Coronavirus 8: One Million Dead in 2022 and We're Only in August

[Jackie3]

7 hours ago, Manda said:

You do you and quit ascribing erroneous attitudes and emotions to people you don't know.

You do you, too, thanks!  💙

[adidas]

News from Australia: People infected with COVID-19 will no longer need to isolate, under new rules agreed to by National Cabinet.

Under the new plan, only aged care and hospital workers will need to stay at home if they are infected with coronavirus.

Everyone else will be able to go to work and go about their lives when sick with the disease.

😩🤬😭

[CTRLZero]

20 minutes ago, adidas said:

News from Australia: People infected with COVID-19 will no longer need to isolate, under new rules agreed to by National Cabinet.

Under the new plan, only aged care and hospital workers will need to stay at home if they are infected with coronavirus.

Everyone else will be able to go to work and go about their lives when sick with the disease.

😩🤬😭

If people who test positive are going into work, I expect the cases will soar.  I’m so sorry.  It’s probably going to be handled this way here in the U.S. soon, too.  I always hated it when sick co-workers came in and spread their various viruses around.  COVID-19 is still making people lose a lot of workdays, to put an economic spin on it.  My vaccinated son-in-law lost two weeks.  He works from home, mostly, but imagine if he’d dragged himself into a busy work place while contagious… 

[Smash!]

7 hours ago, adidas said:

News from Australia: People infected with COVID-19 will no longer need to isolate, under new rules agreed to by National Cabinet.

Under the new plan, only aged care and hospital workers will need to stay at home if they are infected with coronavirus.

Everyone else will be able to go to work and go about their lives when sick with the disease.

😩🤬😭

I’m sorry. Looks like Australia is following Switzerland closely 🤦🏽 Here because people don’t have to isolate anymore, almost no one is getting tested. “It’s just a cold”, “Omicron is mild” it’s what I’m hearing. We are heading in our first Fall without any measures in place. 

I’m mad Moderna hasn’t submitted the bivalent B.A. 4/5 booster for approval here so I’ll likely have to go with the B.A. 1 Booster. Which is less ideal under those circumstances.

[Bluebirdbluebell]

I saw a social media post from a woman who was excited to be starting a new job at Target. She was a nurse before, but she was burnt out from COVID. I think the way society handles the pandemic contributed to her burn out so I felt bad. 

[Dandruff]

Got my Moderna bivalent yesterday and have been having similar side effects, with approximately the same timeframe, as the other shots.  Sore arm which is starting to improve, low-grade fever/chills, low-grade headache, all-over body aches, and major fatigue.  Kept waking up during the night then couldn't get myself up and dressed until about an hour ago (5:30 PM).  Had the sense last night to put on an extra blanket and a room heater, which kept the shakes away.  I'm not taking any NSAIDs unless I really feel I have to, because I don't want to potentially blunt my immune response, but I'm sure I'd feel better if I did.  It's raining and supposed to rain all weekend due to Ian, so I suppose it's as good a time as any to vegetate.

Edited September 30, 2022 by Dandruff
Missing letter.

[Ozlsn]

21 hours ago, adidas said:

News from Australia: People infected with COVID-19 will no longer need to isolate, under new rules agreed to by National Cabinet.

Under the new plan, only aged care and hospital workers will need to stay at home if they are infected with coronavirus.

Everyone else will be able to go to work and go about their lives when sick with the disease.

😩🤬😭

So far not one medical body has come out in favour of this. This is not based on current medical advice at all from what I can tell. It is also - of course - being coupled with removing payments to casual workers who needed to isolate, thereby guaranteeing they will need to work while sick.

Frankly I hope they go and cough on the National Cabinet.

As one person put it, when cases explode again and it looks like reinstating iso might be a good idea the narrative will be "oh we can't, the public has moved on."

I am so disappointed in this govt, I was hoping for better from them. 

