Coronavirus Pandemic (COVID-19) (SARS-CoV-2) [2020]

wco81 said:
I wonder if they're pressing themselves to come out differently from Trump that they're not fully thinking through some of these ideas.
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A problem they brought upon themselves by playing the shortsighted game of laying all the COVID issues at the feet of the president as he is at fault for death and illness existing. Biden opened the presedent to have it done to him (Although I know most of the general public opinion will take it easier on him then they did with trump because we all know it wasnt really about covid policies, they just wanted more excuses to go orange-man-bad)
 
Israel has vaccinated more of its population than any other country. Now it has preliminary data from different health organizations, covering hundreds of thousands of people.


Initial data from Israel’s vaccination campaign shows that Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine curbs infections by some 50 percent 14 days after the first of two shots is administered, a top Health Ministry official said Tuesday, as the country’s serious COVID-19 cases, daily infections and total active cases all reach all-time peaks.
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https://www.timesofisrael.com/israe...-infections-14-days-after-first-vaccine-shot/

Other, somewhat contrary data was released by Israeli health maintenance organizations Tuesday evening. Channel 13 News said that according to figures released by Clalit, Israel’s largest health provider, the chance of a person being infected with the coronavirus dropped by 33% 14 days after they were vaccinated. Separate figures recorded by the Maccabi health provider and aired by Channel 12 showed the vaccine caused a 60% drop in the chances for infection 14 days after taking the first shot.

Each of the HMOs compiled the data from some 400,000 patients they treated (800,000 in total).

The cause for the discrepancy between the studies was not immediately clear.
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But there have been a number of those vaccinated getting seriously ill:

Earlier, Alroy-Preis said that nearly one-fifth of over 1,000 current serious COVID-19 patients had previously received the first dose of Pfizer’s vaccine — stressing the need to continue to protect oneself after receiving the shot.

“Seventeen percent of the new serious cases today, or 180 cases, are after the first dose,” she told reporters.[/quote]


Also Israel is seeing high number of new infections currently but they may be about to drop:

Alroy-Preis also expressed alarm at the sky-high infection rates throughout the country, which have climbed to nearly 10,000 new daily cases.

“We have never had such a figure,” she said, adding that the more infectious British strain of the virus, which is believed to have spread throughout the country, has surely played a part in the steep rise in serious cases.

She said Israel will likely have to extend its nationwide lockdown, but added that there were initial signs that the rise in infection rates was starting to slow down.
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Positivity rate is down and number of tests performed is up:

Updated figures published Tuesday evening by the Health Ministry said 9,665 new cases had been confirmed Monday, an all-time record. However, the rate of positive tests, 7.6%, was roughly half of the record reached in September. The number of daily tests has since grown dramatically and stood at 127,075 on Monday.

Initial figures for Tuesday showed a similar positivity rate of 7.3% — 5,399 cases out of 73,874 tests conducted by 6 p.m.
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I don't suppose they are testing for asymptomatic infections at all? It would be helpful to know if/how often the vaccine stops infection altogether or whether it just greatly reduces the symptoms in most people.

The fact that 17 percent of the serious new cases are reportedly after one dose of a vaccine is neither here nor there if we don't know how long after vaccination they caught the virus. There would be very little protection after just a week or so. And, of course, some people will still get very ill and die if they have a severe enough autoimmune response to the virus.

It will be interesting to see how the numbers develop as the vaccination programme continues. Is Israel running a Pfizer-only programme? The results should be helpful in comparing efficacy against other vaccines and mixed approaches.
 
Also, more results for a different type of vaccine, the Sinovac inactivated vaccine:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-55642648

The results of this Brazilian trial is reporting that the vaccine is 78% effective at preventing cases which need any treatment and 100% effective at preventing the most serious cases. Exactly what this means and how well the numbers hold up when published remains to be seen. If it really can stop the most serious cases then it could be very useful.

J&J reporting soon on the trial of their single-dose vaccine so that could be another important one.
 
I dont trust much the Sinovac numbers, but anyway from a epidemiological point of view it is better to have it than the opposite.
 
This pandemic really has done a number on me. It decimated my business but it was starting to recover a little bit in the season even though the beaches were closed.

Then my dad got Covid who then gave it to my brother and I, my dad is dependent on us but because of the toll this pandemic has had on my business we had to all move into a small house. So as soon as one of us got it it was inevitable that we all were going to get it.

Now my brother is on high flow oxygen in hospital.
Thankfully last night wasn't so bad for me because the previous night I was contemplating phoning an ambulance for myself.

The massive relief is that my dad who is 72 and has diabetes and high blood pressure didn't get it in his lungs, I think it's the stress my brother and I have been under is why we got it so bad.
 
Surgeon: Post-COVID lungs ‘look worse’ than any awful smokers’ lungs – Boston News, Weather, Sports | WHDH 7News
January 14, 2021
A trauma surgeon says X-rays from her COVID-19 patients often come back with scarring and that they “look worse than any type of terrible smoker’s lung.”
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bad-lungs-covid.jpg
 
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Mariner said:
I don't suppose they are testing for asymptomatic infections at all? It would be helpful to know if/how often the vaccine stops infection altogether or whether it just greatly reduces the symptoms in most people.

The fact that 17 percent of the serious new cases are reportedly after one dose of a vaccine is neither here nor there if we don't know how long after vaccination they caught the virus. There would be very little protection after just a week or so. And, of course, some people will still get very ill and die if they have a severe enough autoimmune response to the virus.

It will be interesting to see how the numbers develop as the vaccination programme continues. Is Israel running a Pfizer-only programme? The results should be helpful in comparing efficacy against other vaccines and mixed approaches.
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I think Israel may do it, at least of some number of health care workers, since it's easy enough to test them periodically, whether or not they develop symptoms.

