COVID 19 GLOBAL

[Nightcrawler]

3 hours ago, Stillearly said:

And she will probably be as thick as shit, and won't need to have a conversation with her😜😁😁😁

[Mr. Smooth]

9 hours ago, KhunDon said:

First death in the UK from Omicron. 
No doubt more will follow soon. 😟
 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-59639007.amp

I read the story to that link and there is not nearly enough information made available in the article to determine the person's death.

It states that the person died "with" Omicron, and not "because" of Omicron. We are not told how old the person was or any other health ailments they may have had or if they were obese.

The South African doctors who I have seen on tv talking about the Omicron variant, where all this to have allegedly started, have said that even if it is more contagious than Delta, it is a much less severe strain, more mild in symptoms and people recover more quickly.

I know it is still in the early going with this variant, but it is the sloppy reporting about it, as was the case with this BBC online article, that just leaves out too much necessary information for the public to have a well informed opinion.

It reveals yet again, the disconnect between those entrusted with reporting on a story to inform the readers using the traditional who, what, where, why and how that accompanied such articles in the past with this new wave style that permeates journalism today.

Readers that have even a halfway decent degree of critical thinking skills, are left with too many unanswered questions

[Krapow]

Every day there's more evidence coming from SA that this variant is quite a bit 'milder'.

Also, the UK Politicians and media keep banging on about the population of SA is younger than the UK, but completely ignore the fact that the UK population id far, far more vaccinated.

Caution yes, whipping up fear and hysteria, no!

From the BBC earlier -

Early figures from South Africa, where the Omicron variant was first identified, suggest the new strain causes less serious illness and death than previous waves of the pandemic, an expert based in the country says.

Shabir Madhi, professor of vaccinology at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, tells us this is despite the fact that the new variant is far more transmissible.

He predicted that the number of people who ended up in hospital in South Africa would be nowhere near that of earlier stages of the outbreak.

"As an example, yesterday, there were about 20,000 cases that were reported and there were about 25 people that died of Covid-19. During the course of the Delta variant, when there were 20,000 cases being reported in South Africa, the number of people dying each day was between 250 and 300," he told Newsday on the BBC World Service.

Other experts have been cautioning that we should not read too much into this early data from South Africa

[fforest]

[lazarus]

[fygjam]

2 hours ago, Mr. Smooth said:

I read the story to that link and there is not nearly enough information made available in the article to determine the person's death.

It states that the person died "with" Omicron, and not "because" of Omicron. We are not told how old the person was or any other health ailments they may have had or if they were obese.

The South African doctors who I have seen on tv talking about the Omicron variant, where all this to have allegedly started, have said that even if it is more contagious than Delta, it is a much less severe strain, more mild in symptoms and people recover more quickly.

I know it is still in the early going with this variant, but it is the sloppy reporting about it, as was the case with this BBC online article, that just leaves out too much necessary information for the public to have a well informed opinion.

It reveals yet again, the disconnect between those entrusted with reporting on a story to inform the readers using the traditional who, what, where, why and how that accompanied such articles in the past with this new wave style that permeates journalism today.

Readers that have even a halfway decent degree of critical thinking skills, are left with too many unanswered questions

Perhaps the story was just reporting what the prime minister had said.

Oh wait, the story was just reporting what the prime minister said.

Quote

At least one person in the UK has died with the Omicron coronavirus variant, the prime minister has said.

Guess my half way decent degree of critical thinking skills must have kicked in to pick that up.

 

[fforest]

 

[Nightcrawler]

15 minutes ago, fforest said:

 

Obviously an imposter and not the real Santa Claus. He should be placed in irons and sentenced to life imprisonment with no possibility of parole. 

[fygjam]

1 hour ago, Nightcrawler said:

Obviously an imposter and not the real Santa Claus. He should be placed in irons and sentenced to life imprisonment with no possibility of parole. 

Where's our defender of fraudulent Sanas?

 

[Painter]

Saw this earlier. Yes, it was on fakebook, so I offer no guarantees to whether it is 100% accurate,  but it makes sense to me. The poster was having an argument over the bigger picture regarding hospitalisation numbers with an anti everything covidiot.

I'm sure someone will have a smart arse reply as to why this is wrong...

