Starting a new thread because the older one has over 500 replies and takes forever to load.

Old thread location: https://board.okayplayer.com/okp.php?az=show_topic&forum=4&topic_id=13448755&mesg_id=13448755&page=

tldr;
Story 1:Bivalent data is good enough that FDA advisors say it should replace the OG vaccine.

Story 2:Evusheld doesn't work against XBB1.5, so people with weak immune system who took it prophylactical-ly lose another tool.

Story 3:A proposal to make the vaccine a once-a-year thing. (I think it's a bad idea because this virus is changing faster than once a year.)

Story 4:It's old but I don't think I posted it. If you are pregnant and get COVID you have much higher risks of being hospitalized.

--

Story 1:
FDA advisors recommend replacing original Covid vaccine with bivalent omicron shots for all doses
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/01/26/fda-advisors-recommend-using-covid-omicron-shots-for-all-doses.html

*The 21 members of the FDA committee unanimously backed the proposal, agreeing that it would simplify the U.S. Covid vaccination program.

*Currently, Pfizer’s and Moderna’s omicron shots are only authorized as a booster, while the first two doses are still their old shots based on the original Covid strain.

The committee’s 21 members unanimously backed the proposal, agreeing that it would simplify the U.S. Covid vaccination program.

“This is absolutely the right thing to do for the program. It will make things simpler,” said Dr. Melinda Wharton, a senior official at the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, a division of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The proposed change would only affect people who have not yet received their two-dose primary vaccination series. No timeline was provided on when this switch might occur if the FDA accepts the panel’s nonbinding recommendation.

---
Story 2:
U.S. FDA pulls authorization for AstraZeneca's COVID-19 treatment Evusheld
https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/us-fda-withdraws-authorization-astrazenecas-evusheld-2023-01-26/

Jan 26 (Reuters) - The U.S. health regulator has withdrawn emergency-use authorization for AstraZeneca's (AZN.L) COVID-19 antibody cocktail Evusheld as the treatment is not expected to neutralize the currently dominant XBB.1.5 subvariant of Omicron.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had limited Evusheld's use earlier this month for the same reason and the agency's Thursday announcement sent U.S. shares of London-based AstraZeneca down 1.31% to $65.75.

Omicron subvariant XBB.1.5 has been spreading rapidly in the country since December and it made up nearly half of all U.S. COVID-19 cases last week, according to government data.

--
Story 3:
Should COVID vaccines be yearly? Proposal divides US scientists
Some say the US Food and Drug Administration’s proposal to update COVID-19 vaccines each year, similar to influenza jabs, could boost uptake.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-00234-7


Scientists are split about a US Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) proposal to update COVID-19 vaccines once a year, similar to the agency’s approach for annually updating influenza vaccines. At a meeting of the FDA’s vaccine advisory panel on 26 January, some researchers argued that the proposal to offer an updated vaccine every US autumn would help simplify the country’s complex COVID immunization schedule and might boost uptake as a result.

But other scientists were less convinced about the timeline — or whether healthy adults should be urged to receive an annual COVID-19 jab at all. Angela Shen, a vaccine specialist at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia in Pennsylvania, says the proposal, released on Monday, is “conceptually not a bad idea”. But she questions whether the data support updating the vaccine composition once a year because SARS-CoV-2 spawns new variants at a much faster rate than influenza. “Just scratching out ‘flu’ and replacing it with ‘COVID’ on all the documents might not work, because COVID is not the flu,” says Shen, who is a member of a US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advisory panel on immunization practices.


--
Story 4:
Large new review underscores the risks of Covid-19 during pregnancy
https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/16/health/covid-19-pregnancy-risks-review/index.html

Pregnant women and their developing babies are at higher risk for severe outcomes if they get Covid-19, and now a large, international review is helping to underscore how devastating those risks can be.

The study draws on data from 12 studies from as many countries—including the United States. Altogether, the studies included more than 13,000 pregnant women—about 2,000 who had a confirmed or probable case of Covid-19. The health outcomes for these women and their babies were compared to about 11,000 pregnancies where the mother tested negative for Covid-19 or antibodies to it at the time of their deliveries.

Across the studies about 3% of pregnant women with Covid-19 needed intensive care, and about 4% needed any kind of critical care, but this was far higher than the numbers of pregnant women who needed that kind of care outside of a Covid-19 infection.

Compared to pregnant individuals who weren’t infected, those who got Covid-19 were nearly 4 times more likely to be admitted to an intensive care unit. They were 15 times more likely to be ventilated and were 7 times more likely to die. They also had higher risks for pre-eclampisa, blood clots, and problems caused by high blood pressure. Babies born to moms who had Covid-19 were at higher risk for preterm birth and low birth weights.

Previous studies have suggested that Covid-19 may increase the risk of stillbirth, but this study didn’t find that same link.

*skatin' the rings of saturn*


..and miles to go before i sleep...

Omicron sub-variant XBB.1.5 accounts for 61.3% of U.S. COVID cases - CDC
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/omicron-sub-variant-xbb15-accounts-613-us-covid-cases-cdc-2023-01-27/

Jan 27 (Reuters) - The Omicron subvariant XBB.1.5 has likely become the dominant variant in the United States, accounting for 61.3% of COVID cases in the week ended Jan. 28, data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showed on Friday.

The subvariant accounted for 49.5% of cases in the week ended Jan. 21, estimates from CDC showed.

XBB.1.5, which is currently the most transmissible variant, is an offshoot of XBB, first detected in October.

The now-dominant XBB-related subvariants are derived from the BA.2 version of Omicron.

--
What’s CH.1.1? Meet ‘Orthrus,’ a new wildcard Omicron strain with a concerning Delta mutation
https://fortune.com/well/2023/01/27/meet-orthus-ch11-new-omcrion-covid-variant-delta-mutation-deltacron-convergent-evolution/

^^Info about the dominant strain in the UK.

1: Know where your PCR testing locations are:

In San Diego they've closed the majority of testing sites and many of the remains have gone to rapid lateral flow tests. I'd google " PCT testing" and figure out where you'd need to go if you need a PCRF test.

San Diego is here: https://www.sandiegocounty.gov/content/sdc/hhsa/programs/phs/community_epidemiology/dc/2019-nCoV/testing.html

2:Know how to message your doctor or someone about anti-viral pills:
I have a portal I use to message my doctor, or I could go into the urgent care to get Paxlovid. San Diego suggest calling 2-1-1 if you don't have a doctor.

Also ask your pharmacy if they can prescribe it directly for you - many can if they have a doctor, a physician assistant or a nurse practitioner available. Some states allow pharmacists to prescribe too.

3:If you think you may have it, isolate or wear mask around people
Better safe than sorry.


Find out now, when you're sick it'll be much less fun.

tldr:
Medicaid will kick a whole bunch of people off.
Vaccines no longer free.
Congress ( REPUBLICANS!) blocking any new aid, so new research, paying for existing treatments, etc. will all be gone.


https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/30/politics/may-11-end-of-covid-and-public-health-emergencies


President Joe Biden intends to end the Covid-19 national and public health emergencies on May 11, the White House said Monday.

The White House, in a statement of administration policy announcing opposition to two Republican measures to end the emergencies, said the national emergency and public health emergency authorities declared in response to the pandemic would each be extended one final time to May 11.

“This wind down would align with the Administration’s previous commitments to give at least 60 days’ notice prior to termination of the (public health emergency),” the statement said.

The statement added, “To be clear, continuation of these emergency declarations until May 11 does not impose any restriction at all on individual conduct with regard to COVID-19. They do not impose mask mandates or vaccine mandates. They do not restrict school or business operations. They do not require the use of any medicines or tests in response to cases of COVID-19.”

The statement came in response to a pair of measures before the House that would end the public health emergency and the Covid-19 national emergency.

The administration argues that the bills are unnecessary because it intends to end the emergencies anyway. The White House also noted the passage of the measures ahead of May 11 would have unintended consequences, such as disrupting the administration’s plans for ending certain policies that are authorized by the emergencies.

The White House said it would extend the Covid-19 emergencies one final time in order to ensure an orderly wind-down of key authorities that states, health care providers and patients have relied on throughout the pandemic.

A White House official pointed to a successful vaccination campaign and reductions in Covid cases, hospitalizations and deaths as a rationale for lifting the emergency declarations. The official said a final extension will allow for a smooth transition for health care providers and patients and noted that health care facilities have already begun preparing for that transition.

The administration is actively reviewing flexible policies that were authorized under the public health emergency to determine which can remain in place after it is lifted on May 11.

Benefits of the public health emergency
The public health emergency has enabled the government to provide many Americans with Covid-19 tests, treatments and vaccines at no charge, as well as offer enhanced social safety net benefits, to help the nation cope with the pandemic and minimize its impact.

For instance, it has allowed most Americans covered by Medicare, Medicaid and private insurance plans to obtain Covid-19 tests and vaccines at no cost during the pandemic. Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries have also had certain therapeutic treatments, such as monoclonal antibodies, fully covered.

Once the public health emergency ends, many Americans will have to start paying for these items.

However, the federal government has been preparing to shift Covid-19 care to the commercial market since last year, in part because Congress has not authorized additional funding to purchase additional vaccines, treatments and tests.

The public health emergency has also meant additional funds for hospitals, which have been receiving a 20% increase in Medicare’s payment rate for treating Covid-19 patients.

But several of the most meaningful enhancements to public assistance programs are no longer tied to the public health emergency. Congress severed the connection in December as part of its fiscal year 2023 government funding package.

Most notably, states will now be able to start processing Medicaid redeterminations and disenrolling residents who no longer qualify, starting April 1.

As part of a Covid-19 relief package passed in March 2020, states were barred from kicking people off Medicaid during the public health emergency in exchange for additional federal matching funds. Medicaid enrollment has skyrocketed since then, and millions are expected to lose coverage once states began culling the rolls.

Also, food stamp recipients were receiving a boost in benefits during the public health emergency. That extra assistance will end as of March, though several states have already stopped providing it.

https://twitter.com/michaelpsenger/status/1627493002796240896?s=46&t=ckEXOInpPU5c3m_WCBH8xQ

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna71027

The fallacy is: People who get COVID die of COVID at a much higher rate than people who don't get COVID.

Also people who have never gotten COVID have a much lower incidence of suffering from long COVID.

Over a million dead American's didn't benefit from "natural immunity."

Not to mention natural immunity does nothing to stop transmission to the vulnerable which is sort of broader point of the vaccine

The bad news thread - meaning it made the news, but is probably bad.

COVID was cause by a lab leak, says DOE!!!! - with low confidence.
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2023/02/covid-pandemic-origin-china-lab-leak-theory-energy-department/673230/

--
Masks actually don't work (and if you believe the study we weighted multiple times higher than the others - they actually GIVE YOU THE FLU!!):

https://healthfeedback.org/claimreview/multiple-studies-show-face-masks-reduce-spread-of-covid-19-cochrane-review-doesnt-demonstrate-otherwise/

--

Lab leak is the most likely origin and most ppl (capable of thinking not puking talking points) who follow this closely have thought this for a long time. Are you saying you disagree?

>The bad news thread - meaning it made the news, but is
>probably bad.
>

"probably bad". Do you mean false? What do you mean?

>Lab leak is the most likely origin and most ppl (capable of
>thinking not puking talking points) who follow this closely
>have thought this for a long time. Are you saying you
>disagree?

I don't know if it came from nature or from a lab -- but I do know it's not "settled" in any way, especially when this report was issued with "low confidence." I don't know the exact levels of confidence that are available, but "low" seems, un, low. (FBI said it had "moderate confidence" in the lab leak theory.)

So two U.S. intelligence agencies said "Likely from lab" but no prof. 4 say "Likely from nature" but no definitive proof. And several other agencies say "We don't know - there's not enough proof."

So I guess not many people are as "capable of thinking not puking talking points" that you fancy yourself to be.

I mean *the day after* the pandemic started a lot of people said "It was a lab leak, in Wuhan, with a bar" like it was a game of Clue with no proof.

>"probably bad". Do you mean false? What do you mean?
Like "bad" work. Like "bad" job.

Could it come out of a lab? Maybe.

But doesn't seem settled to me - unless you automatically "know" that anyone who disagrees isn't "(capable of
>thinking not puking talking points)."

It's weird that thinking people (who aren't talking point pukers) are proclaiming a low confidence report making hsi matter settled.

>Could it come out of a lab?
Maybe.

(Also the report is classified, so we don't even know what it actually says.)

Edit: Link to an article:https://slate.com/technology/2023/02/lab-leak-theory-doe-wsj-fauci-covid-origins.html

it's not settled. what 'most likely' means is that if i were forced to bet on it, i'd go with lab leak over natural origin. and my contention is that if most "experts in the field" were forced to do the same...let's say they're forced to bet on it with the consequence of being wrong being a painful death. they have 6 months to weigh the evidence. i think a majority would claim a lab leak was the most likely origin.

but there are all sorts of incentives among experts close to this to not look at things as objectively as they might

The people who actually look at the data and know the science (as opposed to internet cranks and 'journalists' who know no science and think they can find 'data' on the internet) generally all agree that the question is subtle, unsettled (and will probably never be settled to anyone's satisfaction), but that the preponderance of evidence is still clearly in favor of the same kind of natural origin as every other coronavirus that's developed in the last million years, including all of the SARS and MERS variants that covid is a part of.


It's also a completely moot point, because the mere fact that all the other SARS variants emerged naturally means that we need to accelerate laboratory research on them, even if that presents a risk of lab leaks.

>generally all agree that the question is subtle, unsettled
>(and will probably never be settled to anyone's satisfaction),

i agree, it is unsettled and the origin of covid may never be known

>but that the preponderance of evidence is still clearly in
>favor of the same kind of natural origin as every other
>coronavirus that's developed in the last million years,
>including all of the SARS and MERS variants that covid is a
>part of.

new gene editing techniques...are new. lab leaks happen. scientists now have ability to do things that they couldn't 20 years ago, let alone a million. they can create new viruses with unforeseeable consequences in labs. the wuhan lab was the leading lab in all of china (and up there globally) for sars viruses. the chinese govt used Wuhan as a negative control in a study assessing threat of diseases of zoonotic origin (was considered an unlikely ground zero for this vs places in south china with far more 'wet market' type activity'). a bat virus is considered the most likely starting point of sars cov 2. wuhan virology lab was going very far away and bringing these bat viruses in to study them.

>
>
>It's also a completely moot point, because the mere fact that
>all the other SARS variants emerged naturally means that we
>need to accelerate laboratory research on them, even if that
>presents a risk of lab leaks.

without you getting more specific, this is irresponsible. the HOW and WHAT of the science is important. there is a possibility that sars cov 2 started like this: researchers at wuhan virology lab go on far away field trip, find bats with little understood virus, take virus back to Wuhan, start experimenting with the virus, modifications they make (whether intentionally or not, who knows) make the virus capable of spreading and presenting a danger to humans...this virus infects a lab worker....there is a global pandemic.

so in this sceneario, if the researchers left the bats in far flung caves alone...we don't have a pandemic. so saying we need to accelerate lab research without prescribing how we can ensure this research is safe and will not lead to the accidental creation and release of viruses that pose a threat to humans is critical.

taking the lab leak origin hypothesis seriously means taking a hard look at the scientific practices that MAY have caused the pandemic. it's not a point-scoring practice in playing the blame game. the threat of lab-created pandemics is real and more needs to be done to make sure we aren't cooking up global disasters under the blind banner of "all science is good! accelerate! accelerate!"

is even capable of.

The fact that we can't resolve this question is precisely because the differences between sars-cov-2 and other unquestionably natural coronaviruses are minor and completely consistent with normal evolutionary development. Yes, this virus would have escaped the caves within a couple years regardless of anything the mad scientists might have done.

The deeper you dip into the "scientists are tinkering with viruses" meme the deeper you get into assertions that we know as incontrovertible facts to be untrue.

>The fact that we can't resolve this question is precisely
>because the differences between sars-cov-2 and other
>unquestionably natural coronaviruses are minor and completely
>consistent with normal evolutionary development.

this is part of what is unsettled about the question of zoonotic vs lab leak. there is disagreement on this point. sars cov 2 COULD be the result of a change to a virus made in the lab. if a virus not deadly or easily transmissible among humans is tweaked in a lab and becomes very transmissible...this virus might look very much like all other coronaviruses that have leapt from animals to people.


> Yes, this
>virus would have escaped the caves within a couple years
>regardless of anything the mad scientists might have done.

the original animal reservoir has not been found. so not sure where your confidence here is coming from.


>The deeper you dip into the "scientists are tinkering with
>viruses" meme the deeper you get into assertions that we know
>as incontrovertible facts to be untrue.

are you claiming that current scientific techniques are incapable of editing the genes (or selectively breeding, fostering certain mutations) of a virus in a way that makes it more deadly to humans? (even as an unintended consequence). i do not think this is true.

What folks reacted to were OBSVIOUS racists and loons IMMEDATELY saying it was the CH***KS done infected us, and probably on purpose!!!

Like this guy:
https://www.cbsnews.com/video/trump-blames-china-for-coronavirus-outbreak/#x

The folks like Jon Stewart on the train because "it makes sense" to them so it has to be true!!!!

1: So could it have evolved or mutated in nature and then travel to humans because of the meat trade at a livestock house or wet market? YEs.

2: Could number 1 have happened, but not travelled into humans but instead was being studied in a lab and a whoopsie occurred and it got out?

3: Could the Chinese have engineered it? Sure.

We've seen #1 happen with other viruses.
We've seen #2 happen, much less often.
We've never seen #3 happen with definitive proof.

I lean to #1 since it has happened before.
And #2 and #3 being bandied about way before we could know anything seems either racists (Trump, GOP, et. al) or jumping the gun (libs!!!)

>What folks reacted to were OBSVIOUS racists and loons
>IMMEDATELY saying it was the CH***KS done infected us, and
>probably on purpose!!!

yea, i mentioned this in the other thread:

"the anti-trump contingent in media and govt very quickly moved to dismiss the possibility of a lab leak. with some reason--they didn't want to allow trump's claims to inflame racism, xenophobia etc."

so i get the motive. but it’s time to move past that. preventing future lab leaks should be a top global priority. i do think a lab leak is probably what sparked the pandemic. but regardless of whether that happened or not, the risk of a lab leak causing another pandemic is very real. the world needs to come together ASAP to find ways of reducing the chance of a lab leak causing a future pandemic.

if humans did this to humanity--or can--be good to focus on how not to let the bugs out of the bag.

>I lean to #1 since it has happened before.

will just point out that a lot of what these labs can now do is very new under the sun. far easier to make deadly shit in labs than ever before. this cutting edge science is alluring to researchers–lot of breakthroughs waiting to happen there. but it’s hand of god type stuff and cuts both ways…it can advance medicine but can also create little killers.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25505122/

i suppose the lab leak is more 'anti-china' on a larger scale, esp since it could also feed people's conspiracies about a bio-weapon, but if we ever really got a definitive answer that this was a result of research and negligence, it would seem like its more racist to say this virus spread because of dirty chinese people cramming animals together ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.


>>What folks reacted to were OBSVIOUS racists and loons
>>IMMEDATELY saying it was the CH***KS done infected us, and
>>probably on purpose!!!
>
>yea, i mentioned this in the other thread:
>
>"the anti-trump contingent in media and govt very quickly
>moved to dismiss the possibility of a lab leak. with some
>reason--they didn't want to allow trump's claims to inflame
>racism, xenophobia etc."

gain of function research is extremely dangerous and needs to operate in the light of day (well lol, not like outside, but you know what i mean).

so it will be tough to talk about all this and not draw racial attacks from...racists. but with trump out of the picture, the scientific community needs to realize that ongoing and future research that increases the pathogenicity of viruses can be extremely dangerous and unpredictable and requires far more oversight and safety precautions than it appears were in place at the wuhan virology institute.

>>The deeper you dip into the "scientists are tinkering with
>>viruses" meme the deeper you get into assertions that we
>know
>>as incontrovertible facts to be untrue.
>
>are you claiming that current scientific techniques are
>incapable of editing the genes (or selectively breeding,
>fostering certain mutations) of a virus in a way that makes it
>more deadly to humans? (even as an unintended consequence). i
>do not think this is true.


The genome is just a series of numbers and there are simple statistical tests of how likely a mutation might have come through random processes. Manual genomic editing implants large continuous segments into a preexisting external genome. Random mutation arises from transcription errors and other processes that raise, rather than lower, the entropy of the string.

The fact that these tests have not been able to favor a genomic editing hypothesis also means that these mutations were entirely consistent with natural variation, which in turn means that either it happened naturally or it would have happened naturally very soon anyway.

I mean, maybe there's a unknown/secret technology that they can obfuscate it with?

AND How do you know the genomic professionals and statisticians and virologists aren't been paid off by big pharma or big China, etc.?

Even then they could have just found it in the wild and let it leak on purpose, or accident......

It's a theory they say you need to DISPROVE .. and until you can prove a different theory they insist their theory is true... with proof.. because it is plausible.

>I mean, maybe there's a unknown/secret technology that they
>can obfuscate it with?
>
>AND How do you know the genomic professionals and
>statisticians and virologists aren't been paid off by big
>pharma or big China, etc.?

they have new tools with great power and they want to use them. The Cambridge Working Group proposed a moratorium on gain of function research in 2014 that lasted until 2017. Shi (head researcher of Wuhan VI) proposed adding cleavage site to bat viruses in novel ways to figure out how they might leap to humans. Proposal rejected. What she then did with these ambitions at WVI under woefully inadequate lab safety conditions (for what was in the 2018 proposal) is not entirely clear. But it seems highly possible it was directly against the spirit of the 2014 moratorium--to do novel gain of function research in a lab with lax safety


>It's a theory they say you need to DISPROVE .. and until you
>can prove a different theory they insist their theory is
>true... with proof.. because it is plausible.

again, we're talking about probability, no one has a slam dunk "THIS IS WHAT HAPPENED"

the WVI researchers were literally interested in how to make bat viruses leap to humans. the world is a very large place. it is a tremendous coincidence that covid brokeout in Wuhan, a place with a lab that was doing cutting edge research that likely qualified as gain of function with many many bat viruses.

to determine whether editing took place. the pro-zoonosis scientists admit as much in their papers. if the claimed intermediate host had been ID'd...that'd be another thing.

but what we do know is that sars-cov-2 is a bat coronavirus (sarbecovirus) with the only known furin cleavage spike in that lineage.

and the lead researcher at Wuhan Virology Institue, Dr Shi Zhengli, was very interested in figuring out how to add furin cleavage spikes to bat viruses in order to study how they might leap to humans.

Shi, working under EcoHealth Alliance (headed by Peter Daszak), submitted a grant proposal to DARPA in 2018 proposing to introduce "human-specific cleavage sites" into bat viruses. She'd done similar work in the past with Ralph Baric at UNC. The grant proposal was rejected, Shi began working in Wuhan, collecting large numbers of unknown bat viruses and experimenting on them. The safety conditions of this lab were not nearly adequate for gain of function research...

it is not clear what sort of experiments were going on at the WVI. Shi and the Chinese govt have every incentive to cover up. As do many other in this field such as Peter Daszak.

saying it's from a lab leak.

and the reason, and honestly this seems like the most reasonable thought IMO, is that corona virus isn't new, and every other iteration of it that was a health emergency came from natural sources (animal transmission to humans in one way or another).

i'm not invested in who is right or wrong about it, just saying THAT theory does make the MOST sense.

have us in a new world. labs in recent years have been manipulating viruses in new ways with unforeseeable consequences.

Defining terms:
https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/23691737/ica_2017_01.pdf

“Low confidence generally means that the information’s credibility and/or plausibility is uncertain, that the information is too fragmented or poorly corroborated to make solid analytical inferences, or that reliability of the sources is questionable.”

i think you may be misinterpreting what that means...

a coin flip here is 50 50. saying lab origin is "most likely" means DOE estimates there is a greater than 50% chance covid came from a lab.

that's the bottomline conclusion. the "low confidence" they have in the evidence involved is factored into this bottomline assessment of likelihood.

this doesn't mean they're saying 'hey we think there's a 65% chance it came out of a lab cuz this guy we just talked to holding a cardboard sign was really convincing'.

they're weighing all sorts of shit. like all the ins and out of...

well...pandemics throughout history pretty much all came through zoonosis...but...there have been quite a few lab leaks since wwii...and these last 20 years...wow...pretty wild access to the source code of life these lab coats got now...this gain of function stuff's pretty sci fi...oh and what's that...Shi wanted to add FCS's to bat coronaviruses in 2018...and sars-cov-2 is the ONLY bat coronavirus with a furin cleavage spike? hmmm...

...wait, you're telling me she was going to remote caves and collecting as many bat coronaviruses as she could find and freezing them? and then resurrecting them whenever she liked? to do what?! to try to infect mutant mice with humanoid lungs? why? to try to make the viruses capable of infecting humans? whoa, crazy shit, man. wait...what was that proposal of Shi's rejected in 2018 again? oh...so basically she was interested in trying to make sars-cov-2...before it even existed?

Shi must be pissed them raccoon dogs beat her to the punch.

that study is flimsy btw. and the atlantic article you linked was published BEFORE the pre-print of the paper was even released. so it was a PR rollout...and the scientists involved...well..let's say a good number of them have been engaging in motivated reasoning in this space since early 2020. and btw, the NYT changed their original headline on the raccoon dog paper to reduce the 'WOW finally proof of zoonosis!' vibe.

if you want to get into the arguments, go for it. important to remember that what happened happened in china. and china's control of information re:Wuhan have made an objective, thorough investigation impossible. china's incentives here are important to consider.

the raccoon dog paper, hm is there something there? i don't think so, the virus was not IN the animals, was mixed in samples. and mysteriously these wet market sample genomes surface online. there's no way of knowing, but yes, the conclusions of the paper further china's interests in diverting attention away from the gain of function that was going on in the Wuhan labs. Worobey's other papers on the Wuhan wet market have been poked full of holes, problems with methodology. Same with the two origins claim.

So...the jury's still out...what do you think?

FYI: Still averaging around 400 deaths a day in the United States. Around 140,000 a year.


--
Johns Hopkins dashboard closed on 3/10/2023:
https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html

--
California to alter COVID rules in healthcare settings: Masks and vaccinations not required
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-03-03/california-to-end-mask-requirement-in-healthcare-settings

Among the changes announced by the California Department of Public Health is the end of statewide mask requirements in healthcare and other indoor high-risk settings — including correctional facilities and emergency and homeless shelters — beginning April 3.

Effective the same day, California will no longer require COVID-19 vaccinations for healthcare workers, including those in adult and direct care settings, correctional facilities and detention centers.

In other changes, starting March 13, an individual who tests positive for COVID-19 can exit isolation after five days, provided they feel well, symptoms are improving, and they have been fever-free for 24 hours. The state’s earlier recommendation was to exit isolation upon receiving a negative rapid test on or after the fifth day following the onset of symptoms or the first positive test. For those who couldn’t test, or continued to test positive after Day 5, the state recommended isolating for at least 10 days.


Note:LA is keeping theirs, and health care facilities can still require it since they are private property.

---
COVID in California: State COVID metrics remain in holding pattern
Pandemic numbers barely budged in the past week but continue to show modest improvement.

California’s pandemic numbers barely budged in the past week but continue to show modest improvement. The health department reported on Thursday an average of 2,612 new daily cases — or about 6.5 per 100,000 residents — as of Mar. 9, compared to 2,760 cases per day, or 6.9 per 100,000 residents the week before. The state’s seven-day rolling coronavirus test positivity rate, which tracks the percentage of lab test results that are positive for the virus, edged down to 5.9% from 6.5%. The daily average of COVID patients in California hospitals fell to 2,375 compared to 2,506 last week, and the number of inpatient beds now in use for COVID-19 patients edged up slightly from 4% the prior week. The state tallied another 216 confirmed COVID-19 deaths this week, bringing the statewide pandemic toll up to 100,640 as of Thursday, with an average of 17 people still dying each day due to the virus. Although California’s COVID-19 state of emergency ended Feb. 28, this marks the fourth consecutive week that the numbers have plateaued at a level public health experts say is still too high to declare the virus vanquished.

Coronavirus: China reports first case of coinfection by two Omicron subvariants

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3214021/coronavirus-china-reports-first-case-coinfection-two-omicron-subvariants

tldr; So we've had delta/Omicron cases reported, here's 2 Omicron infections at the same time.

--
COVID XBB 1.16 variant: Tracker finds high cases in India, know the symptoms

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/life-style/health-fitness/health-news/covid-xbb-1-16-variant-tracker-finds-high-cases-in-india-know-the-symptoms/photostory/98684471.cms?picid=98684496

"In India, XBB.1.16 is showing a high prevalence in the states of Maharashtra and Gujarat as per covSPECTRUM. XBB 1.16 has not descended from XBB.1.5 but both have descended from XBB and more recently XBB.1," TOI has reported quoting a top expert from India's genome sequencing network."XBB is currently dominating in India, and the latest uptick in cases in the country could be a result of XBB 1.16 and perhaps XBB 1.5 but a few more sample runs would clear the picture," the expert has told the media.

tldr; Omicron XBB. 1.16 goin buck wild in India
--

The Strongest Evidence Yet That an Animal Started the Pandemic

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2023/03/covid-origins-research-raccoon-dogs-wuhan-market-lab-leak/673390/

I mean, let's not talk about it yet FIF, it's exhausting: I know it could still be: - a racoon dog was using unknown and advanced tools (that are undetectable to less advanced researchers) to study corona viruses, slipped up and give it to itself, then travelled to the market for lunch where it spread from.

tldr; Raccooncoocie!

about you is that you are clearly somewhere up there in the 95th plus percentile of people in terms of your current concern about covid. (which is whatever to me--from the outside looking in, it seems unhealthy for you tbh, but you gotta do you.)

but despite your doom and gloom hyper-vigilance on all things covid, you are very dismissive of the lab origin hypothesis. We have sci fi capabilities, humans can create the next pandemic in a lab. Maybe we already sparked one off. You've got heavy covid-policeman energy. Since you already got that going, I'd suggest a good use of that energy is learning about the dangers of gain of function research and elevating awareness about it. One of the best preventative measures against another pandemic...is global action to do all we can to ensure the next one isn't started by scientists. If it wasn't a random transmission from the animal world, if WE made it happen, we can organize people in better ways so it don't happen again.

i'm curious at what point this becomes something you are interested in. DOE and FBI are above 50%..dismiss..dismiss...is your response. those are wild high numbers. do you think the other fed agencies are all firmly at 0% likelihood of lab origin and scoffing at DOE and FBI? that's the stance you seem to take, but definitely doesn't reflect the actual probabilities or opinions of qualified people who look into this. even if it were an only 10% chance it came out of a lab...i feel this should be enough to make you think...hey wtf are these virologists doing? something's gotta change there!

>tldr; Raccooncoocie!

(scare quotes important here...the authors themselves say: "This report is not intended for publication in a journal". So before this pre-print was even released (ie NO other scientists were able to read it or look at the data), the Atlantic performs the puff-job you linked...on a paper NEVER intended for peer-review. This is not the way scientific publishing is supposed to work--and definitely not on a matter as contentious and globally important as the question of how covid began.)

I think there is value in looking at the circumstances of this "report" hitting the Atlantic/mainstream news cycle:

--An opportunity for skeptics like Handle to see that something is amiss in how the covid origins debate is being covered in the media.
--That what the authors of the "report" are doing is largely spin, not objective, peer-reviewed science.
--That the Atlantic (and others) were guilty of journalistic malpractice (on an extremely important topic) in how they covered this.

the Handle, with no grip:

>I mean, let's not talk about it yet FIF, it's exhausting: I
>know it could still be: - a racoon dog was using unknown and
>advanced tools (that are undetectable to less advanced
>researchers) to study corona viruses, slipped up and give it
>to itself, then travelled to the market for lunch where it
>spread from.

