Is Omicron the final variant? Dr. Fauci says it's way too early to know if that could possibly turn out to be true. https://t.co/IusZYOLLPK pic.twitter.com/vpEgmXhf17
— delthia ricks ? (@DelthiaRicks) January 18, 2022
We likely hit 850,000 US Covid deaths today, at roughly now 2,000 deaths per day, we could hit 900,000 deaths in early February. Most of the last 250,000 American ?? deaths were among those who refused or defiant of vaccines despite their wide availability. Death by antiscience
— Prof Peter Hotez MD PhD (@PeterHotez) January 17, 2022
Despite signs the surge in Covid cases has begun slowing in the Northeast, the US Surgeon Gen'l warns #Omicron has not yet peaked. Dr Vivek Murthy says Covid cases are rising nationally & the next few weeks will be tough as hospitalizations/deaths increase https://t.co/3Pdv2aH6Zn
— delthia ricks ? (@DelthiaRicks) January 17, 2022
The CDC’s new challenge: Grappling with imperfect science. The #OmicronVariant is moving much faster than researchers can, worsening a longstanding problem: The agency must make tough decisions w/ scant data https://t.co/SUelz3eHIs
— delthia ricks ? (@DelthiaRicks) January 17, 2022
======
russia and the US both outliers here in having a fifth of their population simply unwilling to vaccinate. for all their differences, distrust of the state is the biggest reason in both pic.twitter.com/9ODM8N8C23
— Seva (@SevaUT) January 18, 2022
Chinese state media report parcels mailed from overseas may have spread the omicron variant in Beijing and elsewhere. Globally, health experts have said the virus mainly spreads through respiratory droplets when infected people breathe, cough and sneeze. https://t.co/eaFivHWTlD
— The Associated Press (@AP) January 18, 2022
Committed to the bit:
… The Communist Party newspaper Global Times cited the Beijing Center for Disease Control and virologists as making the link between the latest infections and packages from abroad. The report Tuesday said investigators found people newly infected had picked up packages mailed from Canada and the U.S.
China has locked down parts of Beijing’s Haidian district following the detection of three cases, just weeks before the Chinese capital is due to host the Winter Olympic Games. Another person in the southern technology hub of Shenzhen who tested positive for omicron had handled packages sent from North America…
The Beijing Games organizers announced Monday that only “selected” spectators will be permitted at the events that officially open Feb. 4. Beijing had already announced that no fans from outside the country would be permitted and had not offered tickets to the general public.
China has largely avoided major virus outbreaks with a regimen of lockdowns, mass testing for COVID-19 and travel restrictions, although it continues to fight surges in several cities, including the port of Tianjin, about an hour from Beijing.
Despite China’s “zero-COVID” policy, one city that has endured weeks of lockdown appeared to find some relief. Falling numbers of cases in Xi’an, a city of 13 million famed as the home of the Terracotta Warrior statue army, have prompted authorities to allow people to gradually leave their homes and return to work.
Just one additional case was reported in the city among China’s total of 127 new domestically transmitted cases announced on Tuesday.
Beijing Winter Olympics organisers cancel plans to sell tickets to general public as part of strict Covid restrictions in the Chinese capitalhttps://t.co/nBFr4o7l9r
— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) January 17, 2022
Guidelines for each province's travel directives are varied in strictness. But at the village level, that's pretty much the message: spend this Chinese new year where you are and don't do unnecessarily travel.
Hope/believe this is the 3rd and last year!https://t.co/hXxlzdRtS4
— Liqian Ren (@liqian_ren) January 16, 2022
Hong Kong police charge two former aircrew over Covid rules https://t.co/JwxOumFgJ0
— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) January 18, 2022
Japan's Osaka to set new daily record with 6,000 COVID-19 cases -Kyodo https://t.co/kVLYSCSRVZ pic.twitter.com/Ix9wMfrUgD
— Reuters (@Reuters) January 18, 2022
Australia has reported a record high of COVID-19 deaths. Victoria, its second-largest state, declared an emergency for hospitals in its capital, Melbourne, and several regional hospitals because of staff shortages and a surge in patient admissions. https://t.co/JpDdA56mm5
— The Associated Press (@AP) January 18, 2022
Australia on Monday recognized Russia’s two-dose Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine for travelers entering the country, making it one of the first Western countries to do so as Moscow continues to seek global approval for its jabhttps://t.co/aAwGlH3QCH
— The Moscow Times (@MoscowTimes) January 18, 2022
Russia reported 31,252 new Covid-19 infections and 688 deaths on Tuesday https://t.co/0vnZQvjp0V
— The Moscow Times (@MoscowTimes) January 18, 2022
Czech Republic sees biggest daily jump in COVID cases since Dec 1 https://t.co/iAKF7KiCdX pic.twitter.com/rv7NJ4wSiG
— Reuters (@Reuters) January 18, 2022
A COVID-19 vaccination mandate in Greece for people over age 60 has taken effect. Those who fail to get the shots will face fines. https://t.co/h9AU6ztEdH
— AP Europe (@AP_Europe) January 17, 2022
South American hospitals are struggling to cope with the omicron variant as employees fall sick. A major hospital in Bolivia’s largest city has stopped admitting new patients, and 15% of Argentina's health workers are estimated to have the virus. https://t.co/ozU4zqMguD
— The Associated Press (@AP) January 17, 2022
======
The viral load of #omicron can be at its highest at day 5 so cutting the isolation period doesn't make much sense, British experts report. Evidence suggests that at day 5 many will still be shedding virus, potentially spreading it to others https://t.co/YiXASOQBOL pic.twitter.com/JrpOlmjTtY
— delthia ricks ? (@DelthiaRicks) January 17, 2022
US Army vaccine could protect against #COVID19 & infection by all future coronaviruses.
