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

[Max Peck]

I have a friend who got very sad for me when I made a "today is March 1200, 2020" joke, because she thinks I'd feel happier if I just got over the whole COVID thing. I explained to her that sometimes a joke is just a joke, and I'd stop joking about March 2020 when it stopped being funny to me.

She also mentioned that I'm the only person she knows who hasn't had COVID at least once. I think that means I'm winning the marathon.

[pr0ner]

I still know a small handful of people who have managed to avoid Covid so far.

[Max Peck]

Whereby a bunch of unvaccinated MAGAs describe the symptoms of Long COVID without quite making the connection.

They are sooooo close to getting it.

You'd think that had to be parody, but...

[Smoove_B]

Another random data point for those still following along - a study that was released last week, trying to understand if the Omicron variant was truly "less severe" than the original strain that was circulating in 2020:

With 32,222 COVID-19 hospitalizations and 9,669 deaths confirmed over 6 epidemic waves, the time-varying hospitalization fatality risk dramatically increased from below 10% before the largest fifth wave of Omicron BA.2, to 41% during the peak of the fifth wave when hospital resources were severely constrained. The age-specific fatality risk in unvaccinated hospitalized Omicron cases was comparable to the estimates for unvaccinated cases with the ancestral strain. During epidemics predominated by Omicron BA.2, fatality risk was highest amongst older unvaccinated patients.
Conclusions

Omicron has comparable intrinsic severity to the ancestral Wuhan strain although the effective severity is substantially lower in Omicron cases due to vaccination.

In short - get vaccinated; it's not magically transforming into "a cold".

[Blackhawk]

In short - get vaccinated; it's not magically transforming into "a cold".

And how do I go about that again?

[Punisher]

In short - get vaccinated; it's not magically transforming into "a cold".

And how do I go about that again?

Ivermectin of course! Also make sure to avoid using 5G while sun bathing in the nude without sunscreen. Alternate doing this in Antarctica (make sure to stay away from the ice wall though. Don't want the NWO catching wind of your plot to defeat the fake virus they made) and the Sahara Desert. This hits covid with high and low temps.

[Smoove_B]

And how do I go about that again?

I'll update again when the plans for the Fall of 2023 are revealed - but on the other side of the fence.

[Kraken]

And how do I go about that again?

I'll update again when the plans for the Fall of 2023 are revealed - but on the other side of the fence.

I've been eligible for the last booster for several months now, but I'm holding out for the fall vaccine. If there is one.

[LordMortis]

I'll probably seek an update as well. We're far enough in to summer where I'm less concerned about the 6 months immunosupressed mark. Of course, I'm still not out in public sans mask when I am somewhere for any length of time and I still haven't done a public gathering these three and a half years later.

[Max Peck]

My last booster was back in September (4th dose overall). I'm not old enough or sick enough to qualify for a 6-month booster interval, so my next will probably be in the fall. In a lot of ways, I'm "holding out" for a nasally administered (protection from infection) pancoronavirus (protection from variants) vaccine before I go back to my pre-pandemic devil-may-care urban hermit lifestyle. Which is not all that different from my pandemic-era hermit lifestyle on this, the 1220th day of March 2020.

Holding out for the bivalent vaccine last year was a strategic error. If I'd had my second booster in the summer, when I first became eligible, then I'd have been allowed to have another booster once the "respiratory disease season" started in the fall once I got past the 3-month minimum interval between doses. And it wasn't even the "good" bivalent vaccine -- it was the Moderna BA.1 vaccine instead of the BA.4/5 version.

[Smoove_B]

I've been eligible for the last booster for several months now, but I'm holding out for the fall vaccine. If there is one.

You're making me uncomfortable.

Check with your doctor. You should be able to get a vaccination now (like today) and then in theory, grab the *next* one at the end of October or in November (around the same time you'd want the annual flu shot).

[Smoove_B]

Study being shared today by the British Medical Association (BMA) on doctors with Long Covid:

Key findings include:

Doctors reported a wide range of symptoms, including fatigue, headaches, muscular pain, nerve damage, joint pain, ongoing respiratory problems and many more.
Around 60% of doctors told the BMA that post-acute Covid ill health has impacted on their ability to carry out day-to-day activities on a regular basis;
Almost one in five respondents (18%) reported that they were now unable to work due to their post-acute Covid ill-health;
Less than one in three (31%) doctors said they were working full-time, compared to more than half (57%) before the onset of their illness;
Nearly half (48%) said they have experienced some form of loss of earnings as a result of post-acute Covid;
54% of respondents acquired Covid-19 during the first wave of the pandemic in 2020, and 77% of these believed that they contracted Covid -19 in the workplace;
A small minority of doctors had access to respiratory protective equipment (RPE) around the time that they contracted Covid-19, with only 11% having access to an FFP2 respirator and 16% an FFP3 respirator;
More than 65% of doctors responding said their post-acute Covid symptoms had not been investigated thoroughly and effectively by an NHS long Covid clinic or centre. And almost half of doctors reported not even being referred to an NHS long Covid clinic at all.

