Covid 19 thread

[cliffs]

Same here, right up your nose. It's almost akin to having an STD test where they stick a swab up your urinary track.

[cliffs]

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — A new variant of the coronavirus emerged Thursday in the United States, posing yet another public health challenge in a country already losing more than 3,000 people to COVID-19 every day.

The mutated version of the virus, first identified in South Africa, was found in two cases in South Carolina. Public health officials said it’s almost certain that there are more infections that have not been identified yet. They are also concerned that this version spreads more easily and that vaccines could be less effective against it.
The two cases were discovered in adults in different regions of the state and do not appear to be connected. Neither of the people infected has traveled recently, the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control said Thursday.
“That’s frightening,” because it means there could be more undetected cases within the state, said Dr. Krutika Kuppalli, an infectious diseases physician at the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston. “It's probably more widespread.”

[cliffs]

The mass vaccination site at Dodger Stadium was reportedly shut down for about an hour on Saturday after a group of anti-vaccination protesters gathered around the entrance to the stadium’s parking lots.
Authorities at the scene reportedly responded to the arrival of the protesters — estimated to be around 30 in number — by closing off the facility, leaving hundreds of drivers and passengers to wait in line outside the stadium.
Among the protesters were members of anti-vaccine and far-right groups, per the Times, with signs urging people to not get the vaccine. The group reportedly went out of their way to avoid political apparel:
A post on social media described the demonstration as the “SCAMDEMIC PROTEST/MARCH.” It advised participants to “please refrain from wearing Trump/MAGA attire as we want our statement to resonate with the sheeple. No flags but informational signs only.
“This is a sharing information protest and march against everything COVID, Vaccine, PCR Tests, Lockdowns, Masks, Fauci, Gates, Newsom, China, digital tracking, etc.”

[cliffs]

The US needs to step up efforts to halt the spread of the coronavirus, Dr. Anthony Fauci said Friday, after two vaccines proved to be less effective against a new variant of the virus.
"It's really a wake-up call for us to be nimble and to be able to adjust as this virus will continue for certain to evolve and mutate," said Fauci, who's the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.



Maybe just maybe , they rushed the testing of the vaccines?

[cliffs]

It’s no secret that ending the coronavirus pandemic requires two things: mitigation and vaccination.

But the urgency of doing both — and doing them as completely and quickly as possible — dramatically increased this week as news broke that the so-called South African variant had finally arrived in the United States, with South Carolina officials reporting on Thursday America’s first two known cases involving the B.1.351 strain.
Neither South Carolina patient had traveled or been in contact with the other, which is a strong indication that the South African variant is already spreading undetected in America.
“By the time someone has symptoms, gets a test, has a positive result and we get the sequence, our opportunity for doing real case control and contact tracing is largely gone,” said Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the new director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, during Friday’s White House COVID-19 briefing. “We should be treating every case as if it’s a variant during this pandemic right now.”
At the same time, a raft of new data underscored why B.1.351’s arrival in the U.S. is cause for concern: It has an advantageous set of spike-protein mutations that allow it to partially evade the immune responses that protect against the original, “wild type” virus.

[cliffs]

Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-Mass.), who received a second dose of the COVID-19 vaccine earlier this month, tested positive for the virus on Friday.



Another Democrat from Massachusetts, Rep. Lori Trahan, announced Thursday she had also tested positive. Both lawmakers are reportedly asymptomatic.

[LKeet6]

Had some really interesting debates with a guy I would (just about) call a "covid sceptic."

Now, this wasn't an ordinary sceptic, not a conspiracy theory nut; he's an intelligent guy, who I respect, and he works in scientific industries. Not vaccines specifically, but has some knowledge and knows people in that sphere.

His argument was essentially that vaccines usually have to go through rigorous testing and trials and that we're being used as "guinea pigs." He pointed to a scientist friend of his who was saying people had died from taking the vaccine. (Old people: moves have no been made to stop old people from taking it.)

My comeback was to say that, these things surely have to be a cost/benefit analysis. If we don't roll out the vaccines, how many people will die?? He accepted my point...

I had many other covid debates with him. Was good to discuss with someone from the other side who was being rational and only going off established facts. I was mildly influenced by quite a few of his positions on things...

[cliffs]

For months, public health officials have said that younger adults have been big drivers of the spread of COVID-19 in the U.S. But new research suggests there’s another age group that may be fueling new cases of the virus: people ages 35 to 49.
That’s the conclusion of a just-released study from the U.K.’s Imperial College London. The study, which was published in the journal Science, analyzed mobility data from the cellphones of more than 10 million Americans between early February and late October 2020. Among other things, the data helped researchers determine where people went, like restaurants and grocery stores. The researchers then compared that data to COVID-19 case and mortality rates by age.
The researchers concluded in the study that the “majority of COVID-19 infections” originate from people between the ages of 20 and 49, but people between 35 and 49 were responsible for 41.1 percent of new cases of the virus. Those in their late thirties and forties driving the spread of the virus was consistent across the country, the researchers said in the study, but “estimated contributions” of people between 20 and 34 were higher in the Southern, Southwestern and Western regions of the United States.