The #SpFN vaccine has completed Phase 1 of human trials with positive results. It still needs to undergo Phase 2 & 3 human trials to test its efficacy & safety.https://t.co/1siuV8p46a
— MicrobesInfect (@MicrobesInfect) January 17, 2022
… The Spike Ferritin Nanoparticle COVID-19 vaccine, or SpFN, takes a third approach, using a harmless portion of the COVID-19 virus to spur the body’s defenses against COVID.
SpFN also has less restrictive storage and handling requirements than the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines, allowing it to be used in a wider variety of situations. It can be stored between 36 and 46 degrees Fahrenheit for up to six months and at room temperature for up to one month, according to military scientists. Pfizer’s vaccine requires an ultracold freezer (between minus 112 and minus 76 degrees F) for shipment and storage and is only stable for 31 days when stored in a refrigerator.
The Army’s vaccine has been tested with two shots, 28 days apart, and also with a third shot after six months…
The Army’s SpFN vaccine is shaped like a soccer ball with 24 faces. Scientists can attach the spikes of multiple coronavirus strains to each of the different faces, allowing them to customize the vaccine for any new COVID variants that arise.
“The accelerating emergence of human coronaviruses throughout the past two decades and the rise of SARS-CoV-2 variants, including most recently omicron, underscore the continued need for next-generation preemptive vaccines that confer broad protection against coronavirus diseases,” Modjarrad said in a statement last month. “Our strategy has been to develop a ‘pan-coronavirus’ vaccine technology that could potentially offer safe, effective and durable protection against multiple coronavirus strains and species.”
No date has been set. SpFN successfully completed animal testing and wrapped Phase 1 of human trials in December, but it must still complete Phases 2 and 3 of human testing, when its safety and efficacy is compared to current vaccine options. …
Preprint from Israel finds that people who have breakthrough COVID *after* two-doses of the vaccines, are no more likely to report Long Covid symptoms compared with people who have not been infected at all.
So they found that vaccination brings Long Covid risk back to baseline. https://t.co/Jz6l7AZ0Z0— zeynep tufekci (@zeynep) January 17, 2022
So finally we're getting some data on what happens with breakthroughs after vaccination. It's encouraging! I hope it holds in other studies, too!
When we talk about "mild" we should always say with or without vaccine or prior infection, and hopefully have control groups, too.— zeynep tufekci (@zeynep) January 17, 2022
I hope all the "it's usually mild in young people, why get vaccinated" folks think again in light of these findings.
There is absolutely no character to be built by having a fair fight with the virus. Shovel your elderly neighbor's snow or do some tough volunteer work instead.
— zeynep tufekci (@zeynep) January 17, 2022
hearing tons of "30% of people who have COVID will be incapacitated." there are some people who have had very bad experiences with COVID! some of them follow me! but if i can say this in front of twenty thousand people without getting shot out of a cannon, it's not 30%.
— the manifold homeopath (5e-7) (@Theophite) January 7, 2022
at that rate, most people would have one or more extended family members disabled by COVID. the US military would be in crisis. certain very staffing-sensitive parts of the economy would be imploding. it is likely that the two-sigma outlier study would say it was 50%.
— the manifold homeopath (5e-7) (@Theophite) January 7, 2022
ten percent of the population becoming disabled over two years would be the kind of crisis it was impossible to deny. the entire economy would be falling apart and medical care for chronic patients would be competing with acute COVID care.
— the manifold homeopath (5e-7) (@Theophite) January 7, 2022
to clarify, I think it's real, but 30% would be an epochal disaster as bad as the Black Plague if not worse.
— the manifold homeopath (5e-7) (@Theophite) January 7, 2022
======
Going along with this yesterday was New York's reduction of 548 patients hospitalized, the most in a day in 9 months. Test positivity is coming down in recent days pic.twitter.com/hSKkK1WvXU
— Eric Topol (@EricTopol) January 17, 2022
Even the Mormons are getting salty about anti-vaxxers:
This editorial makes a whole bunch of really sound observations and points, then completely jumps the rails and suggests the National Guard should be deployed to lock unvaxxed people in their homes. Not helpful. Dumb. https://t.co/jKvxnNPZiy
— Patrick Chovanec (@prchovanec) January 17, 2022
… We might have headed off omicron with a herd immunity-level of vaccinations, but that would have required a vaccination mandate, which our leaders refused. Instead, we get, “No one could have seen this coming.” That is patently untrue. They were told what to do, and they refused.
Were Utah a truly civilized place, the governor’s next move would be to find a way to mandate the kind of mass vaccination campaign we should have launched a year ago, going as far as to deploy the National Guard to ensure that people without proof of vaccination would not be allowed, well, anywhere.
But it may be too late for that, politically and medically.
In the meantime, get vaccinated. If you are sick, stay home. And let your elected officials at all levels know that you expected them to lead us out of this mess, not stand by and meekly express concern.
On The Road – JanieM – Maine #1
Cermet
The science is not muddled nor is the CDC working with poor science; the CDC is being forced to say and set policy for approaches that the science say’s is bad but the Pol’s desire and force it. The science of Covid is absolutely crystal clear – get vaccinated including a booster and you’ll either not get Covid at all, or most likely if you do, have mild symptoms. Wear a N95 mask; wash hands often, and if you suspect Covid – test or no test – isolate for 10 days (yes, in the future with more studies might be excessive but we know as a fact that length works.)
