| Brainstorm | New from COVID on Twitter: Tom Peacock (@PeacockFlu): Lots of reports of Omicron sequences carrying Delta-like mutations (eg P681R or L452R). Although a subset of these might end up being real, the vast majority will most likely turn out to be contamination or coinfection. No clear signals of anything real or nasty [... want %more?] → https://twitter.com/PeacockFlu/status/1473427698341060609 | 00:01 |
|---|---|---|
| Brainstorm | New from Contagion Live: President Biden Announces Additional COVID-19 Plans: The administration is going to buy 500 million at-home rapid COVID-19 tests, and make them available to Americans. They also plan to use federal resources to provide pop-up clinics and get more pharmacists [... want %more?] → https://www.contagionlive.com/view/president-biden-announces-additional-covid-19-plans | 00:20 |
| Brainstorm | New from COVID on Twitter: Michael Lin, PhD-MD (@michaelzlin): SA study finds 79% lower hosp rate this wave than previous, similar to above graph. No diff between omicron and other cases though, suggesting effect is from prior immunity, not omicron avirulence.H/t @SteveMillerOC medrxiv.org/content/10.110… [... want %more?] → https://twitter.com/michaelzlin/status/1473437194496790528 | 00:39 |
| Brainstorm | Updates for Uruguay: +415 cases (now 405236), +1 deaths (now 6157), +10632 tests (now 4.3 million) since a day ago — Mayotte: +63 cases (now 21243) since 3 days ago — Netherlands: +9470 cases (now 3.0 million) since 20 hours ago — United Kingdom: +89472 cases (now 11.6 million) since 21 hours ago | 00:43 |
| LjL | PARIS (Reuters) - France will end social security reimbursements for homeopathic drugs and the new policy - which has drawn the fire of alternative medicine advocates - will take full effect in 2021, the healthcare minister said on Tuesday. Jul 9, 2019 | 00:43 |
| LjL | did this actually take place? (hurray if so) | 00:43 |
| lastshell | first omicron desth in usa https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/coronavirus-unvaccinated-texas-man-becomes-first-omicron-death-in-us-report-2662334/amp/1 | 00:48 |
| LjL | texas, yesterday or the day before? | 00:49 |
| lastshell | yesterday was monday | 00:50 |
| lastshell | not vaxxed | 00:51 |
| lastshell | israel plans 4th shot | 00:53 |
| LjL | did i completely forget that we were having the same debates on lethality with Delta or something? | 00:55 |
| LjL | %title https://twitter.com/michaelzlin/status/1410474227967225857 | 00:55 |
| Brainstorm | LjL: From twitter.com: Michael Lin, PhD-MD (@michaelzlin): "Just don't get it. Why is a 2-week lag between cases and hospitalizations so hard for some people (MDs no less) to understand? We've only been studying that [...] | 00:55 |
| LjL | when i first saw this i thought "wait what's going on with israel now" until i saw the date | 00:56 |
| Brainstorm | New from COVID on Twitter: Tom Peacock (@PeacockFlu): Finally its worth adding... much of what we understand about what makes Delta more transmissible/infectious, Omicron already possess - its currently unclear to me what Omicron could have to gain from Delta (with what we currently know at least) → https://twitter.com/PeacockFlu/status/1473441252838412293 | 00:58 |
| LjL | and when i read tweets like this https://twitter.com/michaelzlin/status/1473215368667619329 (just retweet of the tweet i posted above, saying also "For example in June I insisted there would be a Delta wave although some famous tweeters had already concluded not"), i don't know if he's referring to Eric Topol or Monica Gandhi, but certainly some subtle degree of passive aggression that if i were "in" i'd be able to not and say "ah yea, that Topol is always too | 01:05 |
| LjL | optimistic", but instead even two years in, i can't see the people trends, nevermind the virus trends | 01:05 |
| lastshell | yeah I recall we talked about how "mild" was | 01:06 |
| lastshell | according to the media | 01:06 |
| Brainstorm | New from COVID on Twitter: Pavitra Roychoudhury (@pavitrarc): SGTF update from @UWVirology 12/21Filling in some more samples from the weekend, we are now at ~76% likely omicron, with samples collected until 12/18 pic.twitter.com/2mo30CvBxf → https://twitter.com/pavitrarc/status/1473443924291166208 | 01:17 |
| Brainstorm | Updates for Australia: +5481 cases (now 264447), +8 deaths (now 2162) since 22 hours ago | 01:33 |
| LjL | lastshell, i am concerned that i don't remember, and i am also concerned if that's true because it's so absurd since Delta turned out to be a fair amount MORE virulent | 01:34 |
| edcba | well i guess experts didn't suspect delta was mild | 01:37 |
| edcba | so it's different from omicron | 01:37 |
| minthos | sometimes wishful thinking and early indications turn out to be true | 01:43 |
| minthos | I hope that's the case | 01:43 |
| minthos | anyway the first component for my papr build arrived today and omicron had its first community spread in the country a few days ago | 01:43 |
| minthos | maybe I'll get an excuse to wear it | 01:44 |
| minthos | mild or not, I intend to not get infected | 01:44 |
| Brainstorm | New from r/WorldNews: worldnews: 10% of People on Miami-Israel Flight Had COVID-19, Despite Test Rule → https://old.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/rlsdaz/10_of_people_on_miamiisrael_flight_had_covid19/ | 01:45 |
| Brainstorm | New from COVID on Twitter: Michael Lin, PhD-MD (@michaelzlin): SA study finds 70% lower hosp rate this wave than previous, similar to above graph. No diff between omicron and other cases though, suggesting effect is from prior immunity, not omicron avirulence.H/t @SteveMillerOC medrxiv.org/content/10.110… [... want %more?] → https://twitter.com/michaelzlin/status/1473456240688869380 | 01:54 |
| Brainstorm | New from r/WorldNews: worldnews: London's New Years Eve celebrations cancelled amid Omicron surge in the capital → https://old.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/rlsu9w/londons_new_years_eve_celebrations_cancelled_amid/ | 02:13 |
| Brainstorm | Updates for Ivory Coast: +170 cases (now 62336), +2711 tests (now 1.2 million) since a day ago — Suriname: +46 cases (now 51462), +399 tests (now 166073) since a day ago | 02:16 |
| Brainstorm | Updates for Angola: +480 cases (now 66566), +3317 tests (now 1.2 million) since a day ago — Costa Rica: +322 cases (now 568860), +3 deaths (now 7343), +29560 tests (now 2.9 million) since 4 days ago | 02:29 |
| Brainstorm | New from COVID on Twitter: Michael Lin, PhD-MD (@michaelzlin): I spent 2020 debunking all these right-wing excuses for why COVID19 won't hit the US so badly because of different demographics habits diets genetics etc. Ironic now how people are grasping at similar straws to argue we have no evidence the Omicron [... want %more?] → https://twitter.com/michaelzlin/status/1473464783668015104 | 02:32 |
| Brainstorm | New from r/COVID19: COVID19: US Army Creates Single Vaccine Effective Against All COVID, SARS Variants → https://www.reddit.com/r/COVID19/comments/rltikp/us_army_creates_single_vaccine_effective_against/ | 02:51 |
| LjL | whoever posted that will deeeefinitely be banned from the sub | 02:57 |
| LjL | but, yay if maybe true? | 02:58 |
| Dredd | Ha ha | 02:58 |
| LjL | i think i will wait to pop open the champagne until i see this reposted by a non-military-news site | 02:58 |
| LjL | it says they ended phase 1 this month | 02:59 |
| LjL | still a way to go for sure | 02:59 |
| Dredd | If anyone has enough funding to do it, it's the US military 😉 | 02:59 |
| LjL | > Unlike existing vaccines, Walter Reed’s SpFN uses a soccer ball-shaped protein with 24 faces for its vaccine, which allows scientists to attach the spikes of multiple coronavirus strains on different faces of the protein. | 02:59 |
| Dredd | Wonder if it turns is all into liking machines | 02:59 |
| LjL | i believe this is definitely the technical description of the process | 02:59 |
| Dredd | Lol, how do they key each side differently 😂 | 03:00 |
| LjL | Dredd, i expect there would be *even more* vaccine hesitancy in general for a vaccine developed by the US military, perhaps somewhat understandably since US military/intelligence did do some highly questionable things in the past "health-wise" | 03:00 |
| LjL | Dredd, there's just a highly trained team of military scientists carefully gluing each protein to the correct side, simple | 03:01 |
| Dredd | In the past... | 03:01 |
| LjL | yes, in the past | 03:01 |
| LjL | everything knowable is in the past | 03:01 |
| Dredd | I find it hard to believe they have stopped | 03:01 |
| Dredd | Lol | 03:01 |
| LjL | well unless they also secretly developed a time machine | 03:01 |
| Dredd | Plausible | 03:02 |
| LjL | “With Omicron, there's no way really to escape this virus. You're not going to be able to avoid it. So I think pretty soon either the whole world will be vaccinated or have been infected,” Modjarrad said. | 03:02 |
| LjL | i think i can sort of believe this but it doesn't make me happy about the vaccine since if this is true, we'll all have gotten Omicron well before the vaccine is available to us ;( | 03:02 |
| minthos | filtering the air you breathe works, as it always has | 03:03 |
| minthos | "there's no way to escape" = "escaping would require measures that most people would consider excessive" | 03:03 |
| de-facto | .title https://www.army.mil/article/252890/series_of_preclinical_studies_supports_the_armys_pan_coronavirus_vaccine_development_strategy | 03:03 |
| LjL | filtering it perfectly being pretty much impossible | 03:03 |
| Brainstorm | de-facto: From www.army.mil: Series of preclinical studies supports the Army’s pan-coronavirus vaccine development strategy | Article | The United States Army | 03:03 |
| LjL | i was on what looks like the same article at https://eidresearch.org/news/press-release/series-preclinical-studies-supports-armys-pan-coronavirus-vaccine-development | 03:04 |
| minthos | doesn't have to be perfect, just good enough to avoid infection | 03:04 |
| de-facto | avoid infection? thats the definition of perfect | 03:05 |
| minthos | I would consider "perfect" to be 0 virus particles remaining | 03:05 |
| minthos | I don't know how many are required to successfully infect me but I assume it's more than 1 | 03:06 |
| lastshell | https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.12.21.21268116v1.full.pdf | 03:06 |
| LjL | we don't know that | 03:06 |
| de-facto | .title | 03:06 |
| Brainstorm | de-facto: From www.medrxiv.org: Early assessment of the clinical severity of the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant in South Africa (Nicole Wolter) | 03:06 |
| LjL | we also don't know from studies that masks *can* be "perfect enough" | 03:06 |
| Brainstorm | Updates for Martinique: +311 cases (now 47300), +6 deaths (now 769), +28415 tests (now 466711) since 20 hours ago | 03:06 |
| Dredd | Unless you live in a hermetic bubble it'll be very difficult | 03:06 |
| LjL | so i am really baffled when i see excessive claims that masks can be perfect. it's about as unreasonable as the claims they are useless. | 03:07 |
| minthos | I have ordered parts for a papr, we'll see | 03:07 |
| lastshell | " individuals with SGTF infection had lower odds of being admitted to hospital | 03:08 |
| minthos | also, the smaller dose you get the better you can expect your outcome to be even if you get infected | 03:08 |
| lastshell | compared to non-SGTF infections (adjusted odds ratio (aOR) 0.2" | 03:08 |
| LjL | minthos, that is also a claim that i often see made, and which is reasonable on its face, but that i have not seen confirmed by a study. have you? | 03:08 |
| minthos | no, it's hard to ethically quantify | 03:08 |
| de-facto | "On multivariable analysis, after controlling for factors associated with hospitalisation, individuals with SGTF infection had lower odds of being admitted to hospital compared to non-SGTF infections (adjusted odds ratio (aOR) 0.2, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.1-0.3). " | 03:09 |
| LjL | one thing is the precautionary principle (we do it because it's unlikely to harm and plausibly helps), another is claiming something *does* help, which in my opinion can undermine efforts a bit when it can't be substantiated | 03:09 |
| de-facto | "Among hospitalised individuals, after controlling for factors associated with severe disease, the odds of severe disease did not differ between SGTF-infected individuals compared to non-SGTF individuals diagnosed during the same time period (aOR 0.7, 95% CI 0.3-1.4). " | 03:09 |
| de-facto | "Compared to earlier Delta infections, after controlling for factors associated with severe disease, SGTF-infected individuals had a lower odds of severe disease (aOR 0.3, 95% CI 0.2-0.5)." | 03:09 |
| LjL | then anti-vax anti-x anti-y people can just say you're picking and choosing and making up your science no less than they are | 03:09 |
| lastshell | de-facto if human language that mean is less severe ? | 03:09 |
| de-facto | "Early analyses suggest a reduced risk of hospitalisation among SGTF-infected individuals when compared to non-SGTF infected individuals in the same time period. " | 03:10 |
| de-facto | "Once hospitalised, risk of severe disease was similar for SGTF- and non-SGTF infected individuals, while SGTF-infected individuals had a reduced risk of severe disease when compared to earlier Delta-infected individuals." | 03:10 |
| de-facto | "Some of this reducton is likely a result of high population immunity." <-- this is very important | 03:10 |
| lastshell | ooouch | 03:11 |
| lastshell | so probably previous exposure | 03:11 |
| minthos | LjL: I don't care what idiots say, I'm building a papr because I want to, not to convince anyone | 03:11 |
| LjL | minthos, fair enough, you can certainly do that (and i would also agreed that a properly built PAPR would be very likely to be helpful, but also, as you said, very, extremely unlikely to be widely adopted outside healthcare facilities) | 03:12 |
| de-facto | SFTF means s-gene target failure, hence PCR that indicates Omircon VoC | 03:12 |
| LjL | but i would prefer if you didn't say things like "<minthos> also, the smaller dose you get the better you can expect your outcome to be even if you get infected" as a true fact when you have to say "<minthos> no, it's hard to ethically quantify" (which is true, and i know you're not using that as an "excuse" not to quantify it, but still, i just think it's risky to mischaracterize claims like that) | 03:13 |