"slipped up and give it to itself" --the words of a drunk prostitute talking about an std? hm...but...regarding the "report", covid & raccoon dogs: false. the "report" does NOT show that the raccoon dogs had covid. it looks like, maybe, there was covid on surfaces near raccoon dog dna (shedded fur, slobber, etc). when? on jan 1 2020. long after the first human cases of covid are known to have occurred (late nov-early dec 2019, or before).

if you wanna tighten up your understanding of what's going on in the investigations into covid's origins, i'm all ears. but i think you need to do some reading. you're talking full of certainty from a place of ignorance. you're insulated from the facts, you use the low-resolution, sound-bite views of others to form very strong opinions. not a good method for understanding a topic like this. pass over it in silence, or educate yourself. in general, try to learn how to live with uncertainty, it may help you deal with your emotional problems. this is unsolicited advice, but you often type like an unhinged asshole, so there ya go...

here is a good place to start: Jesse Bloom at Seattle's Fred Hutch analyzes the raccoon report:
https://twitter.com/jbloom_lab/status/1638373988392140801

White House To Dissolve COVID Team As It Prepares For End Of Emergency Measures

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/white-house-covid-team-to-dissolve_n_641c680be4b01ea5cd92ef6c

The White House is reportedly preparing to dissolve its COVID-19 team as Joe Biden’s administration prepares to end the coronavirus national and public health emergencies on May 11.

Dr. Ashish Jha, the White House COVID-19 response coordinator, will probably vacate his position once the emergency officially ends, while many members of his team have already departed.

The news was first reported by The Washington Post.

“As a result of this administration’s historic response to COVID-19, we as a nation are in a safer, better place than we were three years ago,” a senior administration official told The Post. “COVID no longer disrupts our lives because of investments and our efforts to mitigate its worst impacts.

The official added that while Americans will still have to deal with COVID-19, moving out of the emergency phase of the response is the next step in the nation’s fight against the virus.

The emergency declaration was first put in place by then-Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar on Jan. 31, 2020, while President Donald Trump was in office.

Biden has since extended the emergency but announced earlier this year that it would expire in May.

Jha told WBUR last week this signals the country is in a “different and in a better place with COVID.”

“It means that the emergency tools we needed to manage this virus are no longer needed in the same way,” he said.

It also means some Americans will have to start paying for testing and antiviral drugs, though COVID-19 shots will remain free for the majority of the country.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recorded a weekly total of 149,955 COVID-19 cases and just over 1,700 weekly COVID-related deaths, as of Wednesday.

Phonte caught Covid
No article, but on the Taboo episode of ?uestlove's podcast Phonte , wh0 famously sheltered during COVID, caught COVID after doing a small tour on San Diego and Orange County.

--
A hidden pandemic: the orphans Covid has left behind
https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/26/us/covid-orphans-pandemic/index.html

Swipe: Joshua, his younger brother, Zachary, 14, and sister, Maddie, 10, are among the estimated 238,500 Covid orphans in the United States whose lives have been upended in the past three years by the loss of a parent or primary caregiver, according to the Imperial College London COVID-19 Orphanhood Calculator. Globally, there have been more than eight million Covid orphans since the World Health Organization declared Covid-19 a pandemic in March 2020.


---

It's getting hard to find data on COVID infections since most trackers have shot down and most countries are reporting less frequently.

I heard that last week the entire continent of Africa reported only 6 deaths in total. The US reported 1700 deaths last week.


--
https://abcnews.go.com/Health/covid-19-death-rates-varied-dramatically-us-major/story?id=98055024

Swipe:
"Nearly every state, from the 26 worst performing states in the pandemic, fall into one of the three... disproportionately high population of people identifying as Hispanic...higher than the national average identifying as black...or high levels of support for the 2020 republican presidential candidate," said lead author Tom Bollyky, a senior fellow for global health, economics, and development at the Council on Foreign Relations and professor of law at Georgetown University, in a video commentary.

The authors further discussed parts of the study highlighting racial, economic and social inequities in the U.S. that led to differences in rates of infection and death rates between states.

States with higher poverty rates of poverty had higher death rates. For every 2.6% increase in poverty rates above the national average within a state, there was a 23.3% increase in the cumulative death rate, reflecting a significant economic healthcare disparity.

"The COVID-19 pandemic clearly exacerbated fundamental social and economic inequities, but science-based interventions and policy changes provided clear impact on mortality rates at the state level," said Dr. John Brownstein, an epidemiologist and chief innovation officer at Boston Children's Hospital and an ABC News contributor.

Policies adopted by states during the pandemic, including mask mandates, social distancing and vaccine mandates, were associated with lower COVID-19 infection rates and higher vaccination rates were associated with lower death rates.

I was at the Orange County show and I just KNEW I was going to get it there, it was PACKED.

I didn't.

But a week later my office of 11 got hit with 6 of us including myself catching it.

A guy had it and didn't know and then went out 4 days and then we went down one by one.

Took that paxlovid 5 day script and I'm good after about 6 days.

>I was at the Orange County show and I just KNEW I was going
>to get it there, it was PACKED. >I didn't.
>
>But a week later my office of 11 got hit with 6 of us
>including myself catching it.
>
>A guy had it and didn't know and then went out 4 days and then
>we went down one by one.
>
>Took that paxlovid 5 day script and I'm good after about 6
>days.

It's still circulating *a lot* compared to flu and colds.

My work's guidance: Masking is highly recommended in indoor settings such as large meetings or group events exceeding 50% of room capacity.

But hey, people doing "non-risky" things are catching it too - it's just incredibly contagious and still out there in force.

I'm glad you did okay.

Omicron Was Present in Pune's Sewage Days Before Its First Ever Detection in South Africa, Reveals IISER Study

https://weather.com/en-IN/india/coronavirus/news/2023-03-28-omicron-found-in-punes-sewage-days-before-detection-in-africa

tldr; Omicron discovered in wastewater samples in India before being diagnosed in South Africa.

--
WHO revises COVID-19 vaccine recommendations for Omicron-era
https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/who-changes-covid-vaccine-recommendations-2023-03-28/

tldr; Says boosters should/could be given between 6-12 months for those at risk, and recommends weighting cost effectiveness before giving to healthy children.

--

Biden signs bill ending Covid-19 national emergency
https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/10/politics/covid-19-national-emergency-end-biden/index.html

tldr: Fuck congress, but they only fucked it up by a month. (And the lack of funding is also another fuck congress.)

President Joe Biden signed legislation Monday to end the national emergency for Covid-19, the White House said, in a move that will not affect the end of the separate public health emergency scheduled for May 11.

A White House official downplayed the impact of the bill, saying the termination of the emergency “does not impact our ability to wind down authorities in an orderly way.”

The bill to end the national emergency cleared the Senate last month in a bipartisan 68-23 vote and passed the House earlier this year with 11 Democrats crossing party lines to vote for the joint resolution.

“Since Congress voted to terminate the National Emergency earlier than anticipated, the Administration has worked to expedite its wind down and provide as much notice as possible to potentially impacted individuals,” the official said, adding that the country is in a “different place” than it was in January.

The administration has been winding down authorities over the past few months, the official noted.

The official said that “to be clear, ending the National Emergency will not impact the planned wind-down of the Public Health Emergency on May 11” – which enabled the government to provide many Americans with Covid-19 tests, treatments and vaccines at no charge, as well as offer enhanced social safety net benefits, to help the nation cope with the pandemic and minimize its impact, as CNN previously reported.

“But since Congress moved to undo the National Emergency earlier than intended, we’ve been working with agencies to address the impacts of ending the declaration early,” the official said.

The White House had signaled strong opposition to the bill but said that ultimately, the president would sign it if it came across his desk. The White House had planned end to both emergencies by May 11.

-


White House launching $5 billion program to speed coronavirus vaccines
https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2023/04/10/operation-warp-speed-successor-project-nextgen/

Note: It's behind a paywall. I'll post another link below for Eric Topol's take.

“Project Next Gen” — the long-anticipated follow-up to “Operation Warp Speed,” the Trump-era program that sped coronavirus vaccines to patients in 2020 — would take a similar approach to partnering with private-sector companies to expedite development of vaccines and therapies. Scientists, public heath experts and politicians have called for the initiative, warning that existing therapies have steadily lost their effectiveness and that new ones are needed.

“It’s been very clear to us that the market on this is moving very slowly,” Ashish Jha, the White House coronavirus coordinator, said Monday. “There’s a lot that government can do, the administration can do, to speed up those tools … for the American people.”

Jha and others said the new effort will focus on three goals: creating long-lasting monoclonal antibodies, after an evolving virus rendered many current treatments ineffective; accelerating development of vaccines that produce mucosal immunity, which is thought to reduce transmission and infection risks; and speeding efforts to develop pan-coronavirus vaccines to guard against new SARS-CoV-2 variants, as well as other coronaviruses.

--
https://erictopol.substack.com/p/project-next-gen-the-united-states?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=587835&post_id=113920598&isFreemail=true&utm_medium=email

is covid still a serious health risk for most people?

the reason i ask is because i'm still masking in public EVERYWHERE i go. but when i go out, i pay attention to the people i see and i'd say 10 percent or less of the people i see are also masked up.

i go to a place on the weekends, BOTH days, where almost no one is masked up, people are right next to each other for extended periods (though it is a big, warehouse like building with a 50 foot tall ceiling so maybe the air just circulates well in there - it doesn't feel like it does though sometimes), and i see the same folks every weekend and none of them are sick or are talking about how they got sick, etc and many of those people go to this place EVERYDAY of the week, not just weekends like i do. on averages there's at least 100 people in there on either Sat. or Sun., sometimes more.

not gonna lie, it's hard when you see everyone else not masked and seemingly healthy, and not want to join. and just from what i'm seeing it seems like it's not really a risk for most people anymore especially if you're vaxxed up.

am i buggin?

I haven’t worn a mask (unless I’m somewhere that asks to wear them) since restrictions got lifted here. I’m double vaxxed up and caught it last summer but been good since. I work with kids everyday who go to school and are around other kids, I’ve gone to the movies more times than I can count maskless, been on the metro, traveled etc with no mask and haven’t gotten sick. Maybe I’ve gotten lucky but going all this long and not getting sick I’m kinda whatever about this stuff now. To each their own and I understand why someone would feel more comfortable wearing a mask but I’m off them.

i'm double vaxxed (not boosted) and got it last summer w/ very mild symptoms (worst was a migraine for a day - i never get migraines, and i don't know if that was from covid per se).

my wife and i have been heavily debating if we want to stop masking or not. still no decision.

with the exception of maybe a doctor's office or places where they're required.
soon as i stopped i didn't wanna go back, and felt like i've been doing it to long, and to a degree i understand why people see mask wearing as being overly paranoid.

but i also don't want t fall into that kind of judgy mindset. I think everyone should do what is comfortable to them. if someone feels safer or even more considerate wearing a mask, they should continue.
but if someone's wearing/not wearing a mask is some kind of statement, that's just goofy.

far as the other stuff, idk. people are still dying, but there are more treatments. i still haven't gotten it (far as i know) but probably 95% of the people i know have had it, some immuno-compromised, some have had it multiple times. mostly i just hear it really sucks for a day or two and it's draining.

So I figure there's still a risk.

I'm one of those people who masks everywhere indoors (I'm sitting at my work desk now masked up). Then a month ago my wife and I pushed our luck going to three events in five days, largely unmasked at each of them. And, of course, she was sick by that Monday and I was sick by Tuesday (though we didn't test positive until Thursday).

I live in the Bay Area, where more people mask up than in many other places, and still a lot of people go unmasked. However, I see my parents on a weekly basis, both of home are very close to 80, neither of whom have had COVID. So, especially out of consideration to them, I mask up whenever I'm inside work or any other public place. I figure staying disciplined is worth their health.

I will add that I just got back from Hawaii for vacation with my wife, parents, and my brother and his wife and kids. We all masked up in the airports and on the plane, but while on the island, no one used masks.

tldr; If you're young and healthy and not around a lot of older/less healthy folks then you'll probably be fine.

>is covid still a serious health risk for most people?
Depends on who you are. It's so contagious that it's very easy to get.

https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#datatracker-home

It says we've had 104,242,889 reported cases in the U.S. and 1,127,104 deaths. That means that 1.08% of people who caught COVID died of it. But let's be serious, while I suspect that more people probably died of COVID than reported there were likely 2 or 3 times more infections than reported too.

The CDC also reports 452,024 hospitalizations from COVID. That has had serious impacts of those folks - and on others who couldn't get healthcare because of it. And CDC reported last year that 7% of folks who got infected reported "long covid" symptoms.

So your personal risk, depending on your age, health, immunity (via vaccine or infection or both), and some luck COVID is not a personal death sentence - it never was for most.

Getting sick and feeling bad and missing work and giving your friends/family it are other factors.

>the reason i ask is because i'm still masking in public
>EVERYWHERE i go. but when i go out, i pay attention to the
>people i see and i'd say 10 percent or less of the people i
>see are also masked up.

They may have underlying health conditions - or they may just chose to wear the mask because 'why get COVID while grocery shopping?' if wearing a mask would lower the risk dramatically?

>not gonna lie, it's hard when you see everyone else not masked
>and seemingly healthy, and not want to join. and just from
>what i'm seeing it seems like it's not really a risk for most
>people anymore especially if you're vaxxed up.
>
>am i buggin?

If you get the current variant, are healthy, are younger, have some immunity from vaccination or prior infection, get Paxlovid or another treatment you may just get a mild flu like illness and you're 99% or more likely to survive and over 92% chance - or more- to not get long Covid.

If your risk profile is worse, like you're an 80 year old with HIV - it's a different calculation.

So within those factors you have to decide when/if to wear a mask. Or if you're around folks who have a different risk profile a lot you may have to factor that in too.

I got it, it fucking SUCKED for me. Healthy 50 year old when I got it, but it knocked me out and sent me to the E.R. because my blood/oxygen level went to 89% on my home monitor - and %93 on the one in the E.R. (Paxlovid was not approved at the time.) My mom, a 74 year old who has weakened immunity from chemo therapy did a lot better than I did.

(All of this changes if a new variant comes around too - it's a moving target.)

But people are getting still sick, and we're still on track to have 100,000 COVID-19 deaths in the U.S this year - that's 2x3 times our "normal" flu deaths in the 21st century.

I still mask everywhere where I'd regret getting COVD - Walmart, Target, Vons, Home Depot, etc. I didn't mask when I had workers in my house recently. I don't mask when in a car with friends either.

I think this way "If it was 2013 and the flu got more contagious and was killing the same amount as COVID is now would I have worn a mask?"

For me, the answer is yes. I suspect for most of the people I know the answer would have been no.

long outweighed the benefits for the vast majority of people. especially for kids. kids learn a lot from faces, watching faces make words and emotions.

a mask in public in april 2023 also is sending a signal: stay away, i am still very concerned about covid. which is fine, that's your right to be concerned. i don't think most people should be.

but the still-very-concerned might want to consider the effects masking has on reducing their chances of having positive interactions with other humans.

my opinion:

take take take it off
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czF8wntVIUI

You're less likely to get long COVID after a second infection than a first
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2023/04/14/1169216517/youre-less-likely-to-get-long-covid-after-a-second-infection-than-a-first

If you've gotten COVID more than once, as many people have, you may be wondering if your risk for suffering the lingering symptoms of long COVID is the same with every new infection.

The answer appears to be no. The chances of long COVID — a suite of symptoms including exhaustion and shortness of breath — falls sharply between the first and second infections, according to recent research.

"It does seem that the risk is significantly lower the second time around than the first time around for developing long COVID," says Daniel Ayoubkhani, a statistician at the Office for National Statistics in the United Kingdom, who's been studying long COVID in that country.
(more at link)

--
About 100k nurses left workforce amid COVID-19 burnout, stress: survey
https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/3950337-about-100k-nurses-left-workforce-amid-covid-19-burnout-stress-survey/

About 100,000 nurses quit due to stress and burnout during the COVID-19 pandemic and and another 800,000 said they intend to leave by 2027, according to a new survey from the National Council of State Boards of Nursing.

--
California judge orders church that defied COVID rules to pay $1.2M
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/california-judge-orders-church-defied-covid-rules-pay-1-2m

Even with improved treatments, COVID’s death rate is still 60% higher than for the flu
https://fortune.com/well/2023/04/06/covid-deadlier-flu/


Covid-19 isn’t “just a flu,” with a study of hospital patients finding that the virus was still 60% deadlier than influenza last winter.

Greater immunity against the coronavirus, better treatments, and different virus variants lowered COVID’s mortality risk to about 6% among adults hospitalized in the U.S. last winter from 17% to 21% in 2020, researchers at the Clinical Epidemiology Center of the Veterans Affairs St. Louis Health Care System in Missouri found. That was still much higher than the flu’s death rate of 3.7%.

“This finding should be interpreted in the context of a two-to-three times greater number of people being hospitalized for Covid-19 versus influenza in the US in this period,” epidemiologist Ziyad Al-Aly and colleagues wrote in a letter Thursday in the journal JAMA. The research is based on an analysis of electronic health records in databases kept by the Department of Veterans Affairs, which operates the largest nationally integrated health care system in the US.


tldr: VA study shows COVID is 60% deadlier than the flu. VA people are older, whiter, and more at risk than you may be.

Rare COVID symptom reported as latest omicron subvariant hits the U.S.
https://www.sfchronicle.com/health/article/covid-subvariant-xbb-1-16-conjunctivitis-17898060.php

Note: It's pink eye

A new COVID-19 subvariant “threatens to shatter” hopes to stave off a new coronavirus surge in the U.S. before next winter, and some experts worry it could be linked to the rise of a previously rare pandemic symptom.

XBB.1.16, which reached reportable levels in the U.S. last week, could be behind an uptick of conjunctivitis, especially in children, reports from India suggest, alongside the more common symptoms of fever, cough and fatigue.

The latest omicron subvariant, thought to be the most transmissible yet, is fueling a surge of cases in India. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data shows XBB.1.16 nearly doubled its proportion in the U.S. last week, although it still is considerably less prevalent than other subvariants circulating in the country.

At the same time, pediatrician Vipin M. Vashishtha, a member of the World Health Organization’s Vaccine Safety Net program, also noted a rise in cases of “itchy conjunctivitis with sticky eyes” in India that appear to be to be associated with XBB.1.16, although no studies have yet been published to confirm the linkage.

---
New COVID variant causes allergy-like symptoms
https://www.fox5ny.com/news/new-covid-variant-causes-itchy-watery-eyes


Doctors here in New York City and around the world are looking into the new omicron subvariant, arcturus, that's spreading fast.

" concerning is that the fact that it may be resistant in terms of antibodies we may have from the other omicron subvariant, so this specific strain may be able to evade those antibodies that our body may have formed to the other omicron subvariants," offered Dr. Rabia Delatour at New York University's Langone Health.

Arcturus is highly contagious among children in India and it's causing a new symptom.

"Something unique about this strain is that we're seeing a lot more cases in children in India, and those children are experiencing some severe conjunctivitis, which is redness or irritation of the eyes and this wasn't previously seen with other immigrants of variants, so it’s something unique to this strain," Dr. Delatour continued.

--

Anecdotal: Co-worker took his wife and 3 kids on vacation in Mexico. All came back with COVID. (Unclear if he had COVID before travelling or if he caught it while travelling.) Everyone's fine - his wife is pretty sick but doesn't appear serious.

FDA authorizes additional omicron Covid booster for seniors and people with weak immune systems
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/04/18/covid-seniors-immunocompromised-can-receive-additional-omicron-shots.html

The Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday authorized an additional dose of Pfizer
and Moderna
’s Covid-19 vaccines targeting the omicron variant for seniors and people with weak immune systems.

Seniors who are 65 years of age or older and who have already received a vaccine targeting the omicron BA.5 subvariant are now eligible to receive another dose at least four months after their last shot, according to the FDA. People with weak immune systems can receive another omicron shot at least two months after their last dose and receive additional shots at the discretion of their doctor.

--
Covid May Increase the Risk of Type 2 Diabetes, Researchers Find
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/18/health/covid-diabetes.html

Men and people with severe illnesses were more likely to develop the condition within a year. But the data does not prove that the coronavirus causes diabetes.

People infected with the coronavirus were significantly more likely to be diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes within a year of their infection, compared with those who had not been exposed to the virus, researchers in Canada reported on Tuesday.

Men were more likely to develop diabetes than women, the scientists found. People who were so sick that they were hospitalized were more than twice as likely to go on to a diabetes diagnosis, compared with those who were not infected.

People who were admitted to intensive care were more than three times as likely to develop diabetes, the researchers also found. The findings add to a growing body of evidence about Covid’s long-term effects.

“This is definitely a concern in terms of long-term outcomes,” said Dr. Naveed Z. Janjua, the paper’s senior author and a professor at the School of Population and Public Health at University of British Columbia.

“With a respiratory infection, you usually think, ‘Seven or eight days and I’m done with it, that’s it,’” he added. “Here we’re seeing lingering effects that are lifelong.” (More at link)


--
GOP senator releases ‘bombshell’ COVID-19 origins report
https://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/gop-sentor-releases-bombshell-covid-origins-report

Sen. Roger Marshall released a 300-page report that claims the virus came from two lab leaks

After more than two years of research, Sen. Marshall revealed on "Mornings with Maria" Tuesday that a "preponderance of evidence" points to two lab leaks in China as the cause of the global pandemic.

"This is big. It is a bombshell that the preponderance of evidence shows that there were two lab leaks," Sen. Marshall said. "If we had a scale in front of us and we put all the evidence on one side that supports a natural spillover, the other for the lab origin of this, I think that 95% of that evidence is on the lab origin."

Sen. Marshall released his findings on Monday, detailing how the two separate, unintentional leaks spiraled into perhaps one of the most devastating events in recent history.


NOTE: BOMBSHELL is in the title of the press release from Marshall.

*Note: Sen. Roger Marshall still isn't convinced that Biden won the 2020 election.

Florida surgeon general altered key findings in study on Covid-19 vaccine safety
https://www.politico.com/news/2023/04/24/florida-surgeon-general-covid-vaccine-00093510

Joseph Ladapo defended the move, saying revisions are a normal part of assessing such analysis.

Read the original article for all the BULLSHIT he did, I've swiped just a small part.

Swipe: The newly released draft of the eight-page study, provided by the Florida Department of Health, indicates that it initially stated that there was no significant risk associated with the Covid-19 vaccines for young men. But “Dr. L’s Edits,” as the document is titled, reveal that Ladapo replaced that language to say that men between 18 and 39 years old are at high risk of heart illness from two Covid vaccines that use mRNA technology.


The newly released draft of the eight-page study, provided by the Florida Department of Health, indicates that it initially stated that there was no significant risk associated with the Covid-19 vaccines for young men. But “Dr. L’s Edits,” as the document is titled, reveal that Ladapo replaced that language to say that men between 18 and 39 years old are at high risk of heart illness from two Covid vaccines that use mRNA technology.

“Results from the stratified analysis for cardiac related death following vaccination suggests mRNA vaccination may be driving the increased risk in males, especially among males aged 18-39,” Ladapo wrote in the draft. “The risk associated with mRNA vaccination should be weighed against the risk associated with COVID-19 infection.”
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Up to one in 20 new diabetes cases could be linked to Covid, study suggests
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/apr/18/up-to-one-20-new-diabetes-cases-could-linked-covid-study

Up to one in 20 new diabetes cases could be related to Covid infection, data suggests.

The research adds to mounting evidence the pandemic may be contributing to a rapidly escalating diabetes crisis, with individuals who have experienced more severe Covid at greatest risk.

However, lifestyle factors such as being overweight or obese continue to be the main driver for the increase, with 4.3 million officially diagnosed cases in the UK alone.

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Are your ears ringing? Experts are studying whether its linked to COVID or the vaccine.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2023/04/24/tinnitus-covid-vaccine-what-we-know/11727081002/

Note: I have a friend who IMMEDIATELY reported tinnitus after getting the first dose, and it happens each time he gets a booster.

He's also had Covid TWICE and MERS, he travels *a lot* for work and can't not travel.

Reminder: Free tests still available if you haven't reached your limit: https://www.covid.gov/tests

Also: Your health insurance will reimburse you for 8 tests a month - you could buy 8 today, then 8 between May 1st and May 11th and get reimbursed. (Ask your insurance when/if they are discontinuing the reimbursement, they have the option to keep paying if they want to.)

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CDC to stop tracking Covid levels in communities
The CDC will end its Covid community-level tracking program, which provided information on how the virus was spreading where you live.

https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/cdc-stop-tracking-covid-levels-communities-rcna82059

"With the end of the public health emergency, CDC will no longer get the same data. We are working to update the measure used to convey the risk of Covid-19 in communities based on data that will be available," a CDC spokesperson wrote in an email. "Our priority remains providing the information necessary to protect the nation's public health."

Note:You can get some idea of how much is in your community by tracking wastewater. Google your city's name + covid wastewater.

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ABC News edits RFK Jr. interview to exclude ‘false claims about the COVID-19 vaccines’
https://thehill.com/homenews/media/3977874-abc-news-edits-rfk-jr-interview-to-exclude-false-claims-about-the-covid-19-vaccines/

tldr; He's spreading not only COVID vaccine falsehoods, but the tired "Vaccines causes autism" shit. Expect him to be on Real Time with Bill Maher at least 3 times before the election.


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IT's behind a paywall, but I pasted into a document.

Original link:https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/04/24/magazine/dr-fauci-pandemic.html (Try it, you might have enough free articles to view it, I didn't.)

Copy/paste link I posted: https://justpaste.it/90unx


Some swipes:
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Wallace-Wells: Even now, when we talk about pandemic response, we focus on things like school closures and masks, but it seems to me that Covid mortality has been shaped much more by the country’s vaccination levels. There have been three times as many American deaths since Election Day 2020 as before. And we’ve done much worse, compared with our peers, since vaccination began than we had before.

Fauci: I mean, only 68 percent of the country is vaccinated. If you rank us among both developed and developing countries, we do really poorly. We’re not even in the top 10. We’re way down there.3 And then: Why do you have red states that are unvaccinated and blue states that are vaccinated? Why do you have death rates among Republicans that are higher than death rates among Democrats and independents?4 It should never ever be that way when you’re dealing with a public-health crisis the likes of which we haven’t seen in over a hundred years.

That’s part of it. The other part of it has nothing to do with that divisiveness. It has to do with the fracturing of our health care delivery system in this country. We have let the local public-health and health care delivery system really suffer attrition. And the health disparities — racial and ethnic health disparities. Every country has a little bit of that, but we really have a lot of it.

Footnote: According to a study published by the National Bureau of Economic Research in September 2022, rates of excess deaths were 76 percent higher among Republicans than Democrats throughout the pandemic. The gap was much smaller in 2020; it then grew almost sevenfold with the arrival of vaccines.
--

Wallace-Wells: One thing I’ve seen you emphasizing lately is the lesson that you need to act early to stop exponential growth, and that earlier interventions are much more effective than later interventions. But in January and February and even into March of 2020, you and a lot of other folks in the public-health infrastructure were spreading a message that most Americans didn’t really need to worry about the virus, that it wasn’t a real risk to most of us. It wasn’t until later in March that the alarm was really raised. Was that too late? Could we have raised the alarm earlier? And if so, what would the effect have been, do you think?

Fauci: Well, first of all, this is one of the things that keeps getting distorted. When I said we don’t need to do anything different right at this moment, please don’t forget that was followed by a semicolon, and then a “however,” and then by, “This could change rapidly, and we better be prepared for that.” I said that every single time. And the people who want to do gotchas on me only show the first part.

Wallace-Wells: But if you go back in time, if you put yourself in February 2020, you’re telling Helen Branswell,7 for instance, that this virus was low-risk and that you didn’t want to stake your credibility on what could be a false alarm. Do you wish you had said then more emphatically that this is a real, urgent threat and that we need to stand up our defenses immediately?

Footnote: “At present,” Fauci told the veteran journalist at an Aspen Institute panel on Feb. 11, 2020, “the risk is really relatively low.” But he was careful to say: “Is there a risk that this is going to turn into a global pandemic? Absolutely. Yes, there is.” He also added that “if we got up and said … ‘We’ve really, really got a big risk of getting completely wiped out’ and then nothing happens, then your credibility is gone.”

Fauci: Yeah, I think, retrospectively, we certainly should have done that. If you look at what we knew at the time, though — we didn’t know that in January. We were not fully appreciative of the fact that we were dealing with a highly, highly transmissible virus that was clearly spread by ways that were unprecedented and unexperienced by us. And so it fooled us in the beginning and confused us about the need for masks and the need for ventilation and the need for inhibition of social interaction.

Wallace-Wells: The asymptomatic spread.

Fauci: To me, that was the game-changer. And if we knew that very early on, our strategy for dealing with the outbreak in those early weeks would have been different. So when people say to me, “Could we have done better?” Of course, of course. If you knew many of the things then that now you know, definitely you would want to do things differently.

---

Wallace-Wells: It was around the same time that the mask guidance wavered — first, masks were not recommended, and then they were.9 But I want to ask you to reflect on the even bigger picture: Were the culture-war fights over masking worth it? Or did those fights have a bigger negative impact on future vaccine uptake among conservatives than the positive impact they had on spread? To be clear: I’m not someone who doesn’t think masks work. I think the science and the data show that they do work, but that they aren’t perfect and that at the population level the effect can be somewhat small. In what was probably our best study, from Bangladesh, in places where mask use tripled, positive tests were reduced by less than 10 percent.

Fauci: It’s a good point in general, but I disagree with your premise a bit. From a broad public-health standpoint, at the population level, masks work at the margins — maybe 10 percent. But for an individual who religiously wears a mask, a well-fitted KN95 or N95, it’s not at the margin. It really does work.

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Wallace-Wells: But when I watched your recent lecture at Georgetown, you didn’t talk about herd immunity at all. Nobody does. Which makes sense, given that perhaps 95 percent of the country has had the disease, on top of the almost 70 percent who have been vaccinated, and the virus is obviously still circulating. And in fact a number of epidemiologists I’ve spoken to have told me that given the nature of this virus, we should have never entertained herd immunity as a possibility, given the way SARS-CoV-2 replicates in the body. What went wrong there?

Fauci: Well, I don’t think anybody did anything wrong. What went wrong was that the virus did not act the way one would have thought the virus would act. We made an assumption that turned out to be an incorrect assumption — that this was going to act like other viruses.
The classical definition of herd immunity has been completely turned upside down by Covid. And let me go through the steps. Herd immunity is based on two premises: one, that the virus doesn’t change, and two, that when you get infected or vaccinated, the durability of protection is measured in decades, if not a lifetime. With SARS-CoV-2, we thought protection against infection was going to be measured in a long period of time. And we found out — wait a minute, protection against infection, and against severe disease, is measured in months, not decades. No. 2, the virus that you got infected with in January 2020 is very different from the virus that you’re going to get infected with in 2021 and 2022.

--
Wallace-Wells: So were we wrong to ever expect that after a given amount of infection and vaccination, the disease would disappear? Because that was an extremely conventional view in 2020.

Fauci: It depends on what you mean by “disappear.” If you control community infection at a low-enough level that it doesn’t disrupt society, to some people that means it disappears. To other people, it means, well, it’s there, but it doesn’t bother society very much.
But be careful: No, it was not completely out of line to think that you could get protection against infection — that even if you got some virus in you, it wouldn’t be of a high-enough titer to transmit to somebody else.

And then we found out something that was stunning. When you looked at the titer of the virus in infected and asymptomatic people and a virus in the nose of symptomatic infected people, it was the same. What the hell is going on here? That was a big surprise. So we were wrong, but we weren’t wrong because we didn’t interpret data in front of us. We never had those data. We did not know early on that 50 to 60 percent of the transmissions would be asymptomatic. That was like, whoa. When I saw those data, I said: This is different. We’re dealing with a disease the likes of which we’ve never seen before.

---
Wallace-Wells: In the vaccine rollout, did we make a mistake in prioritizing health care workers as opposed to seniors?

Fauci: I don’t know if it was a mistake. A mistake is such a charged word. “Fauci made a mistake, people died. Fauci lied, people died.” Come on. I don’t know if it was a mistake. I think the standard way of protecting people who are at greater risk every day was a sound principle.

---
Wallace-Wells: But the particular responsibility shakes out a little bit differently if it’s ultimately some vendor in a wet market who is illegally transporting animals or if it’s the product of this international research apparatus, right? I don’t want to overstate the American authority or oversight over every experiment at the Wuhan Institute of Virology — let alone the Wuhan C.D.C. But there is a large American component to the development of this whole international enterprise, going back several decades, and you’ve played a role in developing and funding that.

