Corona Virus: It's a Marathon, Not a Sprint

[malchior]

I think we are at the point where the vaccines aren't going to be enough to prevent another shut down.
Hold on to your butts.

I don't know if there is the political will for shutdowns. People are having meltdowns over masks.

The difference, right now anyway, is significantly lower hospitalizations and mortality. That will avoid shutdowns as.long as the rates stay down. Right or wrong.

Generally true but there are places seeing the worst hospitalization rate they've seen yet - Louisiana and Missouri off the top of head. I'm not even sure what'd happen if the hospitals nationwide started falling over. I mean aside from the likelihood that it'd be chaotic and uncoordinated.

Those are mostly unvaccinated hospitalizations in the lowest vax rate regions. As Delta continues north it will hit higher vaxxed populations. Still won't be pretty but will look a bit different than LA and MO. Or so I've been led to believe.

Yeah I meant that those places are getting shellacked but zero chance of a lockdown there. Even if it happened in say NYC or Boston or Chicago I'm not sure there'd be a lockdown now.

[LawBeefaroni]

Chicago yesterday:

[LordMortis]

I don't mask outdoors, but ah, nope.

[malchior]

My wife became aware this afternoon from a friend of ours that several people we know at a skate-a-thon in California came down with COVID. It was held completely outdoors and the crowd was masked...and they were vaccinated. No one got seriously ill thankfully.

[Smoove_B]

Chicago yesterday:

I'd posted a tweet last night but deleted it because it was using a photo from years ago. Basically, we're about to get a whole new data set - outdoors, close contact, vaccinated (allegedly) and maskless.

I'm thankful for the the information, but I'm concerned for people attending.

[LawBeefaroni]

Chicago yesterday:

I'd posted a tweet last night but deleted it because it was using a photo from years ago. Basically, we're about to get a whole new data set - outdoors, close contact, vaccinated (allegedly) and maskless.

I'm thankful for the the information, but I'm concerned for people attending.

But how do you control for MDMA?

[hitbyambulance]

It seems like the GOP and their supporters may actually fix climate destruction after all. Just not in the way anyone expected.

[Kraken]

I think we are at the point where the vaccines aren't going to be enough to prevent another shut down.
Hold on to your butts.

I don't know if there is the political will for shutdowns. People are having meltdowns over masks.

Yeah, we'd literally rather die than cripple the economy again. And to be fair, shutdowns brought their own share of health consequences.

What we really need is a nasal spray vaccine. Delta's trick is overwhelming our mucous membranes. Our blood-borne vaccines prevent the virus from reaching the lungs, but they don't protect the old schnozz. I know there are labs working on that.

[Skinypupy]

Chicago yesterday:

A few months ago, back when I got vaccinated and it looked like things were finally headed in the right direction, I bought a ticket to the Psycho Metal Fest in Las Vegas. It’s coming up in a couple weeks (Aug 20-22) and I’ve been hugely excited for it. The line up is fantastic, it would be my first show in 18 months, and a solo weekend in Vegas for my birthday sounded like a blast.

Now I’m weighing whether to stock up on N95 masks (have some on the way from Amazon), double mask, stand in the very back corner of each venue, and avoid all the mosh pits…or just bail on the thing entirely. It been a really rough summer at work, and this fest has been my primary motivator to get through it (“Just a few more weeks until Vegas…just a few more weeks until Vegas…”)

I’m kinda doubting many of the Euro bands I was excited to see will be allowed to come (Emperor, Mayhem, Watain, Mgla, etc), with the organizers saying they would be making an announcement next Monday. Good thing is that if they all cancel, they’ll be issuing refunds for anyone who requests one.

I’ll give it another week and see what happens before deciding. I’m not particularly worried about getting it myself; but who knows what the plague rats will be running around with by then. Those assholes ruin everything.

[LawBeefaroni]

If we'd gotten more vaccinations and kept to the masking just a bit longer, it would be a different story.

