COVID is back:
Fauci: We ‘need to be prepared’ for likely Covid uptick this winter https://t.co/NSJP0NqjUz
— POLITICO (@politico) September 10, 2023
The good news is that after three years, at least we know how to handle it. We'll be OK as long as no one wears a mask; we stick close to each other; everything stays open; we huddle together in crowded bars; and everyone avoids unsafe booster shots.
Freedom!
Also, don't bother us with news stories about old codgers on respirators and folks dying in hospitals and nursing homes and all that icky depressing stuff. Keep the focus where it should be, on Hunter Biden's laptop.
“Live free or die”
Oh, ok…..
A friend caught COVID last week in China. He started feeling unwell on the way home. Once home he tested positive. The American doc told him the current version going around is much less dangerous than the initial virus of 2020. The doc prescribed paxlovid just in case, but said not to use it unless he developed severe symptoms more than a persistent cough. Paxlovid has its own side effects that not everyone tolerates well. Now, a few days later, he is beginning to feel better. No hospitalization, just stayed home and slept and rested. Before he traveled he had had (since 2121) five COVID vaccinations and boosters.
"...The doc prescribed paxlovid just in case, but said not to use it unless he developed severe symptoms more than a persistent cough. .."
This is contrary to the usual advice that paxlovid needs to be started as soon as possible to be effective.
Your story highlights why the US has both the most expensive and worst healthcare system in the developed world. "The doc prescribed paxlovid just in case, but said not to use it unless he developed severe symptoms " Paxlovid doesn't actually work if you wait when you have severe symptoms. So the cdoctor gets the patient to piss his money away, pre buying paxlovid which either won't be used or won't be used when it could help.
One of the known benefits of vaccination is reducing symptom severity and duration when infected
"We'll be OK as long as no one wears a mask; we stick close to each other; everything stays open; we huddle together in crowded bars; and everyone avoids unsafe booster shots." And if we keep the schools open.
2021 Aug 19 to 25; 1,100 Covid deaths a day
2022 Aug 19 to 25; 380 Covid deaths a day
2023 Aug 19 to 25; 60 Covid deaths a day
Which is why the health experts are sayin we shouldn't be worried about infections now, but we might have a problem in the future, since cases are presently very low but rising rapidly.
'Bout time we turn those numbers around, amirite? Can't have the U.S. of A. falling behind any of those other countries this time. An' a couple-ten-thousand deaths a year is totally worth it if I don't have to feel slightly uncomfortable putting a cloth mask over my face when I go into a crowded store!
you forgot to mention coughing in each other's face and washing hands as little as possible.
Or just do what DeSantis does and wipe your snot on random people.
Enough with the hand washing. Covid is spread through the air; handwashing and surface sanitation generally have essentially zero effect on the transmission rate.
1st RSV is significantly transmitted by fomites. 2nd, while wiping down food packages is a waste of time for reducing COVID19 transmission, hand washing is likely to reduce SARS COV2 transmission by direct contact with COVID19 patients. Wash your hands frequently. You'll be glad you did.
I've developed the habit of obsessively scrubbing my hands whenever I return from leaving the house to run errands. I figure it can't hurt (the hand lotion is right near the softsoap), and if it helps reduce the number of colds, flu, and whatever the latest letter virus is, that's just great.
Don't forget to go to church on Sunday and sing with the choir! /s
Freak out completely when you see someone wearing a mask because those people are weak and should be killed but the government thinks you should coddle them like there's a law against killing people or something.
I used to think the job of "Public Health" officials was to tell the public what they need to know, given current data, to stay as safe as possible.
I now realize the job of "Public Health" officials is to say the most politically acceptable things that push us in the general direction of safety, as long as people don't get too mad about it.
Why publicly document that you are a lying sack of excrement.
I actually think Dr Fauci in particular deserves a 50 foot bronze statue somewhere in DC for the crap he endured during the pandemic.
But it was depressing to watch our entire Public Health system quickly collapse under the weight of everyone bawling about any Public Health measure that might help control the million plus deaths we experienced. Never mind Long Covid, which has been officially brushed under the rug.
Could someone explain how Japan only had 74,694 deaths, again?
Because they don't have Our Freedoms™ obviously!
What are you, some kinda Japanese-loving traitor?
Because when a Japanese person has a sniffle, they wear a mask.
I guess we can shelf all of the "Herp de durp do masks even work?" studies? Otherwise we need to come up with a better explanation why they've done so much better than us.
False. I lived there. If Japanese cough a lot they *might* wear a a mask on a train or subway or at work and part of that is because it is so difficult culturally to stay at home when sick if working.
Neil Ferguson predicted 490,000 Covid deaths for Japan in 2020 alone. Instead they had 3,400
Japan's obesity rate is 4% compared to 42% and the elderly are far healthier than American elderly. Japanese doctors are also far stricter in what is counted a Covid death - the same for South Korea and even more so in Singapore. Masks did nothing. Also, a recent Nobel laureate in medicine showed that Asia had much higher immunity to the new coronavirus than in other regions of the world.
Why did San Francisco have such a low death rate?
Just last shift, three contacts.
https://youtu.be/KOaeDHeJ80I?si=Nxjr2v5_Th3diuYA
"On Thursday, the Swedish Board of Agriculture annouced that an 800-square km restricted zone is set to be imposed in central Sweden after the country's first case of African swine fever was discovered in the area."
Protecting the pork industry is important.
"we huddle together in crowded bars; and everyone avoids unsafe booster shots."
Wait, so, we are in bars and not doing shots? Wtf? Tequila shots ftw!
