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

[Gordo]

A human monoclonal antibody potently pan-neutralizes SARS-CoV-2 VOCs by targeting RBD invariant sites

Promising new research.

[mccoy]

On 12/1/2021 at 7:26 PM, AlanPater said:

Further monitoring of data from this population is needed to determine the duration of immunity following the booster.

Implying that a boost-booster may be soon after required...

[AlanPater]

Covid: First data points to Omicron re-infection risk
By James Gallagher
Health and science correspondent
The first real world data showing the coronavirus variant Omicron may evade some of our immunity has been reported by scientists in South Africa.
https://www.bbc.com/news/health-59520945

[AlanPater]

U.K. study finds mRNA COVID-19 vaccines provide biggest booster impact
Pfizer and Moderna give large antibody, T-cell boosts, study finds
Thomson Reuters · Posted: Dec 03, 2021
https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/covid19-vaccine-pfizer-moderna-booster-study-dec2021-1.6272140

[KHashmi316]

The media settin' the story for the tragic vax side effects that are a comin'? You be the judge:

Up to 300,000 people facing heart-related illnesses due to post-pandemic stress disorder, warn physicians

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/health/post-pandemic-stress-disorder-heart-conditions-covid-london-physicians-b969436.html

Ahem ... PPSD ... yup ...

[Saul]

Not a big surprise.  That definitely is a side effect of the stress of the pandemic, that effects a large part of the population.  Many people are afraid to go to a hospital when they need care.  It doesn't mean that the pandemic isn't real.  IMO, the best solution is to get everyone fully vaccinated, including young children (5 years and up -- hopefully younger ones, soon), and to get booster shots.  Best vaccines appear to be Pfizer and Moderna.

  --  Saul

 

[AlanPater]

14 hours ago, KHashmi316 said:

The media settin' the story for the tragic vax side effects that are a comin'?

You are a tragic vax side-effect. 

The article makes not one mention of vaccines.  It is people like you and apparently those writing the comments to the article that twist an article about a PTSD-like condition related to COVID to vaccines.  Sure, stress is hard on the heart.

I suppose the vaccines are causing the large increases in suicides and drug over-doses too? 

Edited December 5, 2021 by AlanPater

[KHashmi316]

About “PPSD”… yes 👍 it may very well be all those confounders… lock’d down Joe’s feedin’ their spare tires … closed down gyms … etc. 

BUT … all dem ‘ports o’heart issues after… I dunno … AZ vax maybe…

https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/eu-regulator-lists-heart-condition-possible-side-effect-mrna-vaccines-2021-07-09/

[Ron Put]

On 12/3/2021 at 6:38 AM, AlanPater said:

Covid: First data points to Omicron re-infection risk
...
The first real world data showing the coronavirus variant Omicron may evade some of our immunity has been reported by scientists in South Africa.
https://www.bbc.com/news/health-59520945

Yeah, the fearmongering continues. NPR and the rest run infections numbers at the top of each hour, and half of the population is ready to permanently don hazmat suits and put the "enemies of society" in camps, as they do in Australia, or lock them away under house arrest, as in Austria. It's the Chinafication of the West, with universal social credit scores (for now, vaccination status) ushered in by the Left. And the permanent mandates of masks, of course, with the only discernable purpose of conditioning the populace and identifying the rebels. This is the new normal.

So what if there is a new strain? Everyone with a modicum of knowledge and reason expected it. What reasonable people did not expect is new lockdowns and travel restrictions at the drop of the first news story. Or the continuing groveling and bending over backward by the world's bureaucrats in their efforts to spare any possible offense to Xi, by first renaming the Wuhan virus to Covid and now skipping alphabet letters...

Amidst the ding of hysterical coverage and calls to punish the nonbelievers, the fact that the new strain is contagious, but apparently considerably milder than the flu, is purposefully lost in the shuffle.

WHO says no Omicron deaths reported yet, as variant spreads worldwide
 

12 hours ago, AlanPater said:

You are a tragic vax side-effect. 

I suppose the vaccines are causing the large increases in suicides and drug over-doses too? 

What exactly is your problem if someone, for whatever reason, does not want to get the vaccine? Why do you feel this burning compulsion to make everyone do as you do? A large number of the unvaccinated already have natural immunity, since for the vast majority Covid was akin to the flu.

