Mega-Thread: Coronavirus Pandemic

[PhaelixWW]

Seriously, this virus does not care about weather

Of course weather plays a role. It's not the only one, however.

Australia had it's highest infection rates during Jan aka summer.

And Australia celebrates things like Christmas/Hanukkah/etc., New Years, and Australia Day all in a roughly month-long time frame, with all attendant travel and group gathering, correct?

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Agreed, and not just because I'm on the front lines. But because it would mean we've learned something as a sentient species.

The human race still tends to fail upward over time. Of course, it only takes one civilization ending catastrophe to wipe us out, so we'd rather maintain that 100% record.

Even most of the stupid people will have immune systems more capable of fighting off subsequent COVID infections by this point. Their open flouting of danger won't have as much of an impact going forward...

....at least for this specific virus.

[Forogil]

And Australia celebrates things like Christmas/Hanukkah/etc., New Years, and Australia Day all in a roughly month-long time frame, with all attendant travel and group gathering, correct?

True, but the virus-variant and government policy responses also matter.

That was when the more contagious Delta-variant spread and parts of Australia relaxed restrictions (in part to allow celebrations and in part because so many were vaccinated that the risk was low enough).

[Strawberry]

Ya'll still yapping about this non-deadly virus and taking vaccines, boosters and shit? Lol, so last year. Irrelevant even then.

[Mayhem]

Of course weather plays a role. It's not the only one, however.

Really? Doesn't seem to matter much, we're currently on to the next wave and it's 86 to 90 outside.

And Australia celebrates things like Christmas/Hanukkah/etc., New Years, and Australia Day all in a roughly month-long time frame, with all attendant travel and group gathering, correct?

Sorry, I thought we were talking about the weather. Silly me.

Fun fact, Australia had 3 waves this year already.

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Even most of the stupid people will have immune systems more capable of fighting off subsequent COVID infections by this point. Their open flouting of danger won't have as much of an impact going forward...

Recent studies disagree with the notion that infections boost protection, in fact, it could lead to impaired protection against a new variant.

[postman1782]

Ya'll still yapping about this non-deadly virus and taking vaccines, boosters and shit? Lol, so last year. Irrelevant even then.

Guess you never had anyone get it? Have anyone die from it? And this is the deadliest virus we have had in recorded history. And the vaccines work.

[Forogil]

Guess you never had anyone get it? Have anyone die from it? And this is the deadliest virus we have had in recorded history. And the vaccines work.

The vaccines work, and I've seen people have it with various results; so getting the vaccines is a really good idea.

However, it's not the deadliest virus in recorded history - currently it's not even the deadliest virus epidemic during my life-time. HIV/Aids have killed about 36 million, Covid-19 about 20 million - and HIV/Aids killed almost all infected, before we got the good drugs.

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Recent studies disagree with the notion that infections boost protection, in fact, it could lead to impaired protection against a new variant.

WHO disagrees with that, and as expected finds that both prior infections, vaccinations, and especially combinations of them protect to some extent against new infections. (Clearly vaccinations are generally the safer and more predictable route; whether prior infection or vaccination gives the best protection depends on different factors - and the simple option is always to get vaccinated regardless.)

https://www.who.int/news/item/01-06-...evalence-rates

[Mayhem]

WHO disagrees with that, and as expected finds that both prior infections, vaccinations, and especially combinations of them protect to some extent against new infections. (Clearly vaccinations are generally the safer and more predictable route; whether prior infection or vaccination gives the best protection depends on different factors - and the simple option is always to get vaccinated regardless.)

https://www.who.int/news/item/01-06-...evalence-rates

"While the overall evidence suggests that hybrid immunity offers superior protection against severe outcomes due to COVID-19 compared to infection-induced or vaccine-induced immunity alone, it is unclear whether this protection will persist with new variants. For instance, evolving evidence suggests that an Omicron BA.1 infection offers only limited protection against symptomatic disease caused by the emerging sub-lineages of Omicron (BA.4 and BA.5)19. "

No, they don't.

[uuuhname]

Ya'll still yapping about this non-deadly virus and taking vaccines, boosters and shit? Lol, so last year. Irrelevant even then.

do you think diseases work on like a 9 to 5 salary job basis or something? I cannot begin to understand this mindset of people who think you can cancel a virus or something... you know West Nile virus is a thing you can still catch, right? you know that thing we all freaked out about in the early 00's? these things don't go away because you want them to....

[Forogil]

"While the overall evidence suggests that hybrid immunity offers superior protection against severe outcomes due to COVID-19 compared to infection-induced or vaccine-induced immunity alone, it is unclear whether this protection will persist with new variants. For instance, evolving evidence suggests that an Omicron BA.1 infection offers only limited protection against symptomatic disease caused by the emerging sub-lineages of Omicron (BA.4 and BA.5)19. "

Which exactly confirm what I stated, and contradict your statements.

Limited protection is better than none, and more importantly that was potentially just against symptomatic disease - in general we have seen a greater protection against serious disease and death.

And even no protection would be better than the negative protection you suggested.

However, the study didn't include uninfected persons, and didn't investigate if people actually were infected with BA.4/BA.5 and if so symptomatically or not, and how severely; so it is just a first step. https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1...77v1.full-text

[Mayhem]

Which exactly confirm what I stated, and contradict your statements.

Limited protection is better than none, and more importantly that was potentially just against symptomatic disease - in general we have seen a greater protection against serious disease and death.

And even no protection would be better than the negative protection you suggested.

However, the study didn't include uninfected persons, and didn't investigate if people actually were infected with BA.4/BA.5 and if so symptomatically or not, and how severely; so it is just a first step. https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1...77v1.full-text

I guess I misread the limited part, my bad.

I was talking about this study btw.: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...05.04.490614v1

[Forogil]

I guess I misread the limited part, my bad.

I was talking about this study btw.: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...05.04.490614v1

Interesting - but as I see it shows that the virus reduces the subsequent T-cell immunity (in various ways), so that you get less long-term immunity than for other infections - not that the immunity completely disappears or is even negated.

I don't know how important that is for the virus in humans, but I could see that it is helpful in bats that have evolved to live with viral infections to a larger extent than other mammals.

[Edge-]

https://www.axios.com/2022/06/17/flo...d-vaccine-kids

DeSantis and Florida Republicans are finally getting out of the way of people making their own health care decisions for themselves and their family and has fairly quickly reversed their stance on pre-ordering vaccines for children 1-5. Previously they weren't ordering any, and there are mixed reports on if they were forbidding pediatricians from pre-ordering them. Either way, pediatricians can no do so and work with parents as they make health care decisions for their families. Instead of the state making those health care decisions for them.

[Kent088]

Wow I just discovered this thread. This should be archived one day for the amount of start-finish updates and opinions.

I still maintain that whatever variant was spreading around Wuhan was significantly deadlier than whatever variant escaped. I remember watching videos of people dropping dead on the sidewalk(Unfortunately no one mentioned I would see a person die in the videos). And it hits the West and the death rate plummets. And I remember reading somewhere that pollution made it worse, but then in the West they weren't finding pollution or even smoking to have serious effects on death rates. That's my theory.

Now it's a vaccine discussion thread, lol

[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