[News] Coronavirus

A place to discuss the now-global coronavirus outbreak.

Health Canada approves Pfizer's anti-COVID pill

Official Health Canada Statement/info page

The full results of Pfizer’s 2,250-person study found the drug reduced combined hospitalizations and deaths by about 89 per cent among high-risk adults, when taken shortly after initial COVID-19 symptoms.
Prederick wrote:

Also, delighted at how impossible this is to argue, as it is so at odds with reality. The whitest person on earth could walk into a vaccination center in the blackest party of NYC right now, and they'd vax you on the spot. You'd have to fight them off.

I know "party" was supposed to be "part", but I am enjoying the visual of a pasty white guy like myself trying to find the blackest block party he can in order to get a vaxx jab.

*gasp* "That sounds like hip hop!" *jerks wheel, tires screech*

garion333 wrote:

Scary brown people got him elected before! It'll work again!

Just got that asshole governor in VA elected

So how good do you think the current Corona virus tests are at detecting Omicron?

We have three first hand reports of one (or two) member(s) of a family getting Omicron with varying levels of symptoms (but all mild and non requiring medical intervention) and others in the household with no symptoms and negative tests. In one household there are two small children (too young to be vaccinated) and only one of the kids got the 'rona and neither of the parents.

The variant was identified as Omicron and none of the households practiced quarantining until after symptoms presented.

My wife is convinced that because Omicron is so contagious that there's no way the other household members were not exposed and that it's unlikely that there were so few breakthrough infections. She thinks that the tests are just bad at detecting it.

Moggy wrote:

So how good do you think the current Corona virus tests are at detecting Omicron?

We have three first hand reports of one (or two) member(s) of a family getting Omicron with varying levels of symptoms (but all mild and non requiring medical intervention) and others in the household with no symptoms and negative tests. In one household there are two small children (too young to be vaccinated) and only one of the kids got the 'rona and neither of the parents.

The variant was identified as Omicron and none of the households practiced quarantining until after symptoms presented.

My wife is convinced that because Omicron is so contagious that there's no way the other household members were not exposed and that it's unlikely that there were so few breakthrough infections. She thinks that the tests are just bad at detecting it.

Based on what I've read, rapid tests are less sensitive to omicron, particularly with vaccinated folks, as the lower viral load might not trigger the test. PCR tests are better able to catch it (because I think they're testing immune system response as opposed to rapid tests which are testing for presence of the virus. Could be wrong on that).

garion333 wrote:

Scary brown people got him elected before! It'll work again!

Noooooo, it was 'economic anxiety!'

garion333 wrote:

What's nuts is how much worse he is at reading things than he was before. I don't know who all cut ties from him, but I feel like the whole election/Nov 6 lost him some of his "better" people.

If he runs again maybe they'll come back, but I think he's more interested in grifting folks for money and trying to influence things/wield power without having to deal with being president.

Define "better people"

All of Trump's supporters will be back to kiss the ring and pretend they never left if he wins reelection. I truly hope that we're past the pandemic by 2024...If it's still raging and a republican is in the seat of power, these past 2 years will look like a cake walk.

Edit- This is the covid thread, don't want to derail... my apologies.

JC wrote:
garion333 wrote:

What's nuts is how much worse he is at reading things than he was before. I don't know who all cut ties from him, but I feel like the whole election/Nov 6 lost him some of his "better" people.

If he runs again maybe they'll come back, but I think he's more interested in grifting folks for money and trying to influence things/wield power without having to deal with being president.

Define "better people"

All of Trump's supporters will be back to kiss the ring and pretend they never left if he wins reelection. I truly hope that we're past the pandemic by 2024...If it's still raging and a republican is in the seat of power, these past 2 years will look like a cake walk.

Edit- This is the covid thread, don't want to derail... my apologies.

I meant staff and advisers.

Jonman wrote:
Moggy wrote:

So how good do you think the current Corona virus tests are at detecting Omicron?

We have three first hand reports of one (or two) member(s) of a family getting Omicron with varying levels of symptoms (but all mild and non requiring medical intervention) and others in the household with no symptoms and negative tests. In one household there are two small children (too young to be vaccinated) and only one of the kids got the 'rona and neither of the parents.

