Round 3 of Covid vs the timeline (2022 episode)

[Canoe]

Cherry picking from a tweet thread of cherry picking

Merchants of herd death oversold immunity. People are being reinfected immediately again after Omicron infection. We have the data: Both laboratory experiments and actual cases.

• Evidence from a study showing immunity based upon “mild" Omicron infection is weak for Omicron reinfection, and limited for cross immunity to Delta infection.
• Overall, immunity from Omicron infection is much lower than the immunity from Delta infection, correlated with the severity of infection. So unless you get a severe infection with all of its consequences you also don’t get immunity from having another infection.
• And recall even immunity from severe infection wanes rapidly in a few months.

• Summary: "Neutralizing immunity...from Omicron and Delta"
  "We found a significantly smaller rise of neutralization titers associated with milder Omicron breakthrough infection in vaccinated individuals, to only approximately one-third of the rise associated with boosting.
  "We also identified limited cross-variant immunity to Delta."
  "Thus, breakthrough infection from Omicron may enhance cross-protection against Delta, and vice-versa, [only] inasmuch as there is a sufficiently large increase in baseline neutralizing immunity, which appears to be related to the clinical severity of the infection.
  "Our findings parallel those from another study from our group that demonstrated limited cross-variant immunity after milder Omicron variant infection in unvaccinated individuals in a mouse model and in human patients.
  "Taken together, our results suggest that Omicron-induced immunity may not be sufficient to prevent infection from another, more pathogenic variant, should it emerge in the future.

• Actual cases of reinfection by Omicron are so widespread they are manifest to anyone who is not closing their eyes:

  My latest news is that kids are now getting reinfected within 30 days of their COVID infection...and yes they tested negative in between.
  If you are a pediatric provider testing at every illness will give you this data. With this virus we can't pretend to know anything .

• Important addition: Anthony Leonardi @fitterhappierAJ has shown that the immune system T-cells are damaged by covid (shades of HIV), potentially undermining not just Covid immunity but immunity to other diseases, and part of Autoimmune dysfunction after covid.

https://twitter.com/yaneerbaryam/status ... 4104517632

[Canoe]

Reuters flubbed and posted some lab tests as human trials. The orignal story went far & wide, but the correction was meh.

What is going on with @Reuters ?
First a hugely controversial headline that Ivermectin has been found effective against Omicron in a phase III clinical trial ... only to later say our mistake. The phase III clinical trial was fake & not even clinical data at all. WTF

https://twitter.com/SlickRockWeb/status ... 4162513920

[/quote]

[Canoe]

So far, updates for weekend numbers aren't material. Numbers still in the same ballpark as originally reported. Daily New Cases, global down, U.S. down; supporting rounding down from a peak of the surge.

[Canoe]

cherry picking out of a tweet thread

Health Care system stressed too far for too long, shortages of supplies and shortages of people

Guys! When I write about frontlines, I don't do it to push for empathy towards me or HCWs. All i want is for you to understand YOU HAVE NO HEALTHCARE NOW in this country. Its not about feeling sorry for us. Its about all of you having NO ACCESS TO CARE NOW.

I have experience w low resource HC when ppl need to bring own supply to hospitals. This is why Spring 2020 in NY didnt shock me. Always open crash carts & supply cabinets provided us meds & tools we needed. We used all we could find & repurposed a lot of tools.

2 years into the pandemic we are still running out of tools. Now we are running out of very BASIC tool like nasal cannula! A very basic tube between O2 tank & patient's nose. We ran out. We ran out of BIPAPs. Its not about covid only, if you have COPD or CHF > Woman shrugging

We ran out of syringes filled with glucose water or salty water. This is basic! When we give any medicine in the vein, then we flush it so medicine doesnt stay in the tubing. We ran out of these flushes. One floor charge nurse took 1L bag of saline & filled 100 10-cc syringes. The other floor RN pinned a 1L bag to the wall & nurses come and draw a 10-cc syringe as they need. How more basic this can be. Salt in water or sugar in water! We dont have it.

People are coming from out of states bc no beds in their states.

People are coming super sick bc they wait hoping sickness will improve & it doesn't.

3 healthcare forms are offered now - rapid response, code blue & palliative care. You are either super sick, or near-dead, or too advanced that nothing else we can do. No prevention, no ability to have quality primary care or quality outpatient specialty care. Your missed stress test, colonoscopy, pap smear, lipid test may become an emergency. 3 perforated bowels in 2 days, 2 out of 3 from out of state, uterine bleeds, stomach bleeds, lung bleeds. Ppl were unable to make appts w specialists or PCP. Telemed doesn't fix any of this.

