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COVID-19 Impacts- No Conspiracy Theories

Discuss anything that doesn't fit elsewhere on the site. As a reminder, religion, politics and weaponry are prohibited.
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The Sultan of SoWhat
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Re: COVID-19 Impacts- No Conspiracy Theories

Post by The Sultan of SoWhat »

Zero point zero
For most people, the vaccines remain remarkably effective at turning Covid into a manageable illness that’s less dangerous than some everyday activities.

The main dividing line is age. In Minnesota, which publishes detailed Covid data, the death rate for fully vaccinated people under 50 during the Delta surge this year was 0.0 per 100,000 — meaning, so few people died that the rate rounds to zero.

Washington State is another place that publishes statistics by age and vaccination status. In its most recent report, Washington did not even include a death rate for fully vaccinated residents under 65. It was too low to be meaningful.

Hospitalization rates are also very low for vaccinated people under 65. In Minnesota during the Delta surge, the average weekly hospitalization rate for vaccinated residents between 18 and 49 was about 1 per 100,000.

NY Times
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Re: COVID-19 Impacts- No Conspiracy Theories

Post by BostonCharlie »

Some early information on the Omicron variant from the WSJ here (paywall):
The World Health Organization said there was preliminary evidence that the variant, which was first detected on Nov. 9, might pose a greater risk of people falling ill with Covid-19 for a second time. It also said that the variant might be more transmissible than other strains of the coronavirus, citing Omicron’s rapid spread in South Africa over the past two weeks.
The mutations found in Omicron include some that haven’t been detected before along with some that have. Some of the known mutations have made other variants more transmissible or better able to evade parts of the immune response prompted by vaccination or a previous Covid-19 infection.
Some of the mutations identified in the Omicron variant have been shown to render the current crop of Covid-19 vaccines less effective.
South African scientists and health officials said there was no indication that patients infected with the Omicron variant experienced different symptoms from those infected with other strains. They also said there were no signs so far that Omicron led to more serious illness.
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Re: COVID-19 Impacts- No Conspiracy Theories

Post by BostonCharlie »

More information on Omicron (emphasis mine):
The first known U.S. Covid-19 case linked to Omicron was reported Wednesday in a San Francisco resident who had recently been in South Africa. The CDC said the person was vaccinated and the symptoms were mild and improving.

A second California case was reported Thursday, in a Los Angeles County resident who had also recently traveled to South Africa. The individual, who was fully vaccinated, was self-isolating and the symptoms were improving, the county Department of Public Health said.

Nebraska on Friday reported cases of the variant. Health officials in Nebraska said one case was a resident likely exposed during international travel to Nigeria. The other five likely came from household contact with that person. None of the cases have required hospitalization, officials said.

Maryland, Missouri and Pennsylvania also reported Omicron cases on Friday.

New York state has confirmed five cases of Covid-19 linked to the Omicron variant, Gov. Kathy Hochul said Thursday. Four cases were detected in New York City residents. The fifth was a Suffolk County resident who had traveled to South Africa, where the variant has been rapidly spreading. The cases appear to be unrelated.

Ms. Hochul, at a press conference Thursday with New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, said one of the cases in the city was in a suspected traveler. Mr. de Blasio said in a tweet that all of the five cases seemed to be mild.

A Minnesota resident who had recently traveled to New York City for a conference also has contracted the virus, the Minnesota Department of Health said. The person was vaccinated against the virus and the symptoms have resolved, the department said.

Colorado, meanwhile, reported its first confirmed case of the variant Thursday. The state Department of Public Health & Environment said the person who contracted the virus had recently traveled to southern Africa. The woman had minor symptoms and was vaccinated against the virus but hadn’t yet received a booster vaccine, it said.

More than 70% of the U.S. population has received at least one dose of Covid-19 vaccine, according to the CDC. Almost 60% are fully vaccinated against the virus. Some 2.2 million Covid-19 shots were reported being administered on Thursday, including one million booster doses, the highest single-day total since May, White House Covid-19 response coordinator Jeff Zients said.
Elsewhere, I read that omicron is simply "little o" in Greek, vs. omega which is "big o".
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Re: COVID-19 Impacts- No Conspiracy Theories

Post by Spirit of the Watch »

https://www.msn.com/en-us/travel/news/a ... hp&pc=U531

I understand many anti-vaxxers really just want the attention and are some of the most despicable and lowest class of citizen. However, when they take that and fuse it with their hatred for a society that has deemed them defective and undesirable to associate with, that is how we got a freak, sorry anti-vaxxer, who thinks it's okay to assault a flight attendant or disturb the lives of others for their neverending mental health crisis and general loneliness.

