Neverending Covid-19 Coronavirus

[RenegadeMonster]

CDC reviewing new data that suggests coronavirus variant identified in UK could be more deadly

The coronavirus pandemic has brought countries to a standstill. Meanwhile, vaccinations have already started in some countries as cases continue to rise. Follow here for the latest.

www.cnn.com

2021 better not be heading in the same direction as 2020.

Not only is the UK variant more, it may be more deadly.

So most of the new variants detected are appearing to be more contagious. I hope they are all not more deadly as well. Especially ones like the South African strain which initial reports say the vaccine may not be effective on.

 

[RenegadeMonster]

News

St. Louis, Missouri breaking and local news updates from KMOV News 4

www.kmov.com

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (KCTV/KMOV) -- The Missouri House of Representatives has canceled next week's session due to rising COVID-19 cases two days after voting down a measure requiring masks and social distancing.

Missouri House Speaker Rob Vescovo, Missouri House Speaker Pro Tem John Wiemann and other leadership members in the House issued a joint statement on Thursday evening.

"Due to the rising number of COVID-19 cases in the building, we are exercising an abundance of caution to protect members, staff and visitors by canceling session next week," the statement reads. "Our goal is to return to work the following week."

 

[nolalady]

Pfizer has pressured regulators to declare its vials contain an “extra” dose of the vaccine and will now count them in deliveries, after frontline health workers found they could dispense six shots from one vial, instead of five.
A spokeswoman for the pharma giant, Amy Rose, explained that while the company would “fulfill our supply commitments in line with our existing agreements,” she said that those deals are “based on delivery of doses” themselves, rather than vials, the New York Times reported on Friday.
When doctors found they were able to pull one last dose than intended from Pfizer’s vials, some believed it would mean the 100 million doses the company has pledged to the US by March could actually stretch much further. Pfizer soon dispelled that notion, however, successfully lobbying the FDA to officially designate the extra shot in a label change earlier this month. It now says the additional doses will count toward its existing contracts, meaning fewer vials will be delivered than were previously expected.

No freebies! Pfizer to charge for ‘extra’ Covid-19 vaccine doses as doctors squeeze vials of every drop to inoculate more people

Pfizer has pressured regulators to declare its vials contain an “extra” dose of the vaccine and will now count them in deliveries, after frontline health workers found they could dispense six shots from one vial, instead of five.

www.rt.com

 

[nolalady]

Very long article, but it is very good. Talks about the new variants of the virus and how it's adapted to fool our immune system better.

A variant of the coronavirus from Brazil also popped up in Japan in early January. Evidence is also mounting that the Brazilian and South African mutants can infect people who have already had COVID-19.

That would mean that there is either no immunity to the new variants, or that such immunity is weak. Future research will have to determine whether that is the case. No one knows yet what the implications of the mutations are.

What we do know, though, is that the combination of the one common mutation together with certain other changes in the genome has produced variants that are highly contagious. Is this the coronavirus of the future? Will each variant now mutate in ways to make it more contagious, creating deadly perfection?

"I think that the virus is just finding its optimal configuration”, says Cillian De Gascun, director of the National Virus Reference Laboratory at University College Dublin. That the same mutation occurred in all the variants independently of each other suggests "that this is a configuration that the virus likes,” says De Gascun. "And there's no reason to believe that it won't become more efficient over time.”

Can We Stop a Super Coronavirus?

 

[RenegadeMonster]

CNN had an opinion piece this morning that Biden is facing possibly the most crucial time of his presidency within his first week.

America is divided, and he needs work on united us. However, the push for an additional stimulus package and not bringing a quick end to COVID restrictions are doing the exact oposite.

Republicans are not on board with an additional stimulus package to increase stimulus payments by $1400. And they will fight it tooth and nail and democrats will have to force it through. Which will not look good to Republican Voters. They of course are fine when the Republicans play this game, but not when the Democrats do it.

When it comes to COVID, people want this to be over. They want life to return to normal. All restrictions on businesses and crowd sizes lifted. Any type of action prolonging the response to the pandemic with continuing restrictions, adding new restrictions and travel bans will not be popular. People just want this to end and go back to normal. And the honestly believe that we can go back to normal at the snap of our fingers. They don't think about the strain on the hospitals.

 

[debianlinux]

Republicans are not on board with an additional stimulus package to increase stimulus payments by $1400. And they will fight it tooth and nail and democrats will have to force it through. Which will not look good to Republican Voters.

Republican voters A) have already proven to be the minority across the board so those votes don't really matter? and B) aren't coming over to the other side anyway. The real question is how it plays with Democratic Voters.

