Mega-Thread: Coronavirus Pandemic

[Edge-]

Mask mandates in schools haven't stopped when cases did go down... kids were still forced to wear masks, even if they are vaccinated.

How much though? And how were cases in those counties specifically? National trends don't always mirror local trends.

And yes, masking while vaccinated is still a thing. Vaccines don't "prevent" you from getting covid, they help protect you from severe cases.

And I'm seeing this first-hand here, where parents are now starting to fight against the mandates because their children are having more mental health related issues and their scores are dropping since the pandemic started, especially with the quarantines and missed days of school.

"Other parents believe XYZ so this is valid." isn't a compelling argument, given that there are parents threatening to murder school administrators and claiming that schools are "abusing" children via mask mandates, or knowingly sending their children to school despite positive covid tests.

Why are their scores dropping, though? It seems you're automatically ascribing causality for that without actually identifying causality.

Look, I was all for mitigation protocols in the beginning, even in this thread, but it has started to affect my kids after 2 years of doing this and there doesn't seem to be an end in sight, even when cases did slow.

Yes, it sucks. Yes, there are better ways of handling this. No, we won't pursue those because a not insignificant portion of the country across the board doesn't want to, and would rather just throw their hands up in the air and give up - which continues to seem to be what you're arguing for.

I'm not trying to say I don't care about the education or mental health of children, but it's a complex balancing act as there are more than just the children involved in this.

[Elegiac]

I can't. I'm bound by Base rules and the schools are DODEA. And we can't move off-Base because the housing market is so utterly fucked from COVID that you can hardly find places to rent, and the places you do find have raised their rent so high that our BAH wouldn't even cover it.

It's incredibly frustrating.

Wow, imagine being in a situation where your financial and domestic circumstances put you in a position where it's difficult to mitigate the impacts of something like a pandemic because your job entails, say, being in a closed environment with a whole bunch of children who are known to be massive vectors for disease.

That would be super frustrating. I sure hope those people have at least some way of mitigating that. Like, I dunno, a piece of fabric that could cover the face and filter out aerosols...

I dunno I think I might be reaching here.

[Forogil]

Hmm...
I noticed that Denmark's CDC counterpart was tweeting against covid-disinformation regarding Denmark: https://twitter.com/SSI_dk/status/1493637115493629952
with more facts on https://t.co/sG7gaaFMHt

Misinformation: Children get really sick because of COVID-19.

Answer: This is not correct.

Most children experience no or very mild disease when infected with COVID-19. Compared with older persons, COVID-19 in children is in general a very mild disease. Hospitalisation rates among children mostly reflect that hospitalised children are seen for less than 12 hours in the emergency department, but are then discharged to their homes (see also the answer above regarding hospitalisation rates for babies and kids). In very rare cases (1 of 4,100 children in Denmark), children may develop ‘Multi-inflammatory syndrome in children’ (MIS-C), a severe condition that reflects the immune system’s reaction to COVID-19.

Misinformation: Denmark has decided that COVID-19 does not exist anymore.

Answer: This is not correct.

COVID-19 absolutely exists, but it is not considered ‘an infection critical to society’ any longer. This is because the Omicron variant results in milder disease than previous variants, and a very high proportion of the Danish population has been vaccinated against COVID-19, which largely protects against severe disease.

They also show the difference in death-statistics: (where Darkish Brown is dead from covid, and Light color is dead of other causes when infected with covid, and the intermediate colors under investigation); so the recent surge is smaller than it looks.

[Twdft]

I'm legit considering making masking a part of my normal routine moving forward, at least during the winter.

Not all the time, but I will definitely mask up on public transport when having any kind of cold symptoms.

But what I really hope stays the norm is not shaking hands with anyone outside of friends&family. If I never have to shake someones hand at work again it'll be too soon.

[PhaelixWW]

CNN: As BA.2 subvariant of Omicron rises, lab studies point to signs of severity

The BA.2 virus -- a subvariant of the Omicron coronavirus variant -- isn't just spreading faster than its distant cousin, it may also cause more severe disease and appears capable of thwarting some of the key weapons we have against Covid-19, new research suggests.

