General Discussion/Q&A on Coronavirus (COVID-19)

[wandering_fred]

,,,
I have zero sympathy for anyone over the age of 12 in Australia, UK, US (places where vaccines readily available) who is not yet fully vaccinated nor for any adult due for a booster who have failed to get one. Vaccines are freely available and anyone refusing to get one, well they cant say they weren't warned.

Unless you happen to be on an immuno-suppresant which makes getting an effective response from the current set of vaccines unlikely....
And for some reason the TGA is being seemingly a lot more picky on the (some being Australian) vaccines which follow a more traditional protocol.

Anything else I would add would be considered wandering
Fred

 

[OZDUCK]

Israel increasing restrictions on foreign travel by its citizens. Travel to the US or Canada is prohibited without special permission. Travel to 58 countries is now restricted. According to the article Israel is now being viewed as the test case for the effectiveness of booster shots.

Israel bars its citizens from traveling to the U.S. or Canada. (Published 2021)

The countries were added to Israel’s rapidly growing “red list” as Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s government tries to slow Omicron’s spread.

www.nytimes.com

 

[Flashback]

Israel increasing restrictions on foreign travel by its citizens. Travel to the US or Canada is prohibited without special permission. Travel to 58 countries is now restricted. According to the article Israel is now being viewed as the test case for the effectiveness of booster shots.

Israel bars its citizens from traveling to the U.S. or Canada. (Published 2021)

The countries were added to Israel’s rapidly growing “red list” as Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s government tries to slow Omicron’s spread.

www.nytimes.com

Israel 45%, UK 41%. Both should give a good indication. While are case numbers are trending up, hospitalisations and deaths are trending down. Pretty good indicator if you ask me!

 

[Princess Fiona]

Omicron, Delta, Alpha: How the UK became an early flag for dangerous COVID-19 variants - ABC News

amp.abc.net.au

"A professorial fellow in epidemiology at The University of Melbourne, Professor Tony Blakely, agreed, theorising that the UK's current experience of Omicron may be because its population had AstraZeneca as the primary vaccination course.

"It is highly probable that what [the UK is] experiencing now [with Omicron] will be a forerunner of what happens in other countries," he told the ABC.

"Especially countries that have also used AstraZeneca, as [it's] less effective than the mRNA vaccines at preventing infection with Omicron."

Of course Tony belongs to the Mary-Louise panic brigade.

I don’t know what he’s on about. Just over 50% of the UK population had an MRNA vaccine.

I’m in London now, there is panic on the BBC, seeing little evidence of it on the streets.

 

[drron]

Unless you happen to be on an immuno-suppresant which makes getting an effective response from the current set of vaccines unlikely....
And for some reason the TGA is being seemingly a lot more picky on the (some being Australian) vaccines which follow a more traditional protocol.

Anything else I would add would be considered wandering
Fred

The reason they are being "picky"is that most Australian vaccine candidates have little or no evidence of safety or effectiveness. Basically impossible here now to get enough people for a Phase 3 trial in Australia.
You can bet if the UQ vaccine had not had the problem of positive HIV tests we would be using it now.

 

[drron]

Yet another reason Omicron panic is overblown.

Early oral treatment with molnupiravir reduced risk of hospitalisation or death in at-risk, unvaccinated adults with COVID-19: Study

Early treatment with molnupiravir, an oral, small-molecule antiviral prodrug, reduced the risk of hospitalisation or death in at-risk, unvaccinated adults with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), according to a study published in The New England Journal of Medicine....

dgalerts.docguide.com

So an oral treatment within 5 days of onset of covid reduces hospitalisation of unvaccinated patients by nearly 50% and by 30% for hospitalisation or death.
So hopefully supplies are in place.

 

[drron]

So dying of covid isn't the only thing you need worrying about if you have severe covid. You are still at greater risk of dying in the next 12 months.

Welcome to Precision Vaccinations News

Precision Vaccinations News publishes vaccine news patients can trust to make informed immunization decisions in partnership with doctors, nurses, and pharmacists.

www.coronavirustoday.com

And breakthrough infections in the vaccinated can be severe.

Severe breakthrough COVID-19 cases in the SARS-CoV-2 delta variant era

A study published in The Lancet Microbe describes severe breakthrough coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) cases in the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) delta (B.1.617.2) variant era. ...

dgalerts.docguide.com

 

[drron]

Anyone still thinking Covid zero is still acheivable should read this.

