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

[BrianA]

"Doctors have discovered an “antibody signature” that can help identify patients most at risk of developing long Covid, a condition where debilitating symptoms of the disease can persist for many months."

 

Long Covid: doctors find ‘antibody signature’ for patients most at risk

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/jan/25/doctors-find-antibody-signature-long-covid

[BrianA]

"The risk of rare side effects from COVID-19 vaccines like AstraZeneca are greatly exaggerated as they are far safer than many medicines people are taking every day"

"Around 11 per cent of older Australians take daily aspirin to help prevent stroke and heart attack, but statistically, aspirin is two hundred times more dangerous than AstraZeneca – resulting in around one death per 10,000 people."

 

Getting a COVID jab is safer than taking aspirin

https://pursuit.unimelb.edu.au/articles/getting-a-covid-jab-is-safer-than-taking-aspirin

[BrianA]

This result was predicted by Eric Feigl-Ding on twitter last year when Omicron was first detected and appeared to be potentially milder, but also much more contagious. A milder, yet more contagious virus will actually result in more overall deaths due simply to the massively increased numbers of people getting infected.

 

Omicron Deaths in U.S. Exceed Delta’s Peak as Covid-19 Optimism Rises in Europe

https://www.wsj.com/articles/omicron-deaths-in-u-s-exceed-deltas-peak-as-covid-19-optimism-rises-in-europe-11643201653

[BrianA]

This is too technical and I don't have time to really dig into this right now, but sounds of interest:

 

Sars-CoV-2 spike protein activates human endogenous retroviruses in blood cells

https://phys.org/news/2022-01-sars-cov-spike-protein-human-endogenous.html

[AlanPater]

Attributes and predictors of long COVID.
Sudre CH, et al.
Nat Med. 2021.
PMID: 33692530 Free PMC article.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7611399/pdf/EMS131037.pdf
Abstract
Reports of long-lasting coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) symptoms, the so-called 'long COVID', are rising but little is known about prevalence, risk factors or whether it is possible to predict a protracted course early in the disease. We analyzed data from 4,182 incident cases of COVID-19 in which individuals self-reported their symptoms prospectively in the COVID Symptom Study app1. A total of 558 (13.3%) participants reported symptoms lasting ≥28 days, 189 (4.5%) for ≥8 weeks and 95 (2.3%) for ≥12 weeks. Long COVID was characterized by symptoms of fatigue, headache, dyspnea and anosmia and was more likely with increasing age and body mass index and female sex. Experiencing more than five symptoms during the first week of illness was associated with long COVID (odds ratio = 3.53 (2.76-4.50)). A simple model to distinguish between short COVID and long COVID at 7 days (total sample size, n = 2,149) showed an area under the curve of the receiver operating characteristic curve of 76%, with replication in an independent sample of 2,472 individuals who were positive for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2. This model could be used to identify individuals at risk of long COVID for trials of prevention or treatment and to plan education and rehabilitation services.

[Todd Allen]

The High Cost of Disparaging Natural Immunity to Covid

Public-health officials ruined many lives by insisting that workers with natural immunity to Covid-19 be fired if they weren’t fully vaccinated. But after two years of accruing data, the superiority of natural immunity over vaccinated immunity is clear.

 

[mccoy]

On 1/4/2022 at 11:48 PM, Gordo said:

I haven't listened to it, but I have noticed over the years that Joe Rogan has a lot of quacks on his show.  I'm not calling Malone a quack, but in just doing some quick google searches, he seems to have failed miserably in the "fact check" department

It actually seems that Dr Malone is not exceptionally honest in his talks. He peaks of himself as the inventor of RMNA vaccines, whereas he's just one of the contributors in a vast number of people involved. Some facts are just unproven and apparently false, like the ivermectin-Uttar Pradesh and the alleged properties of hydroxychloroquine. Some other things are true.

He leverages his credentials as public health advisor but pushes his antivaccine agenda too further.

Dr Z-dog has dedicated some time to the validation of his assertions in the Joe Rogan podcast, and the result is pretty bad.

I wonder why some people adhere so pervicaciously to some ideas, grasping whatever hearsay facts they did not check themselves. Ideological tribalism at work.

