greater virus protection, without much in the way of a surge in hospitalizations.

“It boosts immunity way up, across the area, and in the spring we walk out of this and don’t look back,” Rutherford told KPIX 5. “But that’s an exceptionally optimistic scenario.”

That's the guy that at the beginning of the pandemic wanted to lock down San Francisco as early as January 2020. He did not get his way until March 2020.

[Edge-]

Health experts say there may be a silver lining

Not gonna lie, but I'm getting sick to death of hearing this term about everything -_-

[Forogil]

US Army Creates Single Vaccine Effective Against All COVID & SARS Variants, Researchers Say

Interesting, but it just finished phase 1 trials, so it's not going to be through phase 2/3 for a while.

Well, actually, the transmissibility of omicron may get phase 2/3 to their endpoint more quickly than previous vaccine candidates.

Seems somewhat similar to the Novavax's Covovax/Nuvaxovid vaccine in that both are pike proteins on nano-particles; although Novavax (that just got approved in EU) has 14 proteins per nano-particle not 24; and I haven't heard about them considered mixing them from different strains.

I don't know the benefit of having different strains of the virus on the same nano-particle - in contrast to just mixing them; or even whether having the original strain is needed at the moment. I can understand that it would be good if we have multiple circulating strains at the same time as for the flu.

[Gaidax]

We're are going to start to issue second booster (4th total) to 60+ population as a preventive measure against new variant.

Likely this means everyone else will start getting 4th shot in a month or so, was expected, although a bit ahead of schedule.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-59749967

[DarkAmbient]

https://www.politico.eu/newsletter/l...-liz-vs-no-10/

SCOOP: The Omicron coronavirus variant is causing a milder disease than the Delta strain in most Britons, U.K. government scientists are set to conclude. The U.K. Health Security Agency is due to publish its early real-world data on the severity of the disease before Christmas, and Playbook is told the experts are likely to offer a mixed outlook, with some positives and some negatives.

Top line: The best news in the early data is that Britons who fall sick with Omicron are less likely to become severely ill than those who caught Delta. More people are likely to have a mild illness with less serious symptoms — probably in part due to Britain’s large number of vaccinated and previously infected people, and possibly because Omicron may be intrinsically milder. Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty has previously cautioned against too much optimism based on the initial optimistic signs from South Africa in the past few weeks. However, the UKHSA’s view after studying cases in Britain is that Omicron is indeed usually less severe than Delta.

Important caveat: The less good news is that while Omicron seems milder overall, the UKHSA has found it is not necessarily mild enough to avoid large numbers of hospitalizations. The experts have found evidence that for those who do become severely ill, there is still a high chance of hospitalization and death. The UKHSA has also confirmed that transmissibility of Omicron is very high, meaning that even though it is milder, infections could rocket to the point large numbers still end up in hospital — essentially negating the reduction in severity. NHS staff shortages due to widespread infections also have to be taken into account. Boris Johnson said on Tuesday that there was still “uncertainty” on exactly how severe Omicron is, and how this impacts the hospitalization rate.

Boosters make a difference: There is other good news, though. Playbook is told the UKHSA is also expected to conclude that while two doses of a vaccine are not enough to offer strong protection, a booster dose does significantly reduce the chance of both symptomatic infection and ending up in hospital. A UKHSA spokesperson told Playbook they would not comment on unpublished data.

[Forogil]

Manhattan's weekly average for new COVID cases is 1% of the population.

And that was posted yesterday. Today it has increased to 1.5% in Manhattan and almost 1% city-wide.

The uk might also soon be there (0.9% per week), and Denmark is already at 1.2% per week.
Both of those countries are also showing an increase in positivity rate, that might indicate that testing is somewhat limited (NY seems to have an even higher positivity rate - couldn't see it separately for NYC).

That we still don't see indications of large number of hospitalizations due to Omicron is a tentatively promising sign (especially as the infection seems to last only a few days), but with these large increases it seems that a large number will be infected before we know how dangerous Omicron is - so in case it after all isn't mild it will be too late.

- - - Updated - - -

Some additional indications that Omicron is likely milder than Delta:

In Scotland among people over 65:

It said that if Omicron behaved the same as Delta then they would expect around 47 people to have been admitted to hospital already. At the moment there are only 15.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world...ins/ar-AAS3SB6

From South Africa:

It showed people were 70-80% less likely to need hospital treatment, depending on whether Omicron is compared to previous waves, or other variants currently circulating.

However, it suggested there was no difference in outcomes for the few patients that ended up in hospital with Omicron.

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1....21.21268116v1
So, it seems that either it is naturally mild or both vaccines and previous infection give fair protection.

[Rasulis]

Not gonna lie, but I'm getting sick to death of hearing this term about everything -_-

Since you hate it so much, I just had to do this.

The dark clouds - San Francisco daily case rate is now almost as high August peak (292 vs. 310). Viral load in the wastewater is up. The N gene viral load is higher than the historical peak by 150%. Which indicates high level of infection (maybe exposure is the better term?). The S gene viral load on the other hand is no higher than post Halloween/Thanksgiving. Which from what I understand indicates low illness level.

The silver linings - Hospitalization is one fourth of August (34 vs. 123). ICU is also one fourth of August (9 vs. 37). Mortality is one-ninth of August (4 vs. 38). Hospitalization is actually on the decline after peaking at 39.

[cubby]

From first detected to confirmed case in 50th state, it took 22 days for Omicron variant to spread through all 50 states in the U.S. . I have no idea what that means, but it doesn't sound good.