| LjL | is this the same study Lin linked earlier? giving a different conclusion? | 03:13 |
| * LjL manages to "like" all the tweets except the ones that matter | 03:14 | |
| LjL | what! | 03:14 |
| LjL | it's actually been removed :| | 03:14 |
| LjL | well this is something i *don't* like about twitter | 03:14 |
| LjL | it said | 03:15 |
| LjL | <LjL> %title https://twitter.com/michaelzlin/status/1473437194496790528 moocow | 03:15 |
| LjL | <Brainstorm> LjL: From twitter.com: Michael Lin, PhD-MD (@michaelzlin): "SA study finds 79% lower hosp rate this wave than previous, similar to above graph. No diff between omicron and other cases though, suggesting effect is from [...] | 03:15 |
| LjL | and i suspect it was the same study but now i can't be sure | 03:15 |
| de-facto | "Our finding of no difference in severity in SGTF compared to non-SGTF infected individuals in the same time period, and the lower risk of severity in SGTF compared to earlier Delta infected individuals, suggests that this reduced severity may be in part a result of high levels of population immunity (due to natural infection and/or vaccination). " | 03:16 |
| LjL | ah yes, so the same study | 03:16 |
| LjL | that's what i remember | 03:16 |
| LjL | and, not great | 03:17 |
| LjL | i wonder why he removed the tweet, if he didn't misinterpret the study... | 03:17 |
| minthos | we know that risk of infection is strongly correlated with how much virus is in the air in your vincinity, so reducing that amount improves outcomes for groups of people sharing a room - so ventilation, filtration, masks, not singing and shouting, stuff like that. I don't really care if "perfect" means 0 virus particles or very few virus particles, as long as there's a strong downward slope for | 03:17 |
| minthos | infections as the air get cleaner.. | 03:17 |
| minthos | there is empirical data on this stuff, it's not magical thinking, but I'm lazy and I don't care enough about other people to be scientific about it | 03:18 |
| LjL | minthos, okay, all i'm asking you is to state it like "it's plausible that..." or whatever you come up with (surprise me) instead of as a well-established truth. there is empirical data on the "stuff" in general but just as you said it's very hard to get *good* empirical data because you generally don't just go and infect people to test this stuff | 03:19 |
| de-facto | they do compare SGTF and non-SGTF *after* their Delta wave, so there most likely is a special selection for those non-SGTF cases (that come with Delta, so most likely did not have had it in the wave?) | 03:20 |
| de-facto | that selection bias most likely does *not* apply to SGTF as Omicron is seroevasive | 03:21 |
| LjL | de-facto, if the reason is they "did not have it in the wave", though, i'd expect higher severity *if* Delta is intrinsically more severe, because they would be more immune-naive | 03:22 |
| LjL | but instead they find similar severity | 03:22 |
| de-facto | so i guess that is why they assume that reduced severity in SGTF majorities may be a result of pre-existing Delta-induced background immunity | 03:22 |
| de-facto | so maybe those that got hospitalized with either Delta or Omicron did not participate in the Delta wave before, but most of the Omicron *infections* did hence had mild progressions and no hospitalization? | 03:24 |
| LjL | why do you have to posit that? they say there is *no difference* in severity in the post-omicron time period | 03:24 |
| LjL | so they're saying the SGTF majorities do *not* have mild progressions (no milder than Delta), unless you compare them with a different period | 03:25 |
| LjL | so they aren't assuming reduced severity because there is no reduced severity :P | 03:25 |
| LjL | like in general you have to compare apples to apples, in a different wave you can have different death rates because of the healthcare system being overloaded for example (probably not relevant in this case, but just to say that you cannot reliably compare among different time periods regardless of immunity) | 03:26 |
| LjL | maybe i should make the bot save a copy of every tweet it posts... except... well i guess i can just make it spit them into a channel, the RSS feed has the complete tweet, i just no longer have it | 03:27 |
| LjL | or, maybe i do, *checks* | 03:28 |
| LjL | i certainly don't have the graph he was referring to, though | 03:28 |
| LjL | referring to / attaching | 03:28 |
| de-facto | what graph do you mean? | 03:29 |
| LjL | de-facto, in the tweet that Michael Lin deleted. a graph from the study, but i don't know which graph | 03:29 |
| LjL | the tweet said ""SA study finds 79% lower hosp rate this wave than previous, similar to above graph. No diff between omicron and other cases though, suggesting effect is from [...]" | 03:30 |
| LjL | de-facto, btw he also posted this remark: "Incidentally they also find that once hospitalized, Omicron cases have similar outcomes as non-Omicron cases. They attribute this to prev immunity helping both types of cases to get the same outcomes, as these outcomes are less severe than previous waves for non-Omicron too" | 03:30 |
| LjL | "once hospitalized", so different from what he said before? | 03:30 |
| LjL | let me see if i can get the previous tweet without the [...] from my RSS thing | 03:31 |
| LjL | nope :( | 03:31 |
| Brainstorm | Updates for Togo: +169 cases (now 26911), +1 deaths (now 246), +2207 tests (now 602313) since a day ago | 03:31 |
| LjL | in theory i'm not even allowed to *keep* deleted tweets myself if i'm using the Twitter API | 03:34 |
| LjL | it's a pretty great way to go 1984 and be able to rewrite history, at least your own user's if you turn out to have said wrong things before :\ | 03:34 |
| LjL | it's all from this very long thread https://twitter.com/michaelzlin/status/1473460397038391297 (or at least, it was before being deleted) | 03:35 |
| LjL | de-facto, maybe some points worth pondering here https://twitter.com/stevenjfrisch/status/1473461957248393216 | 03:38 |
| LjL | i suspect he's removed that tweet because he's being mad that people make it seem like it's *not* being milder (in practice, whatever the reasons, i.e. prior immunity) because he was on the "it's not milder!" side during Delta, but he's on the opposite side now and he's upset that people don't get it | 03:42 |
| LjL | like, compare the deleted tweet: " SA study finds 79% lower hosp rate this wave than previous, similar to above graph. No diff between omicron and other cases though, suggesting effect is from prior immunity, not omicron avirulence." | 03:43 |
| LjL | with the most recent tweet "Incidentally they also find that once hospitalized, Omicron cases have similar outcomes as non-Omicron cases. They attribute this to prev immunity helping both types of cases to get the same outcomes, as these outcomes are less severe than previous waves for non-Omicron too" | 03:43 |
| LjL | it has become "incidentally" :P | 03:43 |
| LjL | and i infer he's upset from "I spent 2020 debunking all these right-wing excuses for why COVID19 won't hit the US so badly because of different demographics habits diets genetics etc. Ironic now how people are grasping at similar straws to argue we have no evidence the Omicron wave will be less severe" | 03:44 |
| de-facto | btw in Germany we see a vaccine efficacy of ~80% for targeting Delta hospitalization, just saying... | 03:46 |
| LjL | %title https://twitter.com/BrainstormBot/status/1473485207051325444 | 03:47 |
| Brainstorm | LjL, the URL could not be loaded | 03:47 |
| LjL | ... | 03:47 |
| LjL | de-facto, what do you mean? | 03:47 |
| Dredd | <Brainstorm> "New from r/WorldNews: worldnews:..." <- I should hope so | 03:49 |
| de-facto | i mean that i am not convinced Omicron may be milder | 03:49 |
| LjL | hm he replied "It's still there but I've just expanded the description" | 03:49 |
| LjL | i'd say it's not exactly still there, but okay :P | 03:49 |
| LjL | de-facto, uhm okay but i still don't get what you're saying about VE | 03:49 |
| LjL | you have VE of 80% against Delta hospitalization? | 03:50 |
| LjL | or what do you mean "for targetting" | 03:50 |
| LjL | Dredd, i suppose i can't blame the bridge for things it would need AI to do properly, but still, lol: <Dredd> <Brainstorm> "New from r/WorldNews: worldnews:..." <- I should hope so | 03:50 |
| de-facto | yes so that is similar to what Omicron may be milder in SA, so maybe both are due to pre-existing immunity? | 03:50 |
| LjL | de-facto, yes, that's what Michael Lin was also saying in some other tweets: that he's perplexed at people saying "oh but SA is different because they have 70% immunity", because we *also* have at least 70% immunity from vaccinations | 03:51 |
| LjL | but i would say | 03:51 |
| LjL | we don't know it's the same kind of immunity... | 03:51 |
| LjL | it may be less broad, it may be many different things | 03:51 |
| LjL | we also didn't have Beta, SA has a portion of the population immune to Beta, presumably | 03:51 |
| de-facto | its the T-cell epitopes that are conserved to 80% in Omicron that most likely prevent severe progressions | 03:52 |
| LjL | so i'm not sure i agree with Lin that there's no reason to expect our immunity to be act differently from SA's immunity | 03:52 |
| LjL | well, okay, maybe | 03:52 |
| LjL | but we don't *know*, right? | 03:52 |
| de-facto | idk i think that is the expectation is it not? | 03:53 |
| LjL | i don't think the expectation is quite clear yet! | 03:54 |
| LjL | i see many conjectures and quibbling about numbers | 03:54 |
| de-facto | you got a reply | 03:54 |
| LjL | yes | 03:54 |
| LjL | i said it too :P <LjL> hm he replied "It's still there but I've just expanded the description" | 03:54 |
| Dredd | Hmm, I don't think I'd describe what I have right now as mild exactly | 03:54 |
| de-facto | excuse me i am half asleep already | 03:55 |
| de-facto | i took melatonin :P | 03:55 |
| Dredd | More like mild to moderate | 03:55 |
| Dredd | Not severe though | 03:55 |
| LjL | he's having a lot of back and forths with https://twitter.com/SteveMillerOC (he was mentioned also in the deleted tweet) and i think he's more or less contributing to the thread and probably why the tweet was deleted and modified | 03:56 |
| LjL | Dredd, yeah i think it would probably be good if people who are thinking "mild" and partying were reminded what "mild" means | 03:56 |
| LjL | and some "mild" cases (not of Omicron, of course, we don't know that yet) ended up with being disabled one year later... | 03:57 |
| LjL | de-facto, ah i've found it i think! https://twitter.com/michaelzlin/status/1473458585883447297 this subthread must be the one with the deleted tweet | 03:57 |
| LjL | "@michaelzlin | 03:58 |
| LjL | You have got confused between two issues. This 'no diff' is referring to the % of hospitalised patients who had severe disease. | 03:58 |
| LjL | SGTF still had 80% lower hospitalisation rates than non SGTF in the same time period (Oct 1st-30th Nov)." | 03:58 |
| LjL | whoops newlines | 03:58 |
| Brainstorm | New from COVID on Twitter: Eric Topol (@EricTopol): Yes, the new US cases are >80% now from Omicron.But there were over 2,100 lives lost from Delta infections today (7-day avg up to ~1,400/day), mostly in people who did not get vaccinated. And there are tens of millions more of Americans in that category.newsnodes.com/us → https://twitter.com/EricTopol/status/1473485176080502788 | 03:59 |
| de-facto | what a chaos, i dont follow it anymore | 03:59 |
| LjL | de-facto, i agree, twitter is pretty hard to follow, but it's where most of these people are :( | 04:00 |
| LjL | anyway i've added https://twitter.com/SteveMillerOC to this channel's feed, but he seems to post a lot, so i may have to move him to -ticker | 04:00 |
| de-facto | yes i know but its too rushed, it confuses me | 04:01 |
| LjL | Dredd wants threading on Matrix, but they don't even have *real* threading on Twitter, and yet they prefer it! :P | 04:01 |
| Dredd | Ha ha | 04:02 |
| Dredd | Just taken some lemsip and ibuprofen | 04:02 |
| Dredd | Maybe I'll be able to get some more sleep | 04:02 |
| Dredd | I hope my PCR kit comes today | 04:03 |
| de-facto | are you not feeling well? | 04:03 |
| Dredd | Nope, I have some COVID symptoms but a bunch of LFTs have been negative across several days | 04:04 |
| Dredd | But I don't trust them | 04:04 |
| de-facto | oh you have symptoms i did not get that i thought you just had a warning from the app or such | 04:05 |
| de-facto | what symptoms? | 04:05 |
| Dredd | Dry cough, I've woken up on coughing fits several times | 04:07 |
| Dredd | Feeling shit | 04:07 |
| Dredd | Irritated airways and throat | 04:07 |
| Dredd | Headache | 04:07 |
| Dredd | No energy | 04:07 |
| de-facto | smell/taste? | 04:07 |
| LjL | smell and taste appear to be rarely affected by Omicron, right? | 04:08 |
| Dredd | de-facto: I was already sick before getting that but things are a little worse | 04:08 |
| Dredd | There was one time where my taste seemed muted but it's fine again now | 04:08 |
| de-facto | sorry to hear, yet you are vaccinated, so even if it is COVID you most likely are fine, timing is not the best though | 04:08 |
| Dredd | Pretty achey | 04:09 |
| Dredd | I'm not worried about me particularly but would like to know if it's safe to see my family | 04:09 |
| de-facto | yeah definitely get that PCR, and who is going to take the sample? | 04:09 |
| de-facto | because that is the most important part | 04:09 |
| Dredd | Me | 04:09 |
| Dredd | UK tests have always been self swabbed | 04:10 |
| de-facto | all the way back on the transition region between nasal and pharyngeal region? | 04:10 |
| LjL-Matrix | Yeah, I learned that yesterday, found it odd | 04:10 |
| de-facto | i.e. with the long swab? | 04:10 |
| LjL-Matrix | I'm not really sure I would be able to do a self-test properly | 04:10 |
| Dredd | I dunno, they used to say to swab your tonsils or that area of they're gone | 04:11 |
| Dredd | The LFTs are now nasal only | 04:11 |
| LjL-Matrix | Oh, okay, that's actually supported by some studies, but it's not what is done in most countries | 04:11 |