Perhaps the American hospital system will look at this and decide that seeing smiles isn't nearly as important as they'd like you do believe.

[Isgrimnur]

[malchior]

A radical Trump appointed judge just ordered wide swaths of the federal government from talking with social media companies in a case where two states sued over concerns about censorship of vaccine deniers. Maybe there is a legitimate concern about censorship but the order seems bonkers. For example, they told the surgeon general he essentially can't communicate with social media if it might influence moderation of "protected speech". That sounds ok on the face but then you read the order and realize you can't fathom where the judge's line is there.

BTW I've been tracking this case for awhile. Essentially the Biden administration flagged disinformation (COVID vaccines, the big lie, etc.) and the social media networks took voluntary action on them. The judge is basically agreeing with the plaintiffs that the social media networks are government agents acting at the direction of the government. Call me skeptical about that theory ... but that essentially is what Musk's Twitter files was all about. It is essentially a federal judge buying into extreme right-wing paranoia. Good times! Let the misinformation flow!

A federal judge on Tuesday blocked key Biden administration agencies and officials from meeting and communicating with social media companies, in an extraordinary injunction in an ongoing case that could have profound effects on the First Amendment.

The injunction came in response to a lawsuit brought by Republican attorneys general in Louisiana and Missouri, who allege that government officials went too far in their efforts to encourage social media companies to address posts that they worried could contribute to vaccine hesitancy during the pandemic or upend elections. The Trump-appointed judge’s move could upend years of efforts to enhance coordination between the government and social media companies.

The injunction was a victory for the state attorneys general, who have accused the Biden administration of enabling a “sprawling federal ‘Censorship Enterprise’” to encourage tech giants to remove politically unfavorable viewpoints and speakers, and for conservatives who’ve accused the government of suppressing their speech. In their filings, the attorneys general alleged the actions amount to “the most egregious violations of the First Amendment in the history of the United States of America.”

[Smoove_B]

Again, apologies to those without Twitter

4th of July Float celebrating “Freedom from COVID” and thanking essential workers.

[Unagi]

This will be mocked centuries from now.

Oh, wait. This will be mocked right now.

[Smoove_B]

I can't claim to be a global expert on what's happening (still) with Covid-19; I see the headlines like most people and scratch my head. The news from Japan has me confused (why? what's happening?) and concerned:

Japan, Okinawa: "Medical care is collapsing"

"About 70% of those with fevers are positive [for Covid]."

[Smoove_B]

Best I can share for a "state of the union" here in America:

The two main metrics that the CDC uses to track COVID-19 activity—hospital admission rates and percentage of deaths from the virus—both declined over the past week. Hospitalizations for COVID dropped 0.8%, and deaths from COVID were down 20% compared to the previous week.

...

Emergency department visits for COVID at the national level were up 10.7% compared to the previous week, with Alaska, Florida, and Hawaii reporting percentages that were higher than other states. Also, test positivity at the national level was up slightly, by 0.7%, rising to 5.5% compared to the previous week. Positivity was 7% or higher in Arizona, Arkansas, Idaho, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Oregon, Texas, and Washington.

Epidemiologists are also closely watching wastewater COVID levels as an early indicator. On her Substack "Force of Infection" blog yesterday, Caitlin Rivers, PhD, with the Center for Health Security at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, said the Biobot COVID-19 wastewater platform shows an increase in the Southern, Northeastern and Western regions. She said mid-summer often marks the beginning of a new COVID-19 wave, which often starts in the South.

I did see some other reporting about how the wastewater is trending up in the Southern region as it seemingly does every July. There still isn't any reason that's been proposed the explain why, but I'm guessing it has to do with overall population health - that there's something about residents in the southern states that is (broadly) putting them at increased risk for illness, likely their baseline health. The popular reason often given is that it's hotter in the South and more people are inside and spreading the virus, but the truth is most Americans are inside so it shouldn't be something that is increasing cases in the South.

Anyway, we're still watching (barely) and trying to cobble together what's happening. There's other info in the article (it's from Friday) about the status of the Fall vaccine but nothing I didn't post on the other side of the fence last week.

[Zaxxon]

Colorado's cases reported are another new low as of last week's #s (published Wednesdays), and our wastewater trends are still heading down. Positivity rate is also down. That's about the best I can follow given the crappy (har har) data we have these days.

[Smoove_B]

So yeah, things in Japan are definitely heating up as a new variant has been identified.

