COVID-19 (coronavirus disease)/SARS-CoV-2 virus

China zero covid doesn’t look sustainable at all with Omicron. Sinovac is also, in a small study in HK, much less effective at preventing infection than mRNA vaccines. Hopefully, it still maintains strong protection against severe illness. Either way, China with a high vax rate but a very low natural infection rate could be in a lot of trouble... if they lock up as they did with the original strain - and I think they will at least initially try, we might be in an extra-inning of supply chain issues.

 

Good thread; looking at Omicron situation from the UK to the US to others. It's simple on the outside but digs deeper to get a sense of what's going on for different groups, ages, and regions.

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1478339769646166019.html

Key points:
1) With Omicron, share of cases going to ICU, ventilator or death will be lower than in past waves. Partly intrinsic, partly immunity

2) But sheer volume of people going to hospital with Omicron will cause intense hospital pressure

3) So rather than thinking "only for-Covid patients or vented/ICU matter, ignore with-Covid", a better framework is "for-Covid and vented/ICU indicate the toll this wave will take on lives. With-Covid numbers indicate the toll on the health service"

4) This will play out differently in different countries depending on the level of existing hospital pressure Omi arrives into

5) Part of why we see more mild cases now is immunity — the unvaxxed continue to make up majority of ICU cases. Get boostered (or get primary vaxxed!)

 

Seems like omicron might already be topping out in some states if it follows the same pattern as South Africa. Wait and see if it's just related to holiday reporting but it only took South Africa about 3-4 weeks to peak and start declining.

 

Sure hope so.

 

https://abc13.com/covid-masks-face-...QRFYFNOgM2QS0X7gy536UHKHk16cYWhL8mc1yDqM19QxM


I just thought it was funny given the recent conversations in here.

 

So you're saying we should start worrying about the Pi, Rho and Sigma variants?

 

No, only the Xi and Omega variants.

 

I saw the Deez variant is looking a bit scary.

 

Tested positive. Symptoms are mild. I am somewhat glad that I can get this over with for now.

 

Zero covid strategies are just absurd for a country that large. Unless the country a tiny island country like Taiwan or New Zealand, they have no business even attempting this. Australia bailed on zero covid because it just wasn't sustainable for a larger country.

Even here in Canada, we had a few zero covid bubbles in Eastern Canada. Omicron destroyed all of them. The vax right in Eastern Canada is approaching 90% of the total population in some places and it doesn't even matter. There are breakthrough infections left and right. All we can do is hope that hospitals don't collapse.

 

https://www.researchgate.net/public...0517_Subjects_Using_Propensity_Score_Matching

maybe those horses were right all along…

 

*Jackasses

 

Shocking, the doctors who prescribed it after having found success with it knew what they were doing and the political hacks who threw a temper tantrum about it were wrong. Who would have guessed?

 

Interesting research. And I think its a good sign Ivermectin seems to have some effect on infection (7% lower) and mortality rates (2x survival rate) versus doing absolutely nothing at all. If you're in the middle of nowhere with no vaccine options, it could be viable?

But yeah I'm gonna take the 10x rates of the vaccines every time.

 

It’s a preprint.

 

I think the media demonization of ivermectin was a really weird one. I get it to an extent, a cult group used it as an excuse to yell fck vaccines on social media, but they were going to do that regardless, its not a sound reason to demonize a safe cheap antiviral drug that we didn't have conclusive evidence for on at the time.

It doesn't have to be more effective than the vaccine, or even be half as effective to bring value as a medication that treats covid, if it helps even a little bit it should be warmly welcomed.

 

Vaccines are clearly more protective and easier but I think it’s absurd when we are dumping money on Molnupiravir and such. It would have been interesting if this drug was used in studies in combination with other drugs that were identified pretty early as potentially having a beneficial effect. Like ritonavir combined with the new/reformulated drug in Paxlovid.

How it was demonized so quickly was always strange to me.

 

They've been doing it fairly successfully for almost 2 years now so it is clearly feasible but at the expense of economic growth. Also having a centralized government allows you much greater efficiencies in times of crisis. If China went willy nilly with covid like the US, they'd have millions of deaths just like India. Personally, I'm surprised people in the US aren't more upset by the amount of deaths here. If I lost my grandparents due to government incompetence I'd be pissed as hell.

 

Particularly with a virus this genetically nimble.

 

It's the Hakeem of viruses, the footwork and body control are just outstanding.