| de-facto | here they take the tests with the long swabs on the backside of the nose where it transitions in the upper throat | 04:11 |
| Dredd | I dunno how people mess it up if that follow the instructions tbh | 04:11 |
| LjL-Matrix | It's supposed to work okay, but I was never sure whether it "works okay" when using tests fine-tuned for the salivary approach, or just with any test | 04:11 |
| de-facto | because on that region the probability to find the virus is much higher | 04:11 |
| Dredd | They do get you to shove the swab all the way up your nose | 04:12 |
| Dredd | It makes me sneeze | 04:12 |
| de-facto | how long is that swab? | 04:12 |
| LjL-Matrix | Dredd: they probably don't, I was assuming the instructions involved swabbing your nasopharynx, which is what we always see here, with people making very cringey faces of pain while being swabbed... | 04:12 |
| Dredd | And sometimes I get an instance smell of cotton | 04:12 |
| Dredd | *intense | 04:13 |
| LjL | it's funny how i capitalize things differently when i'm writing on Matrix, just for no particular reason except it's not irc | 04:14 |
| Dredd | The tests that need you to do the tonsils are long | 04:14 |
| Dredd | The nasal only LFTs have sister | 04:14 |
| Dredd | Shorter ones but still long enough to shove it well up your nose | 04:14 |
| Dredd | Omicron is probably easier to detect I guess too | 04:15 |
| de-facto | .title https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/nejmvcm2010260 <-- i mean this here https://www.nejm.org/na101/home/literatum/publisher/mms/journals/content/nejm/2020/nejm_2020.382.issue-22/nejmvcm2010260/20200522/images/img_large/nejmvcm2010260_f3.jpeg | 04:15 |
| Brainstorm | de-facto: From www.nejm.org: How to Obtain a Nasopharyngeal Swab Specimen | NEJM | 04:15 |
| LjL-Matrix | Dredd: so the tonsil ones are PCR? or just previous LFT no longer used? | 04:15 |
| Dredd | Anyhow, the UK seems to have evidenced that this testing approach works ok by doing it | 04:15 |
| Dredd | 😂 | 04:16 |
| Dredd | That picture is weird because I'm pretty sure the swabs path is impossible | 04:16 |
| de-facto | when i do the LFTs where they only require swabbing the nostrils i shower before and then sneeze a few times in advance to transport as much as possible into that region of swabbing :P | 04:17 |
| LjL-Matrix | I was my understanding too that was the uh "regular continental" method... I can't tell if the path is possible because I've tried to avoid needing it, but it's what I was always shown: not *up* your nose, but *horizontally* towards your nasopharynx | 04:18 |
| LjL-Matrix | de-facto: you may remember this ancient study (I remember it because it's on my page) | 04:18 |
| LjL-Matrix | %title https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.16.20067835v1 | 04:18 |
| Brainstorm | LjL-Matrix: From www.medrxiv.org: Saliva is more sensitive for SARS-CoV-2 detection in COVID-19 patients than nasopharyngeal swabs | medRxiv | 04:18 |
| Dredd | The drawing is anatomically suspect but even in it you can see how it takes a too straight a path | 04:19 |
| Dredd | Through a passage that doesn't exist | 04:19 |
| Dredd | But aside from that, our nasal swabs don't go that far | 04:19 |
| LjL-Matrix | Dredd: looks similar to the one here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nasopharyngeal_swab to me | 04:20 |
| LjL-Matrix | what about the angle in this real life one? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nasopharyngeal_swab#/media/File:Infektionsschutzzentrum_im_Rautenstrauch-Joest-Museum,K%C3%B6ln-6313(cropped).jpg | 04:20 |
| Dredd | de-facto: Our instructions say to blow your nose | 04:20 |
| LjL-Matrix | uhm, maybe https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7b/Infektionsschutzzentrum_im_Rautenstrauch-Joest-Museum%2C_K%C3%B6ln-6313_%28cropped%29.jpg is a better-working url for that | 04:21 |
| de-facto | yeah Dredd that makes sense | 04:21 |
| Dredd | LjL-Matrix: Yeah you want to go up the airway and not into a fleshy corner of your nostril I think | 04:21 |
| oerheks | I got tested 12 hrs ago, in my throat and my nose | 04:21 |
| de-facto | btw all the instructions seem to put emphasis on not digging towards the brain with the swab for reaching the nasopharynx | 04:22 |
| oerheks | now i cannot sleep, expecting results in 12 hrs.. | 04:22 |
| de-facto | rather aiming "low" instead | 04:22 |
| LjL | Dredd, but what i mean is... in the real-life photo... it's definitely not pointing *up* | 04:22 |
| LjL | and that's how i always see them, and how i always understood them to be. up wrong, somewhat-more-horizontal right | 04:22 |
| Dredd | <LjL-Matrix> "Dredd: so the tonsil ones are..." <- Both I think. It used to say do tonsils and nose | 04:23 |
| Dredd | My new LFTs are just nose | 04:23 |
| LjL | Dredd, hopefully in that order | 04:23 |
| oerheks | both pics on this page are wrong https://blog.puritanmedproducts.com/nasopharyngeal-swab-vs-nasal-swab | 04:24 |
| Brainstorm | New from COVID on Twitter: Eric Topol (@EricTopol): The first potential variant-proof, universal, beta-coronavirus vaccine, by @WalterReedArmy, soon going into clinical trials defenseone.com/technology/202… @DefenseOne by @TaraCopp via @Nate_DiCamillo → https://twitter.com/EricTopol/status/1473494156668391426 | 04:25 |
| oerheks | 'variant proof'.. ? | 04:26 |
| Dredd | <LjL-Matrix> "uhm, maybe https://upload...." <- Yeah that looks more accurate. Our instructions basically say to put it in your nose then rotate it and insert it gently until you meet resistance | 04:26 |
| oerheks | ... until Pi comes around | 04:26 |
| LjL | it does say "This method tends to be less comfortable for the patient but is not usually considered painful. This method is not recommended for self-testing and should only be performed by a healthcare practitioner." | 04:26 |
| LjL | (the page oerheks linked) | 04:26 |
| Dredd | Then to twirl it around up there for ten rotations of all the sides | 04:26 |
| oerheks | 2 inches, the doctor said. | 04:26 |
| de-facto | wait for the Ω-CoV-VoC | 04:27 |
| LjL | oerheks, i bet they won't call it Pi. but anyway yes, it *should* be variant proof as in theory this approach works even for SARS | 04:27 |
| LjL | for an entire class of coronaviruses, in fact | 04:27 |
| LjL | of course if this method is widely deployed the virus could potentially mutate to specifically escape it, but it shouldn't be all that easy when it's a part preserved in an entire class | 04:28 |
| oerheks | I sincerely hope so | 04:28 |
| Dredd | <LjL> "and that's how i always see them..." <- Yeah that's what I find too, just not completely horizontal, assuming you aren't pulling the nose up | 04:29 |
| LjL | not completely horizontal no | 04:29 |
| LjL | to be honest i never felt a particular need to know just how many tubes my nose had and where they went ;( | 04:30 |
| LjL | but looks like viruses don't care about my needs! shockingly | 04:30 |
| Dredd | Ha ha | 04:30 |
| Dredd | You get more interested when you are presently shoving a swab many inches into your nose | 04:30 |
| oerheks | does the virus have a PR agency? | 04:31 |
| LjL-Matrix | oerheks: no, only PCR | 04:31 |
| oerheks | wordgames; LA free to fire unvaxxed firefighters | 04:33 |
| de-facto | anyhow in the SA preprint they also mentioned significantly lower CT values for PCR, so maybe that makes taking swabs easier (depending on the moment in time of course) | 04:33 |
| de-facto | for Omicron | 04:33 |
| de-facto | " In addition, we found that early Omicron wave infections had a significantly lower mean PCR Ct-value compared to early Delta wave infections, which may reflect higher viral loads in Omicron infected individuals" | 04:35 |
| Brainstorm | Updates for Bolivia: +2376 cases (now 568967), +21 deaths (now 19480) since 22 hours ago — United Kingdom: +89609 cases (now 11.6 million), +173 deaths (now 147896) since 22 hours ago | 04:35 |
| de-facto | that would be consistent with the HK press release where they claimed 70-fold better viral reproduction in the upper airway cell lines | 04:36 |
| LjL-Matrix | Dredd: anyhow there's been talk of saliva-based sampling here for literally a year and a half... and yet we never got them. I don't know if it could "just be done" with regular tests without caring that's not what the instructions say. But you can believe me I'm really quite frustrated with the state of things in Italy (may be true of other countries too) where things that have been shown effective in other countries are just not being | 04:37 |
| LjL-Matrix | adopted - another example is that we don't check for SGTF in PCR, at all, so all our Omicron is from full sequencing of ancient specimens, practically useless | 04:37 |
| de-facto | out university did those saliva based samples: in the morning before eating or brushing teeth one would have to take a sip saline solution, gargle for a minute and spit that into a test tube, then pull up the nose several times (with that disgusting noise) and spit that into the tube aswell | 04:38 |
| -RSSBot[LjLmatrix- Zotero / COVID links Group / Top-Level Items: Early assessment of the clinical severity of the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant in South Africa ( https://www.zotero.org/groups/covid_links/items/68ZFXKPQ ) | 04:39 | |
| -RSSBot[LjLmatrix- Zotero / COVID links Group / Top-Level Items: Saliva or Nasopharyngeal Swab Specimens for Detection of SARS-CoV-2 ( https://www.zotero.org/groups/covid_links/items/FMA6QDDX ) | 04:44 | |
| -RSSBot[LjLmatrix- Zotero / COVID links Group / Top-Level Items: Series of preclinical studies supports the Army’s pan-coronavirus vaccine development strategy | EIDB ( https://www.zotero.org/groups/covid_links/items/PR5JIZB9 ) | 04:44 | |
| Brainstorm | New from https://covid19.specops.network : ljl-covid: This old study about saliva swab did, long later, reach past-preprint… → https://github.com/ljl-covid/links/commit/413a137661e1c88d4c4e52cea821cb7303796003 | 04:45 |
| Brainstorm | New from COVID on Twitter: Steve Miller (@SteveMillerOC): An excellent point.Omicron is much more likely to infect vaccinated than Delta, yet the vast majority of Omicron hospital patients are unvaccinated.Given over half of people at significant risk are vaccinated, Omicron may have more like 50% of [... want %more?] → https://twitter.com/SteveMillerOC/status/1473500759513710593 | 04:55 |
| LjL | "... 50% of hospitalization rate of Delta." | 04:56 |
| LjL | if it'a 50%, it may just as well be the same (okay, not quite, but it will be awful if it's that more contagious) | 04:57 |
| LjL | it should be more like 10% the hospitalization rate of Delta to say we can get some respite | 04:57 |
| oerheks | "All I want for Christmas is ..." a negative test result in 12 hrs | 05:05 |
| LjL | i almost said that to someone who was asking about christmas presents but then i didn't ;( | 05:05 |
| oerheks | you didn't get tested yet? | 05:06 |
| Brainstorm | New from COVID on Twitter: Eric Topol (@EricTopol): Here are the impressive findings of this vaccine in non-human primates @ScienceTM published last week science.org/doi/10.1126/sc… Can't wait to see the Phase 1 data but big congrats to @KayvonModjarrad and team → https://twitter.com/EricTopol/status/1473508083519213570 | 05:23 |
| Brainstorm | Updates for Japan: +223 cases (now 1.7 million), +2 deaths (now 18381), +54191 tests (now 28.9 million) since a day ago — Belgium: +293 cases (now 2.0 million), +43 deaths (now 28035) since a day ago — Netherlands: +180 cases (now 3.0 million) since 12 hours ago | 05:37 |
| Brainstorm | New from The Indian Express (Health): Health: Effective face mask practices to reduce spread of Covid-19, including new variants → https://indianexpress.com/article/lifestyle/health/new-study-effective-face-mask-practices-reduce-spread-covid-19-new-variants-omicron-american-journal-7677326/ | 05:42 |
| Brainstorm | Updates for Panama: +487 cases (now 484125), +5 deaths (now 7405), +8714 tests (now 4.4 million) since a day ago — India: +403 cases (now 34.8 million), +264 deaths (now 478325), +1229512 tests (now 667.4 million) since 6 hours ago | 06:08 |
| Brainstorm | New from The Indian Express: World: US population growth at lowest rate in pandemic’s 1st year → https://indianexpress.com/article/world/us-population-growth-at-lowest-rate-in-pandemics-1st-year-7684650/ | 06:10 |
| Brainstorm | New from The Indian Express: World: Omicron spreading faster than any virus in history, could lead to worst part of pandemic: Bill Gates → https://indianexpress.com/article/world/omicron-spread-covid-19-bill-gates-7684693/ | 06:19 |
| Brainstorm | New from COVID on Twitter: Michael Lin, PhD-MD (@michaelzlin): It just becomes confusing when Omicron is compared to non-Omicron. Non-Omicron is same or similar to virus from prev waves; it thus more rarely takes hold in prev infected. Thus most Omicron cases could be in prev infected while non-Omicron cases could [... want %more?] → https://twitter.com/michaelzlin/status/1473523800280997890 | 06:29 |
| Brainstorm | Updates for Ohio, United States: +12502 cases (now 1.9 million), +249 deaths (now 28277) since 23 hours ago — New Jersey, United States: +8494 cases (now 1.4 million), +32 deaths (now 28762) since 23 hours ago — Lombardy, Italy: +8292 cases (now 1.0 million), +17 deaths (now 34793) since 23 hours ago — Quebec, Canada: +5043 cases (now 495336), +8 deaths (now 11650) since 23 hours ago | 06:33 |
| Brainstorm | New from COVID on Twitter: Michael Lin, PhD-MD (@michaelzlin): What we really need to know to interpret the risks of severe outcomes is the vax rates for Omicron and non-Omicron hospitalizations. It's low for Omicron (5x more reported being non-vaxxed than vaxxed) but not reported at all for non-Omicron. → https://twitter.com/michaelzlin/status/1473529503364222976 | 06:48 |
| Brainstorm | New from The Indian Express: World: Europe braces for Omicron ‘storm’ as Biden calls up military medics → https://indianexpress.com/article/world/omicron-covid-19-variant-europe-joe-biden-united-states-7684497/ | 06:58 |
| Brainstorm | New from r/WorldNews: worldnews: NHL players won't go to Beijing Olympics amid COVID-19 concerns: reports → https://old.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/rlyttz/nhl_players_wont_go_to_beijing_olympics_amid/ | 07:35 |