I hope Scott Gottlieb is right in his prediction for a plateau and then decline in 2 weeks.

My problem is that I'm running an outdoor event in two weeks with a significant expenses already sunk. We will ask for masking but have no legal way to enforce it.

[Smoove_B]

BREAKING: Florida reports 21,683 new coronavirus cases, the biggest one-day increase on record, and 108 new deaths

I'm old enough to remember when Nate Silver normalized FL's numbers back in April of 2021 and minimized the push for policies to reduce the chances of what was just reported today.



EDIT: And in case you're wondering he's STILL hot-taking his way through what's happening now. His complete lack of self awareness is staggering.

[Defiant]

Florida is 28th in the US in COVID deaths per capita and 22nd in the US in COVID cases per capita. In other words, pretty much right at the average median.

FTFY

[Jeff V]

His complete lack of self awareness is staggering.

More like his dedication to protect the brand by minimizing errors and accentuating successes.

He likes to deal in probability and accepts no responsibility when the unlikely happens. See H. Clinton vs. D. Trump, 2016.

[Skinypupy]

Well...shit.

Just got a text that my cousin was life-flighted this morning from our smaller hospital to the main IMC facility with COVID. He’s a couple years older than me (late 40’s), married, three kids, no co-morbidities other than being overweight. Sadly, he’s also an extremely vocal anti-vax, anti-mask, “COVID is a hoax”, “it’s just the flu” sort of guy. Will be interesting to see if his perspective changes…if he makes it through.

Just get the damn shot, people.

EDIT: Just got confirmation that he's on a ventilator, and that his wife is in the ICU with it as well. Feel terrible for their kids.

[Isgrimnur]

Damn, dude. I’m sorry to hear your family is going through this.

[malchior]

Jeez. Horrible news and I feel for those kids right now.

[Dramatist]

That’s just awful. Hopefully they pull through.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Sudy]

Oh no.... My prayers are with your family.

[Little Raven]

Jesus, Skinny. That's terrible. I certainly hope things turn around.

[Smoove_B]

Sorry to hear about it SP.

More school-year previews:

NEW: 168 students and 3 teachers in quarantine after first week of school in Marion, Arkansas due to positive cases and possible exposure to Covid-19.

And while countries around the world are still waiting for vaccine access, Arkansas just had a third of their 300,000 doses expire over the weekend.

[stessier]

This is for my area. I'm sure this will be fine and I'm not at all bitter we chose to send our kids back in person (we had to make the decision in February).

Greenville County Schools has called a special board meeting before the 2021-2022 school year begins.

The meeting will take place Tuesday at 9 a.m. and will update school opening protocols and COVID-19 safety measures.

The meeting is open to the general public through a live audio stream on the GCS website.

Last week, GCS district spokesperson Tim Waller said officials are limited in how far they can go in protecting against the COVID-19 Delta variant because the statewide budget for public schools doesn’t allow for mask mandates.

The district also requires students to attend in-person instruction five days a week, giving schools five e-learning days each year but only allowing about five percent of students to choose virtual instruction over in-person.

The first day of the school year for Greenville County Schools is Tuesday, Aug. 17.

For a complete list of starting dates, click here.

Students in five more school districts in South Carolina are starting back at school this week.

Students in Florence Districts 1 and 4 returned Monday. Pickens County students return Tuesday. Oconee County schools are back Wednesday. And the Kershaw County School District opens its doors Thursday.

By the end of the week, more than 10% of South Carolina’s 77 districts will have started their school years. All three districts in Greenwood County and McCormick County schools returned last month.

Officials have mostly removed plexiglass dividers from the last school year. They also expect most students to come back in person after the 2020-21 school year saw massive disruptions from the COVID-19 pandemic.

School leaders have said students and teachers are welcome to wear masks, but they can’t mandate them even with another spike in COVID-19 cases. They also can’t require vaccines for students who are eligible for the shots.