I repeat once again you have no healthcare now. Nothing is available. No elective procedures, no elective surgeries. Until your problem becomes an emergency, you have no healthcare. Once it is an emergency, we do bandaid care or CPR or palliation. How do we get out of this?

I have to sleep now. Tonight working my 10th straight 12-hr shift. I just repeat again - it is not my story, it is your care. If you get a heart attack this is what you going to get! MVA, food poisoning, diarrhea, fall, UTI! This is what you r going to get! If there is a bed!

https://twitter.com/SolNataMD/status/14 ... 4363512835

I work in primary care, and had a patient wait 7 months for the procedure that found their terminal cancer. They died. Maybe if our healthcare system hadn’t been overwhelmed by a vaccine preventable disease, they wouldn’t have orphaned their child.

https://twitter.com/amybtatom/status/14 ... 0643072002

People don’t realize. I had all of our OR scrubs call in sick yesterday. Thankfully I found someone at the last minute. Otherwise we were going on diversion and canceling surgeries.
Medically necessary surgeries. Not elective.

https://twitter.com/AZDevil88/status/14 ... 7937012740

We delivered and mailed N95 masks from my husband's handyman work around the country during the first weeks of this. One nurse told me that she cried when she received four masks in the mail.
It should not be like this.

https://twitter.com/ann_mcnitt/status/1 ... 3390001157

The ABC7 News I-Team has learned the Department of Homeland Security, Office of Inspector General is investigating San Mateo County's handling of personal protective equipment.

This comes after I-Team's Dan Noyes found thousands of boxes of it soaking in the rain at the event center and confirmed it's been out there for four months.
https://abc7news.com/san-mateo-ppe-wast ... /11515977/

and more tweets in that tweet thread...

[Canoe]

Transmission of SARS-CoV-2 Omicron VOC subvariants BA.1 and BA.2: Evidence from Danish Households

[...] The secondary attack rate (SAR) was estimated as 29% and 39% in households infected with Omicron BA.1 and BA.2, respectively. We found BA.2 to be associated with an increased susceptibility of infection for unvaccinated individuals (Odds Ratio [edit: correlation, not risk] (OR) 2.19; 95%-CI 1.58-3.04), fully vaccinated individuals (OR 2.45; 95%-CI 1.77-3.40) and booster-vaccinated individuals (OR 2.99; 95%-CI 2.11-4.24), compared to BA.1. We also found an increased transmissibility from unvaccinated primary cases in BA.2 households when compared to BA.1 households, with an OR of 2.62 (95%-CI 1.96-3.52). The pattern of increased transmissibility in BA.2 households was not observed for fully vaccinated and booster-vaccinated primary cases, where the OR of transmission was below 1 for BA.2 compared to BA.1. We conclude that Omicron BA.2 is inherently substantially more transmissible than BA.1, and that it also possesses immune-evasive properties that further reduce the protective effect of vaccination against infection, but do not increase its transmissibility from vaccinated individuals with breakthrough infections.

We observed a general gradient in both Omicron BA.1 and BA.2 households such that the susceptibility of potential secondary cases was highest among the unvaccinated and lowest among the booster vaccinated, but the effect of vaccination appeared to be lower for Omicron BA.2 than for BA.1

We observed lower transmissibility in both BA.1 and BA.2 households when the primary case was booster vaccinated rather than fully vaccinated.

https://doi.org/10.1101/2022.01.28.22270044 https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101 ... 22270044v1

[Canoe]

Reinfections up and material enough that England is now reporting them.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/ ... first-time

Omicron BA.1 vs. BA.2

Omicron #BA2 is ~1.5 times more transmissible than original BA1.
StudyDown pointing backhand index showing same Viral Load!
Cause will almost certainly be:
Even less Cell Tropism with BA2
More efficient Endosomal entry
-> Intrinsically more transmissible, Not Immune escape

BA.2 will eventually dominate, but thankfully no significant change compared to BA.1 in:
Severity & Clinical picture
Vaccine Efficacy
Response to Antivirals
Reinfection rate

https://twitter.com/DrNaderKHijazi1/sta ... 4704234502

One case report of Persistent SARS-CoV-2 (Beta variant) Infection for > 9 months in a Poorly Controlled HIV patient, PICKED UP > 20 MUTATIONS! Thinking face. Some identical to Omicron. I worry Convergent Evolution is NOT done yet
https://twitter.com/DrNaderKHijazi1/sta ... 0911029249

Here’s a detailed list of differences in mutations between BA1 & BA2 sub-lineages. It’s enough to change the SGTF (S Gene Target Failure) from + to - , so BA2 can’t be picked up on a regular PCR test, & needs gene sequencing, Hence BA2 called Stealth Omicron
[Edit: I belive that PCR picks up a covid-19 infection, but not that it's Omicron]
https://twitter.com/DrNaderKHijazi1/sta ... 0837960711

[Canoe]

Small difference, but potentially materially unclear...