NeenerNeener
Monroe County, NY:
NYSDOH website:
There were 713 new cases of COVID-19 on 1/17.
The Monroe County COVID site didn’t publish anything yesterday because of the holiday, but the new cases stats, hospitalizations and death stats should be updated late this afternoon.
lowtechcyclist
Boy howdy, what a bothsides.
In Russia, distrust of the state is widespread because a century of authoritarian rule has given them shitloads of reasons to distrust the state.
In the U.S., it’s because the absence of anything like authoritarian rule allows spreaders of lies to operate freely on everyone’s cable TV systems, broadcast radio, and of course the Web, spreading that distrust far and wide.
OzarkHillbilly
Talked to my youngest last night. He and his all came thru the covid in pretty good shape. He goes back to work today. Lyriel probably had it, but her symptoms did not last long. His wife had the hardest time with it and she happened to be the only one not boosted (not yet eligible).
So, get boosted.
OzarkHillbilly
@lowtechcyclist: Tomato-tomatah.
raven
@OzarkHillbilly: Yea, I’m feeling “mildly” crappy is I guess I’ll lay low.
ColoradoGuy
What the US and Russia have in common are powerful and malign billionaires, two in particular: Rupert Murdoch and Vladimir Putin. Both of them long-time masters of disinformation.
Barbara
@Cermet: How is that different from what the CDC is recommending? It’s maddening that people won’t listen but it’s unfair to suggest they aren’t being told — and overlook that messaging is being deliberately distorted by the “malign billionaires” and their minions.
Stella
While we are talking about the people who will be disabled by covid can we acknowledge right now that the trumpster trash are going to have to reflexively deny the existence of covid disability and that means that Republicans are going to have to obstruct any help for them and the trumpster trash will go out of their way to be cruel and abusive towards the covid disabled? I mean it seems pretty obvious to me. It’s not like they are going to acknowledge that they were ever wrong. They’re just going to resent and hate the covid disabled for making them look bad and feel bad.
Ken
I’m imagining this exchange as follows:
REPORTER: Is Omicron the final variant?
(Extremely long pause. Diplomacy wins out…)
DR. FAUCI: It’s much too early to know if that’s true.
(…and the phrase “You utter moron, it’s a virus, they don’t stop mutating” remains unsaid.)
YY_Sima Qian
On 1/16 China reported 127 new domestic confirmed (none previously asymptomatic) & 1 new domestic asymptomatic cases.
Shaanxi Province reported 1 new domestic confirmed case. 73 domestic confirmed cases recovered. There are currently 849 active domestic confirmed cases in the province.
At Yuncheng in Shanxi Province there currently is 1 active domestic confirmed case, a person arrived from Xi’an in Shaanxi.
Guangdong Province reported 5 new domestic confirmed cases. 1 domestic confirmed case recovered. There currently are 46 active domestic confirmed & 3 active domestic asymptomatic cases in the province.
Guangxi “Autonomous” Region did not report any new domestic positive cases. 4 domestic confirmed cases recovered. There currently are 12 active domestic confirmed (11 at Dongxing in Fangchenggang & 1 at Ningming County in Chongzuo) & 1 active domestic asymptomatic (at Chongzuo) cases in the province.
Tianjin Municipality reported 18 new domestic confirmed cases (10 mild & 8 moderate, 15 at Jinnan District). There currently are 312 active domestic confirmed & 14 active domestic asymptomatic cases (all presumed Omicron) in the city (293 at Jinnan District, 11 at Qingxi District, 6 at Hexi District & 1 each at Hongqiao & Dongli Districts). 5 residential compounds are currently at High Risk. 13 residential compounds & 3 villages are currently at Medium Risk.
Beijing Municipality reported 1 new domestic confirmed case, a traced close contact of the domestic confirmed case reported on 1/15, & has been under centralized quarantine since then. There currently are 2 active domestic confirmed cases in the city (Omicron), suspected to be seeded by international post.
Dalian in Liaoning Province reported 1 new domestic asymptomatic case, a traced close contact of the 1 of the domestic asymptomatic case reported on 1/11, & has been under centralized quarantine since that date. There currently are 3 active domestic asymptomatic cases (all Omicron) in the city, part of the transmission chain from Tianjin.
Shanghai Municipality did not report any new domestic positive cases. There currently are 2 active domestic confirmed & 21 active domestic asymptomatic cases in the city. 1 shop is currently at Medium Risk.
At Jiangsu Province there currently are 1 active domestic confirmed (at Nanjing) & 2 active domestic asymptomatic cases (both at Wuxi) in the province.
At Zhejiang Province 11 domestic confirmed cases recovered. There currently are 105 active domestic confirmed & 1 active domestic asymptomatic cases (at Hangzhou) in the province. A factory & a village at Jinhua remain at Medium Risk.
At Xiamen in Fujian Province there currently is 1 active domestic confirmed case remaining, a quarantine hotel worker.
Henan Province reported 102 new domestic confirmed cases. 1 domestic confirmed case recovered. There currently are 927 active domestic confirmed cases in the province.
At Yunnan Province there currently are 7 active domestic confirmed (2 at Dehong Prefecture & 5 at Kunming) & 3 active domestic asymptomatic (1 at Dehong Prefecture & 2 at Sipsongpanna Prefecture) cases in the province.