So many things going on in the world that we don't know about,
https://i.redd.it/xhl1bjxkfbnb1.jpg
https://imgur.com/Sx2CTNe
You are free to self isolate and wear a mask.
I consider COVID to be a bad cold. I sunny worry about it anymore and I will not isolate or wear a mask.
It's called freedom.
We’re coming up on seven million deaths worldwide from bad colds.
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/coronavirus-death-toll/
Yes. Probably a bit of an overcount - there is a difference between dying OF COVID and WITH COVID, but old people, the morbidly obese, and people with comorbidities also die of colds. We just don't hyperventilate about it, clutch our pearls, and count each death.
COVID deaths among otherwise healthy people are almost nonexistent.
Someone dying from a cold happens but it is rare enough that it is almost reportable. I am not that active clinically anymore but co-run ICUs for a bunch of hospitals in our network and neither I nor anyone else can remember a case where that happened.
Comorbidites are tricky. You probably already know this since you seem to have a lot medical expertise but there are co-morbidites that are bad enough that any significant illness is likely fatal. Not usually a cold, or allergies but certainly pneumonia. Then there are co-morbidities that make you particularly prone to some illnesses or just generally leave you susceptible. What we found with covid is that a very wide range of co-morbidites seemed to make people vulnerable. Once you get over the age of 50 most people have a co-morbidity so since they are so common its becomes kind of meaningless. Using current guidelines about 70%-75% of men over 55 have HTN just as an example. Of note, while it seems clear HTN is a risk factor for covid it's not clear if its a risk factor for flu.
Finally, as you probably know if you look at hospitalizations, especially those resulting in death, the very large majority have some kind of co-morbidity. So if your concern is co-morbities, that has to include a very large part of the population and will include those with problems like HTN and Diabetes and asthma which people live with for a long time.
Steve
Shrug. Your mileage may vary.
I cannot find any statistics on number of common cold deaths annually. However, if we counted them the way we seem to have counted COVID (Almost every death of a COVID positive person was counted) we euros have many thousands.
When I got COVID (and I am over 50) , it was somewhere between a bad cold and a mild flu. My kids barely got sick. If you are scared you can isolate and wear masks. I won't and I won't let anyone make me. I am confident that enough people feel like me that we can make the BLM protests look like a little old ladies knitting club.
Since I had to look it up: HTN = Hypertension = High blood pressure
The reason you can find the statistics on colds is because it is so rare. I fill out death certificates and know how the docs in my network fill them out. It's no different than we do other illnesses so I have no idea what the concern is about reporting, other than an ideological based concern.
My wife had breast cancer. She had surgery and intra-op radiation. That was it. 10 years later she is fine. From this I guess I should conclude no one dies from breast cancer. Except I dont because reasoning from anecdotes is problematic.
Steve
You can find statistics on annual rabies deaths which are certainly less that cold deaths.
One asymptomatic American kid had virus persist inside their body for at least 300 days. Prior to that study, it wasn't clear that the virus persisted long-term outside of people with Long-CoViD / PASC.
You should know that a CoViD infection can apparently reactivate dormant viruses inside of your body, such as Epstein-Barr.
We don't even know if SARS-CoV-2 can remain dormant and undetectable long-term, then years later reactivate.
But we do know that CoViD can damage your lung and heart, and repeated infections raises your risk of death.
C'est la vie?
So by all means let's all be terrified forever.
Covid is one of the many risks we face in life these days, like car accidents, and getting cancer from drinking whiskey. Is everyone here really isolating and wearing masks still? I'm sure not, and no one I know is either. Can we stop it with the Covid snark when just about everyone is going to bars, not wearing masks, traveling, going to church, singing, dancing and what have you and has been for quite some time?
And regarding vaccination at this point--it's not even clear that everyone should even be getting the new vaccine when it becomes available.
Isolating if you get sick w/ CoViD? I should hope so. Let me ask you, are you one of those people who goes into work with the flu?
Yes, everyone should be getting the new vaccine when it comes out -- it boosts neutralizing antibodies that are effective against the current strains. The longer you go without a booster, the fewer neutralizing antibodies you have and the less likely your immune system will immediately associate with the older strains.
Or you can just let your body play 'guess the foreign thingie' game and see how that works out for you.
Not anymore I'm not, no. I think the new protocol for our society is that you stay home when sick or wear a mask. But otherwise, don't worry about it too much.
I am far from anti-vax as well. I've been posting here forever so hopefully at least someone out there remembers me. For the current and upcoming rounds of boosters, there is far from unanimity on whether everyone should get one. This Vox article goes into some detail on that.
https://www.vox.com/coronavirus-covid19/2023/9/9/23854114/covid-vaccines-boosters-flu-shots-eris-fornax-pirola
That Vox reference is not very good. The future isn't an annual shot; it's an occasional booster that is broadly designed to avoid having to adjust the formulation annually.
You can't rely on the last booster; its target is too far from the current variants. As I've been saying for the last few months, do not get the old booster -- if you can, wait for the upcoming one as it is significantly closer to the current variants and as such have been shown to produce greater neutralizing antibodies that detect the current variants.
I dont know anyone who is advocating to be terrified forever. It's a much lower risk disease now (unless we get a bad new variant). The new variants are so contagious there is no sense wearing a mask unless you are going to use an N-95. If you do get it you should stay home or wear a mask, probably a combo depending upon your work.
Steve
Kevin should write about the 2023 Cochrane study. MAGA world has latched on to this as gospel now. My wife, at the end of her having covid, wanted to wear a mask to visit her MAGA sister who was in the hospital, but her sister said, "Masks don't work!" Her sister's husband emphatically agreed. My wife explained that masks block the droplets carrying the virus. But of course no agreement was found.