The Politics of Covid 19, mask wearing and the vaccination process

[Victoria Raverna]

Is there a mandatory test for people that travel from Japan? With their current daily new cases, it is more reasonable to test travellers from Japan than China.

[Defiant]

China stopped publishing daily numbers (even assuming the numbers are accurate - *wink wink nudge nudge*) but there are estimates that 250 million have gotten infected this month, predictions that more than half their population will get it this winter, and reports that two flights from China had 38% covid positive passengers

[Roman]

I really really hope Canada follows suit with flight restrictions from China. Sick of this shit.

[Smoove_B]

I really really hope Canada follows suit with flight restrictions from China. Sick of this shit.

From November of 2021, They don't work:

Studies show travel bans are ineffective at curbing the spread of disease

Travel bans from the start of the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in economic and other consequences we're still seeing today.

A recent study from the journal Science shows that restricting international travel in the beginning stages of the COVID-19 pandemic did have some effect on delaying spread, but the researchers said restricting travel is only truly effective when paired with curbing the spread of infection through hand-washing, isolation and early detection.

If you're supporting travel bans from China but not supporting masking, vaccination and COVID testing support in your local community, I'd question your calculations.

EDIT: In terms of concern, I'd also argue you should likely be just as concerned about your neighbors to the south as we seemingly DNGAF about any of it anymore. If you're looking for opportunities to spread, look no further.

[Alefroth]

I really really hope Canada follows suit with flight restrictions from China. Sick of this shit.

Sick of what shit?

[malchior]

The New Yorker

I don't recommend Smoove_B read this but I also suspect he has heard about it. The third paragraph gives it away. She is distorting the discussion as some conspiracy theory. It's a shamelessly biased piece. Maybe some of what she writes about is tinged with conspiracy theory but it's not absolutely crazy to portray our society as a capitalistic dystopia that drives terrible policy and decision making at the expense of marginalized groups.

ast December, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced that it was shortening the recommended isolation period for those with covid-19 to five days. Getting exposed to the virus no longer meant that people needed to quarantine, either, as long as they were fully vaccinated and wore a mask. It was a big moment, and it occurred just as the Omicron variant was surging. Mindy Thompson Fullilove, a professor of urban policy and health at the New School, was livid.

Fullilove, who is Black, has spent her career studying epidemics: first aids, then crack, then multidrug-resistant tuberculosis. She has seen how disease can ravage cities, especially in Black and working-class communities. From the beginning, Fullilove was skeptical of how the federal government handled the coronavirus pandemic. But these new recommendations from the C.D.C., she said, were “flying in the face of the science.” Not long after the announcement, she sent an e-mail to a Listserv called The Spirit of 1848, for progressive public-health practitioners. “Can we have a people’s CDC and give people good advice?” she asked. A flurry of responses came back.

What emerged was the People’s C.D.C.: a ragtag coalition of academics, doctors, activists, and artists who believe that the government has left them to fend for themselves against covid-19. As governments, schools, and businesses have scaled back their covid precautions, the members of the People’s C.D.C. have made it their mission to distribute information about the pandemic—what they see as real information, as opposed to what’s circulated by the actual C.D.C. They believe the C.D.C.’s data and guidelines have been distorted by powerful forces with vested interests in keeping people at work and keeping anxieties about the pandemic down. “The public has a right to a sound reading of the data that’s not influenced by politics and big business,” Fullilove said.

[Smoove_B]

Yeah, I saw it this morning; she's getting dragged hard. Apparently she infiltrated a few parental FB groups under the guise of "I'm one of you" - groups that are concerned about kids getting sick over and over and the lack of masking mandates in schools. She then writes a piece like this, representing them as fringe.

But the icing on the cake?

https://twitter.com/Bob_Wachter/status/ ... 2614011904

Wherever you are on the spectrum of Covid policies – I'm certainly more cautious than most, but clearly not cautious enough for some – this @NewYorker piece by @emmaogreen does a nice job explaining the motivations & strategies of public health hardliners.

People like me - that want to promote basic public health practice (masking when appropriate, testing, improved ventilation) - according to Dr. Wachter, I'm a "hardliner". For reference, I also believe in seat belts, water treatment (including fluoridation) and child safety caps on medications.

Wachter had a thread the other day detailing his medical thought process on COVID-19 protections - the calculus he believes someone should be going through to do anything in day-to-day life. It was a classic (textbook) example of why private practice doctors are not public health professionals. His take was so absurd, completely ignoring the community health elements in the greater equation. I thought it was going to be the worst I'd read this week - but then this New Yorker piece came out. And that clown has ~300K followers. It's borderline offensive. In the Spring of 2020 it was one thing. But as we head into 2023 and you're *still* making statements like you're a genuine public health expert? C'mon.

