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

[Smoove_B]

Getting COVID-19 twice is a real badge of honor. I'd be amazed if he fully recovers and doesn't have any long term issues. But yeah, free shot vs 10s of thousands of dollars of medical care. I'm sure he'll be back in your office ranting about the illegals driving up taxes and the cost of your healthcare plan soon enough.

[LordMortis]

Getting COVID-19 twice is a real badge of honor. I'd be amazed if he fully recovers and doesn't have any long term issues. But yeah, free shot vs 10s of thousands of dollars of medical care. I'm sure he'll be back in your office ranting about the illegals driving up taxes and the cost of your healthcare plan soon enough.

One set of chemicals that underwent scrutiny for a year as an entire community desperately look for solution for billions vs many many many sets of chemicals in a cocktail as a few professionals desperately look for a solution for one person.

[hepcat]

Getting COVID-19 twice is a real badge of honor. I'd be amazed if he fully recovers and doesn't have any long term issues. But yeah, free shot vs 10s of thousands of dollars of medical care. I'm sure he'll be back in your office ranting about the illegals driving up taxes and the cost of your healthcare plan soon enough.

I wish that was a joke.

Thankfully, he doesn't work out of the office. He's one of the traveling consultants who work from client sites/home.

It's tough to reconcile this nutjob from the very nice person who will often bring me gifts of smoked meats from his home smoker, or other treats whenever he does come to the office. I worked with him at a previous company, so he's known me for decades. It seems like he's just gotten worse over the last 10 years or so though.

[Zaxxon]

Getting COVID-19 twice is a real badge of honor.

He's just an early adopter. We'll all get there eventually, right?

It's tough to reconcile this nutjob from the very nice person who will often bring me gifts of smoked meats from his home smoker, or other treats whenever he does come to the office. I worked with him at a previous company, so he's known me for decades. It seems like he's just gotten worse over the last 10 years or so though.

Echo chambers can be a hell of a drug. Especially the crack-cocaine level of chambers that our wonderful social networks have provided in the past several years.

[LordMortis]

It's tough to reconcile this nutjob from the very nice person who will often bring me gifts of smoked meats from his home smoker, or other treats whenever he does come to the office. I worked with him at a previous company, so he's known me for decades. It seems like he's just gotten worse over the last 10 years or so though.

And is the sentiment of me still having compassion for the unvaccinated even if I am angry with them. It's like this entire segment of the population need a sociopolitical AA to join and you can't help them unless they help themselves. I'm not sure what it's going to take to be the final straw but I'm not there.

[El Guapo]

Getting COVID-19 twice is a real badge of honor.

He's just an early adopter. We'll all get there eventually, right?

It's tough to reconcile this nutjob from the very nice person who will often bring me gifts of smoked meats from his home smoker, or other treats whenever he does come to the office. I worked with him at a previous company, so he's known me for decades. It seems like he's just gotten worse over the last 10 years or so though.

Echo chambers can be a hell of a drug. Especially the crack-cocaine level of chambers that our wonderful social networks have provided in the past several years.

Yeah, I know a lot of smart and decent people who have really dumb / crazy politics (and, while it's trite to say it at this point, it's true on "both sides" of the political spectrum).

[Isgrimnur]

It's tough to reconcile this nutjob from the very nice person who will often bring me gifts of smoked meats from his home smoker, or other treats whenever he does come to the office. I worked with him at a previous company, so he's known me for decades. It seems like he's just gotten worse over the last 10 years or so though.

You're a middle-aged white guy. I imagine that the experience of those who are not is markedly different.

[Alefroth]

My lungs went from barely sufficient to maintain brain functions to normal while at rest.

I guess I question whether they were sufficient to maintain brain functions up to this point.

[Alefroth]

It's tough to reconcile this nutjob from the very nice person who will often bring me gifts of smoked meats from his home smoker, or other treats whenever he does come to the office. I worked with him at a previous company, so he's known me for decades. It seems like he's just gotten worse over the last 10 years or so though.

And is the sentiment of me still having compassion for the unvaccinated even if I am angry with them. It's like this entire segment of the population need a sociopolitical AA to join and you can't help them unless they help themselves. I'm not sure what it's going to take to be the final straw but I'm not there.

Usually it's hitting rock bottom, but even that doesn't seem to be working here.

[LordMortis]

I meant the final straw for me, not them. Where I lose my my ability to empathize or sympathize with their notion of freedom or religious expression or fear or claim to knowledge or desire to stick it to the establishment whatever their motivation is.