Imported Cases
On 1/16, China reported 44 new imported confirmed cases (6 previously asymptomatic), 32 imported asymptomatic cases, 3 imported suspect cases:
Overall in China, 135 confirmed cases recovered (45 imported), 9 asymptomatic cases were released from isolation (all imported) & 6 were reclassified as confirmed cases (all imported), & 3,050 individuals were released from quarantine. Currently, there are 3,530 active confirmed cases in the country (1,285 imported), 14 in serious condition (none imported), 760 active asymptomatic cases (709 imported), 8 suspect cases (all imported). 56,835 traced contacts are currently under centralized quarantine.
As of 1/16, 2,942.111M vaccine doses have been injected in Mainland China, an increase of 4.479M doses in the past 24 hrs.
On 1/17, Hong Kong reported 18 new positive cases, 7 imported & 11 domestic (including a new cluster at a pet shop, where 11 hamsters have tested positive).
On 1/17, Taiwan reported 66 new positive cases, 49 imported (21 from the US, 5 from Vietnam, 4 from Canada, 3 from the UK, 2 from France & 1 each from Ireland, Poland, Spain, Sweden, Mexico, Panama & the Philippines, 7 yet to be published) & 17 domestic.
Kay
@Barbara:
A lot of the commentary also ignores local government efforts, which where I live have been almost heroic how they keep pushing despite rejection. They have tried every public health tool in the toolbox, including using trusted local health care providers as the messenger, and they can’t budge it over 45%.
They can’t compete with grifters on you tube and Fox and fundie churches – which IMO are a hugely underrated source of vaccine resistance – I’d love to see that on a map, except it would overlap with Trump/Republican support so maybe impossible to isolate. Joe Biden and the CDC are not the only government entity who have tried and it hasn’t been just one approach. The obsession with the federal response in national media obscures the efforts that have been made and the numerous approaches that have been tried.
Cermet
@Barbara: Partly what I am saying but the CDC now says 5 days after a positive test when vaccinated; that is new and shortens the previous instructions of 10 days. So the media is sowing confusion saying the CDC is making confusing statements (echo’s of when Rump and his people forced the CDC to make very questionable statements – like masks aren’t needed.)
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Cermet: All this science is up against “but, if we teat people correctly the price on my chicken wings at Chiles will go up. And that’s the real humanitarian crises here. I need 3,000 calories in fat and salt every dinner or I am no longer free!”
Kay
@Barbara:
The local newspaper here has run the now-familiar “local person regrets not getting vaccinated because is now in the hospital with covid” story probably once a week for a year.
40.5% vaccinated. It doesn’t budge. People tried, though. Their efforts should be recognized.
Matt McIrvin
Well, this is dramatically different from some of the other, early results on this, which implied that long COVID in breakthrough infections was possibly 50% as common as in the unvaccinated infected.
But… it’s closer to what I suspected given the anecdotal evidence of people I know. The one person I know who has had serious long COVID issues got COVID in early 2021 before they could get vaccinated.
Edit: …actually, I see how those two results could be consistent: some of the indicators over on the left side of the graph are symptoms that are very common in the general population (fatigue, headache–everyone gets these once in a while). They are real symptoms of long COVID, but include them in your clinical definition and your background levels will be very high.
In fact, I think the paper we talked about earlier here *was* the previous result from the same team.
Lacuna Synecdoche
Patrick Chovanec via Anne Laurie @ Top:
I agree. Dumb idea. But …
It is appealing.
I mean, yeah, it’ll just piss off anti-vaxxers and, uh … you know, I’m really having trouble seeing a downside here.
lowtechcyclist
I’d love it if the Federal government created an electronic vaccine passport like the one New York has, and didn’t mandate anything, just gave each state and/or locality the freedom to do what they want with it. That way, a city or county that wanted to require vaccination to enter restaurants and bars could do so, and not have to create the machinery themselves.
Suzanne
@Matt McIrvin: My sense is similar to yours, I know a lot of people (a lot) who have gotten this shit by this point, and the only person I know with Long Covid caught Covid early, like summer 2020, long before the vaccines. Everyone else has recovered, except for the two people I know who…. did not.
Now, I’m still not fucking around with this shit. There’s no way that getting it will do me any favors. We don’t know about long-term effects. But I am trying to keep risk in perspective.
Feathers
I think @ Theophite doesn’t realize that most disabled people are working and pushing through. To become officially disabled means becoming absolutely impoverished and unable to marry. If he thinks the number of disabled people is low, that’s because he’s not someone that people feel comfortable disclosing their disabilities to.
Note, it is also true that the online disability community is highly reactive and tends towards catastrophizing. Both can be true. Is “disabling” from the POV of how different a person’s experience of life is from before the disabling event, or from what an outside observer sees?
WaterGirl
I sent email to Amir again last night. I have been thinking about him and it’s now been two weeks since Amir posted to say he was headed to the hospital and would be there for a few days.
Hoping to hear back from him soon.
Matt McIrvin
@Feathers: Yeah, I was a little uncomfortable with his dismissing this possibility for the same reason. Many disabilities are subtle and invisible. I had mobility problems before my surgery last year that wouldn’t have shown up in effects on the economy at all.
Matt McIrvin
@Suzanne: As Zeynep said, on Twitter particularly there’s been a lot of reasonable-but-premature connecting of dots where people say “breakthrough infections still happen but are ‘mild’… but ‘mild’ infections can lead to debilitating long COVID… oh my God, the vaccines do nothing against this.” And the absence of any really good studies attacking that question directly fostered that reasoning.