New lab experiments from Japan show that BA.2 may have features that make it as capable of causing serious illness as older variants of Covid-19, including Delta.

And like Omicron, it appears to largely escape the immunity created by vaccines. A booster shot restores protection, making illness after infection about 74% less likely.

BA.2 is also resistant to some treatments, including sotrovimab, the monoclonal antibody that's currently being used against Omicron.

The findings were posted Wednesday as a preprint study on the bioRxiv server, before peer review. Normally, before a study is published in medical journal, it is scrutinized by independent experts. Preprints allow research to be shared more quickly, but they are posted before that additional layer of review.

"It might be, from a human's perspective, a worse virus than BA.1 and might be able to transmit better and cause worse disease," says Dr. Daniel Rhoads, section head of microbiology at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio. Rhoads reviewed the study but was not involved in the research.

BA.2 is highly mutated compared with the original Covid-causing virus that emerged in Wuhan, China. It also has dozens of gene changes that are different from the original Omicron strain, making it as distinct from the most recent pandemic virus as the Alpha, Beta, Gamma and Delta variants were from each other.

Kei Sato, a researcher at the University of Tokyo who conducted the study, argues that these findings prove that BA.2 should not be considered a type of Omicron and that it needs to be more closely monitored.

"As you may know, BA.2 is called 'stealth Omicron,' " Sato told CNN. That's because it doesn't show up on PCR tests as an S-gene target failure, the way Omicron does. Labs therefore have to take an extra step and sequence the virus to find this variant.

"Establishing a method to detect BA.2 specifically would be the first thing" many countries need to do, he says.

"It looks like we might be looking at a new Greek letter here," agreed Deborah Fuller, a virologist at the University of Washington School of Medicine, who reviewed the study but was not part of the research.

Mixed real-world data on subvariant's severity
BA.2 is about 30% to 50% more contagious than Omicron. It has been detected in 74 countries and 47 US states.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that about 4% of Americans with Covid-19 now have infections caused by BA.2, but many other parts of the world have more experience with this variant. It has become dominant in at least 10 other countries: Bangladesh, Brunei, China, Denmark, Guam, India, Montenegro, Nepal, Pakistan and the Philippines, according to World Health Organization's weekly epidemiological report.

But, there's mixed evidence on the severity of BA.2 in the real world. Hospitalizations continue to decline in countries where BA.2 has gained a foothold, like South Africa and the UK. But in Denmark, where BA.2 has become the leading cause of infections, hospitalizations and deaths are rising, according to WHO.

Resistant to monoclonal antibody treatments
The new study found that BA.2 can copy itself in cells more quickly than BA.1, the original version of Omicron. It's also more adept at causing cells to stick together. This allows the virus to create larger clumps of cells, called syncytia, than BA.1. That's concerning because these clumps then become factories for churning out more copies of the virus. Delta was also good at creating syncytia, which is thought to be one reason it was so destructive to the lungs.

When the researchers infected hamsters with BA.2 and BA.1, the animals infected with BA.2 got sicker and had worse lung function. In tissues samples, the lungs of BA.2-infected hamsters had more damage than those infected by BA.1.

Similar to the original Omicron, BA.2 was capable of breaking through antibodies in the blood of people who'd been vaccinated against Covid-19. It was also resistant to the antibodies of people who'd been infected with Covid-19 early in the pandemic, including Alpha and Delta. And BA.2 was almost completely resistant to some monoclonal antibody treatments.

But there was a bright spot: Antibodies in the blood of people who'd recently had Omicron also seemed to have some protection against BA.2, especially if they'd also been vaccinated.

And that raises an important point, Fuller says. Even though BA.2 seems more contagious and pathogenic than Omicron, it may not wind up causing a more devastating wave of Covid-19 infections.

"One of the caveats that we have to think about as we get new variants that might seem more dangerous is the fact that there's two sides to the story," Fuller says.

The virus matters, she says, but as its would-be hosts, so do we.

"Our immune system is evolving as well. And so that's pushing back on things," she said.

Right now, she says, we're in a race against the virus, and the key question is, who's in the lead?

"What we will ultimately want is to have the host be ahead of the virus. In other words, our immunity, be a step ahead of the next variant that comes out, and I don't know that we're quite there yet," she said.