And I'm not even going to talk about what Nate Silver said today. Also, F Nate Silver.

[Skinypupy]

NFL player goes down during a game, needing CPR and getting rushed to a hospital. Reports are that he’s still alive but in critical condition. The usual anti-vax morons started immediately.

Fuck these people.

https://mobile.twitter.com/RonFilipkows ... 7156412416

[malchior]

NFL player goes down during a game, needing CPR and getting rushed to a hospital. Reports are that he’s still alive but in critical condition. The usual anti-vax morons started immediately.

Fuck these people.

Yup. Dumb asses and grifting ghouls. Utter trash all around.

[Sudy]

This would be hilarious if it weren't so frightening and ludicrous. (The response, not the player collapsing.) I constantly have to pinch myself.

[Isgrimnur]

‘Died Suddenly’? More Than 1-in-4 Think Someone They Know Died From COVID-19 Vaccines

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that (49%) of American Adults believe it is likely that side effects of COVID-19 vaccines have caused a significant number of unexplained deaths, including 28% who think it’s Very Likely. Thirty-seven percent (37%) don’t say a significant number of deaths have been caused by vaccine side effects, including 17% who believe it’s Not At All Likely. Another 14% are not sure.

[Smoove_B]

An embarrassing peek into the 20+ year failures of public health manifesting. Hadn't seen that report yet - thanks.

[LawBeefaroni]

My kid was signed up for art camp tomorrow and Friday. They have the week off from school and there are lot of these 1 and 2 day daycamps, along with the week long ones. Anyway, it got cancelled because to person running it had a household family member with a close contact to a positive case. No more detail other than that. It sucks for the kids but I'm fine with the studio being on the cautious side. In fact, I appreciate it.

But there have been a few really pissed off parents. It's just crazy.

[Max Peck]

I’m Sorry, but This COVID Policy Is Ridiculous

Cases have surged in China since it dropped its zero-COVID policy in December, and the latest models now suggest that at least 1 million people may die as a result. Many countries have responded by policing their borders: Last week, the CDC announced that anyone entering the United States from China would be required to test negative within two days of departure; the U.K., Canada, and Australia quickly followed suit; and the European Union has urged its member states to do the same. (Taking a more extreme tack, Morocco has said it will ban travelers from China from entering altogether.) At a media briefing on Wednesday, World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said, “It is understandable that some countries are taking steps they believe will protect their own citizens.”

On Tuesday, a Chinese official denounced some of the new restrictions as having “no scientific basis.” She wasn’t wrong. If the goal is to “slow the spread of COVID” from overseas, as the CDC has stated, there is little evidence to suggest that the restrictions will be effective. More important, it wouldn’t matter if they were: COVID is already spreading unchecked in the U.S. and many of the other countries that have new rules in place, so imported cases wouldn’t make much of a difference. The risk is particularly low given the fact that 95 percent of China’s locally acquired cases are being caused by two Omicron lineages—BA.5.2 and BF.7—that are old news elsewhere. “The most dangerous new variant at the moment is from New York—XBB.1.5—which the U.S. is now busy exporting to the rest of the world,” Christina Pagel, a mathematician who studies health care at University College London, told me. “I’m sorry, but this is fucking ridiculous.”

The travel restrictions on China will have little impact on the spread of COVID, but they do send a forceful political message. The U.S. measures are meant to pressure China, by slowing its economic rebound, into being transparent about its COVID situation, Stephen Morrison, the director of the Global Health Policy Center at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank, told me. China’s alleged official death count, for example—5,259 as of January 4—seems way too low to be believable, especially amid reports of overflowing Chinese hospitals and funeral homes. So long as the country isn’t more forthcoming, Morrison said, then Chinese tourists, who have only recently been allowed to travel internationally, will continue to be unwelcome.

Expressing this message through a largely pointless public-health measure comes with a price. When that measure fails to keep COVID spread at bay, faith in public-health institutions could decline, which Pagel said is the “biggest danger” for the next pandemic. It also stokes the long-standing fear that Chinese people are more likely to carry disease than anyone else, whether foreign or American. “We are watching this policy so carefully to see if it will once again invite a racial backlash,” Manjusha Kulkarni, a co-founder of Stop AAPI Hate, told me. If a rise in anti-Asian hate and violence comes along with more transparency from China about its COVID situation, the cost of these restrictions hardly seems worth their benefits.

[LawBeefaroni]

I’m Sorry, but This COVID Policy Is Ridiculous

It's less a health policy and more an PR policy. It's purely theater. And to that end, it's effective.

"'This isn't our problem, it's their problem." Feel like I've heard that before.

[Zaxxon]

It's less a health policy and more an PR policy.

Like every other COVID policy at this stage of the game.

