General COVID-19 Talk #4 MOD Warning

[Bandit]

Because we don't want this to happen <?>:

Where the hell is rocket legs anyway? Did he change his name?

Mistake.

 

[Lt Dan]

Where the hell is rocket legs anyway? Did he change his name?

Pain heals
Chick's dig scars
Glory lasts forever

 

[Bandit]

Pain heals
Chick's dig scars
Glory lasts forever

I stopped you last time from making a mistake, you didn't consult me this time...

Good movie though.

 

[KINGS17]

Pain heals
Chick's dig scars
Glory lasts forever

Miss McGill, she do it to me last year, eh. Oh, wrong movie, sorry.

 

[RonM11]

We are not rehashing year old arguments in this thread. It's time to knock it off.

Hell may be time to close this thread for good since it's not really being used for updates. Give me a reason not to.

Well, I would guess that Lt Dan has slowed down on the updates because the county has basically shrugged off the reporting. During most of the pandemic, they reported daily. Then they started skipping holidays. Then a few months ago, they cut back to four weekdays per week. Now they are down to two days a week, even though case counts are almost as high as they were at the Delta peak. Contrast that with Los Angeles County, who is still reporting every weekday. Some counties are just more cognizant and conscientious for the public's need-to-know, and some are lazy and unconcerned about the public health.

 

[Papa Mocha 15]

Well, I would guess that Lt Dan has slowed down on the updates because the county has basically shrugged off the reporting. During most of the pandemic, they reported daily. Then they started skipping holidays. Then a few months ago, they cut back to four weekdays per week. Now they are down to two days a week, even though case counts are almost as high as they were at the Delta peak. Contrast that with Los Angeles County, who is still reporting every weekday. Some counties are just more cognizant and conscientious for the public's need-to-know, and some are lazy and unconcerned about the public health.

It's still the same county that was trying to open Disneyland during the height of the pandemic and attract tourists to the area while not having a hold on the virus and the hospitals were already highly impacted. I wouldn't expect much from them. It's one those, throw it your shoulder and let something else deal with it.

 

[Fishhead]

I don't think it's a caring issue at all with Orange County, there is a simple reason why you don't see daily updates - very little is changing. Since March 23 daily deaths on any given day have been 3 and under, with 25 days at zero deaths. On that same day, there were 24 cases in ICU and it hasn't been that high since, with the vast majority of days in the teens.

It's been nearly 3 months with very predictable patterns, no need to state the same thing over and over. I'm sure they would go back to daily reporting if things got dire again, but right now it's really quiet.

 

[RonM11]

I don't think it's a caring issue at all with Orange County, there is a simple reason why you don't see daily updates - very little is changing. Since March 23 daily deaths on any given day have been 3 and under, with 25 days at zero deaths. On that same day, there were 24 cases in ICU and it hasn't been that high since, with the vast majority of days in the teens.

It's been nearly 3 months with very predictable patterns, no need to state the same thing over and over. I'm sure they would go back to daily reporting if things got dire again, but right now it's really quiet.

Ah, but they didn't. They quit everyday reporting in the second week of June 2021, going to a five-day weekday schedule. When the Delta surge hit, they did not go to daily reporting as you suggest. They kept to the five-weekday schedule, in addition to excluding holidays, all through the Omicron surge as well. Plus they took a shitload of days off during the worst part of the Omicron surge in November, December, and January...never varying from five-day workweek reporting.

Finally, after the Omicron surge, they whittled it down to two days a week in early April 2022. I sincerely doubt, given their past history, that they will increase workload or budgeting for the next potential surge.

 

[KINGS17]

 

[RonM11]

Over 120,000 dead from Omicron. And you wanted to catch it. A classic for the ages, KINGS17.

 

[RonM11]

Looks like we are going to be in for a good summer.

Latest virus surge unlike others

Transmission is high, but hospitals have been able to weather the impact, and deaths remain fairly low.

 

[Fishhead]

Ah, but they didn't. They quit everyday reporting in the second week of June 2021, going to a five-day weekday schedule. When the Delta surge hit, they did not go to daily reporting as you suggest. They kept to the five-weekday schedule, in addition to excluding holidays, all through the Omicron surge as well. Plus they took a shitload of days off during the worst part of the Omicron surge in November, December, and January...never varying from five-day workweek reporting.

Finally, after the Omicron surge, they whittled it down to two days a week in early April 2022. I sincerely doubt, given their past history, that they will increase workload or budgeting for the next potential surge.

5 day weekday is still daily reporting. You can't expect people to not take any breaks, especially when everyone is burned out. It's not like things have drastically changed, everyone knows the drill and the risks now. The thing is, the data is still there, it's just batched for efficiency. You can still find numbers from every date on the calendar. Trying to keep things up to the minute doesn't tell you the whole story anyway, especially when deaths aren't reported for a while. A day could have 10 deaths, but some of them could be as far back as a couple of weeks ago. Then people read that and think another surge is happening when that's not necessarily the case.