For that reason, Fuller says, she feels like it's not quite time for communities to lift mask mandates.

"Before this thing came out, we were about 10 feet away from the finish line," she said. "Taking off the masks now is not a good idea. It's just going to extend it. Let's get to the finish line."

[Mayhem]

CNN: As BA.2 subvariant of Omicron rises, lab studies point to signs of severity

Want to tell us how the virus's ability to mutate will degrade?

[Poopymonster]

Off Base I can do what I want - there's no mask mandates in the state, except in Federal buildings. On Base I have to wear them in every building, because I am on Federal property. The schools are Base schools so the same rules apply.

What set me off is that we received an email from the Base schools here offering virtual options again for next year, which likely means there will still be a mask mandate and social distancing, despite local schools not having those protocols. And I can't even put my kids in the local schools because of zoning issues.

Fantastic! It sounds like you are a perfect candidate for Home Schooling! Instead of foisting your children off on underpaid teachers, YOU can be the underpaid teacher! Even better, YOU have a say in the cirriculum! You can teach them that following the government rules because it's inconvenient to you is codswallop while bonding in government housing safely on a military base. It's all on the government's dime since you're military by injection! Teach them! "The government is wrong for trying to save lives AND get paid". You could be living the dream. At least the dream of a southern congressperson.

Seriously, if it's that big a burr in your panties, home school them. Problem solved.

[Edge-]

I genuinely want my kids to have a fun high school experience, but as it is right now, they don't have that. They can't talk to their peers without social distancing, they can't sit together at lunch or on the bus (assigned seating and 6 feet apart). There's no sports activities after school, no field trips, they have to walk in single-file lines down the halls. It's miserable and it kills me to see my daughters suffer and come home feeling so alone, but that little interaction they get is better than me homeschooling them and getting no interactions at all.

Yes, living through a pandemic is hard and we're all suffering. That doesn't mean we just throw our hands in the air and say, "Well, whatever."

We're all in this together, and we should be lobbying for more resources for kids rather than lobbying against many of the science backed mandates like indoor masking.

[Edge-]

We're going on year 3 now, change has to be made cause it's not going away.

I agree, and the solution is to lobby against the Death Cult so that we can hopefully have policies universally enforced and get more folks vaccinated.

You're angry at the wrong damned people.

[PhaelixWW]

Want to tell us how the virus's ability to mutate will degrade?

Tell me you didn't read the article without telling me you didn't read the article.

But there was a bright spot: Antibodies in the blood of people who'd recently had Omicron also seemed to have some protection against BA.2, especially if they'd also been vaccinated.

And that raises an important point, Fuller says. Even though BA.2 seems more contagious and pathogenic than Omicron, it may not wind up causing a more devastating wave of Covid-19 infections.

"One of the caveats that we have to think about as we get new variants that might seem more dangerous is the fact that there's two sides to the story," Fuller says.

The virus matters, she says, but as its would-be hosts, so do we.

"Our immune system is evolving as well. And so that's pushing back on things," she said.

The longer the virus replicates in a host, the more opportunity for mutation. Widespread transmission is bad for possible mutations (well, bad for us, good for the virus); that's clearly been happening this whole pandemic, and it's not really going to change much at this point. But the more collective immunity host bodies accumulate, the faster the average case is cleared, and the less chance for mutations to occur and multiply.

Another thing you painfully fail to understand is that omicron isn't descended from delta; it's descended from pretty much the first variant: D614G, which was around back in early 2020. However it found its way back into circulation now, it was mutating for a long time. It's a relative anomaly, certainly more so than most mutations, because the collective immunity is far more resistant to delta at the moment, which makes it harder for delta to mutate, for example.

And soon, we'll have collectively built up a significant amount of immunity to omicron, too. Indeed, the article is suggesting that we already have, because omicron was so prolific up front. That's going to make it harder for omicron to mutate successfully, just like it's harder for delta to mutate successfully now.

Like, that's how endemicity works.

[Elegiac]

Statewide indoor mask mandates to be lifted for most places on March 21, Inslee announces

You do realise that the reason federal regulations are stricter is because not every locality is Washington, right?