The variant was identified as Omicron and none of the households practiced quarantining until after symptoms presented.

My wife is convinced that because Omicron is so contagious that there's no way the other household members were not exposed and that it's unlikely that there were so few breakthrough infections. She thinks that the tests are just bad at detecting it.

Based on what I've read, rapid tests are less sensitive to omicron, particularly with vaccinated folks, as the lower viral load might not trigger the test. PCR tests are better able to catch it (because I think they're testing immune system response as opposed to rapid tests which are testing for presence of the virus. Could be wrong on that).

Rapid antigen tests are good at telling you if you're positive, they're not so good at telling you if you're negative.

The biggest issue with rapid tests is they cannot consistently identify asymptomatic folks. As you indicate, you have to have enough of the virus in your nose in order to trigger a positive.

So if you are potentially exposed and test a day after the exposure you're gonna come back negative pretty much no matter what. Some folks will take that as a "I don't have it" but all it literally means is "I didn't have enough virus in my nose at the time I took the test for the test to say positive."

You need repeated rapid tests to truly be certain, but they're really hard to find, so...

As an aside, there's believed to be something like 40% of the population who will be asymptomatic to Covid naturally. That number is way higher now that so many have been exposed, vaccines, and so on.

garion333 wrote:

You need repeated rapid tests to truly be certain, but they're really hard to find, so...

I didn't mention it, but all the non-positives took multiple tests spaced apart. Based upon what I know, all the negatives are high-confidence negatives for the test taken. Just weird that they were - hence my question.

Yeah, for rapid antigen tests, take it 5 days after exposure.

Nevin73 wrote:

Yeah, for rapid antigen tests, take it 5 days after exposure.

I'd say defer to your State's guidelines on this - ours says to take the rapid antigen test as soon as possible after finding out of your exposure and to re-test on day 6. Of course this is still not 100% accurate - some people develop symptoms and test positive between day 7-14 but it will probably pick up most cases in the bell curve.

Bfgp wrote:

I'd say defer to your State's guidelines on this - ours says to take the rapid antigen test as soon as possible after finding out of your exposure and to re-test on day 6.

I knew without even looking at who posted that it was someone outside the US! I live in Iowa - our guidelines are "everything if fine, we have always been at war with Eurasia, Governor Renyolds is supreme, she is right in all things, we must obey and we will be saved...."

My local jurisdiction says to NOT test unless you have symptoms in order to preserve tests for healthcare workers/system.

My healthcare provider won't give a rapid test or schedule a PCR unless the individual attests they've got symptoms.

Yeah I just finished a self imposed quarantine for 14 days. I was asymptomatic but my wife was exposed to someone who tested positive. He was unvaxxed and gave it to his partner and 2 year old.

Neither my wife nor I were symptomatic.

Thanks for this.

My wife is a 1st grade teacher, and her classroom has dropped from 18 students down to, as of yesterday, 5.

I ordered tests from Amazon a couple weeks ago, just so that I would eventually have them on hand (not due to arrive until the end of the month). Just submitted my order for these free ones. I imagine we'll eventually go through all of these over the course of the rest of the school year. The school tested all the teachers returning from holiday break, but nothing since then.

*Legion* wrote:

Thanks for this.

My wife is a 1st grade teacher, and her classroom has dropped from 18 students down to, as of yesterday, 5.

I ordered tests from Amazon a couple weeks ago, just so that I would eventually have them on hand (not due to arrive until the end of the month). Just submitted my order for these free ones. I imagine we'll eventually go through all of these over the course of the rest of the school year. The school tested all the teachers returning from holiday break, but nothing since then.

My wife's class has been hit hard. Thankfully she is out on leave until April, but her sub got COVID as well as a bunch of the students. They are testing teachers weekly, and in some cases multiple times a week. Students get tested as a group. They all take a swab and then combine it into one solution. That gets tested and if it comes back positive they test the students individually. It is interesting that in the same state they can have that drastic of a difference in testing strategy.