Those who are vaccinated are protected, right? Both vaccinated and unvaccinated can be carriers. Despite the click-bait stories on social and legacy media, the fact is that the hospitals are no more overwhelmed than during an average flu season. By now even the dimmest zealots must have figured out that this is not a disease that can be stopped and eradicated like measles, so what is the real reason, other than the frenzied madness of the crowds?

The increased suicides, CVD, and cancer deaths are to a large extent all due to the lockdowns and the fear that was instilled into a portion of the population, that kept the ERs and hospitals empty in the Spring and Summer of 2020.

[mccoy]

1 hour ago, Ron Put said:

by first renaming the Wuhan virus to Covid and now skipping alphabet letters...

I did notice the skip in the alphabet letters. After delta, we should have had an epsilon variant, by the Greek alphabet conventionally used for this purpose. I've been wondering about the reason, but, what's the relationship with China?

 

[Sibiriak]

NYT: The W.H.O. skips forward two Greek letters, avoiding a Xi variant

Google [ "covid" "variant" "name" "skip" "china" ]  for more,

 

 

[mccoy]

Heck, LOL, it would never had crossed my mind!

[corybroo]

I’ve heard it said that Darwinian selection occurs at all levels from the gene to the meme.  NPR is reporting an interesting “coincidence” that seems to show selection at the level of memes.

Pro-Trump counties now have far higher COVID death rates. Misinformation is to blame

NPR looked at deaths per 100,000 people in roughly 3,000 counties across the U.S. from May 2021, the point at which vaccinations widely became available. People living in counties that went 60% or higher for Trump in November 2020 had 2.78 times the death rates of those that went for Biden.

[The data shows a dose response relationship.   CB]

Counties with an even higher share of the vote for Trump saw higher COVID-19 mortality rates.

In October, the reddest tenth of the country saw death rates that were six times higher than the bluest tenth, according to Charles Gaba, an independent health care analyst who's been tracking partisanship trends during the pandemic and helped to review NPR's methodology

[Posible confounders analyzed   CB]

The trend was robust, even when controlling for age, which is the primary demographic risk of COVID-19 mortality. 

 

Methodology for the above is provided at the end of the article.

[KHashmi316]

13 hours ago, Ron Put said:

[reply to Al''s post]

What exactly is your problem if someone, for whatever reason, does not want to get the vaccine?

It's much more complicated ... folks at the highest levels of academics and education are ALSO susceptible to mass psychosis ... time and again.

The most notorious example occurred less than 100 years ago in one of the world's most advanced nations (Germany, 1930s). Arguably, the European Jews were more successful and higher-IQ'd than their non-Jewish counterparts-- and probably still the case in 2021. Here is part of the "Nazi Solution" ... in the early stages ... as Spielberg depicts ...

 

Edited December 6, 2021 by KHashmi316

[mccoy]

Yesterday I managed to listen to some podcast from supposedly competent persons, on boosters.

The scenario is pretty complicated, apparently, and probably I'm missing something else:

• CDC only supports booster shots in immunocompromised, over 65 and other fragile people
• WHO is absolutely against booster shots except immunocompromised and elderly
• The omicron variant is not well known yet and it seems to be very transmissive but little aggressive. It might overcome all other variants, and in the best scenario, make SARSCOV2 a little like an ordinary flue.
• The worst scenario might be different
• Governments are adhering to the worst scenario hypothesis, hugely encouraging the 3rd booster, without waiting for further research on the omicron variant
• Bottom line: governments are in terror of further lockdowns and economic slumps
• Last but not least: big pharma will reap huge profits from the 3rd shot, so they are surely heavily lobbying in favor of the 3rd shot.

From the above, my personal conclusion is that immunocompromised will better take the 3rd shot, elderly may take it with benefit if they don't feel in perfect health, all other people may take it if it makes them feel better and more protected.

To summarize, right now it seems that the 3rd shot is more a question of personal choice rather than a mandatory health necessity.

[Gordo]

Gum with a plant-grown protein reduces COVID-19 transmission by 95%

 

[Sibiriak]

9 hours ago, mccoy said:

Yesterday I managed to listen to some podcast from supposedly competent persons, on boosters. 