[bmjclark]

My province's (Ontario) cases have surged from 1500 last wednesday to roughly 4400 today and this is with a massive backlog. Based on the provinces data, 2 doses of the vaccine are providing pretty much 0% protection against infection but still seem to provide strong protection against serious symptoms. Seems Omicron stripped away any possibility of our high vaccination rate protecting the unvaccinated so they may be in for a rough winter

[Zantos]

Not gonna lie, but I'm getting sick to death of hearing this term about everything -_-

Agreed. There is no silver lining at this point. The virus has mutated to be able to freely infect (it seems from the skyrocketing numbers). That means it can now have more chances to become more deadly. That is a huge oh crap moment since it can now more easily learn how to fight the vaccine all together.

- - - Updated - - -

From first detected to confirmed case in 50th state, it took 22 days for Omicron variant to spread through all 50 states in the U.S. . I have no idea what that means, but it doesn't sound good.

It means the anti-vaxxers have now made the vaccine nearly a moot point. At this point, I would dare say a lock down may be coming soon. More transmissible then the original and its spreading like an unopposed wild fire.

- - - Updated - - -

My province's (Ontario) cases have surged from 1500 last wednesday to roughly 4400 today and this is with a massive backlog. Based on the provinces data, 2 doses of the vaccine are providing pretty much 0% protection against infection but still seem to provide strong protection against serious symptoms. Seems Omicron stripped away any possibility of our high vaccination rate protecting the unvaccinated so they may be in for a rough winter

A coworker of mine was talking to me about this yesterday. He was about to get the vaccine but wont bother now that it won't even prevent infection.

[bmjclark]

A coworker of mine was talking to me about this yesterday. He was about to get the vaccine but wont bother now that it won't even prevent infection.

You'd think it'd be all the more reason to get it considering the vaccinated people around him are now much more likely to be able to pass it to him and the vaccine is still very effective at preventing serious cases

[Zantos]

You'd think it'd be all the more reason to get it considering the vaccinated people around him are now much more likely to be able to pass it to him and the vaccine is still very effective at preventing serious cases

Hes one of those "if I die I die" people. However, I have a feeling that his thought process isn't alone and is going to lead to more issues with getting the vaccines as they are now. I don't know if there has ever been a study about it, but it does bring up the question as to weather or not people got the vaccine to help prevent the spread or because they feared what it could do to themselves more.

I'm also curious if we are going to start seeing more mask mandates. Or anything for that matter. With cases spiking so quickly and rapidly, whats going to start happening to try to limit it. Even with vaccines, its still more chances for hospitalizations to increase due to the sheer number of infected. Yet again, who knows if people will even listen at this point.

[Rasulis]

Agreed. There is no silver lining at this point. The virus has mutated to be able to freely infect (it seems from the skyrocketing numbers). That means it can now have more chances to become more deadly. That is a huge oh crap moment since it can now more easily learn how to fight the vaccine all together.

That's a strange way of looking at things. In highly vaccinated San Francisco, as positive test results increased exponentially, hospitalization actually went down. With each new variant of concerns, the hospitalization peak period get flatter and shorter. Many worlds class UCSF immunologists are now of the opinion that the Omicron variant, provided San Francisco can keep hospitalization and mortality low, is actually good for boosting the overall community immune level. I doubt other regions with low vaccination rates can make the same claim.

[Poopymonster]

Hes one of those "if I die I die" people. However, I have a feeling that his thought process isn't alone and is going to lead to more issues with getting the vaccines as they are now. I don't know if there has ever been a study about it, but it does bring up the question as to weather or not people got the vaccine to help prevent the spread or because they feared what it could do to themselves more.

I'm also curious if we are going to start seeing more mask mandates. Or anything for that matter. With cases spiking so quickly and rapidly, whats going to start happening to try to limit it. Even with vaccines, its still more chances for hospitalizations to increase due to the sheer number of infected. Yet again, who knows if people will even listen at this point.

No. Beacuse people are too fucking selfish and self centered. They'd rather plot to kidnap and execute a Governor than wear a mask. They'd rather listen to Infowhores (Sellers of Brain Bone Broth) about Sandy Hook being faked than listen to people who are professionals in the field of infectious diseases for longer than they've been alive. They will in no way help their fellow man because their Jesus said "Fuck the poor, go get jobs." They'll martyr themselves on the altar of stupidity. And they'll take anyone they can down with them. Fuck them all, and fuck a particular church's unvaccinated priest who decided to push that his deity would protect his congregation instead of a vaccine. And ended up killing a fully vaccinated friend of mine.

[Forogil]

A coworker of mine was talking to me about this yesterday. He was about to get the vaccine but wont bother now that it won't even prevent infection.

That's silly; it's like saying you will not wear a seatbelt, since it doesn't even prevent the car from crashing!

And the vaccines give stronger protection against the worst outcomes.

[PhaelixWW]

And that was posted yesterday. Today it has increased to 1.5% in Manhattan and almost 1% city-wide.

And what's worse is that not only is that data only up to three days ago, it's also almost certainly incomplete... by a large amount. When I posted that earlier stat the other day, Manhattan was listed as 960 per 100k for the week ending 12/17. After a couple more days to fill in that data, 12/17 is now listed as 1380 per 100k.

So if the 12/19 data is off by a similar 50%, then it's more likely to be 2.25%, rather than 1.5%. And today is more likely to actually be closer to 3%.

Checking into the neighborhood data, I see that Greenwich Village - SoHo is already listed at 3% through 12/19, which probably means over 5% today.




Naturally, NYC positivity has skyrocketed.