[Painter]

Another vaccine in development

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/12/14/first-needle-less-covid-vaccine-could-work-against-variants/

[john luke]

19 minutes ago, Painter said:

Another vaccine in development

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/12/14/first-needle-less-covid-vaccine-could-work-against-variants/

Unfortunately it is behind a paywall.

[fygjam]

26 minutes ago, john luke said:

Unfortunately it is behind a paywall.

Best I can do

 

[Painter]

33 minutes ago, john luke said:

Unfortunately it is behind a paywall.

Apologies, but it is as @fygjam says above

[forcebwithu]

57 minutes ago, john luke said:

Unfortunately it is behind a paywall.

A trick that can be used on a lot of the paywall sites is to stop the page from fully loading by clicking on the X icon. If you stop the page load quickly enough at the right time, the text will have loaded but the script that informs you need to pay to read will not have loaded.

[forcebwithu]

1 hour ago, Painter said:

Saw this earlier. Yes, it was on fakebook, so I offer no guarantees to whether it is 100% accurate,  but it makes sense to me. The poster was having an argument over the bigger picture regarding hospitalisation numbers with an anti everything covidiot.

I'm sure someone will have a smart arse reply as to why this is wrong...

What's the point they're trying to make with the image? The image by itself could be interpreted a couple of ways, so would be helpful if you could supply the argument being made.

[Painter]

3 minutes ago, forcebwithu said:

What's the point they're trying to make with the image? The image by itself could be interpreted a couple of ways, so would be helpful if you could supply the argument being made.

Something to do with why there are more vaccinated in hospital than unvaccinated.... I think. It was a couple of days ago now, and whilst I'd written the post, I hadn't clicked save!

[fygjam]

28 minutes ago, forcebwithu said:

A trick that can be used on a lot of the paywall sites is to stop the page from fully loading by clicking on the X icon. If you stop the page load quickly enough at the right time, the text will have loaded but the script that informs you need to pay to read will not have loaded.

I use a screen copy program activated by a hot key.

Hitting the copy hot key freezes the screen then I can take an image copy of the portion I want.

 

[lazarus]

Dr. Gandhi is my local UCSF 'go to' source for straightforward Covid information. Her insights are valuable.

This OP-Ed piece looks at the future of Covid globally and the steps needed to control the disease to the point where we can all 'live with it.'

If not, we will face mutation after mutation, and surge after surge -- millions more will die and the global economy will be taken to its knees. 

. . .

Monica Gandhi and Michael Wilkes: A year with COVID vaccines and we’re not even close to ending global pandemic

https://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/openforum/article/Monica-Gandhi-and-Michael-Wilkes-A-year-with-16699634.php

Tuesday, Dec. 14 marks the one-year anniversary of the first COVID-19 vaccine given out in the United States. Since that time, over 8 billion doses have been administered around the globe. And yet only about 7% of those doses have been given out in low-income countries. The recent omicron variant, first reported in South Africa at a time when it was already spreading in other continents, emerged in the face of this global vaccine inequity; South Africa had a 25% vaccination rate in the country at the time of the variant’s discovery.

Essential new treatments for those stricken with COVID may be being denied to those living in poorer nations. Wealthy countries alone will soon have access to new oral antiviral therapeutics, one of which, Paxlovid, has the potential to protect the unvaccinated at risk for severe disease at a rate of approaching that of vaccination (89% protection from hospitalization and death). The world has not committed yet to expanding their use to low-income countries.

Advocacy to resolve these deeply immoral inequities can’t be left to the World Health Organization and Doctors Without Borders alone. And so a collective of health care providers, researchers and students at academic medical centers around the United States — of which we are a part — has formed to work toward the goal of global equity in COVID-19 vaccines and treatments. We call ourselves White Coats for Global COVID Equity , and we believe that by urgently taking the following six steps we can immediately help end one of the greatest threats to global health in more than a century.

Waive patents for vaccines

Waiving patent rights temporarily on vaccines allows countries with limited resources to manufacture vaccines on their own. This is currently not happening. Instead, pharmaceutical companies that hold patents on COVID-19 vaccines continue to reap billions of dollars in profit. A World Trade Organization provision to waive patents during medical emergencies has existed since 1995. The U.S. government has indicated its support to temporarily waive patents. In October 2020, India and South Africa formally proposed to the WTO General Council that intellectual property provisions for vaccines be temporarily waived.

This request was denied.