Zdog's critique is in the latest episode of Peter Atiia's drive

[mccoy]

13 hours ago, Todd Allen said:

The High Cost of Disparaging Natural Immunity to Covid

Public-health officials ruined many lives by insisting that workers with natural immunity to Covid-19 be fired if they weren’t fully vaccinated. But after two years of accruing data, the superiority of natural immunity over vaccinated immunity is clear.

 

That's one particular craziness within the total insanity that has been spawned by the epidemic.

It is true that natural immunity plus vaccination bestows some kind of super immunity, but natural immunity is widely dismissed or considered only within 3-4 months it happened.

As I've repeated numerous times, my son had natural immunity plus double vaccination. The group consensus within virologists is that he had super immunity.

The Italian state dismissed such group consensus and compelled my son to a booster shot. Makes me ashame of being Italian, were it not that in some parts of America it's the same of even worse.

Science has been hurled back centuries ago, to the age of inquisition and geocentricity of the universe. Now the vaccine seats at the center of the universe and the atheists who dare to negate this dogma are treated like the medieval Church treated Galileo.

 

Edited January 28, 2022 by mccoy

[AlanPater]

15 hours ago, Todd Allen said:

The High Cost of Disparaging Natural Immunity to Covid

Public-health officials ruined many lives by insisting that workers with natural immunity to Covid-19 be fired if they weren’t fully vaccinated. But after two years of accruing data, the superiority of natural immunity over vaccinated immunity is clear.

The article in question your reference refers to says: "Primary vaccination, additional doses, and booster doses are recommended for all eligible persons."

A second article [1] also from the CDC says: "Among Kentucky residents infected with SARS-CoV-2 ... being unvaccinated was associated with 2.34 times the odds of reinfection compared with being fully vaccinated."

1. Reduced Risk of Reinfection with SARS-CoV-2 After COVID-19 Vaccination - Kentucky, May-June 2021.
Cavanaugh AM, et al.
MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep. 2021.
PMID: 34383732 Free PMC article.

... so if you were unlucky enough to get infected before being eligible for getting vaccinated or stupid enough to avoid vaccination until you got infected, get the damn vaccine, will you?

Edited January 28, 2022 by AlanPater

[Todd Allen]

Website that gives US county level data graphed by time for infections and cases current and cumulative and Rt.

https://covidestim.org

It looks like the pandemic is in rapid terminal decline for me, Cook county IL, as well as most of the rest of the country.

[alexthegra8]

6 hours ago, Todd Allen said:

Website that gives US county level data graphed by time for infections and cases current and cumulative and Rt.

https://covidestim.org

It looks like the pandemic is in rapid terminal decline for me, Cook county IL, as well as most of the rest of the country.

Next flu season a new variant will arise that will be even less lethal than omicron and more contagious. COVID will never go away and will be apart of the common cold in decades ahead.

[Saul]

I agree.

  --  Saul

[mccoy]

On 1/28/2022 at 7:32 PM, AlanPater said:

A second article [1] also from the CDC says: "Among Kentucky residents infected with SARS-CoV-2 ... being unvaccinated was associated with 2.34 times the odds of reinfection compared with being fully vaccinated."

But, it comes to my mind, the 2.34 relative risk probably results in a negligible increase in absolute risk. So negligible that maybe it does not exhibit a favourable cost/benefit ratio, especially for some categories.

[mccoy]

On 1/22/2022 at 8:43 AM, Matt said:

Here's some data from California for vaccinated, unvaccinated, people with co-morbidities, previously infected, etc. It seems all groups do better with Omicron. The paper the doctor is going through is here: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.01.11.22269045v1.full-text

I discovered why not everyone agrees on the fact that omicron is less 'virulent' or pathogenic.

That's because the data exhibit lesser protection of vaccines from severe disease,  with respect to the delta variant.

So, there is a huge incoherence between these data and the common opinion of the 'omicold'.

Who is right I don't know, but there evidently is something to explain before accepting the omicold concept.

[Dean Pomerleau]

New article in Nature hinting that the more likely origin for Omicron is rats or mice rather than stealth evolution in an isolated human population or within a single person with a chronic covid infection.