 

[nolalady]

Republican voters A) have already proven to be the minority across the board so those votes don't really matter? and B) aren't coming over to the other side anyway. The real question is how it plays with Democratic Voters.

Republican VOTERS were largely FOR stimulus checks. Republican POLITICIANS are largely against stimulus checks.
As for the voters:
Around a third of registered voters in the U.S. (34%) identify as independents, while 33% identify as Democrats and 29% identify as Republicans, according to a Center analysis of Americans’ partisan identification based on surveys of more than 12,000 registered voters in 2018 and 2019.

Most independents in the U.S. lean toward one of the two major parties. When taking independents’ partisan leanings into account, 49% of all registered voters either identify as Democrats or lean to the party, while 44% identify as Republicans or lean to the GOP.

What the 2020 electorate looks like by party, race and ethnicity, age, education and religion

What does the 2020 electorate look like politically, demographically and religiously as the race enters its final days?

www.pewresearch.org

One third of Americans are not registered as either party. Honestly, it's these hearts and minds that the dems really need to focus on. There is a large group of swing voters that have no party affiliation, which I think is a good thing. But this can complicate projections into the future (which again is fine with me). It's not whether a republican is going to come over to a side, it's whether the dems have enough of a salient point to get independent voters to vote for them.

The majority of the American people want more stimulus checks, higher minimum wages and medical insurance that is not tied to your employer. When you look at the people who don't, they are largely older and wealthier than most others. Republican voters that were less well off have supported stimulus checks. This is not a dem v. rep issue---it's a rich v. poor issue.

From Pew Research:


Following the passage of a second stimulus package in December in response to the impact of the coronavirus outbreak, 79% of U.S. adults say another economic assistance package will be necessary. Just 20% say another package will not be needed.

As was the case in opinions about the previous coronavirus aid package, higher-income adults – particularly higher-income Republicans – are less likely than those with lower family incomes to view more coronavirus aid as necessary.

Most Americans say another round of COVID-19 economic relief will be needed

Following the passage of a second stimulus package in December, 79% of U.S. adults say another economic assistance package will be necessary.

www.pewresearch.org

 

[yukbon]

One thing I noticed right away from this segment is mandates. If not required and left to personal choice, most Americans will not comply.

I would am curious about the use/compliance/recidivism rates with condoms and STDs -- at least in the '90s it was a concerted "WRAP IT UP OR YOU GET HERPAGONASYPHAIDS" that helped those stats improve. Which we definitely haven't been seeing that kind of media impact.

 

[nolalady]

I would am curious about the use/compliance/recidivism rates with condoms and STDs -- at least in the '90s it was a concerted "WRAP IT UP OR YOU GET HERPAGONASYPHAIDS" that helped those stats improve. Which we definitely haven't been seeing that kind of media impact.

It's because we had and still have a CDC STI office that has a national strategy including PSAs. The CDC's pandemic response office isn't there anymore. The guy that was running it finally had enough of the Trump administration in 2018 and resigned. Instead of filling the position, the CDC didn't fill the position, got rid of the few other pandemic response team jobs, and stopped funding the office. We had no national plan for this because we had no national office with national guidance on pandemics.

 

[RenegadeMonster]

Chicago Public Schools are supposed to go back to in person learning next week. However, the Chicago Teachers Union is refusing to go back saying conditions are not safe.

It will be interesting to see what happens here.

Biden signed an executive order yesterday to get kids back in the classroom as soon as possible. He says all the teachers he has spoken to want resume in person learning, they just want conditions to be safe.

The school districts are saying they have done everything possible to make the environment as safe as possible. Teachers disagree. Many schools don't have air circulation or air filtration like office buildings.

 

[RenegadeMonster]

https://sanjosespotlight.com/south-bay-hospital-wont-receive-more-covid-19-vaccines-after-it-allowed-affluent-school-district-to-skip-the-line/

As first reported by San José Spotlight on Friday, Los Gatos Union School District Superintendent Paul Johnson emailed teachers and staff telling them they can sign up to get a vaccine at Good Samaritan at the behest of the hospital’s chief operating officer.

Educators are not yet allowed to receive vaccines in Santa Clara County. The county follows state guidelines for vaccine distribution and barely has enough doses to vaccinate health care workers and people 75 and older. Good Samaritan itself reported to the county it is only vaccinating health care workers due to the shortage in vaccine supply.