I'm sure page viewership is down drastically, people know what to expect. For months we've seen the 80%+ of people in the hospital being unvaccinated. ICU has flatlined since the beginning of March. I think the general population cares a lot less about COVID than county officials do, for sure.

 

[KINGS17]

Over 120,000 dead from Omicron. And you wanted to catch it. A classic for the ages, KINGS17.

No Ron, I am not going to live in fear. I am going to live my life to the fullest. I have taken all the precautions one can take, and at some point I expect to catch the covid virus, and odds are I will survive.

 

[RonM11]

No Ron, I am not going to live in fear. I am going to live my life to the fullest. I have taken all the precautions one can take, and at some point I expect to catch the covid virus, and odds are I will survive.

That's the third time you have responded in kind, and all three have been non-sequitur in nature. Since you keep insisting that you are "not going to live in fear," I believe you actually are fearful. Your posts are dubious, beginning with actually being desirous of being infected with the Omicron variant. I mean, what rational person thinks that way, anyway?

 

[KINGS17]

That's the third time you have responded in kind, and all three have been non-sequitur in nature. Since you keep insisting that you are "not going to live in fear," I believe you actually are fearful. Your posts are dubious, beginning with actually being desirous of being infected with the Omicron variant. I mean, what rational person thinks that way, anyway?

When did I ever say I wanted to be infected? Never.

You don't know me Ron, so spare us all your lame pyscho babble.

 

[RonM11]

From what we know thus far, I would be fine with catching the Omicron variant. That does not mean I will forego getting the booster shot though, because I will get it at some point.

When did I ever say I wanted to be infected? Never.

You don't know me Ron, so spare us all your lame pyscho babble.

...

 

[KINGS17]

Yes, fine with catching it does not mean I desired to catch it. You are a fear monger Ron.

I believe we will all catch this virus at some point. It is inevitable, because we are living our lives and having contact with other human beings, which is something we all need. When Omicron was the variant du jour I had been fully vaccinated. I was no longer worried about going to the hospital.

 

[Papa Mocha 15]

Here is info on the latest variant.

BA.4/5 is sweeping the globe​

Katelyn Jetelina Jun 22

The newest Omicron variant, BA.4/5, is gaining traction, causing case, hospitalization, and death curves to trend upwards in many countries. This variant was first detected in South Africa in early 2022 and caught our attention because it had several mutations on the spike protein. Two mutations in particular, called L452R and F486V, caught our attention because we had seen them on previous variants of concern. Recent lab and epidemiological data show BA.4/5 to be driving this wave, in part due to reinfections and infections after vaccination.

Infections​

In the lab, we see that Omicron is getting better at escaping our first line of defense—neutralizing antibodies. The figure below displays the step-wise function of losing neutralizing antibody protection more and more with each subsequent Omicron variant. Note that among recently boosted, BA.4/5 does not fully escape immunity. This means, in the short-term, boosters help prevent infection and thus transmission.

​

Wang et al., preprint; Source here.
Other lab studies show Omicron escapes infection-induced immunity, too. We are particularly worried about recent BA.1/2 infections (first Omicron waves). Data from South Africa found immune escape more pronounced among unvaccinated compared to vaccinated (not boosted) people (5-fold difference). Another study found BA.1 or BA.2 infection among unvaccinated people induced very low levels of antibodies against BA.4/5 (see panels A and C below). Those who were infected and vaccinated did have meaningful protection, albeit at lower levels than before.

​

Kimura et al preprint. Source here.
Weakening our first line of defense—neutralizing antibodies— will mean more (re)infections. Lab data compliments what we are seeing in the “real world”. BA.4/5 drove a substantial case wave in South Africa regardless of their high level of immunity. Case waves across Europe are now well on their way, too. In the U.K., reinfections are on the rise, even among 60+ year olds.

​

We don’t have epidemiological data on duration of booster effectiveness against BA.4/5. Data from the U.K. showed that boosters provided strong initial protection against BA.1 or BA.2 infection but quickly diminished to 0% five months later. We expect BA.4/5 to shorten this timeline even more. I’m not confident that our boosters will be able to keep up in protecting against infection with the rate of Omicron mutating. (Protection against severe disease is much higher and wanes slower: 90% effectiveness against hospitalization 2-4 weeks after a booster → 70% 6 months after a booster.)

​

(UK Health Security Agency: Source Here)

Severe disease​

There are a whole host of reasons why infections are not great, but reducing severe disease is one of our main priorities. In South Africa, the BA.4/5 wave contributed to excess deaths, but the rate diminishes with every wave since winter 2021.

​

In Europe, Portugal is the BA.4/5 leader, with 70% of COVID-19 cases accounting for this new variant. With one of the highest vaccination rates in the world, they largely escaped death from Delta. However, now, after recently reaching their BA.4/5 case peak, excess mortality hit the highest level since their vaccination campaign began.

​

In Portugal, increase in hospitalizations is occurring mainly in people over 60 years old. In fact, in a recent analysis, unvaccinated people over 80 had a case fatality rate (CFR) of 9.5% (see figure below). Among those with only the primary vaccine series, CFR is 5%; among those with a booster, it is 1.7%.