Nature.com: Where did Omicron come from? Three key theories.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-00215-2

Their two reservations over the rodent origin hypothesis are that:

1. Jumping from humans to (presumably wild) rodents and then back again three times (for the three different circulating Omicron variants) seems unlikely.
2. It would require a pretty concentrated population of rodents passing the virus around over an extended period of time to accumulate the number of fitness-enhancing mutations Omicron exhibits.

No mention of the seemingly obvious scenario that overcomes both these hurdles - namely that someone may have deliberately evolving Omicron in a laboratory setting via serial passage experiments in rodents and then released the resulting variant(s) either accidentally or intentionally.

My guess is that to suggest a lab origin theory for Omicron in a journal like Nature would be too inflammatory/controversial, it might give bad actors the idea to try it for themselves and/or it might call into question the wisdom of the well-intentioned serial passage experiments with Covid in rodents that are ongoing in virology labs around the world.

Weird.

--Dean

[BrianA]

Hamsters, it's all about the hamsters.

 

Hong Kong study shows hamster-to-human Covid-19 spread: Lancet

https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/hong-kong-study-shows-hamster-to-human-covid-19-spread-lancet

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4017393

[Saul]

Dean,

I don't think anyone is suggesting going from mice to humans 3 times; just once, then mutating (as viruses do).  And there's nothing "obvious" about a lab origin hypothesis -- the opposite.  The intricate structure of viral RNA (and a fortiori DNA of more complicated creatures) makes lab origin very unlikely.

Dr. Faucci -- and other virologists -- note that the structure of Covid-19 doesn't involve a simple tweaking of a few genes of some existing virus -- which is the most a human can do in a lab.

But, politicians on the right and left keep pushing this "Chinese devil" theory.  And some virologists, cashing in on TV appearances, help them.  It makes the politicians popular with an enraged public.

  --  Saul

[Dean Pomerleau]

11 hours ago, Saul said:

I don't think anyone is suggesting going from mice to humans 3 times; just once, then mutating (as viruses do).

Saul,

I really wish you would read the referenced articles your are responding to before commenting on their content. The authors do suggest that according to the rodent theory of Omicron's origin, three separate rodent->human transfers for the three variants likely occurred. From the article:

"The three sublineages of Omicron are sufficiently distinct that, according to this theory, each would represent a separate jump from animal to human."

I'm' not saying they are right to suggest that the rodent theory of Omicron's origin and in particular the genetic differences between the three variants are sufficiently "rodent-like" to require three separate rodent-->human transmissions (as opposed to a single jump from rodent to human followed by further evolutionary divergence in human hosts), but that is indeed what they are suggesting that this theory implies.

11 hours ago, Saul said:

  And there's nothing "obvious" about a lab origin hypothesis -- the opposite.  The intricate structure of viral RNA (and a fortiori DNA of more complicated creatures) makes lab origin very unlikely. 

Again - please read more carefully. Neither I nor the authors of this Nature article (who avoided the lab origin theory entirely) are suggesting the original strain of SARS-CoV-2 was engineered in a lab, or purposely evolved from another coronavirus in a lab, or simply escaped from a lab after being collected in the wild. While one of those may be true, we don't know and may never know. But that isn't what I am suggesting.

What I am suggesting is that a possible and perhaps most plausible scenario for the origin of the Omicron variant is that it was deliberately evolved in a lab from an earlier strain via the kind of serial passage experiments already happening in the US and elsewhere and which have demonstrated that it is relatively straightforward to deliberately create more transmissible / virulent versions of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, as I discussed here.

--Dean

[Saul]

16 hours ago, Dean Pomerleau said:

What I am suggesting is that a possible and perhaps most plausible scenario for the origin of the Omicron variant is that it was deliberately evolved in a lab from an earlier strain via the kind of serial passage experiments already happening in the US and elsewhere and which have demonstrated that it is relatively straightforward to deliberately create more transmissible / virulent versions of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, as I discussed here.