Fauci: First of all, all of the intelligence groups agree that this was not an engineered virus. And if it’s not an engineered virus, what actually leaked from the lab? If it wasn’t an engineered virus, somebody went out into the field, got infected, came back to the lab and then spread it out to other people. That ain’t a lab leak, strictly speaking. That’s a natural occurrence.

Wallace-Wells: Even in that case, the research itself is still playing a role. But when you say everyone agrees it was not an engineered virus — I don’t think they do. I think they generally agree it was not purposefully engineered to be a bioweapon. I don’t believe they’ve ruled out other forms of engineering — direct genetic interventions or serial passage of viruses.

Fauci: David, you could have taken a virus and serially passaged it in 1920. I could do that tomorrow in your kitchen. You don’t need to do engineering.13

Footnote: 13
The term “gain of function” is used by different people in different ways. To some, it refers to any effort to produce new features in a virus, whether through direct genetic manipulation or simply accelerating natural evolution. When the N.I.H. resumed funding gain-of-function research after a three-year safety review, they did so under what was called the "P3CO" framework, under which research with pathogens known to be infectious and dangerous to humans was held to a higher level of scrutiny.

--

Read the whole thing it's get a little heated.

And if you look at the viruses that the $120,000-a-year grant was given through EcoHealth to the Wuhan Institute to do surveillance on, and you look at the viruses that they studied that they published in the literature, and that was in all of their progress reports, those viruses could not possibly ever turn into SARS-CoV-2, even if they tried to turn them into SARS-CoV-2, because they were evolutionarily so far from SARS-CoV-2 that anybody who knows anything about virology would say there’s nothing you could do to those viruses that would turn them into SARS-CoV-2. Yet what gets conflated is that the N.I.H. funded them, therefore you are liable for the lab leak if it’s a lab leak. It had nothing to do with what we did, because the viruses were unable to be made into SARS-CoV-2.

WHO downgrades COVID pandemic, says it’s no longer emergency

https://apnews.com/article/who-declares-covid-emergency-over-pandemic-8b6445735df5218b5d9d6ec32fa047ca

The World Health Organization said Friday that COVID-19 no longer qualifies as a global emergency, marking a symbolic end to the devastating coronavirus pandemic that triggered once-unthinkable lockdowns, upended economies worldwide and killed at least 7 million people worldwide.

WHO said that even though the emergency phase was over, the pandemic hasn’t come to an end, noting recent spikes in cases in Southeast Asia and the Middle East. The U.N. health agency says that thousands of people are still dying from the virus every week.

“It’s with great hope that I declare COVID-19 over as a global health emergency,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.

“That does not mean COVID-19 is over as a global health threat,” he said, adding he wouldn’t hesitate to reconvene experts to reassess the situation should COVID-19 “put our world in peril.”

Tedros said the pandemic had been on a downward trend for more than a year, acknowledging that most countries have already returned to life before COVID-19. He bemoaned the damage that COVID-19 had done to the global community, saying the virus had shattered businesses and plunged millions into poverty.

“COVID has changed our world and it has changed us,” he said, warning that the risk of new variants still remained.

(more at link)

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900,000 New Yorkers Lost at Least 3 Loved Ones to Covid
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/05/nyregion/new-york-covid-losses.html

An estimated two million New Yorkers — nearly one in four — lost at least one person close to them to Covid within the first 16 months of the virus’s arrival, according to the data, which was collected in mid-2021 by federal census workers on behalf of the city. Nearly 900,000 New Yorkers lost at least three people they said they were close to, an open-ended category that included relatives and friends, the survey found.

(more at link)

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COVID dropped to 4th leading cause of death in U.S. last year
https://www.inquirer.com/health/coronavirus/covid-19-coronavirus-deaths-cdc-20230504.html

COVID-19 deaths trailed those caused by heart disease, cancer and injuries such as drug overdoses, motor vehicle fatalities and shootings. In 2020 and 2021, only heart disease and cancer were ahead of the coronavirus.

U.S. deaths usually rise year-to-year, in part because the nation's population has been growing. The pandemic accelerated that trend, making 2021 the deadliest in U.S. history, with more than 3.4 million deaths. But 2022 saw the first drop in deaths since 2009.

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Free at-home COVID tests end May 11 for some. Here’s how to stock up
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-05-05/free-at-home-covid-tests-end-may-11-how-to-stock-up

The expiration of the national COVID-19 public health emergency Thursday evening will mean the end of free at-home tests for some, though many Californians will still be able to get their hands on screening kits.

At the end of the scheduled May 11 sunset date, a federal rule requiring insurers to reimburse policyholders for the cost of up to eight at-home COVID tests per month will end.

This tightening of the testing tap will affect some Medicare beneficiaries and threatens to limit or cut off access to no-cost testing across a swath of the country.

But in California, state lawmakers and Gov. Gavin Newsom have taken steps to avoid that scenario.

How will testing access change?
For many in California, there won’t be any near-term changes. State legislators have already ordered health insurers to continue reimbursement for eight monthly at-home tests for most health plans.

What are the details?
Following the passage of Senate Bills 510 and 1473, health plans regulated by the California Department of Managed Health Care will still be required to cover the costs of eight over-the-counter rapid tests a month for each person insured.

Besides employer-based healthcare coverage, this includes Medi-Cal-managed plans and Covered California plans.

Starting Nov. 11, insurers regulated by the state Department of Managed Health Care still must cover COVID tests if they’re provided in network, but can charge for tests purchased out of network.

This covers most insured Californians, including those with plans through their employers — but not everyone. For instance, it’s possible Medicare beneficiaries in the state could lose access.

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Edit:Adding this

CDC opens probe after 35 test positive for covid following CDC conference
Attendees say many people did not mask, socially distance or take other precautions recommended earlier in the pandemic

https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2023/05/02/covid-outbreak-cdc-annual-conference/

Disease detectives at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are probing a new outbreak: the roughly three-dozen coronavirus cases linked to their own annual conference last week.

“CDC is working with the Georgia Department of Health to conduct a rapid epidemiological assessment of confirmed COVID-19 cases that appear to be connected to the 2023 EIS Conference to determine transmission patterns,” CDC spokesperson Kristen Nordlund said in an email.

Nordlund said the CDC reported the cases to state health officials who have authority over the location where the conference occurred. Attendees said many people at the gathering did not mask, socially distance or take other precautions that the CDC had recommended earlier in the pandemic.

Fewer than 100,000 confirmed coronavirus cases were reported across the United States last week — the lowest levels in nearly two years. But public health experts have cautioned that the vast majority of cases are not being tracked, with many Americans testing at home, if at all, and opting not to report the results. The virus also remains on pace to be one of the top 10 causes of death this year, with fatalities concentrated among older and immunocompromised individuals.

Experts said an outbreak of coronavirus cases at a CDC conference — the first time the meeting of disease detectives was held in person in four years — illustrates the persistence of an evolving virus. The four-day conference for epidemic intelligence service officers and alumni, held near CDC headquarters in Atlanta last week, drew about 2,000 attendees who were likely to be fully vaccinated.

“This is, unfortunately, the new normal,” Jay Varma, an infectious-disease expert at Weill Cornell Medicine, wrote in a text message. “While it is unsettling to see widespread COVID-19 transmission at CDC’s premier public health conference, it’s probably the clearest example yet” of the global situation.

Varma added that individuals and organizations should continue to take coronavirus precautions to protect themselves and the most vulnerable as needed. “I hope that organizers of large conferences, especially for health professionals, should, at a minimum, make high-quality masks as abundant and available as toilet paper and ensure that there is adequate ventilation and/or disinfection of air,” he wrote.

Nordlund said about 35 people linked to the conference had reported testing positive as of Tuesday.

“Conducting a rapid investigation now will help understand transmission that occurred and assist in refining future public health guidance as we move out of the public health emergency and to the next phase of COVID-19 surveillance and response,” she wrote. “Whenever there are large gatherings, especially indoors, such as at a conference, there is the possibility of COVID-19 spread, even in periods of low community spread.”

Conference attendees also received an email from the CDC that encouraged them to participate in the survey with the Georgia health department, according to an email shared with The Washington Post.

“If you attended the conference in person, you may have been exposed to someone with COVID-19,” the email read. “If you are experiencing symptoms, we recommend you follow CDC guidance for isolation and testing.”

The Biden administration has been winding down its pandemic response, with most federal vaccine mandates and the coronavirus public health emergency set to be lifted next week. Public health experts say that while the pandemic’s perils have largely receded, they remain wary of future variants and note that the virus continues to evolve.

For instance, a new omicron subvariant, XBB.1.16, nicknamed Arcturus, is becoming more prevalent throughout the United States. The latest CDC tracker shows the variant made up almost 12 percent of cases nationwide for the week ending April 29, up from about 7 percent the week ending April 15. Most of the infections in the United States right now come from XBB.1.5, also an omicron subvariant.

FYI, with the emergency ending today, the surveillance capabilities shifting (meaning much less accurate, switching to trend tracking), and the immigration shit storm that will start up tomorrow, remember that 1,100 people in the United States died from Covid last week.

The "good news" is that more people are dying from diabetes than Covid now!!!

Article:
As Emergency Ends, a Look at Covid’s U.S. Death Toll
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/05/11/us/covid-deaths-us.html

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https://www.wbur.org/npr/1174112653/cdc-to-change-how-it-reports-covid-information-and-stop-reporting-new-cases

One of the biggest change is that the agency will no longer regularly track and release the number of new COVID infections. That's largely because states will no longer be required to report new cases. In addition, home testing, which mostly isn't reported to authorities, has made new infections a less reliable metric, Shah says.

Instead, the agency will start relying on the number of people being hospitalized for COVID as an indicator of how much the virus is spreading. A CDC analysis of the new approach released Friday confirmed it will be effective, Shah says.

The CDC will also continue to monitor and report how many people are dying from COVID as well as how often people are getting so sick they end up requiring care in emergency rooms.

Wastewater monitoring for the virus will provide additional crucial metrics, he says.

In addition, the agency will continue to monitor genetic analyses of the virus, including among arriving international travelers, to spot any new, potentially worrisome variants.



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https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/11/health/coronavirus-booster-vaccine-pandemic-wellness/index.html
What does the end of the Covid-19 national emergency mean? Our medical analyst explains

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Huge number of asylum seekers at US-Mexico border as COVID-19 restrictions end, new rules begin
https://apnews.com/article/migrants-mexico-border-asylum-title-42-4a4c55366e42b53f266ff88a8602dd0d

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico (AP) — The Biden administration on Thursday will begin denying asylum to migrants who arrive at the U.S.-Mexico border without first applying online or seeking protection in a country they passed through. It marks a fundamental shift in immigration policy as the U.S. readies for the end of a key pandemic restriction.

Asylum seekers have been showing up at the border in huge numbers in anticipation of this week’s end of the use of a restriction known as Title 42. That rule has allowed the government to quickly expel migrants to Mexico. U.S. officials warned of difficult days ahead as the program tied to the COVID-19 pandemic expires this week.

The rule announced Wednesday is part of new measures meant to crack down on illegal border crossings while creating new legal pathways. Families who cross the border will face curfews and monitoring; the head of household will wear an ankle bracelet as their cases are heard within 30 days.

But there’s also a plan to open 100 regional migration hubs across the Western Hemisphere and granting humanitarian parole to 30,000 people a month to enter the country from four countries. U.S. officials have detailed steps they’ve taken, including increasing deportation flights, as they prepare for what many are expecting to be a substantial increase in migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border.

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Several people out in my team with COVID. (None serious)

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China’s New Covid Wave Set to See 65 Million Cases a Week
https://www.cnbctv18.com/world/china-braces-for-new-covid-19-wave-with-up-to-65-million-weekly-cases-16728131.htm

XBB is expected to result in 40 million infections per week by the end of May before peaking at 65 million a month later. This comes nearly six months after Beijing dismantled its Covid Zero curbs, allowing the virus to spread rapidly among the country’s 1.4 billion residents.

(If %0.1 of people die from it it's still 40,000 dead the first month. That's the rate of COVID deaths/infection that Korea has.)

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COVID-19 vaccines may undergo major overhaul this fall
https://www.science.org/content/article/covid-19-vaccines-may-undergo-major-overhaul-fall

Earlier this year, U.S. regulators settled on a new strategy for COVID-19 vaccines. Like the annual flu shot, the vaccines will be updated each year based on the virus’ evolution, then rolled out in the fall. Accordingly, on 15 June, advisers to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration will weigh which strain or strains of SARS-CoV-2 should make up the next iteration of vaccine, so that the agency can greenlight a version for companies to mass-produce.

Regulators may well jettison the original SARS-CoV-2 strain that emerged in China and is long extinct—but which people are still being vaccinated against today. Many scientists favor eliminating it. The ancestral strain “should go out of the formulation,” says William Messer, an infectious disease specialist and viral immunologist at Oregon Health & Science University. Last week, the World Health Organization (WHO) agreed. But other questions loom, including whether to bundle multiple virus strains into the vaccine or just one.

To date, COVID-19 vaccines have been modified only once, when a bivalent version based on both the original strain and the BA.5 Omicron variant was introduced in September 2022. Uptake was disappointing: Only 17% of people in the United States have rolled up their sleeves. (By comparison, about 50% get an annual flu shot.) Furthermore, many researchers say the bivalent vaccine packed less of a punch than it could have. The decision to preserve the ancestral strain sprang from worries that if an entirely new variant emerged, an Omicron-only vaccine might falter against it.

We should find out how the next booster will be handled this month. Coming soon...

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US research finds 1 in 10 adults get long COVID after omicron
https://www.foxnews.com/health/us-research-finds-1-10-adults-get-long-covid-omicron

Posted the link to FoxNews for the readers who still follow this thread.

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More than 70% of US household COVID spread started with a child, study suggests
https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/covid-19/more-70-us-household-covid-spread-started-child-study-suggests

In-person school contributed to transmission
"More than 70% of transmissions in households with adults and children were from a pediatric index case, but this percentage fluctuated weekly," the study authors wrote. "Once US schools reopened in fall 2020, children contributed more to inferred within-household transmission when they were in school, and less during summer and winter breaks, a pattern consistent for 2 consecutive school years."


I liked this one, turns out kids spread COVID exactly like the spread every other disease :) Who'd have thunk it??


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Risk of smell loss from COVID-19 omicron variant is as low as 6% compared with initial variants, finds new study

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2023-06-loss-covid-omicron-variant-variants.html

tldr; Loss of smell has decreased with new variants.

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Mysterious COVID strain found in central Ohio
https://www.nbc4i.com/news/local-news/columbus/mysterious-covid-strain-found-in-central-ohio/

tldr; Someone in Ohio liekly has had COVID for a long time and it's mutating.

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Debt ceiling bill takes back COVID money
https://thehill.com/newsletters/health-care/4027057-debt-ceiling-bill-takes-back-covid-money/

tldr; Republicans demanded it, Democrats let it happen so the country doesn't implode. So all the "we need more COVID research for bettr treatment posters have one more "both parties are the same!!!" ammo.

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COVID cases could be ticking up in New York City, wastewater data shows
Most wastewater plants in the city show high levels of virus detection.

https://abcnews.go.com/Health/covid-cases-ticking-new-york-city-wastewater-data/story?id=99786571

Nearly all of the 14 wastewater treatments plants in the city are currently in the "high" detection level category, meaning likely 50 or more cases per 100,000 people, according to the NYS Wastewater Surveillance Network dashboard, which was updated Friday.

What's more, two-week trend data shows that just three of the plants are seeing decreases in virus detection.

Reported case numbers have not jumped. But fewer people are getting tested than earlier in the pandemic, so case numbers are a less reliable indicator of COVID-19 spread.

ONI report on Covid Origins delivered to congress:
https://www.dni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/assessments/Report-on-Potential-Links-Between-the-Wuhan-Institute-of-Virology-and-the-Origins-of-COVID-19-20230623.pdf

Summary: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jun/23/covid-19-origins-wuhan-lab-leak-us-intelligence-reports

US intelligence agencies found no direct evidence that the Covid-19 pandemic stemmed from an incident at China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology, a report declassified on Friday said.

Republicans now calling for all intelligence reports with any connection to COVID origins to be declassified: https://thehill.com/homenews/4066839-gop-house-intel-chair-wants-covid-origins-declassified/


---
Updated COVID booster shots this fall aim to protect against newer coronavirus versions

https://www.sfchronicle.com/health/article/covid-booster-new-vaccine-18167895.php

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration recommended on June 15 that updated vaccines target XBB.1.5. But drugmakers were working months before the FDA’s go-ahead to develop a shot focused at that subvariant and others, ensuring they’d be able to quickly scale up production no matter which strain regulators settled on.



---
U.S. Vaccine Program Now Flush With Cash, but Short on Key Details
A $5 billion federal program aims to make better Covid vaccines.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/26/health/covid-vaccines-nextgen.html

Efforts to develop the next generation of Covid vaccines are running up against bureaucratic hassles and regulatory uncertainty, scientists say, obstacles that could make it harder to curb the spread of the coronavirus and arm the United States against future pandemics.

The Biden administration, after months of delay, has now addressed at least a shortfall in funding, hurrying to issue the first major grants from a $5 billion program to expedite a new class of more potent and durable inoculations.

But the program is facing the blunt reality that vaccine development, after being shifted into high gear early in the pandemic, has returned to its slower and more customary pace.

---

CDC tracking new COVID variant EU.1.1
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/new-covid-variant-eu-1-1-cdc/

The variant is a more distant descendant of the XBB.1.5 variant that had surged earlier this year, with a handful of more mutations to its spike protein that may be driving its spread.

The CDC estimates that EU.1.1 is now 1.7% of U.S. cases nationwide, but may have already reached as much as 8.7% of cases in the region spanning Colorado, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah and Wyoming.

It is too early to know whether EU.1.1 will lead to new or different symptoms in the U.S.

--

Getting COVID-19 causes long-term drop in semen quality: study
https://www.nbcrightnow.com/lifestyles/health/getting-covid-19-causes-long-term-drop-in-semen-quality-study/article_5a02b277-492e-5bbd-bb6f-0f06b7fd3d98.html

Men suffer a long-term drop in semen quality after COVID-19 - even if the infection was mild, reveals new research.

Scientists found that more than three months after suffering from mild COVID-19 infection, men have lower sperm concentrations and fewer sperm that are able to swim.

Professor Rocio Núñez-Calonge said that after an average of 100 days following infection there appeared to be no improvement in sperm quality and concentration, even though new sperm would have been produced in that time.

Núñez-Calonge said: “There have been previous studies that show semen quality is affected in the short term following a COVID infection but, as far as we are aware, none that have followed men for a longer period of time.

--

How many Americans still haven't caught COVID-19? CDC publishes final 2022 estimates

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/how-many-americans-havent-caught-covid-cdc-estimates/

tldr; 77% had antibodies produced from infection. (And 96.7% had antibodies, either from infection of vaccination.)

Nearly 1 in 4 U.S. adults and older teens had still not caught COVID-19 by the end of last year, according to new estimates from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, while 77.5% had antibodies from at least one prior infection.

Note: What a weird way to say it - 3 out of 4 DID get it should be the headline, imho.

--

Three Vaccines for Fall: What You Need to Know
Here’s who should get the flu, Covid and R.S.V. vaccines, and when.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/05/health/flu-covid-rsv-vaccines.html

tldr; R.S.V. vaccine coming too!

---
Moderna files for European authorization of updated COVID vaccine

https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/moderna-files-european-authorization-updated-covid-vaccine-2023-07-03/

July 3 (Reuters) - U.S. biotech firm Moderna (MRNA.O) said on Monday it had submitted a regulatory application to the European Medicines Agency (EMA) seeking authorization for its updated COVID-19 vaccine to target the XBB.1.5 sub-variant.


-
Fact or Fiction: Madonna was in the ICU because of COVID vaccine?

https://www.10news.com/news/fact-or-fiction/fact-or-fiction-madonna-was-in-the-icu-because-of-covid-vaccine

Madonna spent several days in the ICU recently with a bacterial infection.

In response, a number of people have posted tweets claiming her illness was caused by complications from getting a COVID-19 vaccination.

But that's false.

COVID-19 is a virus, which is not bacterial, and bacterial infections are not listed among the adverse effects of getting the COVID vaccine.

Madonna has been a prominent supporter of vaccines, which critics appear to be latching onto now.

(that i'm aware of)
I think 90% of people I know got it

Lol @the Madonna thing. It happens literally every time someone dies or is in the hospital now. I remember Shaq posting a pre-hip surgery pic, since he was cryptic, they were already 100% certain it was the reason.
Someone dies in a car crash, or of being 103 and half the comments are "interesting... jabbed?"

>(that i'm aware of)
>I think 90% of people I know got it

The number surely increased over the winter.

But this is interesting from the article:
"Just 54.9% of all adults currently think they have ever had COVID-19, according to Census Bureau survey results published by the CDC through mid-June. "

So 54.9% think they got it, but blood tests show at 77% have antibodies formed from infection. (Probably very mild or completely asymptomatic cases.)

They stopped doing the study and surveillance is so low that we'll never know - except that it was a very very high percentage of people that got infected.

Also this:
"Of all age groups, seniors have the smallest share of Americans with at least one prior infection, at 56.5% of people ages 65 and over. Young adults and teens had the largest proportion of people with a prior infection, at 87.1% of people ages 16 to 29."

So the younger people got it more often than seniors - just got sick and/or died at a much lower rate.

Fingers crossed for you that you didn't get it!! (I'm coming up on getting it two years ago on the 15th.)

Same for my wife. Our daughter, however, did catch it late in the school year last year. She was devastated.

Symptoms started 2 years and 1 day ago, official test results came back July 15th, 2021.

It *really* sucked for me, it was two weeks of being sicker than I've ever been including a trip to the ER for a chest X-ray, nd I needed a root canal, and I had nerve damage in my extremities for a month too.

I hope if anyone here gets it that it's a mild case.

.

fitting post for you on the day of the hearings.

That was an anniversary post, I deleted it.

Here's a CNN link going in:
https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/11/health/covid-origins-researchers-house-subcommittee-hearing/index.html

The Nation link before:
https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/covid-origins-congress-hearing/

Article about hearings in Nature:
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-02261-w

Swipe:
"Republicans in the US House of Representatives have accused the authors of a 2020 commentary in a scientific journal of colluding with government officials to stifle conversation about COVID-19 origins. Two of the authors — Kristian Andersen, an evolutionary biologist at Scripps Research in La Jolla, California, and Robert Garry, a virologist at Tulane University in New Orleans, Louisiana — appeared before the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic on 11 July to categorically deny these allegations.

Rumours spread in early 2020 that SARS-CoV-2 was a bioweapon created at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China. So, Andersen, Garry and their co-authors looked at the available genomic data to determine whether the sections that encode the spike protein — which the virus uses to gain entry to cells — showed signs of genetic engineering. The scientists published their findings as a commentary in Nature Medicine1, in which they concluded that they “do not believe that any type of laboratory-based scenario is plausible”. (Nature is editorially independent of Nature Medicine, and Nature’s news team is independent of its journal team.)"

You're watching Benghnzai hearings mixed with "The Twitter files." It's bullocks. They'll grandstand while going over years old communications that don't support there theory but promise if you read it just the right way, then add a little imagination then you see why SCIENCE tried to protect the Chinese. (They won't mention the myriad of actual scientific AND political failures that actually happened.)


Your position is still:
Scientists in Wuhan engineered a virus deliberately then it accidentally infected the scientists who then spread it in China and beyond. Also: The deliberate genetic engineering is so advanced, or so clever, that it can't YET be spotted by other scientists.

Maybe RFK Jr.s's testimony would finally prove your theory next week:
https://nypost.com/2023/07/12/rfk-jr-will-testify-before-house-panel-on-government-censorship/

https://public.substack.com/p/top-scientists-misled-congress-about

You're living in a fantasy world.

If you put a gun to the head of Fauci, Farrar, Francis Collins, Andersen, Garry and told them "lab leak or natural origin? your life depends on you being right"...what do you think they would they say?

Stats are improving - and seems unlikely it's just because of less surveillance. Still around 38,000 COVID deaths this year, 2022 had 243,780, and 2021 had 445,121, and 2020 had 367,209.

https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#trends_weeklyhospitaladmissions_select_00

Data Table for Weekly Deaths - The United States
Jul 8, 2023 106
Jun 3, 2023 657
May 6, 2023 915
Apr 1, 2023 1,429
Mar 4, 2023 1,980

Jan 7, 2023 3,851

Data Table for Weekly COVID-19 Hospital Admissions - The United States
Jul 1, 2023 6,220
Jun 3, 2023 7,394
May 6, 2023 9,691
Apr 1, 2023 15,765
Mar 4, 2023 22,337

Jan 7, 2023 44,410

Currently Hospitalized Patients with Confirmed COVID-19, by Week, in The United States, Reported to CDC

Jul 1, 2023 5,177.57
Jun 3, 2023 6,816.86
May 6, 2023 8,890.86
Apr 1, 2023 14,494.57
Mar 4, 2023 20,688

Jan 7, 2023 41,154.43

California's COVID-19 hospitalizations are near historic lows. Will the lull last?

https://news.yahoo.com/californias-covid-19-hospitalizations-near-130007693.html

SWIPE: COVID-19 hospitalizations are close to record lows in California, an optimistic sign as the state attempts to navigate its first surge-free summer of the coronavirus era.

It's difficult to say what the rest of the season will bring, however. The coming weeks will help determine whether some kind of uptick in coronavirus transmission is on tap, or if conditions will remain relatively calm until the autumn and winter.

The rate of new weekly COVID-19 hospitalizations in California — though near an all-time low — has been flat over the most recent two weeks for which data are available.

Nationally, weekly declines are starting to level off, too, with hospitalizations on the rise in some parts of the country.

Throughout the pandemic, hospitalization numbers have proved a useful, if lagging, indicator of coronavirus spread. A significant or sustained jump in patient counts would probably mean the coronavirus is circulating more widely in a community.

--
Nebraska:
What COVID-19 variants are going around in July 2023?

https://www.nebraskamed.com/COVID/what-covid-19-variants-are-going-around

Currently, the dominant variant nationwide is XBB.1.16, with 17.5% of cases, followed by XBB.1.5, with 16.1% of cases, and XBB.2.3 with 13.4% of cases. "The original omicron variant is gone now," says Dr. Rupp. "Currently subvariants of omicron are circulating, including XBB.1.5, XBB.1.16 and XBB.1.9.1."

XBB.1.5, XBB, and XBB.1.16 variants dominating in Nebraska
As of July 8, 2023, XBB.1.16 is the dominant variant in Nebraska, making up 35% of cases. XBB.1.5 is second, making up 32% of cases and XBB is third, with 21% of Nebraska cases.

A Positive Covid Milestone
In a sign that the pandemic really is over, the total number of Americans dying each day is no longer historically abnormal.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/17/briefing/covid.html

The United States has reached a milestone in the long struggle against Covid: The total number of Americans dying each day — from any cause — is no longer historically abnormal.

Excess deaths, as this number is known, has been an important measure of Covid’s true toll because it does not depend on the murky attribution of deaths to a specific cause. Even if Covid is being underdiagnosed, the excess-deaths statistic can capture its effects. The statistic also captures Covid’s indirect effects, like the surge of vehicle crashes, gun deaths and deaths from missed medical treatments during the pandemic.

During Covid’s worst phases, the total number of Americans dying each day was more than 30 percent higher than normal, a shocking increase. For long stretches of the past three years, the excess was above 10 percent. But during the past few months, excess deaths have fallen almost to zero, according to three different measures.

The Human Mortality Database estimates that slightly fewer Americans than normal have died since March, while The Economist magazine and the C.D.C. both put the excess-death number below 1 percent. Here is the C.D.C. data:

Estimates of weekly deaths above normal in the U.S.
A chart shows C.D.C. estimates of weekly death percentages of normal in the U.S. The average since March 2023 has been below one percent above normal.
The power of immunity
The progress stems mostly from three factors:

First, about three-quarters of U.S. adults have received at least one vaccine shot.

Second, more than three-quarters of Americans have been infected with Covid, providing natural immunity from future symptoms. (About 97 percent of adults fall into at least one of those first two categories.)

Third, post-infection treatments like Paxlovid, which can reduce the severity of symptoms, became widely available last year.

“Nearly every death is preventable,” Dr. Ashish Jha, who was until recently President Biden’s top Covid adviser, told me. “We are at a point where almost everybody who’s up to date on their vaccines and gets treated if they have Covid, they rarely end up in the hospital, they almost never die.”

That is also true for most high-risk people, Jha pointed out, including older adults — like his parents, who are in their 80s — and people whose immune systems are compromised. “Even for most — not all but most — immunocompromised people, vaccines are actually still quite effective at preventing against serious illness,” he said. “There has been a lot of bad information out there that somehow if you’re immunocompromised that vaccines don’t work.”

That excess deaths have fallen close to zero helps make this point: If Covid were still a dire threat to large numbers of people, that would show up in the data.

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One point of confusion, I think, has been the way that many Americans — including we in the media — have talked about the immunocompromised. They are a more diverse group than casual discussion often imagines.

Most immunocompromised people are at little additional risk from Covid — even people with serious conditions, such as multiple sclerosis or a history of many cancers. A much smaller group, such as people who have received kidney transplants or are undergoing active chemotherapy, face higher risks.

With vs. from
Covid’s toll, to be clear, has not fallen to zero. The C.D.C.’s main Covid webpage estimates that about 80 people per day have been dying from the virus in recent weeks, which is equal to about 1 percent of overall daily deaths.

The official number is probably an exaggeration because it includes some people who had virus when they died even though it was not the underlying cause of death. Other C.D.C. data suggests that almost one-third of official recent Covid deaths have fallen into this category. A study published in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases came to similar conclusions.

Even so, some Americans are still dying from Covid. “I don’t know anybody who thinks we’re going to eradicate Covid,” Jha said.

Dr. Shira Doron, the chief infection control officer at Tufts Medicine in Massachusetts, told me that “age is clearly the most substantial risk factor.” Covid’s victims are both older and disproportionately unvaccinated. Given the politics of vaccination, the recent victims are also disproportionately Republican and white.

Each of these deaths is a tragedy. The deaths that were preventable — because somebody had not received available vaccines and treatments — seem particularly tragic. (Here’s a Times guide to help you think about when to get your next booster shot.)

Yet the number of Covid deaths has now dropped low enough that they are difficult to notice in the overall death data. They can be swamped by fluctuations in other causes of death, such as the flu or vehicle crashes.

Almost a year ago, President Biden angered some public health experts when he declared, “The pandemic is over.” He may have been premature to make that declaration. But the excess-deaths milestone suggests that it’s true now: The pandemic is finally over.

Related: Researchers are working to ensure developing countries don’t have to rely on wealthy nations for vaccines in a future pandemic, The Washington Post reports.

--
Rise in new COVID-19 cases in Japan shows little sign of abating
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2023/07/18/national/covid-cases-rise-continues/

COVID-19 cases in Japan are continuing their recent rise and taking a toll on the elderly in particular, with experts predicting the trend will continue amid high heat, declining population-level immunity and the start of the holiday season.

Health ministry statistics released Friday showed Japan’s ninth wave of coronavirus infections is continuing, with the average number of new cases reported by around 5,000 designated medical institutions in the week through July 9 standing at 9.14, up from 7.24 a week before.

Japan has seen a continuous, though gradual, increase in COVID-19 cases for eight straight weeks since May 8, when it downgraded the disease to a status on par with seasonal flu and scrapped a range of special COVID-19 measures, including the daily counting of cases.

The number of new hospital admissions for COVID-19 is also rising, standing at 6,096 in the week through July 9, up from 5,494 a week before and 4,484 four weeks before.

Cases were seen rising in 45 of the nation’s 47 prefectures, but the increases stand out in western Japan. Okinawa continues to see by far the highest number of patients per institution, at 41.67, though that is down slightly from 48.39 a week before. The Kyushu region has seen major increases, particularly in Kagoshima (17.18), Miyazaki (16), Saga (15.33) and Kumamoto (11.99) prefectures.

Shigeru Omi, the nation’s top coronavirus adviser, said other places in Japan could see an uptick in coming weeks.

“Okinawa has its own unique factors (that led to the current spike in infections),” Omi told an NHK news program Sunday. “It has a close-knit community, and the vaccination rate there is a bit lower (than in the rest of the country). But these factors alone cannot explain the recent spikes.

