Also nobody is bringing up schools. The fear was they would be super spreaders but the majority of data shows they are not. Elementary schools are particularly spread free. Kids and teachers are testing positive (usually from outside school activities) but there generally aren’t outbreaks and shutdowns. This despite being indoors for 7 hours a day. Distancing is often difficult/impossible but everyone wears a mask.
This is anecdotal, but in our family's experience, where relatives that are teachers kept teaching in person (South Texas), every one of them got COVID. The spread was teacher to teacher bringing it from outside (in all cases they traced it to a teacher that brought it to the teacher lunch room from a family gathering.) They had little, if any, kid to teacher transmission. The place where it DID go from kids to teachers was extracurricular activities. The football coaching staff got it from the students (they think on the bus to a game). All got sick and one coach died. The general consensus is possibly half of the students had it at some point, but nobody ever bothered to test their kids because then they'd have to quarantine for 15 days. Instead, they all had "allergies".
This is not very good. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/covid-19-survivors-diagnosed-neurological-mental-health-conditions/ TL;DR: "A third of COVID-19 survivors suffer from long-term brain or psychiatric disorders, scientists reported Tuesday. Researchers studied more than 236,000 patients, mostly in the U.S., finding that 34% of survivors were diagnosed with a neurological or psychological condition within six months of infection. Researchers call it the largest study to date on the connection between coronavirus and brain health. Researchers compared the electronic health records of COVID-19 patients to those who experienced other respiratory infections during the same time period. Taking into account underlying health characteristics, they found that those with coronavirus had a 44% higher chance of neurological or psychiatric diagnoses compared to patients recovering from influenza, ..." Maybe people are just stressed out from having a disease that required extreme quarantine, but it may be that the cirus substantially affects the central nervous system.
I think we have to be careful about these kinds of things. From the article, the majority of this is anxiety and mood disorders. But most people who have those (non-Covid-related) probably just never see a doctor about it. So here, they were specifically looking for these disorders and thus were able to diagnose them but lots of people probably have it regardless. Beyond that, I imagine that it's pretty normal for people who were hospitalized with a pandemic disease to have some anxiety or mood swings after. I wouldn't necessarily be concerned that it's connected to the virus - just the reality of being in the hospital or fearing for your life for a bit.
Doesn't 1/3 of the general population have neurological disorders such as anxiety or depression anyways?
I agree we have to be careful, and more than anything, time will tell. When I looked into it, the research looked like they were controlling for other circumstances pretty well, including the background increases in anxiety, etc. It's also a very large cohort of data, nearly a quarter million subjects. But yes, anxiety and mood disorders were leading the pack, and lots of circumstances can get to those symptoms.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021...ndia-hong-kong-flight-test-positive-for-covid 49 passengers on India-Hong Kong flight test positive for COVID As COVID-19 cases rise among passengers, Hong Kong introduces ban on all flights from India, as well as Pakistan and the Philippines.
more mutants Is a double mutant COVID variant behind India’s record surge? 19 Apr 2021 Triple Mutation Variant In India Emerges As Fresh Worry In Covid Battle April 21, 2021 11:32 am IST
All countries need to shut down travel from India. I saw a report that literally every flight for weeks from India to Toronto had covid positive people on them. India is a mess. 22 patients died as a truck carrying their oxygen got into an accident. They don't have hospital beds or enough ventilators and people are dying untreated. Fortunately, the Indian Serum Institute cranks out vaccines like no other and India is restricting their exports, which is having an impact on Africa who has had minimal access to vaccines.
Yup, huge problem. The even bigger worry is that some Indian scientists are worried that Covid PCR tests have a harder time picking up this new strain. India still has huge vaccine shortages even with restrictions. They've licensed new capacity but it will take at least 2 months for that to come online. The Serum Institute is maxed out right now. And unfortunately, Indian politicians are resistant to reinstituting lockdowns. India implemented some pretty strong lockdowns during the original wave of covid but politicians have really refused to do much (in most of the country). Most of my family in India is vaccinated already but its still a scary time. Some of them are quite old and I'd like to be able to see them again when this is done.
Disinfecting surfaces to prevent Covid often all for show, CDC advises https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/19/health/cdc-covid-guidelines-cleaning/index.html?utm_term=link&utm_content=2021-04-20T05:00:33&utm_source=fbCNN&utm_medium=social&fbclid=IwAR1ZRGayAJpN0SpK3reSVSQm-hK2lsk4mifwVAZAA3cMaf1BQDIEvP0Ih6c
I don’t know why this is still a thing. It was shown a long time ago that surface transmission of covid was practically non existent.
Good news in California. @B-Bob California’s coronavirus case rate now the lowest in the continental U.S. California’s coronavirus case rate is now the lowest in the continental U.S., an achievement that reflects months of hard-won progress against the pandemic in the aftermath of the state’s devastating fall-and-winter surge. The state’s latest seven-day rate of new cases — 40.3 per 100,000 people — is dramatically lower than the nationwide rate of 135.3 and edged only by Hawaii, 39.1, over that same time period, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. At the other end of the spectrum is Michigan, which has far and away the highest seven-day case rate in the nation, at 483 per 100,000 people. Others topping that distressing leaderboard are New Jersey, 269.7; Delaware, 264.1; Pennsylvania, 248.5; and Minnesota, 238.4. Among larger states, the comparable rates over the same time period were 201.1 in Florida and 65.9 in Texas.... https://www.latimes.com/california/...ia-coronavirus-case-rate-among-nations-lowest
As bad as India is right now, here's some perspective. They are currently averaging the same # of cases as the US was at our peak in early January - despite having 6 times as many people. Their daily cases per capita in the midst of their crisis and with low vaccination rates is *lower* than our daily cases per capita right now in our slow period where things seem much better here.
