Just curious, anyone have a plan, or preps for global pandemic?

[corybroo]

21 hours ago, BrianA said:

Good news, this LED breakthrough for the UVC spectrum should lead to economical Far-UVC germicidal lighting a few years from now. The issue with this lighting currently is that while it is great at killing viruses in the air, it's too expensive to install for most uses.

I think I’d like to see a few safety tests first.

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.35848/1347-4065/ac1985/meta

7. Irradiation of UVC-LED to human body

Since irradiation of ultraviolet light of wavelength 253.7 nm causes inflammation of eyes and skin, as well as cataracts and skin cancer, according to the Japanese Industrial Standard JISZ8812, threshold limit values should be kept within 8 h and below 60 J m⁻² for a period of 1 day (24 h).

[Saul]

Yeah.

[BrianA]

Far-UVC is a particular part of the spectrum, around 222 nm wavelength, which seems to be safe for human eyes and skin. But yes we do need more testing of longer term exposure. There are some locations in the world already using this lighting technology, so it's a bit out in the wild already, but not heavily due to costs of the non-LED light production techniques that are only like 1% efficient.

 

"Germicidal ultraviolet light, typically at 254 nm, is effective in this context but, used directly, can be a health hazard to skin and eyes. By contrast, far-UVC light (207–222 nm) efficiently kills pathogens potentially without harm to exposed human tissues."

Far-UVC light (222 nm) efficiently and safely inactivates airborne human coronaviruses

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-67211-2

[Gordo]

People who skipped their COVID vaccine are at higher risk of traffic accidents, according to a new study

Funny, yet somewhat believable.

[Gordo]

I haven't been following the covid news very closely but I just saw the US Senate report  Analysis of the Origins of the COVID-19 Pandemic Their summary seems pretty convincing, the lab leak origin theory is most plausible for numerous reasons, one of which is that if it came directly from animals outside of the lab there most likely would have been multiple origin points and greater genetic diversity as was the case with both MERS and SARS1 (vs single origin point in a city that studies this type of virus and has lax safety standards). A research-related incident also explains the failure to find an intermediate host as well as the failure to find any animal infections pre-dating human COVID-19 cases. Wuhan researchers actively sampled bats in Southern China and Southeast Asia where the SARS-related coronaviruses most similar to SARS-CoV-2 have been collected and identified.

The database containing the sequences of viruses collected by the WIV, including unpublished SARS-related coronaviruses, was taken offline starting in September 2019!

Senior coronavirus researcher Shi Zhengli disclosed that in 2018-2020, her team infected civets and humanized mice that expressed human ACE2 receptors with chimeric SARS related coronaviruses. The results of these experiments have never been published.

The EcoHealth Alliance NIH grants and DARPA grant proposals, in partnership with the WIV, sought to collect and conduct genetic recombination experiments on SARS-related coronaviruses with specific traits that made those viruses a “high-risk” for zoonotic spillover into animals and humans.215 SARS-CoV-2 shares many of the traits these researchers were interested in finding in SARS-related coronaviruses or interested in engineering such traits if they were not found naturally.

Academic articles, reports, and meetings from the WIV also suggest that the WIV experienced persistent biosafety problems relevant to the containment of an aerosolized respiratory virus like SARS-CoV-2 (paper gives numerous examples).

[Gordo]

I remember earlyish in the pandemic there were some widely distributed articles about the possible benefit of sun exposure that if I remember correctly were largely dismissed by the "experts".  Now we seem to have some solid science behind this...

Near Infrared Light Reduces Inflammation via TLR4 In Vitro

 

[Gordo]

So I'm sure by now everyone knows covid is ripping through China finally and roughly the expected number of people seem to be dying and they don't seem to have a good supply of the very effective treatment drugs (namely, PAXLOVID and Molnupiravir). Long lines at crematoriums, etc. CCP of course is not reporting any useful information about infections, variants, hospitalizations, or deaths. But instead the CCP is trying to rename the illness and they have stopped testing outgoing travelers and opened the travel floodgates sending out infected people all over the world.  https://nypost.com/2022/12/28/half-of-the-passengers-on-2-flights-from-china-had-covid/

I'm wondering if we are just at the shoulder shrug point, eh the rest of the world already had what China is now going through and sending out everywhere so it really doesn't matter... Or could this turn into the start of some new variant(s) rapidly spreading around the world?