“The trend could spread northward from Okinawa and Kyushu.”

Omi also said that the trend is likely to continue a little longer, citing the normalization of social and business activities since May 8 and the increasing amount of time people are spending in indoor, less ventilated spaces because of the relentless heat outside. He also mentioned the fact that many people’s immunity is waning, as time has passed since prior infection or vaccination, as well as the prevalence of immunity-escaping variants.

Dick Durbin Announces He Tested Positive For COVID For Third Time In A Year
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/dick-durbin-tests-positive-for-covid_n_64be8060e4b053a7009259e5

Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) on Sunday announced he “unfortunately” tested positive for COVID-19.

Sunday’s positive result is the third time the Democrat has contracted the virus in a year.

Durbin, 78, said he will be staying at home until his doctor clears him.

“Consistent with CDC guidelines, I’ll quarantine at home and follow the advice of my doctor while I work remotely,” he wrote on Twitter.

---

The CDC is preparing for a winter with '3 bugs out there': Covid, flu and RSV
Vaccine fatigue is already here, although many Americans will be urged to get three different shots this fall.
https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/tripledemic-covid-rsv-flu-winter-cdc-rcna95448


--
The Steep Cost of Ron DeSantis’s Vaccine Turnabout
Once a vaccine advocate, the Florida governor lost his enthusiasm for the shot before the Delta wave sent Covid hospitalizations and deaths soaring. It’s a grim chapter he now leaves out of his rosy retelling of his pandemic response.

nytimes.com/2023/07/22/us/politics/ron-desantis-covid.html

On a Saturday in September 2020, with Covid-19 killing more than 600 Americans daily and hundreds of thousands of deaths still to come, Dr. Deborah L. Birx, a member of the White House coronavirus task force, heard her cellphone ring. It was Dr. Scott Rivkees, the Florida surgeon general. He was distraught.

“‘You won’t believe what happened,’” she said he told her. Months before Covid vaccines would become available, Gov. Ron DeSantis had decided that the worst was over for Florida, he said. Mr. DeSantis had begun listening to doctors who believed the virus’s threat was overstated, and he no longer supported preventive measures like limiting indoor dining.

Mr. DeSantis was going his own way on Covid.

Nearly three years later, the governor now presents his Covid strategy not only as his biggest accomplishment, but as the foundation for his presidential campaign. Mr. DeSantis argues that “Florida got it right” because he was willing to stand up for the rights of individuals despite pressure from health “bureaucrats.” On the campaign trail, he says liberal bastions like New York and California needlessly traded away freedoms while Florida preserved jobs, in-person schooling and quality of life.

But a close review by The New York Times of Florida’s pandemic response, including a new analysis of the data on deaths, hospitalizations and vaccination rates in the state, suggests that Mr. DeSantis’s account of his record leaves much out.

As he notes at most campaign stops, he moved quickly to get students back in the classroom, even as many of the nation’s school districts were still in remote learning. National research has suggested there was less learning loss in school districts with more in-person instruction.

Some other policies remain a matter of intense debate. Mr. DeSantis’s push to swiftly reopen businesses helped employment rebound, but also likely contributed to the spread of infections.

But on the single factor that those experts say mattered most in fighting Covid — widespread vaccinations — Mr. DeSantis’s approach proved deeply flawed. While the governor personally crusaded for Floridians 65 and older to get shots, he laid off once younger age groups became eligible.

Tapping into suspicion of public health authorities, which the Republican right was fanning, he effectively stopped preaching the virtues of Covid vaccines. Instead, he emphasized his opposition to requiring anyone to get shots, from hospital workers to cruise ship guests.

While Florida was an early leader in the share of over-65 residents who were vaccinated, it had fallen to the middle of the pack by the end of July 2021. When it came to younger residents, Florida lagged behind the national average in every age group.

That left the state particularly vulnerable when the Delta variant hit that month. Floridians died at a higher rate, adjusted for age, than residents of almost any other state during the Delta wave, according to the Times analysis. With less than 7 percent of the nation’s population, Florida accounted for 14 percent of deaths between the start of July and the end of October.

Of the 23,000 Floridians who died, 9,000 were younger than 65. Despite the governor’s insistence at the time that “our entire vulnerable population has basically been vaccinated,” a vast majority of the 23,000 were either unvaccinated or had not yet completed the two-dose regimen.

A high vaccination rate was especially important in Florida, which trails only Maine in the share of residents 65 and older. By the end of July, Florida had vaccinated about 60 percent of adults, just shy of the national average. Had it reached a vaccination rate of 74 percent — the average for five New England states at the time — it could have prevented more than 16,000 deaths and more than 61,000 hospitalizations that summer, according to a study published in the medical journal The Lancet.

Florida’s spike in deaths subsided that fall, as it did elsewhere. Overall, the state’s death rate during the pandemic, adjusted for age, ended up better than the national average. Some public health experts credit the state’s robust health system and strong performance in the pandemic’s first year or so.

But in Florida, unlike the nation as a whole — and states like New York and California that Mr. DeSantis likes to single out — most people who died from Covid died after vaccines became available to all adults, not before. As the governor’s political positions began to shift, so did his state’s death rate, for the worse.

Mr. DeSantis and his aides have said that his opposition was to mandates, not to the vaccinations themselves. They say the governor only questioned the efficacy of the shots once it became evident that they did not necessarily prevent infection — which prompted him to criticize experts and the federal government.
(Much longer at link.)

came back from a trip and was worn down. Had a massive headache and a fever and tested pos. It's not super bad other than when the headaches hit. Mostly just feels flu-ish and phlegmy.

Co-worker got it - but they went to Comic Con so no one has sympathy.

Hope you get better soon!

No downside to taking it other than the mild side effects it seems.

Ask as soon as you can or you might be out of the window.

>Co-worker got it - but they went to Comic Con so no one has
>sympathy.
>

Are you still expecting people to not go out in public around other people?

>>Co-worker got it - but they went to Comic Con so no one has
>>sympathy.
>>
>
>Are you still expecting people to not go out in public around
>other people?
>
Well, there’s going out in public, and then there’s going into a crowd of 50,000 people indoors during the summer. It’s an incredibly high density area. Plus some people couldn’t get tickets to comicon and also were resentful of that, it’s a hot ticket.

it's one of my favorite things to do, and I gave it up for a year and a half. I'd def go to comicon if that was my thing.. especially in 2023

I can understand someone at high risk wanting to avoid large crowds, but it's a weird thing to be judgy about in 2023

mostly headaches and fatigue the first 2 days. had a cough for half a day, and a stuffy nose for half a day. Fever came and went with the headaches

didn't take anything except ibuprofen for the headaches and drank alot of water

overall pretty mild. back to work today

Summer Wave?
Got an email from work (I work for a hospital) saying this:

The CDC shows a 12.1% rise in hospitalizations from July 16 to 22.
COVID-19 patient census stood at just 13 patients on July 10. but today we have 38 patients with COVID-19.

Employee exposures and laboratory testing positivity rates for employees and patients are also rising.

COVID-19 wastewater surveillance levels in the county are increasing.

So on the rise this week - I hope it's a blip and not a trend.

Even so the increased numbers are *exceptionally low* compared to just a few months ago.

--
Foxnew has a link saying the same thing a few days ago, for those who have open minds and ask questions:

https://www.foxnews.com/health/covid-hospitalizations-are-on-the-rise-could-signal-late-summer-wave-says-the-cdc



--
An NYT article for the "latte drinkers" among us:

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/02/health/covid-rise.html

The number of deaths is the lowest since the pandemic began, and roughly one-tenth of the levels in January. Most virus fatalities now occur in adults older than 75. But the real toll will be apparent only at the end of the year, after the fall and winter’s respiratory blitz, experts said.

New variants ABOUND and no one knows if they'll be BAD, but looks like "THE SURGE" that's been "REPORTED" could just be the same uptick seen last year at this time. No one knows yet. (Although like 5 people at work callef out with Covid in the past 2 weeks - none had a 'serious' case.)

--
Moderna's updated COVID vaccine effective against 'Eris' variant in humans

https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/modernas-updated-covid-vaccine-effective-against-eris-variant-humans-2023-08-17/


Aug 17 (Reuters) - Moderna (MRNA.O) said on Thursday an initial study data showed its updated COVID-19 vaccine to be effective against the "Eris" and "Fornax" subvariants in humans.

The company expects the updated shot to be available, pending approval from health regulators in the United States, Europe and elsewhere, in the coming weeks for the fall vaccination season.

Moderna and other COVID-19 vaccine makers Novavax (NVAX.O), Pfizer (PFE.N) and German partner BioNTech SE (22UAy.DE) have created versions of their shots aimed at the XBB.1.5 subvariant.







-----

Why isn't the new booster available yet?

https://mstdn.social/@erictopol/110885217343158734
I learned today via FDA why and when the new Covid boosters will be ready
—The reason for the delay is that the Covid Public Health Emergency ended May 11, 2023, so it requires a Product Licensing Application (PLA) instead of an EUA
—Now projected to be available ~9/15

Wife and I both got it. She tested positive 1st and then next day I did. Though we have completely different symptoms. She has sore throat, high fever, body aches and diarrhea. I have slight fever, headache, fatigue, and diarrhea. I lost my smell and taste, she has not. Out of all the symptoms the lost of taste and smell is the most foreign. I’ve never experienced it before and it’s just fucking weird. I truly thought we would stay lucky and never catch it. As Charlie Murphy said. Wrong WRONG.

Details: https://www.verywellhealth.com/how-to-get-paxlovid-7693033

Hope you both have 'mild' cases and recover quickly!

The after taste is fucking awful and that with me losing my taste and smell. I can't imagine if I hadn't

my coworkers have all had it multiple times, same with most of my friends.

new years day I went to a gathering and everyone else got it. I was like that shit don't want me

my brother got it the first time a few weeks before me. looks like alot of stragglers are getting hit lately.

feel better! mine was pretty mild, same with most people i know that got it this year. hopefully yours will be to

I kept thinking well, I must be dodging the shit outta it. Its been pretty mild, I am on paxlovid and I think that its just as bad as covid.

**********
"Everyone has a plan until you punch them in the face. Then they don't have a plan anymore." (c) Mike Tyson

"what's a leader if he isn't reluctant"

As in I’ve had a couple cases where folks were like yeah had Covid a couple days ago while being with me and they said it like it was nothing. One when my wife and I went out with some friends, after we’d already been hanging out that night, and the other at the office after being in a meeting room with someone half the day.

In both cases they hadn’t tested negative yet because they weren’t worried about testing, and we’re still getting over some light symptoms. Which I understand them not worrying about it, but STILL it was disarming to me that all ideas of quarantining for a few days once getting it regardless of symptoms are gone now.

They’re not going to the doctor unless they’re really sick I would guess?

I was away last week and flew home Saturday, and then Sunday and today I’ve had a cough and some fatigue. In years past, I would think nothing of this. Just a minor cold, without the runny nose(typically the worst part of a cold for me), so no big deal. I’ve stayed home just because thats what I typically always did when I have a cold if possible. I don’t want to be responsible for spreading anything.

But now you’ve got me thinking….even though my symptoms are minor, I probably should test and make sure?

I haven’t knowingly had COVID ever and the few times I’ve been sick and tested, I was negative.

to get a paxlovid prescription just from self reporting, didn’t even need to get an official test. But yeah we have several at home test kits and will typically test ourselves whenever any cold/sick symptoms pop up.

found out about 6 people that i know personally that have caught it. like they were saying right above, i went so long without getting it i thought i was gonna make it thru w/o getting hit...nope. my only main symptom was a terrible cough that plagued me night and day.

because of the cough i was tired as shit. and slight chills here and there. i dont want that shit agn.

Reminder: BA.2.86 has been reported less that 2 dozen times. The summer "wave" is not being caused by it.

--
Emory’s Dr. del Rio discusses concerns over a new, unique COVID variant
This variant, BA.2.86, could dodge a person’s immunity and be more infectious and possibly cause more severe illness

https://www.ajc.com/news/health-news/emorys-dr-del-rio-discusses-concerns-over-a-new-unique-covid-variant/5PZIFDPAQNCOXFNPRNDVRJP3GI/

Only 11 confirmed cases of the new coronavirus variant BA.2.86 have been reported around the world — but the highly mutated virus has generated intense monitoring by scientists and public health experts.

This variant appears vastly different from its predecessors. Most widely circulating omicron variants feature a small handful of mutations that make them slightly different from the last. But the BA.2.86 features at least 30 mutations on its spike protein that separate it from other omicron strains — potentially giving the virus greater infectivity by being able to dodge a person’s existing immunity from vaccines and previous infections.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said this latest variant doesn’t now appear to make people sicker than earlier iterations, and that antiviral treatments such as Paxlovid should still be effective, according to a risk assessment published by the CDC. COVID tests should also still detect it.

More at link.

I hope the booster shots will get rolled out sooner rather than later. It's come close to a full year since I received my last shot.

Boosters alone (or natural immunity from a previous infection) without any other measures probably won't do much to stop transmission.


Other things that would help, but *very likely* will not be done by the government or by individuals:

Wear a mask when you can.
Social distance when you can.
Improve ventilation when you can.
During an obvious uptick in community cases maybe reconsider the need to go to the club or church or convention or group tap dancing classes.
If you get sick then test and if positive then stay away from people for 10 days.

Testing and tracking of infections is pretty much gone and done for the ENTIRE world. Data from Africa has weeks that go by without 1 reported death from COVID. They're not alone, reporting is not something that people are valuing anymore.

Hospitalization and deaths are not the only things to be worried about. Having COVID sucks. Spreading it to friends sucks. Long COVID sucks.

If COVID never existed and we were seeing these numbers for FLU then more would be being done. But the pollicization of COVID, and the overwhelming pushback from people who "just decided COVID was over" are probably contributing to this fact: no one gives a fuck when you catch COVID anymore unless you take a hospital bed.



Boosters likely coming in 3rd week of this month.

to being the most concerned person about covid in any room. you doing alright? really?

people should consider cancelling their plans to have fun? really? still?

let me know when i'm allowed to breathe easy my man

>people should consider cancelling their plans to have fun?
>really? still?

Yes, consider it.

Same way during flu outbreaks you should have considered it. (But you didn't.)


(Your position is DEM CHINEESE MADE A KILLER VIRUS ON PURPOSE!! )

i put my thinking forward and you got nothing.

covid has been great for you...you get to let your paranoid 'i'm scared of the world' personality unfurl and people (for the most part) don't call you names for it. it's not good for you.



>>people should consider cancelling their plans to have fun?
>>really? still?
>
>Yes, consider it.
>
>Same way during flu outbreaks you should have considered it.
>(But you didn't.)
>
>
>(Your position is DEM CHINEESE MADE A KILLER VIRUS ON
>PURPOSE!! )
>

"Fauci was told of NIH ties to Wuhan lab’s novel coronaviruses by January 2020"

https://usrtk.org/covid-19-origins/fauci-nih-wuhan-coronaviruses/


use that energy of yours and learn the facts

I read the article, and the National Review article too.

It says Wuhan Institute of Virology was studying corona viruses. And the NIH gave them money.

No gain of function mentioned. No lab leak confirmed. Nothing.

(And none of your "LAB LEAK ON PURPOSE" shit either.)


"use that energy of yours and learn the facts"

Sick burn broesph!!

you have demonstrated zero grasp on any of the relevant facts and you have repeatedly mis-characterized my position.

Handle this week:
"(Your position is DEM CHINEESE MADE A KILLER VIRUS ON PURPOSE!! )"

Handle on June 16, 2023:
"I know you think it was engineered, and I’m pretty sure you believe it was developed as a weapon and that it was released intentionally, and your poll cannot reflect that with two options only."

fif on June 16 in response:
"Engineered? Most likely, yes.

Intentionally released? Most likely, no."

---


this is very poor form, Mr Handle.

---

what is the "news" in the link I posted? It shows that Fauci received an email from his Chief of Staff on Jan 27, 2020, outlining what Wuhan Institute of Virology (in sometimes conjunction with Peter Daszak's outfit, EcoHealth Alliance and UNC's Ralph Baric) had "accomplished" re: bat coronavirus research. Fauci very likely was aware of some or most of this work prior to this email. After this email...let's say a lot of things happened, many of which remain a mystery to the public. Kristian Andersen and Robert Garry in late jan, early feb discuss the possibility of lab leak with Fauci. Then a Fauci-helmed teleconference where the concerns of these top scientists re: lab leak vanish....and a USA powers-that-be consensus position emerges in the Proximal Origins paper March 17, 2020. This paper has been shredded by other scientists. K Andersen is on record considering lab leak a real possibility even after the publication of Proximal Origins. Peter Daszak spearheaded a lancet article touting zoonosis, didn't reveal his role. This is all off the top of my dome, the evidence of an obfuscation of these people's true beliefs on "did covid come out of a lab in Wuhan?" is overwhelming. If you want me to nail down these references, holla.

So this recent email released thru a FOIA request is further evidence that Fauci and Co have not been forthright about their thinking re: covid's origins. You say no mention of of gain of function in the new email? Look at the sixth bullet point. And consider Shi's 2018 research proposal to DARPA while reading it. Here is the intro to the bullet points:


"NIAID has funded Peter’s group for coronavirus work in China for the past 5 years through R01 1R01AI110964: “Understanding the Risk of Bat Coronavirus Emergence”. That’s now been renewed, with a specific focus to identify cohorts of people highly exposed to bats in China, and work out if they’re getting sick from CoVs. Erik Stemmy is the Program Officer. Collaborators include Wuhan
Institute of Virology (currently working on the nCoV), and Ralph Baric. The results of the work to date include:"



"Found SARS-related CoVs that can bind to human cells (Published in Nature), and that cause
SARS-like disease in humanized mouse models."

this done most likely through serial passage, which is gain of function. in lax safety conditions. it's all right there if you stop and actually read the facts.

---

but the comms from Fauci and Co are NOT the most persuasive evidence that covid came out of a lab in Wuhan. The cover-up Fauci, Francis Collin, Daszak, et al engaged in is definitely a data point that pushes the balance of evidence more toward "lab leak most likely"....but my credence in that belief is increased more by other facts... such as


--the on the face of it, incredible coincidence that the only known bat coronavirus with a FCS emerged in Wuhan, a place very far from where bats with closely related viruses have been found. that Shi's team was going very far away to Yunnan, extracting unknown bat viruses from caves and bringing them back to Wuhan to experiment on....and of course Shi's 2018 proposal to DARPA to....add furin cleavage spikes to bat coronaviruses in order to increase their pathogenecity to humans.

--

would you like to engage with any of this? we could try to figure out where we disagree. but so far you have shown no willingness to actually talk it through.

Your engaging in an INCREBILE amount of confirmation bias, then accuse anyone of not following your logic and "PROOF" as being disingenuous.

You BELIEVE in something - I get it. I think you're a crackpot who is grasping at straws and calling everyone else around him a fool.


>would you like to engage with any of this? we could try to figure out where we disagree. but so far you have shown no willingness to actually talk it through.

No.

Go jump start one of your old threads, I'll stay out.

.

you're not saying "i don't know". you're not saying "i think there is 10% chance that covid came out of a lab"

instead you are a) not engaging with the facts and b) treating me like I'm a crackpot without explaining why.

so given that this is a public forum, I mount a defense of my position so that other people can decide for themselves. i have been laying out my reasons for believing what I believe.

>Your engaging in an INCREBILE amount of confirmation bias,
>then accuse anyone of not following your logic and "PROOF" as
>being disingenuous.
>

saying i'm engaging in confirmation bias is meaningless here unless you explain what you mean.

i am not claiming i have "proof" of anything.

here is what I believe: I am 95% sure covid came out of a lab in Wuhan. I am also very sure that if Fauci, et al were in a Goldfinger situation, with a laser bearing down on their nuts, they would tell you the same.


>You BELIEVE in something - I get it. I think you're a crackpot
>who is grasping at straws and calling everyone else around him
>a fool.
>



>
>>would you like to engage with any of this? we could try to
>figure out where we disagree. but so far you have shown no
>willingness to actually talk it through.
>
>No.
>
>Go jump start one of your old threads, I'll stay out.

since people like you rjcc think they can travel into my life (and those of other posters) and determine how I come to my beliefs.

i talk to a lot of people about this. a lot of very intelligent well-credentialed people agree with me. some disagree, sure. i understand the arguments from both sides well. what you have been doing doesn't pass muster.

i don't put a ton of my beliefs out there on okp in a rigorous way, but I consider this an important topic and that it is worthwhile to try to publicize to okp my beliefs here. why? well this all is to me in the realm of "true conspiracy". it also is not that difficult for people to get up to speed on. i am not a conspiracy nut, i don't have a long track record of believing in this or that conspiracy. unlike most of okp, i believe covid very likely came out of a lab in wuhan...why do I think it is important that people consider this possibility and get on board with this thinking?

because gain of function research is very new and very dangerous: it represents an existential threat to humanity.

let's rough estimate that covid killed 10mn people worldwide.

the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki killed ~110k people on the day of...and maybe another 100k from long-term effects.

what virologists can currently do, in many ways, represents a GREATER threat to humans than nuclear weapons

You posts are unintelligible. Talking to you is like trying to talk to 24 hour a day Fox viewers about Benghazi.

You do not explain your positions well, and when you do your positions are a mixture of "belief" without PROOF AND doomsday cult like importance.

You have posted in the last week that this is "an existential threat to humanity" and "people should consider cancelling their plans to have fun? really? still?."


>covid has been great for you...you get to let your paranoid 'i'm scared of the world' personality unfurl and people (for the most part) don't call you names for it. it's not good for you.

And comments like this SHOW ME WHO YOU ARE. You are a condescending self important asshole.

Please stop trying to engage with me. Look deep into yourself, become *very pleased* and stop thinking about me.

Thanks in advance!!

>You posts are unintelligible. Talking to you is like trying
>to talk to 24 hour a day Fox viewers about Benghazi.

what is unintelligible? you don't get into any of the details. it is clear you disagree with me, but it's not at all clear about what. you dodge.

if you are convinced I'm off my rocker, it should be easy for you to set me right. you can't because you clearly don't know anything about the topic.

>
>You do not explain your positions well, and when you do your
>positions are a mixture of "belief" without PROOF AND doomsday
>cult like importance.

so you don't think a virus can be made in a lab that could start a pandemic?

"belief without proof". this...given the the way you post on here...man. i have no idea how you justify any of your beliefs, you stay making no sense.




>You have posted in the last week that this is "an existential
>threat to humanity" and "people should consider cancelling
>their plans to have fun? really? still?."

covid rn is not very dangerous for the vast majority of people. given the mental health crisis in america, it is much more important for most people to focus on doing shit like hanging out with friends.

GoF could kill billions of people. do you disagree?

"sorry, lord, can't have a come to jesus moment today, handle said i might die or kill someone's grandma"

US lab tests suggest new Covid-19 variant BA.2.86 may be less contagious and less immune-evasive than feared

https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/03/health/covid-new-variant-pirola-early-lab-results/index.html

Two teams of US scientists have completed lab experiments testing the antibodies from vaccinated and infected Americans to see how well they might be able to fend off currently circulating variants of the virus that causes Covid-19, including the highly mutated BA.2.86.

Their results match up almost exactly, and the news – at least when it comes to BA.2.86, which has also been dubbed Pirola – is very good. Our immune systems can recognize and fight off this variant as well as, and perhaps even a bit better than, the currently circulating offshoots of the XBB variant.

What’s more, people who had the most robust responses against BA.2.86 were those who were within six months of an infection with the XBB subvariant. This suggests that this fall’s updated Covid-19 vaccines, which are designed to fight off XBB.1.5, will provide added protection against a range of circulating Covid-19 lineages, including BA.2.86.

--
First lady Jill Biden tests positive for Covid-19
https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/04/politics/jill-biden-covid


First lady Jill Biden tested positive for Covid-19 on Monday and is experiencing “mild symptoms,” the White House said. President Joe Biden has tested negative.

>Their results match up almost exactly, and the news – at
>least when it comes to BA.2.86, which has also been dubbed
>Pirola – is very good. Our immune systems can recognize and
>fight off this variant as well as, and perhaps even a bit
>better than, the currently circulating offshoots of the XBB
>variant.
>
>What’s more, people who had the most robust responses
>against BA.2.86 were those who were within six months of an
>infection with the XBB subvariant. This suggests that this
>fall’s updated Covid-19 vaccines, which are designed to
>fight off XBB.1.5, will provide added protection against a
>range of circulating Covid-19 lineages, including BA.2.86.

Thanks for posting it. I've got a job that leaves me pretty exposed and a number of immuno-compromised people in my life. Having an organized place to go for COVID news has been really helpful.

the first week of November. In the past I've almost ALWAYS gotten sick at that conference. This is the second one that's happened in person post-Covid, so hopefully the new boosters are out before then for me to take.

While me and my immediate family are pretty much back to normal, we are also still cautious about high risk environments like this because my parents are in their 70s, with my dad fighting prostate cancer. We see them often, so I don't want to expose them to unnecessary risk.

FDA could greenlight new Covid boosters as early as Friday
https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/fda-green-light-new-covid-boosters-early-friday-rcna103379

The Food and Drug Administration plans to greenlight updated versions of the Covid boosters as early as Friday, according to four people familiar with the agency’s plans.

The latest shots are designed to target the XBB.1.5 omicron subvariant. Though that strain is no longer dominant, the boosters should still protect against current circulating subvariants, which are closely related, the drugmakers and experts say.

The Friday timeline for authorization is not firm, and it could slide into early next week, two of the sources said.

-
COVID hospitalizations increase for 7th consecutive week but new boosters could help
https://abcnews.go.com/Health/covid-hospitalizations-increase-7th-consecutive-week-new-boosters/story?id=102959508

COVID-19 hospitalizations are continuing to rise in the United States but there is hope that the uptick could be stemmed with the new boosters.

Hospitalizations increased 15.7% for the week ending Aug. 26 from 15,050 to 17,418, according to data updated Monday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

These are similar to levels seen in late March of this year and it marks the seventh consecutive week that hospitalizations have increased.

However, hospitalizations remain relatively low compared to other points during the pandemic. During the peak of omicron, the week of Jan. 15, 2022, there were 150,674 hospitalizations.

Additionally, during the same week over the past three years, weekly hospitalizations have sat at 28,209 in 2020, 85,785 in 2021 and 36,922 in 2022.

Friday I went hiking in preparation for my Yosemite backcountry hike coming up on the 21st. I had a very small tickle in my throat. I woke up at 1 AM on Saturday and the sore throat was slightly worse. I’d say compared to previous sore throats that it’s a 1 on the scale of 1 to 10.

I took a Covid test at home and it is negative

Saturday I stayed home and I woke up just now at 2:36 AM with a temperature of 101.3, my sore throat is slightly worse, I feel very very warm (although the temperature was 84° in my house, me, turning off the air conditioner may be why I feel so warm but I have a fever of 101.3, that would not be caused by just being in a slightly warm house,), and if I force myself to cough , there’s a little tickle in my throat that shouldn’t be there. Also, like a one on the scale of one to 10 of discomfort.

I’ll take a Covid test when I wake up tomorrow.

This could be something as simple as a sore throat.
This could be Covid.

I’ve been in the presence of three people in the last two weeks where we’ve been unmasked. None have reported any Covid symptoms (yet.)

The very bad news is that my elderly mother, my elderly aunt, and my less seemingly elderly, but 70 year old uncle came over to my house on Friday at noon when I had no symptoms to see my new kitten, and they were here for 30 minutes, and all the windows were closed, and the air conditioner was on

prayers out for your fam. how worried should we be for you? run the numbers. what are everyone's chances looking like? what steps are you taking? diet? exercises? sleep? will you be taking paxlovid? any otc things worth taking at this point?

>prayers out for your fam. how worried should we be for you?
>run the numbers. what are everyone's chances looking like?
>what steps are you taking? diet? exercises? sleep? will you be
>taking paxlovid? any otc things worth taking at this point?

I contacted my primary care physician via messaging app and hopefully I’ll have a Paxlovid prescription put in today

I’ll likely be fine, I’m really worried about my mother who is 75, survived cancer, and is kind of feeling weak because of pain around her hip. I got the very first inkling of a symptom on Friday afternoon, she had visited my house Friday morning with my aunt and uncle.

I really hope they didn’t get it.

As for me last time, I got it I felt awful for weeks, my brain didn’t get back to “normal, thinking” for at least three weeks, and I could barely walk up the hill for a month. As of right now I’m not getting coughing and my lungs seemed fine.



When I feel better, I’ll ribbon to you about the hypochondriacs blog, I literally tested positive for a communicable Disease, and I’m worried about my elderly mother. But let’s just be very chill right now, I feel awful, very sick.

If memory serves, you and your mother have survived previous bouts with covid so this aint your first rodeo. Hopefully you've learned some good strategies for handling this since then. Last fall, my previously very healthy mother had a scare with her heart that required her to heli-vacced to a hospital. She has a pacemaker now. It's hard to watch loved ones grow old.

Keep strong over there, keeping your stress low is probably a good idea. so in spirit of that, I promise not to bother you for 7 days about how gain of function can kill us all. Peace and blessings to ya

Of mushrooms helping people with post-covid brain fog. So if u experience that again, maybe chomp some.

Tracking your HRV and doing breathwork may help with cardio recovery.

What's the latest on when and how to resume exercise post-covid to minimize losses to fitness? Hopefully your hiking etc has you in even better shape to beat it than last time. Best wishes

I know people personally who found these helpful.

And for anosmia from covid (loss of smell taste): there are reports of people who had smell/taste return from 100mcg LSD.

Anecdotal but does seem to be something there.

Anyone with hard-to-resolve cluster headaches/migraines might want to look into shrooms/LSD as well

I'm big on mushrooms, I microdose regularly and keep a jar full at the crib just in case but I never knew about its effects on long covid, makes sense considering what I know about what it can do to the brain.

because she's way more at risk.
fortunately was just me.
of everyone i know who's had it lately it wasn't that bad for them or even for their immune compromised relatives who got it.
mine wasn't that bad. felt like a symptom sampler for a couple days followed by a couple weeks of mild brain fog
these new strains don't seem as potent as before. delta was a motherfucker from what I remember.

feel better, dude

Mom, uncle and aunt have no symptoms. They'll tests again on Wednesday.

This time is MUCH MUCH easier than last time. This feels like a minor cold right now. Last time I was *very* sick for 8 days and had emergency chest x-rays due to low blood oxygen.

ChatpGPT took my notes and made this long post:
---

### **Day 1: September 9, 2023**
* **Morning:** Thomas noticed a minor tickle in his throat accompanied by some phlegm.

### **Day 2: September 10, 2023**
* **Morning:**
* 9:20 AM: Fever hit 100.0°F
* 12:00 PM: The fever decreased to 98.4°F.
* **Afternoon:**
* 4:31 PM: Fever jumped to 100.8°F. Thomas experienced chills, though no cough or sore throat. But forcing a cough out felt slightly scratchy. He opted for a Tylenol to combat the temperature.
* **Midnight and Beyond:**
* 2:06 AM: Fever increased to 101.3°F, and chills began.
* 4:12 AM: Fever slightly decreased to 100.2°F. However, symptoms of runny nose and fatigue started showing.
* 6:09 AM: The fever went back up to 101.3°F.
* 8:00 AM: A slight decrease as fever registered at 100.6°F.

### **Day 3: September 11, 2023**
* **Early Morning:**
* 4:15 AM: Thomas's temperature read 98.4°F. He had slept for about five hours but woke up with minor chills, a headache, and a faint feeling of wooziness. Thankfully, no cough or sore throat, though a forced cough had a hint of a tickle.
* 5:43 AM: No fever, but a runny nose and postnasal drip set in. Headache was minor, but overall, he didn’t feel great.
* 6:08 AM: After taking a Tylenol and showering, Thomas felt crummy. The absence of a cough was a relief, though his voice was notably deeper.
* **Midday:**
* 12:14 PM: No return of the fever. However, nasal congestion became more prominent, and Thomas's voice deepened. Over a call, someone remarked about his congested tone.
* **Afternoon:**
* 3:37 PM: Fever stayed away, but a headache persisted. Thomas's voice seemed affected and he felt the presence of more phlegm in his throat, though without a cough. Fatigue was evident.
* 7:08 PM: The temperature was stable at 98.3°F, blood oxygen at 97%. Sneezing became frequent, but thankfully, the headache intensity decreased.
* 9:55 PM: Thomas mentioned "Paxlovid mouth" being evident but not overwhelming.

