Coronavirus in the United States - news and thoughts

It is true there probably isn’t much precedent, but then again it shouldn’t be too much different from what they would recommend for getting other vaccines before organ transplants.

Regardless of vaccine or not, I’d imagine an organ transplant patient would need to stay far away from COVID to have their best chance.

 

He doesn't trust doctors at a world renown hospital associated with a world renown university; a hospital with not one but two epidemiological departments. I think their cardiothoracic surgeons and the hospital as a collective know a thing or two about vaccines and transplants.

 

Way back when around Christmas 2021, as omicron cases skyrocketed, it was looking like daily deaths were holding a bit steadier. But since about January 7, daily deaths have been climbing, topping 3k a day several times in the past week.

I'm curious to know which strain people are dying from.

 

For those looking at the death numbers in Florida and noticing the decline in deaths over the last couple weeks, this is an artifact of how Florida is reporting covid deaths.

On 1/21, Florida reported 2 covid deaths happening on 1/20.
Today they are reporting that 52 covid deaths took place on 1/20.

We won't know when the numbers start to decline until 4-6 weeks after they declined.

 

likely unvaccinated omicron. odd that there is no news flash about the high daily death rate. simply amazing that these people are dying of shear ignorance and nothing more. Based on all the evidence to date, a very large % of them would be alive if vaccinated

 

That would be my guess. South Africa supposedly didn’t have many deaths, but remember their average age is in the 20’s. Many experts warned us that “population difference” might lead to a different outcome.

Probably just an issue of sheer volume, since this thing was crazy contagious. Everyone seems to agree the spike will fall just about as quickly as it rose, but the death numbers could be bad. The only good news is it shouldn’t be sustained for as long as some of the prior waves, it could just be a week or two more before crashing down (hopefully).

 

In the past 24 hours, we've had the NYT, The Atlantic, SF Chronicle and NPR have articles about stopping masking in schools. LOL. They know this is a huge sticking point for the 22 elections and are finally seeing that masks don't work. Soon we will have Biden say it's time to end masking, probably at the SOTU address is my guess. Election time people.

 

Evidently omicron has mostly burned through Duval, testing site at Regency mall is back down to a trickle.

 

Only for the vaccinated lol! Got to take the monoclonals off the eua because they don’t work but leave those mRNA drugs designed for the alpha variant on there that aren’t working either…

 

Sotrovimab (mAB) works, Paxlovid (pill) works. That is why they are still in use and this one isn’t. Apparently remdesivir is now approved for outpatient use as well, before it was only for inpatients.

That is at least 3 effective options, why would anyone in their right mind want a 4th ineffective option?

 

I am not in disagreement with this. But the mRNA shots don’t work anymore.

I’ve been calling for new generations…

 

Depends on age. Men 40 or under have a slighty higher chance of having heart issues with a covid vaccine over getting covid.

 

The vaccines work about as well as the 3 currently recommended treatments at severe illness and deaths, even the treatments are far from 100%, more like 70% at best. If a vaccinated person is in a risk category, and gets the virus, there is no reason they can’t also seek one of these treatments out. Overkill for most people, but for certain categories (70+, health conditions) makes sense.

The vaccines will likely be “updated” just as we know Regeneron is going to update their monoclonal. That is the nice thing about mRNA, it’s theoretically really easy to do that, just by adding the new spike protein that has been mapped. Must be relatively easy for the monoclonal products as well, as Regeneron’s timeline is supposedly “months”. The problem is even with a fast turnaround, nobody knows how many to manufacture or if it would be a moot point (supposing the virus does sort of fade away, or if a totally different variant emerges which is not applicable to the Omicron spike protein).

 

The vaccines are failing miserably right now. But hey...booster up. It is daily that we hear the stories about being vaccinated and getting sick. Just like before the vaccines. Though more interesting to hear how people have changed their opinions after getting vaccinated and sick. Some have it worse than others. Both are using the therapeutic treatments.

It was enjoyable to listen to a nice group of ladies all in agreement about the fact we have to move on as I watched my wife play her tennis match this morning.

It is illogical to continue and force these drugs on people right now.

 

Failing miserably? Here are some latest statistics from the state of Washington.

Unvaccinated 12-34 year olds are 2X more likely to catch COVID, and 5X more likely to be hospitalized.
Unvaccinated 35-64 year olds are 3X more likely to catch COVID and 7X more likely to be hospitalized.
Unvaccinated over 65 are 4 times more likely to catch COVID, 7X more likely to be hospitalized, and 11X more likely to die.

How is this anyone's definition of a miserable failure? While not offering the same protection from infection with Omicron, the vaccine is still doing very well at preventing severe cases at all ages.

With that said, we do need new, more effective vaccines. They are coming. In the trial phase now are a new Pfizer and a new Moderna vaccine that targets Omicron. Likely won't hit the market until March at the earliest.

Meanwhile, if you want to prevent a serious COVID illness, your best best is to get vaccinated and boostered. Even if you have already had a confirmed case of COVID. Those with COVID plus a vaccine have the highest rate of immunity, or super immunity.

 

Yes they are failing miserably now.

 

Please explain how keeping people out of the hospital at a rate of 5X for people under 35, and 7X for people 35 and older is a miserable failure.

 

Right now the mRNA drugs are doing nothing to slow the spread of the disease. There are therapeutics that are working better to keep people out of the hospital. Booster up. Put your body to work if you want.

There is no reason for a healthy person to do so now with omicold…

 

The therapeutics are about 70% effective at keeping people out of the hospital. The vaccine booster is around 88% effective at keeping people out of the hospital.

 

The data tells a different story. Younger, vaccinated people are half as likely to catch COVID. Older vaccinated, about 25% less likely. And as @philnotfil says, the vaccine is more effective at keeping people out of the hospital.

You are just espousing beliefs that aren't backed up by any data at all.