Mega-Thread: Coronavirus Pandemic

[Dezerte]

She’s definitely not stupid. She has ulcerative colitis (almost died from it) and wanted to wait much longer before getting the vaccine (if she did at all), as she was hesitant with how it may affect her, and because of her mistrust over the anthrax vaccine.

As someone with a similar immune disease (Chron's disease) and taking immunosuppressants, my doctor told me there were no issues with me taking the vaccine. There are some vaccines I can't take (living vaccines) but that is because of the medication and not the illness.

[Winter Blossom]

As someone with a similar immune disease (Chron's disease) and taking immunosuppressants, my doctor told me there were no issues with me taking the vaccine. There are some vaccines I can't take (living vaccines) but that is because of the medication and not the illness.

Yeah, I think she takes the same type of medication. I know she goes into the hospital every now and then to get some infusion or something… I can’t remember. I know it can take awhile.

[Dezerte]

Yeah, I think she takes the same type of medication. I know she goes into the hospital every now and then to get some infusion or something… I can’t remember. I know it can take awhile.

Yeah - same, I've had a few iron infusions.

[Lenonis]

Cause I think her main reason is her distrust of it.

I'm not sure you have this right. The reason why I say so is because if she has severe UC she's likely on strong immunosuppressant drugs either steroids, metrotrexate, or biologics or some combo of them. This creates some legitimate medical concerns about getting a vaccine (of any kind) while on those types of medications. She probably has had this conversation with her doctor and her doctor probably talked over her options which would include discontinuing therapy for a period of time in order to get vaccinated. that would create legitimate concerns in any patient in that scenario.

You might want to talk to her about it to better understand. Because you have two scenarios -- one in which she's in a very legitimate space getting legitimate guidance from her doctor that would cause her concerns about vaccinations. The other is an irrational and ill informed response to an entirely different medical experience she had a long time ago.

[Wezmon]

This shit just will keep on mutating as long as rich countries keep the vaccines for themselves and do not help third world countries. First step would be removing the patent, so they can actually produce their own vaccine.

This isn't entirely true. The rich countries have given out a tonne of vaccines, they could d o better, but there's a perceived image that they have done nothing. The problem is getting the populations to take them. South Africa had to ask pfizer to delay shipping as they had too many stocked up. They just cant convince people to take them.

Just to add whilst removing patent might help initially you might face the same problem. Vaccines being made in terrible conditions with little care for quality and you end up with bad batches that further push the population to distrust the vaccine.

[Masark]

You don't think some people are not getting vaccinated because the government is trying to force them to do it?

That's what they said, "gullible fools, who buy into lies and conspiracy theories".

[Rasulis]

Back from mushroom hunting over the last 4 days in Mendocino. Not bad. Four trash bags full of mushrooms. They are all over the place this year.

From NPR Goats and Soda - Vaccine protection vs. omicron infection may drop to 30% but does cut severe disease

The bad news:

In the population in the South African study, the Pfizer vaccine's effectiveness against infection dropped down to about 30% for the omicron variant, compared with about 80% against the variant before omicron, the scientists reported.

The good news:

The researchers found that two shots of the Pfizer vaccine still offered about 70% protection against hospital admission because of COVID-19 in the population examined in the study. That's a drop from 90% observed during the previous surge in South Africa when the delta variant dominated. But 70% indicates the vaccine is still working well to keep people out of the hospital.

The caveat:

In addition, the data suggests that the protection seems to hold up in people with some risk factors such as diabetes and heart disease, as well as in older people.

But these findings come with a huge caveat.

In South Africa, many people have been exposed to the coronavirus. Some studies estimate that up to 90% of South Africans have been infected over the course of the pandemic. The study didn't take this into account.

Scientists are starting to think that for many people, getting infected is almost like an extra dose of the vaccine. The infection really helps the immune system learn how to fight off COVID-19 — similar to the way the vaccine does.

And several studies have shown that if you've had an infection and then get two doses of an mRNA vaccine, you are much better protected compared to somebody who had only the vaccine.

So for people who've had only two shots — and not a prior infection — the vaccine's effectiveness in helping fight off an infection could be lower than 30%.

Back to San Francisco. Cases still going up almost to the post-Halloween peak. Hospitalization down. ICU single digit.

We finally have booster data - 294,189 San Francisco residents have received booster shot. Which is around 34% of San Francisco population. Among residents that have completed their primary vaccine series, about 47 percent of White residents have received a booster dose, Asians 40 percent, Blacks 29 percent, Latinxs 26 percent, Native Americans 26 percent, and about 23 percent of Pacific Islanders have received the booster.

55% of children between 5 -11 have received at least one dose, 36% are fully vaccinated now.