### **Day 4: September 12, 2023**
* **Early Morning:**
* 3:21 AM: No fever, and oxygen levels were good. No cough either. However, a sore throat was creeping in. On a pain scale of 1 to 10, it felt like a 2 or 3. Moreover, his voice was heavily affected and had a much lower tone than usual.
* **Current Day:**
* Thomas couldn't shake off the tiredness, finding it hard to sleep for more than 4 hours at a stretch. His tinnitus worsened, becoming exceptionally loud from the previous night. A fresh concern arose when trying to cough up phlegm – it hurt, even if the pain was just a 2 or 3 on a scale of 1 to 10.

I was largely at 94-95%, and while I had a lot of chest congestion and coughed a lot, I never felt bad enough to consider going to a doctor.

Just wondering what “low” was for you? I’m usually 96-100%, so I knew I was lower than normal. I googled and saw below 95% is supposed to be a big deal, but even when I was at 94%, I really didn’t feel THAT bad.

>Just wondering what “low” was for you? I’m usually
>96-100%, so I knew I was lower than normal. I googled and
>saw below 95% is supposed to be a big deal, but even when I
>was at 94%, I really didn’t feel THAT bad.

First time my blood ox was around 92%-94% for the first week, but sometimes down to 90% and even dropping to 89% with my at home monitor on day 8. I messaged the doctor and they said to come in because it was under 95%.

I didn't feel like I was gasping for air, but I was concerned because low blood oxygen for that long is a sign of that you are recovering.

In the hospital their blood ox machine put me at 94%-95% and the chest x-ray showed no lung scaring, but they all thought it was a good idea to get the x-ray. (The doctors suggested it, it was not my idea.)



Now I add 2% to the blood ox reading at home.

I looked at my notes to my doctor and I was sleeping like 20 hours a day, I had a fever for 5 days in a row, and I was coughing like crazy for like 10 days. All that and low blood ox levels is why they suggested I come in.

>I didn't feel like I was gasping for air, but I was concerned because low blood oxygen for that long is a sign of that you are recovering.

Meant:

I didn't feel like I was gasping for air, but I was concerned because low blood oxygen for that long is a sign of that you are *NOT* recovering.

I figured 94% wasn’t THAT bad and I never saw it lower than that.

I’m usually getting 95-96% now and chest congestion gradually clearing up.

Well done. Glad you're feeling better. Hope you can shake the lingering symptoms.

These symptoms are gone:Sore throat. Runny nose. Coughing. Chills and fever. Headache.

These remain:
Lowered voice (so, some inflammation is present in throat.)
Slight lightheadedness. (I still don't 'feel' back to normal.)
Paxlovid taste. (It's a very weak taste - it's not a Snapple - it's more like heavily diluted cucumber water.)

I never lost sense of taste or smell.

This bout has been *much* more mild than the first, but I have taken 3 days off work, and likely will work only half today.

I am still testing positive.

I won't update again unless something really goes wrong.

Mom, aunt, and uncle still show no symptoms - maybe they didn't catch it.

So I had a 4 day high elevation Yosemite backpacking trip planned starting on the 21st.
I had to bail out after 36 hours because I was feeling bad.

Video of the areas I was able to make it to: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ov6FxbqKJps

Tested today, I'm I'm positive as FUCK again. I had tested completely negative 3 times before, and one time I had the slightest of slight faintest - oh-so-faint lines.

So I'm positive again.

Sore throat is a 0.5 on a 1-10 scale, while runny nose would be a 2. No other symptoms.

I messaged my doctor, but it'll probably just be waiting around for this to clear.

I can go out wearing a mask if needed, but I'll just stay away from people unless there's some emergency.

Coworkers are starting to get hit with it. Luckily, we're remote 80% of the time so probably not as bad as it could be with spreads. Dusting off my trusty mask(never really stopped), setting up for the new elixir, and getting my people ready.

tldr: The CDC still needs to set the policy on who should be eligible, they might do that today.

FDA okays new coronavirus vaccine as respiratory illness season nears
https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2023/09/11/covid-vaccine-new-booster/

The Food and Drug Administration on Monday approved a reformulated coronavirus vaccine in a bid to provide increased protection ahead of cooler weather — even as the nation experiences a late-summer uptick of covid-19 cases and hospitalizations.

The shots, which target an omicron subvariant and were cleared for everyone 6 months and older, are manufactured by Moderna and by Pfizer and its German partner, BioNTech. If the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention signs off Tuesday, injections could be available in pharmacies, clinics and doctor’s offices by the end of the week.

The FDA decides who can get a shot, but it’s the CDC that recommends who should get it. That question has been vigorously debated by agency officials and its outside experts in recent days.

The CDC is leaning toward a broad recommendation that covers almost all ages, mirroring the FDA approach, according to federal officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly. But it is possible that some on the agency’s panel of outside experts, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, will push for a targeted recommendation focused on those at greatest risk — older Americans or people with weakened immune systems or other illnesses. The committee is scheduled to meet Tuesday on the matter and CDC Director Mandy Cohen is expected to weigh in shortly afterward, the final step in allowing the new shot to be administered.


... This is the first time the federal government is not buying all the coronavirus shots, meaning doctors, hospitals and pharmacies must order them directly. The shots will still be free for most Americans with private health insurance or coverage through Medicare or Medicaid, said Jennifer Kates, senior vice president and director of global health and HIV policy at KFF, a health policy nonprofit. The Biden administration also is taking steps to provide the shots without cost to people who don’t have insurance.

CDC recommends new COVID booster for all Americans over 6 months amid rising cases, hospitalizations
https://abcnews.go.com/Health/fda-approves-new-covid-booster-amid-rising-cases/story?id=103084102

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director signed off on the recommendation that all Americans aged 6 months and older receive the updated COVID booster on Tuesday amid rising cases and hospitalizations across the country.

It comes just a day after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration authorized and approved the new shot.

The boosters made by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna were formulated to target variants that are currently circulating, which are related to XBB – an offshoot of the omicron variant.

The advisory panel made the recommendation, which was then approved by director Dr. Mandy Cohen.

"Vaccination remains critical to public health and continued protection against serious consequences of COVID-19, including hospitalization and death," Dr. Peter Marks, director of the FDA's Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, said in a statement.

"The public can be assured that these updated vaccines have met the agency's rigorous scientific standards for safety, effectiveness, and manufacturing quality. We very much encourage those who are eligible to consider getting vaccinated," the statement continued.

The shots are expected to be available later this week as they are delivered to pharmacies and health care providers across the country, with likely meaningful supply starting next week.

Following the COVID booster approval, President Biden said "today marks another important milestone" and encouraged Americans to continue to stay updated on vaccinations.

"Today’s announcement also means that we now have immunizations for all three major seasonal respiratory viruses – COVID-19, flu, and RSV. Vaccination against COVID-19 remains the most important protection in avoiding hospitalization, long-term health complications and death. I encourage all Americans to stay up-to-date on their vaccines," Biden said.

-

Note: I checked the local CVS and they list it as :
Vaccine(s): COVID-19 2023-2024 (Pfizer)
Vaccine(s): COVID-19 2023-2024 (Moderna)

CVS says Saturday for booster availability. Rite-aid and Walgreens have not updated yet.

Florida surgeon general rejects FDA guidance, urges people under 65 not to get Covid booster

https://www.politico.com/news/2023/09/13/florida-surgeon-general-fda-covid-booster-00115781

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Gov. Ron DeSantis’ hand-picked surgeon general on Wednesday warned healthy adults under the age of 65 against taking a new Covid-19 booster, contradicting the Centers for Disease Control and Food and Drug Administration.

Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo, speaking during a roundtable that DeSantis hosted, said that after three years of Covid, most healthy people don’t need to worry about getting infected from a virus that has killed more than 1 million people across the country. Ladapo is a well-known vaccine skeptic who has claimed some shots pose risks to healthy young men.

“With the amount of immunity that’s in the community — with virtually every walking human being having some degree of immunity, and with the questions we have about safety and about effectiveness, especially about safety, my judgment is that it’s not a good decision for young people and for people who are not at high risk at this point in the pandemic,” he said.

Previous guidance by Ladapo about Covid-19 vaccine safety has been widely rejected by the medical community. Daniel Salmon, director of the Institute for Vaccine Safety at Johns Hopkins University, said Wednesday it appeared that Ladapo and the others at the roundtable were selectively highlighting data to show problems with the new boosters.

“In general, they’re cherry-picking data and facts and science,” Salmon said. “And I think that they’re there, because they don’t want to recommend this vaccine for Florida.”

(More at link, it's long)

--

CDC calls Florida's advice against new COVID booster 'dangerous'

https://abcnews.go.com/Health/florida-highest-number-us-counties-moderate-covid-hospitalization/story?id=103098937

The director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is responding after Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and the state's surgeon general advised against getting the new booster.

DeSantis advised against anyone under the age of 65 from receiving the shot while Dr. Joseph Ladapo claimed the federal government wasn't being safe about the risks.

CDC Director Dr. Mandy Cohen defended the new COVID-19 boosters as "proven safe" and "effective" and called the comments from DeSantis and Ladapo "dangerous."

"Vaccination against COVID-19 remains the safest protection for avoiding hospitalizations, long-term health challenges, and death," Cohen said in a statement. "As we head into the fall and winter seasons, it is important that Americans get the updated COVID-19 vaccine. They are proven safe; they are effective, and they have been thoroughly and independently reviewed by the FDA and CDC...Public health experts are in broad agreement about these facts, and efforts to undercut vaccine uptake are unfounded and dangerous."

(More at link, it's long)

Continues on to Friday, Friday night I'm having chills and bodyaches. By Saturday I'm coughing heavily, decided to get tested on Sunday and was indeed positive. Stayed my ass home, didn't go to school or work the whole week, tested myself again today and finally negative. All my symptoms are gone, just a slight cough but nothing crazy. This was much quicker and lighter than the first time around. First time around I was super sick and had to stay in bed for at least a week.

Started a new job working at a preschool and I'm sure I got it from one of the kids out there, I knew I shoulda got a booster before starting the job but I felt invincible. As soon as December rolls around (since they say you're immune at least 2-3 months after catching it) I'm getting that next booster and hopefully I'll be good until June.

COVID sucks - but it sucked less this time, it seems.

COVID levels are so high, they’re hovering near 2020’s initial peak, as the WHO urges those at high risk to take any booster they can get their hands on

https://fortune.com/well/2023/09/16/united-states-covid-levels-approach-first-pandemic-peak-2020-who-urges-vaccination-boosters-high-risk/

U.S. COVID infections are hovering near levels of the pandemic’s first peak in 2020, and approaching the Delta peak of late 2021, according to wastewater surveillance and modeling by forecasters.

It’s yet another sign that while the official pandemic state may be over, the days of COVID are far from it.

Viral wastewater levels are not far behind all of the pandemic’s 2020 peaks except for one—the initial peak of March 2020, which they’ve already surpassed. And they lag just slightly levels seen during the deadly Delta peak of late 2021, according to Biobot Analytics, which monitors such data for the federal government.

A forecast issued this week by Jay Weiland, a leading COVID modeler, came to the same conclusions. On Thursday, Weiland estimated that 650,000 Americans are becoming infected daily, with 1 in 51 Americans currently infected with COVID.

An additional 7% to 10% of the U.S. population will be infected over the next month and a half, Weiland predicted.

Both Biobot data and Wieland’s modeling show U.S. cases beginning to recede. But they may not fall much more, if any, before the anticipated fall and winter surge.

--
Hospitalization and death toll is still very low, but so many people are getting it now. I was *hoping* it'd be better

Local Walgreens had both Pfizer and Moderna shots available to my knowledge.

Outside of my arm being pretty sore last night, no side effects so far.

Hopefully my current streak of not contracting COVID since the start of the pandemic will still hold up. At least to my knowledge, I haven't contracted COVID.

Local Walgreens had both Pfizer and Moderna shots available to my knowledge.

Outside of my arm being pretty sore last night, no side effects so far.

Hopefully my current streak of not contracting COVID since the start of the pandemic will still hold up. At least to my knowledge, I haven't contracted COVID.

US households will be able to order more free Covid-19 tests starting Monday
https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/20/health/free-covid-tests-kits-us-government/index.html

The US government will relaunch a program to provide free Covid-19 home tests to Americans, US Department of Health and Human Services said Wednesday.

“We will once again begin our program to provide Americans with an opportunity to request tests,” HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra said during an event at a Washington CVS Pharmacy where he was vaccinated against Covid-19 and flu.

US households can order four free tests from Covidtests.gov starting September 25.

---
Anti-vaxxers loathe Dr. Peter Hotez. In his new book, he mourns their unnecessary deaths
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2023/09/19/peter-hotez-new-book-vaccines/70884219007/

Dr. Peter Hotez is no stranger to controversy.

A pediatric infectious disease specialist at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Hotez began taking on the anti-vaccine movement when his now-adult daughter was a child.

Activists blamed her autism and that of others on vaccines. Hotez, who develops vaccines for neglected tropical diseases, didn't buy it.

He took them on directly in his 2020 book "Vaccines Did Not Cause Rachel's Autism: My Journey as a Vaccine Scientist, Pediatrician, and Autism Dad."

In Rachel's case, Hotez showed that a rare genetic mutation caused her repetitive behaviors and communication difficulties. While not all autism can be explained by single genetic mutations, repeated studies over decades have shown no link between vaccinations and the later development of autism.

Now, the anti-vaccine movement has moved on from autism and so has Hotez.

In a new book, published today, Hotez describes the expansion of the anti-vaccine trend to COVID-19 vaccines, and now to scientific expertise more broadly.

In "The Deadly Rise of Anti-Science: A Scientist's Warning," Hotez outlines the parallels he sees between this push and the anti-intellectualism promoted during the Nazi and Stalin periods of the 20th century.

Hotez compares the mass murders under those authoritarian regimes to the at least 200,000 Americans who died after COVID-19 vaccines were introduced, but who refused to get protective shots because they had been convinced not to.

USA TODAY sat down with Hotez earlier this month to ask him to explain the anti-science shift he's documented and why he finds it so concerning. What follows is a lightly edited and condensed version of that conversation.

Question: You say medical misinformation isn't just "random junk" but organized disinformation intended to mislead people. Can you explain what you're seeing and why it's different now?
Answer: It's well-financed and it's politically motivated. It's a well-formed ecosystem. It's a killer movement and that's why it's important to talk about.

Now it's state-sanctioned. That's the game changer. It's fully enmeshed in American politics. It's a full-on adopted platform of political extremism.

The scale, the political organization, the state sanctioning and the level of death and destruction, that's what's different.

Who benefits? If they're really killing their supporters, that doesn't sound like a good long-term strategy.
Ultimately, it's self-defeating. But in the meantime, it's become an instrument for political control and oppression.

It's a rallying call for the base. It's a way of creating feelings of belonging and part of something bigger.

I don't care what your extreme beliefs are. That's your right as an American citizen. But somehow, we have to carve out the anti-science piece of this because it's killing too many Americans.

As a scientist, you say you are not comfortable being partisan, but clearly, there's one political party most closely associated with this effort. How do you balance that?
All of our training as scientists says we're supposed to be politically neutral. I don't want to talk about it either. But if it means saving lives, we're backed into a corner and really have to.

People are quick to blame Trump, but it began before him and accelerated more after he left.

Do you think the Biden administration could have responded better?
In April, May 2021, vaccination rates stalled. That's when they tried to push for mandates, thinking that was a way to jump-start it and that didn't go well. Then this became a political issue and the defiance started. Then, I just watched in horror as so many Americans especially here in Texas and other red states needlessly died.

If you go to East Texas, everyone you talk to has lost a loved one because they refused a COVID vaccine. That's where you start really seeing the devastation. That's a lethal societal force of enormous magnitude. But we don't explain it that way and that's where I sometimes get a little frustrated with the Biden administration.

How do you view people who believe this misinformation?
I see these individuals as victims of this far-right aggression.

If my car had broken down because of a flat tire and you gave me the choice to have that flat tire in Palo Alto, California, where Stanford (University) is located, or in East Texas, I'd pick East Texas. In Palo Alto, everybody would drive right by and in East Texas, people would be fighting over who would help you change your tire. These people are amazing people and they were targeted by political forces.

Do you see a way to restore public trust in vaccines?
In the past, there was an inherent auto-correction mechanism. When parents aren't vaccinating their kids, they see in their community kids hospitalized for measles and that will correct the situation.

This is not auto-correcting after 200,000 Americans needlessly perished.

What you're seeing instead is those politically motivated members of Congress and governors and presidential candidates are doubling down. Rather than pause for self-reflection, they're saying no, it wasn't COVID that killed Americans, it was the vaccine and by the way, the scientists invented the virus.

It's an attempt to revise history. This is what they do in authoritarian regimes.

I don't see this getting better at least until after the 2024 presidential election. The craziness just seems to be accelerating.

Why do you devote so much time and effort to this fight?
What part I planned in my life was to become a pediatric vaccine scientist. That was the plan 40 years ago. I'm making vaccines for parasitic infections and coronaviruses. I did it because I saw vaccines as the highest expression of science for humanity and I still believe that.

Now the flip side of that is you have anti-vaccine aggression. If you're going to save lives you also have to combat that as well, even though it's unpleasant.

Contact Karen Weintraub at kweintraub@usatoday.com.

Beginning September 25, every U.S. household can again place an order to receive four more free COVID-19 rapid tests delivered directly to their home.

https://www.covid.gov/tests

Note: California still has the law that says your health insurer must reimburse up to 8 tests a month until November 11, 2023. So if you're in California you can get 16 covered before the law expires.

--
This year's COVID vaccine rollout is off to a bumpy start, despite high demand

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2023/09/27/1202055493/covid-vaccine-booster-insurance-coverage

"The very nice pharmacist said, 'Yeah, we just don't have the supply. We're not getting enough in and we're still letting people schedule appointments,' " Kates says.
--

SARS-CoV-2 infects coronary arteries, increases plaque inflammation
https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/sars-cov-2-infects-coronary-arteries-increases-plaque-inflammation

SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, can directly infect the arteries of the heart and cause the fatty plaque inside arteries to become highly inflamed, increasing the risk of heart attack and stroke, according to a study funded by the National Institutes of Health. The findings(link is external), published in the journal Nature Cardiovascular Research, may help explain why certain people who get COVID-19 have a greater chance of developing cardiovascular disease, or if they already have it, develop more heart-related complications.

In the study, researchers focused on older people with fatty buildup, known as atherosclerotic plaque, who died from COVID-19. However, because the researchers found the virus infects and replicates in the arteries no matter the levels of plaque, the findings could have broader implications for anybody who gets COVID-19.

“Since the early days of the pandemic, we have known that people who had COVID-19 have an increased risk for cardiovascular disease or stroke up to one year after infection,” said Michelle Olive, Ph.D., acting associate director of the Basic and Early Translational Research Program at the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), part of NIH. “We believe we have uncovered one of the reasons why.”

Side effects of this one hammered me a bit harder than the previous ones, but maybe that's because I combined it with the flu shot. As I've said above or elsewhere or something, I've got two separate jobs with high volumes of kids coughing in my face all day and felt pretty lucky to dodge a streak of COVID that hit both students and faculty pretty hard before my appointment came around. I'm getting a little too old to feel as dogshit as the one symptomatic case of COVID I caught made me feel, and I'm way too possessive of my syllabus to punt on multiple days missing from work.

How many have you had? Do you have NO worry about long-term effects of doing this over and over? It is unprecedented, yea? Are you that confident of its prophylactic powers? There are a lot of MDs who aren't boosting themselves. I got the two moderna shots I needed to keep working (and eat in restaurants) and have zero interest in another shot.

I had COVID before the vaccine. Some very bad nerve pain from neck down left arm for a month and a half after. Each moderna shot brought back the nervey feeling (far less painful and shorter duration). I think there is reason to be skeptical. Feeling "hammered" by a booster...I say no thanks.

We all gotta make our own decisions, I'm not trying this to persuade anyone, just wanted to register my experience to provide some balance to the thread. Who benefits from boosters? The people? Maybe, maybe not. But they are essentially subsidies for big pharma at this point, no?

Also..it is odd to me that no one cares that Fauci lied from the start....to protect his ass. And the ass of big science/big pharma/big vaccine. The ostensible goal of the GoF research that created the pandemic was vaccine creation. Now the same groups are promoting infinite re-ups on vaccines. This doesn't seem...a little fishy to anyone? These people have loved selling Americans medicines far before the pandemic

I have a job that puts me at risk of getting it but I love it and don't like missing work. The side effects of each additional round were pretty unpleasant for an afternoon, so while it's not fun, I'm alright with it. Definitely easier and shorter than COVID symptoms.

I've consulted my doctor, as well as an old friend who is presently works in infectious diseases for the VA, and a slightly newer (but still known him about a decade) friend who worked on the vaccine approval process for the FDA. They all told me it was safe, effective, and they have stayed updated through all the different rounds.

aint trying to tell anyone how to live. for me, given my symptom with covid and the vaccines, i'm steering clear. i think it is definitely possible that repeated boosters are putting wear and tear places unnecessarily.

fwiw, i'm healthy, very active. i am not worried about covid. the unknown of all this...if other people want to go down the infinite boost route, great...i'll watch with interest how it goes for them.

this is worth watching. Paul Offit with Vincent Racaniello:

Beyond the Noise #17: Does Everyone Need a Yearly Covid Booster?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QdXwIAt7214


btw Racaniello (TwiV podcast host) is head-in-the-sand, or intentionally misinforming people, on the question of covid's origin. i point this out to say...i'm no fan of his there, but i find the video i linked worthwhile.

flu shot. Before Covid I would get a flu shot each year as recommended by my doctor. This isn’t much different.

Why would anybody listen to you over people who spent years studying medicine?

Why are you in this post spreading misinformation?

is it misinformation? how come doctors i talk to aren't boosting themselves or their families? hmm

>It is unprecedented, yea?

thanks

that was the beginning of this year during a routine visit and the last booster was early in the year before. I think I've had 2 boosters, and wasnt really averse to getting another one until he said that. I can't remember how he worded it, it was some variation of uncertainty. I was kinda taken back a bit, not saying he's the end-all, or even right but he's been my doc for a while and im happy with him. I kinda chalked it up that it wasn't worth it for *me* than a don't trust pharma thing.

once I finally got covid a few months ago, it was so mild I don't see any reason to get a shot against it, especially if it's not gonna keep me from catching it. had it been worse or if new variants drop that are worse, I may change course but for now I'm done.

my mom gets all her boosters, as well as some of my people who are immunocompromised. I'm glad they do.

among people ive talked to is don't get boosted if you're a healthy person. myocarditis and other 'hard-to-say-what' risks are real. people are varying degrees of concerned here. almost no one is concerned about covid, not really. it is "known"...unprecedented schedule of brand new vaccines...not known what this may do.

sorry to break it to all the people in here in love with the idea that the world is a very simple place. one thing to keep in mind is there is a) public health policy and b) you and your loved ones health policy. these aint always gonna line up perfectly.

covid vaccine

like i said above, a person making this decision has to think of the individuals getting the booster. me? no, i don't think i am more likely to get myocarditis from catching covid? i am in very good shape, take care of myself, etc.

an obese sedentary person? boost away probably

but if i walk into CVS tmw for a booster...i'm exposing myself to some amount of risk.

we also don't have a power meter to reference on our 'readiness to mount a good immune response'. we could be boosting when our natural immunity would be just fine.

okp will be happy to know that i have not gaf about covid precautions (except for not wanting to infect other people) pretty much from the jump and i am doing just fine. had it once nov 2020. if i got it again, haven't noticed.

https://www.heart.org/en/news/2022/08/22/covid-19-infection-poses-higher-risk-for-myocarditis-than-vaccines#:~:text=COVID%2D19%20infection%20poses%20higher%20risk%20for%20myocarditis%20than%20vaccines,-By%20American%20Heart&text=The%20overall%20risk%20of%20myocarditis,new%20study%20in%20England%20shows.

tried to be precise with my wording, apologies if it is tedious reading:

the problem with the article you linked and the study it references is that it doesn't account for the time period we are now in re: boosters or repeated infections with covid. the whole study takes place between dec 1, 2020 and dec 15, 2021. the maximum number of vaccine shots is 3. the maximum number of covid infections is not clear (partly because it is essentially impossible to account for how many times a person has had covid). obviously, time has moved on since then and people's exposure to covid infection and vaccines have not stayed static. so extrapolating the results of this study into the present (or future) is problematic.

say a person has now had 2 mild cases of covid and 3 vaccine shots. this person, (because natural immunity appears to accrue with repeated exposures to covid) is not in the same immunity position as they were in 2019 (zero covid, zero vaccine shots) or that they were in november 2020 (possibly covid, zero vaccine shots). I think you see the point. A person's immune system's readiness to fend off covid is not an easy thing to determine. So, I'd argue, as time goes on and people have more exposure to covid + more vaccines, the likelihood that covid exposure will result in myocarditis is likely to wane. But if the booster vaccines are still consistently producing the same rates of myocarditis (at, say, vaccine shot 6), then the calculus begins to shift on which (covid infection vs vaccine) is more likely to cause myocarditis. if it IS the case that myocarditis rates from vaccines stays consistent with each shot (this is not fully clear), it can be argued that the boosters are over-powered and might take a toll on the body that is greater than that which would have been exacted by becoming infected at this point.

--

fyi, I'm not a completely disinterested observer here. I've described my nerve issues after having covid pre-vaccine in nov 2020 and then experiencing similar nerve pain after each dose of the original Moderna vaccine.

well, my mother now has a pacemaker. she had covid post-vaccination and it was essentially a mild-moderate cold for her. after the bivalent booster she was really laid low for over a week, and a couple months later almost died, as her heart almost completely stopped beating. completely healthy heart muscle but for some reason the electrical signal regulating her heartbeat started to fade. my dad found her and couldnt get her in the car to take her to the hospital. called an ambulance. two young paramedics arrived and were out of their depths about what to do, they called a more experienced paramedic who was able to revive her with adrenaline. she was then heli-vac'd to a regional hospital and had surgery to install a pacemaker.

whether my mother's illness was due to the booster shot can't be known for certain. but there is no family history of this sort of thing. she mountain bikes, hikes, works on her feet all day--in short, is very fit and active for a woman her age. and then her heart almost completely stopped beating and she almost died.

and the nerve pain i experienced started in the left side of my neck (near the brain-stem) and radiated through my (very painful) armpit all the way down to my left hand. this was a month of excruciatingly sharp nerve pain exploding in that left side when i moved in certain ways. kind of came in waves. i thought at first i pinched a nerve in my neck but after i experienced similar (but lesser) pain after each dose of the Moderna vaccine, I feel fairly confident it was covid-related.

it seems possible that a similar nerve-related symptom of covid/vaccine may have affected my mom's heartbeat. we do share 50% of our genes, after all. to this end, I think monitoring one's heart-rate before and after boosters/covid infection is a worthwhile thing to do. i commended Handle on his detailed logging of his symptoms this last time he was infected with covid and suggested that he might be interested in tracking his heartrate variability (HRV) as well. there are some studies suggesting that long covid symptoms involve a reduction in HRV (greater HRV is indicative of greater health).

--

so when people talk about being "laid low" or "hammered" by a booster, I wonder what, in fact, this booster is doing to their body--and whether exposure to covid itself would have "hammered" their body as hard. ok, the wild virus in summer of 2020, that's one thing. but remember we are talking about a population where the median person has a) already been infected by covid at least once b) has had both rounds of the initial vaccine. so this person's immune system is not covid-naive. they will have have developed some degree of natural immunity (from infection) and immunity from the vaccines. the combination of these immunity factors is called "hybrid immunity".

so the question is whether it would have been better for my mom to roll with her hybrid immunity (from having had 3 covid-immunity-building exposures) rather than get the bivalent booster. it seems highly possible that that booster caused her immune system to attack her body in ways that another exposure to covid (through breathing in someone's cough droplets, etc) would not have. this is all speculation, of course, but my mom almost died, so I think you will understand why I am interested in understanding why.

--

paul offit: https://pauloffit.substack.com/p/does-everyone-need-a-yearly-covid?utm_source=profile&utm_medium=reader2

re: long-lasting immunity from first two vaccine doses + likely infection with covid itself. the following quote also touches on something several people have brought up in this thread re: equating covid boosters with annual flu shots. it is a mistake to equate repeated covid booster vaccines to the yearly flu shot as each flu shot is designed to protect against a new, specific strain of the flu for which people have developed no prior immunity (because each time the flu comes around it has mutated significantly enough that last year's exposure does not confer much, if any, immunity)--this is not the case with covid--it's protein structure has remained relatively stable, meaning t cells developed from prior exposure and prior vaccines are protective against subsequent exposures to the virus.

QUOTE:
"The CDC is now arguing that, given the continued evolution of SARS-CoV-2, we should offer a yearly Covid vaccine in a manner analogous to the influenza vaccine. SARS-CoV-2, however, isn’t influenza. Every year, FDA advisors pick strains to include in the yearly influenza vaccine. If they’re wrong, which has happened three times in the past twenty years, protective efficacy against severe disease can fall below 20 percent. In other words, pick the wrong influenza strain and you’re in trouble. That’s not true for SARS-CoV-2. Healthy young people who have been vaccinated against SARS-CoV-2 with the original vaccine remain protected against severe disease because the parts of these new variants that are recognized by T cells have remained relatively unchanged. T cells, which are long-lived and kill virus-infected cells, are critical in protecting against severe COVID. By likening SARS-CoV-2 to influenza, we have created the false perception that healthy young people who have already been vaccinated or naturally infected or both will be protected against severe disease only if they receive the updated vaccine."

--

I welcome anyone who disagrees with me to point out where I'm wrong. I think it is possible that myocarditis risk with vaccines wanes as hybrid immunity builds up over time. But part of my thinking is why expose myself intentionally to a risk (via a booster) when I haven't (knowingly) experienced a single symptom from covid infection since I first got it in Nov 2020.

Not saying all my thinking is rock solid here, but there it is.

but if boosters don't offer much in the way of stopping transmission, but greater protection against severe symptoms, I wonder if that would include decreasing the risk of myocarditis, or if it's more of a (very rare) side effect either way.

that would change risk level. Factors like age, co-morbidity, family or others you are in close contact with having elevated risk, the impact of past boosters and whether or not you saw symptoms, your own experience with getting Covid if you’ve had it, the current variants that are out and how bad they are, how much exposure you have with others who might be infected but don’t care because their symptoms are low, etc.

Many of these factors are exactly the same for the flu vaccine. I get that show every year because my parents are in their 70s and I see them often, and don’t want to get sick. Some years the flu strain is worse than others, and doctors will more heavily recommend it. I’ve been used to that for years before Covid. There were also some years where the flu shot got me sick, but I was willing to deal with that since it typically would be way less sick than if I’d gotten that year’s flu, and again I don’t want to expose my parents. I really see the Covid vaccine and variants as very similar, and I adjust the timing of when and if I get new vaccines/boosters similarly. I have to go to a conference for work next month, and there’s a new vaccine out so I’m getting that Covid vaccine next week.

Again it’s a personal decision. But the issue with fif in this post is he seems confused about other people’s level of risk like he has to convince them otherwise. That makes no sense to me.

>Again it’s a personal decision. But the issue with fif in
>this post is he seems confused about other people’s level of
>risk like he has to convince them otherwise. That makes no
>sense to me.

well maybe it doesn't make sense because i'm not saying that. /sigh.

me in this thread:

"We all gotta make our own decisions, I'm not trying this to persuade anyone, just wanted to register my experience to provide some balance to the thread."

...

"fair enough, like i said, aint trying to tell anyone how to live."

...

"if other people want to go down the infinite boost route, great...i'll watch with interest how it goes for them."

...

"don't listen to me then"

...

