Coronavirus 6: The Plague of Delta

[RosyDaisy]

This happened in my state!  A Cullman, Alabama man who suffered a heart event to travel 200 miles for care.  He should have been sent to the nearest hospital with a cardiac care unit.  That would have been in Birminham or Huntsville.  There were no beds available in Alabama for him because they are all occupied by COVID-19 patients.  Cullman Regional Medical Center called 43 hospitals before finding a bed for him in a Meridian, Mississippi.  This wouldn't have happened if people would just listen to doctors and scientists and get the vaccine!  But no, it has to be politized and turned into a "my freedoms" issue.  Ray DeMonia died because precieved rights are more important than human life to these crazy ass anti-vaxers.  Mr. DeMonia was a good man.  He did the right thing and got vaccinated. He didn't deserve this!  My prayers are with the DeMonia family.

Spoiler

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (WIAT) — The family of a Cullman man who died after being transferred over 200 miles to Mississippi for a cardiac ICU bed is asking for people to receive the COVID-19 vaccine.

Ray DeMonia, a native of Cullman, suffered a heart event that put him in need of a specialized cardiac ICU bed. Alabama’s shortage of ICU beds caused by COVID-19 meant staff had to scramble to find DeMonia the care he needed. After contacting 43 hospitals in three different states, a bed was located in Meridian, Miss.– nearly 200 miles from DeMonia’s hometown.

DeMonia died at Rush Foundation Hospital in Meridian on Sept. 1, just three days shy of what would have been his 74th birthday. His family asks in his obituary that people get the COVID-19 vaccination.

“In honor of Ray, please get vaccinated if you have not, in an effort to free up resources for non-COVID-related emergencies.”

DeMonia is remembered in his obituary as a businessman who put his talents to use in the community. He spent 40 years in the antique business at DeMonia’s Antiques and Auctions and traveled the country in search of antiques and to share his expertise. For over 20 years, he served as auctioneer for the yearly Cullman Rotary Club fundraiser auction and the Annual Draw Down Auction for the Hospice of Cullman County, Inc. The family is also asking that donations be sent to the respective organizations in lieu of flowers.

Only a week ago, the Alabama Hospital Association reported that the state was short 120 ICU beds with over half of the beds hosting COVID-19 patients. A lack of nurses and staff keeps hospitals from expanding ICU units, and AHA called the situation “dire.”

Ventilators are also at an all-time demand according to the AHA, and respiratory therapists are in short supply to man the machines.

While the federal government recently announced extra measures to curb the surge of COVID-19, Republican governors, including Alabama’s Gov. Kay Ivey, say that the measures, such as one that mandates companies with 100 or more employees require vaccinations or weekly COVID-19 testing for staff, are an “overreach.”

As of Friday, Alabama has seen approximately 12,605 COVID-19 related deaths.

 

Edited September 20, 2021 by RosyDaisy

[Coconut Flan]

There is a new risk calculator out:

https://www.microcovid.org/?distance=normal&duration=15&interaction=oneTime&personCount=1&riskProfile=livingWithPartner&scenarioName=1person_15minCarRide&setting=indoor&theirMask=n95&theirVaccine=vaccinated&topLocation=US_06&voice=normal&yourMask=n95

[Cartmann99]

 

[Ozlsn]

Yeah I don't really know where to go with this other than the legislature needs to stop practicing medicine without a licence.

[adidas]

More US citizens have died of Covid than of Spanish Flu.

https://www.news.com.au/world/coronavirus/global/us-covid19-death-toll-surpasses-1918-flu-pandemic-data-reveals/news-story/34bb8d85d7f2b61b62ea8fcf4938f0d1
 

From the article:

Worldwide, the “Spanish flu” pandemic remains the deadliest event in human history according to epidemiologists, killing some 50 million people and far exceeding global Covid-19 deaths so far, which currently sit at around 4.7 million. 

But America has borne a disproportionate 14 per cent of those fatalities, despite making up only five percent of the world’s population.