​

(Source Here)
This is likely due to two things:

1. Waning immunity. While Portugal does have a higher booster rate than the U.S., it isn’t perfect. Some people’s protection against severe disease could be waning, especially among those who are not up to date with COVID-19 vaccine.
2. Transmissibility. Vaccines are not perfect, and if we have a virus burning through a population, it can still cause high levels of death among vulnerable pockets, like the elderly.

The verdict is still out as to whether BA.4/5 is more severe. A recent preprint found that BA.4/5 was more severe for hamsters. In fact, their data suggested that BA.4/5 was going into the lungs more. (Initially, Omicron largely moved disease out of the lungs, which helped it become less severe). Importantly, though, this wasn’t the case using human sera. More research is certainly needed.
BA.4/5 hospitalizations are now making headway in other European countries. The figure from Financial Times below clearly shows the global upswing in hospitalizations as BA.4/5 entered the scene. But, so far, remains much lower than previous peaks.

​

United States​

So where does this leave us in the U.S.? BA.4/5 makes up 35% of new infections and is growing quickly. Unfortunately, patterns in South Africa and Europe won’t tell us much about how things will unfold in the U.S. because we just had a very infectious variant moving through (BA.2.12.1). Other countries did not experience this. We know BA.4/5 is more transmissible than BA.2.12.1, but the epidemiological impact of that difference is not yet known. This is why disease modelers are providing case projections for worse case (below left) and best case scenarios (below right) for cases.

​

(Twitter JP Weiland)
On a population level, we expect our complex history of infection- and vaccination-induced immunity to continue to protect against severe disease. In fact, it’s reassuring that all-cause mortality in the U.S. reached pre-pandemic levels from March-May 2022. Death certificates are lagged, so I’ll be curious to see if and how excess deaths changed in the past two months during our latest wave. It will also be important to track this by age, particularly among elderly, to ensure we don’t leave people behind in the wake of highly transmissible variants.

​

(CDC)

Bottom line​

This virus continues to mutate to escape our first line of defense causing (re)infections. If you don’t want to get sick, it’s time to leverage other layers of protection, like masking. Thankfully, other immune system mechanisms continue to work to reduce severe disease. The transmissibility of the virus is causing upswings of hospitalizations and deaths among the most vulnerable of our populations. We aren’t out of the woods yet but we are inching closer and closer to a manageable virus.
Love, YLE

 

[Chazz Reinhold]

Outcomes of SARS-CoV-2 Reinfection

First infection with SARS-CoV-2 is associated with increased risk of acute and post-acute death and sequelae in the pulmonary and extrapulmonary organ systems. However, whether reinfection adds to the risk incurred after the first infection is not clear. Here we use the national health care da...

www.researchsquare.com

The study is not peer-reviewed yet but it is probably a fair indicator that avoiding multiple infections is a good idea.

 

[RonM11]

Yes, fine with catching it does not mean I desired to catch it. You are a fear monger Ron.

I believe we will all catch this virus at some point. It is inevitable, because we are living our lives and having contact with other human beings, which is something we all need. When Omicron was the variant du jour I had been fully vaccinated. I was no longer worried about going to the hospital.

Those that fear the most irrationally (and possibly paranoidly) accuse others of "fear mongering."

 

[KINGS17]

Those that fear the most irrationally (and possibly paranoidly) accuse others of "fear mongering."

WTF, this makes zero sense.

 

[Papa Mocha 15]

My 6 y/o kiddo just tested positive. He's just coughing for now. Just playing catch outside and watching TV on the patio together. I may have already been exposed so who knows. Just trying to keep his spirits up so he's not lonely while isolating. TV, hot chocolate, vitamin D, catch with Dad and Star Wars/Spiderman movies. Any ideas what people did for fun while they had it if you have a kid?

 

[Raccoon Jesus]

My 6 y/o kiddo just tested positive. He's just coughing for now. Just playing catch outside and watching TV on the patio together. I may have already been exposed so who knows. Just trying to keep his spirits up so he's not lonely while isolating. TV, hot chocolate, vitamin D, catch with Dad and Star Wars/Spiderman movies. Any ideas what people did for fun while they had it if you have a kid?

If he's not miserable enough that he can be lonely, that's a win--but I think you've got it covered. Reading/Coloring too, keep the brain a little active.

 

[Kudelski37]

My 6 y/o kiddo just tested positive. He's just coughing for now. Just playing catch outside and watching TV on the patio together. I may have already been exposed so who knows. Just trying to keep his spirits up so he's not lonely while isolating. TV, hot chocolate, vitamin D, catch with Dad and Star Wars/Spiderman movies. Any ideas what people did for fun while they had it if you have a kid?

When my oldest kid (12 y.o.) had it a few weeks ago, we had lots of video calls with each other and friends/family.

 

[Schrute farms]

Ahh 6 year olds -- that's a great age. Fun times.
My 16 year old got it last month. He was pretty happy to be skipping the end of the school year and sleeping in until 1pm. Then laying in bed watching TV and texting friends. Shrug.