We'll Never Be Rid of COVID, Fauci Says

The new endgame is control, NIAID director said at a briefing

www.medpagetoday.com

 

[Quickstatus]

So an oral treatment within 5 days of onset of covid reduces hospitalisation

The neglect in treating covid positive patients prior to hospitalisations and prior to them getting sick is I think one of the greatest failures of the pandemic response.

They (FDA, CDC, WHO) took away Ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine and mandated that monoclonals could not be given prehospital.
In the meantime the virus kept replicating in the CovidPos patient until some got extremely sick.
When there was no vaccine, and where death rates were increasing, there seemed to be a great push to eliminate any possible prehospital treatments - even where the drugs that was trialled have been on the market for decades with a known side effect profile and with invitro and animal studies showing some even if marginal benefit. So prehosptial treatment became nothing.

WHO and others took away the above drugs because of a lack of inhospital benefit -but they were never tested out of hospital. As with all infections, we have always been taught to start treatment early then adjust treatment as the facts emerge. It has never been let the patient get worse, develop septic shock, get to hospital then treat. In an pandemic emergency, one would think that even if the benefit was marginal, and given the particular patient situation, that sometimes unorthodox treatments are acceptable. After all, isnt patient informed choice important?

 

[Quickstatus]

Maybe Great Barrington Declaration should be revisited

 

[Quickstatus]

Interesting German paper.
Kids with comorbidities vs healthy kids.

Basically healthy kids with no comorbidities in the agegroup 5-12 yes have the death rate of all age groups - basically zero.

(PIMS-TS = Paediatric inflammatory multisystem syndrome temporally associated with SARS Covid.
A subset of MIS-C = multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children
As Covid is not the only disease that causes MIS-C)

 

[Quickstatus]

Is Long Covid partly in your mind

 

[Quickstatus]

Bangladesh mask Study says surgical masks a little better than no masks but statistically significant. It was much lauded

But there is a problem.
It was randomised but not blinded
Villages were paired then randomised
One paired village was consented for blood collection and the other paired village consented for blood collection but the get free surgical masks.
The free surgical masks created an imbalance in the pairs causing the difference in Covid positive numbers between the pairs to fade into statistical insignificance. The only significant difference was that the surgical mask pair had more recruits than no mask pair. (The surgical mask was seen as a freebie - so more signed up in the masked paired village).

Such is the difficulty in doing mask studies.

 

[jrfsp]

Bloomberg - Are you a robot?

 

[Quickstatus]

The problem with the Bloomberg article is that it is an interview without any data to underpin the opinion of the CMA of IATA.
SouthWest and AA CEO says masks don't add anything due to the HEPA filters onboard. Then other airlines say mask

If IATA has data, lets see it.

 

[Quickstatus]

"Especially countries that have also used AstraZeneca, as [it's] less effective than the mRNA vaccines at preventing infection with Omicron."

Only slightly and wrong for it to be couched in a way which suggests AZ has failed. But 2AZ+1mRNA is slightly better than 3 mRNA jabs.
Another thumbs up for mix and match??
And We are talking in the order of 20-30% hazard ratio compared to unvaccinated.

Tell Professor Blakeley he should read page 8 Table 3 in the latest paper from the Imperial College London rather than "theorising' off the top of his head

Tell him also to remind himself of the "Epidemiological triad" = The complex interplay between host, virus and the environment plays a part in the causation of disease. Its not just about the virus. Variabilities in study data abound because it is impossible to account for the confounding factors from that interplay. So whether something is 20% or 30% means very little in the scheme of things.

 

[Must...Fly!]

BBC News - Omicron up to 70% less likely to need hospital care

Omicron up to 70% less likely to need hospital care

However, a major report showed the protection from catching Covid started to wane 10 weeks after the booster.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[drron]

Omicron and South Africa.Waning already.

 

[Quickstatus]

Interesting scenario

Pregnant lady 38 weeks
Her daughter age 5 tested positive to Covid 2 days ago. But she is (currently) negative
She wants to be delivered ASAP

Yes or No? // Discuss

 

[Lynda2475]

What is the assumed benefit of early delivery? Assuming mum is vaccinated isnt bub safer inside than out? Who would want to bring a newborn home to a positive unvaccinated sibling? Bub would need to stay in hospital until sibling no longer contagious.