Not so easy.  Also, omicron isn't more virulent  -- and it's much milder than previous variants.  Such an evolution is no surprise -- evolution pushes the virus (and all other creatures), in the direction of surviving longer, and producing more offspring.  It's in the virus's interest to be less lethal to it's host -- since when the host dies, they die.  And to be more transmissible. We can expect future variants to be even more mild, and even more contagious.

  --  Saul

[AlanPater]

2 hours ago, Saul said:

omicron isn't more virulent

.. as in " (of a disease or poison) extremely severe or harmful in its effects ".  It does transmit at a higher rate.  There seem to be a lot of "may have"s in Dean's suggestions.  It seems to me that the original report coming from South Africa and omicron's epidemiology do not favor the suggestion it originated from scientists' messing around in mice.

Edited January 30, 2022 by AlanPater

[Dean Pomerleau]

2 hours ago, AlanPater said:

It seems to me that the original report coming from South Africa and omicron's epidemiology do not favor the suggestion it originated from scientists' messing around in mice. 

Can you elaborate on how the original report and epidemiology would seem to undermine the scenario I'm suggesting?

It seems to me that Omicron's much greater transmissible from person to person than previous variants is a feature that wouldn't be expected to result from mutations that occurred within a single individual who was sick which a chronic covid infection, where immune system evasion would seem to be the feature evolution would optimize for during an extended infection in a single person.

The fact that it is very highly transmissible and yet very distant (in the space of genetic mutations) from previous variants - with the "common ancestor" being way back close to the original SARS-CoV-2 variant, would seem to undermine the plausibility of the virus circulating and mutating into Omicron in an isolated human population and not escaping from that group for over a year despite the increased transmissibility its mutations afford. Just look at how quickly it ramped up within South Africa and then spread around the world once it started circulating. 

Together those would seem to undermine the proposed human origin scenarios for Omicron. So what is it you have in mind Al?

--Dean

[Saul]

Dean,

The word "intelligence" comes from the Latin meaning "reading between the lines".

  --  Saul

 

[AlanPater]

5 hours ago, Dean Pomerleau said:

8 hours ago, AlanPater said:

It seems to me that the original report coming from South Africa and omicron's epidemiology do not favor the suggestion it originated from scientists' messing around in mice. 

Can you elaborate on how the original report and epidemiology would seem to undermine the scenario I'm suggesting?

Omicron seems to have originated in South Africa, a country not to be associated with messing around with viruses in mice.

South Africa had low vaccination rates and high infection rates, which "may have" facilitated a faster spreading virus take over epidemiologically.

[Todd Allen]

1 hour ago, AlanPater said:

Omicron seems to have originated in South Africa

It was 1st detected in South Africa.  They reported the sequencing and within a week a couple dozen other countries reported finding it too.  One of which was the Netherlands where they found it in older samples taken before it was found in South Africa from people with no detected recent contact to people in South Africa.  There is no strong evidence of first origin.

[AlanPater]

11 hours ago, Todd Allen said:

13 hours ago, AlanPater said:

Omicron seems to have originated in South Africa

It was 1st detected in South Africa.  They reported the sequencing and within a week a couple dozen other countries reported finding it too.  One of which was the Netherlands where they found it in older samples taken before it was found in South Africa from people with no detected recent contact to people in South Africa.  There is no strong evidence of first origin.

If you look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SARS-CoV-2_Omicron_variant#Epidemiology it is quite clear where it originated:

" On 26 November 2021, the South African National Institute for Communicable Diseases announced that 30,904 COVID-tests (in one day) detected 2,828 new COVID infections (a 9.2% positivity rate).^[134] One week later, on 3 December 2021, the NICD announced that 65,990 COVID tests had found 16,055 new infections (5.7 times as many as seven days before; positive rate 24.3%) and that 72 percent of them were found in Gauteng.^[135][136] "

No corresponding burst (wave) of new COVID or omicron infections happened that early in the Netherlands or other countries.  And the Netherlands has historical connections with the Netherlands and there probably are back and forth movements between the two countries.  Omicron rapidly causes a steep increase in infections and the country of origin would be the first to be overwhelmed as was South Africa.  There was a huge number of infections of the tamer original version of COVID in a specific region of China before there were significant case numbers in other countries.

Edited January 31, 2022 by AlanPater