[cliffs]

I am so glad I can't wrap my head around being a conspiracy theorist.


As the COVID-19 pandemic started to ravage the world in earnest last spring, a new conspiracy theory known as the “Great Reset” slowly developed alongside it. The details of the theory vary from one conspiratorial echo chamber to the next. But it broadly holds that a vague, shadowy cabal of global elites either engineered the pandemic or are opportunistically using it as a means to destroy everything good in the world—and build a post-crisis totalitarian dystopia in which average people live benighted lives of slavery solely to serve the interests of the ruling class.

The Great Reset has gained serious traction across the far right—especially in the wake of Joe Biden’s election victory and as nations struggle to respond to the third wave of the pandemic. As it has, its proponents have been increasingly consumed by a particularly bizarre notion: that sinister elites want to force ordinary people to stop eating meat and instead subsist on a diet of bugs while they sip champagne, eat steaks, and laugh at us all.

Some technocrats do actually advocate the spread of insect agriculture as an environmental measure, as conspiracists point out. This advocacy is usually vague and soft. But Great Reset proponents insist that their ra-ra pro-sustainability messaging is really the groundwork that elites will use to eventually micromanage the smallest aspects of our lives in their post-pandemic hellscape.

[LKeet6]

Ffs 🙄

Imbeciles who think they're being clever...

[cliffs]

While wealthy countries chase supplies of Pfizer’s and Moderna’s highly advanced mRNA vaccines, Oxford-AstraZeneca’s jab is set to take over the world.
By the first half of 2021, about 340 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine will be distributed to 136 countries through Covax, a platform led by the World Health Organization (WHO) and Gavi (an organization that grants developing countries access to vaccines by subsidizing their cost). By contrast, the coalition will only distribute 1.2 million Pfizer vaccine doses, and only 18 countries will receive them.
Although AstraZeneca’s vaccine has lower stated efficacy than Pfizer or Moderna’s, there are several reasons why it’ll play such a major role in the eventual end of the pandemic. The vaccine is cheaper to produce and purchase—at $4 a dose, compared to about $20 per dose for Pfizer and $10 to $50 for Modena. And, just as crucially, it’s easier to transport and deliver, as it doesn’t have the cold-storage requirements of the mRNA vaccines.
Most United Nations member states, as well as the Palestinian territories and the Vatican, belong to Covax. This includes the US, which had been an outlier among wealthy countries by staying away during the Donald Trump administration, and joined the platform on the first day of Joe Biden’s administration.





Eenie meenie minie moe...which vaccine should I pick....

[cliffs]

Evidence is mounting that having COVID-19 may not protect against getting infected again with some of the new variants. People also can get second infections with earlier versions of the coronavirus if they mounted a weak defense the first time, new research suggests.

How long immunity lasts from natural infection is one of the big questions in the pandemic. Scientists still think reinfections are fairly rare and usually less serious than initial ones, but recent developments around the world have raised concerns.

In South Africa, a vaccine study found new infections with a variant in 2 percent of people who previously had an earlier version of the virus.

In Brazil, several similar cases were documented with a new variant there. Researchers are exploring whether reinfections help explain a recent surge in the city of Manaus, where three-fourths of residents were thought to have been previously infected.

In the United States, a study found that 10 percent of Marine recruits who had evidence of prior infection and repeatedly tested negative before starting basic training were later infected again. That work was done before the new variants began to spread, said one study leader, Dr. Stuart Sealfon of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York.

“Previous infection does not give you a free pass,” he said. “A substantial risk of reinfection remains.”

[cliffs]

This is why I will wait:


Four people in Oregon have tested positive for the coronavirus after receiving both doses of the Covid-19 vaccine, health officials said.

There are two cases each in Yamhill and Lane counties, the state's Health Authority said in a series of tweets on Friday. The cases are either mild or asymptomatic.

"We are working with our local and federal public health partners to investigate and determine case origin," the agency said. "Genome sequencing is underway, and we expect results next week."

The agency referred to the individuals who tested positive as "breakthrough cases," meaning that they got sick with the virus at least 14 days after receiving both doses.

The Health Authority said more breakthrough cases could pop up.

"Clinical trials of both vaccines presently in use included breakthrough cases. In those cases, even though the participants got Covid, the vaccines reduced the severity of illness," the agency said in a tweet.

"Based on what we know about vaccines for other diseases and early data from clinical trials, experts believe that getting a Covid-19 vaccine may also help keep you from getting seriously ill even if you do get the virus. ... Getting as many Oregonians as possible vaccinated remains a critical objective to ending the pandemic."

[ErixonStone]

Sorry, why will you wait? Getting the vaccine makes you:

- less likely to contract COVID-19
- less likely to suffer severe illness in the case where you do contract COVID-19.

Also, vaccination, at a systemic level, is a numbers game. By not vaccinating, you're making it more likely that SOMEONE will contract COVID-19, and lengthening the pandemic.

[cliffs]

The coronavirus has now spread to all seven continents with the first reported cases of COVID-19 in Antarctica.