Should be more data coming out of Israel over the next month or two.

Some public health experts are optimistic that fully seroconverted people -- 2 shots and a couple of weeks -- should reduce viral shedding. They are confident that it at least prevents serious disease and said if the efficacy numbers hold up over a larger population, it would be unprecedented for such a vaccine not to at least slow down transmission.
 
pharma said:
Surgeon: Post-COVID lungs ‘look worse’ than any awful smokers’ lungs – Boston News, Weather, Sports | WHDH 7News
January 14, 2021

bad-lungs-covid.jpg
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Nobody knows the long term vulnerabilities of people whose lungs are scarred up like that. Could be just long-term reduced function. Could be that reduced oxygen has impaired some organs.

Could be that in cases of reinfections (from mutant strains), you now have a serious underlying condition and if your lungs get pounded like that again, you may not recover.

Or the damage shown in those x-rays may lead to other health issues, including premature death. Because if the virus is doing that to your lungs, what might it have done to your heart, kidney, brain?

Researchers will be studying for years before they can start to answer these questions.

So you don't want this disease, with so much uncertainty about the long-term prognosis for some people, even if they're recovered rather than long-haulers with symptoms which persist.

For the same reason it was crazy of Sweden to allow the infection to spread, without knowing that a vaccine would be available within a year, it's reckless to not take every precaution to avoid the disease, until we have a better handle on what this does to people years after infection.
 
wco81 said:
Or the damage shown in those x-rays may lead to other health issues, including premature death. Because if the virus is doing that to your lungs, what might it have done to your heart, kidney, brain?
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This probably is inflammation and blood coagulation.
It may happen in any organ. The lung is the first line of defense.
I remember one pulmonologist was treating patients with anticoagulants.

COVID-19 should be treated as a thrombotic disease, Brazilian pulmonologist argues
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https://agencia.fapesp.br/covid-19-...disease-brazilian-pulmonologist-argues/33233/
 
Medical preprints from South Africa indicate that their new variant which has scientists worried may be able to evade some of the existing antibody response in some people, whether caused by previous infection or the current vaccines. Testing of convalescent antibodies from previous infections show that some don't have any effect against the new 'strain' with a figure up to 50% mentioned. Admittedly, this is limited testing which only looks at part of the spike so it may be there is a wider pre-existing immune response which is still effective. However, it may be that there are many reinfections over there at present as the pre-existing immunity hasn't lasted as long as was expected (i.e. at least a year or two) because of this big mutation. No information as to whether reinfections lead to serious cases or not as yet. There are similar mutations in Brazil which some think might be leading to another wave of infection in Manaus where a study estimated 75% of the population had already been infected during the last wave. I personally doubt the 75% number was accurate, but this doesn't mean there aren't some re-infections. Nobody knows yet for certain.

On a slightly more positive note, the first evidence is appearing that even one dose of the Pfizer vaccine can greatly reduce the number of most severe infections requiring critical care (at least with the non-South African or Brazilian variants!):

https://twitter.com/x/status/1352317427770482689

Massive drop in the increase in serious cases in the over 60s a couple of weeks after 40% of them had been vaccinated. Let's hope the numbers keep moving that way. And also that the SA/Brazilian variants don't put a spanner in the works.
 
Yeah the Manaus outbreak is concerning.

And people are hopeful of getting a lot of useful data from Israel.

I heard that recently though, they'd been having a surge in new cases because a lot of them have gone to the UAE to party -- I didn't know they would allow Israelis there.

But apparently UAE is one of the places where there are few restrictions for people who want to go to bars and clubs.

UAE though has been giving one of the Chinese vaccines to their people.

Americans are going down to Mexico to party now. Again some of the resorts there let pretty much anything go.
 
I know that a lot of UK 'celebrities' (i.e. Social media 'influencers') have been receiving opprobrium for disappearing off to the UAE over Christmas. Also some sports folk. I knew the shops and resorts were open but didn't realise that bars and clubs also were.

One of our customers in South Africa had us send an order to the UAE for him over Christmas. Let's hope he didn't take anything nasty over there with him!
 
Manaus has half ICU beds per capita than other major Brazilian cities.
It is transferring people to other 7 states.
The problem is a mix of factors like bad state management, low ICU availability, and lack of oxygen.

Not sure there is a new virus variant.
 
I've also read the numbers for the 'UK variant' indicate that it might be just 25% more transmissible. Quite how this would square with the claims of 30% more deadly, I'm not sure? You'd imagine that NERVTAG would know their stuff, so to speak.
 
Today my family was informed by the Pfizer / BioNTech test controllers that we are immunized. We must continue to report weekly to them for the next two years and eventually do some medical tests. We are all well and we hope that everyone will soon have access to the vaccine.

Congratulations to Pfizer / BioNTech for their exceptional work.

Health and peace for all.
 
Mariner said:
I've also read the numbers for the 'UK variant' indicate that it might be just 25% more transmissible. Quite how this would square with the claims of 30% more deadly, I'm not sure? You'd imagine that NERVTAG would know their stuff, so to speak.
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No it's more like 60% more transmissible. The changes make it easy for the spike protein to attach to the ACE2 receptors and thus infect cells and replicate the virus.

There were reports that it results in more viral load, if it can more easily infect cells and get the replication process going.

There are other studies suggesting that the dose or viral load of how one gets infected determines the course of the disease, such as your immune system is overwhelmed and you get sicker. There are also some experts who believe masks can either prevent or reduce severity of infections because you're getting less viral load than you otherwise would.

So if this strain is replicating better, it may kill more people.
 
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