Here’s a detailed list of differences in mutations between BA1 & BA2 sub-lineages. It’s enough to change the SGTF (S Gene Target Failure) from + to - , so BA2 can’t be picked up on a regular PCR test, & needs gene sequencing, Hence BA2 called Stealth Omicron
[EDIT - UNCLEAR: Edit: I belive that PCR picks up picks up a covid-19 infection, but not that it's Omicron]
https://twitter.com/DrNaderKHijazi1/sta ... 0837960711

[Edit: I believe that PCR correctly picks up Omicron BA.2 as a COVID-19 infection, but with BA.2 being SGTF Negative, it misses that those BA.2 infections are an Omicron infection.]
Note that:
- many jurisdictions adopted SGTF Positive as their Omicron signal/count in early December 2021
- just as "Omicron BA.2" was adopted to name the BA.2 mutations cluster
- which was also just as BA.2 was being found & confirmed to be SGTF negative, hence SGTF evasive.
Until gene sequencing of samples catches up (if done), we don't know how much of the December 2021 - January 2022 COVID-19 surge was BA.1 vs. BA.2 (and that is still underway in places and still surging in places). I don't know how much that matters, except with BA.2 out-competing BA.1 & re-infecting more, it may matter for modelling and planning?

[Canoe]

Pfizer and BioNTech Initiate Rolling Submission for Emergency Use Authorization of Their COVID-19 Vaccine in Children 6 Months Through 4 Years of Age Following Request From U.S. FDA

• With pediatric COVID-19 cases surpassing 10 million and at the request of the FDA, the companies have submitted available data on the safety and efficacy of two 3 µg doses as part of a three-dose primary series for this age group to address the urgent public health need
• Companies plan to submit additional data on a third 3 µg dose in this age group in the coming months
• If authorization is granted, the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine would be the first COVID-19 vaccine available for pediatric populations under 5 years of age

https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/ ... m-U.S.-FDA

[Canoe]

"I'd take a bullet for my country!"
"You won't take a jab for your neighbours. Sit down."

“Army readiness depends on Soldiers who are prepared to train, deploy, fight and win our nation’s wars,” said Secretary of the Army Christine Wormuth. “Unvaccinated Soldiers present risk to the force and jeopardize readiness. We will begin involuntary separation proceedings for Soldiers who refuse the vaccine order and are not pending a final decision on an exemption.”

https://www.army.mil/article/253681/dep ... r_refusers

Army Directive 2022-02 ( Personnel Actions for Active Duty Soldiers Who Refuse the COVID-19 Vaccination Order and Accession Requirements for Unvaccinated Individuals )
includes
- Effective immediately, commanders will initiate involuntary administrative separation proceedings for Soldiers who have refused the lawful order to be vaccinated against COVID-19 and who do not have a pending or approved exemption request.
- Enlisted Personnel - The basis for separation will be for “Commission of a Serious Offense,”
- Commissioned and Warrant Officers - The basis for separation will be for “Misconduct, Moral or Professional Dereliction,”
- All officer and enlisted personnel eligible to retire on or before 1 July 2022 will be permitted to retire as soon as practicable through expedited processes in lieu of involuntary separation.
- Soldiers separated will not be eligible for involuntary separation pay and may be subject to termination and recoupment of any unearned special or incentive pays. The effective date of the termination will be the date the commander initiates an involuntary administrative separation for any Soldier who has refused the COVID-19 vaccination order. The Soldier may be required to repay the unearned portion of the pay or benefit in accordance with current policy and regulations.
- USMA Cadets/USMAPS Cadet Candidates. ... The basis for separation will be “Misconduct.”
- Army SROTC Cadets. ... The basis for disenrollment will be “Inaptitude for Military Service”

https://armypubs.army.mil/epubs/DR_pubs ... -WEB-1.pdf

[Canoe]

A preprint "UNDER REVIEW" is attracting some attention. Largely due to 'Exposure to one nasal droplet enough for Covid infection'.
A small study, "Safety, tolerability and viral kinetics during SARS-CoV-2 human challenge", was a clinical trial, largely to see if In-Human clinical trial was safe.