 

Edited January 2, 2023 by Gordo

[BrianA]

AFAIK the latest variant is XBB1.5, which seems to have been first discovered in the NE USA. So we evolved this one, yay. China, since most of the population doesn't have exposure or antibodies to all the older "classic" covid variants, is unlikely to evolve a variant that would be good enough to survive most Westerner's immune systems. We're still ahead of the curve compared to them, but perhaps in a year or two once all the various covid variants run through China's population then they can "contribute" a world-affecting variant (beyond the original variant, hah).

 

 

[BrianA]

Meanwhile in the land where they refused to import the mRNA vaccines, wait times to get a cremation drift into mid-January, the crematoriums run 24/7:

 

Bodies Pile Up in China as Covid Surge Overwhelms Crematoriums

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-01-03/bodies-pile-up-in-china-as-covid-surge-overwhelms-crematoriums

 

    "Public notices at Longhua over the weekend explained that the crematorium had received more than 500 corpses on that day, roughly five times more than it typically handles, according to one funeral goer.

    After hours of waiting, each family was given five-to-10 minutes to mourn in a no-frills ceremony, fighting for space in a cramped room with bodies laying on stretchers, zipped up in yellow body bags.

    Interviews with workers at funeral homes in Beijing and Shanghai, where furnace ovens are now operating through the night, showed the wait for a spot to cremate a loved one now extends well into mid-January. In Beijing, where the government said last week the Covid outbreak has peaked, police turned away people from funeral homes in the northern districts of Miyun and Huairou.

    The Civil Affairs Bureau in southeastern Tongzhou district told Chinese media on Dec. 22 that its main funeral home was burning around 140-150 bodies daily, up from 40 per day in the past.

    At Beijing's prestigious Babaoshan Funeral Home, where top Communist Party leaders including former president Jiang Zemin have been cremated, a grieving father-in-law says "200-300 bodies waiting to be burned each day, and there’s no way to join the queue today; there’s no hearse; no farewell ceremony; his children’s only wish is that he can be cremated alone.”

    While nobody knows the true extent of fatalities, it’s clear funeral homes in major cities are already at capacity – and some experts warn that the worst is yet to come. Airfinity Ltd., a London-based research firm that focuses on predictive health analytics, estimated that China could see Covid deaths rise from around 9,000 a day now to as many as 25,000 a day later in January, when a rebound in travel is expected to occur during Lunar New Year festivities."

 

 

[BrianA]

"In the most comprehensive autopsy tissue study conducted to date, researchers have found traces of the SARS-CoV-2 virus throughout the entire body, from the brain and the heart to the eyes. The findings indicate the virus can cause persistent infections in many parts of the body, months past an initial illness, and support the argument for further research into antiviral drugs as possible treatment for long COVID."

 

Large COVID autopsy study finds SARS-CoV-2 all over the human body

https://newatlas.com/science/covid-autopsy-study-virus-brain-body/

[Gordo]

No idea what you can believe anymore, lots of "fear porn" circulating again re: China.  We should have a pretty good idea by now what strains people traveling out of China are carrying and if their symptoms/outcomes are any different from what the rest of the world saw.  This vid reminds me of the stuff that was coming out of China very early in Covid19 history before most people knew anything at all (i.e. the first page of this thread).  They are talking about "white lung", not just the elderly getting hit hard and/or dying, immune systems being wrecked, etc.  I don't know though, I mean if you just run the numbers and 60+% of a billion population country all got pretty much the same covid the rest of us got, but almost all at once, and their vaccines were terrible and they had very little stock of effective treatment drugs, I think you'd pretty much expect exactly what we are seeing, no?

 

[mccoy]

This year I got the recent flu, together with all the family. It's far worse than the omicron infection I got in August (maybe because we had the 3 RMna shots). Above all, it's lasting far longer and I'm hearing about people with symptoms lasting 30 days.

An effect on me is lack of hunger, I'm in 50-60% (forced) CR now. Plus sleepiness.

I've never taken the flu vaccines but next year around I'm going to think about it!

Edited January 10, 2023 by mccoy

[Dean Pomerleau]

Live and learn mccoy. Hope you feel better soon! 

[BrianA]

There is evidence that recent covid infection can weaken the immune system (loss of some T cells, etc.) and may make subsequent infections worse. Anyway, yes sorry to hear you've gotten hit with multiple things this year and hope it resolves soon!

