Neverending Covid-19 Coronavirus

RenegadeMonster said:
Just heard a report that we are 2 to 4 weeks depending on your state for when vaccine supply outstripes demand.

Once we hit this point, we have a long and hard road ahead to get vaccinations to the level needed for herd immunity. The people remaining to be vaccinated will be very difficult to convince to get vaccinated. For example, every Republican I know from my own family will absolutely not get the shot. There is no reasoning with them.
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Like more supply than demand? Damn... wish we were in that boat!

The authorities here just approved the Astra Zeneca to over 45's (that one is available separately from the others because they want to give people the opportunity to make an informed choice). Basically, that's the least desirable vaccine right now. But that also means I'm finally eligible and I want one (because I can do math). Anyway, I tried to get an appointment but the slots flew away before I got up (and I get up early).... hopefully more space opens up in a few days.

Currently, Pfizer and Moderna is restricted to people above 60, health care, essential workers and people with serious aggravating factors.

And we're all on a 16 week schedule for 2 doses, because why the fuck not (though that may pay off in the long run in terms of longer lasting immunity, but that is theoretical).
 
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@Turbo you don't see patients do you?
I was talking to one of my coworkers on the phone yesterday. She usually takes a couple shifts a month to keep her license. She said that over the past year, she mainly worked with COVID patients. She said that the one trend she noticed in all of them was that the D-Dimer was elevated. I looked into the biological mechanism behind this and found this:

Furthermore, it seems likely that extravascular pulmonary fibrinolysis may be important in the etiology of elevated D-dimers during COVID-19 recovery. Given emerging data regarding post-infection long COVID-19 syndrome, as well as ongoing discussions regarding optimal duration of thromboprophylaxis in [patients with COVID-19] following discharge, defining these mechanisms may be of direct clinical relevance.”
www.healio.com

Elevated D-dimer levels common months after COVID-19 diagnosis

More than one-quarter of patients with COVID-19 had elevated D-dimer levels up to 4 months after diagnosis, according to study results published in Journal of Thrombosis and Haemostasis.“Elucidating the biological mechanisms responsible for sustained D-dimer increases may be of relevance in long...
www.healio.com www.healio.com

This is interesting because they've found elevated D-Dimer levels in about 40% of covid long haulers which makes me wonder about all of this. Eventually, once I stop with customer meetings, I would like to look a little more into these tests and understand a bit more about the whole clotting process.
 
I can partly understand the vaccine hesitancy, I just wish people that are hesitant had someone they trust to talk to them and maybe shed some light on it.
I read some interesting comparisons in the NYT morning newsletter a couple mornings ago....I'll paste parts below.

Guido Calabresi, a federal judge and Yale law professor, invented a little fable that he has been telling law students for more than three decades.​
He tells the students to imagine a god coming forth to offer society a wondrous invention that would improve everyday life in almost every way. It would allow people to spend more time with friends and family, see new places and do jobs they otherwise could not do. But it would also come with a high cost. In exchange for bestowing this invention on society, the god would choose 1,000 young men and women and strike them dead.​
Calabresi then asks: Would you take the deal? Almost invariably, the students say no. The professor then delivers the fable’s lesson: “What’s the difference between this and the automobile?”​
In truth, automobiles kill many more than 1,000 young Americans each year; the total U.S. death toll hovers at about 40,000 annually. We accept this toll, almost unthinkingly, because vehicle crashes have always been part of our lives. We can’t fathom a world without them.​
It’s a classic example of human irrationality about risk. We often underestimate large, chronic dangers, like car crashes or chemical pollution, and fixate on tiny but salient risks, like plane crashes or shark attacks.​
One way for a risk to become salient is for it to be new. That’s a core idea behind Calabresi’s fable. He asks students to consider whether they would accept the cost of vehicle travel if it did not already exist. That they say no underscores the very different ways we treat new risks and enduring ones.​
I have been thinking about the fable recently because of Covid-19. Covid certainly presents a salient risk: It’s a global pandemic that has upended daily life for more than a year. It has changed how we live, where we work, even what we wear on our faces. Covid feels ubiquitous.​
Fortunately, it is also curable. The vaccines have nearly eliminated death, hospitalization and other serious Covid illness among people who have received shots. The vaccines have also radically reduced the chances that people contract even a mild version of Covid or can pass it on to others.​
Yet many vaccinated people continue to obsess over the risks from Covid — because they are so new and salient.​
 
nolalady said:
@Turbo you don't see patients do you?
I was talking to one of my coworkers on the phone yesterday. She usually takes a couple shifts a month to keep her license. She said that over the past year, she mainly worked with COVID patients. She said that the one trend she noticed in all of them was that the D-Dimer was elevated. I looked into the biological mechanism behind this and found this:

Furthermore, it seems likely that extravascular pulmonary fibrinolysis may be important in the etiology of elevated D-dimers during COVID-19 recovery. Given emerging data regarding post-infection long COVID-19 syndrome, as well as ongoing discussions regarding optimal duration of thromboprophylaxis in [patients with COVID-19] following discharge, defining these mechanisms may be of direct clinical relevance.”
www.healio.com

Elevated D-dimer levels common months after COVID-19 diagnosis

More than one-quarter of patients with COVID-19 had elevated D-dimer levels up to 4 months after diagnosis, according to study results published in Journal of Thrombosis and Haemostasis.“Elucidating the biological mechanisms responsible for sustained D-dimer increases may be of relevance in long...
www.healio.com www.healio.com

This is interesting because they've found elevated D-Dimer levels in about 40% of covid long haulers which makes me wonder about all of this. Eventually, once I stop with customer meetings, I would like to look a little more into these tests and understand a bit more about the whole clotting process.
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No, I'm a biotech patent examiner. I used to work in a university lab but now I read and evaluate new biological inventions. Wide range of things really, though my colleagues usually seek my advice on things related to diagnostic methods, screening libraries and stuff like that.

Thanks for the link... that seems super interesting. I'm really curious about the mechanisms that underlie why people get different severities beyond just each or our immune systems (or is it just the differences in immunity?).
 
ranbalam said:
Unrelated to the Covid thread...I'm just always so interested to hear what other forum folks do for a living. We should have a list somewhere. There has to be such a wide range of occupations in our little vinyl-world corner of the internet.
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I recall a long-dead thread in the old forum called "Buddy System" that had a list of peoples more personal side that included occupation so people could see who was into what.
 
ranbalam said:
Unrelated to the Covid thread...I'm just always so interested to hear what other forum folks do for a living. We should have a list somewhere. There has to be such a wide range of occupations in our little vinyl-world corner of the internet.
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I don't specifically work on COVID nor am an immunologist but I am a biologist and currently doing a post doc at NIH. I do basic cell biology research.
 
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ranbalam said:
I can partly understand the vaccine hesitancy, I just wish people that are hesitant had someone they trust to talk to them and maybe shed some light on it.
I read some interesting comparisons in the NYT morning newsletter a couple mornings ago....I'll paste parts below.

Guido Calabresi, a federal judge and Yale law professor, invented a little fable that he has been telling law students for more than three decades.​
He tells the students to imagine a god coming forth to offer society a wondrous invention that would improve everyday life in almost every way. It would allow people to spend more time with friends and family, see new places and do jobs they otherwise could not do. But it would also come with a high cost. In exchange for bestowing this invention on society, the god would choose 1,000 young men and women and strike them dead.​
Calabresi then asks: Would you take the deal? Almost invariably, the students say no. The professor then delivers the fable’s lesson: “What’s the difference between this and the automobile?”​
In truth, automobiles kill many more than 1,000 young Americans each year; the total U.S. death toll hovers at about 40,000 annually. We accept this toll, almost unthinkingly, because vehicle crashes have always been part of our lives. We can’t fathom a world without them.​
It’s a classic example of human irrationality about risk. We often underestimate large, chronic dangers, like car crashes or chemical pollution, and fixate on tiny but salient risks, like plane crashes or shark attacks.​
One way for a risk to become salient is for it to be new. That’s a core idea behind Calabresi’s fable. He asks students to consider whether they would accept the cost of vehicle travel if it did not already exist. That they say no underscores the very different ways we treat new risks and enduring ones.​
I have been thinking about the fable recently because of Covid-19. Covid certainly presents a salient risk: It’s a global pandemic that has upended daily life for more than a year. It has changed how we live, where we work, even what we wear on our faces. Covid feels ubiquitous.​
Fortunately, it is also curable. The vaccines have nearly eliminated death, hospitalization and other serious Covid illness among people who have received shots. The vaccines have also radically reduced the chances that people contract even a mild version of Covid or can pass it on to others.​
Yet many vaccinated people continue to obsess over the risks from Covid — because they are so new and salient.​
Click to expand...
When getting my public health masters, I had to take a class on how behaviors affect health--and dug into the science behind behavioral change. What I learned is that humans have a really big problem with new things. We tend to act extremely illogical, especially when we talk about health behaviors, because we are ultimately a species that loves comfort zones and instant reward.
Turbo said:
No, I'm a biotech patent examiner. I used to work in a university lab but now I read and evaluate new biological inventions. Wide range of things really, though my colleagues usually seek my advice on things related to diagnostic methods, screening libraries and stuff like that.

Thanks for the link... that seems super interesting. I'm really curious about the mechanisms that underlie why people get different severities beyond just each or our immune systems (or is it just the differences in immunity?).
Click to expand...
And why is it that these long term symptoms seem to abate when a long hauler gets a Covid vaccine. How does the biology of this work? I would love to know.

