Anything COVID related

sprout said:
LaSalePute said:

 Children's immune systems are, for the most part, with the exception of some special individuals who for some reason or another have known weakened immune systems, strong enough to limit COVID to mild symptoms. 

 I don't think "strong enough" is the correct term, as cytokine storms are "too strong" of an immune response.

 And don't forget about the MIS-C, otherwise known as children getting royally screwed all over all at once due to COVID. Here are some stats for Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome in Children in the U.S.
https://www.cdc.gov/mis/mis-c.html
------------

The average incidence of MIS-C is 316 cases per 1,000,000 COVID cases in children (0.03%). Thankfully that is a low rate but the phrase "royally screwed" truly fits that experience.

https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#mis-national-surveillance

  • The median age of patients with MIS-C was 9 years. Half of children with MIS-C were between the ages of 5 and 13 years.
  • 60% of the reported patients with race/ethnicity information available occurred in children who are Hispanic/Latino (1,467 patients) or Black, Non-Hispanic (1,666 patients).
  • 98% of patients had a positive test result for SARS CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. The remaining 2% of patients had contact with someone with COVID-19.
  • 60% of reported patients were male.


CDC is now releasing data on COVID cases/deaths data by vaccination status. You can also view by vaccine product, and age groups:

https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#rates-by-vaccine-status

I'm a bit surprised the data only goes through Sept 4.


That is odd that it only goes through 9/4 - NYTimes is posting the same info - here's the daily cases.  I think it's safe to say the vaccines are effective.


jamie said:

That is odd that it only goes through 9/4 - NYTimes is posting the same info - here's the daily cases.  I think it's safe to say the vaccines are effective.

 Pretty wild to see how the delta variant took hold over the summer. From the graph, it looks like it even caused a 7-8 fold increase in breakthrough COVID infections in vaccinated people. Still, going up to only 16 cases/100,000 is nothing compared to 95. And remember, this is just a graph of the cases. The ICU bed occupancy and death rate are even more stark.


PeterWick said:

jamie said:

That is odd that it only goes through 9/4 - NYTimes is posting the same info - here's the daily cases.  I think it's safe to say the vaccines are effective.

 Pretty wild to see how the delta variant took hold over the summer. From the graph, it looks like it even caused a 7-8 fold increase in breakthrough COVID infections in vaccinated people. Still, going up to only 16 cases/100,000 is nothing compared to 95. And remember, this is just a graph of the cases. The ICU bed occupancy and death rate are even more stark.

Sobering to think what would have happened had the delta variant been the initial version of the virus.  On the plus side, we wouldn't have have been subjected to this incessant anti-vaxxer whinging.


tjohn said:

Sobering to think what would have happened had the delta variant been the initial version of the virus.  On the plus side, we wouldn't have have been subjected to this incessant anti-vaxxer whinging.

 That would have been devastating. Maybe a million U.S. deaths by the end of 2020 if not more. Across the globe? Shudder.


tjohn said:

Sobering to think what would have happened had the delta variant been the initial version of the virus.  On the plus side, we wouldn't have have been subjected to this incessant anti-vaxxer whinging.

 I don't even know if that's true, tbh.


Big question is, are we now on an irrevisible trend towards endemic status or is the latest good trend just part of this weird 2 month cycle they talk about.  We have a lot of vaccinated people now and a lot of people with post-illness immunity but who knows. 



Viruses are such a strange thing.  While they have many of the characteristics of a living being, (such as reproducing),  they also do not do many of the same things as the basic definition of living beings. (such as respiration and excretion).  My sense (and I do know for sure) is that viruses have been around ever since there was life on earth.   


RobertRoe said:

Viruses are such a strange thing.  While they have many of the characteristics of a living being, (such as reproducing),  they also do not do many of the same things as the basic definition of living beings. (such as respiration and excretion).  My sense (and I do know for sure) is that viruses have been around ever since there was life on earth.   

Current research indicates that up to 8% of the human genome may be composed of remnants of ancient retroviruses that inserted themselves into our ancestors.

Genetic material is amazing stuff.


Robert Sapolsky's lectures are amazing at explaining genetics.


The Fauci interview on CBS is worth looking at carefully.   It looks like near the beginning of the video, Maplewood Town Hall is seen at an ACT UP AIDS rally.  https://www.cbsnews.com/video/dr-anthony-fauci-on-lessons-learned/#x       Fauci is totally a straight shooter.  He does not rant, but gives calm sensible answers and opinions.  I really like and trust him and have done so since he became prominent during the AIDS pandemic.  It seems that in the debates about coivd vaccinations, it comes down to who do you trust.  And needless to say, I trust Fauci over the nonsensical characters on the other side of the debate.  


In looking closer at the video, the building is the National Institutes of Health.    But, looks just like Maplewood Town Hall.


Good read:

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2021/11/the-mass-exodus-of-americas-health-care-workers/620713/

I really feel for the health care workers who are dealing with a large number of unvaccinated people.


jamie said:

Good read:

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2021/11/the-mass-exodus-of-americas-health-care-workers/620713/

I really feel for the health care workers who are dealing with a large number of unvaccinated people.

Geez. That is so sad.