Yet the staff at the Los Gatos school district, one of the most affluent in the county, was allowed to skip the line and sign up for vaccines as a reward for helping raise money for meals for hospital workers. Johnson encouraged teachers and staff to pretend to be health care workers when they sign up for a vaccine appointment — at the behest of the hospital’s top leadership.

 

[nolalady]

This is an interesting article. Basically, we should have ratcheted up a response the minute we had our first asymptomatic case. It was us largely ignoring that asymptomatic case spread was possible that lead us to where we are now.

Jan. 24 marks the one-year anniversary of a momentous but largely unnoticed event in the history of the Covid-19 pandemic: the first published report of an individual infected with the novel coronavirus who never developed symptoms. This early confirmation of asymptomatic infection should have set off alarm bells and profoundly altered our response to the gathering storm. But it did not. One year later we are still paying the price for this catastrophic blunder.

At least one of three people infected with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19, do not develop symptoms. That’s the conclusion of a review we just published in the Annals of Internal Medicine. It summarizes the results of 61 studies with more than 1.8 million people.

But during much of the pandemic, fierce resistance — and even outright denialism — in acknowledging this not-so-typical disease pattern led to ineffective testing practices that allowed the pandemic to spin out of control.

The day we let Covid-19 spin out of control

There is no time machine that would allow us to return to January 24, 2020. But it is not too late to recognize the blunder about asymptomatic infection and aggressively begin testing practices to help end the pandemic.

www.statnews.com

 

[nolalady]

And now a study telling us what we already knew:

We find that policies that limit evictions are found to reduce COVID-19 infections by 3.8% and reduce deaths by 11%. Moratoria on utility disconnections reduce COVID-19 infections by 4.4% and mortality rates by 7.4%. Had such policies been in place across all counties (i.e., adopted as federal policy) from early March 2020 through the end of November 2020, our estimated counterfactuals show that policies that limit evictions could have reduced COVID-19 infections by 14.2% and deaths by 40.7%. For moratoria on utility disconnections, COVID-19 infections rates could have been reduced by 8.7% and deaths by 14.8%. Housing precarity policies that prevent eviction and utility disconnections have been effective mechanisms for decreasing both COVID-19 infections and deaths.

https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w28394/w28394.pdf?utm_campaign=PANTHEON_STRIPPED&amp%3Butm_medium=PANTHEON_STRIPPED&amp%3Butm_source=PANTHEON_STRIPPED

 

[ranbalam]

So, I have a coworker that is pretty upset about the vaccine. According to the research he's done, 'they' are injecting software into us, and that the goal is to eventually turn us all into part computer/part human. Each year the vaccine will be a system update. I can't believe he believes it...and yet he's firmly planted on this stance.

And, at least half my workplace is now proudly anti-vax, and they make sure everyone knows it.

 

[dhodo]

Chicago Public Schools are supposed to go back to in person learning next week. However, the Chicago Teachers Union is refusing to go back saying conditions are not safe.

It will be interesting to see what happens here.

Biden signed an executive order yesterday to get kids back in the classroom as soon as possible. He says all the teachers he has spoken to want resume in person learning, they just want conditions to be safe.

The school districts are saying they have done everything possible to make the environment as safe as possible. Teachers disagree. Many schools don't have air circulation or air filtration like office buildings.

From what I heard yesterday, it seems like they want the option to keep teaching virtual until they can get vaccinated, which I think Illinois just started allowing teachers to do. Seems reasonable to me.

My wife doesn't have a union and we can only hope they start letting teachers get vaccinated soon.

 

[AnthonyI]

I just wanted to drop in a couple thoughts coming from the other end of this crap. If some of you missed it, I tested positive on Jan 15th after feeling like complete crap for a good 8-10 days. I ended up going into immediate care to see what was what and not only tested positive but also had a touch of pneumonia in one lung. I was treated for the pneumonia and sent along my merry way with the usual COVID instructions since I wasn't really having any issues breathing and my O2 levels were ok.

I'm thankful it wasn't more severe and I'm starting to feel like myself again minus some lingering coughing from the pneumonia. That being said, it was terrible for the state it was in, you literally have 0 energy to do anything, you're body just shuts down in terms of functionality, not due to not being able to, but just not wanting to. I've been sick before and a few days in bed seem like an eternity, not with COVID, you check out. The other annoying part was the fever, just would not break until about 7 days in.

I'm actually posting because as I continue to read about people ignoring the CDC recommendations, not wearing masks and so on, my frustration is now much higher than it was pre-COVID. I'm diabetic, my family and I have been extremely careful during this pandemic. I work from home, my kids all work from home or have on-line classes, my wife is a front line worker who gears up to the teeth every day..........and yet, I got this from somewhere. It's just that much more disheartening that even if you take every precaution it's still possible, some small oversight or slip up, I guess I just sit here wondering how this is ever going to pass with so many ignoring it, leaving a huge group open to the virus and that the virus still seems to find a way.