Deliberate human infection of low-risk volunteers enables the exact longitudinal measurement of viral kinetics, immunological responses, transmission dynamics and duration of infectious shedding after a fixed dose
of well-characterised virus. Under these tightly controlled conditions, host factors leading to differences in clinical outcome can be tested and robustly inferred.

The real interest comes from "The trial, the first to have monitored people during the entire course of infection", from exposure through to recovery.
Which makes results interesting. For example, some of the study participants were given remdesivir as a pre-caution against severe disease. This resulted in

"no statistically significant effect on viral load or symptoms was detectable in this small cohort"
"With no significant differences between remdesivir-treated and untreated participants, infected individuals were therefore analysed together."

Note "This study was not designed nor powered to assess the efficacy of early treatment with remdesivir so this remains to be tested"
Note: a very small clinical trial

Also

our data clearly show that SARS-CoV-2 viral shedding occurs at high levels irrespective of symptom severity, thus explaining the high transmissibility of this infection and emphasising that symptom severity cannot be considered a surrogate for transmission risk in this disease

Note: "The study was carried out using a strain of the virus before the emergence of the Alpha, Delta and Omicron variants."

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/ ... tion-study
https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-1121993/v1 https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-1121993/v1

[Canoe]

Just a quick note on the U.S..
Although charts support that the Omicron wave has peaked, the current Daily New Cases is still a lot of COVID-19. The now "lowered" Daily New Cases value is in & around the peak (306,597 Daily New Cases, January 6, 2021) of the wave back in late 2020 into 2021.

• Back then, Peak Active Cases came in at nine million. Call it 2.7 % of the population.
• Right now, the U.S. has over twenty-eight million Active Cases. Call it 8.3 % of the population.

Vaccinations has helped a lot with reduced severity, but with such a high count of Active Cases, hospitalizations are still above all prior peaks. Hospitalizations are in flux, with new hospitalizations vs Resolved Cases (Recovered & Deaths). But treating the U.S. as a single bulk value, from a high above 150,000, at the current 133,050, hospitalizations appears to have peaked.

[Canoe]

This is an interesting chart presentation of COVID-19 Daily Cases 7-day Trailing Average for the world, showing the top 50, and groups by region.

TREND1_top50_c_7 2022-02-02.png

https://pandem-ic.com/the-pandemic-in-u ... countries/

[Canoe]

(was away looking after some structural repairs to a house - only time for a quick drive-by)

Global Total Cases now above 400 million (400,265,695)
Global Daily New Cases continues to appear peaked, but global new cases are still above double that of prior peaks.
Global Deaths 5,780,757
Global Daily New Deaths was rising and appears like maybe it has just peaked. Maybe. Fair amount of noise in the reporting.

U.S. Daily New Cases are less than a third of the recent Omicron peak, are down below the original Covid peak, and are now showing ~around the Delta peak. Great improvement, but still a lot of covid...
U.S. Daily New Deaths may have just peaked. A lot of noise in its reporting. Will need time to tell.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

[Canoe]

After deer in various places across the U.S. tested as having COVID-19, it shouldn't come as a suprise that with so many U.S. peopole infected with Omicron, that this happens...

The Omicron found in these deer bore a close genetic resemblance to Omicron strains found in human residents of the city, all but confirming that humans had somehow been the source of the deer infections. It’s unclear how this is happening, but direct contact via hand-feeding or through exposure to contaminated wastewater or trash are possibilities. Interestingly, at least one infected deer had both an active infection and very high antibody levels, possibly indicating that it had been reinfected.

https://gizmodo.com/deer-in-new-york-te ... 1848499225

[Canoe]

cherry picked from article

Kansas medical board faces threats from lawmakers for probing ivermectin use
One lawmaker is also a physician under investigation for prescribing ivermectin.

The Kansas medical board is facing attacks from state lawmakers for investigating doctors who have prescribed the antiparasitic drug ivermectin to treat or prevent COVID-19. The drug, which is most often used in animals as a dewormer, is both unproven and unrecommended for use against COVID-19 in people.

Nevertheless, state lawmakers proposed a budget amendment that would strip the state medical board of funds to conduct such investigations.

That Senate bill is SB 381, which would specifically authorize doctors to prescribe off-label and unproven COVID-19 treatments—namely hydroxychloroquine sulfate and ivermectin. And it would force pharmacists to dispense the drugs, even if doing so is against their professional judgment. Additionally, the proposed legislation would bar medical and pharmacy boards from investigating doctors and pharmacists for the practice and require the boards to review any prior disciplinary actions that are related.

