Covid-19 Pandemic

[lucklucky]

CDC changes what is a Vaccine, from  https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/matt-margolis/2021/09/08/the-cdc-just-made-an-orwellian-change-to-the-definition-of-vaccine-and-vaccination-n1476799

Here’s the “Definition of Terms” for Immunization as captured on August 26, 2021. I’ve highlighted the key points.

Immunity: Protection from an infectious disease. If you are immune to a disease, you can be exposed to it without becoming infected.

Vaccine: A product that stimulates a person’s immune system to produce immunity to a specific disease, protecting the person from that disease. Vaccines are usually administered through needle injections, but can also be administered by mouth or sprayed into the nose.

Vaccination: The act of introducing a vaccine into the body to produce immunity to a specific disease.

Immunization: A process by which a person becomes protected against a disease through vaccination. This term is often used interchangeably with vaccination or inoculation.

Here’s the “Definition of Terms” for immunizations now, which was updated on September 1, 2021, with changes highlighted.

 

Immunity: Protection from an infectious disease. If you are immune to a disease, you can be exposed to it without becoming infected.

Vaccine: A preparation that is used to stimulate the body’s immune response against diseases. Vaccines are usually administered through needle injections, but some can be administered by mouth or sprayed into the nose.

Vaccination: The act of introducing a vaccine into the body to produce protection from a specific disease.

Immunization: A process by which a person becomes protected against a disease through vaccination. This term is often used interchangeably with vaccination or inoculation.

[bojan]

2 hours ago, sunday said:

This could be understood as worrying, but also some kind of hoax, initially:
 

All 4 dominating variants of covid, including delta developed before mass vaccinations. There is a single strain (well, more than one, but one is AFAIU more than marginal) that developed after beginning of the vaccination, and it is very far from widespread (so far). It is also unclear if it developed in vaccinated or non-vaccinated.

Edited September 9, 2021 by bojan

[bojan]

1 hour ago, lucklucky said:

CDC changes what is a Vaccine...

Old definition was obsolete for a solid 50+ years, as there were non-"immunity" granting vaccines since the '70s.

 

[sunday]

9 minutes ago, bojan said:

All 4 dominating variants of covid, including delta developed before mass vaccinations. There is a single strain (well, more than one, but one is AFAIU more than marginal) that developed after beginning of the vaccination, and it is very far from widespread (so far). It is also unclear if it developed in vaccinated or non-vaccinated.

Then we are lucky, because when the variants mutated in presence of vaccines become widespread, a higher virulence could be expected, I think.

[seahawk]

Why?

[rmgill]

Why? Have you not seen the rise of antibiotic resistant bacteria and fungal infections? How do you think that works? It's natural selection. 

[JWB]

Pathogens mutate randomly. Eventually a mutation will enable thwarting of a treatment or vaccine. That assumes the pathogen in question can actually mutate in that direction.

[glenn239]

42 minutes ago, rmgill said:

Why? Have you not seen the rise of antibiotic resistant bacteria and fungal infections? How do you think that works? It's natural selection. 

You mean the virus evolves to better get through the masks?  But I thought only unvaccinated Trump voters contributed to viral mutations?

[RETAC21]

6 hours ago, sunday said:

Then we are lucky, because when the variants mutated in presence of vaccines become widespread, a higher virulence could be expected, I think.

That would run counter to previous experience, a more virulent virus is less able to spread.

[sunday]

28 minutes ago, RETAC21 said:

That would run counter to previous experience, a more virulent virus is less able to spread.

In absence of some things, yes, but it is not necessarily true - do not tell me, you were too busy to read this.

[Skywalkre]

On 9/6/2021 at 2:55 PM, nitflegal said:

I doubt it would have happened without financial incentives.  Subsidizing instead of closing gyms might have reached some.  What it would have potentially changed is the societal conversation had it been pounded over and over enough.  Had our western discussion of Covid been blunt about the effects of our underlying health on the disease than it might have put us in a place where we were far more rational about the disease itself.  For example, kids in school.  It would have also let us better quarantine the at risk population by focusing in on those actually at risk.  Right now the average person in polls thinks this is a disease of the young with a 10+ mortality rate in kids and younger adults.  

Even with financial incentives I don't see it happening for a slew of reasons.

For starters there's always been a large element in this country that has downplayed or blown off the virus completely for no logical reason (just go back to the beginning of this thread and see the various posters lamenting COVID would be no worse than the flu... those statements have sure aged well).  Even after 650k deaths and hospitals coming to the brink of being overrun multiple times (and happening yet again with the recent delta surge) that element still exists.  Public health officials from the start being blunt about how being fat and out of shape being bad for you wouldn't change that for someone who doesn't think the virus is a concern/is a conspiracy/whatever other nonsense they're peddling.