"one thing to keep in mind is there is a) public health policy and b) you and your loved ones health policy. these aint always gonna line up perfectly."

all good, no aggro

is that it's more about keeping you from getting the flu, where the covid shot is more about reducing severe illness and hospitalization.

the first covid vaccines seemed more about lets kill the spread and go towards at least something at least resembling herd immunity. alot of the messaging tended to be that if you got the shot, you weren't gonna get it. to the point that vaxxed people getting covid were referred to as 'breakthrough' cases.
i was certainly on board with it and felt anyone not getting it was just being selfish. i think between poor messaging and variants, that all died out, and it became about lets not overload the healhtcare system.

but now i think outside of hospitals being overloaded its about what works best for you

>that was the beginning of this year during a routine visit
>and the last booster was early in the year before. I think
>I've had 2 boosters, and wasnt really averse to getting
>another one until he said that. I can't remember how he worded
>it, it was some variation of uncertainty. I was kinda taken
>back a bit, not saying he's the end-all, or even right but
>he's been my doc for a while and im happy with him. I kinda
>chalked it up that it wasn't worth it for *me* than a don't
>trust pharma thing.

What was his reasoning?
Would it cause you harm?
Is there a downside that out weights the benefit? (And what are the downsides?)

I'm assuming he's not an infectious disease doctor, so I'm *actually* curious as to his reasoning to recommend skipping it over the recommendations from infectious disease doctors at the NIH, the CDC, the World Health Organization, etc.?

Was it "It *probably* won't help much so why not skip it?"

Or did he give more of a reason? Like: Studies show it is ineffective? Studies showing damaging on people?

>once I finally got covid a few months ago, it was so mild I don't see any reason to get a shot against it, especially if it's not gonna keep me from catching it. had it been worse or if new variants drop that are worse, I may change course but for now I'm done.

So *there are* studies showing that boosters do help protect against severe COVID. And it can prevent you from catching COVID in the weeks to two month timeframe.

I am guessing you just feel like you'll be okay - because bad things didn't happen last time so the won't happen next time either.

And contrary to what some people are posting in this thread "otherwise healthy" people do in fact die of COVID, some estimates saying up to 10% of deaths occurred in "healthy"people. I know the common thnking is "the old, the weak, and the lazy and fat die, but not you, and no kids either!!"

I know when *I* got COVID this time it *felt* much more like the flu, but there are studies emerging showing it has much wider effects than people realize.

Study 1: https://www.science.org/content/article/months-after-hospitalization-covid-19-mris-reveal-multiorgan-damage (This was on unvaccinated people early on)

Study 2: https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/covid-19/1-4-covid-survivors-had-impaired-lung-function-1-year-study-shows

Study 3: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/07/well/live/covids-heart-health.html


I'd *sincerely* like to hear his reasoning.

EDIT:I promise I'm not trying to bait you, or be a jerk (But, I will be doing that to other folks in this thread shortly.)

when you know the answer lol. but no he's my primary.

by that measure, he's a physician and you're a guy on the internet.

i hadn't been to the doctor in over 2 yeras so this was a 10 second moment in a 25 minute conversation about everything. and while it caught me off guard a bit (mainly because doctors are always like, get your X shots), it wasn't something i was concerned about, because i wasn't sure if i wanted any more anyway. But i'm sorry i don't remember exactly how it was worded, and what i said earlier was the extent of my memory. i legit wish i did but it was some form of uncertainty.
and if it was something i felt more strongly about, i'd have gotten the shot anyway. but i did get a flu shot

and you can cite all the studies you want, the ship that these shots can help you not catch covid has sailed. even if it *does* offer some protection, its not enough for people to notice... so it's look at this study vs. every vaccinated person i know caught covid anyway.

so no, i'm not worried about dying of covid, but if i do i'll let ya know

>when you know the answer lol. but no he's my primary.

I wasn't needling you, we have doctors who *are both* PCPs (internal medicine) and Infectious Disease specialists where I work.

>so no, i'm not worried about dying of covid, but if i do i'll
>let ya know

Reasons I hear you aren't getting boosted now:
* Unless vaccine is sterilizing and/or prevents infection longer than this vaccine does then it's not worth it. (Or at least not worth it at this time.)

* Not worried any more due to previous infection experience.

* Scientific studies don't reflect personal experience.

I'm just a guy on the internet, but I think the reasons you gave don't change *my personal* view on the vaccines yet, but I'll bet many people are thinking the same way you are.

This does seem like a public health messaging challenge for the government, because it seems like I'm hearing here from you (and others) that even if vaccines do provide some protection that unless it's nearly 100% effective for a longer period of time that it seems not very urgent to most people right now.

and the flu shot is nowhere near 100% effective. i haven't had a flu in 20 years. i have no idea if the shot helped me, but i still usually get it. also probably helps that i never have reactions to it.

it's not that covid boosters are "not near "100% effective against transmission", but saying it can be preventative for a few weeks doesn't make it at all worth it for me, and yes personal experience factors, as well as those around me, and those around them for me to brush it off, like we're all wrong because, studies show X, and the science says we just got lucky 2 of us should be dead.

there are also treatment options that you mentioned, and even recommended to me in this post. if i was sicker, or was concerned i'd have considered it, but tbh the less medicine I have to put in my body the better

and yes the messaging has been pretty bad overall. which sucks because the vaccines did save countless lives., and probably so many more had some been better at communication.
and i also get that they're up against trumpism, social media, chasing a moving target, etc..
i *also* get the instinct to not want to say things that sound like parroting aaron rodgers or russel brand, but even with all that said, i don't think people's general lack of trust in of govt and drug companies is all that unreasonable, or to weigh their own personal experience against 'shut up and trust the science'.

but i'm just rambling at this point lol

>and the flu shot is nowhere near 100% effective. i haven't
>had a flu in 20 years. i have no idea if the shot helped me,
>but i still usually get it. also probably helps that i never
>have reactions to it.

I mean the flu vaccine is nowhere near 100% effective. - we've had years were it's been less than 15% effective and years where it was UP TO 55% effective. The 15% is when they pick the "wrong strains" and the 55% is when they pick "the right ones."

Links: https://www.cdc.gov/flu/vaccines-work/past-seasons-estimates.html

https://www.cdc.gov/flu/vaccines-work/vaccineeffect.htm#:~:text=While%20vaccine%20effectiveness%20(VE)%20can,used%20to%20make%20flu%20vaccines.

Also there's way, WAY, more COVID going around than flu and it's likely that the FLU vaccine numbers would be even less effective if it had the same prevalence in the population. The last estimate I heard is that there are 750,000 COIVD infections a day in the U.S. right now -- think between 120 million and 270 million cases this year, whereas in 2017 (the highest flu season in the last 10 years) there were only 91 million flu infections, much less than COVID.

You are somewhere between 50% to 300% more likely to run into someone with COVID than the FLU - and COVID is much more contagious than the flu is too. And the infectious period for the flu starts around the same time you show symptoms (or maybe a day before in some cases) - whereas COVID can spread days, 3 or 4, before symptoms start. (Thank GOD I didn't spread it to my mother.)

>there are also treatment options that you mentioned, and even
>recommended to me in this post. if i was sicker, or was
>concerned i'd have considered it,

Well the medicines work now, but every mutation has the risk of making some ineffective. I'm hoping more come on the market soon.

>but tbh the less medicine I have to put in my body the better

I guess I don't equate a vaccine to a medicinal compound.
Emoji shrugging.
This isn't something you take everyday that might have a negative effect. (And there are medicines where taking them daily for decades causes no damage and only has benefit.)

>and yes the messaging has been pretty bad overall. which sucks
>because the vaccines did save countless lives., and probably
>so many more had some been better at communication.

Well, I think the current *disinformation campaigns* would have worked no matter the message - the "just asking questions" and seizing on *any* change by calling people a liar, or nebulously blaming "big pharma" can be done effectively by the "self educating" and the paid by political donors specifically and cynically.

It's amazing when you have almost no information at the start how much messaging can change as things are discovered or the initial situation changes. (See also Benghazi.)


>and i also get that they're up against trumpism, social media,
>chasing a moving target, etc..
>i *also* get the instinct to not want to say things that sound
>like parroting aaron rodgers or russel brand, but even with
>all that said, i don't think people's general lack of trust in
>of govt and drug companies is all that unreasonable, or to
>weigh their own personal experience against 'shut up and trust
>the science'.

Well if someone can trust Aaron Rogers and/or Russel Brand I can't see how they could *possibly* trust any information from the government unless it's Aaron Rogers or Trump. I think there's a good 30% of the population that are this way, and telling them shut up and fuck off , IMHO, is the best public health strategy.


>but i'm just rambling at this point lol

Let's hope you don't get the flu, or COVID, or RSV this season. If I get any of those again I'm going to be very sad.

>Well if someone can trust Aaron Rogers and/or Russel Brand I
>can't see how they could *possibly* trust any information from
>the government unless it's Aaron Rogers or Trump. I think
>there's a good 30% of the population that are this way, and
>telling them shut up and fuck off , IMHO, is the best public
>health strategy.

Yeah, that's not really what i'm saying. I'm not talking about somone who trusts everything Aaron Rodgers is saying... it's not even saying "hey this RFK guy is weird but he makes some good points"
its more the instinct of not wanting to express any skepticism of big pharma or possible effects from a novel vaccine out of being lumped in with being one of the 'bad people'
so you'll get things like "stop spreading misinformation with your 'just asking questions' bullshit"
i understand the instinct to pounce, esp since there's no shortage of people pretending that they're just asking questions, but overall, i just find it counterproductive.
Not all people (most people, really) aren't dug in culture warriors. but because of the noise they don't find it worth it to publicly engage in these topics.

but since you're in here making people question their doctors for not believing exactly what you believe about medicine, i think it's justified to dispense some.

you work in a hospital and then come home and are quite obsessed about health-related topics. you just got covid and are still typing. now you're gonna be sad if you get the flu.

my advice is you talk to a therapist about this stuff.


>Let's hope you don't get the flu, or COVID, or RSV this
>season. If I get any of those again I'm going to be very sad.

Your "I do research" and then not knowing BASIC facts around myocarditis risk is incredibly stupid. You are a fool.
.

who said recently in this thread they haven't had covid.

no covid = no risk of myocarditis risk from covid

a round of a vaccine = some myocarditis risk.

an never-ending series of vaccines = some myocarditis risk each time.

show me the research you are looking at. i talk to people in medicine. none of them are as worried as you. you are a hypochondriac. i don't think people should listen to your advice about covid. your concern is excessive and you are incapable of looking at things objectively

that Handle is COVID cautious? It is getting borderline creepy.


Every accusation/critique/whatever you throw at him can go back at you.

You are in here questioning him, "trying to provide balance" (LOL!), etc.

Telling him to get therapy.

Dog, maybe you should see a therapist about why Handle's COVID practices are on your mind so much.


What's worse is the motivation. Handle is trying to be safe and keep others safe. Even if you think he's overdoing it, he means well.

You are in there thinking you are the Elon Musk of this joint speaking for a silent majority that doesn't exist.

In other words, you're just in here being an asshole.

>who said recently in this thread they haven't had covid.
>
>no covid = no risk of myocarditis risk from covid
>
>a round of a vaccine = some myocarditis risk.
>
>an never-ending series of vaccines = some myocarditis risk
>each time.


Yeah, you haven't thought this through.

Obviously, myocarditis is not the only risk of actual COVID so your argument is complete bullshit.

COVID has other risks- especially for certain groups.

It is also a novel virus and we don't know the long-term implications.


For instance, a lot of research these days that EBV infections can lead to all kinds of serious complications, chronic illness, autoimmune disorders, etc.


As someone who found out a few years ago that he has one of those illnesses, lets me break it down for you and your future therapist-

1. When you get a diagnosis that changes your life, you tend to look at the entire medical industry very differently. You go from "meh I'm healthy I don't need a flu shot" to "maybe this new drug will help stop this illness I have and I guess I should trust my doctors"....in other words sometimes life forces you to throw that tough-guy/just asking questions shit out the window.

2. Sometimes the risks of a medicine is scary as shit- but not as scary as not taking it. Given all the potential complications of an actual COVID infection, the very, extremely minor risks of the vaccine are clearly worth it to a lot of people. Especially those high risk. Especially those who actually know shit about myocarditis beyond it being a scary word on twitter.

3. You might not want to tempt fate with a novel virus. If I recall, you believe or are at least very open to the idea that this thing was created in a lab. Weird that you are also so dismissive of anyone concerned about catching an experimental virus.

The math isn't mathing.

4. If you can avoid any virus that hangs out in your blood vessels, nervous system, etc...best be safe and do that.

5. Family doctors are not specialists. So if someone says "my Doc says don't sweat the vax" it is very reasonable to know more about said Dr's background. Because Drs are absolutely capable of being political, opinionated, and assholes. Like the family dr who told my elderly parents- both high risk heart patients- to take their masks off during a visit at the height of this shit and before vaccines or treatments.

It is okay to question doctors sometimes. Someone had to graduate at the bottom of these classes.


>
>show me the research you are looking at. i talk to people in
>medicine. none of them are as worried as you.

Ohhh slick burn. He's already said he works in medicine or around it.

And we all "know people in medicine" they are called doctors. So Handle can't question someone's doctor, but you can?


Maybe he's high risk. Maybe a family member is high risk. Maybe he just doesn't want to get COVID infections over and over again.


you are a
>hypochondriac.


Maybe he is. Maybe he isn't. But why does it bother you so much?

i don't think people should listen to your
>advice about covid. your concern is excessive and you are
>incapable of looking at things objectively
>

Get up and go look in a fucking mirror. You are the exact same- expect your motivation is unclear at best and completely fucked up at worst.


I've gone back and forth with Handle on plenty of topics. Blue Maga. How this administration ultimately fucked up their COVID response. Etc.

Hell, you want to fight it out with him over the lab leak stuff start a new thread and go for it.


But this shit in here about this COVID concern, etc is fucking weirdo behavior. If you don't like it, stay out of the fucking thread.

Plenty of people clearly appreciate the updates. Most of us are just trying to read his updates.

Go pop a Vitamin C and a Zinc and open a new thread or some shit. Enough with the weirdo behavior. Its officially gotten old.

>that Handle is COVID cautious? It is getting borderline
>creepy.

well first, i think it is good that people are now talking about the pros and cons of boosting in this thread. NOT because I think they should all arrive at the same decision I have, but because it is good for people to be aware that there IS a debate to be had about boosters. So when I say I'm bringing balance, this is what I mean. It's not I'm right, he's wrong--it's that he is wrong to act like his viewpoint is holy writ and everyone else is unscientific/foolish/a conspiracy nut.

That is probably what bothers me most about him. It's 'his way or the highway' on many topics. And he goes to ad hominem attacks very quickly against people who disagree with him while never engaging on the substance.

So yea, he personally attacks me, and I tell him I think he's a bit not right in the head. Maybe that's low of me but...he brings it to that level regularly.

Ok, fair enough, start my own thread on covid origins, maybe I will. But scroll up and see how he completely mischaracterizes my position (in a way btw that seems to imply I hold my beliefs for racist reasons), and refuses to engage with the facts. This is his m.o. for many topics and I think should make people very wary of following him on covid topics, he doesn't engage with view opposing his, and, I think, is displaying cult-like thinking and behavior in this thread (and others).



>What's worse is the motivation. Handle is trying to be safe
>and keep others safe. Even if you think he's overdoing it, he
>means well.

I think there is a non-zero chance that the current regime of covid boosters will be something SOME people regret doing in the future.

"Some people" is important here, right. I am not telling anyone what to do re: covid vaccines. I'm not telling no one to get them. You discuss your EBV and reasons why you remain concerned about covid. These are good reasons. Some people have good reasons to remain cautions. Other people have good reasons for not being as concerned. It all comes down to the individual and their situation.


>You are in there thinking you are the Elon Musk of this joint
>speaking for a silent majority that doesn't exist.

Hm, not everyone who reads this thread posts in it. Consider this: a while back I made a poll in GD asking: covid origin: lab leak or natural origin? Okps who voted, voted 'lab leak' by a good majority. But you wouldn't think that is what okp would vote based on the discussion of covid origins in this thread (and in others). I've been pretty much the only one defending the lab leak position, meanwhile, it appears, a "silent majority" believes it came from a lab leak.


>Obviously, myocarditis is not the only risk of actual COVID so
>your argument is complete bullshit.
>
>COVID has other risks- especially for certain groups.
>
>It is also a novel virus and we don't know the long-term
>implications.

we also don't know much about natural immunity, "hybrid immunity" and so on. there are reasons to believe that most people don't need another boost at this point. there are reasons why people might want that boost.

the point is this is a debate that scientists are having. for okp to act like there is only one side and that side's champion is Handle, who must not be questioned is ridiculous. And so I throw in my two cents. The people I trust on this don't think about it anything like Handle and I know that they are much more qualified (and generally reasonable) people than Handle. So I pipe up.


>It is okay to question doctors sometimes. Someone had to
>graduate at the bottom of these classes.

right, and you don't have to believe me, but I talk to people who...let's just say... didn't graduate at the bottom of their classes.


>Maybe he's high risk. Maybe a family member is high risk.
>Maybe he just doesn't want to get COVID infections over and
>over again.

to your EBV and any high risk people, I'm not making recommendations. Show me where. I asked Walleye...who I think runs around a lot etc...why he got the boost, he explained his reasoning, I said fair enough. And have caveated that people need to make their own decisions throughout this thread.



>
>
>you are a
>>hypochondriac.
>
>
>Maybe he is. Maybe he isn't. But why does it bother you so
>much?
>

I don't like that he peddles fear. he projects his fear, thinks he's super-rational about this one topic, uses ad hominem to discredit people who disagree with him and strikes me as a generally unbalanced person--not the kind of guy to lend an ear to on important topics. Also, he shows no evolution in his thinking. Has he ever been wrong about anything? You show him he is wrong and he can't admit it. All this bothers me enough that I feel it's worth pointing out.

>Get up and go look in a fucking mirror. You are the exact
>same- expect your motivation is unclear at best and completely
>fucked up at worst.

disagree. i'm disagreeing with an advice dispensing vending machine. but I'm not telling anyone what to do.

>But this shit in here about this COVID concern, etc is fucking
>weirdo behavior. If you don't like it, stay out of the
>fucking thread.

testy testy. i think this is good that we are discussing this. you disagree and want me to shutup, ok. i will bear in mind the good people get out of this and try not to jam that up for them.

>
>Plenty of people clearly appreciate the updates. Most of us
>are just trying to read his updates.
>
>Go pop a Vitamin C and a Zinc and open a new thread or some
>shit. Enough with the weirdo behavior. Its officially gotten
>old.
>


sometimes i get nauseated when i take zinc but other times i do not. i don't really know why. take it once in a while cuz why not. good for testosterone im told

- and you're a target now too.

He claims to either know "the real info" or not know if the best estimate or established facts are "real" so he has to question them.

Plus he's pulling a BUNCH of creeper "Don't you think this important??" question pattern we've seen from the fools in the Ukraine threads or the "anti-sex kidnapping movie is the only movie worth talking about" posts.

Notice how SO condensing he is when questioned, and always how poorly his reasoning is backing it up?

He claims this virus was funded by by Facui by Chinese weapons designers *AND also that you shouldn't be worried about it.*

Also he claims "the general consensus" is one thing when in fact it is not. He provides no evidence, just more "questions" or lies.

(Maybe his best friend is that one dentist who recommends sugar FILLED gum - who knows??)

>Hell, you want to fight it out with him over the lab leak stuff start a new thread and go for it.

Note: He's tried that and the post dropped like a true philosopher once described "a brick parachute."


This thread contains updates I find come from generally reliable sources and looking back here and the previous thread they haven't gotten everything right but I don't think they've been playing the same games as this guy.

And I did ask a follow-up when I heard a doctor didn't recommend the booster - *I sincerely* wanted to know the reasoning. There wasn't any reasoning given by the doctor, but I don't doubt the doctor said it. (I know the yearly visit can be overwhelming and there's so much going on you can lose track. I *always* bring notes and take notes at a doctor and I'll often message after if I'm still confused, but working with patients in the past I know that rarely ever happens.)

For the record I work in IT and not directly with doctors or patients in the clinic, but we do have a culture of following the latest developments around COVID, the flu, hepatitis, M-POX, ETC.

And as I've said before my Uncle's hobby was also downplaying the seriousness of COVID - and he died a HORRIBLE death with covid that took 6 weeks, I am sure it was pure torture.

.

Both my wife and I have some shoulder soreness and so it goes. Haven't had covid yet as far as I know. Hope to keep it that way through this year and beyond.

>Both my wife and I have some shoulder soreness and so it
>goes. Haven't had covid yet as far as I know. Hope to keep it
>that way through this year and beyond.

My mother got the booster last Thursday and reported no soreness or fatigue too. (I just had COVID, so I'll wait 2-3 months for the booster unless guidance changes.)

I hope you don't get COVID, looks like maybe more than 70% of the U.S. tested had caught it at some point.

https://epi.ufl.edu/files/2023/06/Coversation_Covid-Antibodies_3-680x237.png

The Updated COVID Vaccine Is Here: 10 Things to Know

https://www.yalemedicine.org/news/updated-covid-vaccine-10-things-to-know


Nice little summary.

---
Novavax updated Covid vaccine wins FDA, CDC backing, paving way to reach Americans within days

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/10/03/fda-approves-novavax-updated-covid-vaccine.html

Health officials see Novavax’s protein-based vaccine as a valuable alternative for people who don’t want to take messenger RNA shots from Pfizer and Moderna.

What’s Happening With Your COVID Booster? (with CDC Director Dr. Mandy Cohen)

https://www.iheart.com/podcast/269-in-the-bubble-with-andy-sl-60477304/
-or-
https://omny.fm/shows/in-the-bubble/what-s-happening-with-your-covid-booster-with-cdc

Synopsis: CDC Director Dr. Mandy Cohen sits down with Andy to answer your most pressing questions about this year’s new COVID booster. When will the new vaccine be available to everyone who wants it? How will it hold up against new variants like XBB.1.5, EG.5, and BA.2.86? When should I get vaccinated to best protect me and my loved ones this holiday season? Dr. Cohen answers all this and more. Plus, Andy asks Dr. Cohen about the DeSantis administration’s decision to advise against COVID shots for Florida residents under 65.


Andy does get a little snarky, but I found Dr. Mandy Cohen's talk about the safety profile of the vaccines and the risks of COVID compared to FLU to be very well presented.

Definitely had a reaction on Tuesday night. Still getting over it a bit today physically... but worked through it. Should be good for the holidays.

If you don't mind sharing that is.

Mine: In the past I've had a sore arm which was a 3 or a scale of 1-10.

I was also fatigued after my second shot and also on my first booster. The next day I was fatigued and/or experience malaise. I was BLAH.

If I have to trip to Magic Mountain planned I wouldn't get the booster the day before the trip, but it's been very mild *for me* on the recent shots.


The rest have had no or very minor reactions.


(I'll get my booster in mid-November since I just recovered from COVD.)

Pretty regular low energy(felt groggier when waking up). Sore arm for sure which is better now. 24 hours after had light chills and lethargy, so went to bed a bit earlier. I was on the commode a lot more than normal yesterday so I think that would count as well. Luckily, I work from the crib most of the week.

Who is dying from COVID now? This group represented 90% of deaths
Almost everybody who has died from COVID so far this year was 65 or older — and many had never been vaccinated.

https://www.sfchronicle.com/health/article/dying-covid-now-new-study-shows-who-s-highest-18409105.php

A study published by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Thursday reveals that older adults — those 65 and above — accounted for 63% of all COVID-related hospitalizations recorded from January to August, even as admissions declined for nearly all other age groups over the same period. ...
Despite their higher risk, federal data show only about 43% of adults aged 65 and older received the previous bivalent booster shot, which was available from September 2022 to May of this year. Among those hospitalized, 16% had not received any COVID-19 vaccination at all.

----

Partisan views on COVID vax harden post-pandemic
https://www.axios.com/2023/10/06/covid-19-vaccine-poll-updated-shot

The big picture: About half of Americans say they plan to get the updated COVID-19 vaccine, while a small number report experiencing difficulty lining up a shot.

Some 70% of Democrats indicate they will get the latest COVID shot, which includes 8% who say they already have. That's compared to 28% of Republicans who plan to get vaccinated (4% already received).
Drilling down further: 45% of Democrats said they are "very likely" to get the shot, while 58% of Republicans said they are "not at all likely" to get it.
"Even though COVID has receded from public view, there is still some polarization and strong feelings," said Mallory Newall, vice president at Ipsos. "There's not a lot of Americans who are in the middle."

--

Pittsburgh's top doctors warn of a growing "COVID complacency"
https://www.cbsnews.com/pittsburgh/news/pittsburghs-top-doctors-warn-of-a-growing-covid-complacency/

This week, the top doctors in all our local healthcare institutions came out with a joint statement warning against "COVID complacency."

In their offices and emergency rooms, they're seeing it.

"This is a real thing," said UPMC Chief Medical Officer Dr. Don Yealy. "We see that the biggest threat now with COVID and soon to be with flu is what we call 'presenteeism' that is people coming to work or to school, not taking precautions and infecting others."

He said that this is bigger than the self.

"It's not just about yourself, it's about everybody around you, and you can't tell from looking at someone how vulnerable they are," he explained.

While you might recover from a bout with COVID, Dr. Yealy said the person you could possibly infect might not.

"It puts people in the intensive care unit and on breathing machines and still kills people at a rate that's higher than influenza or many other respiratory pathogens," Dr. Yealy warned.

CDC will no longer print or issue COVID-19 vaccination cards
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2023/10/06/cdc-covid-19-vaccination-cards/71081754007/


The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will no longer print or issue COVID-19 vaccination cards, the agency said in guidance updated this week.

The agency also said it does not maintain vaccination records.

According to the CDC, your state health department immunization information system can provide you a digital or paper copy of your full vaccination record, including your COVID-19 vaccinations, but cannot issue you a new vaccination card.

The move comes after the decision to distribute the latest edition of COVID-19 vaccines through the commercial market. Until now, the vaccines have been bought and distributed by the federal government. Most people can still get them free or via their health insurance plan.

--
Vanna White is back on Wheel of Fortune after COVID absence
https://ew.com/tv/vanna-white-back-on-wheel-of-fortune-after-covid-absence/

Finally, important news!

--



-
A response to Florida Surgeon General's anti-human remarks
https://yourlocalepidemiologist.substack.com/p/a-response-to-florida-surgeon-generals

This week the Florida Surgeon General said he is “very uncomfortable recommending the new Covid-19 vaccine to anyone” as it’s “anti-human.” Many of you have sent me this Fox News article that outlines his justifications.

Criticism #1: There’s no clinical data for the updated vaccines.
This fall, we do not have randomized controlled trial data for the updated Covid-19 vaccine. We didn’t have it last fall either. That is true.

But three critical points are missing from his argument:

(Read more at link)

See also: 3 of 12
Ladapo's Colleagues Slam His mRNA Vax Analysis | MedPage Today
https://www.medpagetoday.com/special-reports/features/102531

Older adults still make up most Covid-19 hospitalizations, CDC report says, but concern grows over lack of vaccination

https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/09/health/older-adults-covid-hospitalizations-cdc-report/index.html

From January through August, adults 65 and older accounted for about 63% of all Covid-19 hospitalizations, 61% of intensive care unit admissions and 88% of in-hospital deaths associated with Covid-19, according to the report published Friday by the CDC.

Most of those hospitalized older adults had underlying health conditions, such as diabetes or kidney disorders, and less than one-quarter – only 23.5% – had received the bivalent vaccine that was recommended at the time...

The data also showed that about three-quarters – 76.5% – of the older adults who were hospitalized for Covid-19 from January through June had not received a dose of the bivalent Covid-19 vaccine that was recommended at the time, and 16% had not received any Covid-19 vaccination.

--

CVS CEO says pharmacist burnout led to a walkout: ‘We are at the same level of demand as we were in 2021’ for COVID shots
https://fortune.com/well/2023/10/10/cvs-pharmacist-walkout-caused-by-pandemic-burnout-covid-booster-demand-xbb15-omicron/

Pharmacists in at least a dozen Kansas City–area CVS pharmacies walked out or didn’t show up for work for three days in late September, citing stressful and unsafe working conditions. In response, the company sent its chief pharmacy officer to the area with promises to fill open positions and increase staffing levels.

It was just one of the latest examples nationwide of workers fed up and taking action. But unlike employees in recent strikes at automakers or in Hollywood, the pharmacists weren’t demanding raises or more vacation—they simply wanted more colleagues to help them.

CVS rival Walgreens is also experiencing pharmacy staff walkouts, which began Monday and were planned to last through Wednesday. Increasing demands, like administering COVID vaccines, with insufficient staff is making it impossible to do their jobs and could put customer safety in jeopardy, employees told CNN.

This fall, drugstores are facing more challenges than usual. Customers not only expect to fill prescriptions, but to potentially receive COVID-19, flu, and pneumonia vaccines, in addition to a new RSV shot for those 60 and older.

The federal government is no longer offering free COVID jabs for everyone, meaning insurance will have to be run for many customers receiving one. And ongoing drug shortages are keeping pharmacy workers on the phone for longer than usual.

Unexpected demand for new COVID boosters?
Making matters more difficult, CVS pharmacies are experiencing “the same level of demand that we were in 2021” for COVID shots, Lynch said Monday at the Fortune conference, held in Laguna Niguel, Calif. Coronavirus vaccines became widely available to the public for the first time that year.

“Some days we’re doing more per day than we were back then,” she said. “There’s been incredible demand.”

First on CNN: HHS awards more than $500 million to study Covid-19 vaccine nasal sprays and more
https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/13/health/hhs-project-nextgen-covid/index.html


In the future, some Covid-19 vaccines may not be jabs in the arm. They could be a nasal spray or even a patch on the skin. Those are just two examples of the kind of next-generation vaccine technology that federal health officials are hoping to help advance.

The US Department of Health and Human Services announced Friday that it has selected three initial next-generation vaccine candidates to receive funding awards to help kick-start planning for Phase 2b clinical trials, slated to begin as early as this winter. Two of those studies involve intranasal vaccine candidates, and one involves a self-amplifying mRNA vaccine candidate.


Note: I haven't heard much about the already in-use nasal vaccines in China - I wonder if they work well? And India just started using iNCOVACC nasal vaccine a few months ago too. I'm skeptical, but hopeful.

--
Why does COVID-19 usually hit adults so much harder than kids? The nose knows.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2023/10/14/covid-kids-immune-system-study/71168768007/

The study from researchers at Stanford University and Cincinnati Children's, found the immune systems of young children typically wipe out the SARS-CoV-2 virus when it arrives in the nose.

In adults, by contrast, the virus that causes COVID-19 generally reaches the bloodstream before the immune system begins to fight back. This allows the virus to cause more havoc in adults.

The findings suggest there may be a way to provide protection for adults by mimicking what is naturally found in small children.

Review estimates 69% 3-dose vaccine efficacy against long COVID
https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/covid-19/review-estimates-69-3-dose-vaccine-efficacy-against-long-covid

A meta-analysis today in Antimicrobial Stewardship & Healthcare Epidemiology estimates a vaccine effectiveness (VE) of 69% for three doses of COVID-19 vaccine against long COVID, while two doses offer 37% efficacy.

Led by researchers at the University of Iowa, the meta-analysis involved 24 studies on COVID-19 VE against long COVID among recipients of at least two doses of a vaccine before or after infection from December 2019 to June 2023.



----
News about vaccine makers - all bad news, about how capitalism, the stock market, and public health are not compatible (it seems) without heavy government subsidies.

Pfizer slashes full-year earnings and revenue guidance as Covid treatment, vaccine sales slump
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/10/13/pfizer-cuts-earnings-revenue-guidance-as-covid-sales-slump.html

Moderna Shares Slump Amid Concerns About COVID-19 Vaccine Demand
https://www.investopedia.com/moderna-shares-slump-amid-concerns-about-covid-19-vaccine-demand-8361950

Price of lifesaving Covid-19 antiviral Paxlovid expected to rise next year, raising concerns about access
https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/16/health/paxlovid-price-expected-to-rise/index.html

It's a pre-print, but it's interesting. Look for more details soon?

https://news.northwestern.edu/stories/2022/03/covid-infects-penis-testicles-and-prostate/

Coronavirus infects male genital tract
Testicular pain, erectile dysfunction, reduced sperm count and quality, decreased fertility are direct consequence of infection, new study shows

Multiple tissues of the male genital tract can be infected with SARS-CoV-2, reports a new Northwestern Medicine study in large animal models. The study, in SARS-CoV-2 infected-rhesus macaques, revealed the prostate, vasculature of testicles, penis and testicles were all infected with the virus.