    The incidence of violence against US health care and social service workers has been on the rise for several years. (U.S. BUREAU OF LABOR STATISTICS) Health care workers tend to underreport abuse for reasons such as recognizing the perpetrators are suffering from dementia, are confused, intoxicated, or not truly aware of how their behavior is harmful. (Larkin, 2021) On top of that, in parts of the country, we have government officials allowing misinformation to spread, discounting COVID-19’s threat, and valuing the economy over public health. That created an atmosphere that encouraged lashing out against masking and restrictions imposed to slow the spread of the contagion. We locked down and demanded everyone stay at home except for healthcare professionals who were then in even greater demand. So many lauded them as heroes from afar but such praise and respect is not always the case when a sick patient is brought in under duress. Physical and verbal assaults are regrettably nothing new but now staff members are being abused and bullied out of fear that they could be spreading COVID and some feel they’re being unjustly deprived of their right to do as they please. Medical staff must also be ready for attacks such as deliberately coughing, spitting, or sneezing on them. (Miller & Blumstein, 2020)

    It is happening in overcrowded emergency rooms while hospital staff dealing with exhaustion and personal grief of their own must keep working at an intense pace under COVID protocols. Emergency departments and behavioral units have more regular episodes of violence and workers there have the skills for dealing with it, but what about areas like intensive care units? The last thing they need is the threat of more aggression and violence there. No, wait. The last thing they all need is the system excusing these occurrences in the flurry of activity and “Hey, they signed up for it.”

    Apparently, those working in hospitals have inadvertently chosen to experience this disparity of justice by way of the job they’re expected to do. After all, those are still patients and their stressed-out loved ones. In addition to COVID-19–related physical violence, verbal and psychological abuse of healthcare workers also takes place outside the hospital and in the online world leading to burnout, depression, and even suicide. In NJ, it is a criminal offense if a person knowingly exposes another to an STD, (CDC) but what about assaulting someone by coughing or sneezing on them? We know that COVID is more easily transmitted and the morbidity and mortality data speak for themselves but is that being taken seriously enough? You can easily find some arrest reports for these actions by searching online but how many go unaddressed or ignored? The COVID crisis is perhaps a mitigating circumstance that is too often cited as an excuse for injured healthcare staff to go without justice.

https://www.bls.gov/iif/oshwc/cfoi/workplace-violence-healthcare-2018.htm

Larkin H. Navigating Attacks Against Health Care Workers in the COVID-19 Era. JAMA. 2021;325(18):1822–1824. https://doi:10.1001/jama.2021.2701

Miller, J. M., & Blumstein, A. (2020). Crime, Justice & the COVID-19 Pandemic: Toward a National Research Agenda. American journal of criminal justice : AJCJ, 1–10. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12103-020-09555-z

https://www.cdc.gov/hiv/policies/law/states/exposure.html


Here's the site to order tests.  The order page doesn't seem to be loading though.  

https://www.covidtests.gov/


Loaded for me.  No problem.


joan_crystal said:

Loaded for me.  No problem.

The order page did?

https://special.usps.com/testkits

You got lucky I guess.


Just consolidated Covid related posts in a new category here:

https://maplewood.worldwebs.com/forums/covid-related

Be sure to pick that category when starting a new thread..


jamie said:

Just consolidated Covid related posts in a new category here:

https://maplewood.worldwebs.com/forums/covid-related

Be sure to pick that category when starting a new thread..

The new category is a great idea, but it's also kind of sobering. I took a look at the older threads and it suddenly hit me how long this has been going on. Not like I was unaware of that or anything - just sometimes you get reminded and it is kind of ... depressing? dispiriting? infuriating (when thinking of the unvaxxed) ... the fact that this has been going on long enough to warrant its own category on MOL is not something I would have guessed when "all this" started. And I was among the most pessimistic of people posting here, and certainly among people I know IRL. I never in a million years thought we'd still be at this 2 years later.


The numbers are good lately.  Cases and hospitalizations in NJ have been dropping, as have the cases in our area towns per the Essex County site.  The NJ transmission rate has been below the magic 1 for the past couple of days.  


jamie said:

The order page did?

https://special.usps.com/testkits

You got lucky I guess.

Multiple times as I shared the information with others. PC laptop, FIOS, Chrome.


bub said:

The numbers are good lately.  Cases and hospitalizations in NJ have been dropping, as have the cases in our area towns per the Essex County site.  The NJ transmission rate has been below the magic 1 for the past couple of days.  

This is good news. That said, I know quite a few people (some from work, a couple of my kids' friends) who recently came down with Omicron. So far, nothing serious beyond significant fatigue and bad headaches. All are vaccinated/boostered.

I've been keeping an eye on the California vaccination x hospitalization data to see how the vax seems to be holding up in the Omicron wave (CA posts the most recent data I can find for this).  The results are about 2-3 weeks behind: 

CA results as of Jan 2: Hospitalization rate for vaccinated was creeping upwards... but soared upwards for the unvaccinated:  https://covid19.ca.gov/state-dashboard/#postvax-status

From December 27, 2021 to January 2, 2022, unvaccinated people were 6.0 times more likely to be hospitalized with COVID-19 than fully vaccinated people.


joan_crystal said:

jamie said:

The order page did?

https://special.usps.com/testkits

You got lucky I guess.

Multiple times as I shared the information with others. PC laptop, FIOS, Chrome.

It worked just fine for me also.


Ah, for some reason Chrome was loading the following.  But was able to access via my Edge browser.  Weird.


Named IHU, the new B.1.640.2 variant is so far known to have infected 12 people living in southeastern France. The first case was linked to a person with a travel history to Cameroon, western Africa, said researchers in a paper published on medRxiv.
Again looking for the African connection, and there’s yet to find a person in Cameroon with this variant… I’m tired of all this crap.


Testing and vaccine are both at the Sears entrance across from Eisenhower. They used to be at opposite sides. I was a little worried at seeing the empty parking lot until I got close enough to read the sign.

I say this to help people AVOID the entrance off Walnut. That parking lot is practically a moLonsdale as you go around to the back.



jamie said:

Ah, for some reason Chrome was loading the following.  But was able to access via my Edge browser.  Weird.

that is weird. I couldn't open the site using Firefox - it just sat there clocking. But Chrome opened it right up.


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