Ivermectin as well as the malaria drug hydroxychloroquine have become popular drugs to treat or prevent COVID-19, thanks to the rampant spread of medical misinformation during the pandemic. Dispensing trends for the drugs have surged amid the health crisis—along with calls to poison control centers. But ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine are not approved for use against COVID-19, and current data does not support their use against the pandemic disease. Meanwhile, both drugs carry risks of serious side effects, such as heart-rhythm problems and low blood pressure. For all of these reasons, the US Food and Drug administration has explicitly and repeatedly warned against their use for COVID-19.

Still, some questionable doctors have continued to prescribe the drugs for COVID-19 on an off-label basis, sometimes to patients they haven't treated before or even met. In general, doctors are free to prescribe drugs off-label. But doctors are still expected to follow standards of care, which don't include the use of ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine for COVID-19.

https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/02 ... tin-cases/

[Canoe]

(was away looking after some structural repairs to a house - only time for a quick drive-by)

My god, just away for a few days, and I'm still trying just to catch up on reading on Covid related things. A few cherry picked...

• COVID-19 infected deer, their exhaling hangs in air - just like ours - along with concerns about a live reservoir of the disease

  longer-term, widespread circulation of the virus in deer would give the virus more opportunity to mutate, potentially giving rise to new variants that could spill over into people. The circulation of the virus in deer provides opportunities for it to adapt and evolve,

• new COVID-19 variants found in NYC sewer, showing affinity to mice & rats; again, concerns about a live reservoir
• high rates of Long Covid Kids in U.K. (long covid in 1 of every 7 children infected by covid)
• a 'study' preprint non-peer-reveiwed, making noise that 'lockdown measures don't work', only contrary to normal practice, it excludes over 90 % of data and related studies
• warnings that while it's true that the new cases omicron surge peak in the U.S. has rounded down, cases & deaths are still frigging high; being restated many ways, yet protective measures are being rolled back...

  ... U.S. Daily New Cases are less than a third of the recent Omicron peak, are down below the original Covid peak, and are now showing ~around the Delta peak. Great improvement, but still a lot of covid...

• warnings that U.S. (and others like U.K.) new cases are down in part due to home tests not being counted; that 'in part' count is unknown so it's not known if it's material, but as the numbers of people home testing is now huge, it's now suspected that the missed count is material and possibly significant
• Omicron BA.2 is gaining traction in many places (like the U.S.) and is now the dominant variant in some countries; with BA.2 being more infectious and higher re-infection, waiting to see if this results in a new surge, this time of BA.2
• multiple jurisdictions within the U.S. (and some countries) are rolling back protective measures, ignoring the science; and it appears that it's largely the children suffering the consequences

[lucky420]

Nevada’s gov lifted the mask mandate yesterday. All of Nevada, except for one county is in the high risk/red state. I’ll most likely wear my mask to the grocery store or whenever the fuck I still want to wear it.

[Molotov]

If anybody tries to mask shame me for wearing a mask in a store I just tell them "I am taking chemotherapy"...that usually results in them muttering an apology and skulking away.

[Canoe]

Just more on how relaxing measures is being done too soon. The latest surge/wave, of Omicron, is down, but that places it to that of prior waves.

Today #COVID death rates surge again in Denmark as restrictions are eased for many.

Politicians & Media are sending messages to take down #COVID protections.
In US it’s premature. Why?

• >50% adults are NOT protected w #Booster
• [edit: crucial due to immunization waning]
• >75% of kids 5-11 are NOT fully #Vaccinated [edit: kids < 5 are NOT vaccinated; FDA < 5 vaccination approval on hold pending more data]
• Feb 8th >3,000 died [edit: more than 9/11]
• >17,000 dead in past week
• >60,000 Deaths in January

https://twitter.com/WesElyMD/status/1492153626600648709

High quality MASKS protect against INFECTION, whereas VACCINES protect against HOSPITALIZATION. It's too early to drop mask mandates.
https://twitter.com/Cleavon_MD/status/1 ... 6882335750

Effectiveness of Face Mask or Respirator Use in Indoor Public Settings for Prevention of SARS-CoV-2 Infection — California, February–December 2021

• Cloth masks - 56% lower risk of infection
• Surgical masks - 66% lower risk
• N95/KN95 respirators - 83% lower risk

https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/wr/mm7106e1.htm

[Canoe]

After a crazy number of days with new studies coming to light, I'm seeing little in the past week.

