BBC: China pneumonia outbreak: COVID-19 Global Pandemic

[Renegade7]

Just now, AlvinWaltonIsMyBoy said:

I think this is a poor comparison until we actually close the border with Canada.
 

 

Nah, if we gonna do travel bans with Africa, why not UK and Canada? Whats the difference?

 

Just now, AlvinWaltonIsMyBoy said:

Think I’m just gonna stop there and agree to disagree. Covid debates don’t really do it for me anymore.

 

Your call.

[Renegade7]

And what the hell is this ****???

 

https://news.trust.org/item/20211128141821-cjvtt

 

Quote

WASHINGTON, Nov 28 (Reuters) - The United States' top infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, said on Sunday that Americans should be prepared to do "anything and everything" to fight the spread of the new COVID-19 variant Omicron.

 

It is "too early to say" whether we need new lockdowns or mandates, Fauci told ABC News.

 

"You want to be prepared to do anything and everything," he said. (Reporting by Heather Timmons; Editing by Mark Porter)

 

Maybe I'm jus exhausted from this whole thing, but I'm not looking forward to how we deal with future virants of concern if this is how we deal with future virants of concern.

[CousinsCowgirl84]

47 minutes ago, AlvinWaltonIsMyBoy said:

I think this is a poor comparison until we actually close the border with Canada.
 

Think I’m just gonna stop there and agree to disagree. Covid debates don’t really do it for me anymore.

I mean, you can disagree with @Renegade7 all you want but why disagree with scientists and experts in the field? Isn’t that part of the lesson we can learn from his mess?

 

I think lockdowns are unlikely, we know how to better treat covid 19 now.

Edited November 29, 2021 by CousinsCowgirl84

[KDawg]

Someone educate me.

 

The goal of any deadly virus is to mutate to the point that is no longer deadly and doesn’t kill the host, isn’t it? 
 

Is Covid different? Why are these variants such major news for folks?

[Renegade7]

6 minutes ago, KDawg said:

Someone educate me.

 

The goal of any deadly virus is to mutate to the point that is no longer deadly and doesn’t kill the host, isn’t it? 
 

Is Covid different? Why are these variants such major news for folks?

 

I've never heard of that (but im not a virologost), my understanding is that viruses aren't "intelligent" enough to have another goal except replicate. 

 

Becoming less lethal to prevent killing the host via natural selection in order to make as many copies of itself as possible makes sense, but look at the flu, its still evolving and killing folks simultaneously.

 

Even if you are right, what do we do in the meantime with variants that aren't avoiding killing the host by accident?  That's why I believe they matter. 

[KDawg]

10 minutes ago, Renegade7 said:

 

I've never heard of that (but im not a virologost), my understanding is that viruses aren't "intelligent" enough to have another goal except replicate. 

 

Becoming less lethal to prevent killing the host via natural selection in order to make as many copies of itself as possible makes sense, but look at the flu, its still evolving and killing folks simultaneously.

 

Even if you are right, what do we do in the meantime with variants that aren't avoiding killing the host by accident?  That's why I believe they matter. 

My whole point is more along the lines of this shouldn’t be surprising, nor news, unless the variant is so drastically different that it’s a whole new animal. So far they don’t seem to be, but I’m not reading every detail.

 

Best we can all do is be prepared for variants/mutations and do our part.

[Renegade7]

6 minutes ago, KDawg said:

My whole point is more along the lines of this shouldn’t be surprising, nor news, unless the variant is so drastically different that it’s a whole new animal. So far they don’t seem to be, but I’m not reading every detail.

 

Best we can all do is be prepared for variants/mutations and do our part.

 

I feel you. 

 

So anyone can correct me on this but many of the current vaccines are based around the spike protein that connects the virus to human cells. The concern was this new variant's  spike protein was different enough that it could get past the current vaccines.  That to me might as well be a whole nother animal with us starting from scratch again with the vaccines, but its good chance thats not the case here, maybe too early to tell.