The surprising discovery was made utilizing a PET scan specially designed to reveal sites of infection spreading over time in a whole-body scan. Scientists didn’t know what they would find, but they expected to see the virus in the lungs and high up in the nose near the brain because people were experiencing loss of taste and smell.

“But the signal that jumped out at us was the complete spread through the male genital tract,” said lead investigator Thomas Hope, professor of cell and developmental biology at Northwestern Feinberg School of Medicine. “We had no idea we would find it there.”

“These results indicate that the testicular pain, erectile dysfunction, hypogonadism, reduced sperm count and quality, and decreased fertility associated with SARS-CoV-2 infection are a direct consequence of infection of cells of the male reproductive tract and not indirect mechanisms such as fever and inflammation,” Hope said.

The evidence that infection with SARS-CoV-2 can negatively impact male sexual health and fertility is increasing every day. But scientists didn’t know the reason and wondered if the cause was fever and inflammation.

“We just didn’t understand why it had this negative impact until this study,” Hope said. He noted viruses such as mumps, Ebola, Zika, SARS-COV-1 and other viruses also can infect tissues of the male genital tract and negatively impact fertility. Mumps infection is well known to potentially cause male sterility.

The new study shows how the virus can cause pathology in the prostate, penis, testicles and testicular vasculature (blood vessels), Hope said.

“Even if this is only a small percentage of the infected, it represents millions of men who may suffer from a negative impact on their sexual health and fertility,” Hope said.

Clinical studies suggest 10% to 20% of SARS-CoV-2-infected men have symptoms related to male genital tract dysfunction. This suggests tens of millions of men who have been infected with SARS-CoV-2, especially those who had severe COVID-19, should evaluate their sexual health and fertility to determine if additional therapies could prevent or diminish future problems, Hope said.

“The potential impact of SARS-CoV-2 infection on sexual and reproductive health should be part of everyone’s decision to get vaccinated to minimize the chance of death, severe disease and hospitalization, and infection of the prostate, penis, testicles and vasculature (blood supply) of testicles,” Hope said.

This is the first PET (positron emission tomography) probe shown to be able to identify the sites of SARS-CoV-2 infection in a living animal, the study authors said.

“This approach allows the sequential scanning of the same animal, which defines the progression of virus dissemination and time before the virus is purged from the body,” Hope said. “It also has the potential to increase our understanding of long COVID and the development of novel therapies targeting different long COVID comorbidities.”

Obligatory Medicare-4-All mention. Many are and will get screwed by this current system.

A New, Dominant COVID Variant Is Circulating: Here’s What We Know

https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/medical/a-new-dominant-covid-variant-is-circulating-here-s-what-we-know/ar-AA1j6PpM

A new variant of COVID-19 has become the dominating strain circulating in the United States.

Replacing EG.5, also known as Eris, and FL.1.5.1, referred to as Fornax, the HV.1 variant currently accounts for more than a quarter of reported COVID cases in the U.S. It is followed by Eris and Fornax, which contribute to 21.9% and 12% of all cases, respectively.

HV.1 first showed up on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s COVID variant tracker in late July, right as cases began to surge. Although the summer surge of COVID hospitalizations has been on the decline for several weeks, HV.1’s presence has continued to grow quietly, yet steadily.

How contagious is the HV.1 variant?
Some experts have suggested that HV.1 might spread more easily than some of its predecessors and that it appears as though it may have the potential to bypass prior immunity — hence its increased presence across the U.S.

"I would expect that it might be a slight increase in transmissibility or immune escape, which is why it appears to be dominating,” Dan Barouch, M.D., Ph.D., director of the Center for Virology and Vaccine Research at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, told NBC.

Will HV.1 cause more serious infections?
So far, experts have not signaled that this latest variant has any unique qualities with regard to its symptoms or severity. It has not yet been linked with an uptick in severe COVID infections.
Like the variants that have been dominating in recent months, HV.1 is yet another descendant of Omicron. Given its similar characteristics to XBB variants, which also stem from Omicron, experts have not expressed heightened concern for its potential to cause serious infections, at least not yet.

---
Boris Johnson favoured ‘older people accepting their fate’, Covid inquiry hears
Former PM had said his party felt virus was ‘nature’s way of dealing with old people’, and was not convinced NHS was overwhelmed

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/oct/31/boris-johnson-favoured-older-people-accepting-their-fate-covid-inquiry-hears

Boris Johnson told senior advisers that the Covid virus was “just nature’s way of dealing with old people” and he was “no longer buying” the fact the NHS was overwhelmed during the pandemic, the pandemic inquiry has heard.

In a WhatsApp message sent to his top aides in October 2020, the former prime minister said he had been “slightly rocked” by Covid infection rates and suggested he was, as a result, unconvinced that hospitals were on the brink despite public warnings from NHS chiefs and frontline staff.

The former chief scientific adviser, Sir Patrick Vallance, in his diaries described a “bonkers set of exchanges” in a meeting from that August. He noted that Johnson appeared “obsessed with older people accepting their fate” and letting younger people get on with their lives during the pandemic.

Another note from Vallance, after a meeting in December 2020, hinted at the power wielded by the right of the Conservative party during the pandemic: “PM told he has been acting early and the public are with him (but his party is not).

“He says his party ‘thinks the whole thing is pathetic and Covid is just nature’s way of dealing with old people – and I am not entirely sure I disagree with them. A lot of moderate people think it is a bit too much.’”

Vallance’s diary also recounts how then chief whip Mark Spencer told a cabinet meeting in December 2020 that “we should let the old people get it and protect others”. He said that Johnson then added: “A lot of my backbenchers think that and I must say I agree with them”.

Johnson, despite Covid infection numbers going up at that time, told the meeting that he wanted to move to tier 3 restrictions instead.

The documents emerged during a bruising session of the Covid inquiry for the former prime minister, with the former senior aides Lee Cain and Dominic Cummings questioning in evidence his suitability for the role during the pandemic.

more at link...

----

I'm sure the numbers are going to go up in the coming months but unless the symptoms get worse most people won't care. I'm just going to keep my head on a swivel, keep a mask around (if just for me) and watch where I go in the coming months.

https://www.politico.eu/article/covid-vaccine-fit-40-health/

Pretty much the opposite of we are recommending in the U.S.

I finally tested negative for COVID on the first of last month, so I won't be getting mine until December. I did get my flu shot last week.

And I'm wearing a mask for the Devo concert on November 12th - but even without COVID a lot of people would be wearing masks at a Devo concert.

Hope you're feeling well.

Anecdotal: Covid got 3 people at work who had never had COVID (or never had symptomatic COVID.)

Probably HV.1 spreadin. Coming soon: JN.1.

---

Boris Johnson wanted to be injected with Covid on TV - ex-adviser
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-67347456

He said Mr Johnson "suggested to senior civil servants and advisers that he wanted to be injected with Covid-19 on television to demonstrate to the public that it did not pose a threat".

It was "at a time when Covid was not seen as being the serious disease it subsequently became", he added.

He said it was an "unfortunate comment" that had been "made in the heat of the moment".

He also confirmed his former boss had said letting "the bodies pile high" was preferable to another lockdown.

----

Bay Area reinstates COVID mask orders in healthcare settings. Will L.A. follow?
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-11-08/bay-area-reinstates-mask-requirements-in-healthcare-settings-will-l-a-follow

Most San Francisco Bay Area counties are reinstituting mask requirements among workers in healthcare settings, timed to coincide with the arrival of the annual respiratory illness season and an expected late-year resurgence of COVID-19.

Ordering for free at-home COVID-19 tests resumed on September 25, 2023.

Beginning 11/20/23, you will be able to place another order of 4 free at-home COVID-19 tests. If you did not place an order between 9/25/23 and 11/19/23, you will be able to place TWO separate orders of 4 free at-home tests.


Learn more at COVIDTests.gov

It's getting harder and harder to find coverage of COVID, and the systems to track it have largely been shut down.

---

A fast-spreading new COVID-19 variant called JN.1 could drive a new wave of disease across the U.S. this holiday season just as other respiratory viruses are cresting, experts say.

https://www.axios.com/2023/12/19/new-covid-variant-holiday-surge-jn1

COVID modeler Jay Weiland estimated on Monday that JN.1 would become the dominant strain within a week and that daily new infections, now around 965,000, aren't close to peaking.

The variant's emergence coincides with a jump in other respiratory viruses. Over four weeks, hospitalizations for influenza and RSV rose 200% and 60%, respectively, while pediatric emergency department visits for pneumonia have been rising since September, per a Dec. 14 CDC alert to providers.

By the numbers: COVID hospitalizations have been ticking up, according to the CDC. The seven-day average from Dec. 3 through Dec. 9 was 3.1% higher than right after Thanksgiving

As of early December, 22 states had "very high" COVID-19 wastewater levels as defined by the CDC, which compares current rates to baseline measurements at sites nationwide.

New York State saw a 118% increase in COVID wastewater detection at 117 sites between Nov. 29 and Dec. 14.

---


COVID and flu surge could strain hospitals as JN.1 variant grows, CDC warns

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/covid-variant-jn1-flu-surge-hospitals-cdc-warns/

Hospitals and emergency rooms could be forced to ration care by the end of this month, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned Thursday, saying recent trends in COVID-19 and influenza are now on track to again strain America's health care system. The new COVID variant JN.1 is making up an increasing share of cases, the CDC's tracking shows.

"COVID-19 hospitalizations are rising quickly," the agency said in its weekly update. "Since the summer, public health officials have been tracking a rise in multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C), which is caused by COVID-19. Influenza activity is growing in most parts of the country. RSV activity remains high in many areas."



---
This is happening around the country - the outdoor dining areas might be converted back to parking spots.

NEWS
Encinitas to decide Wednesday whether to continue allowing outdoor dining areas

https://www.encinitasadvocate.com/news/story/2023-12-19/encinitas-to-decide-whether-to-continue-allowing-outdoor-dining-areas

In its final meeting before the holiday break, the Encinitas City Council will tackle the long-simmering issue of whether the city’s restaurants can keep the temporary, outdoor dining areas they built on public roadways and private parking lots at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Encinitas, along with many other California cities, initially eased its regulations in March 2020 to help struggling restaurants cope with pandemic-related limitations on indoor dining. The city also reworked its alcohol sales restrictions so restaurants could provide beer and wine with takeout orders and delivery meals.

These pandemic-related regulatory changes are set to expire Jan. 1, a new city staff report states. On Wednesday, Dec. 20, the council will consider whether to extend them until July 1, 2026. The council also may provide direction to city staff on whether Encinitas ought to charge restaurants for use of the public roadway areas.

I had actually gotten a flu shot and maybe that's why I was only down for a day. It's been kicking her ass.


**********
"Everyone has a plan until you punch them in the face. Then they don't have a plan anymore." (c) Mike Tyson

"what's a leader if he isn't reluctant"

>I had actually gotten a flu shot and maybe that's why I was
>only down for a day. It's been kicking her ass.
>
Had 1 person at work test negative at home for COVID like 5 times, went to the doctor and they did not give her a flu test for some reason??

She had COVID back in July, so this could be JN.1 or could be the flu - or RSV - who knows.

Lots of nasties going around and we're not at the peak yet.

Hope you both feel better soon.

It's interesting because getting an urgent care visit after Christmas was tough but we used an online service to have an appointment with a doctor and he was able to prescribe it. Sounds like a good thing as long as there are no shortages of the medicine.


**********
"Everyone has a plan until you punch them in the face. Then they don't have a plan anymore." (c) Mike Tyson

"what's a leader if he isn't reluctant"

If you get a positive COVID test and want Paxlovid the best way to get it is via a video visit.

Calling our call center - or going online - gets you an appointment within a few hours. The doctor has complete access to your records and can determine if Paxlovid is contraindicated. They can shoot the prescription over to the pharmacy in like 2 minutes. And they are doing these un-interrupted - so they won't lose interest or have to help another patient who may need more immediate help.

Going into Urgent Care or the E.R. with COVID will get you booted outside, and then it all depends on how busy the clinic is that day.

Video/audio visits are the best for COVID now.

To those who haven’t been jabbed?

EDIT: Removed 'Thank you."

If your tart ass dont know just say you dont know.

>If your tart ass dont know just say you dont know.

WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT???

Here's what you said:

--
Subject: Are hospitals still turning away life saving surgeries
Message: To those who haven’t been jabbed?
--

Explain your goofy self.

Did you hear about some organ transplant folks being skipped over because they weren't compliant with the program??
-or-
Did someone get SHOT and then the ER left them in the street to die because they didn't have a vaccine card???
-or- ????????

Provide CONTEXT. Shoot us the link to the New York Post or The Sun article you stumbled upon. (All I could find from the last month was this article - which is pretty much the opposite of what you posted: https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/09/asia/baby-w-surgery-scli-intl-wellness/index.html)

After stopping and examining the Internet I think you were donating money to Ted Cruz and stumbled upon this press release from about a year ago: https://www.cruz.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/sen-cruz-reintroduces-bills-to-protect-americans-essential-freedoms-by-blocking-current-and-future-government-covid-mandates

(Wait until you find out that they refuse organ transplants for, like alcohol abuse, age, general health, comorbidities, etc..)



Here's what I think happened:
You are browsing idiotic parts of the NET and saw some clickbait headline that had the word JABBED and DENIED LIFE SAVING SURGERIES!!!!!

You (drunkenly?) glanced at it for 1 second.

Your ears perked up, your tongue stuck itself out a little, your brow furled, and your bowels tightened.

You came here and posted something without context because you thought we all also read whatever the fuck you did and that we'd be as excited by the words that excited you.

I was giving you the human dignity I thought you deserved as a troll - what I might need to do is provide the gentle pity instead?

If a single word is enough for you to do that, then keep doing it.

https://www.npr.org/2022/01/26/1076004339/heart-transplant-patient-unvaccinated#:~:text=MENDON%2C%20Mass.,The%20family%20of%20D.J.

not even offering an opinion on whether or not he should have been denied, but it seems weird to trust people with cracking your chest plate open and literally swapping out your heart, but you know better than them on the taking a shot part shot because you read a thing

>it seems weird to trust people with cracking
>your chest plate open and literally swapping out your heart,
>but you know better than them on the taking a shot part shot
>because you read a thing

Makes absolutely no sense to me to trust the doctors doing a freaking heart transplant on you with the surgery itself, but NOT trust those same doctors re:
a vaccine.

>https://www.npr.org/2022/01/26/1076004339/heart-transplant-patient-unvaccinated#:~:text=MENDON%2C%20Mass.,The%20family%20of%20D.J.

That dude is the exact same pattern as I posted "Did you hear about some organ transplant folks being skipped over because they weren't compliant with the program??"

Here's how it works:
Transplant board sets criteria.

Patient does not comply.

Patient does not get organ it it goes to the next person on the list. (or if no next person on the list, they probably get it.)

I have a feeling you have never been exposed to the idea of transplant lists, or maybe even the how the criteria is set.

From your article:
" But it pointed to a response that it posted on its website in which it said the COVID-19 vaccine is one of several immunizations required by most U.S. transplant programs, including a flu shot and hepatitis B vaccines."

So can he skip flu and hep vaccine too?? Can he say he's going to take up smoking after the transplant? Where's the line?


"D.J.'s mother, Tracey Ferguson, insists that her son isn't against vaccinations, noting he's had other immunizations in the past. But the trained nurse said Wednesday that he's been diagnosed with atrial fibrillation — an irregular and often rapid heart rhythm — and that he has concerns about the side effects of the COVID-19 vaccine."

He's on a fucking transplant list and he can get the shot and hang around the hospital and if has the *RARE* side effect hits him he can receive medical care. He's very unlikely to die or stroke out from getting the COVID vaccine - especially under medical supervision. (And if he's the one in a million person with heart damage from the vaccine - good news - he's getting a new heart!)

He has an arrhythmia - just like millions of other people do.

And I can *guarantee* the doctors and the hospital board informed him of all this before he ran to the media.

There are dozens of articles about similar situations - and yet very few articles about COVID VACCINES MAKING YOUR HEART EXPLODE!!!


Bad news:
They'll likely skip him regardless if he now gets the vaccination - other transplant candidates are likely better candidates and he has shown himself to be non-compliant.

You're trolling the ARCHIVES for examples??

I gave you too much credit.

Did you just respond to yourself?

Why leave out the info on the woman who was denied a kidney transplant? Those two people aren’t the only cases of people who were denied operations over the C19 vaccine and if you cant read the article sent then no need for me to bother posting what you can google on your own.

Change your name from handle to hitler, same amount of letters, same attitude.

...i might start reading some handle replies in hitler voice

(In light of suiteLady's reply in the chappelle post)

>
>Change your name from handle to hitler, same amount of
>letters, same attitude.
>
>

YOU need to provide links and voice evidence yourself. Posts the articles and some evidence.

You provided TWO links to transplants and tried to make it about COVID.

The fact is that BEFORE Covid all of these protocols existed that people who refused vaccination against flu, hepatis, measles, Tetanus, etc.

You SINCERCLY don't care about organ transplant protocols, you ONLY are Googling (or being algorithmic fed) anti-COVID information and then shit posting them here.


>Change your name from handle to hitler, same amount of
>letters, same attitude.
And there it is.

Some vaccines are recommended and some not based on the patient’s transplant. In the case of covid vaccine its recommended unless contraindicated.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC164225/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10611006/

There are many articles on the people mentioned and some others by
on various reputable news sites. I posted NPR because its more honest, trusted and to the point but it appears some skimmed and read what they wanted.

It’s mighty interesting that our government will not deny a violent criminal on death row from receiving an organ transplant but some on this board would deny someone a transplant based on their personal opinion concerning their body.

That’s where the hitler jrs are born.

Do you understand how complex a transplant is? The level of care required post procedure? The amount of special steps required to ensure the transplant attaches and remains healthy?

If you cant follow basic steps to care for your body, it's obvious you're not going to follow more intricate steps.

Based on the history of heart issues related to the vaccine, the guy had a point. On another note I have yet to read about his death so I’m assuming DJ Ferguson had his transplant performed at another hospital and that it worked out regardless of not receiving the vaccine.

This brings to mind a similar post here about a decade ago when a 15-16yr old black boy who was a known gang banger and had a wrap sheet was up for a heart transplant, however the doctor, hospital etc etc denied him. I believe it was later fought in court and the boy got the transplant.

Okp’ers were left and right about it, some said the boy was too violent, committed crimes and therefore didnt deserve it, others said he’s still a kid, deserves a chance to live.

This is that same convo, cause its all about rather or not we feel someone has the right to life saving procedures based on what decision we feel they should make.

This issue is also quite the same as states that are anti-abortion and feel the need to play God over what a woman wishes to do with her body and even in the case of miscarriage the woman is held liable and tried in a court of law.

At the center its people making confident self-righteous and even self-fulfilling decisions concerning the life/deaths of other people.

Yes I do.

Covid is being covered less and less in the news, and most of the tracking reporting channels have been shuttered, but here's what I could find.

Ca:
https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/covid-flu-hospitalizations-rising-18587313.php

Nationwide, the last week of December saw 78,905 emergency department admissions for COVID-19 and 136,668 for influenza, marking respective increases of 72% and 225% from the previous month. In the past week alone, COVID-19 hospitalizations in the United States rose by nearly 17%, totaling 29,059 cases.

...Approximately 80% of the state’s inpatient beds were occupied, with nearly 70% of intensive care beds in use. COVID-19 deaths, meanwhile, increased by 31% week over week during the third week of December.

During the last week of 2023, close to 30,000 new patients were hospitalized for COVID-19, marking the highest recorded data since last January. Additionally, more than 14,000 Americans were hospitalized for the flu.
--

There's debate on whether the levels for Covid in wastewater is high now because of a 'wave' of Covid -or- if new variants increase the output per person so while the levels are high - in some cases the 2nd or 3rd highest level of the pandemic - that fewer people may be producing more covd.

Example article:
San Jose: New Year’s risk? San Jose experiencing 3rd highest COVID wave right now, wastewater shows
https://www.mercurynews.com/2023/12/28/new-years-risk-san-jose-experiencing-3rd-highest-covid-wave-ever-right-now-wastewater-shows/

--
Florida: https://www.floridatoday.com/story/news/2024/01/04/covid-is-on-the-rise-in-florida-after-holidays-heres-how-to-protect-yourself/72086201007/

During the week of Dec. 23, Florida saw an uptick in hospital admissions and emergency department visits attributed to the virus. These factors increased compared to the prior week, while deaths attributed to the virus fell, according to the CDC. Here's how that breaks down:

1.2% of all deaths were attributed to COVID, a 25% decrease
1,391 new hospital admissions of confirmed COVID, a 21.8% increase
1.7% of emergency department visits involved a COVID-19 diagnosis, a 10.8% increase

National data for the same time period:

3.3% of all deaths were attributed to COVID, a 10% increase
29,059 hospital admissions of confirmed COVID, a 16.7% increase
2.5% of emergency department visits involved a COVID diagnosis, a 12% increase

During the summer — when COVID levels last surged — national hospital admissions peaked Sept. 9 at 20,960. They fell to 15,052 on Nov. 4 before beginning to increase again.

---
Another covid wave hits U.S. as JN.1 becomes dominant variant
https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2024/01/04/covid-2024-us-jn1/

The United States is in the throes of another covid-19 uptick, cementing a pattern of the virus surging around the holidays as doctors and public health officials brace for greater transmission after Americans return to school and work this week.

Coronavirus samples detected in wastewater, the best metric for estimating community viral activity, suggests infections could be as rampant as they were last winter. A smattering of health facilities around the country, including every one in Los Angeles County, are requiring masks again. JN.1, the new dominant variant, appears to be especially adept at infecting those who have been vaccinated or previously infected.

While photos of positive coronavirus tests are once again proliferating across social media, fewer people are going to the hospital than a year ago. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported 29,000 covid hospitalizations in the week before Christmas, the most recent data, compared with 39,000 the previous year. The agency has reported an average of 1,400 weekly deaths since Thanksgiving, less than half of the fatalities at the same point last year.

The first article is a BIG DEAL to me because of this line: "48,000 deaths could have been prevented." 48,000 and patients AND doctors are both invovled.

Paxlovid Cuts Covid Death Risk. But Those Who Need It Are Not Taking It.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/04/health/paxlovid-covid-treatment.html

With Covid deaths rising to about 1,500 per week, researchers question why Paxlovid use has remained low among high-risk patients.

SWIPE: A study of a million high-risk people with Covid found that only about 15 percent who were eligible for the drug took it. If instead half of the eligible patients in the United States had gotten Paxlovid during the time period of the research, 48,000 deaths could have been prevented, the authors of the study, conducted by the National Institutes of Health, concluded.

It’s not because people don’t know about the drug — most do — but the reluctance seems to come from doctors worried about interactions with other drugs and people wary of a possible rebound case or the metallic aftertaste.

--
Nearly 17,000 people may have died from hydroxychloroquine: study
https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/4389800-hydroxychloroquine-deaths-study/

Nearly 17,000 people across six countries may have died because they took hydroxychloroquine (HQC) during the first wave of COVID-19 in 2020, according to a new analysis published by French researchers.

Hydroxychloroquine is an anti-malaria drug that was prescribed off-label to treat COVID-19 in the early stage of the pandemic, as researchers and physicians scrambled to find a way to combat the disease. It was also proposed as a preventative measure.

In February and March 2020, the use of this treatment was widely promoted based on preliminary reports suggesting a potential efficacy against COVID-19. However, subsequent studies showed that not only did the drug have no benefit, it also resulted in a significant increase in risk of death.

According to the researchers from Lyon, France, and Quebec, Canada, providers still prescribed hydroxychloroquine to some patients hospitalized with COVID-19 “despite the absence of evidence documenting its clinical benefits.”

The analysis found an estimated 16,990 excess deaths across six countries — Turkey, Belgium, France, Spain, Italy and the U.S. — were likely attributed to hydroxychloroquine use.

The researchers analyzed other studies that tracked hospitalizations, exposure to hydroxychloroquine and the relative risk of death from the drug.

The toxicity of hydroxychloroquine in patients with COVID-19 was partially due to cardiac side effects, such as abnormal heart rhythms.



---



Opinion: The U.S. is facing the biggest COVID wave since Omicron. Why are we still playing make-believe?

https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2024-01-04/covid-2024-flu-virus-vaccine

The pandemic is far from over, as evidenced by the rapid rise to global dominance of the JN.1 variant of SARS-CoV-2. This variant is a derivative of BA.2.86, the only other strain that has carried more than 30 new mutations in the spike protein since Omicron first came on the scene more than two years ago. This should have warranted designation by the World Health Organization as a variant of concern with a Greek letter, such as Pi.

By wastewater levels, JN.1 is now associated with the second-biggest wave of infections in the United States in the pandemic, after Omicron. We have lost the ability to track the actual number of infections since most people either test at home or don’t even test at all, but the very high wastewater levels of the virus indicate about 2 million Americans are getting infected each day.

In several countries in Europe, wastewater levels reached unprecedented levels, exceeding Omicron. Clearly this virus variant, with its plethora of new mutations, has continued its evolution with mutations adapted for infecting or reinfecting us.

(MOre at link)

Prelim study:

SARS-CoV-2 BA.2.86 is less resistant to vaccine, but may be a problem in the lung
https://news.osu.edu/sars-cov-2-ba286-is-less-resistant-to-vaccine-but-may-be-a-problem-in-the-lung/

New research shows that the recently emerged BA.2.86 omicron subvariant of the virus that causes COVID-19 can be neutralized by bivalent mRNA vaccine-induced antibodies in the blood, which explains why this variant did not cause a widespread surge as previously feared.

However, the study in cell cultures showed this SARS-CoV-2 variant can infect human cells that line the lower lung and engage in virus-host cell membrane fusion more efficiently, two features linked to severe disease symptoms.

The study is published today (Jan. 8, 2024) in the journal Cell.

The BA.2.86 variant of omicron is the ancestor of the currently dominating JN.1 and has about 60 more spike protein mutations than the original, or parent, coronavirus, including over 30 more than its close omicron relatives – the early BA.2 variant and the recently dominant XBB.1.5 variant among them. These mutations led scientists to worry that so many changes would make the variant as tough to contain as the initial omicron outbreak in 2021-22.

Shan-Lu Liu
Shan-Lu Liu

“We found that, surprisingly, despite all those 60 mutations combined together, BA.2.86 is not as immune-evasive as the XBB.1.5 variant, which until recently had been dominating the pandemic for months. That’s good news,” said Shan-Lu Liu, senior author the study and a virology professor in the Department of Veterinary Biosciences at The Ohio State University.

“But BA.2.86 appears to have increased infectivity of human lung epithelial cells compared to all omicron variants, so that’s a little worrisome. And, consistent with infectivity, it also has increased fusion activity with human lung epithelial cells,” said Liu, also a professor in the Department of Microbial Infection and Immunity. “That raises a potential concern about whether or not this virus is more pathogenic compared to recent omicron variants.”

The published findings coincide with reports from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that after a brief increase in BA.2.86 infections, its derived sublineage JN.1 rapidly gained ground in the United States, responsible for an estimated 62% of COVID-19 cases as of Jan. 6.

....“While bivalent vaccine can still neutralize BA.2.86, the efficiency is clearly reduced. Therefore, it is important to get the newest booster vaccine, which is formulated with only XBB.1.5 and has been shown to be effective against BA.2.86,” Liu added.

--

Four Years Since California Declared a Covid Emergency
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/04/us/california-covid-emergency.html

Today, Covid hasn’t gone away, and the highly contagious virus continues to circulate and occasionally surge. And the toll has been horrifying: Some 112,000 Californians have died of Covid. Nationwide, the virus has killed 1.18 million people. At the peak of the recent surge in January, 2,400 people were dying of the disease each week.

---

C.D.C. Shortens Isolation Period for People With Covid
Americans with Covid or other respiratory infections may return to daily activities if they don’t have a fever and their symptoms are improving.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/01/health/covid-isolation-cdc.html

tldr: Public health is prioritizing recommendations in a way they think the public might conceivably follow instead of basing the recommendations on the latest scientific understanding.

IF you are over 65, or immunocompromised you are less safe around people now- that's ASSUMING everyone followed the old recommendations - which they did not. Also they still recommend people get vaccinated and get boosters - and we also know that people are NOT doing that.


Americans with Covid or other respiratory infections need not isolate for five days before returning to work or school, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Friday, a striking sign of changing attitudes toward the coronavirus.

People with respiratory illnesses may resume daily activities if they have been fever-free for at least 24 hours without the aid of medications and if their symptoms are improving, agency officials said.

Acknowledging that people can be contagious even without symptoms, the C.D.C. urged those who end isolation to limit close contact with others, wear well-fitted masks, improve indoor air quality and practice good hygiene, like washing hands and covering coughs and sneezes, for five days.

Press release from DCD: https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2024/p0301-respiratory-virus.html

Sign up if you want 'em free:
https://special.usps.com/testkits


March 8, 2024: This Free COVID-19 Test Program Will be Suspended

Orders for free at-home COVID-19 tests will be suspended on Friday, March 8, 2024.

Finally ordered mine.

https://erictopol.substack.com/p/covid-4-years-on?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=587835&post_id=142596495&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1t2ted&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

Swipes:

Impact
The global excess mortality has reached about 30 million lost lives attributable to Covid, and the Global Burden of Disease published a major paper this week in The Lancet on the toll it has taken for reducing life expectancy in 204 countries summarized as "The COVID-19 pandemic caused the most severe drops in life expectancy seen in 50+ years." The study did not address disability among survivors, with multiple concurrent studies reinforcing the prevalence of Long Covid in tens of millions of people.

Should we have a daily look back? Or just on April 13th (bleach day) and Oct 2 (fucker got Covid)? Becuase I am not letting those two days go.

In private:
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-told-bob-woodward-he-knew-february-covid-19-was-n1239658

“I wanted to always play it down. I still like playing it down because I don't want to create a panic," Trump said in a March 19 call with Woodward, according to an audio clip posted Wednesday on The Washington Post's website. The newspaper obtained a copy of the book, "Rage," which is scheduled to be released next week.

In the same interview, Trump acknowledged that the disease was more deadly than he previously thought.

"Now it's turning out it's not just old people, Bob. But just today, and yesterday, some startling facts came out. It's not just old, older," Trump said, according to an audio clip, and then added, "young people, too, plenty of young people."

--

In public:


Remarks by President Trump, Vice President Pence, and Members of the Coronavirus Task Force in Press Briefing
https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-vice-president-pence-members-coronavirus-task-force-press-briefing-6/

"Thank you all for being here. And we continue our relentless effort to defeat the Chinese virus. "

"But now the whole world, almost, is inflicted with this horrible — with this horrible virus and it’s too bad. It’s too bad because we never had an economy as good as the economy we had just a few weeks ago."

"Now, a drug called chloroquine — and some people would add to it “hydroxy-.” Hydroxychloroquine. So chloroquine or hydroxychloroquine. Now, this is a common malaria drug. It is also a drug used for strong arthritis. If somebody has pretty serious arthritis, also uses this in a somewhat different form. But it is known as a malaria drug, and it’s been around for a long time and it’s very powerful. But the nice part is, it’s been around for a long time, so we know that if it — if things don’t go as planned, it’s not going to kill anybody."

4 Years ago today Trump aid this:
March 30, 2020

"Stay calm, it will go away. You know it -- you know it is going away, and it will go away, and we're going to have a great victory.

---
IN other stupid news:

Bill Maher Suggests COVID Commission So America Can Learn From ‘Stupid’ Pandemic Missteps
https://decider.com/2024/03/30/bill-maher-suggests-covid-commission-so-america-can-learn-from-stupid-pandemic-missteps/


Last night on HBO‘s Real Time, host Bill Maher closed his show with a “New Rule” segment that called for a “COVID Commission” to investigate the country’s pandemic missteps.

“I get it that we didn’t know exactly what was happening at the beginning of COVID and some mistakes were inevitable,” Maher said to his audience. “But four years on, I’m tired of hearing ‘Well, we didn’t know.’ No, we didn’t. But some people guessed better than others. And the people who got it wrong don’t seem to want to acknowledge that now.”

“Some people said closing schools for so long was pointless and would cause much worse collateral damage to kids and they were right,” he added.

