Coronavirus in the United States - news and thoughts

Indeed. It's new variants that have made vaxx-makers hesitant to formulate newer vaccines since this would be needlessly chasing mutations. But because they are still highly effective in keeping people from being hospitalized & dying, vaccines remain the essential first defense, even more because there are few mitigation restrictions and people don't/won't follow them anyway (which will ensure a less impeded spread).

 

Also, we're doing very little to limit the spread any longer. Things will likely change if there is a sudden spike in hospitalizations & deaths, otherwise, this shift to endemicity type-response is a recognition that covid isn't going away and that we'll "live with" a free-spreading virus, at least at the macro-level public policy.

 

Seems like almost everyone I talk to had covid at one time.

Question.

My wife and I are getting over it. Last fever was about 5-6 days ago. Was pretty miserable for a few days then it’s like a bad cold or the flu.

Is this cold and mild flu like stuff that is getting better every day either the flu or a cold? Or is it the back end of covid only?

Since each is it’s own virus I’m curious if people get them at the same time and if so how would you know?

 

Cold and flu viruses are different than the covid virus, although there are about 12 different/other coronaviruses out of 100s that can cause a common cold. It's of course possible to have been infected with flu or cold causing viruses while also being infected with covid. But cold and flu viruses (especially flu) are much more likely to be dormant in warmer months. The only way for you to know would be to be tested but it would seem to me it's just that you & the wife are still feeling the lingering effects of covid.

Glad you're feeling better!

 

The symptoms can linger. Sometimes even after you test negative on the antigen tests. If your throat is irritated, the irritation can last because you keep irritating it. Take Tussin or a mild cough medicine to stop the irritation cycle. I suggest you look at the CDC guidelines on isolation and mask wearing.

 

Zero throat irritation for a while. We are almost over it. Both of us are feeling pretty good. Once we found out we had it (july1st) we notified everyone we were in contact with and quarantined (still) inside our condo. We will both test twice this week. The 15th will be 2 weeks in quarantine. I hope to get back to normal by the 18th.

 

The cough and throat and symptoms tend do linger after the fever

 

I guess we’re both fortunate we don’t have sore throats and very little cough, Minor congestion.

What’s bothering me most is I lost smell and taste and love to eat. I guess I’ll eat Spagettios out of the can for lunch and dinner since it would taste just as good as filet. Save money on food. Lol

I’m itching to get out to the beach, fishing, restaurants, gym, friends, and family.

 

CDC guidelines say you can end quarantine now

 

The senses will come back. You can go out now under CDC guidelines.

 

I support your ability to boost as many times as you wish. It is pretty cool we got to four shots in less than two years. And even that did not work. As seen by our friends who recently got it.

We should have a omicron specific shot for the high risk groups. Unfortunately that was not a profit maximizing venture and the few authoritarians who pushed the policy we went with were wrong and instead of acknowledging it they continue to double down with the archaic drug for the ancestral spike protein. For kids as young as 6 months no less. But most at this point most people see it. Hence the 20% of kids 6 months to 5 years old they were hoping to get as most parents were not going to jab their young kids is falling well short of their hopes. They know most have had the disease. Shoot…most of these kids have had omicron or a subvariant of it. So there is no reason to take these drugs now.

Jab away.

This disease has always had a massive risk gradient differential and we ignored it. And now we do not have more specific drugs for the disease as it progresses. It is a failure that needs to be scorned so it never happens again.

 

First, I have never ignored the risk gradient. In fact, you did just that when you kept trying to use pooled data across ages to make your points despite the very obvious fact that the risk gradient and the age-adjusted vaccination rates were correlated. So you should save some of that scorn for what you did when you ignore age differences in an attempt to make points using pooled data across age groups. Unfortunately, you have never demonstrated any sort of repentance nor self-reflection for that.

Second, they have developed new vaccines based on new variants. The initial animal studies did not find significant enough improvements in efficacy compared to existing vaccines to warrant mass production. Isn't that how science is supposed to work in a trial setting? Why do you think we should just ignore these results and produce vaccines without a significant trial-shown boost in efficacy? BTW, that would likely be profit maximizing, as they could sell another vaccine, but the companies haven't done that yet.

Now, in recent weeks, it appears that they have managed to create a more effective variant-based vaccine and are running the trials. Let's see what happens on that, but you can't both argue that they have been too unwilling to test and then argue that they have been too slow because they are spending time and money testing.

 

This would be great. But I think we are going to be dealing Covid like the flu for some time. There is not going to be herd immunity for this it appears…

 

History is showing the Great Barrington Declaration was right and the John Snow rebuttal was wrong.

This is something we need to look back at to learn from our mistakes.

The most infuriating thing from this discussion pre vaccine EUA is that Dr. Lipsitch who was against the Great Barrington Declaration knew and understood that shutting down schools was wrong and bad. But he and those who were on the John Snow rebuttal refused to stand for such an important issue.

This really is a great listen from two doctors with differing a perceptive on how to proceed pre vaccine.

https://edhub.ama-assn.org/jn-learning/video-player/18558826

 

Wishful thinking You have no evidence of this "history" since there has been no implementation of the GBD. And at best, the one place in the world that did go with a similar strategy before the GBD was even created, Sweden, abandoned their strategy about two months later because too many people were dying.

 

The key claim of GDB is that we would reach herd immunity. You just claimed we never would and then declared the people claiming we would were right?

 

At the time of the paper, they had reached the end of their study period. There are multiple studies continuing to track long term VE. The latest from April showed that T-cell generation at 9 months was actually more effective than within the first 2 months of vaccination, ie protection against severe disease and death was extended very likely out to a year or more.

Remember, the data from SARS-CoV, the closest known relative showed that those who had been infected and survived, and those who had participated in the subsquent vaccine trial demonstrated T-cell based protection from severe disease out past 15 years. SARS-CoV-2 has only been documented for roughly 2.5 years and the vaccines only around basically for 1.5 years, so the necessary research just has not been done for longer term effetiveness, but the hope is many years for those who are not immunocompromised.

 

According to data from New York Cities largest healthcare group, Pro Health, over
5-6% of those admitted to the hospital or come in to their urgent care facilities with COVID also have co-infections.

 

There is no data showing much benefit at all. A 2x benefit in neutralizing antibodies over the ancestral strain based version with no indication that this 2x increase is medically significant, or how short lasting it is. The original vaccine is still incredibly effective and there is no need to disrupt global vaccine production and move to a bivalent version in wealthier countries that is all marketing, while at the same time reducing production for the poorer countries where we greatly need to increase vaccination rates.

Just because some in our society cannot understand what vaccines are and how they work, does not make the initial vaccine less valid. It means that their limited understanding prevents them from really being able to understand data, and trying to argue with those people is pointless.

 

The key from the GBD was focused protection. We might have an omicron specific drug for the high risk groups had we done that. Instead you are lining up for jab 4 in less than two years. A jab that is not stopping spread at all. It shouldn’t infuriate you…