• In most places, COVID-19 numbers due to Omicron appear to be rounding or have rounded down - usually into the range of prior waves. Still a lot of covid!
• Also in many, deaths are still accumulating strongly or the rate still rising as deaths follow behind new cases.
• More reports that people who previously had COVID-19 Omicron are catching COVID-19 again. And with the higher infectiousness, often sweeping through a household, again. Fully vaccinated and boosted is saving lives.
• Depending on where, Omicron BA.2 is, or is becoming, the dominant COVID-19 infection. Some calls that BA.2 is also surging, hence delaying the fall from peak for the Omicron surge, or a BA.2 surge is hiding under the falling BA.1 numbers and is or is going to surge COVID-19 numbers up again. (I'm not seeing that in the numbers, but I'm not an epidemiologist.)

Which puts us into
(first three paragraphs of)

Why Wishful Thinking on Covid Remains As Dangerous as Ever

We’ve entered a new phase in the Covid-19 pandemic, which we can call bipartisan, unilateral surrender. From liberal and conservative pundits and politicians on both sides of the aisle to the celebrity docs who show up on cable news or in supermarket magazines, we’re being told SARS-CoV-2 is endemic now—which of course has nothing to do with the technical term, but has become popular shorthand for “it’s over.” We’re vaxxed-and-done now and we should be allowed, with no more mask requirements or other efforts to mitigate spread, to resume our pre-pandemic lives with the “urgency of normal.”

I’ve spent two years railing about the irresponsibility and cruelty of many Republicans and their cavalier response to the pandemic, endangering millions with policies destined to simply make people sick: suggesting that vaccination and freedom are incompatible concepts, that grandparents were willing to die for the economy—the whole horrible litany of lies and misinformation churned out by the party and its proxies.

But now it’s different. People who were scrupulous about following public health advice in 2020 are now too tired, frustrated, and fed-up to care. Those still masking, doing some social distancing, trying to do their part to stem the tide of the pandemic are being treated as if they are holdouts in a war that is long over. Or risk-averse scaredy-cats, ridiculed as out-of-touch liberal elites by commentators on the right like Ross Douhtat; as deluded, too-far-to-the-left zealots by centrist pundits like David Leonhardt. Both of whom write for that touchstone of very serious people everywhere, The New York Times, so it must be true.

https://www.thenation.com/article/socie ... r-endemic/

[Token]

I got no Rona Fatigue.

Anyone who done any amount of skilled labor don’t give two left nuts about masks and respirators.

Been using them for decades when painting, sawing, sanding, grinding …

… so now I wear one when pumping diesel and shopping for dinner.

Big fucking deal.

10 years of Playa … never left camp without a N95 and goggles.

The rest can die as they lived. That is my Rona Fatigue.

[Canoe]

I'm going to try and sort out where we've been, with some of the more recent changes and new dialogue we're seeing.

• We saw the effectiveness of fully-vaccinated in reducing severe outcomes, with some benefit in transmission reduction
• Delta came along with its increased infection rate and out-competed prior variants - another wave
• Then waning reduced fully-vaccinated efficacy over time
• As Omicron was coming along with meaningful Immune Avoidance and an even greater infection rate
• Seeing a meaningful reduction in fully-vaccinated efficacy and increased infections as Omicron out-competed Delta
• With Omicron Immune Avoidance also impacting adults & children with re-infection in quick succession: Delta, then Omicron BA.1, and later Omicron BA.2, with increased severe outcome rate for children, and with any damage or Long Covid accumulating with subsequent infections
  - as of Omicron, there is no short term "we caught it & recovered, so we're good for a while"
  - (so much so that recently some jurisdictions have started tracking re-infections, instead of counting an infected Pt. once as a "Pt. infected" and not counting any subsequent re-infections)
• With some percentage of those fully-vaccinated getting that vaccination benefit boosted up again
  - boosts well against the waning for pre-Omicron variants, but not as high for Omicron with its Immune Avoidance
• then Omicron BA.2 with greater infection rate comes along
• Somewhere in there recently, it was claimed that the data showed that those fully-vaccinated had an effectively zero Long Covid risk and/or severity (data pre-Omicron...) [edit: so good news, but not confirmed with recent data]. Others say their [edit: more recent?] numbers don't show that.