| Brainstorm | New from The Indian Express: World: All anyone wants for Christmas is a COVID test → https://indianexpress.com/article/world/all-anyone-wants-for-christmas-is-a-covid-test-7684832/ | 07:45 |
| Brainstorm | New from MedicineNet: (news): White House to Fight Omicron With Free COVID Tests → http://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp | 07:54 |
| Brainstorm | New from The Indian Express: World: Bars, nightclubs to shut in Canada’s British Columbia as Omicron takes grip → https://indianexpress.com/article/world/bars-nightclubs-to-shut-in-canadas-british-columbia-as-omicron-takes-grip-7684887/ | 08:04 |
| Brainstorm | New from The Indian Express: World: Omicron is just beginning and Americans are already tired → https://indianexpress.com/article/world/omicron-is-just-beginning-and-americans-are-already-tired-7684896/ | 08:23 |
| Brainstorm | New from The Indian Express: World: Omicron is turning Europe’s busy season silent → https://indianexpress.com/article/world/omicron-is-turning-europes-busy-season-silent-7684878/ | 08:42 |
| Brainstorm | New from BBC Health: Covid: Self-isolation cut from 10 days to seven with negative test: Infected people in England can end quarantine early with negative test results on day six and seven. → https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-59749447 | 08:52 |
| Brainstorm | New from r/Coronavirus: Daily Discussion Thread | December 22, 2021: Please refer to our Wiki for more information on COVID-19 and our sub. You can find answers to frequently asked questions in our FAQ , where there is valuable information such as our: → https://old.reddit.com/r/Coronavirus/comments/rm0crc/daily_discussion_thread_december_22_2021/ | 09:01 |
| Brainstorm | New from r/WorldNews: worldnews: At least 180 infected in COVID cluster case at US Marines base in Okinawa → https://old.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/rm0f1q/at_least_180_infected_in_covid_cluster_case_at_us/ | 09:20 |
| Brainstorm | New from EMA: Human medicine assessment reports: (news): Human medicines European public assessment report (EPAR): Veklury, remdesivir, Coronavirus Infections, Date of authorisation: 03/07/2020, Revision: 9, Status: Authorised → https://www.ema.europa.eu/en/medicines/human/EPAR/veklury | 09:30 |
| Dredd | Got a notification that my PCR kit is arriving today | 09:34 |
| Brainstorm | Updates for Gujarat, India: +87 cases (now 828703), +2 deaths (now 10104) since a day ago — Haryana, India: +43 cases (now 772271), +1 deaths (now 10062) since a day ago — Uttarakhand, India: +29 cases (now 344631), +1 deaths (now 7415) since a day ago — Madhya Pradesh, India: +23 cases (now 793532) since a day ago | 09:34 |
| Brainstorm | New from COVID on Twitter: Adam Kucharski (@AdamJKucharski): Next plot is July scenarios for July 19 reopening vs actual outcomes. Not sure why tracker cut out the crucial uncertainty intervals? Remember, uncertainty intervals aren't some superfluous addition to scenarios - they *are* the scenarios. 5/ pic.twitter.com/ZwxiVGB95K → https://twitter.com/AdamJKucharski/status/1473575980694478850 | 09:58 |
| Brainstorm | Updates for Nigeria: +2123 cases (now 227378), +4 deaths (now 2989) since a day ago | 09:59 |
| Brainstorm | New from BBC Health: Covid Omicron: European nations reinstate restrictions: As the Omicron variant spreads across the continent, countries tighten curbs to brace for another wave. → https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-59747689 | 10:27 |
| Brainstorm | Updates for Saint Lucia: +32 cases (now 13209), +334 tests (now 105033) since 21 hours ago | 10:36 |
| Brainstorm | New from COVID on Twitter: Gunhild Alvik Nyborg (@GANyborg): It's been some year. Glad someone will be keeping up TTI and vaccinations But it's time to wish you all a merry Christmas! Take extra good care of yourself and your loved ones this year and be safe. ❤️ pic.twitter.com/VvSisqHfym → https://twitter.com/GANyborg/status/1473591451267313668 | 10:56 |
| Brainstorm | New from COVID on Twitter: Jeffrey Barrett (@jcbarret): Finland really fumbled the chance for a rapid booster campaign compared to the other Nordics. Going to make the #Omicron winter tougher than it needed to be. (In Helsinki next available appointments in mid-February). pic.twitter.com/5sPGa2tTaj → https://twitter.com/jcbarret/status/1473594230425763842 | 11:05 |
| Brainstorm | Updates for United Kingdom: +89467 cases (now 11.6 million), +174 deaths (now 147897) since 22 hours ago | 11:39 |
| Brainstorm | New from Politico: Clinical trials: UK boosts COVID-19 antivirals orders as Omicron cases surge → https://www.politico.eu/article/uk-coronvirus-antivirals-omicron-cases-surge/ | 11:44 |
| Brainstorm | New from COVID on Twitter: Steve Miller (@SteveMillerOC): And here is a comparison of all 4 waves in Gauteng.As above, charts show total hospital patients currently admitted, in ICU, and ventilated each day starting in the 2nd week of increasing hospital admissions, as well as 7 day average daily new deaths [... want %more?] → https://twitter.com/SteveMillerOC/status/1473604771231657990 | 11:53 |
| Brainstorm | Updates for Uganda: +502 cases (now 130178), +5863 tests (now 2.1 million) since 21 hours ago — Ghana: +758 cases (now 133046), +4 deaths (now 1263) since 22 hours ago | 12:04 |
| Brainstorm | New from ECDC: ECDC: Data on the daily number of new reported COVID-19 cases and deaths by EU/EEA country → https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/en/publications-data/data-daily-new-cases-covid-19-eueea-country | 12:13 |
| Dredd | My PCR kit is here | 12:58 |
| oerheks | yay! | 13:00 |
| Brainstorm | Updates for Senegal: +27 cases (now 74223), +4 deaths (now 1890), +1796 tests (now 906435) since 23 hours ago | 13:06 |
| xx | I suspect the number of positive tests will go down significantly from now on, because people are at home with families instead of going out getting tested :\ | 13:20 |
| xx | govs will treat that as an opportunity to say "Look! What we did works!" | 13:20 |
| Brainstorm | New from COVID on Twitter: Steve Miller (@SteveMillerOC): It is more likely than not that more people would be alive today if the FDA did not exist.Prohibiting all private tests and telling people not to wear masks early in the pandemic, delaying life saving vaccines and medicines and boosters, and now [... want %more?] → https://twitter.com/SteveMillerOC/status/1473627462055591939 | 13:20 |
| xx | and then in 20-40 days we'll see lots and lots of deaths of people who got infected in the next few days | 13:21 |
| Tuvix | Some goverments are less swayed by meaningless stats. The wekly county situation report here makes a point of noting that high positivity percentages often indicates the need for _more_ tests. | 13:25 |
| Tuvix | ie: if more of the "probably sick" are geting tested, we don't actually have good test coverage or a good indication of actual disease spread. | 13:25 |
| xx | honestly I don't know how to find the balance between using the number of tests (and positive ratio of them) for marketing (instead of just to guide what measures should be taken) | 13:27 |
| xx | and between not showing that data at all to public and instead only revealing number of severe cases in hospitals and number of deaths | 13:28 |
| Tuvix | Sure, but at least locally the "we should be testing more" conclusions is pretty enlightened, at least compared to many media outlets that always open with case counts as "the" most important stat. | 13:29 |
| Tuvix | I bet seasonal flu cases are up too, but we're not talking about that much. | 13:30 |
| Brainstorm | New from COVID on Twitter: Sky News (@SkyNews): COVID-19: Rule of six to be introduced in hospitality settings in Wales to curb spread of Omicron news.sky.com/story/covid-19… → https://twitter.com/SkyNews/status/1473628552167841792 | 13:30 |
| xx | are there any seasonal flu cases this year yet? | 13:30 |
| xx | there were like 30 in the whole of USA last year | 13:30 |
| Tuvix | https://www.cdc.gov/flu/weekly/index.htm | 13:31 |
| Brainstorm | Updates for Malta: +582 cases (now 43073), +2 deaths (now 473) since 23 hours ago — Comoros: +275 cases (now 4952) since 2 days ago — Bangladesh: +352 cases (now 1.6 million), +1 deaths (now 28052), +18779 tests (now 11.3 million) since 21 hours ago — Nepal: +217 cases (now 826423), +2 deaths (now 11579), +7266 tests (now 4.8 million) since a day ago | 13:31 |
| Tuvix | Some raw numbers at one of the links from there, also here: https://www.cdc.gov/flu/weekly/index.htm#ClinicalLaboratories | 13:32 |
| Tuvix | The primary strain is a bad match for the vaccine this year though, but presumably it still helps some. | 13:32 |
| xx | it's been a bad match ever since the flu vaccine came out for the first time, seems to be impossible to predict | 13:34 |
| xx | I still get my fluvax every year though, maybe it helps | 13:34 |
| xx | still, only 10k positive results since october? | 13:35 |
| xx | was better last year I guess | 13:36 |
| xx | people ignore covid measures probably | 13:36 |
| Tuvix | Right, it was distancing, masks, and avoiding unnecessary gatherings that likely make the most difference. Also handwashing, etc. | 13:37 |
| Tuvix | That's also a shame since those all help cut down COVID spread too, but no one wants to hear that anymore. | 13:37 |
| xx | I haven't touched my eyes in years now, probably would save a lot of people if they avoided the same | 13:44 |
| xx | I also wash my hands before eating, etc. it too would help a lot of people | 13:44 |
| xx | but hygiene education is real bad all over the world | 13:44 |
| xx | people think we live in a clean environment, but we really don't | 13:44 |
| Brainstorm | New from EMA: What's new: Medicine: Human medicines European public assessment report (EPAR): Veklury, remdesivir, Coronavirus Infections, Date of authorisation: 03/07/2020, Revision: 9, Status: Authorised → https://www.ema.europa.eu/en/medicines/human/EPAR/veklury | 14:00 |
| Brainstorm | Updates for Zambia: +2857 cases (now 221880), +12380 tests (now 2.9 million) since a day ago — UAE: +665 cases (now 745555), +398972 tests (now 107.9 million) since 23 hours ago | 14:15 |
| lastshell | Teachers stage ‘sick out’ after Pennsylvania high school student dies of COVID | https://www.centredaily.com/news/state/pennsylvania/article256774252.html | 14:28 |
| Brainstorm | New from r/WorldNews: worldnews: Secret Service: Nearly $100B stolen in pandemic relief funds → https://old.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/rm4wya/secret_service_nearly_100b_stolen_in_pandemic/ | 14:30 |
| Brainstorm | New from COVID on Twitter: Squawk Box (@SquawkCNBC): "London is going to be predictive to the experience in the United States," says @ScottGottliebMD on the omicron wave. "We have a similar complement of immunity to London. So far you haven't seen the kinds of spikes in people being hospitalized, ICU admissions." [... want %more?] → https://twitter.com/SquawkCNBC/status/1473641689386569737 | 14:39 |
| Brainstorm | Updates for Qatar: +185 cases (now 247082), +5221 tests (now 3.1 million) since a day ago — Switzerland: +5657 cases (now 1.2 million), +21 deaths (now 12057), +70773 tests (now 13.7 million) since 22 hours ago | 14:40 |
| Brainstorm | New from r/WorldNews: worldnews: China's government responds after Trump says it 'destroyed the world' with COVID, Xi is a 'killer' → https://old.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/rm591x/chinas_government_responds_after_trump_says_it/ | 14:49 |
| xx | has there been any year in the last 100 years (or longer) when the human population would not increase overall? | 14:50 |
| Brainstorm | New from COVID on Twitter: Florian Krammer (@florian_krammer): Alright, now we have Omicron/B.1.1.529 data too. Neutralization is highly affected, binding not so much. With @VivianaSimonLab, @gogo_science and van Bakel labs.medrxiv.org/content/10.110… → https://twitter.com/florian_krammer/status/1473653105979969540 | 14:58 |
| Brainstorm | Updates for Saudi Arabia: +252 cases (now 551462), +2 deaths (now 8867), +65669 tests (now 32.5 million) since a day ago — Fiji: +55 cases (now 52706), +940 tests (now 468972) since a day ago | 15:05 |
| Tuvix | lastshell: I'm curious why the delay on getting vaccinated. Maybe another case of waiting too long to accept the overwhelming science? :\ | 15:06 |
| Brainstorm | New from COVID on Twitter: Covid Fact Check UK (@fact_covid): Another huge day of boosters yesterday, coming extremely close to the one million mark.A third dose is thought to prevent around 75% of people getting any Omicron symptoms. twitter.com/hugogye/status… → https://twitter.com/fact_covid/status/1473655867664998401 | 15:08 |
| Brainstorm | New from Reddit (test): nCoV: Covid-19 helped pull down US lifespans by most in 75 years | 22DEC21 → https://old.reddit.com/r/nCoV/comments/rm5z5i/covid19_helped_pull_down_us_lifespans_by_most_in/ | 15:18 |
| xx | "helped" | 15:18 |
| xx | not exactly the word I'd want to use | 15:18 |
| Dredd | Sent my PCR kit off | 15:20 |
| Dredd | Hope it doesn't take too long | 15:20 |
| Dredd | I didn't do a good job of following the instructions | 15:20 |
| Dredd | As soon as I touched my tonsil area it made me cough uncontrollably | 15:20 |
| Dredd | It was so irritating | 15:20 |
| Dredd | The swab ended up touching my tongue a bunch of times | 15:20 |
| Dredd | And I had to make many passes broken up by coughing fits | 15:21 |
| Raf[m] | Your pcr test goes in your mouth? | 15:23 |
| Brainstorm | New from StatNews: STAT+: Pharmalittle: Japan panel nixes Biogen Alzheimer’s drug; Oxfam urges SEC to probe Moderna over patent dispute remarks: Oxfam America has filed a complaint with securities regulators accusing Moderna of providing “misleading [... want %more?] → https://www.statnews.com/pharmalot/2021/12/22/covid19-vaccine-biden-merck-pfizer-alzheimers-moderna-patent-gilead/ | 15:28 |
| Brainstorm | New from BBC Health: (news): Covid: Guy's and St Thomas' and Barts hospitals warn of op cancellations → https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-59741331 | 15:37 |
| Brainstorm | New from StatNews: Health: A computational biologist weighs in on Omicron, the future of vaccines, and the CDC’s variant forecast → https://www.statnews.com/2021/12/22/a-computational-biologist-weighs-in-on-omicron-the-future-of-vaccines-and-the-cdcs-variant-forecast/ | 15:47 |