Like I said, I'm glad I'm on the upswing, I know a lot of people aren't, but I'm feeling less warm and fuzzy than I did before testing positive now. Please continue to do the best you can to be safe and God willing this will pass at some point.

 

[dhodo]

I just wanted to drop in a couple thoughts coming from the other end of this crap. If some of you missed it, I tested positive on Jan 15th after feeling like complete crap for a good 8-10 days. I ended up going into immediate care to see what was what and not only tested positive but also had a touch of pneumonia in one lung. I was treated for the pneumonia and sent along my merry way with the usual COVID instructions since I wasn't really having any issues breathing and my O2 levels were ok.

I'm thankful it wasn't more severe and I'm starting to feel like myself again minus some lingering coughing from the pneumonia. That being said, it was terrible for the state it was in, you literally have 0 energy to do anything, you're body just shuts down in terms of functionality, not due to not being able to, but just not wanting to. I've been sick before and a few days in bed seem like an eternity, not with COVID, you check out. The other annoying part was the fever, just would not break until about 7 days in.

I'm actually posting because as I continue to read about people ignoring the CDC recommendations, not wearing masks and so on, my frustration is now much higher than it was pre-COVID. I'm diabetic, my family and I have been extremely careful during this pandemic. I work from home, my kids all work from home or have on-line classes, my wife is a front line worker who gears up to the teeth every day..........and yet, I got this from somewhere. It's just that much more disheartening that even if you take every precaution it's still possible, some small oversight or slip up, I guess I just sit here wondering how this is ever going to pass with so many ignoring it, leaving a huge group open to the virus and that the virus still seems to find a way.

Like I said, I'm glad I'm on the upswing, I know a lot of people aren't, but I'm feeling less warm and fuzzy than I did before testing positive now. Please continue to do the best you can to be safe and God willing this will pass at some point.

Glad you are feeling better and good to see you back!

 

[dbarila]

So, I have a coworker that is pretty upset about the vaccine. According to the research he's done, 'they' are injecting software into us, and that the goal is to eventually turn us all into part computer/part human. Each year the vaccine will be a system update. I can't believe he believes it...and yet he's firmly planted on this stance.

And, at least half my workplace is now proudly anti-vax, and they make sure everyone knows it.

When did adults suddenly become so dumb?

 

[debianlinux]

When did adults suddenly become so dumb?

Stupidity is the real killer virus at large, here.

 

[nolalady]

So, I have a coworker that is pretty upset about the vaccine. According to the research he's done, 'they' are injecting software into us, and that the goal is to eventually turn us all into part computer/part human. Each year the vaccine will be a system update. I can't believe he believes it...and yet he's firmly planted on this stance.

And, at least half my workplace is now proudly anti-vax, and they make sure everyone knows it.

Didn't you tell him that they're injecting people with...a fever....a fever that needs more cowbell??!!

Conspiracy theorists share schematic for “5G chip” they claim is implanted in COVID-19 vaccines – only it's actually for the Boss Metal Zone

As soon as it's your turn, you'll have op-amps and 1n4148 diodes injected straight into your bloodstream, apparently

www.guitarworld.com

From what I heard yesterday, it seems like they want the option to keep teaching virtual until they can get vaccinated, which I think Illinois just started allowing teachers to do. Seems reasonable to me.

My wife doesn't have a union and we can only hope they start letting teachers get vaccinated soon.

While I think that teachers should be on the list of essential workers to be vaccinated, they are still going to run the risk of infection until we figure out how to vaccinate kids. It's looking like this won't happen until next year:

Clinical trials on children 11 and younger "will take much longer, because we have to age de-escalate and start at a lower dose. So we should not anticipate clinical data in 2021, but more in 2022," Bancel said, according to Business Insider.

Moderna’s clinical trials for 12- to 17-year-olds started 4 weeks ago, but the company is having trouble getting enough participants, said Moncef Slaoui, PhD, the scientific head of Operation Warp Speed, the U.S. government’s vaccine effort. That could delay FDA approval, he said.

COVID-19 Vaccines

Vaccines are seen as one of the best ways to stop COVID-19. Learn more about the types of vaccines, including the newly approved Novavax.

www.webmd.com

Please tell your wife to stay safe.


Also @AnthonyI I'm so glad you're doing better. My heart goes out to you and your family.