Due to vaccinations & boosted reducing severity, more & more jurisdictions have started tracking hospitalizations/ICU/deaths For/From-Covid separately from those With-Covid.
For example, some recent numbers in Denmark shows that of those testing positive:
- ~3/4 were being treated For-Covid, and ~1/4 were being treated for something else while With-Covid
- deaths were ~1/3 With-Covid with the rest From-Covid
Now the issue is, how do you account for hospitalizations/ICU/deaths From-Covid vs. when they're from (accumulated) prior covid related damage or Long Covid complications. Currently, any numbers for hospitalizations/ICU/deaths With-Covid includes those due to prior covid related damage or Long Covid complications.

One argument is that until a solution is found, Excess Deaths need to be counted alongside From-Covid Deaths, even though that is obviously inaccurate, but the best they have until a method for more comprehensive tracking is determined. Suggestions seem to be going back and forth like a ping-pong tournament.

The only thing I've seen agreed upon, is that the current numbers are muddled, and more so for trying to determine what to do by comparing what is happening in one country against another, where current fully-vaccinated numbers, boosted numbers, when those took place vs. waning, and death rates, can be so different. For example, Denmark has higher vaccination & boosted rates and can quickly re-instate protective measures, compared to the U.S..

Still dialogue occurring on Under-5-years vaccinations. Nothing clear yet. Seem to be talking in circles about efficacy and if it will be approved in the U.S. as "should be vaccinated" vs. "can be vaccinated".

[Canoe]

• Globally, the Omicron surge/wave of Daily New Cases still shows as peaked and well down from the peak. Unfortunately, those case rates are still trending over double that of any prior wave.
• Due to so many being vaccinated/boosted, while deaths are surging, thankfully deaths are not in the same proportions as prior waves. However, deaths are still climbing in some areas, as deaths lags cases.
• More reports claiming that for the past six months, COVID-19 is the leading cause of death in those under five years of age.
• More claims that reducing or removing protective measures in the U.S. and some places in Europe, is throwing children under 17 years under the bus, and more so for under fives.
• More anecdotal social media accounts of increasing numbers of "Covid orphans" in the U.S., reported after the death of their last parent, usually unbelieving or unprotected, or infected by someone unbelieving or unprotected who may or may not have predeceased them.
• People have done the math with Denmark's numbers. Denmark authorities who removed the covid protective measures have been claiming that the resulting huge "perceived" wave due to including with-Covid numbers. This has been shown to be false. The from-Covid % of hospitalizations & ICU are shown to be huge waves by themselves, and avoidable had they not removed the country's covid protective measures.

I haven't seen anything meaningful on the covid science front recently.

[Canoe]

Preprint out of Japan claims that a lab study shows Omicron BA.2 is just as severe as prior variants, including Delta, while maintaining the immune avoidance of Omicron BA.1, and confirming BA.2's higher infectiousness and faster spread. They found BA.2 is showing some resistance to some of the treatments that have been effective with BA.1.

A friend in Queensland, Australia, is finding variable acceptance/denial of protective measures in smaller communities (< city), like his wearing a mask. People are largely tolerant of people who did/didn't wear masks, except most businesses' staff are wearing them and occasionally there's some very vocal anti-maskers. At the same time, people were generally very dismissive of the disease, saying it was mild, just like the flu. This included one woman who said she'd had it recently for a week (or two? I don't remember: one or the other) and that it was just mild 'just like the flu'. Then she immediately went on about the bad fever, horrible body aches, unbelievable fatigue (that wasn't gone yet) and that her sense of smell still hadn't returned. Still wasn't wearing a mask. He says they aren't sure if the huge surge there is Delta, Omicron, or a mix; he recently had it for two weeks (caught when living in city) and is still struggling with fatigue (but maintained his sense of smell), so he hasn't chased after any official clarification. [edit: More credible than a mix per se, is if it started with Delta and got out-competed and hugely surged by Omicron, with that delayed outside of cities. Loss of smell is significantly less common with Omicron.] At one point a while ago just before he caught it, he said that it appeared that Delta was still in place outside of the cities, but that Omicron seemed to be taking over in the cities, he felt due to more travelling between them.

[Canoe]

The U.S. is still #1 in COVID-19 Cases.

End-of-day UTC today, the U.S. has tallied over 80,000,000 COVID-19 Cases.

• 80,024,531 Total Cases
• 958,300 Deaths (doesn't include Excess Deaths)
• 27,649,488 Active Infections (8.27 % of population)
• 239,474 cases per million population
• 2,868 Deaths per million population
• population 334,167,690
• 1 infection in every 4 people
• 1 death in every 349 people

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
.