| lastshell | sadly I assume Tuvix | 16:09 |
| squirrel | say | 16:09 |
| squirrel | to this day they can't figure out how deadly omicron is | 16:09 |
| squirrel | but they seem to be pretty sure about the efficacy of various vaccine dose combinations with it | 16:10 |
| xx | to this day they can't figure out how deadly covid-19 is in the absense of comorbidities either | 16:10 |
| xx | like, yeah, it's bad, but should healthy people really worry? | 16:10 |
| squirrel | um | 16:11 |
| squirrel | i don't remember any long-lasting question re that about alpha-delta | 16:11 |
| lastshell | I lost one uncle he was strong as a bull, he was fat, 55 years old no vaccinated he ws a handyman | 16:12 |
| lastshell | so is hard to tell how bad is covid imho | 16:12 |
| Tuvix | There's plenty of data to show that covid is far more deadly in the unvaccinated than vaccinated. This is true regardless of additional risk factors. | 16:14 |
| Tuvix | xx: I'm not sure what on earth you're on about, but you're quite mistaken. https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7043e2.htm | 16:14 |
| squirrel | there's plenty of data to show that omicron is not very deadly in the first place | 16:16 |
| Brainstorm | New from r/WorldNews: worldnews: Omicron Patients 80% Less Likely To Be Hospitalized, New Study Finds → https://old.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/rm6woz/omicron_patients_80_less_likely_to_be/ | 16:16 |
| squirrel | and a lot of data that it is deadly | 16:16 |
| lastshell | squirrel that is data comming from south africa | 16:16 |
| lastshell | yeah I thing LjL or dTal point the otherday that in SA people are yonger and maybe are previouly exposed to beta/delta | 16:17 |
| Tuvix | It's a bit early to tell yet what the death rates will be, but remember "less deadly" plus "far more infectious" could still mean a similar number of deaths overall. | 16:17 |
| lastshell | so they have some sort of protection | 16:17 |
| squirrel | this data comes from other places as well | 16:17 |
| lastshell | I wish is less deadly to be honest | 16:18 |
| Tuvix | Maybe. While it's only one data point, the "first" (officailly reported) US death from Omicron was in a previously infected but unvaccinated individual. | 16:18 |
| squirrel | i'm just saying, there's a lot of uncertainty about omicron itself. how on earth they can be sure about efficacy of various combinations of vaccines on it | 16:18 |
| Tuvix | It's not useful from a numbers standpoint, but the unvaccinated, even if previously infected, are not immune (neither are the vaccinated, but they're going to fare a lot better in aggregate) | 16:18 |
| Tuvix | "it" being that one death. | 16:19 |
| Tuvix | Because numbers so far on cases of Omicron (which do recall lead hospitalizations, which in turn lead deaths, so we're still very early in this all yet) indicate reduced indicdence of symptomatic spread in the vaccinated. Also remember the vaccinated can still spread it without serious infection, which is why other prevention measures remain necessary. | 16:20 |
| Tuvix | It's evolving and we get more data each day, but the sad reality is we're going to see the impact from this in hospital admissions and deaths well before we have a better scientific understanding of it all. | 16:21 |
| lastshell | sadly our current president in US said if you are vaccinated (and better if you are booster) you can have xmas | 16:21 |
| lastshell | I feel january/february is going to be bad | 16:21 |
| squirrel | Tuvix: it makes no sense to have the data you mention and not be able to tell how omicron is deadly | 16:22 |
| Tuvix | Well, politics are hard; if you push too hard for reduced travel, many will ignore the advice anyway, and others will resent it. | 16:22 |
| lastshell | squirrel covid is complex incubation / spread / death process | 16:22 |
| Tuvix | Yup. | 16:23 |
| Tuvix | Science takes time and if you want to see the impact of death as omicron spreads, wait another 4 to 8 weeks and we should start having a better picture. If you want detailed data on cellular effectiveness of vaccines, well, you'll also have to wait. Randall put that process nicely in this comic: https://xkcd.com/683 | 16:24 |
| squirrel | this changes what i said how | 16:24 |
| Tuvix | You keep claiming we "should have answers." Maybe you can tell the world's scientists what they've missed if you have some insight the best minds in this area have overlooked. | 16:25 |
| Brainstorm | New from COVID on Twitter: Steve Miller (@SteveMillerOC): The vaccination rate for the average age at risk of death is probably about the 55% vaccination rate of 60+ year olds in South Africa.If so, their Pfizer and J&J vaccines are reducing death by 88% down to 12% of the unvaccinated death rate. twitter.com/miamalan/statu… → https://twitter.com/SteveMillerOC/status/1473675438362746881 | 16:26 |
| Tuvix | We don't have good data on dath rates yet because we haven't had a significant amount of that data that can yet be aggregated specific to omicron. | 16:26 |
| Tuvix | If you're seriously into crunching numbers, the WHO and other national agencies of many countries have lots of public data. Feel free to put together a summary report and submit it for peer review if you have some new method that hasn't yet been considered. | 16:27 |
| squirrel | but you are saying we do have the data on have vaccines affect death rate of omicron. without having enough data about the death rate of omicron | 16:28 |
| dTal | there's no particular reason to think omicron's better or worse | 16:28 |
| dTal | what it mainly is, is *fast* | 16:29 |
| Tuvix | We have early indications that symptomatic cases are greatly reduced by vaccinations, particularly those that are boosted, yes. We also have information that shows a 2-dose mRNA is less effective at preventing symptomatic cases of omicron than those who are boosted. But cases come ahead of hospitalizations, and those will come ahead of deaths. Remember, omicron was only announced to the world about a | 16:29 |
| Tuvix | month ago. | 16:29 |
| squirrel | well that still doesn't address what i said a bit | 16:30 |
| Tuvix | Is it _worse_ than delta? We just don't really know yet. It's spreading faster, but that doesn't necessarily mean the total impact will be worse. And by what metric? Even if it kills less, filling up hospitals is bad too. That could cause non-COVID deaths to rise if you can't get seen by a doctor and die of something non-COVID for example. | 16:30 |
| Tuvix | It addresses exactly what you said. You opined that we should have answers based on all this data you seem to think falls into neatly summarized reports within several weeks of a new scientific discovery. | 16:31 |
| squirrel | no that isn't what i said | 16:31 |
| Tuvix | < squirrel> Tuvix: it makes no sense to have the data you mention and not be able to tell how omicron is deadly | 16:32 |
| Tuvix | That is exactly what you said. | 16:32 |
| Brainstorm | Updates for Montenegro: +308 cases (now 161672), +1 deaths (now 2381), +2177 tests (now 944969) since 22 hours ago — United Kingdom: +65779 cases (now 11.6 million) since 21 hours ago | 16:32 |
| squirrel | this isn't what i said | 16:32 |
| lastshell | don't argue with trolls | 16:33 |
| squirrel | the way you put it | 16:33 |
| Tuvix | lastshell: Yea, apparently :( | 16:33 |
| Brainstorm | New from Retraction Watch: AHA journal tones down abstract linking COVID-19 vaccines to risk of heart problems: The American Heart Association has published a corrected version of a controversial meeting abstract which claimed to show that Covid-19 [... want %more?] → https://retractionwatch.com/2021/12/22/aha-journal-tones-down-abstract-linking-covid-19-vaccines-to-risk-of-heart-problems/ | 16:35 |
| squirrel | if you have an idea how exactly the data allows us to be not sure in death rates but at the same time to be sure about the efficacy of vaccines, just stating that we are in fact not sure about the former and that we are in fact sure about the latter does not help | 16:36 |
| squirrel | you are trying to answer the question with the question itself | 16:37 |
| Tuvix | Then go read actual medical literature if you want answers "before" the public gets it. Beware all the usual warnings that go along with preprint findings prior to sufficient peer review: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.12.14.21267615v1 | 16:39 |
| squirrel | i was hoping to get an eli5 kind of an answer | 16:41 |
| Tuvix | "Omicron is moving fast but boosters and preventation measures remain our best actions in response." | 16:41 |
| Tuvix | The rest is… complicated. | 16:41 |
| Brainstorm | New from EMA: News and press releases: Emer Cooke’s end-of-year message, , 22/12/2021: It is exactly one year ago, on 21 December 2020, that I was able to announce EMA’s recommendation for the authorisation of the very first vaccine against... → https://www.ema.europa.eu/en/news/emer-cookes-end-year-message | 16:45 |
| squirrel | i mean, sure, this course appears sensible in the face of a huge wave of omicron even if you aren't certain about things. but the NHS is throwing concrete numbers about the booster shot, while the companies have not yet offered omicron-specific vaccine | 16:46 |
| Tuvix | So, just like delta you mean? It takes ~90 days or so to retool vaccines, and while there were delta-specific versions, they weren't shown to be sufficiently more useful and not worth the effort to provide boosters. | 16:48 |
| Tuvix | Without copy and pasting information from medical data (like the preprint I linked,) boosters are showing notable and measurable improvement comparing 25+ weeks (~6 months) of a 2-dose protection (against symptomatic infection specifically) vs. 2 weeks after the booster. | 16:50 |
| dTal | lastshell: something else - a variant that posesses unusual abilities to evade prior immunity, we would expect to look *apparently* less severe | 16:55 |
| dTal | because a larger proportion of its victims would posess some immunity | 16:55 |
| squirrel | hm, speaking of delta | 17:02 |
| squirrel | > Vaccine effectiveness against infection with the delta variant was 86.7% (95% confidence interval 84.3% to 88.7%), moderately lower than the high vaccine effectiveness against alpha (98.4%, 96.9% to 99.1%). | 17:02 |
| squirrel | -- first google link | 17:02 |
| squirrel | sounds like you'd want a delta specific vaccine anyway? | 17:03 |
| Brainstorm | New from LitCovid: (news): Response to "The COVID-19 pandemic and the opportunity to accelerate remote monitoring of patients". → https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/research/coronavirus/publication/34932731 | 17:05 |
| Brainstorm | New from ClinicalTrials.gov: ESH ABPM COVID-19 STUDY: Condition : Ambulatory Blood Pressure → https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT05167240 | 17:15 |
| aradesh | hi squirrel | 17:23 |
| squirrel | hi aradesh | 17:23 |
| aradesh | cases/deaths don't look so great in your country | 17:23 |
| squirrel | which one of my countries | 17:24 |
| aradesh | i only know one | 17:25 |
| aradesh | the one where the coronavirus situation isn't very good | 17:25 |
| squirrel | idk at less than 5k deaths doesn't seem to bad? | 17:26 |
| aradesh | i thought you were in russia | 17:27 |
| aradesh | they've had like 300,000 deaths in total! | 17:29 |
| squirrel | i were in russia briefly when i was around 4 | 17:30 |
| squirrel | i went to ride a big shiny ship! it was so white | 17:30 |
| aradesh | ah ok | 17:30 |
| Brainstorm | New from ClinicalTrials.gov: (news): Multicentric Evaluation of the Impact on Hypoxia Sensitivity of Patients With COVID-19 → https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT05167357 | 17:34 |
| Jigsy | https://old.reddit.com/r/CoronavirusUK/comments/rm8he8/wednesday_22_december_2021_update/ | 17:39 |
| Jigsy | We did it! | 17:39 |
| Brainstorm | Updates for Portugal: +8937 cases (now 1.2 million), +11 deaths (now 18823) since 23 hours ago — Netherlands: +13358 cases (now 3.1 million), +47 deaths (now 21042) since 16 hours ago — Canada: +11866 cases (now 1.9 million), +15 deaths (now 30147) since 21 hours ago — Kosovo: +20 cases (now 161294) since a day ago | 17:40 |
| Brainstorm | New from ClinicalTrials.gov: (news): A Study of JS026 and JS026 Together With JS016 for Treatment of COVID-19 → https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT05167279 | 17:53 |
| Brainstorm | Updates for Italy: +36326 cases (now 5.5 million), +146 deaths (now 136077), +779303 tests (now 132.3 million) since 23 hours ago | 18:05 |
| Brainstorm | New from The Indian Express: World: Covid-19: China orders lockdown of up to 13 million people in Xi’an → https://indianexpress.com/article/world/covid-19-china-orders-lockdown-13-million-people-xian-7686023/ | 18:23 |
| Brainstorm | Updates for Morocco: +427 cases (now 953724), +3 deaths (now 14817), +17549 tests (now 10.7 million) since 23 hours ago | 18:30 |
| Brainstorm | New from COVID on Twitter: Eric Topol (@EricTopol): Also of note is the higher vaccinated proportion with Omicron in Denmark than was the case with Delta and prior variants pic.twitter.com/x5Ks6z0Smk → https://twitter.com/EricTopol/status/1473706965314506757 | 18:33 |
| Brainstorm | New from COVID on Twitter: Tom Wenseleers (@TWenseleers): Final bit of good news: growth rate advantage of Omicron over Delta seems to have decreased in England, Scotland, Denmark & Belgium over the last few days. (Caution: based on a pattern seen over last few days only, but consistent pattern across England, [... want %more?] → https://twitter.com/TWenseleers/status/1473712096185573381 | 18:52 |
| Brainstorm | New from COVID on Twitter: Tom Wenseleers (@TWenseleers): (3) Some sampling artefact, e.g. due to younger people where Omicron is spreading becoming less keen to get tested right before XMas → https://twitter.com/TWenseleers/status/1473714414528389132 | 19:02 |
| LjL | 2021-12-21.log:[19:00:34] -Bridgestorm- Italy: +30783 cases (now 5.4 million), +153 deaths (now 135931), +851865 tests (now 131.6 million) since a day ago | 19:02 |
| LjL | 2021-12-22.log:[18:06:00] -Bridgestorm- Italy: +36326 cases (now 5.5 million), +146 deaths (now 136077), +779303 tests (now 132.3 million) since 23 hours ago | 19:02 |