Maher also put The Daily Beast on blast for calling him out in 2021 for his support of the Wuhan lab leak theory. The headline read “Bill Maher pushes Steve Bannon Wuhan lab conspiracy theory,” which was something, he noted, that was “typical of the mainstream media at the time.”

“Of course, it wasn’t a conspiracy theory, and it wasn’t owned by Steve Bannon. And now everyone, including the Biden administration, admits there’s at least a 50-50 chance that the virus could have begun in the lab in Wuhan that was doing gain-of-function research on that virus, duh! But I don’t see a lot of retractions being printed,” said Maher.

The HBO host then ridiculed the initial claim that natural immunity was inferior to the COVID vaccine and highlighted several pandemic overreactions such as washing the mail and using glory holes for sex.

“For two years we had to get a nostril f**ked every time we left the house!” he exclaimed, before criticizing the idea of wearing masks at the beach.

“Because the last thing you would want to do when a disease is afoot is get fresh air and sunshine and vitamin D,” Maher said sarcastically. “No, much better to stay locked up, stressed out, and day drinking.”

“Yes, some very bad ideas were embraced as the conventional wisdom, ideas that haven’t aged well. And a lot of its dissenting opinions that were suppressed and ridiculed at the time have proven to be correct,” added the HBO host. “Maybe that’s why the powers that be never wanted a COVID commission. Why not? We love commissions! The Warren Commission, the AIDS Commission, 911 Commission. The NFL even had an ‘Is ramming your head into another guy’s head bad for heads?’ Commission.”

“So where’s the COVID commission? Because it seems to me we haven’t learned a thing. Maybe the number one lesson from the pandemic was the need for proper air ventilation, second was never go on a Zoom with Jeffrey Toobin,” he quipped.

“But if there’s been a big national to retrofit buildings, I missed it. Gain of function research is still going on in labs. We’re still torturing animals by raising our food in conditions ideal for viruses to make the leap to humans.

“We handed out 4 trillion dollars of free money, 280 billion of which was just flat-out stolen in what the AP called ‘the greatest grift in US history’ and which started an inflationary spiral that we now blame on Biden. So we’re gonna bring back Trump?! The guy who ignored COVID like it was the dinner check?!”

“Talk about not learning anything,” Maher concluded. You can watch the full segment above and catch new episodes of Real Time with Bill Maher on Fridays at 10 p.m. ET on HBO and streaming on Max.

and telling of their politics and what they are searching for. We are starting to see — once again, the Right embracing or championing Maher who they always hated and said was always wrong. Now the new narrative is that "he finally got it right". Everytime it's predictable.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-calls-coronavirus-test-perfect-and-compares-it-to-ukraine-phone-call/

Truly an INSANE Trump.


Highlights (not all are in the article):

“I think we’re doing a really good job in this country at keeping it down… a tremendous job at keeping it down.”

-
“You have to be calm. It’ll go away.”

-
“Anybody right now, and yesterday, anybody that needs a test gets a test. They’re there. And the tests are beautiful…. the tests are all perfect like the letter was perfect. The transcription was perfect. Right? This was not as perfect as that but pretty good.”

-

“I like this stuff. I really get it. People are surprised that I understand it… Every one of these doctors said, ‘How do you know so much about this?’ Maybe I have a natural ability. Maybe I should have done that instead of running for president.”

-
“I don't need to have the numbers double because of one ship that wasn't our fault.”

I haven't been posting numbers since they are so sparse , but here's kind of where we are now.

Strains:
JN.1 is the leader still.
JN.1.13 (JN.1 subvariant) is coming up, but only at 10% or so.

Death rates at the beginning of the year were around 2,400 a week.
Rates in March closer to 900 a week.

Hospitalization rates at the beginning of the year were around 35,000 a week.
Rates is March closer to 8,000 a week.

Numbers have not been this good since July of last year.

Hospitalization and deaths are still occurring mainly in people over 50 years of age, and although I can't find the exact numbers right now somewhere between 90% and 95% of deaths occurring now from Covid are in people over 75 years of age.


New drug: Pemgarda a pre-exposure prophylaxis for immunocompromised folks. If you are immunocompromised ask your doctor about it.

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/13/coronavirus-trump-says-i-dont-take-responsibility-at-all-for-lack-of-tests.html

Trump blames Obama for lack of coronavirus tests: ‘I don’t take responsibility at all’
PUBLISHED FRI, MAR 13 20204:52 PM EDTUPDATED SAT, MAR 14 202010:26 AM EDT

President Donald Trump refused to accept any responsibility for the slow rate of coronavirus testing in the United States, saying on Friday that he was “given a set of circumstances” that wasn’t meant for the high numbers of potential COVID-19 infections.

“No, I don’t take responsibility at all. Because we were given a — a set of circumstances, and we were given rules, regulations and specifications from a different time. It wasn’t meant for this kind of — an event with the kind of numbers that we’re talking about,” Trump responded.

As criticism of the Trump administration’s coronavirus testing protocol intensifies, Trump has sought to shift the blame onto his predecessor, Barack Obama.

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump refused to accept any responsibility for the slow rate of coronavirus testing in the United States, saying on Friday that he was “given a set of circumstances” that wasn’t meant for the high numbers of potential COVID-19 infections.

“What we’ve done, and one of the reasons people are respecting what we’ve done, is we’ve gotten it done very early, and we’ve also kept a lot of people out,” Trump said during a press conference in the Rose Garden.

During the briefing, NBC’s Kristen Welker asked Trump whether he took responsibility for the testing lag, which one member of his own task force called “a failing.”

“No, I don’t take responsibility at all. Because we were given a — a set of circumstances, and we were given rules, regulations and specifications from a different time. It wasn’t meant for this kind of — an event with the kind of numbers that we’re talking about,” Trump responded.

In reality, America’s low rate of COVID-19 testing has drawn criticism from health experts around the world, who say the slow rate of testing obscures the actual rate of infection in the United States, which is likely far higher than tests have so far confirmed.

During the earliest stages of the outbreak, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention distributed faulty tests to state and local health departments. Once the flawed tests were discovered and discarded, bureaucratic red tape held up the process of granting exemptions to private labs to make their own tests.

As criticism of the Trump administration’s coronavirus testing protocol has intensified, and testing in other countries such as South Korea has outpaced the U.S. by orders of magnitude, Trump has sought to shift the blame onto his predecessor, Barack Obama.

On Friday, asked about testing rates, Trump brought up the example of the 2009 swine flu, or H1N1 epidemic, in order to criticize Obama and boast of his success.

“If you go back to the swine flu, it was nothing like this, they didn’t do testing like this, and they lost approximately 14,000 people. They started thinking about testing when it was far too late,” Trump said.

Former Obama administration official Ron Klain, who managed the 2014 Ebola outbreak, disputed Trump’s assessment. “The Obama administration tested 1 million people for H1N1 in the first month after the first US diagnosed case,” Klain tweeted on Thursday. “The first US coronavirus case was 50+ days ago. And we haven’t event tested 10,000 people yet.”

This is not the first time Trump has attacked Obama’s outbreak response as inadequate, an argument that has political implications as Obama’s vice president, Joe Biden, appears increasingly likely to be Trump’s 2020 Democratic opponent.

(more at link)

https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-vice-president-pence-members-coronavirus-task-force-press-briefing-3/

Q You are already talked. Mr. President, the other day, you said that you were not responsible for the testing shortfall. A very simple question: Does the buck stop with you? And on a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate your response to this crisis?

THE PRESIDENT: I’d rate it a 10. I think we’ve done a great job. And it started with the fact that we kept a very highly infected country — despite all of the — even the professionals saying, “No, it’s too early to do that.” We were very, very, early with respect to China. And we would have a whole different situation in this country if we didn’t do that.

I would rate it a very, very — I would rate ourselves and the professionals — I think the professionals have done a fantastic job.

Who’s dying now? Here’s how recent COVID deaths compare to the early months of the pandemic in California

In the last six months California saw 3,472 deaths, a fraction of the number that died in the first six months

https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/04/15/whos-dying-now-heres-how-recent-covid-deaths-compare-to-the-early-months-of-the-pandemic-in-california/


First, the virus is much less deadly. In the most recent six months for which data is available, from Sept. 1, 2023, through Feb. 29, 2024, there were 3,472 deaths attributed to the virus in California. But in the first six months of the pandemic, Feb. 1 through Aug. 31, 2020, more than four times that number of Californians died from COVID — 14,648.
“Wow, we are doing so much better than we were,” said Dr. John Swartzberg, clinical professor emeritus at the UC Berkeley School of Public Health, his first reaction when looking at the data.

The total number of people dying has dropped across the board in nearly every category. More people over 85 died in the first six months of the pandemic, 4,209, than the number of deaths across all age groups in the past six months.


...
However small the number, there is one statistical peculiarity: The two youngest age groups are the only ones that saw more deaths in the past six months than early in the pandemic.

No deaths were reported among children younger than 14 in the Golden State through Aug. 31, 2020, but three young children have died from COVID, including two children under 5, in the last six months.

While deaths have become more concentrated among older Californians, another factor has changed dramatically: the racial breakdown of the people dying.

Early in the pandemic, “Blacks and Latinos struggled much more … in terms of mortality rates than any other population, primarily compared to Asian and White populations,” Swartzberg noted. “But that has flipped.”

The percentage of Californians who died who are White has nearly doubled, from 30% to 60% of all COVID deaths, from 4,332 deaths through August 2020, to 2,065 deaths in the most recent period. White people make up 37% of the state’s residents.

----
How bad are flu, COVID-19 and RSV? These charts show how respiratory viruses are spreading in the US

https://apnews.com/flu-covid-19-respiratory-syncytial-virus-0000018de622d464a99fef7706610000

tldr: COVID-19 continues to send more people to the hospital than RSV or flu.

I've felt it was a pandemic long before it was called a pandemic.


https://www.c-span.org/video/?470426-1/president-trump-coronavirus-task-force-briefing

Q
Could you just respond to something, Mr. President, before you leave, on what Jon was saying? You've - you've called for people to leave politics out of this. Joe Biden said, "The World Health Organization offered testing kits that they had available to the United States and to give it to us now. We refused it. We didn't want to buy them." PolitiFact says the WHO never made that offer. Can you tell us what actually happened?

01:21:56
THE PRESIDENT
Well, that's what I heard. And I'm going to let - I'm going to let Tony answer that question. Or some- - whoever is best at answering that. But I do have to say, when you talk about politics - I watched the debate. Not too exciting. But what they said about me - and we've done a great job. When you talk about not - not being bipartisan - what they said about me.

And if you look at swine flu - the whole thing in, I guess it was 2009, and what they did and the mistakes they've made, they were terrible. They were horrific mistakes. Seventeen thousand people died. And I'll be honest, they shouldn't be criticizing because we've done a fantastic job.

The only thing we haven't done well is to get good press.

We've done a fantastic job, but it hasn't been appreciated. Even the - the closing down of the borders, which had never been done - and not only did we close them, but we closed them early - the press doesn't like writing about it.

So we've done a poor job on press relationships and, you know, I guess, I don't know who to blame for that. I don't know, maybe I can blame - maybe I can blame ourselves for that. I will blame ourselves. But I think we've done a great job. I think we've done a poor job, in terms of press relationship.But let me have somebody answer your question.

After evading it for four years, my Mom tested positive on Sunday and my Dad on Monday. They're both pushing 80. so they're both on Paxlovid. Fortunately, the symptoms for both of them seem pretty mild, mostly entailing sore throats and runny noses.

Man, things have changed on how doctor's are approaching it. My Mom asked the guy at urgent care (over a video call) if she should quarantine for two weeks. The guy told her to take the meds for five days, drink some tea, and she should be fine, because the guidelines are different now.

>Man, things have changed on how doctor's are approaching it.
>My Mom asked the guy at urgent care (over a video call) if she
>should quarantine for two weeks. The guy told her to take the
>meds for five days, drink some tea, and she should be fine,
>because the guidelines are different now.

The guidelines *have* been updated and I think people are only looking at the easiest most minimal guidelines and tossing out others.

Basically the guidelines are saying that after 5 days if you are improving you can stop isolation AND YOU SHOULD take some added precautions.

People hear: Get it - and after 5 days just go back to "normal."

https://www.cdc.gov/respiratory-viruses/prevention/precautions-when-sick.html

You can go back to your normal activities when, for at least 24 hours, both are true:
*Your symptoms are getting better overall, and
*You have not had a fever (and are not using fever-reducing medication).

When you go back to your normal activities, take added precaution over the next 5 days, such as taking additional steps for cleaner air, hygiene, masks, physical distancing, and/or testing when you will be around other people indoors.

Keep in mind that you may still be able to spread the virus that made you sick, even if you are feeling better. You are likely to be less contagious at this time, depending on factors like how long you were sick or how sick you were.

If you develop a fever or you start to feel worse after you have gone back to normal activities, stay home and away from others again until, for at least 24 hours, both are true: your symptoms are improving overall, and you have not had a fever (and are not using fever-reducing medication). Then take added precaution for the next 5 days.

Happy 4 year anniversary:

President Trump Suggests ‘Injecting’ Disinfectant as Coronavirus Cure | NBC New York
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zicGxU5MfwE

Still has 40+ percent of the country swooning over him. INSANITY.

Follow-ups:
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April 24th
Why It’s Important Not to Drink Bleach
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/04/trump-bleach-coronavirus/610690/
---

April 24th: Trump claims controversial comment about injecting disinfectants was ‘sarcastic’
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/04/24/disinfectant-injection-coronavirus-trump/
---

April 26th:
No, don’t inject disinfectant: Outcry over Trump’s musing
https://apnews.com/article/virus-outbreak-donald-trump-ap-top-news-politics-health-697d9ecef7f89cf5e9abb3b008c7faa7
--

May:
Accidental Poisonings Increased After President Trump’s Disinfectant Comments
https://time.com/5835244/accidental-poisonings-trump/

Are We FLiRTing With A New Covid Wave?
A Covid Update
https://erictopol.substack.com/p/are-we-flirting-with-a-new-covid

tldr; New variants have mutated and are spreading fast. The bad news: The current vaccine isn't very effective against it.

KP.2 (dominant variant, overtook JN.1), KP.1.1, KS.1, KP 4.2, LA.2, LA.1, JN.1.7.4, KZ1.1, etc.

tldr: You won't know how many people are hospitalized with Covid now, unless your local hospital chooses to track and publish it. But nationwide stats are toast.

Turning point: COVID-era hospital reporting set to end
https://www.axios.com/2024/04/29/hospital-reporting-covid-flu-rsv

Hospitals starting this week will no longer have to report data on admissions, occupancy and other indicators of possible system stress from respiratory diseases to federal officials as another COVID-era mandate expires.

Why it matters: The sunset of the reporting requirement on May 1 marks a turning point in the government's real-time tracking of airborne pathogens that helped drive coronavirus surveillance and reports like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's FluView.

It comes as U.S. COVID hospitalizations are around the lowest levels since the start of the pandemic but as a new variant called KP. 2 is rapidly spreading in multiple regions.
Catch up quick: Federal officials since March 2020 collected data from hospitals and states to understand health care system stress, capacity and capabilities.

Beyond COVID-19, the information helped guide prevention and response efforts to seasonal flu and RSV, which can also place a serious burden on emergency departments and ICUs.
The required reporting to the CDC's National Healthcare Safety Network was scheduled to end with the COVID-19 public health emergency last May but was extended through this Tuesday, with fewer requirements.
Flashback: The government stopped or scaled back other data reporting at the end of the public health emergency, covering metrics like daily new COVID cases and test positivity.

That left wastewater surveillance and hospital admissions as some of the most effective barometers of disease spread.
Since the pandemic's start, there have been 6.9 million COVID-19 hospitalizations and almost 1.2 million coronavirus-associated deaths in the U.S., per the CDC.

Two articles - same thrust:
tldr; Affecting older people much more than younger people, but 30% more deadly than flu


https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/covid-19/hospital-covid-patients-35-more-likely-die-flu-patients-last-winter-study-suggests

Hospital COVID patients 35% more likely to die than flu patients last winter, study suggests

-and-

https://www.latimes.com/science/story/2024-05-15/covid-19-remains-deadlier-than-the-flu
Despite its ‘nothingburger’ reputation, COVID-19 remains deadlier than the flu


Since the earliest days of the pandemic, health officials have gauged the threat of COVID-19 by comparing it to the flu.

At first, it wasn’t even close. People hospitalized in 2020 with the then-novel respiratory disease were five times more likely to die of their illness than were patients who had been hospitalized with influenza during the preceding flu seasons.

Immunity from vaccines and past coronavirus infections has helped tame COVID-19 to the point that when researchers compared the mortality rates of hospitalized COVID-19 and seasonal influenza patients during the height of the 2022-23 flu season, they found that the pandemic disease was only 61% more likely to result in death.

Now the same researchers have analyzed data for the the fall and winter of 2023 and 2024. Dr. Ziyad Al-Aly, director of the Clinical Epidemiology Center at the VA St. Louis Health Care System, and his colleagues expected to find that the two respiratory diseases had finally equalized.

“There’s a narrative out there that the pandemic is over, that it’s a nothingburger,” Al-Aly said. “We came into this thinking we would do this rematch and find it would be like the flu from now on.”

The VA team examined electronic health records of patients treated in Veterans Affairs hospitals in all 50 states between Oct. 1 and March 27. They zeroed in on patients who were admitted because they had fevers, shortness of breath or other symptoms due to either COVID-19 or influenza. (People who were admitted for another reason, such as a heart attack, and were then found to have a coronavirus infection weren’t included in the analysis.)

The COVID-19 patients were a little older, on average, than the flu patients (73.9 versus 70.2 years old), and they were less likely to be current or former smokers. They were also more likely to have received at least three doses of COVID-19 vaccine and less likely to have shunned the shots altogether.

Yet after Al-Aly and his colleagues accounted for these differences and a host of other factors, they found that 5.7% of the COVID-19 patients died of their disease, compared with 4.2% of the influenza patients.

In other words, the risk of death from COVID-19 was still 35% greater than it was for the flu. The findings were published Wednesday in the Journal of the American Medical Assn.

“There is undeniably an impression out there that is no longer a major threat to human health,” Al-Aly said. “I think it’s largely driven by opinion and an emotional itch to move beyond the pandemic, to put it all behind us. We want to believe that it’s like the flu, and we did — until we saw the data.”

Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, an infectious diseases specialist at UC San Francisco, said the study results are right in line with what he sees in his hospital.

“COVID continues to make some people in our community very ill and die — even in 2024,” he said. “Although most will not get seriously ill from COVID, for some people it is like 2020 all over again.”

That’s particularly true for people who are older, who haven’t received their most recent recommended COVID-19 booster, and who haven’t taken full advantage of antivirals such as Paxlovid. Chin-Hong noted that only 5% of the COVID-19 patients in the study had been treated with antivirals before they were hospitalized.

Even if the mortality rates for the COVID-19 and flu patients had been equal, COVID-19 would still be the bigger health threat because it is sending more people to the hospital, Al-Aly said.

Between Oct. 1 and the end of March, 75.5 out of every 100,000 Americans had been hospitalized with influenza, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. During that same period, the hospitalization rate for COVID-19 was 122.9 per 100,000 Americans, the CDC says.

“COVID still carries a higher risk of hospitalization,” Al-Aly said. “And among those hospitalized, more will die as a result.”

(more at link)

not a winning issue for the democrats.

a) there is a ton of smoke re: fauci, daszak, baric, et al covering up re: diving headfirst into GoF after the moratorium in Wuhan. most of the electorate is not as head-in-the-sand about this as the TOKP.

b) how much better prepared for another pandemic are we at this point?

c) social/psychological/child-developmental costs of lockdowns are an open question

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it's gonna be asked about at the debate. what does biden say? what does trump say? and how does it play with the merican ppl?

(Peter Daszak non-profit that was funding Shi's gain-of-function work in Wuhan.)

https://nypost.com/2024/05/15/us-news/hhs-halts-grants-for-nonprofit-ecohealth-that-funded-gain-of-function-research-in-wuhan/

https://x.com/zeynep/status/1790803102070718606

I work for a hospital system and they send notifications of potential COVID-19 exposure out to the entire company basically saying "Someone who worked in building X on floor X got COVID - so if you worked there with them you may have been exposed."

In the past 6 months most notifications listed between 1 and 4 locations, but this last one they sent out listed 15 locations.

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https://time.com/6996203/covid-19-symptoms-flirt-variants/
Why Are COVID-19 Cases Spiking Again?


I'm going to SWIPE:
According to the latest data from the end of June, rates of positive COVID-19 tests from labs (which represent only a small fraction of overall cases), increased by nearly 1% from June 23-29. Emergency room visits for COVID-19 jumped 23% during that same time period, and hospitalizations for the disease increased by 13% from June 9-15.

The good news is that while the number of cases is climbing, deaths from COVID-19 continue to drop. In the last week of June, deaths from COVID-19 declined by 25%.


Why are COVID-19 cases increasing?
The rise in cases is due to a number of factors. First, people’s immunity to the virus is waning; only 22% of people in the U.S. received the most updated vaccine, which became available in the fall. Second, the newest variants are mutating to spread more easily between people. That means more people are likely to get infected.

The latest strains are still from the Omicron family, and KP.2, and KP.3—two examples of the circulating ‘FLiRT’ variants, named for the locations of their particular mutations in the virus' spike protein—are dominating new infections in the U.S. right now. Since June, FLiRT variants have accounted for more than 60% of COVID-19 infections in the U.S. The newest data from WastewaterSCAN found that FLiRT variants account for 55% of the COVID-19 variants found in wastewater samples from across the country, and the concentration of the virus in samples is more than double what it was in June 2023.

For now, it doesn’t appear that these mutations are making the virus more dangerous to human health or enabling the virus to cause more severe disease. But health experts are monitoring cases to learn more about these latest changes.

My recent bout with COVID-19 was worse than my previous infections. Is the virus getting stronger?
People who have been infected recently have experienced symptoms of fever, coughing, malaise, and even intestinal discomfort. But having more severe symptoms than you may be used to doesn't necessarily mean you've encountered a more virulent strain.

>they send notifications of
>potential COVID-19 exposure out to the entire company
>basically saying "Someone who worked in building X on floor X
>got COVID - so if you worked there with them you may have been
>exposed."

Someone on my floor tested positive... Fortunately, I don't think it spread to anyone else.

ancedota:
Again, I work for a hospital system and we're seeing a lot of Covid the last few weeks.

My mother had cancer surgery at a different hospital system and they are limiting visitors in some cases.

If you think you might have a cold then take a COVID test - it's probably more likely you have Covid.

And while many few people are being proportionally hospitalized or dying, from my experience having COVID sucks - and spreading it to loved ones would suck even more.

Updated vaccines in September, fingers crossed.

And believe me , when I go into a hospital I am wearing my n-95 mask - I may have to go to the main lobby of one of our main hospitals on Tuesday - I'm hoping I don't have to.

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https://www.today.com/health/coronavirus/states-with-highest-covid-rates-2024-rcna163403 <-The fucking today show
Where is COVID-19 spreading? These states have the highest COVID rates

The United States is in the midst of a summer wave of COVID-19 fueled by highly contagious, new variants sweeping the country from coast to coast. As summer travel peaks, experts are warning people to take precautions to stop the spread, no matter the COVID rates in your state.

Currently, levels of COVID found in wastewater are considered “high” nationally, for the first time since last winter. What's more, 44 states have "high" or "very high" levels individually, according to the latest data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The West and South are being hit especially hard.

"This year’s summer COVID-19 wave is coming earlier than last year, which occurred in late August and early September," a CDC spokesperson tells TODAY.com.

Cases may keep rising through the rest of the year, according to Michael Hoerger, Ph.D., assistant professor at Tulane University School of Medicine who leads the Pandemic Mitigation Collaborative’s data tracker. His models show the current wave is likely to peak on Sept. 11 at around 1.2 million new cases a day. (He uses wastewater data from Biobot Analytics, which used to provide the CDC its data.)

"We're probably somewhere between a quarter of the way through the wave to 40%, 50%, if we're lucky," he tells TODAY.com, adding that this is the ninth COVID wave in the U.S.

The CDC no longer tracks the total number of new COVID-19 cases. Instead, the agency estimates the level of transmission using indicators such as test positivity, emergency department visits and wastewater surveillance. These show a clear surge in COVID-19 across the nation.

As of July 27, test positivity is at 16.3%, which is higher than the peak rate during last winter's COVID-19 wave, per CDC data. COVID-related emergency room visits, hospitalizations and deaths are also rising.


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Eric Topol substack is interesting:
https://erictopol.substack.com/p/the-indomitable-covid-virus?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=587835&post_id=147307217

I recommend looking at the graphs showing the evolution of COVID strains.

What about right now?
The new KP.2 boosters will not be ready until the first week of September. It isn’t clear about the timing of availability for the JN.1 shots from Novavax which the company announced at the June FDA meeting would be ready in August. Most likely all 3 will be rolled out the first week of September. The match up of KP.2 (vs KP.3.1.1) is clearly better than JN.1, but some people prefer Novavax with its less acute phase side effects.



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Joe Rogan mocks trans people, COVID vaccine in new Netflix special
https://nypost.com/2024/08/04/entertainment/joe-rogan-mocks-transgender-people-covid-vaccine-in-netflix-special/

Some folk here might enjoy reading that more - that Joe Rogan (along with a bunch of Spotify and Netflix money) sure is funny!!!!

Rogan said that he’s “not even remotely homophobic,” adding, “I’m the opposite. I wish I was gay.”

https://www.wired.com/story/covid-summer-surge-fda-vaccine-approval/

The Covid-19 Summer Wave Is So Big, the FDA Might Release New Vaccines Early
The latest Covid-19 surge reportedly has officials considering approval of the new strain-matched vaccine as soon as this week.

With the US experiencing a relatively large summer wave of Covid-19, the Food and Drug Administration is considering signing off on this year's strain-matched Covid-19 vaccines as soon as this week, according to a report by CNN that cited unnamed officials familiar with the matter.

Last year, the FDA gave the green light for the 2023–24 Covid shots on September 11, close to the peak of SARS-CoV-2 transmission in that year's summer wave. This year, the summer wave began earlier and, by some metrics, is peaking at much higher levels than in previous years.

Currently, wastewater detection of SARS-CoV-2 shows "very high" virus levels in 32 states and the District of Columbia. An additional 11 states are listed as having "high" levels. Looking at trends, the southern and western regions of the country are currently reporting SARS-CoV-2 levels in wastewater that rival the 2022–23 and 2023–24 winter waves, which both peaked at the very end of December.

more at link above.

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I was able to secure an appointment for the 2024 vaccine on August 28th at my local CVS in San Diego.

I hear Walgreens is quoting September 6th, but I think once the actual vials arrive they'll adjust. I think they'll roll out sooner.

Check with your pharmacist if you want an updated vaccine.

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FDA approves updated Pfizer, Moderna Covid vaccines as virus surges; shots to be available within days
https://www.cnbc.com/2024/08/22/covid-vaccines-fda-approves-pfizer-moderna-updated-kppoint2-shots.html

The Food and Drug Administration on Thursday approved updated Covid vaccines from Pfizer
and Moderna
, putting the new shots on track to reach most Americans in the coming days amid a summer surge of the virus.

The jabs target a strain called KP.2, a descendant of the highly contagious omicron subvariant JN.1 that began circulating widely in the U.S. earlier this year. KP.2 was the dominant Covid strain in May, but now only accounts for roughly 3% of all U.S. cases as of Saturday, according to the latest Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data.

Still, Pfizer and Moderna have said their KP.2 vaccines can produce stronger immune responses against other circulating subvariants of JN.1, such as KP.3 and LB.1, than last year’s round of shots targeting the omicron strain XBB.1.5 can.

“Given waning immunity of the population from previous exposure to the virus and from prior vaccination, we strongly encourage those who are eligible to consider receiving an updated COVID-19 vaccine to provide better protection against currently circulating variants,” Dr. Peter Marks, director of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, said in a statement.

In June, the CDC recommended that everyone over 6 months old receive an updated Covid vaccine and flu jab this year. The new shots from Pfizer and Moderna are specifically approved for people ages 12 and older and are authorized under emergency use for children 6 months through 11 years old.

Pfizer will begin shipping its new shot immediately and expects it to be available in pharmacies, hospitals and clinics across the U.S. “beginning in the coming days,” the company said in a statement. Moderna also expects its shot to be available in a similar time frame, according to a statement.

“Staying up to date with your COVID-19 vaccine remains one of the best ways for people to be protected and prevent severe illness,” Moderna CEO Stephane Bancel said in a statement. “We appreciate the U.S. FDA’s timely review and encourage individuals to speak to their healthcare providers about receiving their updated COVID-19 vaccine alongside their flu shot this fall.”

The FDA’s approval comes a few weeks ahead of last year’s round of shots, which the agency cleared on Sept. 11.

The earlier arrival of updated vaccines could offer some reassurance to Americans as the nation sees a relatively large spike in the virus this summer. A “high” or “very high” level of Covid is being detected in wastewater in almost every state, according to CDC data. Wastewater monitoring provides a glimpse of how widespread the virus is in the U.S. as other forms of testing have fallen off.

Other measures of the virus are rising but remain far below where they were at the peak of the pandemic. Covid test positivity rates rose to 18.3% for the week ended Aug. 10, from 17.9% the week before, according to the CDC.

Meanwhile, the CDC said about four people are being hospitalized for Covid for every 100,000 people in a given area. That’s up from about one Covid hospitalization for every 100,000 people in May, which was the lowest level since the pandemic began.

The summer Covid wave may decline by the time the shots reach patients’ arms and kick in an immune response against the virus, which typically takes two weeks after vaccination.

Still, federal health officials have long told Americans to expect annual updates to Covid shots as the virus churns out new strains that can dodge the immunity people have from previous vaccinations or infections — protection that wanes over time. It’s similar to how the U.S. rolls out new flu vaccines every year.

It’s unclear how many Americans will actually roll up their sleeves to get another shot in the coming months.

Only around 22.5% of U.S. adults received the latest round of shots that came out last fall, according to CDC data through early May.

CVS has them now, other pharmacies and clinics should not be far behind:
Link: https://www.cvshealth.com/news/retail/updated-vaccinations-now-available-cvs-pharmacy-minuteclinic.html


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Democrats and Republicans greet Covid spike with a collective shrug
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/08/28/covid-2024-dnc-campaigns-00176539

Democrats and Republicans can agree on one thing coming out of their respective conventions: Almost no one cares about Covid anymore.

Infections are running rampant after the Democratic confab in Chicago, with staffers on Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign, reporters and other convention-goers all stricken — and in at least one case claiming the positive test was “worth it.” Cases also cropped up after the Republican National Convention in July.

And yet the single most-animating issue of the 2020 election is an afterthought for the major-party nominees coming out of two of the 2024 campaign’s biggest milestones — even as the virus remains an ever-present threat that’s shaped broader debates over key electoral issues like strength of the economy and the future of families’ health and child care.

Both campaigns have struggled with how — and how much — to address a pandemic that the U.S. never fully defeated, but that few Americans still want to dwell on.

Former President Donald Trump has bemoaned in speeches and interviews that he “never got the credit that we really deserved” for helping accelerate vaccine development in 2020, even as he later cast doubt on the shots’ importance and has more recently maneuvered to gain the backing of prominent vaccine critic Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his supporters. Harris lauded President Joe Biden for bringing the pandemic “under control” when she took over his campaign but has hardly mentioned Covid since. Both parties have blamed the other for allowing deaths to spike under their watches.

(More at link)

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The Democratic convention's surprise guest: Covid
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/democratic-national-convention-surprise-guest-covid-kamala-harris-rcna168298

CHICAGO — They came hoping for Beyoncé. They left with Covid.

Fresh off of a jam-packed week of Democratic National Convention events, reports of attendees’ testing positive for Covid are rolling in.

They include members of Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign staff, who are now contending with sickness from Covid, according to two sources close to the campaign with knowledge of the cases. There is at least some concern the developments could affect staffing at events this week, they added.

(More at link)

https://covidtests.gov/

My insurance will re-imburse for up to 8 tests a month.

So whenever I start to run low I buy another 8 for like $90 bucks, submit my claim, and get a re-imbursement check in about 3 weeks.