[Canoe]

[*]958,300 Deaths (doesn't include Excess Deaths)

U.S. Excess Deaths: 1,045,389

[Canoe]

Omicron BA.2

Denmark had very low peaks in their pre-omicron waves, due to good protective measures and good adoption of the measures by their population. Then their Omicron wave of BA.1 hit with a huge spike of over 1,000 % of prior peaks. That was turning down just as the more infectious (~1.4 times) BA.2 was out-competing BA.1. Combine that with Denmark removing most protective measures while Daily New Cases were only down to roughly half of the peak, and they got slammed again. And hard. The BA.2 peak reached the BA.1 peak. The graph of New Cases looked like a double peak, but also like it's finally heading down. The lowered Daily New Cases for BA.2 are now in the range of 700 % that of the pre-omicron peaks.

Austria had an Omicron BA.1 peak around 250 % that of its Delta peak. With BA.2 out-competing BA.1, that top isn't rounding down, but is getting extended sideways with some sliding down of numbers dragging the wave out longer.

The Netherlands also had a crazy high spike, 780 %, but of very short duration. Almost down to its Delta peak. Yet it also had meaningful levels of BA.2 growing. Their protective measures may keep BA.2 down, as Denmark's removing theirs let it spike.

Germany's Omicron BA.1 peak was over 300 % its Delta peak. I haven't seen any BA.2 numbers for Germany, but in spite of a lot of noise in its numbers, its peak is showing signs of being pulled sideways, although not as much as in Austria.

The U.K. had BA.2 increasing its percentage of new cases, and after a drop to around half of its BA.1 peak, the further drop has been slowed significantly. Likely due to BA.2, but I've need seen a study supporting that (yet).

BA.2 is increasing its percentage of new cases in Canada and the U.S., but not like the crazy gains it had in Denmark. In the U.S., BA.2 is now at 3.6 % of new cases. At least the national numbers aren't showing a surge. If it's like Denmark, surges will present in pockets first.

Some are suggesting that BA.1 may provide some immunity for a very short period against BA.2. Contrary: note that re-infections are high enough that they are now tracked in some jurisdictions.

The differences in the different countries may be due to different clades of BA.2. Which makes it interesting that there's talk of there being enough differences between BA.1 and BA.2 to justify having the cluster of BA.2 clades given their own variant name.

Also on BA.2, warnings that we need to keep a close eye on BA.2, as it could have a larger impact on public health than prior variants (like it did in Denmark), due to its greater infectiousness and resistance to treatments.

[Canoe]

Another day, another tragic and unexpected death of anotherwise healthy person from massive PE [Pulmonary embolism]. Almost like there's something in the air. Something that everyone is getting that increases clotting risk. Like a Virus. Almost just exactly like that.

[Canoe]

I missed this from Feb. 22nd & 23rd.
Surge in Pediatric Deaths.
More consequences of "Omicron is mild" instead of "Omicron is less severe than Delta.

! Red Alert
This is total pediatric deaths from COVID from three separate sources:
* American Academy of Pediatricians
* CDC National Vital Statistics System
* CDC COVID data tracker
The first two are lagging indicators
The third is a leading indicator

We are currently in a wave of pediatric death unlike anything we've seen so far in the pandemic

It is largely invisible because most people and the media only pay attention to the lagging indicators -- which have not caught up with the wave of child death that began in November

https://twitter.com/greg_travis/status/ ... 0224029698

So far 1,346 pediatric COVID deaths since the pandemic began. Roughly half of those are from the first 20 months. The other half are the recent 4 months.

Poor vaccine uptake in that cohort because parents were told ‘omicron is mild and doesn’t affect kids’… which is utter bullshit. The whole ‘back to normal’ movement meaning lack of masks in schools, and people getting back to normal life

[Canoe]

This box fan filter stack design is back in the news for DIY filtering the air of COVID-19 SARS-nCoV-2 airborne virus.
* https://www.star-telegram.com/news/loca ... 52148.html
* https://twitter.com/jehnml/status/1478773273986961410
* https://twitter.com/amandalhu/status/14 ... 6010313730

I haven't often seen cardboard (or duct-tape; cardboard is better) shrouds added to the box fan screen to improve airflow (for the box fans where their screen doesn't incorporate a shroud). A shroud minimizes losses from pressurized air on the output side of the fan, "short-circuiting" beyond the fan blade tips (worse at the box fan corners) back to the intake side of the fan. Meaningful improvement when the fan is just moving air; huge improvement when the fan is working to "pull" air through filters.

They've done some specific tests on optimizing shrouds too.
https://cleanaircrew.org/box-fan-filters/
https://twitter.com/DavidElfstrom/statu ... 5964265474