[47of74]

Saw this today on FB. 

[adidas]

Okay, well this is very interesting. 

https://www.news.com.au/world/coronavirus/global/wuhan-scientists-planned-to-release-coronavirus-particles-into-bats-18-months-before-outbreak/news-story/56778257329126065fcfba846fefe94e

If you scroll nearly halfway down, there is a timeline you can click through. I have spoken a little about my links to Wuhan through work in the past, and my boss was first notified on January 5 2020 to exercise caution in Wuhan because of a contagious viral pneumonia circulating.

There is some speculation that the timeline is not accurate.

https://www.google.com.au/amp/s/www.news-medical.net/amp/news/20200608/Cremation-numbers-reveal-possible-suppression-of-true-COVID-19-data-in-China.aspx

I’ve also spoken about another connection I have (outside work): I know someone who owns and operates one of the labs next to the wet market. I will be seeing her on Monday so you can bet I will be discussing the news about the plan to release coronaviruses into bats with her. In the past she has not explicitly confirmed, but has hinted about coronavirus experimentation at the lab, but now that it is in the media I will ask outright. She may not know much though, and it could be hearsay, because the lab she owns is not connected to the others (I’ll ask for clarification but I believe other labs are owned or leased privately and each just gets on with their own business).

[clueliss]

Posting a link to this here since covid is driving a lot of the supply chain issues.  Great piece on the subject from The Atlantic 

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2021/09/pandemic-supply-chain-nightmare-slow-shipping/620147/

[Cartmann99]

Hydrogen peroxide is the shiny new thing in anti-vax land:

The unroll version is here.

[Dandruff]

2 hours ago, Cartmann99 said:

Hydrogen peroxide is the shiny new thing in anti-vax land:

The unroll version is here.

AFAIC, they can inhale whatever they want if it means they're staying away from hospitals.

[Ozlsn]

Coronaviruses found in bats in Laos look to be highly related to the covid causing virus.

The article is a pre-print, so hasn't yet been through peer review, but is very interesting. 

"To make the discovery, Marc Eloit, a virologist at the Pasteur Institute in Paris and his colleagues in France and Laos, took saliva, faeces and urine samples from 645 bats in caves in northern Laos. In three horseshoe (Rhinolophus) bat species, they found viruses that are each more than 95% identical to SARS-CoV-2, which they named BANAL-52, BANAL-103 and BANAL-236."

The scary part is "the new viruses contain receptor binding domains that are almost identical to that of SARS-CoV-2, and can therefore infect human cells."

The BANAL (can I just say how much I love this name?) viruses don't have the furin cleavage site, although they are found in other coronavirus lineages.  There are also questions about how viruses from bats in Laos would end up in Wuhan, although a virus 96.1% similar to SARS-CoV-2 was found in Yunnan last year (the BANAL viruses are 96.8% similar) so it's possible bats basically spread viruses through populations (equally possible that humans also help here by catching and transporting them for multiple purposes). Yunnan province borders northern Laos, and is about 1700km away from Wuhan.

[Someone Out There]

Bats are basically hotbeds of disease, to the point that they study bats to see how they survive/deal with all the diseases that they carry and still live for the purpose of future treatments in humans.

Personally it wouldn't surprise me if COVID-19 started in humans somewhere other than Wuhan, was brought there by someone and then due to the record keeping/healthcare system China has it was picked up (and subsequently covered up causing suspicion).  COVID-19 (or something similar) was apparently circulating in Italy as early as September 2019, so who knows how far and wide it was prior to around mid-2020 (when tests became more widely available).

[Smee]

I tend to think it can’t have been circulating very long outside of China prior to 2020, because once we *did* have cases all around the world, the pattern of exponential growth in various countries was rapid and predictable. Places went from a few sick returned travellers to overwhelmed hospitals in a matter of weeks, and it was only places with low population density and quick, hard lockdowns & closed borders that didn’t have those skyrocketing numbers. I just can’t make that pattern fit a theory that the virus was circulating for months longer than we knew.
 