[malchior]

He was fully vaxxed BTW per the article.

https://twitter.com/MalcolmNance/status ... 6072483841

[Isgrimnur]

A source familiar with the matter said Powell had multiple myeloma, a cancer of plasma cells that suppresses the body's immune response.

[Kasey Chang]

Ohio mom got online ordained a minister (from Universal Life Church) in under a minute and started writing religious exemptions for antimask families to defy school mask mandates. School district did not define "religious leader" to exclude these online ordinations.

[malchior]

A source familiar with the matter said Powell had multiple myeloma, a cancer of plasma cells that suppresses the body's immune response.

+1. Meanwhile, the click bait headline for what is a pretty even keeled take is here already.

https://twitter.com/Slate/status/1450136255438770177

The vaccines are not perfect—particularly at preventing infection. Breakthrough infections, and even hospitalization and deaths, among vaccinated people are real. But, for people without confounding risk factors for COVID-19, the vaccines remain effective against the most serious outcomes the disease. That is, vaccinated people who are in good health, and do not have chronic conditions, are very, very safe from COVID-19. The issue is that Colin Powell was not one of those people.

A crucial fact about Powell being left out of many headlines: he had been previously diagnosed with multiple myeloma. Multiple myeloma is a blood cancer that devastates the immune system—in particular, the blood’s plasma cells that produce antibodies. Only 50 percent of blood cancer patients produce antibodies in response to vaccination, and even after a booster, 33 percent still fail to produce antibodies. (While it’s unclear if Powell had received a booster, and one might reasonably quibble about whether, given his age, he may need a booster to count “fully vaccinated,” his illness, along with being 84, made him vulnerable to COVID either way) And while we don’t know the specifics of Powell’s medical chart, he would have been at heightened risk even if his cancer was in remission. “Multiple myeloma is not curable, so while he may (or may not) have been on active treatment, his disease, and his age, made him more vulnerable to breakthrough infection, complications and death,” Dr. Gwen Nichols, the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society’s chief medical officer who authored the studies I’ve linked to in this paragraph. “Myeloma is a disease which affects antibody production and immunity. Whoever transmitted the virus to him may have been asymptomatic, but they gave him a disease he could not fight as well [as people without the diagnosis], despite vaccination.”

Powell’s cohort—those who are still pretty vulnerable to the virus despite vaccination—isn’t a small slice of America. At least 1.5 million Americans are living with or in remission from multiple myeloma and related cancers. Add this number to the millions of others living with weakened immune systems, and some 10-15 million people are facing down COVID without proper immunological armament. What happened to Powell is what millions of vaccinated people fear could happen to them each day, and with some good reason.

[Smoove_B]

Right, instead of reinforcing why it's so important of all of us to still be wearing masks (to protect those that are still vulnerable), his story is now being actively circulated as "vaccines don't work".

[El Guapo]

I feel like headline writers are in the top 5 in "groups responsible for the decline of America".

[malchior]

I feel like headline writers are in the top 5 in "groups responsible for the decline of America".

Yup. I mean the author has to be fuming. This line is in there:

A crucial fact about Powell being left out of many headlines: he had been previously diagnosed with multiple myeloma.

And then their social media editor does that to them? Someone is getting crossed off the holiday card list.

[Daehawk]

More idiots dont get the vaccine more idiots die. Good for them. Get out. Just wish it didn't allow those who cant get the shot or allow mutations to develop. Shame it doesn't just target GOP and evil stupid folk. Oh wait thats the same group.

[Smoove_B]

More idiots dont get the vaccine more idiots die. Good for them. Get out. Just wish it didn't allow those who cant get the shot or allow mutations to develop.

While I agree in spirit, only ~57% of all Americans are currently fully vaccinated. In short, the number of people that aren't is gigantic. And yes, it's a mix of people that can't be vaccinated (like kids) people that are vaccine hesitant (like my 73+ year old FIL) and those that are truly vaccination resistant.

We're in trouble.

[Octavious]

I just had to listen to the two Trumpers going on about Joe Rogan and how awesome he is and that there are many places with successful treatments that don't include the vaccine. I did not make a comment as I've decided it's pointless to debate with idiots.

[Smoove_B]

This is much bigger picture thinking here, but this article is making the rounds today among my public health people, namely how death and suffering has been normalized in the UK:

It is one of the conundrums of the current phase of the Covid pandemic: the UK has among the highest number of infections across the world and a death toll that continues to steadily climb, yet the national mood seems sanguine. So is this down to British stoicism, a Keep Calm and Carry on mentality?

