Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

We’ll be taking my thoughts and prayers to the ballot box.

‘Museums aren’t America’s attic for its racist shit.’

People are weird.

The rest of the comments were smacking Boebert like she was a piñata.

Everybody saw this coming.

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

Prediction: the gop will rethink its strategy of boycotting future committees.

If marriage is the equivalent of selling yourself into slavery, women with self respect should reject the offer.

You can’t attract Republican voters. You can only out organize them.

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

I was promised a recession.

He imagines himself as The Big Bad, Who Is Universally Feared… instead of The Big Jagoff, Who Is Universally Mocked.

Polls are now a reliable indicator of what corporate Republicans want us to think.

Republicans can’t even be trusted with their own money.

Nikki Haley, who can’t acknowledge ‘slavery’, is a pathetic shill.

We’re not going back!

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

I was confident that someone would point it out and thought why not me.

It could be worse. Vance could have said “post-menopausal sows.” Waiting for that audiotape to surface.

There are consequences to being an arrogant, sullen prick.

Every day Vance writes another chapter in the book called “Worst VP Pick Ever”.

The line between political reporting and fan fiction continues to blur.

“They not like us!” (that’s for sure!)

This fight is for everything.

You are here: Home / Healthcare / COVID-19 / COVID-19 Coronavirus Updates: February 14, 2024

COVID-19 Coronavirus Updates: February 14, 2024

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COVID-19 Coronavirus Updates: February 14, 2024

(Clay Bennett via GoComics.com)

 


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36Comments

  2. 2.

    raven

    This is stupid.

     

    Unvaccinated football players miss the whole season with an injury. Vaccinated football players win the Super Bowl.

  4. 4.

    Lapassionara

    I went to my pharmacy to pick up some meds, and because there is a sign outside saying “free COVID vaccines here,” I asked if I was eligible for another booster. The response: there will not be another booster until next fall. Yikes!

  5. 5.

    NorthLeft

    In Ontario, Canada this guidance that you can basically go out in public with COVID has been out there for some time. The provincial government/health care system has effectively given up.
    I suspect that the “guidance” was just a confirmation of what most of the public was actually doing for some time before that.
    I still wear a mask inside busy stores or health care facilities, as does my wife. Not many out there who do anymore.

  6. 6.

    Princess

    Having spent extensive time in four countries during Covid I’ve come to the conclusion that the difference between the US and other western democracies is that elsewhere most people do what their government says (wear masks? Okay.Stop wearing them? Okay, Get vaxxed? Okay. Stop being concerned about Covid? Okay.) while in the US, people across the spectrum instinctively distrust their government and think they know better how things should be. It’s something that unites the right and the left in the US — they have more in common with each other than they do with people who live elsewhere, at least in this respect.

  7. 7.

    Scout211

    We tested positive for the first time yesterday after four years.  We are not happy campers.  😫

  10. 10.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Princess: On the other hand, I’ve heard Russians expressing surprise at how law-abiding and trusting Americans are. So maybe the US is best described as halfway between a Western European democracy and a wrecked post-Soviet strongman regime. Sounds about right.

  12. 12.

    TBone

    Knowledgeable Lyme sufferers have long known about problems at the CDC.  All the more infuriating. WTF are they doing now? 😡 Just go about your daily life EVEN IF YOU HAVE A HIGHLY CONTAGIOUS INFECTION?!? Corruption and capture.

    “By the time of the 1994 Dearborn meeting, manufacturers had developed a range of different indirect tests for Lyme, none of which produced the kind of definitive results needed to help diagnose a disease that could mimic a huge number of other conditions. What resulted from the meeting was the two-tiered testing protocol, in which a positive or equivocal ELISA would be followed by a Western blot for confirmation. Subsequent studies, however, showed that even this two-tiered approach didn’t always adequately catch all cases of Lyme disease, although newer approaches are trying to change this.”

    https://www.lymedisease.org/covid-lyme-testing-carrie-arnold/

  14. 14.

    TBone

    Despite having received the Lymerix vaccine which meant my antibodies should have been high enough, I was told I tested “negative” because of low titer numbers.  It’s like being only “a little bit pregnant.” Those tests were used to deny treatment.  I recently went through the same type of Covid fiasco. No treatment for you!

  16. 16.

    New Deal democrat

    Both Biobot and the CDC wastewater sites suggest a relative flattening of the amount of particles in wastewater. Biobot shows a decline of about 1/3rd of peak, while the CDC shows a 50% decline. Biobot shows a slight increase nationally in the past week, and CDC a decline.

    Hospitalizations have continued to decline, now down 40% from its holiday season peak of 35,000 to 21,000 (vs. 6,000 at last summer’s low). Deaths as of the week of January 13 increased slightly, by 40, to 2,318. The preliminary numbers for the 3 subsequent weeks are between 10% and 25% lower than the preliminary numbers one week ago. This suggests that deaths will ultimately be shown to have  peaked in the second or third week of January. This week they have probably declined to about 1,500.