So, w/ that said:
In January, the FAA announced a Zero Tolerance Campaign that warned potential on-flight violators they could face fines and/or jail time.
Yes, I agree most of these people being removed from society would be a positive. Should they, I don't know. Definite fines and placement on a no fly list isn't uncalled for though. Minus the cases we heard about early on when a infant wouldn't wear a face mask and the flight attendant lost her mind and called the police (yeah, that's why everyone deserves their day in court).
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Re: COVID-19 Impacts- No Conspiracy Theories

Post by BostonCharlie »

Different demographic, similar pugnacious behavior (yes, I have been waiting a long time to say "pugnacious"). Source: WSJ (paywall)
School districts across the U.S. say they are seeing a surge of student misbehavior in the return to in-person learning, after months of closures and disruptions due to the pandemic.

In the hallway between classes one afternoon this fall at Southwood High School in Shreveport, La., two boys exchanged words. All at once, they jumped at each other, witnesses said. Dozens of other students joined and they all fell into a heap, kicking and punching, until teachers pulled them apart.

The fight was one in a series of brawls in Southwood’s courtyards and hallways on three subsequent days that led to 23 students being arrested and expelled.

School officials say they had never seen anything like it before at Southwood, known for its Cowboys football team, its biotechnology program and its scenic location on a former cattle ranch. The academically strong school has a 99% graduation rate for its student body of more than 1,600.

...

... In Dallas, disruptive classroom incidents have tripled this year compared with pre-pandemic levels, school officials said. ...

Some schools are responding to the disciplinary problems by dispatching more staffers to patrol school grounds or by hiring more counselors. Others are reducing student suspensions, or in Dallas, eliminating them altogether in favor of counseling. ...

Educators at disadvantaged schools, often in low-income neighborhoods, said they had anticipated students would return to in-person learning with mental-health scars from Covid-19. The issues are also coming up at schools that previously had few serious incidents, such as Southwood.

...

Peter Faustino, a school psychologist in New York who serves on the board of directors for the National Association of School Psychologists, said school psychologists across the country have seen roughly the same volume of mental-health complaints and behavioral issues in the first three months of the school year that used to occur in an entire academic year.

...

At Southwood High School, senior Jordan Nash witnessed the big fight among students in the hallway. “It seemed like they were just swinging at people left and right,” said the 17-year-old, who has an interest in studying neuroscience. “Then you have the police siren going off, trying to break up the fight. It was a mess.”

...
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Re: COVID-19 Impacts- No Conspiracy Theories

Post by The Sultan of SoWhat »

Noted without comment:


"Man whose wife won a court battle to treat his COVID-19 with ivermectin has died."


York Daily Record
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Re: COVID-19 Impacts- No Conspiracy Theories

Post by The Sultan of SoWhat »

From The Guardian, UK:

Manchester United’s trip to Brentford on Tuesday has been postponed as Premier League tackles new surge in cases

Premier League hit by 42 positives
-----

From Sportsnet.ca:

The Calgary Flames will have at least three games postponed after six players and one staff member entered the NHL's COVID protocol.

NBA postpones Bulls games vs. Pistons, Raptors amid COVID-19 outbreak
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Re: COVID-19 Impacts- No Conspiracy Theories

Post by BostonCharlie »

Very interesting news from South Africa (emphasis mine). Source: WSJ here (paywall):
The first large real-world study of how vaccines hold up against Omicron found that two shots of Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech SE’s Covid-19 vaccine lowered the risk of hospital admission by 70% for patients infected with the highly mutated variant.

The study, by South Africa’s largest private health insurer Discovery Ltd., found that while Omicron reduced vaccine effectiveness against infection to 33% from 80% for Delta, its effect on protection against hospitalization was less marked, falling to 70% from 93%.

While the study provides important clues about how vaccines hold up against Omicron, it is difficult to draw wide-ranging conclusions from South Africa, which has a much younger population than Europe and the U.S. and also has a different mix of immunity, with high levels of prior infection but a relatively low vaccination rate. ...

...

The Discovery study also found that protection against infection from Omicron appeared to wane over time in vaccinated people. People who had received their second dose in the two to four weeks before the Omicron period were 56% protected against infection with the new strain. That protection fell to 25% for people who had received their second dose three to four months earlier. ...

...

The study couldn’t examine the real-world effect of a third shot because South Africa only recently approved boosters, and hasn’t yet started rolling them out. But the researchers said it was likely that a booster would strengthen protection against infection. Pfizer and BioNTech last week said a third dose restored antibodies to a level where they could block the Omicron variant in lab tests.

...
If protection against Omicron infection dropped to 25% in three to four months after the second shot, I wonder how long a booster shot provides improved protection? OTOH, without a booster, I wonder how far protection against infection would drop?