Societal conversations to influence change take time.  I recall a health documentary I saw where one of the docs they interviewed felt we should copy the anti-smoking campaign and do something similar against sugar.  That campaign worked... it only took a couple decades, though, and we've seen some backsliding in recent years now that that campaign has let up.  Impacting change in a few weeks at the start of a pandemic when you have that element already mentioned downplaying it to begin with?  Not going to happen.  Look at how folks on here have talked about some public health officials (as an example Fauci has repeatedly been brought up as some bad guy... which is just perplexing).

Then there's the simple fact that Americans are soft and lazy.  How else does one get a country full of obese and out of shape citizenry?  Americans would rather pop a pill than put in the work/cut out food to lose weight and get in shape.  The best example of this comes from a good friend of mine who's a PT.  Every day she works with individuals coming off surgery/injury who are in serious pain and she explains to them that if they put in the work their pain will go away and they can return to a normal life... and the overwhelming majority simply don't do the work.  It absolutely blows her mind... but, again, soft and lazy and would rather pop pills.  That's America...

(The pill-popping fascination probably explains the element of society focusing on these wonder drugs that will get rid of COVID.  I imagine it's a safe bet the overwhelming majority of those people are overweight and out of shape.)

 

[Skywalkre]

2 hours ago, sunday said:

In absence of some things, yes, but it is not necessarily true - do not tell me, you were too busy to read this.

Doing a search of the lady at the start of that post turns up someone peddling a whole lot of BS (she's claimed the vaccines lead to sterilization... despite no proof of that).  Googling her accusations turns up a plethora of folks with just as impressive credentials pointing out she's full of shit.  Not surprising you're turning to someone like her considering you're still sticking to 'the election was stolen' BS even after all these months of zero evidence.  🙄

[sunday]

I really enjoy, when in doubt about stopping ignoring an individual, to find that the relevant human being continues to elude the points in discussion, and prefers to resort to rhetorical tricks.

Could be lack of skill in Dialectics, could be trolling. Alas, no time available to gain insight on the matter. So, the decision to put that someone on ignore still makes sense.

Edited September 9, 2021 by sunday

[nitflegal]

2 hours ago, Skywalkre said:

Even with financial incentives I don't see it happening for a slew of reasons.

For starters there's always been a large element in this country that has downplayed or blown off the virus completely for no logical reason (just go back to the beginning of this thread and see the various posters lamenting COVID would be no worse than the flu... those statements have sure aged well).  Even after 650k deaths and hospitals coming to the brink of being overrun multiple times (and happening yet again with the recent delta surge) that element still exists.  Public health officials from the start being blunt about how being fat and out of shape being bad for you wouldn't change that for someone who doesn't think the virus is a concern/is a conspiracy/whatever other nonsense they're peddling.

Societal conversations to influence change take time.  I recall a health documentary I saw where one of the docs they interviewed felt we should copy the anti-smoking campaign and do something similar against sugar.  That campaign worked... it only took a couple decades, though, and we've seen some backsliding in recent years now that that campaign has let up.  Impacting change in a few weeks at the start of a pandemic when you have that element already mentioned downplaying it to begin with?  Not going to happen.  Look at how folks on here have talked about some public health officials (as an example Fauci has repeatedly been brought up as some bad guy... which is just perplexing).

Then there's the simple fact that Americans are soft and lazy.  How else does one get a country full of obese and out of shape citizenry?  Americans would rather pop a pill than put in the work/cut out food to lose weight and get in shape.  The best example of this comes from a good friend of mine who's a PT.  Every day she works with individuals coming off surgery/injury who are in serious pain and she explains to them that if they put in the work their pain will go away and they can return to a normal life... and the overwhelming majority simply don't do the work.  It absolutely blows her mind... but, again, soft and lazy and would rather pop pills.  That's America...

(The pill-popping fascination probably explains the element of society focusing on these wonder drugs that will get rid of COVID.  I imagine it's a safe bet the overwhelming majority of those people are overweight and out of shape.)

 

I don't disagree, although considering how terrified people got and the massive changes people volunteered to perform in their lives does make me wonder whether there wouldn't have been a noticeable shift.  Not a huge one but one that could be measured.