Not according to experts. They talk of many factors being at play – and warn it may not last.

“We’re in a phase where we still have large numbers of people dying from this disease,” said Linda Bauld, professor of public health at the University of Edinburgh. “But it has gone into the background. We’ve become used to something that has not gone away. I think there’s been a desensitisation to the mortality.”

...

As a disease shifts from an initial pandemic phase to an endemic illness, the data curves outlining its spread become less precipitous. And psychologists say this steady stream of daily deaths – although the UK is now on an upwards trajectory – tends to feel less alarming than the rises we witnessed in the first year of the pandemic.

“We’re built to react to change. We don’t react to steady state,” said West. “Something will have to change in people’s psyche to make people feel like we need to do more about it.”

Spoiler - it's happened here in the United States as well.

“The idea that everyone is accepting the new normal is very dangerous,” said Prof Stephen Reicher, a psychologist at the University of St Andrews. “Then you reinforce a sense of fatalism.”

Reicher points to a wealth of evidence in psychology showing that our behaviour can be shaped to a greater extent by what we think others think than by our own beliefs. “If your attitude is at odds with a perceived social norm, you’re less likely to act on it,” he said.

According to Reicher, the government has been “systematically normalising” the UK’s current rate of infections.

“They’ve been acting like this is inevitable, seeming relaxed about infections going up,” he said. “People often want a generic psychological explanation, but we mustn’t ignore the political and ideological context in which this is happening. We’re looking at a phenomenon of normalisation.”

But this here is the core:

The media also plays a role in setting a perception of what is “normal”, according to Reicher. “[Research shows] that the media changes virtually nobody’s mind,” he said. “But it changes people’s belief about what others think.”

The most recent surveys show that the public retain cautious attitudes on Covid safety. However, there is a widening gap between attitudes and behaviours.

To some, the lack of public reaction to the ongoing death rate is bewildering. “It feels very surreal that we are just accepting the current infection rates. No one is making a fuss about it, but well over 100 people are dying every day due to Covid,” said Kit Yates, a senior lecturer in mathematics at the University of Bath.

Yates points out that, while vaccination has changed the outcome of high Covid rates, having so much virus in circulation is not without consequence.

“The current death rate is equivalent to over 40,000 people a year dying of Covid. This is not normal,” he said.

[malchior]

This is much bigger picture thinking here, but this article is making the rounds today among my public health people, namely how death and suffering has been normalized in the UK.

It all makes sense. If you failed on something, convince everyone it wasn't a failure. That is pretty much what Trump did and what Johnson is doing. They are lying about their negligence. And unfortunately many people are blinded to reality. There is lots of room to debate the why but it seems pretty clear that something is very wrong at the heart of several of our societies. They have become nihilistic and vaguely "evil". In the sense, that governments aren't doing the basic things they exist to do. I don't think anyone really has answers but I can't shake the sense that a shoe could drop at any moment.

[Smoove_B]

So many have pointed out that this exact same observation also applies to global warming. Normalize populations of people suffering and the overall impacts of climate change and the urgency to act disappears.

[malchior]

Yup - I've posted it before but this captures it to me.

https://twitter.com/BrianMcHugh2011/sta ... 5050817537

[raydude]

So many have pointed out that this exact same observation also applies to global warming. Normalize populations of people suffering and the overall impacts of climate change and the urgency to act disappears.

The difference, IMHO, is that catastrophic failure of our health care system is much more imminent than a catastrophic failure of our climate. In article after article the story is the same - nurses and doctors are burning out, leaving, and not being replaced. I'm starting to see more articles of patients dying because of the lack of ICU beds or dying because they couldn't get life-saving medical care because of a lack of beds. I fear that may finally be the kicker that causes some kind of action - when enough people start dying because they couldn't be seen by a doctor because of the lack of beds.

[Kasey Chang]

Mystery of COVID toes solved -- it's a runaway immune response that damaged blood vessels near fingers and toes

[Kasey Chang]

I'm starting to see more articles of patients dying because of the lack of ICU beds or dying because they couldn't get life-saving medical care because of a lack of beds. I fear that may finally be the kicker that causes some kind of action - when enough people start dying because they couldn't be seen by a doctor because of the lack of beds.

Multiple states have 100% full ICUs, and the so-called "expansions" are basically lowering the standard of care. Instead of your typical one ICU nurse to 2 patients pre-COVID, most of those states are now down to 1 regular nurse (not necessarily ICU nurse) and 2 nurse-trainees/nursing assistants watching 6-12 patients, with every room (storage, conference, office, etc.) turned into "ICU" wards. Regular patients are left in the corridors. People are shipped hundreds of miles away from home in search of an ICU bed, and often, die there.