| LjL | i'm not thrilled :( | 19:02 |
| LjL | also, two things i have to say about the UK | 19:05 |
| LjL | <Brainstorm> LjL: United Kingdom has had 11.6 million confirmed cases (17.5% of all people) and 147897 deaths (1.3% of cases; 1 in 449 people) as of 57 minutes ago. 392.1 million tests were done (3.0% positive). 51.5 million were vaccinated (77.6%). | 19:05 |
| LjL | <Brainstorm> LjL: Italy has had 5.5 million confirmed cases (9.1% of all people) and 136077 deaths (2.5% of cases; 1 in 443 people) as of 57 minutes ago. 132.3 million tests were done (4.1% positive). 48.0 million were vaccinated (79.7%). | 19:05 |
| LjL | 1) they're leading the (presumed) herd immunity train just as they wanted, cheers | 19:05 |
| LjL | 2) the amount of tests they do makes Italy and most continental Europe countries need to feel ashamed | 19:06 |
| Brainstorm | Updates for Israel: +1254 cases (now 1.4 million), +7 deaths (now 8239) since 22 hours ago — Greenland: +213 cases (now 2182), +4463 tests (now 131509) since 5 days ago | 19:08 |
| dTal | I think that's largely down to the free lateral flow program | 19:09 |
| Brainstorm | New from COVID on Twitter: Michael Lin, PhD-MD (@michaelzlin): Hospitalized non-Omicron in this wave had risk of severe outcomes of 40% vs 63% for hosp Delta previously. The authors attribute the lower rate of severe outcomes in hospitalized non-Omicron now to prior immunity. → https://twitter.com/michaelzlin/status/1473716384291082244 | 19:12 |
| xx | LjL: but how does herd immunity work here, if the vaccines (or previous infections) don't prevent new infections nor spreading it to others? | 19:12 |
| xx | it's highly individual - those who want to lesser the chance of severe case of covid or death from it will take the vaccine | 19:13 |
| xx | but it does little to prevent the spread, especially if the vaccinated person suddenly things they are fully immune and goes out partying and spreading it everywhere | 19:13 |
| Tuvix | One of the venues I was a weekly visitor to that I'm now avoiding has several staff who think just that. | 19:14 |
| Tuvix | They also don't get any of the club members tested, even if they were in close contact for 1+ hours (sometimes more) time with a known-positive case. | 19:16 |
| Brainstorm | New from COVID on Twitter: Theo Sanderson (@theosanderson): Number* of reported Delta infections since September 1st: 3,394,607Number* of reported Omicron infections since September 1st:421,139There is no reason to believe that these Omicron infections have substantially changed R for Delta.(*: estimated [... want %more?] → https://twitter.com/theosanderson/status/1473719173515816962 | 19:21 |
| Tuvix | Hmm, following the news of the Pfizer pill, it looks like there's a clock on getting that within 5 to 8 days of symptoms, which seems to suggest easy access to testing plus the infected being self-aware enough to notice & get that test are both factors. | 19:23 |
| LjL | xx, i don't think herd immunity "works". i just think that's what they've been going after | 19:23 |
| LjL | perhaps derangedly | 19:23 |
| Brainstorm | New from COVID on Twitter: Michael Lin, PhD-MD (@michaelzlin): 2021.12: On how the hosp/case ratio for the Omicron wave (with proper delay from cases to hospitalizations) is lower than previously in SA, and how the age-outcome relationship is unchanged, so we can expect similar results for Western countries with [... want %more?] → https://twitter.com/michaelzlin/status/1473720040142815232 | 19:31 |
| Brainstorm | Updates for Jamaica: +99 cases (now 92226) since a day ago | 19:33 |
| Brainstorm | New from COVID on Twitter: Eric Topol (@EricTopol): New analysis today by @ImperialCollege to look at reduced risk of 40-45% for Omicron associated hospitalizations, also reinforcing the point on the markedly increased dominator of increased infections imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial… pic.twitter.com/8NMFvBmhUQ → https://twitter.com/EricTopol/status/1473723578269016076 | 19:41 |
| de-facto | .title https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.12.17.473248v1 | 19:43 |
| Brainstorm | de-facto: From www.biorxiv.org: SARS-CoV-2 Omicron spike mediated immune escape, infectivity and cell-cell fusion | bioRxiv | 19:43 |
| Tuvix | I suspect that's going to be a common theme with any viral-vectored vaccine approach in the face of this and future mutations. | 19:48 |
| Brainstorm | New from COVID on Twitter: Michael Lin, PhD-MD (@michaelzlin): And I'm obligated to point out that we were the first to invent a SARSCoV2 protease inhibitor with the essential elements later found in Paxlovid (we showed our drugs in 9/2020, Pfizer announced Paxlovid in 4/2021)twitter.com/michaelzlin/st… → https://twitter.com/michaelzlin/status/1473726476138815497 | 19:51 |
| Brainstorm | New from COVID on Twitter: Michael Lin, PhD-MD (@michaelzlin): Pfizer's earlier SARSCoV2 protease inhibitor, PF-00835231, indeed came from their earlier SARSCoV1 work. But this is an IV-only drug and testing was stopped after Pfizer saw our work (or others') that the HCV protease inhibitor boceprevir can be [... want %more?] → https://twitter.com/michaelzlin/status/1473729396695519246 | 20:00 |
| xx | "It's just an expensive copy of the active part of ivermectin" is what people are saying over here. | 20:03 |
| Brainstorm | New from COVID on Twitter: Theo Sanderson (@theosanderson): Would be really useful to have solid public info on extent to which PCR capacity is constraining case numbers → https://twitter.com/theosanderson/status/1473731305070374926 | 20:10 |
| Brainstorm | Updates for Mozambique: +2337 cases (now 164862), +3 deaths (now 1960), +6599 tests (now 1.0 million) since 21 hours ago | 20:10 |
| LjL | Tuvix, 5 to 8 days is good news actually, because initially i had read their protocol was 3 days to 5 days | 20:11 |
| LjL | and i thought it was good news that 5 days worked well too, because 3 days was just implausible | 20:11 |
| Tuvix | I heard both 5 and 8 used at various points on some of the PR material anyway; I'm sure there's a curve and it falls off the longer you take. | 20:12 |
| Tuvix | But that still relies on people realizing they're ill, getting tested, and dealing with whatever red tape there is to get a clinician to write a perscription. | 20:12 |
| LjL | <dTal> I think that's largely down to the free lateral flow program ← probably, you did spend a lot of money on it and i read an article that was critical of that. but Germany also has nearly-free tests, right de-facto? here a self-administered LFT is around €5, while if you get a pharmacy to take it because you need it for the green pass (or just don't feel comfortable doing it yourself), it's price-capped at €15 | 20:13 |
| dTal | I think there's a massive difference between free and 5 euros | 20:13 |
| dTal | some people test every day | 20:14 |
| LjL | i agree, but i believe in Germany it's more like €1 or less though others may confirm, it may have changed recently | 20:14 |
| LjL | yes, but in Germany too i see people here saying like "i need to get a new batch of tests" | 20:14 |
| LjL | Germany has had some more tests than italy but not so many | 20:14 |
| Arsanerit | Rapid antigen tests at test centres are unconditionally free in Germany. They costed a bit for a while, but they're free again. | 20:15 |
| Arsanerit | PCR tests are only free under certain conditions. | 20:15 |
| LjL | but going to a test center is probably not an incentive | 20:15 |
| Arsanerit | Self-tests are not free. | 20:15 |
| LjL | well, they are in the UK, so that may be a difference... | 20:16 |
| LjL | also apparently they're all "self" in the UK in the sense that even if you go to a center, you take the sample yourself O.o | 20:16 |
| Arsanerit | I've only been to a test center once, after I got a red warning from the Corona-Warn-App. They took a sample from me and submitted it for a PCR test. | 20:17 |
| Brainstorm | New from COVID on Twitter: Theo Sanderson (@theosanderson): @jcbarret (* a ~fixed number develop non-COVID COVID-like symptoms) → https://twitter.com/theosanderson/status/1473732792433451024 | 20:19 |
| Brainstorm | New from COVID on Twitter: Eric Topol (@EricTopol): For more than a year we've been talking about Global Vaccine equity.Now it'll also be Global Pill Equity.Unless something is done to get production revved up, as discussed heretheguardian.com/commentisfree/… → https://twitter.com/EricTopol/status/1473738715260411908 | 20:39 |
| xx | I know how to achieve global pill equity - allow people to purchase them directly | 20:40 |
| xx | no need for doctors, prescriptions, ... | 20:40 |
| xx | and then allow the people to sell those pills | 20:40 |
| xx | you'd have so many people travel to canada, buy a bunch of stuff, and move it to USA and sell for a good profit, while still making it cheaper than what USA charges | 20:41 |
| xx | similarly for moving it to any other country in the world | 20:41 |
| Arsanerit | you want to pay big bucks for dangerous medicine from random strangers? | 20:42 |
| xx | people already do that | 20:44 |
| Tuvix | That's a horrible public health strategy, and there's a reason perscription-drugs aren't handled like that (legally anyway) in modern society. | 20:44 |
| Tuvix | But you presumably know that and are making a silly point for the sake of being silly. | 20:44 |
| xx | I think public health strategy could use an update to make it in line with other modern stuff in 21st century | 20:45 |
| ublx | s/silly/asinine/ | 20:45 |
| xx | why have a pill change 10 hands, each one taking a cut, instead of having it delivered straight from the manufacturer? | 20:45 |
| xx | it's cheaper for me to take a flight to india, take suitcase full of some temperature-stable medicine, and fly back to USA and sell it at a fraction of a cost than what they'd charge normally | 20:46 |
| xx | not that I'm doing that... | 20:46 |
| xx | but that calculation has been done | 20:46 |
| ublx | why charge for it at all | 20:47 |
| xx | to incentivize people to do that | 20:47 |
| xx | it's hard to make people do stuff for you for free | 20:47 |
| ublx | if it works, just hand it out free to everyone | 20:48 |
| xx | can't even get volunteers these days to hand out stuff for free | 20:48 |
| xx | everyone wants to be paid for some reason | 20:48 |
| Arsanerit | There are other ways to finance medicine apart from having the patient pay. | 20:48 |
| ublx | government can make you do anything it wants, legally | 20:48 |
| xx | like, why can't I order aspirin online yet? | 20:49 |
| ublx | up to and including temporarily nationalising pharmaceutical manufacturers, until 7 or 8 billion doses have been shipped to the end user | 20:49 |
| Arsanerit | ublx: That isn't true; the government is not above the law. | 20:50 |
| xx | the gov is the law | 20:50 |
| Arsanerit | No. | 20:50 |
| ublx | it literally is, if it wants to be | 20:50 |
| Arsanerit | One part of the government /makes/ the law. | 20:50 |
| xx | they can change the law at any point if they get enough of their own members to want to do it | 20:50 |
| Arsanerit | But all arms of the government have to respect the law as it is. | 20:50 |
| Arsanerit | And depending on the country, laws have to be compatible with the constitution and changing the constitution may be difficult. | 20:51 |
| xx | changing the constitution is trivial if enough members of gov are for it | 20:51 |
| ublx | sure, the necessary legislation would be more or less thorny | 20:51 |
| ublx | but if we're coming up with la la land distribution policies, lets at least aim at something equitable | 20:52 |
| xx | within 1 day, the USA could trivially turn into a dictatorship that kills off all righthanded people if they wanted to, all legally | 20:52 |
| Arsanerit | xx: No, it couldn't; the USA has signed treaties that make that illegal, and it would also violate the universal declaration of human rights and other _unalienable_ rights. Crimes against humanity remain crimes no matter what laws a government passes. | 20:53 |
| Arsanerit | It could do so, but it would not be legal. | 20:54 |
| xx | they can trivially vote to no longer respect those treaties | 20:54 |
| Arsanerit | A frequent repeated myths alleges that the holocaust was legal. It was not. | 20:54 |
| xx | all it needs is enough votes, that's all | 20:54 |
| Arsanerit | The military can do this without any vote. | 20:54 |
| xx | yeah but we're talking about how to do it legally | 20:55 |
| Arsanerit | What you're describing is not legal though. | 20:55 |
| xx | and voting is the legal way of doing it in a democracy | 20:55 |
| Arsanerit | No, you can't legally vote to do something illegal. | 20:55 |
| ublx | Ok. Closing arguments, please, gentlefolk. Wrapping up this offtopic with +q in 120 seconds | 20:55 |
| Arsanerit | Mandatory vaccinations can probably be legal. | 20:55 |
| Brainstorm | New from Politico: Coronavirus: Omicron causes less severe disease, studies from Scotland, England suggest → https://www.politico.eu/article/omicron-delta-study-coronavirus-variant-restrictions-hospitalization-vaccine/ | 20:58 |
| Brainstorm | New from COVID19 Vaccine Tracker: valerie: AnGes: AG0302-COVID19 → https://covid19.trackvaccines.org/vaccines/31/ | 21:17 |
| lastshell | https://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/fda-authorizes-pfizer-oral-antiviral-covid-19-treatment.amp | 21:19 |
| oerheks | My test is negative \0/ | 21:27 |
| Brainstorm | New from COVID19 Vaccine Tracker: valerie: Altimmune Inc: AdCOVID → https://covid19.trackvaccines.org/vaccines/75/ | 21:27 |
| genera | \o/ | 21:35 |
| Arsanerit | oerheks: good | 21:36 |
| oerheks | Now i am happy to stay indoors. | 21:36 |
| Brainstorm | New from COVID19 Vaccine Tracker: valerie: AnGes: AG0301-COVID19 → https://covid19.trackvaccines.org/vaccines/3/ | 21:37 |
| Brainstorm | Updates for France: +84272 cases (now 8.9 million), +170 deaths (now 123101) since a day ago — Kenya: +3328 cases (now 270899), +1 deaths (now 5355), +11197 tests (now 3.0 million) since a day ago — Spain: +60041 cases (now 5.6 million), +50 deaths (now 88937) since 22 hours ago | 21:37 |
| Dredd | UK has hit 1M vaccines given in a day? Nice | 21:40 |