But if you can say authoritatively that vaccination is strongly protective against, not just hospitalization and death, but long-term chronic symptoms as well, that’s a huge win.
Feathers
@Suzanne: I also think there are many people with problems who are hiding them from outsiders, hoping they resolve.
@Matt McIrvin: it’s the ADHD problem. Yes, everyone is “a little ADHD”, but forgetting things, losing track of time, being unable to complete tasks, 5-10% of the time (normal) versus 60-85% (ADHD) is a completely different lived experience.
ETA: I see Matt and I agree.
WereBear
@Stella: And there are going to be more COVID-disabled in their neighborhoods, churches, and their own family.
Areas of low vaccination are going to be seen from space by the rubble which will be left behind. Their stubbornness is only fracturing their culture faster.
WereBear
@Ken: But my own reflex is “You utter moron” so I can only imagine what Dr. Fauci has as internal dialogue.
Matt McIrvin
@Feathers: As I’ve said here earlier, my real nightmare is that some of the general deterioration in public behavior that everyone is seeing about is due to direct brain damage from COVID infection–kind of like the frequently-theorized effect of mass lead poisoning from leaded gasoline on crime rates in the late 20th century.
But there’s enough else going on that we probably don’t need to resort to that hypothesis.
rikyrah
@Kay:
When. There was no federal approach during Dolt45’s Administration, they didn’t care. The MSM pretended that it didn’t make a difference.
WereBear
@Kay: I’m sure you are not the only place that is happening. We’ve always known such cultists can’t make rational decisions.
But I always thought death would be a dealbreaker. Even Jones had gunmen to force people to drink in Guyana.
As terrible as it was, that was not nearly as much of a suicide cult as Trump-loving conservatives are now.
rikyrah
@Stella:
You do not lie
Matt McIrvin
@WereBear: I think that if COVID had a really high fatality rate, like AIDS or Ebola, we’d see a different response. The problem is that it’s low enough that analyzing it rationally requires a level of statistical thinking that is hard to convey and easy to override with simple propaganda.
WereBear
@Matt McIrvin: I made a similar comparison recently on the Zoom Book Club meeting.
Our system of laws is built on deterrence through social pressure, public humiliation, and appealing to someone’s sense of guilt and shame.
What do we do with people who don’t have any of that, even amongst themselves? This is scaling upward at a rapid pace and we’ve never been good at this corner of enforcement.
WereBear
@Matt McIrvin: Exactly. It also left them entirely unprepared for Delta or Omicron, since they have partied like it’s 1999 all this time and didn’t catch it… or caught it and “beat” it.
The risks are designed to fly right by them because they are both innumerate AND disposed to ignore those who are.
Matt McIrvin
@WereBear: It’s also clear by now that COVID infection by itself (the vaunted “natural immunity”) isn’t all that protective. People are getting this multiple times, especially if they’re unvaccinated, especially if they’re doing nothing else to protect themselves (which is a lot of people in the US). Even if they feel fine after recovering from their first infection, what is happening cumulatively to people who get infected 2, 3, 4 times? How about a dozen times over several years? We don’t know yet. We will find out.
debbie
@OzarkHillbilly:
Great news!
I am rooting for that Army vaccine.
Elizabelle
@WaterGirl: Thank you. I check in every day hoping that Amir will be back with us.
WaterGirl
@Matt McIrvin: That would be a huge win. But we are nowhere near yet to having evidence that shows that to be true.
NotMax
Locally, Hawaii sees 4,700 new coronavirus cases, bringing statewide total to 174,586.
Matt McIrvin
@WaterGirl: The Israeli study quoted above is a fairly dramatic indication that vaccination protects strongly against long COVID.
It’s just one result. We need more. But it’s also consistent with other, less comprehensive studies, once you realize that these are symptoms with high background levels.
(The problem when talking about this is that it can sound like one is saying “long COVID is a fake disease” which it clearly isn’t. But the symptoms of it are also symptoms of a lot of other things, especially if you’re reporting them as a yes-or-no tick box.)
YY_Sima Qian
On 1/18, Beijing reported 1 new domestic confirmed & 1 new domestic positive case. The domestic confirmed case (presumed to be Omicron) is a close contact of the domestic confirmed case reported on 1/15 & has been under centralized quarantine since that date. The domestic positive case was found via required screening for cross-regional travel. He had 1st developed cold-like symptoms on 1/14. His test results came back positive on 1/18, & the case was removed from a high speed rail train before it left Beijing (not sure how the case got onto the train w/o a negative RT-PCR test w/in 48 hrs). The case is confirmed to be Delta, so this is a separate transmission chain from the Omicron cluster.
On 1/18 Shenzhen in Guangdong Province reported 1 new domestic confirmed case, a custodian at a quarantine hotel for flight crews.
As of 9 PM on 1/18 Zhuhai in Guangdong Province reported 3 new domestic confirmed cases, all traced close contacts already under centralized quarantine since 1/14.
All above cases will be included in tomorrow’s data dump.
YY_Sima Qian
Still no word from Amir? This is concerning.
New Deal democrat
@Matt McIrvin: “It’s also clear by now that COVID infection by itself (the vaunted “natural immunity”) isn’t all that protective.”
Mmmmm, not so sure about that. There have been multiple posts by Eric Topol that infection seems generally equivalent to one dose of a vaccine, as well as lots of other similar data, most recently that Omicron infection appears to protect against Delta.