 

Stuff like this is going to stay news while we continue to call it a pandemic, CNN still has daily trackers on the side panels of their news programs.  Its one of the few things as important as the economy because it's shown it can bring the economy to a halt.  I'm probably telling you stuff you already know, but it helps me process this new reality when I talk and post about it.

 

This does go back to what I was talking about earlier in terms of being clear with how we plan to deal with the future of this virus.  I agree with you new virants are to be expected, its the new normal. I believe a lot of people want the old normal back, I'm just waiting for powers that be to call this an endemic instead of pandemic to help keep it in perspective.

 

Its okay to tell me it's over, we're too late, COVID is here to stay, I get that this has happened before and will happen again.

[Barry.Randolphe]

From what I've read the past few days, Pfizer and Moderna say they should have a booster update to the variant in less than 100 days if it proves true that it is vaccine resistant 

 

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/11/28/moderna-says-an-omicron-variant-vaccine-could-be-ready-in-early-2022.html

https://www.businessinsider.com/pfizer-vaccine-update-100-days-omicron-variant-resistant-2021-11

 

Quote

Pfizer said it will be able to manufacture and distribute an updated version of its COVID-19 vaccine within 100 days if the new variant Omicron is found to be resistant to its current vaccine. 

 

Edited November 29, 2021 by Barry.Randolphe

[FrFan]

 

 

[Llevron]

11 hours ago, KDawg said:

Someone educate me.

 

The goal of any deadly virus is to mutate to the point that is no longer deadly and doesn’t kill the host, isn’t it? 
 

Is Covid different? Why are these variants such major news for folks?

 

That is how I understand it. The problem here being that its affecting more children. And while its not killing them, it is killing our more vulnerable population. Which is a huge amount of us. Which in turn is effecting everything from the economy to supply chains. 

 

Thats my understanding. Admittedly though I am so over all of this at this point I am not even interested enough to look up any of this before I post it. 

[KDawg]

11 minutes ago, Llevron said:

 

That is how I understand it. The problem here being that its affecting more children. And while its not killing them, it is killing our more vulnerable population. Which is a huge amount of us. Which in turn is effecting everything from the economy to supply chains. 

 

Thats my understanding. Admittedly though I am so over all of this at this point I am not even interested enough to look up any of this before I post it. 

 

I'd love to see the numbers (I know you said you don't have them). As a coach I have seen the school age COVID numbers prior to this in local districts around me and they are a lot higher than people think/has been reported. 

[China]

Israel to ban entry of foreigners from all countries over Omicron

 

Israel on Saturday said it would ban the entry of all foreigners into the country, making it the first country to shut its borders completely in response to the potentially more contagious Omicron coronavirus variant, and said it would also reintroduce counter-terrorism phone-tracking technology in order to contain the spread of the variant.

 

Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said in a statement that the ban, pending government approval, would last 14 days.

 

Officials hope that within that period there will be more information on how effective COVID-19 vaccines are against Omicron, which was first detected in South Africa and has been dubbed a "variant of concern" by the World Health Organization. Israelis entering the country, including those who are vaccinated, will be required to quarantine, Bennett said. The ban will come into effect at midnight between Sunday and Monday.

 

The Shin Bet domestic security agency's phone-tracking technology will be used to locate carriers of the new variant in order to curb its transmission to others, the statement said.

 

Israel has so far confirmed one case of the variant and seven suspected cases.

 

The variant, which since first being detected in South Africa has also been detected in Belgium, Botswana, Hong Kong, Italy, Germany and Britain, has sparked global concern and a wave of travel curbs, although epidemiologists say travel curbs may be too late to stop Omicron from circulating globally.

 

CLick on the link for the full article

[No Excuses]

15 hours ago, KDawg said:

The goal of any deadly virus is to mutate to the point that is no longer deadly and doesn’t kill the host, isn’t it? 
 

Is Covid different? Why are these variants such major news for folks

 

There is no goal to any virus in terms of lethality, they simply have to transmit as efficiently as possible within the constraints of their genetics. Lethal viruses can sustain themselves as long as they transmit before social isolation/distancing can catch their spread.