The South Carolina General Assembly put a rule in this year’s state budget prohibiting districts from requiring masks. It passed in June before this latest spike in cases started.

[Smoove_B]

It's unreal to me that unless parents swamp local school districts with reasonable requests to keep all students, faculty and staff masked in K-12 schools, the school districts are going to listen to the vocal minority that wants kids back with no restrictions. Next will be the arguments against any vaccinations in kids. I know this because it's already happening.

In related news, an excellent observation from Dr. Topol:

Delta and vertical lines. Notice something different about the rate of rise in this wave for each of the heavily hit states. The Microbe is remarkably efficient at finding the vulnerable, faster than any time previously

[malchior]

That plateau is coming any time now...

[Isgrimnur]

There’s an asymptote joke here somewhere, but I just can’t make it work.

[Little Raven]

Scaremongering or the real deal?

A preprint study by investigators in Chile suggests that the mutation, which first surfaced in Peru about a year ago and is highly infectious, may also be able to evade vaccine antibodies.

“Our results indicate that mutations present in the spike protein of the lambda variant of interest confer increased infectivity and immune escape from neutralizing antibodies elicited by CoronaVac,” the study states. CoronaVac is a vaccine manufactured by a Chinese company and that’s used in Peru. The study continues: “These data reinforce the idea that massive vaccination campaigns in countries with high SARS-CoV-2 circulation must be accompanied by strict genomic surveillance allowing the identification of new isolates carrying spike mutations and immunology studies aimed to determine the impact of these mutations in immune escape and vaccines breakthrough.”

[Zaxxon]

EDIT: Just got confirmation that he's on a ventilator, and that his wife is in the ICU with it as well. Feel terrible for their kids.

Condolences.

This is for my area. I'm sure this will be fine and I'm not at all bitter we chose to send our kids back in person (we had to make the decision in February).

Similar thoughts here, both on the decision and the juvenile reaction from our district.

It's unreal to me that unless parents swamp local school districts with reasonable requests to keep all students, faculty and staff masked in K-12 schools, the school districts are going to listen to the vocal minority that wants kids back with no restrictions.

It really is absurd. Educators, terrible at acting educated.

[Smoove_B]

Scaremongering or the real deal?

I haven't seen much on this yet. I know when there were talks a few weeks ago about the rise of Lambda here in the U.S., but I didn't see anything suggesting it was worse in terms of causing severe illness. Instead (as I recall) they were concerned it was similar to Delta in contagiousness. Like everything else, I'm guessing there's going to be more studies and more work needed.

This will continue as the virus spreads and chance mutations emerge.

[LordMortis]

Sorry SP.

[Skinypupy]

Scaremongering or the real deal?

I haven't seen much on this yet. I know when there were talks a few weeks ago about the rise of Lambda here in the U.S., but I didn't see anything suggesting it was worse in terms of causing severe illness. Instead (as I recall) they were concerned it was similar to Delta in contagiousness. Like everything else, I'm guessing there's going to be more studies and more work needed.

This will continue as the virus spreads and chance mutations emerge.

There was a WaPo article about this recently. The gist is that the Moderna & Pfizer vaccines are still very effective against Lambda. They also said that since Delta and Lambda would be, in essence, “competing” that they didn’t think it had nearly the same potential to spend.

Trying to find the article, but my search is failing me.

[Kraken]

Jesus, Skinny. That's terrible. I certainly hope things turn around.

Same here. It's a good reminder why we shouldn't just be glad when the unvaxxed pay the price for their foolishness.

[Max Peck]

Trying to find the article, but my search is failing me.

What to know about the lambda variant of the coronavirus

“What’s going on here in the U.S. is lambda is competing against the delta variant. And I think it’s losing the competition,” said Peter Stoilov, an associate professor of biochemistry at West Virginia University who studies the coronavirus variants. “The question is how competitive this variant is going to be. I don’t see it spreading anywhere near as fast as the delta.”