I think a more nuanced take is that prior COVID infection results in a highly variable resistance to subsequent reinfection, with some people getting lots of protection all the way to others getting none at all, with a median about equivalent to one dose of vaccine. Repeat infection probably amps that up.
Btw, US data largely worthless again today due to MLK Day non-reporting by many States.
Feathers
@WereBear: But another issue is that people will be hiding their Long Covid, just like they hide their mental illness, because of the stigma and the fear of employment consequences.
What’s really sad is that so many disabled people can provide the required output for a given job, they just can’t do it while also doing the extra work most paid positions require: sitting at a desk in the office from 9-5, socializing with co-workers during the day, providing constant updates and time estimates, etc.
Suzanne
@WereBear: I am concerned that the increased public shitty behavior is becoming a social norm among the Trumpy/antivax/MAGA crowd. Like, is it now a “folkway” to scream at a cashier in the supermarket?
I thought of it more as being a societal stress response. I was thinking about Bernie Goetz yesterday, how social stress begets more social stress, and it’s a vicious cycle. I would be interested to read some sociology on this.
Suzanne
@Feathers:
Possible. I also think that there are just so many people who live with some degree of constant illness, impairment, limitation, “special need”…. none of which we consider “disability”….. but all of it is hard to tease out. Like, take somebody experiencing long brain fog. Is it Covid? Or is it aging? Or is it their thyroid underactive?
So many people are in low-grade mediocre health that I don’t know if we’ll ever really know what is due to Covid.
WaterGirl
@Matt McIrvin: Maybe.
But if we start counting anyone who has fatigue as “oh, lots of people have fatigue” and then don’t count it as a covid side effect, we are essentially back where we were when people (mostly women) would go to the doctor with symptoms of autoimmune diseases and were not taken seriously.
I’m pretty sure that someone like TaMara, for instance, knows the different with how fatigued she was after Covid and “sometimes people get fatigued”. The kind of thing that TaMara has reported should definitely be counted a long-term effect. Or medium-term, if it lasts for a year and then gets better.
Suzanne
@WaterGirl: “Fatigue” is a perfect example of what I’m talking about. So many people are fucking fatigued all the time, because they’re not in great health and/or because they work too fucking hard. I don’t know any way to tease out who is fatigued because of Covid and who’s fatigued because American society is not designed to create healthy, thriving people.
WaterGirl
@Suzanne: I agree with that. But each individual does know whether what they are experiencing is the fatigue that might have been normal for them before and the fatigue that may have after Covid
edit: Or maybe a person loved crosswords before and did one every day and now they can’t even get halfway through after having Covid.
Sloane Ranger
I echo YY_Sima Qian, the continuing lack of anything from Amir is really worrying. I am sending good thoughts his way. In a way, it’s a shame, in a way, that we don’t ask for people to give the name of someone to contact if they suddenly stop posting after they have made a worrying announcement.
Anyway, here are yesterday’s figures from the UK, where we had 84,429 new cases. This is a decrease of 41.7% in the rolling 7-day average. just a note of caution, in that there is always a surge on a Monday due to weekend office closures, Wales not reporting on a Saturday etc. New cases by nation,
England – 74,249 (up 7976)
Northern Ireland – 3295 (up 777)
Scotland – 2910 (down 1197)
Wales – 3975 (up 1842).
Deaths – There were 85 deaths within 28 days of a positive test yesterday. This is an increase in the 7-day average of 38.7%. We may see an increase in deaths today (Tuesday) due to offices catching up after the weekend office closures. 63 deaths were in England, 4 in Northern Ireland, 0 in Scotland and 18 in Wales.
Testing – 1,274,369 tests took place on Sunday, 16th. This is a decrease of 21% in the 7-day average.
Hospitalisations – As of Friday, 14th, there were 19,345 people in hospital and 746 on ventilators. As of 11th January, the 7-day average for hospital admissions was down by 2%.
Vaccinations – As of Sunday, 16th, 52,117,863 people had had 1 shot of a vaccine, 47,963,133 had had 2, and 36,473,316 had had a 3rd shot/booster. In percentages this means that 90.6% of all UK residents aged 12+ have had 1 shot, 83.4% had had 2, and 63.4% had had a 3rd shot/booster.
Suzanne
@WaterGirl: Right, but denial is powerful. People who don’t want to believe that Covid caused their symptoms will be able to explain them away.
It’s also a cultural norm for many to “accept the failing of the body”. It’s this weird Protestant suffering complex. I struggle with this with SuzMom. Like, she was having a lot of GI discomfort for a while, I mean for MONTHS, and she refused to see a doctor about it when I would suggest it, because she said that it is just a normal thing. Maybe happening a bit more than it used to, but…. just part of what is to be expected. Finally, it dawned on her — months after I explained what lactose intolerance is — that she might be lactose intolerant. And now she eats dairy-free stuff because I take her to Whole Foods to pick out what she wants and she takes the little Lactaid tablets and life is better. But, like, holy shit. When people live with constant issues, it becomes part of the water they swim in. Some people literally never feel good.
Suzanne
I think even expecting to feel to reasonably good health is not a baseline experience.
Uncle Cosmo
Re that Utah editorial: Jackals need to understand that the Salt Lake Tribune has nothing to do with the Mormons beyond its location in Salt Lake City. The official rag of the Latter-Day Saints is the Deseret News – and if they published anything half as tough as this, boy howdy it would be a BFD. The Trib is effectively the organ of the Later-The-Same-Day Sinners, i.e., the non-Mormonic guests**, of the Beehive State.