Vaccination and prior infection help protect against new Covid infections, but vaccination protects against hospitalization more than just natural immunity, CDC study finds

Both vaccination and prior infection help protect against new Covid-19 infections, but vaccination protects against hospitalization significantly more than natural immunity from prior infection alone, according to a study published Wednesday by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"Although the epidemiology of COVID-19 might change as new variants emerge, vaccination remains the safest strategy for averting future SARS-CoV-2 infections, hospitalizations, long-term sequelae, and death," the researchers wrote.
Researchers analyzed the risk of Covid-19 infection and hospitalization among four groups of individuals: vaccinated with and without prior infection and unvaccinated with and without prior infection. The study case data from about 1.1 million cases in California and New York between the end of May and mid-November 2021. Hospitalization data was available from California only.
Overall, Covid-19 case and hospitalization rates were highest among unvaccinated people who did not have a previous diagnosis.

At first, those with a prior infection had higher case rates than those who were vaccinated with no history of prior infection. As the Delta variant became predominant in the US in later months, this shifted and people who survived a previous infection had lower case rates than those who were vaccinated alone, according to the study.
"Experts first looked at previous infections confirmed with laboratory test by the spring of 2021, when the Alpha variant was predominant across the country. Before the Delta variant, Covid-19 vaccination resulted in better protection against a subsequent infection than surviving a previous infection. When looking at the summer and the fall of 2021, when Delta became the dominant in this country, however, surviving a previous infection now provided greater protection against subsequent infection than vaccination," Dr. Benjamin Silk, lead for CDC's surveillance and analytics on the Epi-Task Force, said on a call with media Wednesday.
However, this shift coincides with a time of waning vaccine immunity in many people. The study did not factor the time from vaccination -- and potential waning immunity -- into the analysis. The study also does not capture the effect booster doses may have and was conducted before the emergence of the Omicron variant.

Throughout the period of the study, risk of Covid-19 hospitalization was significantly higher among unvaccinated people with no previous Covid-19 diagnosis than any other group.
"Together, the totality of the evidence suggests really that both vaccination and having survived Covid each provide protection against subsequent reinfection, infection and hospitalization," said Dr. Eli Rosenberg, New York State Deputy Director for Science. "Having Covid the first time carries with it significant risks, and becoming vaccinated and staying up-to-date with boosters really is the only safe choice for preventing COVID infection and severe disease."
Experts also noted that characteristics of variants change, including how well they effect immunity from prior infections.
The CDC said in a statement it will publish additional data on Covid-19 vaccines and boosters against the dominant Omicron variant later this week.
"The data clearly shows that vaccination provides the safest protection against COVID-19 and additional protection for individuals who have had a prior infection. In addition, it shows that people who remain unvaccinated are at the greatest risk of hospitalization and death," said Dr. Erica Pan, state epidemiologist for the California Department of Public Health, said in a statement. "Outside of this study, recent data on the highly contagious Omicron variant shows that getting a booster provides significant additional protection against infection, hospitalization and death."

While I agree with the findings, the study is only looking at previously diagnosed cases of COVID-19, and not at asymptomatic cases or mildly symptomatic cases where people didn't test or report (which early in the pandemic was estimated at 10x, and with omicron is probably even higher but it really is anyone's guess). My advice is that everyone who can get vaccinated should, but the takeaway I get from that study is that people who had symptomatic COVID in the past will still benefit from the vaccine and the booster and shouldn't say they don't need it because they already have COVID.

COVID-19 Cases and Hospitalizations by COVID-19 Vaccination Status and Previous COVID-19 Diagnosis — California and New York, May–November 2021

I am seeing varying percentages across news sites, but what does seem to be true is that the majority of vaccine side effects may be "nocebo" or the bad kind of placebo effect (our mind assumes we should get symptoms from the vaccine, and so we do.)

As high as 76% of vaccine side effects. :)

The underlying point being that vaccines are even safer than advertised.

Damn, new record case numbers in Denmark today. 47,000. That would be equivalent to ~2.7 million in US. I wonder if that is a world record. France is pretty close with 425,000 cases too.
Hospitalizations are not a huge issue currently, but it is quite an issue to have this many people being sick/in isolation and unable to work.

Of course our right wing parties are at the very same time demanding that restrictions are lifted :S

We're All Trying to Find the Guy Policing Our Behavior

Of course, the normalcy is unequally distributed. “Normal” is still an impossible state of affairs for an untold number of people with immunodeficiency or hospital jobs or dead parents or lost homes. Our schools here are open (except when classes go remote, as they regularly do, because, again, so many people are catching Covid-19), but parents everywhere are understandably at the ends of their ropes in the current surge. We’re deeply relieved our kid just became vaccine-eligible; others might still wait a year or more.