[Smoove_B]

Speaking of policy, I forgot to share this on Friday:

Dr. Susan Butler-Wu, an associate professor of clinical pathology at the University of Southern California, said rapid tests for multiple viruses are "the way of the future," and would help more people get access to the appropriate treatments. But the U.S. has historically fallen behind Europe in terms of authorizing new diagnostics, she said.

“It’s not unusual to see things that have been approved in other countries that are great products and we don’t have them here. That’s just the reality of the situation," she said. "It takes time to go through the process and get approval."

$7 for a triple rapid test in EU. We really have learned nothing.

[LordMortis]

Woke up to the news that our county is now recommending children wear masks in schools and that parents talk to their children about decisions.

[Smoove_B]

Just like we do about seat belts and condoms.

"Ultimately Billy, it's your choice to use either. Don't let someone pressure you."

[LawBeefaroni]

You don't know how many people I've spoken to that have or have recently had bad colds or something else not COVID/FLU/Strep. Ignoring that many of them probably did actually have flu/COVID/strep, the point here is that they all blamed masks on dampening their immunity to the "common cold."

Also, is there some other viral thing going around that isn't RSV? Have talked with one adult and another family with a kid who were both on 10-day antibiotics for a "really bad cough". Neither could tell he what they actually had.

[Smoove_B]

Might have been parainfluenza and they were giving them antibiotics as a way to minimize risk of complications from an opportunistic bacterial infection and bronchitis.

And yes, masks that don't work at all (so why bother wearing them for COVID-19?) that somehow magically work so well as to suppress your immune system by blocking everything else that you'd normally be breathing in to promote "natural immunity".

[Smoove_B]

Going to slap this here because he covers the political element and how our complacency will ultimately be our undoing. I've pretty much accepted that this is life now and I'm fully expecting the emergency declaration to end in May - on the anniversary of the "no more masking" message, just to be ironic.

https://twitter.com/MehdiHasanShow/stat ... 2699456512

“I’m not purposefully trying to be alarmist. But in the face of a pandemic that *is not over,* complacency is almost as bad as alarmism.”

As a new Covid variant rapidly spreads across the country, @mehdirhasan says the U.S. is setting itself up for more coronavirus failure

[Kraken]

Wastewater numbers are falling in Boston

Coronavirus levels in waste water in the Boston area fell sharply last week, according to new data from the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority, an encouraging sign after COVID levels climbed during the holidays.

The new data on Wednesday showed a seven-day average of 1,501 SARS-CoV-2 RNA copies per milliliter of waste water from the southern system as of Tuesday, a 25 percent decrease from Jan. 5, when the average peaked for the holiday season at 2,009 copies/ML. The northern system, which includes waste water from the city of Boston, had a seven-day average of 986 copies/ML on Tuesday, down more than 50 percent from 2,023 copies/ML reported Jan. 1, according to the data.

So glad our long national nightmare is finally over.

If you want public health to be taken seriously, you'll need a better virus next time -- one that takes out children and people in their prime, rather than mostly the old, weak, and defective.

[Smoove_B]

That's certainly good news.

If you want public health to be taken seriously, you'll need a better virus next time -- one that takes out children and people in their prime, rather than mostly the old, weak, and defective.

The virus is working on it, of that you can be sure.

[Kurth]

Wastewater numbers are falling in Boston

Coronavirus levels in waste water in the Boston area fell sharply last week, according to new data from the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority, an encouraging sign after COVID levels climbed during the holidays.

The new data on Wednesday showed a seven-day average of 1,501 SARS-CoV-2 RNA copies per milliliter of waste water from the southern system as of Tuesday, a 25 percent decrease from Jan. 5, when the average peaked for the holiday season at 2,009 copies/ML. The northern system, which includes waste water from the city of Boston, had a seven-day average of 986 copies/ML on Tuesday, down more than 50 percent from 2,023 copies/ML reported Jan. 1, according to the data.

So glad our long national nightmare is finally over.

If you want public health to be taken seriously, you'll need a better virus next time -- one that takes out children and people in their prime, rather than mostly the old, weak, and defective.

Sadly, this is 100% true.

Also, I snarfed my coffee this morning reading this from Smoove:

And yes, masks that don't work at all (so why bother wearing them for COVID-19?) that somehow magically work so well as to suppress your immune system by blocking everything else that you'd normally be breathing in to promote "natural immunity".

I know it’s not funny, but the inconsistency and downright stupidity is just laughable at times.

[pr0ner]

My government agency is moving back to masks required in all common spaces starting tomorrow. Not that there's hardly anyone on campus these days to begin with.

[Kraken]

The more things change.... Snopes says this is real, and elaborates.

[Smoove_B]

For reference, the "modern" era of public health started here in America in 1850 with the publication of Lemuel Shattuck's "Report of the Sanitary Commission of Massachusetts". We are now in a period of public health that kicked off in the 1970s - the "health promotion" era. Not sure when we're going to label that as dead, perhaps 2020, maybe sooner. We're definitely in a new phase now.