** Visiting SLC in 2004, I spent a day with a “gentile”*** former coworker who’d moved there to start a business. He said, “This is a nice place – everything works very efficiently and people are generally gracious and polite. But no matter how long you’ve lived here, if you’re not one of them, you’re only a guest here. A very well-treated guest, but still a guest.” (*** NB in LDS usage, “gentile” = anyone who isn’t a Mormon. Only the Latter-Day Saints could classify the most observant Jew as a “gentile.”)
Suzanne
@Uncle Cosmo: Living in the PHX East Valley for so long (Mesa is the 2nd largest LDS community in the world after SLC), I can confirm all of that. They’re very nice people, as a cohort. There is a very real boundary.
SLC, and Phoenix, and Boise (also very LDS) are all now experiencing a lot of migration from California. It’s raising prices and I’m sure changing the experience on the ground.
WereBear
@YY_Sima Qian: Yes, it is.
WereBear
@Feathers:
EXACTLY. My reaction to that series of tweets was, “You have no idea what chronic illness is like. And how many struggle to survive while slowly eroding their ability to do so.”
bluefoot
@WaterGirl:
Thanks for checking on Amir. I’ve been thinking about him.
WereBear
@Suzanne: Actually reading the provocatively titled Dying of Whiteness. By a doctor studying the epidemic of white, male, middle-aged suicides in the Western States.
But very slowly. Because it’s so heartbreaking.
Uncle Cosmo
@Suzanne: @WaterGirl: Don’t discount the general dislocation of formerly normal life that we’ve all had to cope with over the last 2+ years – specifically, interaction with other human beings as restricted and contorted by Thuh Varss. I live alone and my customary sources of social life and exercise (social dancing and travel) have been shut down or too risky for nearly 2 years now – and while much of my current brain-fog and general lethargy can be chalked up to getting old(er), I’d guess a fair amount is due to the constraints imposed by Miz ‘Rona even though I’ve never tested positive or had a tell-tale symptom.
Barbara
@Cermet: The media’s interest seems to be to foment discord and confusion and not actually explain. I was on a cruise when my son tested positive and I found the guidance and the updated guidance and it was immediately clear to me: five days after exposure and/or positive test, accompanied by 10 days of masking, unless you were symptomatic, in which case, follow the symptoms. Of course, cruises were still operating under 10 days, which they told us when we asked.
Per Kay, my county health department sent an email that provided a breakdown of what to do after suspected exposure based on vaccine status — not at all or one shot, two shots, or booster. If you really don’t want to know or are looking for an excuse to be confused or not follow guidance, oh yes, of course, it’s out there. But don’t tell me that’s because the official guidance is too confusing.
Suzanne
@Uncle Cosmo: Agreed. Thriving, flourishing…. these are states of being that require more than the absence of physical and mental illness. And I also have come to realize that (and the older I get it becomes ever clearer)… most people have a limited amount of internal discipline that they can muster. If they are using it all up just to wake up early to get to work every day, and not to lose their shit on asshole customers every day, etc etc etc…. then there is less available to pass up unhealthy food or drink or drugs, to make time and effort for hobbies, to tend to their relationships, to do good stuff for their community. I have been musing on this since I am still WFH, and the lack of commuting has enabled me to sleep more, exercise more, eat more nutritious meals. We all only have so much gas in the tank.
YY_Sima Qian
From the AP article A.L. quoted:
Shouldn’t it be that Xi’an is finding relief because of China’s “Dynamic Zero COVID” policy. Cases don’t go from > 200 / day to 1 on its own.
laura
@WaterGirl: Thank you for reaching out to Amir Khalid again. He is dearly missed.
Barbara
@WaterGirl: I know that he has some kind of underlying health issue, unspecified, and I dearly hope he is on the mend.
YY_Sima Qian
The humorous joke that Liqian Ren tweeted captures some of the pathologies of Chinese bureaucratic governance pretty well: Beijing says “cut the hair!”, & the local officials exclaim “cut off the head!”
It shouldn’t be interpreted literally, however. Cities (such as Wuhan) are following the guidances issued by China National Health Commission:
Beijing has issued tighter rules: anyone returning to the city needs to be tested again w/in 72 hrs. of arrival, in addition to the test w/in 48 hrs. before arrival.
It is true some rural regions have told people not to return for Chinese New Year, period. A single positive case will ruin the holiday for everyone in the village, & CNY is an even bigger deal in the countryside. It will be tough for the hundreds of millions of migrant workers across the country, being the 2nd consecutive year where many cannot visit home during CNY. (Most people were actually able to make it home for CNY in 2020, as Wuhan only locked on the day before CNY-Eve, & most other regions followed days later. However, CNY 2020 was quite subdued due to the situation in Hubei Province, as well as the severe restrictions on movement in most of the rest of the country.
skerry
@Suzanne: This is known as “spoon theory” in the mental health / disability community.
debbie
@WaterGirl:
I measure my level of fatigue by comparing it to when I was first diagnosed with autoimmune disorder (which, they couldn’t tell yet). I would wake up, sit up, and literally (yes) not be able to hold my head up. That rarely happens anymore, but any fatigue I deal with now is far less than before.
debbie
@skerry:
Good analogy.