 

The first SARS coronavirus was extremely lethal compared to this one, but symptoms developed fast enough that it allowed public health agencies to quarantine and control spread. The current virus is not as lethal, but it spreads pre-symptomatically really efficiently, which is why it caused a sustained global pandemic unlike the first one. The science isn't entirely clear on this, but it's likely possible under the appropriate conditions that you can have a coronavirus that has the lethality of the original SARS, but the pre-symptomatic transmission profile of SARS-Cov2.

 

With the current coronavirus, we likely have to remain vigilant for quite some time that it doesn't develop a more lethal variant that maintains or accelerates its ability to transmit before symptoms appear. We know that this is has already happened once with the Delta variant, which spread faster, and was more lethal than the Alptha variant.

 

I suspect that until we have a vaccine that isn't primarily based on the spike protein, any new variant that shows changes in viral behavior (transmission, lethality, etc.) will be a cause for concern. There are going to be more variants over the next few years, we haven't even seen the virus evolve in response to the vaccines yet. When we reach endemicity, where most people have immunity through vaccines or infection, the selection pressure on the virus will be very different than what its facing currently.

 

This is a long-winded way of saying that there is cause for concern with any new variant because we are building our knowledge for how coronaviruses evolve within a human population for the first time ever. We will probably stop caring about new variants when we know how the virus behaves/evolves when nearly all the people alive in the world have built up immunity through vaccines or natural infection. We may also stop caring whenever a vaccine is available that is not sensitive to mutations in the spike protein.

Edited November 29, 2021 by No Excuses

[TradeTheBeal!]

Bummer.

 

 

[Dan T.]

^^^ That's the same guy who received $3.9 million in PPP funds from the U.S. Government, the program intended to help businesses pay employees during the pandemic, and 2 weeks later bought a 14-passenger Gulfstream jet.

[China]

Covid: Omicron lockdown not needed for now, Biden says

 

US President Joe Biden has called the Omicron Covid-19 variant a "cause for concern, not a cause for panic" a day after it was detected in North America.

 

He said he saw no need for a new lockdown "for now... if people are vaccinated and wear their masks".

 

Cases have been found in Canada, and the US has imposed travel bans on eight southern African countries.

 

Mr Biden added that pharmaceutical companies were making contingency plans for new jabs if they are needed.

 

At the White House on Monday, the president said it was "almost inevitable" that Omicron, first reported by South Africa, would be found in the US eventually.

 

"We're going to fight and beat this new variant," he said.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

‘This is not going to be good’: Moderna CEO on what scientists are telling him about the omicron coronavirus variant

 

Moderna MRNA, -4.36% CEO Stéphane Bancel has left no doubt whether he’s taking a glass half-full or half-empty approach to the emergence of the new omicron coronavirus variant.

 

He told the Financial Times there’s no world where current vaccines are as effective as they have been against the delta variant. And he suggested the drop-off could be significant.

 

“I think it’s going to be a material drop. I just don’t know how much because we need to wait for the data. But all the scientists I’ve talked to . . . are like, ‘This is not going to be good’.”

The interview put another scare into financial markets, with futures on the Dow industrials YM00, 0.37% contract losing more than 500 points. “The major vaccine makers have offered timelines of two to six weeks for assessing its vaccine evading capabilities, and in the meantime, travel shutdowns and behaviour modification are a risk as we await anecdotal and statistical evidence of the spread of the virus and its virulence,” said Steen Jakobsen, chief investment officer at Saxo Bank.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

Severe Covid infection doubles chances of dying in following year, study finds

 

Patients who survive severe Covid are more than twice as likely to die over the following year than those who remain uninfected or experience milder virus symptoms, a study says.

 

The research, published in Frontiers in Medicine, suggests that serious coronavirus infections may significantly damage long-term health, showing the importance of vaccination.

 

The increased risk of dying was greater for patients under 65, and only 20% of the severe Covid-19 patients who died did so because of typical Covid complications, such as respiratory failure.