Over 90% of all age groups, except for 25-34, have now received at least one dose. For 25 - 34 it is 80%. Laggard.

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California is reinstituting indoor mask mandate starting December 15 through January 15.

San Francisco is getting an exception from the CA DPH. It is allowed to keep it’s existing mask mandate in place. I expect Marin will receive an exception also.

[Breccia]

800,000 dead -- a grim milestone. We were doing pretty well from March to August.

A KFF study suggests about one in five deaths could have been prevented by vaccines. And we're still seeing over 1,000 deaths a day. In fact, we've been north of 1,000 deaths per day since mid-August, with the only exception being states not reporting over Thanksgiving.

Now as @Rasulis pointed out, vaccines plus boosters will lower your risk of getting the lethal affliction in the first place, and lower still your chance of dying if you still get it.

Everyone should be taking this seriously.

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California is reinstituting indoor mask mandate starting December 15 through January 15.

According to a bunch of signs I saw recently, NYState did the same.

[PhaelixWW]

According to a bunch of signs I saw recently, NYState did the same.

New York is starting to get hit hard by omicron.

I 100% believed that omicron wouldn't spread fast enough to be driven by the winter surge, but I was dead wrong. It will probably dominate delta by the end of January, if not December. There is a slight possibility that omicron is only spreading as fast as it is because it's mutated so far out of our community resistance, so it's possible that once it's spread pretty well throughout that delta might shift back into control. If omicron proves to be more mild than delta, then we can hope that slight possibility doesn't pan out.

[Rasulis]

800,000 dead -- a grim milestone. We were doing pretty well from March to August.

A KFF study suggests about one in five deaths could have been prevented by vaccines. And we're still seeing over 1,000 deaths a day. In fact, we've been north of 1,000 deaths per day since mid-August, with the only exception being states not reporting over Thanksgiving.

Now as @Rasulis pointed out, vaccines plus boosters will lower your risk of getting the lethal affliction in the first place, and lower still your chance of dying if you still get it.

Everyone should be taking this seriously.

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According to a bunch of signs I saw recently, NYState did the same.

Yes. New York is earlier. Mask mandate started this Monday (12/13).

So how many people could have been saved from Delta if the US vaccination rate is as high as San Francisco? San Francisco Delta deaths between August and November 2021 is 99 or 11.2 per 100k. US Covid deaths during the same period around 187,000 or 57.4 per 100k. So around 150,000 less. Probably higher. Not too many places in the US can match the population density of San Francisco.

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New York is starting to get hit hard by omicron.

I 100% believed that omicron wouldn't spread fast enough to be driven by the winter surge, but I was dead wrong. It will probably dominate delta by the end of January, if not December. There is a slight possibility that omicron is only spreading as fast as it is because it's mutated so far out of our community resistance, so it's possible that once it's spread pretty well throughout that delta might shift back into control. If omicron proves to be more mild than delta, then we can hope that slight possibility doesn't pan out.

It is growing in the Bay Area also. We had 11 health workers for Oakland Kaiser hospitals that went together to the Wisconsin wedding. Five in Berkeley and Alameda. So far it has been infecting fully vaccinated/boosted people. All mild symptoms. No hospitalization. They finally detected the variant in Bay Area wastewater samples also. The location where omicron was detected will remain unspecified until the testing is definitive.

[PhaelixWW]

It is growing in the Bay Area also. We had 11 health workers for Oakland Kaiser hospitals that went together to the Wisconsin wedding.

It's hardly the same, though. Omicron is already over 13% of the samples sequenced in the NY/NJ region.

[Forogil]

It's hardly the same, though. Omicron is already over 13% of the samples sequenced in the NY/NJ region.

Based on how fast it grows in other places it might already have become dominant in NY/NJ and in the country as a whole before X-mas.
(Note that the numbers are weekly averages.)

[PhaelixWW]

Based on how fast it grows in other places it might already have become dominant in NY/NJ and in the country as a whole before X-mas.
(Note that the numbers are weekly averages.)

Probably not through the country as a whole, but certainly parts of the country, for sure. We'll likely see another surge the week after Christmas, for obvious reasons.

Frankly, I'm still a bit flabbergasted by how quickly it's spreading compared to previous variants.

[Forogil]

Just to add whilst removing patent might help initially you might face the same problem. Vaccines being made in terrible conditions with little care for quality and you end up with bad batches that further push the population to distrust the vaccine.

Too optimistic; just setting up the plants to make the vaccines would take months - so it wouldn't help initially.
AstraZeneca had severe problems with setting up their plants in Latin America (even more than in Europe) - and that was with the company helping.