@ranbalam I'm a health data analyst. I used to work in public health, but now I work in the private sector.
 
I just saw this post on a forum about Boston Public Transportation.

Speaking as someone who has been using the T on a regular basis (bus and light rail) for the past 6 months, is not “vaccinated” and will not be getting the “vaccine” (its not a vaccine it’s a gene therapy shot but regardless), YES IT IS SAFE TO GO BACK TO THE OFFICE AND YES IT IS SAFE TO RIDE THE T.

I’ll go one further... I am 100% willing to ride a jam packed standing room only train or bus without having to wear a stupid pointless face mask. They only make your breath exit the top, bottom, and sides of the mask. Oh not to mention that your breath will go RIGHT THROUGH THE MASK. COVID-19 particles are small enough to fit through microscopic openings in the mask. Those disposable blue ones you buy at CVS even say “do not protect against COVID-19”

My point? Employers and employees in Greater Boston -many if not most are left-leaning big government fawning Democrat sheeple- will “go back to normal” when they stop consuming so much “fear porn” from CNN, NBC, etc.

Look at TX. Look at FL. Now look at NY, CA, and MA. The only thing that spared us from more draconian measures is because we have a somewhat Republican governor.

The baseless fear is the only thing keeping life from going on as it used to. And that includes business as usual at and on the MBTA.
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Um, what? The covid vaccine is not a vaccine, it's a gene therapy!?

Also, everything else in that message pretty much sums how my republican leaning family members feel about COVID.
 
debianlinux said:
No one ever said face masks stop particles. The whole idea was to reduce aerolization of droplets. Masks work amazingly well at that.
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They also help at reducing "dosage" that anyone is exposed to - either the wearer or another person - and even better if both wear it.

One way I like to talk about infection with people around me is to say that it boils down to:

(1) Amount of virus you're exposed to VS. (2) how well your immune system can fight it

Basically, the higher the dose you're exposed to, the more equipped your immune system needs to be to fight it.

There's not much you can do about your immune system except getting vaccinated or maybe you're lucky because you have a cross-immunity from another coronavirus.

But you can totally control dosage. With masks and distancing.

link.springer.com

Masks Do More Than Protect Others During COVID-19: Reducing the Inoculum of SARS-CoV-2 to Protect the Wearer - Journal of General Internal Medicine

Although the benefit of population-level public facial masking to protect others during the COVID-19 pandemic has received a great deal of attention, we discuss for one of the first times the hypothesis that universal masking reduces the “inoculum” or dose of the virus for the mask-wearer...
link.springer.com link.springer.com
 
After 3 weeks being after pre registering, I finally got the text that it's mine turn in the the line to book an appointment to get my first shot.

I got the text at 2:30 yesterday afternoon. I could have gotten the shot at 4:45pm yesterday, but it would have required a 2 and a half to 3 hour drive to the mass vaccination location in Western Massachusetts. Not likely to have been able to make that appointment do the long drive.

Most of the appointments available were in the western part of the state. Not surprised. Less population, and less demand due to a lot of republicans out that way.

I was able to find 3 available appointments only a 30 minute drive away on thursday night. So I booked one for Thursday night after dinner.
 
The situation in India is freaking scary. I have a coworker from there and she already has multiple family members and friends who have died of COVID. And it's only speeding up.

They are getting over 300k positive new tests A DAY, and that's with the crackdown on the release of proper information. The risk of further mutation nullifying the existing vaccines is a real danger.
 
On the news this morning was a report that 8% of people getting their first dose are now skipping their second dose and not getting it at all.

A lot of this has to do with having a reaction to the shot, such as a sore arm, headache or sweats and chills after having the first shot or hearing about others feeling sick after their second shot. This is suspected of scaring many of those 8% from getting their second dose. The other possible explanation is people are unable to get the time off from work to get their second dose.

The latest poll shows 1/5th of Americans are adamant that they will not get the shot whatsoever.


Outside of the 1/5th of Americans who refuse to get the shot, the biggest thing holding back the rest of Americans now from getting the vaccine is the ability to get time off from work. Getting time off from work is not an option for millions. And unless this issue is addressed, we will struggle to get enough people vaccinated to reach herd immunity.
 
RenegadeMonster said:
The other possible explanation is people are unable to get the time off from work to get their second dose.
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Or that they don't want to have to take a day off for the side effects...so a day off for the shot and a day off for the side effects equals more than some people can make happen, unfortunately.

I'm not surprised by the number being 1/5 although I'm saddened by it. I know so many who have opted out. "Not enough research" is the main reason, but I have a couple "it's experimental gene therapy" people at my work.
 
Another reason listed during the 12:00 news hour as to why people are not getting there second dose is that some feel they are adequately protected after one dose and do not need to get the second.

8% is the number of people eligible to have received their second dose and their vaccine window has passed without them getting it. It's also noted that this percentage is growing.
 
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