Experts also emphasized that the lambda variant was just one among many.

“It doesn’t really make the situation any worse,” said Nathaniel Landau, a microbiologist at New York University who studies the variants. “It’s just more of the same.”

Even if the lambda variant were to surge in the United States, there’s good news: Two of the three federally approved coronavirus vaccines appear to work well against it.

A paper posted Monday by Landau and other researchers at NYU found that the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines had no problem neutralizing lambda. The variant showed a slight resistance to the two mRNA vaccines, but the shots were still highly effective, according to the study, which has not yet undergone peer review.

“The vaccines induce such good antibodies that even if the virus is a little bit resistant, they are still quite sufficient to kill the virus,” Landau said.

The Johnson & Johnson vaccine, on the other hand, doesn’t offer the same defenses against lambda or delta, the researchers found.

Still, Landau was quick to point out that the Johnson & Johnson vaccine offered other benefits, including its ability to help the body’s T cells fight infection.

“There’s no reason to think that the T cell response isn’t as good,” he said. “It would still be there to block variant viruses.”

[Skinypupy]

Thanks Max, that’s the one I was looking for.

[LawBeefaroni]

Jesus, Skinny. That's terrible. I certainly hope things turn around.

Same here. It's a good reminder why we shouldn't just be glad when the unvaxxed pay the price for their foolishness.

Also, it's not always their foolishness. It's someone else's that gets amplified in the echo chamber.

[LordMortis]

It's a good reminder why we shouldn't just be glad when the unvaxxed pay the price for their foolishness.

^^^^^^^^

[stessier]

OSHA guidance says

OSHA has stated that employers are obligated to implement multiple controls to protect not-fully-vaccinated employees, visitors, business partners and customers based on CDC guidance.

CDC guidance says that anyone fully vaccinated has face coverings optional (among other things).

So we're asking vaccination status and then managing people's hygiene requirements (which falls to the supervisors). This is going to get interesting.

At least we didn't interpret the OSHA guidance to mean everyone had to remain in face coverings to protect the unvaccinated. While undoubtedly the safest route, I'm not in a particularly charitable mood this week.

We got out of masks at work around 7/12. At that point, our 14 day rolling average was around 2.5 cases/100k. We are now above 6.0 and have to go back into masks if we get above 10. We have until 7/30 to fill out a report on our vaccination status to allow us to remove masks. I'm betting we end up mandated back in them before everyone gets out of them.

Give that man a prize!!

Back to Phase 1 at work as of noon today - everyone in masks regardless of vax status. N95s required inside 6'. Conference room limits, cleaning high touch surfaces...we're back to the very beginning minus the work from home option.

The 7-day average cases/100k people is up to 25. A bit higher and WFH is implemented. Considering the line is still going straight up, it's only a question of this week or next.

[Smoove_B]

Unreal

We finally have Florida COVID numbers from the weekend & Monday.

A record three-day total: 50,999 cases.
And tragically 100 deaths.
Source: @CDCgov


Please get the vaccine. It works and will help us bend the curve.

[malchior]

Meanwhile, this is what DeSantis is forcing.

[Smoove_B]

I have no idea how that level of thuggery is going unchallenged. School districts are being financially punished for enacting protections for children? Seriously???

If he was a comic book villain no one would believe it.

[El Guapo]

Why is Florida so much worse than other red states in their COVID results? Obviously DeSantis is a soulless asshole, but my impression is that other red state governors are doing semi-similar things, right? Are DeSantis's policies materially crazier, or is it more that Florida is a high population state?

[malchior]

I have no idea how that level of thuggery is going unchallenged. School districts are being financially punished for enacting protections for children? Seriously???

If he was a comic book villain no one would believe it.

Well Lex Luthor became President...but yes this is unbelievable in the context of a modern, advanced economy.