And then there's regulatory issues - BioNTech (who developed the vaccine normally called 'Pfizer' or 'Pfizer/BioNTech') made a deal with Fosun to distribute/make that vaccine in China; it should be the same vaccine as in EU/US but it is still not approved in China.

However, that is for the new vaccines - and might not apply to more traditional vaccines that are made in other countries, especially China, since they might be easier to manufacture in developing countries and China has made such deals as part of their vaccine diplomacy.

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Probably not through the country as a whole, but certainly parts of the country, for sure. We'll likely see another surge the week after Christmas, for obvious reasons.

Frankly, I'm still a bit flabbergasted by how quickly it's spreading compared to previous variants.

Remember that the data you presented is about a week old (between Dec 5th and 11th).

[PhaelixWW]

Remember that the data you presented is about a week old (between Dec 5th and 11th).

I know, but about half of the US was still at <1% and some was at <0.1% for that period. And I'm willing to bet that it was still driven somewhat by Thanksgiving travel.

There's a bit of a lull (relatively speaking) for the first few weeks of December, before travel picks up again just before Christmas. That's why I'm expecting to see a larger surge right after Christmas.

[Hansworst]

There is a small chance though that Omicron could be a blessing in disguise. All depends how serious the symptoms are, and IIRC it's too soon to tell. If the symptoms are mild, especially with the unvaccinated people, herd immunity can be achieved. But anyhow still better to get those booster shots.

[caractacus]

My older sister refused to get the vaccine until her job mandated it. And she’s not a stupid person that you’d typically associate with being anti-vaccine. She has a Master’s Degree and works in the government with computers and cyber security. She’s an educated, rational person, but she didn’t want to get it because of how bad the whole anthrax vaccine thing was for military members back in the day.

She just didn’t trust it.

It's actually a misconception that all vaccine hesitant people are stupid, fueled by the incessant need to group people by categories and labels so you get the out right anti-vaxxers who believe in 5g and microchips lumped in with the genuinely hesitant. There was a study done in the US that showed that if you take people by education level then the most vaccine hesitant group was people with PHD's (the highest group). Although it is true that it also showed vaccine hesitancy overall decreased by education it shows we shouldn't just presume that there isn't any nuance.

https://unherd.com/thepost/the-most-...p-of-all-phds/

[Gaidax]

I don't know, the moment I hear the reasoning being "I don't trust it", I'm just shaking my head and moving on.

[Machismo]

It's actually a misconception that all vaccine hesitant people are stupid, fueled by the incessant need to group people by categories and labels so you get the out right anti-vaxxers who believe in 5g and microchips lumped in with the genuinely hesitant. There was a study done in the US that showed that if you take people by education level then the most vaccine hesitant group was people with PHD's (the highest group). Although it is true that it also showed vaccine hesitancy overall decreased by education it shows we shouldn't just presume that there isn't any nuance.

https://unherd.com/thepost/the-most-...p-of-all-phds/

People with degrees can be complete morons.

In the end, even people with higher degrees are gullible, and susceptible to misinformation and confirmation bias.

The problem is that those people seem to be unable to actually address the data.

[Forogil]

It's actually a misconception that all vaccine hesitant people are stupid, fueled by the incessant need to group people by categories and labels so you get the out right anti-vaxxers who believe in 5g and microchips lumped in with the genuinely hesitant. There was a study done in the US that showed that if you take people by education level then the most vaccine hesitant group was people with PHD's (the highest group). Although it is true that it also showed vaccine hesitancy overall decreased by education it shows we shouldn't just presume that there isn't any nuance.

https://unherd.com/thepost/the-most-...p-of-all-phds/

I would say that it's a misconception that everyone with a PhD is smart :-)

However, just looking at education in general the message is clear, https://www.economist.com/united-sta...gainst-the-jab

And looking more it seems that it is indeed fake news by looking at the actual study https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1....20.21260795v3

An incorrect result from the first version of this paper (about PhDs being the most reluctant to get vaccines, when really they are probably the least) is still being very widely shared on social media (I can see several instances on Twitter today alone). The error should be discussed explicitly, in more detail, not buried in a vague throwaway comment about some categories being 'higher'; not just so people reading it will understand it, but as an instructive lesson to other researchers about the perils of mischievous responders in surveys, particularly online ones.

TL: DR; using Facebook to make surveys is a stupid idea as people will troll you.

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Police raid in Dresden, Saxony, Germany, against terrorist plotting to kill the state leader - they seemed to have some form of weapon, unclear if firearm or crossbow:
https://www.dw.com/en/germany-police...lot/a-60124553
Not saying that all anti-vaxxers are violent terrorists.