Unless the early zoonotic transmission(s) was a less contagious/severe strain and the “original” virus that spread around the world was a mutation that occurred after the virus was already active in humans, a la Alpha, Delta etc? I suppose it’s possible that if all the early cases were milder and/or less contagious, it could have begun anywhere and Wuhan may only have been ground zero in the same way India was for the Delta strain. I do think China probably covered up the severity of what was happening in Wuhan until they couldn’t anymore, and the death toll is much higher than the official figures. But I don’t believe the virus was man-made, whether deliberately or accidentally.

[Alisamer]

I think COVID is yet another SARS Coronavirus and was inevitable. What was not inevitable was the stupidity of people causing it to spread and mutate and become a pandemic. 
 

I am losing respect for people on the daily. Found out this weekend a casual friend of mine has COVID. No details on how he’s doing, but he was not vaccinated. He’s an elementary school teacher with two young children, and a wife who is a children’s pastor at a mega church. I knew he wasn’t the brightest light in the chandelier but damn!

[Ozlsn]

There are four coronaviruses still circulating in humans from previous zoonotic crossover events, and SARS-CoV-2 is the third one that we know of to cross since 2003 and cause disease in humans. It's also the best adapted for transmission in humans - SARS-CoV (causes SARS) and MERS-CoV (causes MERS) had limited transmission, not least due to killing the host very quickly, but also just because they aren't able to enter human cells as efficiently. It's probable that there have been more crossover but limited events where one person got very sick, maybe spread it to one other and both died quickly. I agree with @Smee that if the novel coronavirus was spreading in 2019 then it would have to have been a different, less transmissible strain than even the alpha strain or we would have seen the same situation globally as we did in 2020 with huge numbers getting sick and hospitals under strain. 

3 hours ago, Alisamer said:

What was not inevitable was the stupidity of people causing it to spread and mutate and become a pandemic. 

What was not inevitable was the politicization of a pandemic for political and financial gain. People can be idiots, but they are being led by some amoral, unempathetic, cynical, and utterly disgusting "leaders".

Edited September 26, 2021 by Ozlsn

[Cults-r-us]

4 hours ago, Ozlsn said:

There are four coronaviruses still circulating in humans from previous zoonotic crossover events, and SARS-CoV-2 is the third one that we know of to cross since 2003 and cause disease in humans. It's also the best adapted for transmission in humans - SARS-CoV (causes SARS) and MERS-CoV (causes MERS) had limited transmission, not least due to killing the host very quickly, but also just because they aren't able to enter human cells as efficiently. It's probable that there have been more crossover but limited events where one person got very sick, maybe spread it to one other and both died quickly. I agree with @Smee that if the novel coronavirus was spreading in 2019 then it would have to have been a different, less transmissible strain than even the alpha strain or we would have seen the same situation globally as we did in 2020 with huge numbers getting sick and hospitals under strain. 

What was not inevitable was the politicization of a pandemic for political and financial gain. People can be idiots, but they are being led by some amoral, unempathetic, cynical, and utterly disgusting "leaders".

I have mentioned previously I live in hardcore MAGAville. Recently I visited 3 neighbors. One thinks she has heart/lung damage from Covid but is still anti-vax because her daughter told her employees "who knew the truth about the vaccine" resigned fron the CDC. Another told me how much money Mrs. And Dr. Fauci are making. She explained the Ivermectin clears Covid up in 3 days. Clearly, the FDA is in cahoots.

It is important to listen to these people because they are being influenced by a different body of (false) information.

It is very frustrating.

 

 

 

[Audrey2]

Sadly the son of my Sunday school teachers when I was in junior high just passed away on Friday from covid. He was in his early forties and left behind a teenager, a tween, and a six-month-old baby. If I were a betting woman I would bet that he wasn't vaccinated and I'm not sure that losing him is going to make a difference on his circles decision to be vaccinated.