Miss Bianca
@WaterGirl: I miss Amir. I hope he is able to come back to us. : (
Bill Arnold
@Kay:
This PRRI survey/analysis has a lot of interesting charts, but doesn’t exactly manage to tease out the full impact of the Evil Evangelical Churches that preach against vaccination. (I agree that the effect is real and substantial, to be clear.) But it does vividly show the serious problems. They need to do a deeper dive on the raw data, IMO, diagramming the correlations.
Religious Identities and the Race Against the Virus: American Attitudes on Vaccination Mandates and Religious Exemptions (Wave 3) (PRRI-IFYC Staff, 12.09.2021)
Scout211
Supreme Court rejects bid to block mask mandate on airplanes .
debbie
@Scout211:
Gorsuch must not have had his morning coffee yet.
Feathers
@Suzanne: I blame Oprah for a some of this. The whole “if you have a person who is not bringing positive energy into your life, cut them out of it” thing seems to have been meant well and is probably useful in abusive situations. But it has moved beyond this initial usage to where it justifies thinking only of one’s own needs and demanding that everyone else must promptly meet them, showing joy and appreciation.
One of the problems with the CBT model of therapy is that it is set up to validate the patient/client’s needs. If those needs are unreasonable goes largely unspoken. Probably not with a good therapist, but many don’t dig under the surface to see what is actually happening. The whole self-help, personal actualization model can just help truly toxic people justify their treatment of others. Read that Joss Whedon profile to see the therapeutic model gone wrong. I went through a round of DBT, where you learn to recognize your feelings, but also that your behavior will trigger reactions in other people that aren’t your’s to control.
Miss Bianca
@Sloane Ranger:
I’ve been thinking something similar.
JaneE
Has anyone else seen that 30% incapacitated number? Besides “lots” of unnamed people? Compromised and impaired function – detectable by testing, perhaps only detectable by testing – is hardly incapacitated. I have seen articles that reference heart and circulatory impairment, kidney function impairment, and various cognitive impairment – mainly trouble concentrating. Not incapacitating level impairments that high though. I really haven’t seen that many Long Covid stories that implied everyone who had continuing symptoms was “incapacitated”.
Chances are the people with minor impairments will all just carry on as best they can and few people will notice if they don’t mention it. Whether that is as big a drag as all the other things that gum up the works remains to be seen. Tax cuts for the rich always seem to shave a little off annual growth.
J R in WV
From the original post:
I am not at all sure deploying the National Guard to enforce quarantine of unvaccinated people is all that “Not helpful. Dumb.” nor crazy. Anyone could escape that prison in 30 days by calling for their vaccinations to take place. I think they could also be deployed to enforce masking. quickly escalating fines for each violation of mask requirements, rules set nationwide.
Also enforcing a prohibition on lying about vaccines and CoronaVirus danger. Just as you can’t yell “FIRE” in a crowded arena, you can’t lie about the plague during the plague. Lie about the plague and find out, MFers. In jail, not quarantined in your own home. I’m done with the fascist liars endangering everyone!
ETA:
I see I’m not alone on this viewpoint: @Lacuna Synecdoche: “Hard to see the downside!”
Madeleine
Concern for Amir is on my mind, too. I wish we had a contact for him. So worried now.
LongHairedWeirdo
Normally, when I see medical claims from homeopaths, I put on my bullshit detectors right away.
This part seems exceptionally noxious:
Just to make sure it’s clear: I spent nearly 30 years with a disability turning out high quality work. Disabled doesn’t mean you drop to the floor, unable to do anything. Often times, it means that you can do what you used to do, with a bucket full of suffering. (Not just pain. Did you know, I broke my twelve year streak of not projectile vomiting during a phone call with a customer, before I even knew that was a thing? And stayed on the phone for half an hour while they found someone to take over? And, yes, thank heaven for the mute button.)
Now: I’m not harshing on the homeopath here. It’s just, you have to be *very* clear what you’re talking about, when you talk disabilities. Could 30% have long term disabilities, that make their lives hell for a year, before they realize “this can’t be right!”? Yes. And I could easily believe another study saying 10% because I’d be cautioning myself “it could be only a third (10% instead of 30%) are identified.” The study would be fine, it just didn’t realize it wasn’t identifying all the disabled people with sufficient accuracy.
And, it could be that 30% is much, much, too high. It really could! You just can’t count on that from lived experience. The estimates in those tweets sound like they’re assuming any incapacitation is total. They’re assuming if 10% of the people infected have long covid, 10% of our population can’t come to work.
And trust the weirdo with CFS – you can have a debilitating disability, and come to work for years on end before you realize how badly the disability is kicking your ass and ruining your life.
Gravenstone
@J R in WV: Obvious downside, the Venn Diagram of anti-vax and aggressive gun fondlers has substantial overlap. I can easily foresee multiple instances of force quarantines being met with deadly force in opposition.
LongHairedWeirdo
@WaterGirl: Ah, friend. No. What you don’t get about fatigue is, we have adrenaline, see? If adrenaline couldn’t kick your fatigue out the door for a few minutes, your ancestors were far less likely to bring about your birth.
You can be horribly fatigued all your life, and never quite realize how fatigued you are. You can also start having fatigue issues, that you blow off as the same bit of fatigue as when the flu is mostly killed. Then, at first, you have plenty of adrenaline and plenty of coping resources, so you can look normal, and gradually decline. (mode=kids_show_host) And HEY KIDS! Wanna guess how much FUN a LONG SLOW DECLINE ISN’T?(/mode)
It would be wrong to punch everyone who blows off the pandemic in the face. I have to remind myself of that from time to time, metaphorically speaking.