It's funny that you brought up the PT.  I had both hands broken after screwing up in the dojo and had to go to PT after surgery, terrified that my surgical career was over.  On my second appointment my PT was amazed at how much strength and dexterity I had gained in 2 weeks.  I had asked her how often I could do my exercises and she had said i could do them every 2 hours.  So I set my phone to go off and every 2 hours round the clock I did PT.  If it was 2 in the morning I woke up and did those damned rubber bands and grippers.  The thing that has always stuck with me was her contention that, if people would just not be babies and push themselves as hard as they could be allowed to many debilitating injury classes would no longer be considered broadly debilitating.  

[Ivanhoe]

An odd research paper;

https://www.scirp.org/pdf/ojepi_2021082409555670.pdf

Quote

Results: The shift of highest infection rates from countries in the northern-towards countries in the southern-hemisphere during early 2020 and the reverse in December of the same year correlates with the seasonal variation in the flux of germicidal sunlight. Mortality rate for the same virus among different countries did not show a seasonal component. COVID-19 infection mortality rate was considerably lower in developing countries of South America (11 of the largest countries) than in several (at least 😎 developed European countries. Discussion: COVID-19 resulted in higher infections during winter than in summer. The finding of a seasonal component, correlating the progression of the pandemic with local solar flux, demonstrates that infectious virus in the environment plays a role in the pandemic since direct person-to-person transmission would afford little time for solar inactivation. Similar epidemiological data amongst “locked” and “unlocked” countries demonstrates that lock-downs and similar confining measures had no effect on the chances of healthy individuals becoming infected with SARS-CoV-2 or dying of COVID-19.

I recall a few folks talking about the seasonality of COVID, and the probable impact of sun exposure levels.

One of the obvious gripes with country-vs-country mortality comparisons is the implicit assumption that the standard of care is the same (or if different, similarly effective).

[Ivanhoe]

So, an interesting anecdote I heard today while getting a haircut. The gal stubbed her toe, didn't heal, went to her GP to get it x-rayed etc. Because she was sneezing in the waiting room, she was expelled and told to not come back for two weeks.

Two things:

- this year, ragweed pollen is at high and persistent levels, and due to the abnormally high humidity, mold & mildew spores;

- one might think that a doctor's office would be the place to go if one was in the early stages of COVID invection. Where else would you go? Quickie-Lube?

[sunday]

31 minutes ago, Ivanhoe said:

One of the obvious gripes with country-vs-country mortality comparisons is the implicit assumption that the standard of care is the same (or if different, similarly effective).

The quality of the statistics data, too.

[LT Ducky]

Just an observation, nothing more. 
 

I now know an equal number of vaccinated people who have contracted COVID as unvaccinated have. 

[RETAC21]

29 minutes ago, LT Ducky said:

Just an observation, nothing more. 
 

I now know an equal number of vaccinated people who have contracted COVID as unvaccinated have. 

An interesting observation nevertheless, what are the symptoms, illness, etc?

[MiloMorai]

1 hour ago, LT Ducky said:

Just an observation, nothing more. 
 

I now know an equal number of vaccinated people who have contracted COVID as unvaccinated have. 

Well there is only 53% of Americans fully vaccinated. 

[nitflegal]

11 minutes ago, MiloMorai said:

Well there is only 53% of Americans fully vaccinated. 

And apparently we have to protect those 53% from the other 47%.

[LT Ducky]

1 hour ago, RETAC21 said:

An interesting observation nevertheless, what are the symptoms, illness, etc?

16 people total, 8 in each group, symptoms ranged from none (teenage and early 20’s),  sick with flu-like symptoms for 3 to 5 days with complete recovery, to death in 3 cases. The 3 deaths were unvaccinated (early on in 2020), over 80 years of age with multiple co-morbidities.

[MiloMorai]

55 minutes ago, nitflegal said:

And apparently we have to protect those 53% from the other 47%.

You mean from the Petrie dishes.

[Stefan Fredriksson]

https://sverigesradio.se/artikel/more-than-80-percent-of-covid-patients-in-icus-are-not-vaccinated

As I understand it, sample is just for one month and 89 patients, but still.

[rmgill]

Interestingly enough, I was at Dragon Con this year. One of the usual things is that post con you have con crud. Con crud is usually a mix of various illnesses that one expects to get when crossing paths with several tens of thousands of people. Neither myself or my wife came down with it this year. I suspect that our COVID immunity from cleared infection/aka natural immunity, protected us from the various corona viruses that make up con Crud. The con was much smaller but the crowds in certain areas was still substantial, Dealers Hall especially. 

FYI, Jerry Pournelle was at Dragon Con in 2017 went home and died the following Friday (Sept 8). Many suspect he got a strong case of con crud and died.