[47of74]

An advertising agency in Charlotte decided to try a different approach to getting people to take the vaccine 

Quote

The truck had the name of a funeral home on it. But instead of a soothing thought that might double as a company slogan, the message on the side read: "Don't get vaccinated." 

The black truck advertising for "Wilmore Funeral Home" delivered that blunt and unexpected message on Sunday to football fans in downtown Charlotte as they headed to watch the Carolina Panthers play the New Orleans Saints.

But here's the catch. 

There is no "Wilmore Funeral Home" and visiting its website takes you to a landing page instructing visitors to do the opposite of what's written on the truck.

 

[Alisamer]

3 hours ago, 47of74 said:

An advertising agency in Charlotte decided to try a different approach to getting people to take the vaccine 

 

Ha! That's awesome. That agency is just down the street from our former location, and the vaccine center the website links to is one I pass to and from work every day. They do drive-thru vaccines (possibly covid tests too) and have been lined up just about every time I pass. I hope the message gets at least somebody to go get vaccinated. 

I just found that that apparently, on Thursday, a co-worker's kid was exposed to Covid. Now he HAS Covid. That co-worker is one of the two here who refused to get vaccinated, so we're holding our breath to see if he gets it or not. Apparently the current plan is for him to come in to work after we all leave and work after hours. Assuming, of course, he's not testing positive and is well enough to do so. So now I guess I know what the "covid" plan is here. Lucky for me, I was out of work on Friday so not exposed to him after his kid caught it. Everyone else here, though...

Yeah. 

It's so crazy. My boss is vaccinated, a proponent of vaccination, and got his shot as soon as he was able to do so. He also gets all his news from right-wing sources and has no idea of anything they don't report, and sees things from a completely bizarro-world upside down perspective, so he won't put his foot down on vaccination.

I hope my co-worker survives but frankly I wouldn't mind if he had a rough time of it for a day or two. Just enough to convince him it's not "just the flu" and that maybe he should have done something to protect himself even if he "doesn't trust the government". On the plus side maybe he'll get a couple months of natural immunity out of it, so there's that at least. 

[47of74]

1 hour ago, Alisamer said:

Ha! That's awesome. That agency is just down the street from our former location, and the vaccine center the website links to is one I pass to and from work every day. They do drive-thru vaccines (possibly covid tests too) and have been lined up just about every time I pass. I hope the message gets at least somebody to go get vaccinated.

I think actual funeral homes should go out and say something along the lines of yeah we don't want your business that bad so please get vaccinated. 

[church_of_dog]

17 minutes ago, 47of74 said:

I think actual funeral homes should go out and say something along the lines of yeah we don't want your business that bad so please get vaccinated. 

I mean, they'll still get our business eventually, so all they really have to say is "that's okay, we can wait".

[47of74]

15 minutes ago, church_of_dog said:

I mean, they'll still get our business eventually, so all they really have to say is "that's okay, we can wait".

Yeah I told the funeral director at the place my family normally uses that no offense but we hope it's a while before we need to make use of your services again.  It seemed like for a while we were visiting his place at least once a year every year.  And/or going to another funeral home for a death in the family.

[Emma]

I had to visit a funeral home for work once on a dark and stormy night. As I was leaving, the guy told me “drive safe and don’t make me go to work”  

[Dandruff]

3 hours ago, 47of74 said:

I think actual funeral homes should go out and say something along the lines of yeah we don't want your business that bad so please get vaccinated. 

How about a surcharge for COVID corpses, due to the need for extra precautions?

[Ozlsn]

12 hours ago, Alisamer said:

just found that that apparently, on Thursday, a co-worker's kid was exposed to Covid. Now he HAS Covid. That co-worker is one of the two here who refused to get vaccinated, so we're holding our breath to see if he gets it or not. Apparently the current plan is for him to come in to work after we all leave and work after hours

Here he would be required to isolate at home for two weeks as a close contact of a confirmed case and be tested on day 4 and day 13 of exposure. It is so strange to me that going to work is even an option, vaccinated co-workers or not.