Yeah, I've been tracking those depressing news for the past few weeks on my random rants blog.

[Freyland]

Mystery of COVID toes solved -- it's a runaway immune response that damaged blood vessels near fingers and toes

Not being a jerk. I thought we knew this over a year ago.

[Zarathud]

The lymphedema clinic at the nearby hospital is shutting down because the nurse refuses to vaccinate. She’s going to provide in-home care instead. Frustrating.

[Isgrimnur]

The lymphedema clinic at the nearby hospital is shutting down because the nurse refuses to vaccinate. She’s going to provide in-home care instead. Frustrating.

A true Mary Mallon.

[Max Peck]

Ontario plans to lift all COVID-19 public health measures — masks included — by March

Ontario plans to lift all remaining public health measures including proof of vaccination and mask requirements indoors by March 2022.

At a Friday news conference in Toronto with Premier Doug Ford, Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. Keiran Moore and Minister of Health Christine Elliott, it was announced that the removal of the measures will take place "slowly and incrementally" over the next six months, guided by ongoing monitoring of key public health indicators.

Those indicators include: whether any new COVID-19 variants arise, how many people are in hospital and ICU with the illness, and if the province once again sees a rapid increase in transmission of the disease.

Here's a timeline of what you can expect:

Oct. 25: The province will lift capacity limits in the majority of settings where proof of vaccination is required including restaurants, indoor sports facilities and gyms, casinos, bingo halls and indoor meeting and event spaces. Places of worship, museums and personal care settings such as barbershops and salons can also do away with capacity limits if they require proof of vaccination.

Nov. 15: The government plans to lift capacity limits in remaining higher-risk settings where proof of vaccination is required, including night clubs, wedding receptions in spaces where dancing is involved, strip clubs, bathhouses and sex clubs.

Jan. 17: Assuming the holidays don't contribute to any "concerning trends," the plan is to lift capacity limits in places where proof of vaccination is not required. At the same time, proof of vaccine requirements may also be lifted for restaurants, bars and sports facilities.

Feb. 7: The province plans to lift proof of vaccine requirements in high-risk settings including night clubs, strip clubs, bathhouses and sex clubs.

March 28: Ontario plans to lift mask-wearing requirements in indoor public spaces, as well as remove proof-of-vaccine requirements for all remaining settings. Capacity limits and public health measures could be re-introduced at local levels to manage COVID-19 as needed.

By then, Moore said, hopefully enough Ontarians are immunized, including children aged five to 11, so the virus can't find hosts in which to reproduce.

Asked if masking requirements will also be lifted for classrooms by March, Ford didn't answer explicitly, saying all decisions will be informed by the key indicators as well as advice from the chief medical officer of health.

[Unagi]

What’s a sex club exactly.

I’m naïve , is prostitution legal there? I’m assuming so.

[El Guapo]

Spoiler:

No one tell Unagi about the OO Sex Club.

[Max Peck]

What’s a sex club exactly.

That was my thought as well. Apparently they're night clubs for swingers, with onsite facilities.

[dbt1949]

Locally another cop died from covid. It's hard to believe these people of law don't believe in the law of nature.
Sorry, but I don't feel sorry for him.

[Isgrimnur]

[Paingod]

I will never, ever understand people working at the front lines of this - watching people die in front of them - who still refuse to be vaccinated. It can't get any more crystal clear.

[raydude]

Cognitive Dissonance is a powerful thing. Ironically seeing people die may cause the brain to be even more conflicted and retreat further into the realm of misinformation to protect itself.

[Smoove_B]

As pointed out by Dr. Topol, every state should be doing this; the CDC should be doing this. I haven't seen it reported by anyone, except (now) Oregon:

https://twitter.com/EricTopol/status/14 ... 4871431169

This is what a real breakthrough infection report should look like. Thanks Oregon. People < age 60 are not "immune" from hospitalizations and deaths
J&J>Pfizer>Moderna
Currently ~1/4 of cases
We still do not have this for the US, let alone most states

[Ralph-Wiggum]

This is what a real breakthrough infection report should look like. Thanks Oregon. People < age 60 are not "immune" from hospitalizations and deaths
J&J>Pfizer>Moderna
Currently ~1/4 of cases
We still do not have this for the US, let alone most states

I assume the > symbols here mean more deaths/hospitalizations with that vaccine and not that JJ is more effective than the other vaccines, which it seemed like he was saying at first glance.