| Dredd | <oerheks> "My test is negative \0/" <- Yay | 21:41 |
| oerheks | https://babylonbee.com/news/whew-local-man-doesnt-have-real-covid-just-omicron | 21:43 |
| xx | anyone made a bet where the next interesting variant is gonna be detected? | 21:44 |
| xx | wouldn't surprise me if it was UK | 21:45 |
| aradesh | UK would be exciting | 21:45 |
| aradesh | let's go with that | 21:46 |
| oerheks | Yes, i bet it will be called Pi | 21:46 |
| xx | lots of infected -> lots of chances for new variant emergence | 21:46 |
| Brainstorm | New from COVID19 Vaccine Tracker: valerie: Aivita Biomedical Inc: AV-COVID-19 → https://covid19.trackvaccines.org/vaccines/74/ | 21:46 |
| Arsanerit | Wasn't Alpha first detected in the UK? | 21:46 |
| oerheks | 𝝅 | 21:46 |
| xx | yeah plus UK does more sequencing that some other places, so there's that too in favor of it being first detected there | 21:47 |
| xx | I have a flight soon, and layover is in london... | 21:47 |
| Raf[m] | Arsanerit: I think that was beta | 21:47 |
| Raf[m] | Maybe alpha too | 21:47 |
| aruns | With all of these COVID studies, I want to learn how to properly read them so I can form my own conclusions rather than always relying on the media to interpret them for me. Especially since I have antivaxxers in the workplace that loosely interpret official government data on COVID-19 / disregard any variables that don't conform to their conclusions. | 21:48 |
| xx | makes me feel like that scene from... what was the movie called? | 21:48 |
| aruns | How can I best achieve this? | 21:48 |
| xx | something with monkeys | 21:48 |
| oerheks | aruns, first you need a lot of data .. | 21:48 |
| aruns | For instance, how can I improve my knowledge of statistics in order to better interpret the figures provided by official government agencies on the issue of unvaccinated / vaccinated patients in ICU wards for e.g. | 21:49 |
| aruns | I'm reading through some stats books atm | 21:49 |
| xx | not really something that needs a book if you just want actionable conclusions from it for yourself | 21:49 |
| Tuvix | There's a reason things like national health agencies (CDC in the US, NHS in the UK, etc) publish general guidance. Now, the rub is that "recommendations" can be intentionally ignored by people or businesses either due to lack of understanding, or intentional disregard for the recommendations. | 21:49 |
| xx | whereas it really is something that needs many many books if you're to make conclusions for others | 21:50 |
| Tuvix | Frankly you're probably better off engaging with say your local health department, but you also probably can't force someone who has different views to comply if they really don't want to and there's no requriement for them to do so. | 21:50 |
| xx | and guess what, politicians haven't read any of those books | 21:50 |
| xx | heh, I've met a local health department, where nobody wore any protection at all and didn't require it from anyone else, because "we all had some sort of flu in dec 2019, it's fine" | 21:51 |
| aruns | I'm in the UK btw | 21:51 |
| aruns | If that helps | 21:51 |
| xx | lots of old people in it too... | 21:51 |
| Tuvix | Locally masks are recommended here for any indoor interaction where you're likely to come into contact with individuals of unknown vacciation status. I got my flu shot this week and maybe 1/3 of the customers were masked, so obviously people aren't following the suggested guidance. | 21:51 |
| aruns | Thanks xx and Tuvix | 21:52 |
| xx | whether someone else is or is not vaccinated has no effect on whether you will catch it from interacting with them. What you do to protect yourself has a significantly larger effect on that. | 21:52 |
| Tuvix | aruns: I mean, take a look at the broad guidance NHS has for example: https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/coronavirus-covid-19/how-to-avoid-catching-and-spreading-coronavirus-covid-19/ | 21:52 |
| aruns | To give you an example, xx, the BBC World Service released an episode of More or Less, one of their programmes that attempts to demystify figures in the news | 21:52 |
| aruns | And it was on using Simpson's paradox to tackle the claim that vaccinated people in the UK had a higher all cause death rate than unvaccinated people | 21:53 |
| xx | well yeah, all the statistics smush together the data in incorrect ways | 21:54 |
| xx | if most unvaccinated people are children under 18yo, and most vaccinated people are 65yo+, then obviously you'll have more deaths among the group that is vaccinated than in the unvaccinated group | 21:54 |
| Tuvix | Raw data is availble from places like NHS and CDC for anyone to use and crunch, but interpreting it correctly can be challenging, yes. This is really why most people should use reliable sources, like respectable health departments, as sources. | 21:55 |
| Tuvix | There's a lovely book that goes into this in detail, 'How to Lie with Statistics.' | 21:55 |
| xx | the trouble is establishing which health departments are respectable | 21:55 |
| xx | for *me*, the WHO has lots all credibility, and by extension any department that cites any data from WHO loses credibility too | 21:56 |
| xx | *lost | 21:56 |
| Brainstorm | New from COVID on Twitter: Eric Topol (@EricTopol): You know it's a good day in the pandemic when:—The 1st anti-Covid pill is cleared—More indications that Omicron is associated with less severe illness and tends to come down from its big surge as quickly as it ascends—The 1st pan-coronavirus vaccine is [... want %more?] → https://twitter.com/EricTopol/status/1473758042105651200 | 21:56 |
| Tuvix | But really, if you have vaccine-resistant friends/peers, you're not going to change their mind by citing and referencing official data that you've crunched yourself. | 21:56 |
| aruns | Thanks Tuvix | 21:56 |
| dTal | <xx> whether someone else is or is not vaccinated has no effect on whether you will catch it from interacting with them. What you do to protect yourself has a significantly larger effect on that. | 21:56 |
| dTal | I don't think that's trrue | 21:56 |
| xx | dTal: well, both vaccinated and unvaccinated do spread it, so there's that | 21:57 |
| dTal | vaccination should lower viral load, which should make someone less contagious | 21:57 |
| xx | and vaccinated are more likely to go out and interact with others, because they feel like covid is over for them | 21:57 |
| dTal | yes, both spread it, but it's going to far to say that they both spread it the same amount | 21:57 |
| Tuvix | And if their also masking, the protection goes way up since much of what they're breathing will be caught by a mask, at least a decent quality one if worn properly. | 21:57 |
| Tuvix | they're* | 21:58 |
| xx | like, so many people just get the first shot, and go out and have fun... sometimes even on the same day | 21:58 |
| dTal | That's just a guess. Maybe the vaccinated are actually more careful than, I dunno, antivaxers. | 21:58 |
| aruns | Tuvix: That book looks interesting, will give it a look, thanks | 21:58 |
| xx | I strongly disagree with how the marketing around vaccination has been done, because it has convinced people that vaccinated = not infectious, which has caused irrepairable damage | 21:58 |
| xx | I'd compare it to the damage caused by the vaccines cause autism fake study | 21:59 |
| dTal | It's not the marketing, it's the security theatre | 21:59 |
| aradesh | is there any solution to the anti-vaxxers slash "ree our freedoms being stolen!" types? | 21:59 |
| xx | yeah I'm generous with the word 'marketing' | 21:59 |
| dTal | Pfizer isn't claiming their vaccine makes you totally non contagious. | 21:59 |
| aradesh | the division it's causing is so annoying | 21:59 |
| aradesh | at least they're quite a minority in most european countries | 22:00 |
| Tuvix | aradesh: My opinion: mandates for things like in-person work, airtravel, etc. We've seen that work with big companies, eg: United Airlines, and (most) people may complain, but then comply. | 22:00 |
| Tuvix | That's an "unpopular" idea in many places though, and such a decision is inherently political too. | 22:00 |
| aruns | xx Tuvix Part of my interest in this is that I feel so many people who have gotten jabbed don't actually know the underlying science | 22:00 |
| dTal | aradesh: Not an immediate one. Better education in critical thinking skills, and better social safety nets so people don't experience childhood trauma and end up growing into conspiratorial types | 22:00 |
| aruns | And so it can be hard to convince those who are vaccine hesitant to get jabbed when the pro vaccine crowd are ridiculing them yet don't know the science themselves | 22:01 |
| aruns | And so I feel if I make an attempt to better understand the science and data myself | 22:01 |
| aruns | Hopefully I can change a few minds | 22:01 |
| dTal | https://julesevans.medium.com/make-love-not-vaccines-why-are-new-age-hippies-so-anti-vax-7eef1d4e083d | 22:01 |
| xx | I have no data to support this, but I believe most <65yo get the vaccine just so that they can have fun again, not because of any perceived protection | 22:02 |
| xx | which is a scary thought | 22:02 |
| Tuvix | That's the intent behind requirements for say vaccinations to get into bars/clubs, etc. | 22:02 |
| dTal | "There are some possible reasons why spiritual people should be inclined to be anti-vax, anti-mask, anti-lockdown and anti-public health... Dr William Bloom suggests one factor could be high levels of trauma among spiritual seekers — deep wounds in part caused by authoritarian families or traditional religions, which get triggered by any suggestion you can’t do what you want" | 22:02 |
| Brainstorm | Updates for Ethiopia: +2992 cases (now 382371), +3 deaths (now 6880), +10828 tests (now 4.0 million) since 22 hours ago | 22:02 |
| Tuvix | It's a low-bar compared to other preventative measures, sure, but it's a lot better than no rules at all. None of the bars near me even ask if you're vaccinated. | 22:02 |
| Tuvix | (I'm in a region that's been at the health department's highest classification of local community spread for months, as a point of comparison) | 22:03 |
| xx | I find it a mistake that bars don't require test results, and instead accept vaccination as "proof of non-infectiousness" | 22:03 |
| aradesh | dTal: interesting. people who are conspiracy theorists in general have a deep distrust of the establishment. so whenever the establishment tells them what to do, they distrust it... on the other hand, it's quite a luxury to live in a country where you CAN behave like that | 22:03 |
| Arsanerit | I think for a while in Germany the mask and distancing mandates were dropped in places open only to vaccinated people, that seems like a big mistake imho. | 22:04 |
| xx | it was a big mistake | 22:04 |
| aradesh | why what happened? | 22:04 |
| Tuvix | With Delta, breakthrough cases mainly. | 22:04 |
| aradesh | more virus spread? | 22:04 |
| xx | more people got infected than if they had worn masks and kept distance | 22:04 |
| aradesh | but it should have been fairly mitigated by the fact that they were vaccinated | 22:05 |
| Tuvix | The messaging early on many places was that 2-doses was good enough and you no longer needed masks or distancing. | 22:05 |
| xx | because despite what many gov statements might make you believe, vaccinated people do still spread it | 22:05 |
| aradesh | yes but lower r rate | 22:05 |
| aradesh | less likely to pass it on to as many people | 22:05 |
| xx | not as low as requiring a test | 22:05 |
| Brainstorm | New from Novavax: (news): Novavax Announces Initial Omicron Cross-Reactivity Data from COVID-19 Vaccine Booster and Adolescent Studies → https://ir.novavax.com/2021-12-22-Novavax-Announces-Initial-Omicron-Cross-Reactivity-Data-from-COVID-19-Vaccine-Booster-and-Adolescent-Studies | 22:06 |
| aradesh | because it's in your system for less time and at lower levels on average | 22:06 |
| Tuvix | It's not just governments though; that was what data showed, but data changes. Governments tend to change much slower though, and it's hard to go "back" to more restrictive measures that you just lifted weeks or months earlier. | 22:06 |
| aruns | xx: Vaccinated people can still spread, but at a lower rate than the unvaccinated, right? | 22:06 |
| aradesh | and you're sneezing and coughing less - so you spread it less | 22:06 |
| aruns | Or is that wrong? | 22:06 |
| xx | aruns: not enough data on that yet | 22:06 |
| xx | at least not from my perspective | 22:06 |
| aruns | I see. | 22:06 |
| aradesh | surely it would make sense though, due to what i've just said | 22:06 |
| Tuvix | aruns: Generally right as a broad statement, but keep in mind with Omicron it's MUCH more infectious than earlier waves. | 22:06 |
| aruns | See | 22:07 |
| aruns | Like I think when pro-vax people say stuff like the vaccinated cannot spread | 22:07 |
| aruns | That's not helping matters | 22:07 |
| Tuvix | It's hard to compare Omicron to Delta in terms of how "bad" it is. It spread a lot faster, we know that for sure. It "may" be less severe, but we don't really know how much, or if that means less in hospitals of dead compared to earlier waves. | 22:07 |
| aradesh | well it's because it's over-simplified | 22:07 |
| xx | right, and people who are sneezing and coughing go to work and shopping and clubbing, because they are vaccinated and so it cannot be corona... | 22:07 |
| aradesh | government give over-simplified slogans to people, because they just need them to know vaccine good | 22:07 |
| Tuvix | Sure, and if you only hear 1 message, that's probalby the single best one to give. | 22:08 |
| xx | aradesh: yeah, it's not helping anyone if people give authoritative statements that are trivial to show to be factually incorrect | 22:08 |
| xx | erodes trust in everything | 22:08 |
| aradesh | only for people who are trying to distrust in the first place though | 22:08 |
| xx | can't say | 22:08 |
| aradesh | like if someone tells me, "vaccine makes you immune" i'll be like "ok" and then if i later then read, "actually no it just makes you less likely to catch it/or show symptoms" i'd be like.. well ok, sounds plausible, but i understood the sentiment of the original over-simplification | 22:09 |
| aradesh | is this the case with all vaccinations that we're used to? like measles and such? | 22:10 |