 

“We conducted a previous study that showed that patients with severe Covid-19 who recovered were at significantly greater risk of being hospitalised in the subsequent six months,” said ProfArch Mainous of the University of Florida, the lead author of the study. “This new study extended that to investigate mortality risk over the next 12 months.”

 

The researchers tracked the electronic health records of 13,638 patients who underwent a PCR test for Covid within the University of Florida health system, with 178 patients experiencing severe virus symptoms, 246 mild or moderate Covid-19 and the rest testing negative. All patients included in the study recovered from the disease, and the researchers tracked their outcomes.

 

The study found that patients who were very unwell with coronavirus had a significantly greater chance of dying over the next year, a trend that was particularly notable among those aged under 65. As these deaths frequently occurred long after the initial infection had passed, they may never have been linked to Covid-19 by the patients’ families or doctors, the study found.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

Hooray!  No more Covid!

 

 

-------------------------

 

Real America may be done with Covid, but Covid isn't done with real America:

 

 

[Cooked Crack]

Quote

White confirmed on the podcast that he is vaccinated, and said he consulted his close friend and UFC commentator Joe Rogan for advice after his diagnosis. The UFC president said he is already feeling better and wants to attend a UFC Fight Night event on Saturday in Las Vegas if he is able to test negative.

Why is Joe Rogan the go to guy for all these clowns who get covid?

[China]

54 minutes ago, Cooked Crack said:

Why is Joe Rogan the go to guy for all these clowns who get covid?

 

I think many of them have taken one too many blows to the head.

[TradeTheBeal!]

Hang in there, Germany.

 

 

[Llevron]

Covid lockdown for the unvaccinated is going to be a rough rough sell world wide and the anarchists here are going to use it against us too. 

[skinsmarydu]

1 hour ago, Llevron said:

Covid lockdown for the unvaccinated is going to be a rough rough sell world wide and the anarchists here are going to use it against us too. 

We have an open kitchen where I work now, and I got asked today why nobody had masks on.  I replied, "We're all vaxxed and boostered.  You're safe.  I wouldn't be here in front of you if I believed you were in danger...hell, I wouldn't be here if I thought I was.  I'm old."  She laughed & we just kept it rollin'. 

[PeterMP]

On 11/28/2021 at 9:25 PM, KDawg said:

Someone educate me.

 

The goal of any deadly virus is to mutate to the point that is no longer deadly and doesn’t kill the host, isn’t it? 
 

Is Covid different? Why are these variants such major news for folks?

 

Generally, we think about things like viruses evolving to be less deadly.

 

But evolution doesn't have a goal.

 

To think about evolution as something with a goal that progresses in a forward direction towards that goal is generally a mistake.

 

Evolution also doesn't produce perfect or ideal systems or processes.  It is at best mostly a random walk.  Things that are evolutionary disadvantageous can regularly occur in populations (which is why things like childhood cancers exist).

 

In the context of deadly virus, all that really matters is that it is able to reproduce and spread.  If it is essentially done with you in terms of reproducing and spreading, it doesn't care if it kills you.  In many cases, making people extremely sick can be an advantage to a virus because it can cause the introduction of new people to infect.

 

The 1918 flu actually evolved and became more deadly because of the war and people being in cramped spaces (injured military people in hospitals, soldiers in the trenches, etc.) it was easily able to spread and there was minimal evolutionary disadvantage to killing people.

 

We see generally see a lack of evolving to be less deadly with the flu.  Some years the flu is more virulent and deadly than others.  The flu hasn't and like won't ever evolve to be equivalent to the common cold.

 

Generally (historically especially after  our understanding of infection diseases), when there is a lethal virus the response of the human population is to stop congregating and take reasonable safety methods (e.g quarantine).  That makes spreading harder which means for a virus killing people (quickly at least) an evolutionary disadvantage.  Even during the black plague, people that were able to essentially with drew from crowded areas (e.g. cities) and quarantined.

 

People going out of their way to NOT do things that would normally happen is likely to make the situation worse.  We've also got a world that is more congested than ever making things like quarantining more difficult than ever.

Edited December 3, 2021 by PeterMP