But, with a couple exceptions, those sorts of people, with legitimate complaints about what the unchecked spread of the virus has done to their lives, aren’t really the ones you actually see complaining so goddamn much, because most of those sorts of people don’t have the sorts of platforms that would lead me to come across their complaints. It is very much mainly people in households very much like mine (or ones that have it even easier!) that are the primary sources of the most well-publicized opining on how This Has Gone On Long Enough and It’s Time For the Democrats to Say Enough Is Enough and Make It Stop.

If I wanted to be charitable I’d say I sort of understand it. We are obviously in a privileged position, but life is certainly not normal for us by our pre-pandemic standards (though it is all perfectly normal to my son, who cannot remember a pre-pandemic world). My wife is still at home on endless video calls each day. We’ve postponed the kid’s proper birthday party until he has full immunity from his second dose of the vaccine. We are traveling and going out less than we used to (though I also largely stopped “going out” a few years prior to the pandemic, for reasons you can probably deduce with context clues). I have lost precious time with my grandmother and other family members. But, honestly, I don’t want to be charitable! The people in the press and on social media complaining the loudest about Covid-19 restrictions are, at this point, people for whom Covid-19 is just a thing they are sick of hearing and thinking about.

This is incredibly accurate. Hell, I live in the fascist antifa mind-control state of New York, in a DEEPLY blue town, and if I wanted to be, I could be happily closing down the bars every night.

I don't because, A.) still trying to avoid omicron and B.) I'm not paying a f*cking $10 cover charge to hear some mediocre band prevent me from having a conversation at normal volume.

EDIT: Or, more succinctly -

@papapishu wrote:

there really are no covid scolds because there is nothing stopping you from going out there and spitting into another person’s mouth

https://twitter.com/wutangkids/statu...

If you guess that the cops did nothing then you guessed correct!

.

Roo wrote:

I am seeing varying percentages across news sites, but what does seem to be true is that the majority of vaccine side effects may be "nocebo" or the bad kind of placebo effect (our mind assumes we should get symptoms from the vaccine, and so we do.)

As high as 76% of vaccine side effects. :)

The underlying point being that vaccines are even safer than advertised.

With people being stressed and stretched out over the last 2 years - even more than usual, it's hard to discern what is side effect and what is just fatigue. I feel like a slight breeze could push me over the edge, honestly.

TheGameguru wrote:

https://twitter.com/wutangkids/statu...

If you guess that the cops did nothing then you guessed correct!

The linked article says she was eventually arrested and charged with making an oral threat on school property. She was released on a $5k bond.

No news on the most important thing: did the police confiscate all the guns she was threatening the school with?

You know how conservatives don't like it when other people get abortions? It's that, but masks and vaccines.

They wanna see the face of the Subway Sandwich Architect while they berate her.

CDC crunched the numbers and is acknowledging that natural immunity lowers one's risk regarding Covid hospitalization. In fact, it's in the same tier as having been vaccinated + natural Covid infection, which is slightly (and I mean slightly) better/less risky than just vaccination.

IMAGE(https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/wr/figures/mm7104e1_F-large.gif?_=27717)

Vaccination protected against COVID-19 and related hospitalization, and surviving a previous infection protected against a reinfection and related hospitalization during periods of predominantly Alpha and Delta variant transmission, before the emergence of Omicron; evidence suggests decreased protection from both vaccine- and infection-induced immunity against Omicron infections, although additional protection with widespread receipt of booster COVID-19 vaccine doses is expected. Initial infection among unvaccinated persons increases risk for serious illness, hospitalization, long-term sequelae, and death.... Thus, vaccination remains the safest and primary strategy to prevent SARS-CoV-2 infections, associated complications, and onward transmission.

The article is a tough read as it's largely statistical analysis, but if you or anyone you know is still unvaccinated, say for health reasons, then I'd highly recommend having a blood test run to see if they have Covid antigens in their system. If they do they can lower their concern about Covid a bit more than before, which is awesome news! Might help them sleep a bit better.