| xx | but what if they release two statements at the same time 1) "vaccine makes you immune" 2) "vaccine is safe", and then one of those statements is shown to have been simplified | 22:10 |
| xx | would that not make you question the 2nd statement too? | 22:10 |
| xx | *question*, not immediatelly distrust | 22:10 |
| aradesh | dunno | 22:10 |
| aradesh | mb | 22:10 |
| Tuvix | aradesh: Iterestingly, I just used the measles comparison a day or so back. When vaccination rates drop, we *do* see measles outbreaks. Here's a pretty readable abstract on just that not that many years ago: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31790030/ | 22:10 |
| xx | that's my issue with releasing simplified statements = if one is wrong, it will be used as ammunition that *all* statements are possibly wrong | 22:11 |
| aradesh | like to the lay man, not showing symptoms is the same as being immune and never catching the virus | 22:11 |
| aradesh | and only showing mild symptoms is the same as being "mostly immune" | 22:11 |
| Tuvix | So yea, when we take a "vaccine protected" population from another disease we thing we've solved, it can & will come back under the right conditions. | 22:11 |
| xx | measles could have been eradicated already, had it not been for stupid people | 22:12 |
| Tuvix | In this case, a very condensed community refused vacciation, and they had a notable outbreak as a result. I don't have the exact numbers handy, but IIRC the vaccination rate in the community in question fell below 90%, which is generally understood to be the point for measles where such outbreaks can occur. | 22:12 |
| aradesh | Tuvix: but i wonder, is it still possible to catch measles with the vaccine, maybe you just are less likely to show syptoms, and still capable of passing it on? | 22:12 |
| aradesh | but that with enough vaccines the r-rate is below 1, so it's ok | 22:12 |
| Tuvix | Exactly, that's the whole point of "herd immunity." | 22:12 |
| Tuvix | That phrase should _not_ be understood (but is sometimes missused) to sugest that if we just, for example, let COVID infect a community we'll "sovle" the problem. Re-infection is a major concern with the varients, but also doing that would utterly destroy healchare systems. | 22:13 |
| Tuvix | solve* | 22:13 |
| xx | aradesh: measles is pretty clear though, if you have it, you have it bad and do show symptoms when you're infectious, and only at that point not before | 22:13 |
| Tuvix | The infection period is an issue with COVID too, yea. The fact that you can be infectious before you even know you have symptoms (if you notice them at all) is part of why it's so good at spreading. | 22:15 |
| Brainstorm | New from Reddit (test): Covid2019: The Vaccinated Can Still Get Long COVID | Health And Medicine → https://old.reddit.com/r/Covid2019/comments/rmesvy/the_vaccinated_can_still_get_long_covid_health/ | 22:15 |
| Tuvix | In areas like mine, there's just no hope of "contact tracing" since it's impossible to track down everyone involved, and many actively refuse to talk to healthcare workers who call. | 22:15 |
| xx | heh, I only have a landline and use it to call out, I don't pick up usually | 22:17 |
| Brainstorm | New from Ars Technica: Science: Omicron cases less likely to require hospital treatment, studies show → https://arstechnica.com/ | 22:25 |
| xx | wtf people still remove their mask in order to cough... | 22:37 |
| xx | it's been almost 2 years know, surely somebody told them... | 22:37 |
| Brainstorm | Updates for San Marino: +191 cases (now 7351), +1 deaths (now 97) since a day ago — Faroe Is.: +100 cases (now 4892), +3000 tests (now 619000) since a day ago — United Kingdom: +105667 cases (now 11.7 million) since 21 hours ago | 22:40 |
| Brainstorm | New from COVID on Twitter: Michael Lin, PhD-MD (@michaelzlin): Our initial drug, ML1000, described in 2020 September apparently served as inspiration for Pfizer's PF-07321332 (Paxlovid) announced in 2021 April and approved today pic.twitter.com/xbgWMvdPyO → https://twitter.com/michaelzlin/status/1473770308838461442 | 22:44 |
| sdfgsdfg | wtf is wrong with news reporters.... "Although Novavax differs from mRNA (Pfizer and Moderna) and Vector (AstraZeneca) vaccines in its chemical makeup, the jab’s side effects are very similar. Injection site tenderness, fatigue, headache, and muscle pain are the most common symptoms experienced after receiving the protein adjuvant vaccine." | 22:55 |
| sdfgsdfg | this is completely misleading and wrong I think !?? I read the whole paper | 22:55 |
| sdfgsdfg | the side effects are nowhere near similar, because there are none of the side effects seen with other vaccines. The muscle pain and injection site tenderness are just "effects" of injection ?? | 22:56 |
| LjL | eh? | 23:02 |
| LjL | those side effects are definitely similar to those found in the BNT and Moderna trials | 23:02 |
| LjL | if you're thinking about the serious adverse reactions like myocarditis and CVST, those weren't found *in the trials* | 23:02 |
| LjL | since Novavax only had a trial, you can only really compare it to the other trials | 23:03 |
| LjL | it's not like Novavax has been used on millions of people yet | 23:03 |
| Brainstorm | New from COVID on Twitter: Gunhild Alvik Nyborg (@GANyborg): But still some uncertainties! Still early days. To cite @dgurdasani1: Lower severity omicron vs delta (mainly due to it being disproportionately represented in re-infections and those with prior immunity) twitter.com/dgurdasani1/st… → https://twitter.com/GANyborg/status/1473774711628832781 | 23:03 |
| Brainstorm | Updates for Maryland, United States: +34759 cases (now 627438) since 16 days ago — Malawi: +1112 cases (now 67278), +4 deaths (now 2317), +2783 tests (now 468392) since 23 hours ago — Cyprus: +883 cases (now 147685), +1 deaths (now 624) since 23 hours ago — Togo: +197 cases (now 27108) since 19 hours ago | 23:05 |
| Arsanerit | I read or heard that side effects in the Novavax COVID-19 vaccine are expected to be worse than in the mRNA vaccines | 23:18 |
| lastshell | as long as antivaxxers are ok to get the jab | 23:19 |
| Arsanerit | maybe some are | 23:22 |
| Brainstorm | New from COVID on Twitter: Marc Veldhoen (@Marc_Veld): And more confirmation that even if some antibody immunity ios evaded: cellular immunity has your back! T cell immunity is preserved; and remember: longlived!science.org/doi/10.1126/sc… → https://twitter.com/Marc_Veld/status/1473780151817326601 | 23:22 |
| de-facto | .title https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/coronavirus-covid-19-update-fda-authorizes-first-oral-antiviral-treatment-covid-19 | 23:22 |
| Brainstorm | de-facto: From www.fda.gov: Coronavirus (COVID-19) Update: FDA Authorizes First Oral Antiviral for Treatment of COVID-19 | FDA | 23:22 |
| Arsanerit | others want an inactivated virus vaccine or none at all | 23:22 |
| Arsanerit | I'm not sure how to reply to people saying they don't want the vaccine because "they don't mind dying, they don't want medical care if they get sick, and they don't interact with anybody". | 23:23 |
| de-facto | "Today, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued an emergency use authorization (EUA) for Pfizer’s Paxlovid (nirmatrelvir tablets and ritonavir tablets, co-packaged for oral use) for the treatment of mild-to-moderate coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in adults and pediatric patients (12 years of age and older weighing at least 40 kilograms or about 88 pounds) with positive results of direct SARS-CoV-2 testing, and who are at high risk fo | 23:23 |
| de-facto | r progression to severe COVID-19, including hospitalization or death." | 23:23 |
| Tuvix | Honestly, I think most of the "reasons" the anti-vax or vaccine-resistant use are excuse-BINGO. If you provide an alternative that addresses their concerns, many cite or invent new concerns. | 23:24 |
| de-facto | "Paxlovid is available by prescription only and should be initiated as soon as possible after diagnosis of COVID-19 and within five days of symptom onset. " | 23:24 |
| Arsanerit | Tuvix: People have many different reasons for vaccine skepticism or refusal. | 23:24 |
| Arsanerit | I read about a study classifying the reasons in 11 categories. | 23:24 |
| Tuvix | There's also a lot of lack of understanding of mRNA in general, both how long the technology has been around (though yes, arguably not in widely available vaccines) and how it works. | 23:25 |
| -RSSBot[LjLmatrix- Zotero / COVID links Group / Top-Level Items: Effectiveness of Covid-19 Vaccination Against Risk of Symptomatic Infection, Hospitalization, and Death Up to 9 Months: A Swedish Total-Population Cohort Study ( https://www.zotero.org/groups/covid_links/items/A969RTNU ) | 23:26 | |
| Tuvix | Alternatives are great, don't get me wrong, I just don't think it will have a huge impact on a significant portion of those who have so far refused vaccination. | 23:27 |
| de-facto | having cells blooming with spikes provokes T-cells just by themselves already, no adjuvant required, and T-cell immunity is the one that is not easily evaded by mutants | 23:27 |
| Arsanerit | Tuvix: huge impact, no. Slight impact, perhaps. | 23:29 |
| Brainstorm | Updates for Curacao: +181 cases (now 18082), +2 deaths (now 186), +2911 tests (now 370862) since 23 hours ago — Kuwait: +143 cases (now 414413), +20527 tests (now 5.8 million) since a day ago — India: +5227 cases (now 34.8 million), +407 deaths (now 478468) since 23 hours ago — Mauritania: +57 cases (now 40239), +2 deaths (now 859), +2356 tests (now 544753) since 23 hours ago | 23:30 |
| Tuvix | Broader requirements would have more impact, at least in areas where many of the "fun" social things are unrestricted to the yet-unvaccinated. | 23:30 |
| minthos | Arsanerit: I think if people who opt out of vaccines also opt out of treatment, that's fair and society should have a mechanism to formalize that choice so hospitals can prioritize other patients | 23:32 |
| Tuvix | From talking to a couple of my EU friends, a number of places already do that. Such things are very rare here in the US, outside of some cities (New York City for example) | 23:32 |
| Arsanerit | Tuvix: are there many lockdowns in the US right now? | 23:33 |
| Tuvix | No, virtually none, and no appetite for it at the political level or the general public. | 23:34 |
| Tuvix | Even the original "lockdown" here was weak at best, and had lots of exceptions if you read the rules with enough eye to declare most/all of your business "essential" or similar wording. There was also next to no enforcement at least in this state (and many others I'm sure.) | 23:35 |
| Tuvix | For instance during the indoor dining restrictions, you could still order to-go food. I did so at a local supper club I used to go to a couple times a month, and patrons were at the bar while they "waited" for orders. With masks down to drink their beers. 2 were even dining right at the bar, out of their take-out containers, over another beer. | 23:35 |
| Arsanerit | I have at one point seen people dining at a local restaurant during lockdown; the owner said they were private guests / friends and not paying. | 23:37 |
| Brainstorm | New from COVID on Twitter: Marc Veldhoen (@Marc_Veld): There has been much doubt regarding the efficacy of Remdesivir: but a large study with early treatment seems very promissing.nejm.org/doi/full/10.10… → https://twitter.com/Marc_Veld/status/1473784761017683981 | 23:41 |
| Tuvix | The US is seeing various "waves" though that hit different regions at different times, and with varying intensity. ICUs around me are just slammed, in the MN/WI/MI/IL regions. Here's a state that recently took out a full page ad in a local paper paid for/signed by a bunch of local healthcare business CEOs due to hospitals at capacity: https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/data/hospitalization-7-day-trend/minnesota | 23:44 |
| Tuvix | That trend is basically the same if you pull up Wisconsin or Michigan too | 23:45 |
| Tuvix | The ad was warning that there may not be capacity to deal with non-COVID patient needs; heart attacks, car wrecks, and so on. | 23:45 |
| Tuvix | Ah, here's the ad they took out: https://mhealthfairview.org/-/media/3C977E375ADA4D3B9B8D7C6AF3C817B1.ashx | 23:48 |
| Brainstorm | New from COVID on Twitter: Steve Miller (@SteveMillerOC): Omicron spike hitting southern California now.Orange County cases reported today to 1,057 — three times the steady daily rate of 300-400 we’ve had lately.Los Angeles County also seeing a jump in cases. twitter.com/skarlamangla/s… → https://twitter.com/SteveMillerOC/status/1473787346944348161 | 23:51 |
| LjL | TV just said masks are going to be mandatory outdoors again in Spain now | 23:54 |
| LjL | (we're probably pretty close to doing that too) | 23:54 |
| Tuvix | Outdoors is curious, since from what I understand there's very little outdoor spread. I'm sure how crowded a space you're in is a factor too. | 23:55 |
| de-facto | i did wear my FFP3 the whole time today when shopping, even outdoors, and every store required my vaccine certificate and my ID to allow entry | 23:55 |
| de-facto | they did implement it strictly in the whole city here | 23:56 |
| de-facto | it was very crowded | 23:56 |
| Tuvix | That experience is the exact opposite of how things are in most of the US. I did grocery shopping this past weekend, and under 50% of shoppers had masks, with no requirements at all. I think the sign on the door indicated that masks were suggested for unvaccinated, but that was it. | 23:56 |
| de-facto | if i would not had my cert on my smartphone i would not been able to enter a single shop | 23:57 |
| de-facto | *If I hadn't had my certificate on my smartphone, I wouldn't have been able to enter a single shop | 23:59 |
| * de-facto is not a native speaker | 23:59 | |
| Tuvix | Customers get downright upset about these things. New York City has had dining vaccination requirements for a while, but there have been some filmed incidents that made national news when customers have done things like physically assault staff asking to check their vaccination status. | 23:59 |
| Tuvix | Your English is probably better than many native speakers ;) | 23:59 |
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