Japan:

COVID-19 cases in Japan are continuing their recent rise and taking a toll on the elderly in particular, with experts predicting the trend will continue amid high heat, declining population-level immunity and the start of the holiday season.

...

Japan has seen a continuous, though gradual, increase in COVID-19 cases for eight straight weeks since May 8, when it downgraded the disease to a status on par with seasonal flu and scrapped a range of special COVID-19 measures, including the daily counting of cases.

Variant:

EG.5 is a descendant of XBB.1.9.2, with one extra spike mutation. Global prevalence has been rising since the end of May. The WHO now has seven VUMs. The number of variants of interest remains at two, including XBB.1.5, which is steadily declining, and XBB.1.16, which is holding steady at 20.7% of sequences.

The United States is one of the countries seeing rising EG.5 proportions. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said in its last estimates on Jul 8 that EG.5 made up 13% of samples. The WHO said so far there's no evidence that EG.5 is fueling any rises in cases or deaths or that infections involving the virus are more severe.

Of note:

In its illness tracking, the WHO said COVID-19 cases and deaths continue to decline globally, though it added that reduced testing and reporting mean that case trends don't accurately reflect COVID-19 activity, which it said still poses a burden in some countries.

Hospitalizations and deaths are more accurate indicators, the WHO said. Of the limited number of countries that regularly report hospitalization data, only one—Malta—had an increase of 20% or more over the past 28 days. Regarding intensive care unit (ICU) admissions for COVID-19, no countries that routinely report data showed an increase of 20% or more over the last month.

Only one region reported a rise in deaths over the last 28 days, the Western Pacific. Most of the rise appears to be from an increase in Australia, which reported a small rise in activity during the early months of the Southern Hemisphere winter.

Finally:

"WHO continues to advise people at high risk to wear a mask in crowded places, to get boosters when recommended, and to ensure adequate ventilation indoors," he said. "And we urge governments to maintain and not dismantle the systems they built for COVID-19."

[Punisher]

I'm no scientist but I wonder if we just collectively decide not to believe in Covid anymore would it just disappear?

[Smoove_B]

Oh, I think we tried that right before Omicron came around. But you're right - we could definitely try to ignore it harder.

Feels like all we have left is (1) waste water monitoring and (2) excess death reporting. That's...not great.

[Defiant]

Oh, I think we tried that right before Omicron came around. But you're right - we could definitely try to ignore it harder.

Feels like all we have left is (1) waste water monitoring and (2) excess death reporting. That's...not great.

Excess deaths are virtually gone, and while that's good from a mortality standpoint, it doesn't capture morbidity like long covid.

But in the past few months that number has fallen so much it’s showing that fewer Americans died in, for example, March 2023 than would be expected in a typical March.

A separate report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that the excess-deaths metric was below 1% in the week through June 17. The reports were first highlighted by the New York Times this week.

link

[Smoove_B]

Yeah, sorry that wasn't clear. Our red flags for a possible surge now are going to be (1) wastewater reporting and (2) excess deaths increasing. Wastewater surveillance is good as it is proactive and can function like sentinel surveillance, but it's an aggregate collection covering a rather large region. It's telling us something is happening but not in a specific enough area that is useful for infectious disease control.

Excess deaths are retrospective and are likely helping to drive the current policy of "let's do nothing" - because excess deaths are down. As we're all well aware, by the time the excess deaths start happening, it's too late. Excess death information isn't going to do anything other than help us evaluate "what happened?" long after it already has.

I was kinda hoping there was going to be a bigger push and more public interest in cleaner indoor air after ASHRAE released their proposed standards back in May - especially after it was pointed out how helpful it would could be in light of wildfires. But I guess cleaner indoor air costs lots of money, so forget that.

[Kraken]

Vaccine politics might explain excess Republican deaths

The political maelstrom swirling around coronavirus vaccines may be to blame for a higher rate of excess deaths among registered Republicans in Ohio and Florida during the coronavirus pandemic, according to a study published Monday.

The report in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine underscores the partisan divide over coronavirus vaccines that have saved lives but continued to roil American politics even as the pandemic has waned.

Yale University researchers found that registered Republicans had a higher rate of excess deaths than Democrats in the months following when vaccines became available for all adults in April 2021. The study does not directly attribute the deaths to covid-19. Instead, excess mortality refers to the overall rate of deaths exceeding what would be expected from historical trends.

The study examined the deaths of 538,139 people 25 years and older in Florida and Ohio, between January 2018 and December 2021, with researchers linking them to party registration records. Researchers found the excess death rate for Republicans and Democrats was about the same at the start of the pandemic in March 2020.

Both parties experienced a sharp but similar increase in excess deaths the following winter. But after April 2021, the gap in excess death rates emerged, with the rate for Republicans 7.7 percentage points higher than the rate for Democrats. For Republicans, that translated into a 43 percent increase in excess deaths.