Excellent summary.  Your tentative conclusions seem reasonable.

[Matt]

The problem assuming the new variant is milder than delta is that in parts of Africa in particular, a lot of people who were infected recently already had developed naturally acquired immunity and the population is generally younger. So it obviously able to infect people again but cases seem to be mild. And we have less data on how vaccines hold up against it. Where is the data showing the severity of the disease for non-immune?

[Saul]

Nice find Gordo!

  --  Saul

[BrianA]

Well, here is some data out today on how the standard 2-shot Pfizer holds up to Omicron (41x drop in neutralization, aka not very well). Individuals who had prior infection and no vaccine, were even worse, essentially guaranteeing reinfection. Individuals previously infected who then had Pfizer 2 shots, still had reduced neutralization, but not as bad. No data yet on boosted (3 shot) individuals, but should be available later this week.

 

 

[BrianA]

While it remains to be seen ultimately how mild (or not) Omicron is, in South Africa the area where Omicron seemed to take off the most, hospitalization levels are now 2x what they were a week ago, and 6x what they were two weeks ago. A significant portion seem to be children/unvaxxed individuals, so this wave of the pandemic currently is looking rougher in terms of overall hospital admissions on people under 18, both due to the unvaxxed nature of them and also the overall increased contagiousness leading to many more simultaneous infections going on in the population.

 

 

[Matt]

Thanks Brian.

Previous infection is worse than vaccination? Not sure I saw that on the thread but I looked through pretty quickly. If he's referring to the CDC study from November, the study was pretty flawed in its design and conclusions. And isn't even representative of the general (healthy) population either. And there were 7 limitations of the study. Other studies show similar protection or the complete opposite (at least for Delta).

Will take a proper look later.  

None of this shows how well T cell immunity will function with the new variant though, does it? It's just that we have less neutralization of the spike protein in particular.

Edit: But yeah, my worry is that people are coming to the conclusion that it's milder. It could be milder in people who were previous infected or vaccinated, but it could even be worse for people unvaccinated or never infected.

 

Edited December 7, 2021 by Matt

[Matt]

Mechanisms of SARS-CoV-2 Evolution Revealing Vaccine-Resistant Mutations in Europe and America

The importance of understanding SARS-CoV-2 evolution cannot be overlooked. Recent studies confirm that natural selection is the dominating mechanism of SARS-CoV-2 evolution, which favors mutations that strengthen viral infectivity. Here, we demonstrate that vaccine-breakthrough or antibody-resistant mutations provide a new mechanism of viral evolution. Specifically, vaccine-resistant mutation Y449S in the spike (S) protein receptor-binding domain, which occurred in co-mutations Y449S and N501Y, has reduced infectivity compared to that of the original SARS-CoV-2 but can disrupt existing antibodies that neutralize the virus. By tracking the evolutionary trajectories of vaccine-resistant mutations in more than 2.2 million SARS-CoV-2 genomes, we reveal that the occurrence and frequency of vaccine-resistant mutations correlate strongly with the vaccination rates in Europe and America. We anticipate that as a complementary transmission pathway, vaccine-breakthrough or antibody-resistant mutations, like those in Omicron, will become a dominating mechanism of SARS-CoV-2 evolution when most of the world's population is either vaccinated or infected. Our study sheds light on SARS-CoV-2 evolution and transmission and enables the design of the next-generation mutation-proof vaccines and antibody drugs.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34873910/

[mccoy]

8 hours ago, Matt said:

Edit: But yeah, my worry is that people are coming to the conclusion that it's milder. It could be milder in people who were previous infected or vaccinated, but it could even be worse for people unvaccinated or never infected.

It's reasonable to believe that it's still too early to draw conclusions.

For example, in Italy all cases are pretty mild, omicron patient zero and his family are in quarantine at home with no or mild symptoms. He and his wife were vaccinated, the kids weren't. But a statistical representative sample, stratified for subgroups of age, health condition, vaccination and so on is still missing apparently.

[AlanPater]

Pfizer and BioNTech have said a booster jab of their coronavirus vaccine promises to be an effective defence against the new Omicron variant.

Three doses provide a similar level of antibodies against Omicron to that of two doses against other variants, the companies said after a small study.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-59582006