Later in the article they cite stats showing that there are far fewer hospitalized patients requiring intensive care than in the Delta wave. But that could be due to how so much of the South African population has already been infected in previous waves (my opinion, not theirs).
Last edited by BostonCharlie on Tue Dec 14, 2021 11:15 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: COVID-19 Impacts- No Conspiracy Theories

Post by tjcdas »

Tell us how you really feel, not a very appropriate statement or very tolerant and a bit hateful.

Spirit of the Watch wrote: Fri Dec 10, 2021 7:13 pm https://www.msn.com/en-us/travel/news/a ... hp&pc=U531

I understand many anti-vaxxers really just want the attention and are some of the most despicable and lowest class of citizen. However, when they take that and fuse it with their hatred for a society that has deemed them defective and undesirable to associate with, that is how we got a freak, sorry anti-vaxxer, who thinks it's okay to assault a flight attendant or disturb the lives of others for their neverending mental health crisis and general loneliness.

So, w/ that said:
In January, the FAA announced a Zero Tolerance Campaign that warned potential on-flight violators they could face fines and/or jail time.
Yes, I agree most of these people being removed from society would be a positive. Should they, I don't know. Definite fines and placement on a no fly list isn't uncalled for though. Minus the cases we heard about early on when a infant wouldn't wear a face mask and the flight attendant lost her mind and called the police (yeah, that's why everyone deserves their day in court).
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Re: COVID-19 Impacts- No Conspiracy Theories

Post by MoT »

tjcdas wrote: Tue Dec 14, 2021 11:07 am Tell us how you really feel, not a very appropriate statement or very tolerant and a bit hateful.

Spirit of the Watch wrote: Fri Dec 10, 2021 7:13 pm https://www.msn.com/en-us/travel/news/a ... hp&pc=U531

I understand many anti-vaxxers really just want the attention and are some of the most despicable and lowest class of citizen. However, when they take that and fuse it with their hatred for a society that has deemed them defective and undesirable to associate with, that is how we got a freak, sorry anti-vaxxer, who thinks it's okay to assault a flight attendant or disturb the lives of others for their neverending mental health crisis and general loneliness.

So, w/ that said:
In January, the FAA announced a Zero Tolerance Campaign that warned potential on-flight violators they could face fines and/or jail time.
Yes, I agree most of these people being removed from society would be a positive. Should they, I don't know. Definite fines and placement on a no fly list isn't uncalled for though. Minus the cases we heard about early on when a infant wouldn't wear a face mask and the flight attendant lost her mind and called the police (yeah, that's why everyone deserves their day in court).
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Re: COVID-19 Impacts- No Conspiracy Theories

Post by The Sultan of SoWhat »

New York State

Statewide COVID-19 hospitalizations up 70% since Thanksgiving.
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Re: COVID-19 Impacts- No Conspiracy Theories

Post by BostonCharlie »

The south has been enjoying low infection rates lately. It won't last forever, but enjoy it while we can.

covid.png
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Re: COVID-19 Impacts- No Conspiracy Theories

Post by MoT »

BostonCharlie wrote: Tue Dec 14, 2021 2:29 pm The south has been enjoying low infection rates lately. It won't last forever, but enjoy it while we can.


covid.png
It's gruesomely interesting to watch how each wave spreads across the map.

It's almost as if it were a highly infectious disease or something. ;)
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COVID-19 Impacts- No Conspiracy Theories

Post by Robotaz »

BostonCharlie wrote:The south has been enjoying low infection rates lately. It won't last forever, but enjoy it while we can.

covid.png
That’s interesting. I wonder if humidity plays a role. When it’s cold, humidity plummets.

Influenza is 89% less contagious above 43% humidity than below, according to a real study I read years ago. That’s looking at a weighted score between 0-43% and 43-100%, obviously. But I run a humidifier for that reason. Although now really I run one here in the desert because 68F on the thermometer at 5% humidity is freaking cold. At 45% it’s totally comfortable. Feels like 72-73F. Saves energy and is more comfortable.

A lot of buildings in the winter will get down to 15% or less humidity, and that’s when you see colds and viruses spreading. OSHA actually specifies it be higher, but building owners typically ignore it because it costs more. If your office has low humidity, you should humidify your office. I never got sick at my old place when others did. Not sure if I stopped the bugs at the door, but the experimental data is there saying I probably was.
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Re: COVID-19 Impacts- No Conspiracy Theories

Post by The Sultan of SoWhat »

The New York Times

BREAKING NEWS
Covid deaths in the United States surpassed 800,000, the highest known number of any country in the world.
Wednesday, December 15, 2021 5:16 PM EST
The new death toll comes as Covid cases are rising again and the threat of a new variant looms.

The last 100,000 deaths occurred in less than 11 weeks as the pace of deaths picked up, moving faster than at any time other than last winter’s surge. More than 1,200 people in the United States are dying from Covid-19 each day.
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