Researchers said the gap in excess death rates was larger in counties with lower vaccination rates, and noted that the gap was primarily driven by voters in Ohio. The results suggest that differences in vaccination attitudes and the uptake among Republican and Democratic voters “may have been factors in the severity and trajectory of the pandemic” in the United States.

It's circumstantial evidence, but it does align with expectations. However, there are other reasons that Republicans might experience worse outcomes than normal people. Maybe they're just unhealthier, with worse access to medical care. Maybe they're slower to seek care when seriously ill.

One might argue that "excess Republican deaths" is impossible, since more is always desirable, but that would be cruel, so one won’t even mention it.

[Blackhawk]

Are these the same people who published "Water Might Explain Wet"?

[Smoove_B]

As predicted (or I guess, as we've seen over the last few years), COVID-19 cases are on the rise:

Weekly COVID-19 hospitalizations have risen by more than 10% across the country, according to new data published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, marking the largest percent increase in this key indicator of the virus since December.

At least 7,109 admissions of patients diagnosed with COVID-19 were reported for the week of July 15 nationwide, the CDC said late Monday, up from 6,444 during the week before.

Another important hospital metric has also been trending up in recent weeks: an average of 0.73% of the past week's emergency room visits had COVID-19 as of July 21, up from 0.49% through June 21.

The new figures come after months of largely slowing COVID-19 trends nationwide since the last wave of infections over the winter.

Yes, the actual numbers are a fraction of what we've seen before, but it's still important to note the pattern and trend. Are the demographics of the people being impacted changing? Are the regions/states being impacted the same or different? I cannot emphasize enough that figuring out patterns is still important.

Only one part of the country did not record more hospitalizations last week compared to the week prior: the Midwestern region spanning Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio and Wisconsin.

For now, hospitalizations remain far below the levels recorded at this time last year nationwide. July 2022 peaked at more than 44,000 weekly hospitalizations and 5% of emergency room visits with COVID-19 during a summer surge that strained many hospitals.

"The U.S. has experienced increases in COVID-19 during the past three summers, so it's not surprising to see an uptick," said Conley.

Of note:

An ensemble of academic and federal modelers said last month that the "main period of COVID19 activity is expected to occur in late fall and early winter over the next 2 years, with median peak incidence between November and mid January."

There's also additional information about the upcoming Fall 2023 vaccination push (which I know is being shared on the other side of the fence). Still nothing written in stone, unfortunately.

[Max Peck]

I saw a total of 4 other people that were masked up when I was out and about this morning. One was the lady working the front desk in my apartment building, and there were 2 cashiers and one customer at the grocery store. That's up from zero other people a couple of days ago when I had to go to the pharmacy. It seems obvious from this exhaustive data sample that masks are making a huge comeback this summer!

[Zaxxon]

Today's weekly update shows Colorado's cases reported rise modestly for the 2nd week in a row, but more importantly (to me), it's the first time the weekly wastewater trends show more 'steady increase' or 'increase' than 'steady decrease' or 'decrease' in several months.

[Blackhawk]

Indiana stopped publishing data a long, long time ago. It's been at least a year since I've seen a mask.

[Smoove_B]

Today's weekly update shows Colorado's cases reported rise modestly for the 2nd week in a row, but more importantly (to me), it's the first time the weekly wastewater trends show more 'steady increase' or 'increase' than 'steady decrease' or 'decrease' in several months.

You're officially part of the trend!

Wastewater numbers from http://Biobot.io are now rising in all regions.

Almost double where they were in mid June.

From these data, my case estimates:
365,000 new cases/day
1 in every 900 people were infected today
1 in every 90 people currently infected.

[Max Peck]

The wastewater signal is trending up here as well, with a projected doubling time of 6.7 days. There is no readily available information on variants to go with it, so far as I know.

[Smoove_B]

As far as I know, it's still the XBB variants that are dominant. However, I'm not sure how they're concluding that. Is that a random sample or is that only people that are being hospitalized (i.e. they're sick enough to warrant treatment)? In other words, they're reporting the dominant variant is XBB but if that's the dominant variant for people being hospitalized, that's not the same (necessarily) as the dominant variant circulating - maybe something else is out there going nuts but not to a high enough level that is requiring medical intervention.

Not helpful, I know.

[Max Peck]

They used to track variants here via the wastewater monitoring, but the funding for that was cut a while back.

[Isgrimnur]

The wastewater signal

My limited artistic abilities are unable to come up with a Batsignal with the logo of a wastewater treatment plant.

[Blackhawk]

[Max Peck]

Alternatively, I'd go with:

[Zaxxon]

[Isgrimnur]

[Blackhawk]