[Someone Out There]

On 9/22/2022 at 7:39 PM, Ozlsn said:

Now is obviously the time to remove mask mandates on public transport so people don't have to cope with changes between states. *eyeroll*

To be fair, mask usage on public transport even with the mask mandate has been decreasing significantly over time anyway.  On the trams in Canberra it's probably about a 50/50 chance someone has a mask, someone on the radio was indicating that Sydney was something similar. I presume it is the same in Melbourne. There is also no enforcement that I have seen so the rule is somewhat pointless (Transport Canberra workers are now regularly on the trams doing ticket inspections, but nothing is said about people without masks).

[Jackie3]

17 hours ago, Someone Out There said:

To be fair, mask usage on public transport even with the mask mandate has been decreasing significantly over time anyway.  On the trams in Canberra it's probably about a 50/50 chance someone has a mask, someone on the radio was indicating that Sydney was something similar. I presume it is the same in Melbourne. There is also no enforcement that I have seen so the rule is somewhat pointless (Transport Canberra workers are now regularly on the trams doing ticket inspections, but nothing is said about people without masks).

No one wears masks on public transit here. Haven't in a while. And the cases are dropping about 25% over a 14 day period.

Masks vary greatly in how much they prevent infection.  I see mostly cloth masks being worn in public, for the most part.

Edited October 1, 2022 by Jackie3

[Coconut Flan]

I'll offer again reasons why we'll continue our mistakes:

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2022/09/covid-pandemic-exposes-americas-failing-systems-future-epidemics/671608/

 

[Jackie3]

On 10/1/2022 at 4:40 PM, Coconut Flan said:

I'll offer again reasons why we'll continue our mistakes:

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2022/09/covid-pandemic-exposes-americas-failing-systems-future-epidemics/671608/

 

The author is a staff writer at the Atlantic. This means he has a vested interest in continuing the pandemic as long as he can. Clicks!

Follow the science, not the media.

Here's some data prepared by scientists. This past summer, the death rate from Covid was well below 1 per 100,000. For the vaccinated, it was really low--0.5 per 100,000. For the unvaccinated it was six times higher (0.35/100,000)

 

Edited October 3, 2022 by Jackie3

[Coconut Flan]

Troll bait. 

[Manda]

COVID death rates still vastly exceed flu.  Call me when it gets close to flu.  300 deaths a day is inexcusable no matter how you try to twist it.  

[adidas]

As expected, Covid is already ripping through aged care homes. It took just days. This is just one example:

https://www.9news.com.au/national/adelaide-covid19-outbreak-resthaven-care-home/e9db3950-74b3-46a2-aeb8-b880e93c49f1

[Jackie3]

12 hours ago, Manda said:

COVID death rates still vastly exceed flu.  Call me when it gets close to flu.  300 deaths a day is inexcusable no matter how you try to twist it.  

The unvaccinated have been dying of all sorts of preventable diseases for years. Tetanus, Whooping cough, mumps, Hep B. 

For example--about 250 people die per day of Hep B. Almost as many as covid! This is inexcusable no matter how I try to twist it.

People should've been wearing a mask for the last 50 years, if they care about the unvaccinated.

 

[Jackie3]

Last night's numbers. The numbers are looking great. Down 22%. Very encouraging. And this is with no mask mandates, the weather is getting colder, and school re-opening.  Gives hope for the future!

Edited October 5, 2022 by Jackie3

[Manda]

Yes, the current US rates are headed the right way.  NYTimes?  It's better to cite your source.  They might be keeping COVID in the news for nefarious purposes.  

However, we've been here before and the fall forecasts are concerning.  Cases are going up in much of Europe and the US usually follows a few weeks later.  Testing is catching a lower and lower percentage of cases.  You need to give the full picture not just the part you like.  

[Ozlsn]

Interesting actuarial analysis of excess mortality in Australia up to June this year. Summary in spoiler.

Spoiler

In summary:

Total excess mortality (including COVID-19 mortality) for the month of June 2022 is estimated at 16% (+2,400 deaths), relative to expected mortality at pre-pandemic levels.