That Snopes link is great - covering what was happening in the U.K - it was also quite interesting here in the United States during the the 1850s through the early 1900s.

[Smoove_B]

Missed this last week - maybe that was intentional? The WHO has changed their recommendation for masking:

WHO continues to recommend the use of masks by the public in specific situations, and this update recommends their use irrespective of the local epidemiological situation, given the current spread of the COVID-19 globally. Masks are recommended following a recent exposure to COVID-19, when someone has or suspects they have COVID-19, when someone is at high-risk of severe COVID-19, and for anyone in a crowded, enclosed, or poorly ventilated space. Previously, WHO recommendations were based on the epidemiological situation.

(emphasis added by me)

That is...uhh...a big change. I mean, I know that no one is listening to the CDC or the WHO at this point, but for them to update and state that in January of 2023 is a big deal.

[Zaxxon]

manshoutsatcloud.png

[Smoove_B]

I'm beginning to think Geralt of Rivia and Roland Deschain being my two favorite characters isn't a coincidence.

[Smoove_B]

Accurate

https://twitter.com/whstancil/status/16 ... 3725529100

All the things the far-right COVID denialists said at the start of the pandemic - masks never did anything, we exaggerated COVID deaths to make Trump look bad, it's ridiculous to require vaccinations or need multiple boosters - are now broadly accepted by powerful media figures

A million people died and somehow in the elite consciousness COVID has been transformed into "something we overreacted to." What happened, of course, is that the people who died were mostly out of sight, for them

It's hardly a revelation that COVID mostly endangers the sick and elderly: remember "don't kill someone's grandmother"? What changed wasn't new information, it's that a lot of powerful people decided to stop pretending they cared about the sick or elderly.

[LordMortis]

I don't buy that a 1.1 million so far was all sick and elderly and are invisible. The same people who don't care who died are complaining that they can't get someone to work for $15 an hour to serve them fast food or stock their groceries or wait on their tables while everyone knows the price of food and powering your home continues to rise. They think that somehow all of these people who are out of sight are living off the tax dollars of hard working Americans present and past.

[Isgrimnur]

[Smoove_B]

Overwhelmingly elders



I don't have a handy chart for underlying conditions but given the number of people suffering chronic illnesses (broadly) in the United States...

This is why the 18-24 crowd I engage with on the regular doesn't care; overwhelmingly they're not impacted by death. Well, until grandma is sick.

EDIT: DANGFLABBIT! BAMMED by needing to provide extra commentary!

[Smoove_B]

And I just saw a report from last week that COVID was #1 killer for law enforcement in 2022 - the 3rd year in a row now.

[Isgrimnur]

EDIT: DANGFLABBIT! BAMMED by needing to provide extra commentary!

[Max Peck]

Overwhelmingly elders

That has been changing, though, even if the public is not paying attention.

During March 2020 to September 2022, more than 1 million COVID-19–involved deaths occurred in the United States (1). As described by Shiels and colleagues (2), COVID-19 deaths during March to December 2020 and January to October 2021 were similar. However, COVID-19–involved deaths increased among younger persons and decreased among older adults in 2021 versus 2020 (2), reflecting excess premature mortality from COVID-19.

A histogram of the total number of fatalities since the onset of the pandemic is naturally going to be heavily skewed toward the elderly simply due to the carnage that ensued when it was allowed to run rampant in long term care facilities in the early days. I expect that being elderly is still a predominant risk factor, but it would be interesting to see the data in the time domain.

[Smoove_B]

Oh, absolutely - it's shifting but I don't think it's going to hit Hantavirus similarity on younger folks unless there's some type of crazy mutation. While no one has a crystal ball, overwhelmingly the people I follow are in agreement that it will remain a virus that kills elders and marginalized people.

But the Long COVID? That remains to be seen. Everyone is still very much focused on death (understandably). Maybe that will start to change in 2023.

[Pyperkub]

Accurate

https://twitter.com/whstancil/status/16 ... 3725529100

All the things the far-right COVID denialists said at the start of the pandemic - masks never did anything, we exaggerated COVID deaths to make Trump look bad, it's ridiculous to require vaccinations or need multiple boosters - are now broadly accepted by powerful media figures

A million people died and somehow in the elite consciousness COVID has been transformed into "something we overreacted to." What happened, of course, is that the people who died were mostly out of sight, for them

It's hardly a revelation that COVID mostly endangers the sick and elderly: remember "don't kill someone's grandmother"? What changed wasn't new information, it's that a lot of powerful people decided to stop pretending they cared about the sick or elderly.

Only post-Omicron bypassing masks. It was most definitely not accurate for the original or the Delta variant...