[mccoy]

23 hours ago, BrianA said:

There is evidence that recent covid infection can weaken the immune system (loss of some T cells, etc.) and may make subsequent infections worse.

The above would sound a more reasonable cause than the ones I heard about, like not using masks anymore, the immune system not having been stimulated by multiple sources for a couple of years, and more. Especially so if there is plausible evidence. In my personal case, a few factors, like irregular sleep, may have contributed. 

[BrianA]

“The thing about cleaner indoor air is that it works on any variant and any airborne disease; it helps against pollution; it helps against all kinds of things. And it doesn’t take away anyone’s freedoms.”

 

We Need a Revolution in Clean Indoor Air

https://thetyee.ca/Analysis/2023/01/11/Revolution-Clean-Indoor-Air/

[Gordo]

 

[BrianA]

"I’ve heard a lot of people say that their flu was way worse than their experience with Covid. But you’re saying Covid is to blame?
Exactly. I would bet that the people who had a really bad flu recently also had Covid in the past eight months or so."

 

“I was appalled to see the prime minister making those comments”: A U of T epidemiologist on the myth of immunity debt and the real reason everyone’s getting sick

Colin Furness debunks the popular theory and explains how Covid-19 may be weakening our immune systems in the long run

 

https://torontolife.com/city/i-was-appalled-to-see-the-prime-minister-making-those-comments-a-u-of-t-epidemiologist-on-the-myth-of-immunity-debt-and-the-real-reason-everyones-getting-sick/

[mccoy]

Immunity theft, that's a hypothesis which needs to be pursued further and proven or disproven by adequate evidence.

If the evidence arises that would be very annoying for people like us who are so meticulously trying to keep an efficient immune system.

And, last but first in importance, if the evidence arises, I would hope people would start to search for a remedy against this immunity theft or delayed immunosuppressive phenomenon.

[BrianA]

Here's an article and a couple of recent studies discussing worsening of various parts of the immune system (T cells, dendritic cells, monocytes) for 6 months after covid infection.

 

Long-term effects on the innate immune system following COVID-19

https://liu.se/en/news-item/long-term-effects-on-the-innate-immune-system-following-covid-19

 

Major alterations to monocyte and dendritic cell subsets lasting more than 6 months after hospitalization for COVID-19

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fimmu.2022.1082912/full

 

T cell perturbations persist for at least 6 months following hospitalization for COVID-19

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fimmu.2022.931039/full

[BrianMDelaney]

High everyone.

Quick points about Sweden:

1. It does not make sense to compare it to its Nordic or Scandinavian neighbors. Sweden is much more like Belgium or the UK, which had higher per capita death rates.

2. Sweden did not "let it rip". I was there, I know.

3. "The Owl of Minerva flies only at dusk", i.e., we won't know which policies were right until the pandemic is over -- long over.

Myself, I think SARS-CoV-2 is a very dangerous virus (which is why I joined the team at radvac.org), and I recommend that people avoid getting infected with it! I just found out I still have a persistent SARS-CoV-2 infection in my gut, after having COVID in July. Am starting a 15-day course of paxlovid tomorrow.

Hope everyone is well,

Brian

[Dean Pomerleau]

Hi Brian! Great to hear from you. Sorry you are dealing with long covid issues. I hope your paxlovid treatment clears it up. 

--Dean 

[AlanPater]

9 hours ago, Dean Pomerleau said:

Sorry you are dealing with long covid issues.

Not long covid, persistent covid.  A persistent infection since July is an exception.

[AlanPater]

16 hours ago, BrianMDelaney said:

It does not make sense to compare it to its Nordic or Scandinavian neighbors. Sweden is much more like Belgium or the UK, which had higher per capita death rates.

It seems that Swedes are healthier than the Danes, with less diabetes and greater tuberculosis cure rate: https://www.worlddata.info/country-comparison.php?country1=DNK&country2=SWE#health .

[BrianMDelaney]

46 minutes ago, AlanPater said:

Not long covid, persistent covid.  A persistent infection since July is an exception.

Well, it's probably both. Indeed, many cases of long COVID are probably driven by a persistent infection (but most are probably driven by something else, such as reactivated EBV, "kicked off" by SARS-CoV-2). By the way, persistent SARS-CoV-2 infections are not at all rare, we're discovering. The virus gets cleared from most parts of the body, but, in many cases, successfully hides from the immune system in other parts of the body.