Take it up with the clown states that haven't locked down at all since the pandemic started or adequately vaccinated their populations.

[Forogil]

CNN: As BA.2 subvariant of Omicron rises, lab studies point to signs of severity

Interesting - but I still dislike these vague menacing headlines "lab studies points to signs of severity", and the name "stealth Omicron" is just plain weird.

WHO don't see signs that BA.2 is worse than original Omicron (according to latest Q&A with Mike&Maria), and countries with large percentage of BA.2 still have low number of ICUs and deaths due to both BA.1 and BA.2.

- - - Updated - - -

I mean, we have this…

Wearing a cloth mask (aOR = 0.44; 95% CI = 0.17–1.17) was associated with lower adjusted odds of a positive test compared with never wearing a face covering but was not statistically significant.

Most, if not all, kids are wearing cloth masks, so why are we still forcing them to wear them if they’re not really doing anything? Most kids don’t go to school with surgical masks because no parent wants to keep rebuying them. And they’re certainly not going to school with the N95‘s.

Link here: https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/...v1IfDV-i2LASns

Hmm... Indirectly it also shows the the socio-economic impact; even if they tried to match the persons one can see a clear difference between the two groups - it seems the covid-negative ones had about 15% higher income or so, were considerably less likely to be black, and to the surprise of no-one were more likely to be vaccinated.

I would guess that some of those differences are also confounders. (And I couldn't see whether it is peer-reviewed.)

[Machismo]

Yes, but schools aren't requiring those masks... so if the cloth ones basically do nothing, why are we forcing kids to come to school with masks that aren't N95's?

Then, you should take some responsibility as a parent, and get them a better mask.

I get that you are as panicky, and malleable as they come in regards to issues. But, at least try not blowing with the political winds one time.

[PhaelixWW]

I get them the most breathable, thinnest masks I can buy cause they’re over that shit and so am I.

You say that, and I hear "I got the smallest, most unobtrusive fire extinguisher I could find, so we don't have to look at it" and "I got the loosest, least restrictive seat belt I could find, so we'll be more comfortable when we move around.

[Machismo]

I get them the most breathable, thinnest masks I can buy cause they’re over that shit and so am I.

I’m still following the "rules".

Then, why try and even appeal to science?

In the end, you are on the government dollar, on government property, and have agreed to follow all those rules. This is one of the most fruitless crusades imaginable.

Masks are not that bothersome, and I have worn some that are way, way thicker than the dinky little cloth masks. My kids have no problem wearing them, and often do so when I tell them they don't need to. The whole "I can't breathe in them" bit really doesn't fly.

[Edge-]

I get them the most breathable, thinnest masks I can buy cause they’re over that shit and so am I.

I’m still following the "rules".

No, you're intentionally rejecting the rules while performatively pretending to abide by them.

This shit is literally why this pandemic is still ongoing, stop being a part of the fuckin problem. If your children get covid, and I hope they very much do not, then you literally will have nobody to blame but yourself here.

[PhaelixWW]

You may not have reached your breaking point, but I have.

Most people would at least be ashamed of breaking, though, not boastful.

[Edge-]

I’m sure they already have but were asymptomatic — myself and my husband included. There’s no way we’ve gone nearly 3 years and not been exposed.

Sure there is. I've gone 3 years and not caught covid, same with everyone in my immediate family including my brother who works in the service industry. Actively following guidance works wonders in helping protect yourself from infection - though it's not perfect.

Actually following guidance, not performative, "Well I got the thinnest mask I could!" nonsense.

[Machismo]

We’re all vaccinated and have boosters — that’s good enough for me. You may not have reached your breaking point, but I have.

- - - Updated - - -



I’m sure they already have but were asymptomatic — myself and my husband included. There’s no way we’ve gone nearly 3 years and not been exposed.

So, move off base, and stop living off the government. If you and your hubby were really at your breaking point, then you'd be gone. Hell, he could have simply refused to get vaccinated, and gotten himself kicked out.

[Edge-]

I mean, you and your family may have caught it and were just asymptomatic. You really don’t know.

So the equivalent of "nu uh!"

Everyone in the world could have been infected and been asymptomatic already WE JUST REALLY DON'T KNOW. What a nonsense thing to type.