Total excess mortality for the six months of 2022 is at 13% (+11,200 deaths).

Half of the estimated excess mortality for the first six months of 2022 is due to COVID-19 (+5,600 deaths) and the other +5,600 deaths are due to the remaining causes.

For the first time since March 2020, deaths from influenza in June 2022 were higher than predicted, likely due to the flu season being earlier than normal, although we do not expect a bad flu year overall.

COVID-19 surveillance deaths in the month of September 2022 are considerably lower than for July and August 2022.

We estimate that COVID-19 deaths will result in excess mortality of around 8% (+3,900) for July to September 2022, with overall excess mortality likely to be higher than this.

We expect that COVID-19 will be the third leading cause of death in Australia in 2022, after dementia and ischaemic heart disease, and ahead of cerebrovascular disease and lung cancer.

I am surprised at it being the third leading cause of death, to be honest I thought it would be lower this year. I'll be interested to see further breakdown and analysis of the data as it comes out.

In interesting virology news Sars-CoV-2 has evolved to mimic histones, which are the cell proteins that spool DNA and wrap/unwrap for transcription (very, very basic explanation - as always it's more complicated than that!) The viral proteins appear to be affecting the immune response by essentially not rewinding the DNA correctly and by not including some modifications which affect immune memory (simplified to the max explanation here - hoping a science journalist with more time does a good and comprehensive explanation so I can link). 

[Smash!]

Thank you @Ozlsn for always bringing interesting study findings to my attention.

What I don’t get - this virus is here to stay and from what we’ve seen so far does more damage than the normal cold viruses. So why is everyone treating this like a cold? Why isn’t there a global effort to at least minimize the damages? I wonder what we think about all this 10 years from now.

[Smash!]

I just read this: A whole tram line in my city is currently discontinued due to increasing absences of the driving personnel due to illness. But nooo we won’t go back to mask mandates. 

[Ozlsn]

14 hours ago, Smash! said:

I just read this: A whole tram line in my city is currently discontinued due to increasing absences of the driving personnel due to illness. But nooo we won’t go back to mask mandates. 

Hopefully they're looking at engineering solutions as well - air filtration and changing air movement patterns would have a positive impact in decreasing transmission of covid, flu and other respiratory viruses. How are people getting to work if the tram line isn't running?

Edited October 7, 2022 by Ozlsn

[Smash!]

10 hours ago, Ozlsn said:

Hopefully they're looking at engineering solutions as well - air filtration and changing air movement patterns would have a positive impact in decreasing transmission of covid, flu and other respiratory viruses. How are people getting to work if the tram line isn't running?

The pandemic is over here - I’m pessimistic they will do anything about filtration, too expensive. Add to that the newest generation of our trams have the worst ventilation of all. Even with moderate occupancy the CO2 is often above 1000ppm. No one cares, it‘s a blind spot so to say.

Oh people have to make detours. They picked a non essential line to discontinue so there are other options. Still it sucks for those affected.

 

 

[Smash!]

ME/CFS and Long Covid researcher Carmen Scheibenbogen of Charité Berlin received the Federal Cross of Merit from the President of Germany this September for her work. I hope this recognition finally puts the need for research on ME/CFS on the radar of those who give out research grants. Link to the announcement (in German)

[Coconut Flan]

Tracking the Omicron subvariants is getting more and more complex.  I read this morning that the WHO was currently tracking over 300.  Of course, most of those won't evolve into something we have to notice.  Right now it seems to be a guessing game of which one or ones will out perform the pack and become the next major strain.  In Europe BQ.1.1  (a BA.5.3 strain)) is gaining ground and interest.

https://www.publichealthontario.ca/-/media/Documents/nCoV/voc/2022/10/omicron-bq1-bq11-oct-5.pdf?sc_lang=en

[Coconut Flan]

It looks like the fall wave that parts of Europe have been seeing is now officially upon us.  

https://news.yahoo.com/europe-facing-covid-19-wave-201521579.html

In personal news I had the bivalent booster this morning.