Waiving patents for COVID-19 vaccines needs to happen now, with additional support for technology transfer. Patent waivers, especially for Moderna, which benefited from NIH vaccine experts and taxpayer money, are a moral, ethical and public health imperative.

Increase vaccine manufacturing capacity in high-income countries

Pharmaceutical companies are not producing vaccine to sufficiently supply the entire world. The U.S. could encourage public-private partnerships through voluntary licensing agreements or invoke the Defense Production Act to increase manufacturing capacity. Equally important is increased production of materials like the lipid particles encasing the mRNA in the mRNA vaccines.

Donate surplus vaccine doses

The World Health Organization estimates that countries in the G7 are hoarding at least 600 million doses of vaccine. Doctors without Borders estimates that 241 million doses will be wasted in these countries by the end of 2021 due to reaching expiration dates. Just in the U.S. alone, millions of doses have been thrown out after reaching expiration. Donations have been slow and far below promised volumes.

Support coordinated vaccine distribution strategies to maximize impact

The U.S. should work with COVAX — a global initiative to make COVID-19 vaccine access universal — and with other relevant agenciesand authorities to distribute vaccine doses in a way that responds to evolving local needs and maximizes impact. The U.S. should also provide resources to support the health infrastructure needed to provide vaccines.

Encourage philanthropy from the corporate world

We need to better encourage vaccine donations from high-income countries and pharmaceutical companies. A key component of this effort will be facilitating donations from wealthy companies to purchase vaccine supplies needy nations. The five Big Tech companies — Apple, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Facebook — had a combined income of $1.2 trillion during the first year of the pandemic. Even a $25 billion investment (just 2% of that revenue) for Moderna doses would massively boost supplies for the world.

Avoid international travel bans and instead support early detection

Travel bans offer only short-term public health benefits — and only if they are applied universally to all places where variants of concern have been identified. More often they result in inappropriate blame and devastating economic effects and effectively punish scientific cooperation. The most appropriate strategy to mitigate the impact of new variants is to expand COVID-19 testing at ports of exitand entry and in high-risk communities; redouble efforts to improve global vaccination rates to prevent the emergence of future variants; and support global surveillance for new variants.

The points above aren’t temporary fixes: They will be applicable as future COVID-19 variants, vaccines and treatments emerge. As we celebrate the anniversary of the COVID-19 vaccine being given out in the United States, we are faced with the stark reminder that the world is little closer to its goal of ending the pandemic worldwide than it was a year ago.

U.N. Secretary General António Guterres said in February that “vaccine equity is the biggest moral test before the global community” at this time. Doctors, researchers and public health experts like us across the country are uniting to lend our voices to that fight. We hope you’ll join us.

[lazarus]

Big Brother is watching you sneeze...

Coronavirus: South Korea to use facial recognition tech to track cases

https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/east-asia/article/3159471/coronavirus-south-korea-use-facial-recognition-tech-track-cases

-- The pilot project in Bucheon will use AI algorithms to analyze footage gathered by more than 10,000 CCTV cameras and track an infected person’s movements

-- The initiative will become operational in January despite concerns about the invasion of privacy

[Mr. Smooth]

17 hours ago, fygjam said:

Perhaps the story was just reporting what the prime minister had said.

Oh wait, the story was just reporting what the prime minister said.

Guess my half way decent degree of critical thinking skills must have kicked in to pick that up.

 

Hey fyg, quoting my "popular post" to somehow attempt to knock me down a few pegs? IDK, sure looked like a lot of other bm's seemed to agree with my main point on that article being shabby reporting.

But it's always something, ain't it? I bet if you went out for dinner to a 5 star steakhouse and had a t-bone prepared to perfection, you would walk out complaining that the pads of butter for the bread were too small.

 

[Painter]

Possible good news from South Africa

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/12/14/omicron-less-severe-covid-delta-variant-two-vaccine-jabs-give/

Omicron is likely to be 23 per cent less severe than delta with vaccines still offering good protection, the first major real-world study into the new variant has shown.

A study of more than 78,000 omicron cases in South Africa recorded between Nov 15 and Dec 7 also found that the Pfizer jab still offers 70 per cent protection against hospitalisation after two doses.

The research showed that, compared with the first Wuhan strain, the virus led to 29 per cent fewer admissions to hospital, with 23 per cent fewer hospital admissions compared with delta.