    Variant data won’t be updated until this Friday. There is no indication of any variant to displace JN.1 at this time.

  17. 17.

    glc

    @Lapassionara: We’ll see about that. At the moment the immunocompromised can get another dose. If they enlarge to the elderly then I’ll be getting another dose. Anyway I’ll be asking my doctor about it at the next checkup if I don’t hear anything from the usual sources.

    A lot of wishful thinking going on at the moment. At some point I suppose the long covid cases piling up may garner more attention.

  18. 18.

    TBone

    @glc: long Lyme cases have been piling up for decades.  Lessons learned? “If it doesn’t affect me personally…”

  20. 20.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Genetics may account for 30% to 70% of one’s chance of getting COVID-19

    Makes me wonder how much credit for my covid free status I should give to being careful and how much to my genetics. While I have had my fare share of genetic burdens to carry, I’ve never been a “sickly” person. Maybe the gods balanced it out with a very good immune system.

  21. 21.

    Soprano2

    The Missouri Sewershed web site is a couple of weeks behind, as of 1/29 our load was going down.

    I suspect Paxlovid isn’t being used that much because it can have pretty severe side effects. My husband’s pharmacist said he doesn’t recommend people use it unless it will keep them out of the hospital. He said for a mild case of Covid he thinks it doesn’t help, and can hurt. YYMV

  22. 22.

    TBone

    @OzarkHillbilly: you’re very lucky in that one regard, as is my hubby.  Never had a symptom so he never tested.  I’m inclined to think genetics has a large role here as it does in many illnesses,  Happy VD! Ha ha

  23. 23.

    Juror #7

    @TBone: “Long Lyme is all in your head.”

    I had a Lyme diagnosis almost two years ago, and honestly don’t have good reason to think I have long Lyme, but it became clear very quickly, in seeking treatment and discussing with doctors, where the U.S. medical establishment sits on this issue.

  26. 26.

    Glidwrith

    The CDC decision makes me furious. The holidays cost us 14,000 people and it’s not done yet. Hubby works in the school system: all those infectious snot machines that bring every disease to school and the CDC just casually adds Covid to the pile???

  28. 28.

    MazeDancer

    • Read that many Americans do not have 10 sick days. So the CDC can’t fiat how many days to stay home. Because businesses might have to pay for it.
  29. 29.

    Another Scott

    On the potential new CDC isolation guidelines, it’s important to follow the science.

    E.g. NatureCommunications (from November) (Open Access):

    Abstract

    During the COVID-19 pandemic, human behavior change as a result of nonpharmaceutical interventions such as isolation may have induced directional selection for viral evolution. By combining previously published empirical clinical data analysis and multi-level mathematical modeling, we find that the SARS-CoV-2 variants selected for as the virus evolved from the pre-Alpha to the Delta variant had earlier and higher peak in viral load dynamics but a shorter duration of infection. Selection for increased transmissibility shapes the viral load dynamics, and the isolation measure is likely to be a driver of these evolutionary transitions. In addition, we show that a decreased incubation period and an increased proportion of asymptomatic infection are also positively selected for as SARS-CoV-2 mutated to adapt to human behavior (i.e., Omicron variants). The quantitative information and predictions we present here can guide future responses in the potential arms race between pandemic interventions and viral evolution.

    tl;dr – See the graphs – as the virus has evolved over the course of the pandemic, the time period (from infection to being clear) has shortened a lot.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  30. 30.

    glc

    @Scout211:

    @Manyakitty:

    Nice to see that program.

    I got my Covid case while in France and  for some reason paid about $2.50 for the paxlovid (and $35 for the tele-consultation to get the prescription). Without having any connection to the national health system.

    My understanding is it’s best done as rapidly as possible.

  34. 34.

    Don K

    @Scout211:

    Monday, 2/5, I began showing symptoms of respiratory distress, loss of appetite, and diarrhea. I decided to see whether it woyuld resolve on its own, but it didn’t, and kept getting more severe, so I went to an Urgent Dare clinic on Friday. Received my positive test result and a script for Paxlovid I finished the course of treatment last night, and finally feel as though I’m over the worst of it. I suppose this has been a fairly mild case, but it’s the worst I’ve felt since I had mono in 1981. Fingers crossed that I keep getting better from here.

  35. 35.

    arrieve

    @Don K: This is why I find the CDC guidelines so enraging. For many people Covid may be “just a cold”–and the first time I got it, that is exactly what it was. But the second time it was like the worst flu I’d ever had, with a bonebreaking cough, high fever and vomiting. Even though the antiviral wiped out the worst of the symptoms, I still ended up needing an IV in the ER because I was so dehydrated.

    It’s a serious illness! Why don’t we take it seriously?

  36. 36.

    glc

    One more comment by Eric Topol on the rule change.

    This is a reckless policy change that will only serve to promote more spread of Covid and Long Covid,” Dr. Eric Topol, founder and director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute, said in an email. Topol co-authored one of the first reviews of asymptomatic Covid-19 infections.

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