Far fewer people also needed intensive care from omicron, with just five per cent of cases admitted to ICU compared with 22 per cent of delta patients. 

Experts at Discovery Health, South Africa’s largest private health insurer, who compiled the data, said that although there were high numbers of breakthrough infections in people who had been vaccinated, cases appeared to be less severe, which they said was also backed up by anecdotal evidence from doctors on the ground. 

Speaking at a briefing on Tuesday morning, Ryan Noach, the chief executive officer at Discovery Health, said: “You can see very clearly that in this omicron way the adult population has a 29 per cent lower risk of admission.

“If you look at the proportion of patients admitted to high care in ICU for severe illness, across the first three waves, the proportion of patients in high care and ICU collectively exceeds 30 per cent, goes up to 35 per cent, whereas you can see in this omicron period, only about 13 per cent.

“So the data is correlating with the anecdotal feedback. And so it's this early point we believe there is hope that the severity is lower.

“What is clear is that vaccinated individuals are experiencing milder infections in general. We are hearing it’s primarily the unvaccinated that are requiring admission and oxygen in hospital.

“You can see that the excess natural deaths are still significantly lower than in previous waves, despite the rapid growth in the number of infections during this omicron period.”

The study also found that children were much less likely to test positive than adults but that they were at a 20 per cent greater risk of hospitalisation. However, most cases in children were mild, with symptoms such as a sore throat, nasal congestion and fever resolving in two to three days. 

Discovery Health also teamed up with the South Africa Medical Research Council (SAMRC) to provide real-world insights into the Pfizer- BionTech vaccine effectiveness against omicron.

They found that effectiveness against infection dropped from 80 per cent to 33 per cent but offered 70 per cent protection against hospital admissions, which was maintained across age groups and chronic conditions. At the time of the study there had been no deaths. 

'Heartening and encouraging results' 

Prof Glenda Geray of SAMRC said: “ I think it's very heartening to see these results and release that vaccine effectiveness is still greater than 50 per cent. And so I think it's encouraging and again, the issue of boosting strategy may also mitigate the reduction in vaccine effectiveness.

“Vaccination is the single most important intervention. It is true we are seeing a linkage between the infections we are seeing and hospitilisations. The question is, is this due to a less virulent virus, or is this due to high levels of prior infection and vaccination?

“I think it’s too early for us to make that call but we can say that prior infection and vaccination are impacting on the reduction of admission and serious illness. And we’re seeing a shorter duration in hospitalisation. People who have been vaccinated are staying in hospital just 2.4 days.

“Most people who are in hospital are unvaccinated. We should be cautiously optimistic but we should continue to be vigilant.”

The study also showed that the odds of reinfection were lower than during Delta, suggesting that people who have suffered a delta infection may be better protected. 

The researchers said that although excess natural deaths had increased in South Africa in recent weeks, they were still significantly lower than in previous waves.

 

Apologies for font size....

[Stillearly]

Still think the govt is right ( for once ) to be cautious... even if people aren't dying, if more people are catching it , it's going to be a major disruption to businesses and the supply chain leading up to Christmas 

[Painter]

21 minutes ago, Stillearly said:

Still think the govt is right ( for once ) to be cautious... even if people aren't dying, if more people are catching it , it's going to be a major disruption to businesses and the supply chain leading up to Christmas 

Fully agree. Better to be safe than sorry, imo.

[lazarus]

19 minutes ago, Stillearly said:

Still think the govt is right ( for once ) to be cautious... even if people aren't dying, if more people are catching it , it's going to be a major disruption to businesses and the supply chain leading up to Christmas 

Same here in California...we've kept Covid infections low for awhile.
New infections are on the rise...the new mandates will help keep it in control.

. . .

California’s indoor mask mandate begins tomorrow. Here are the new requirements

https://www.sfchronicle.com/health/article/California-mask-mandate-dates-and-details-What-16699308.php

Officials announced these changes:

• All people must wear masks in public settings in California, regardless of vaccination status.

• The state will require people attending mega-events attended by 1,000 or more that don’t require COVID-19 vaccination to show proof of a negative test taken within one day for an antigen test, and within two days for a PCR test. Previously, the window was 72 hours.

• The state will recommend that travelers returning to California get tested for the coronavirus three to five days after arrival.

. . .