Coronavirus IV

Just some examples of the idiocy of the CDC.  At one point they wanted us to stop eating tomatoes for a food illness outbreak but it wasn't even caused by tomatoes.  

Maybe all of those CDC memes weren't they far fetched.  

https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/17/health/cdc-guidance-out-of-touch/index.html

Are those who declare themselves Democrats here in favor of this?

https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/poll-finds-close-half-democratic-voters-want-covid-internment-camps-unvaxxd

dusty7 wrote:Are those who declare themselves Democrats here in favor of this?

https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/poll-finds-close-half-democratic-voters-want-covid-internment-camps-unvaxxd

Not me.

I'm in the majority of democratic voters who don't want internment camps and who feel real sorrow when so many of the unvaccinated end up in the hospital keeping people with maladies that are unpreventable from getting their needed treatments and surgeries.

We should all get vaccinated and stay out of the hospitals.

Did you see this...only 21% of Republicans think Biden won the election in 2020. Are there any declared republicans on this board that are that misinformed?

https://www.newsweek.com/just-21-percent-republicans-say-biden-probably-definitely-won-2020-poll-1664390

Teetime wrote:

dusty7 wrote:Are those who declare themselves Democrats here in favor of this?

https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/poll-finds-close-half-democratic-voters-want-covid-internment-camps-unvaxxd

Not me.

I'm in the majority of democratic voters who don't want internment camps and who feel real sorrow when so many of the unvaccinated end up in the hospital keeping people with maladies that are unpreventable from getting their needed treatments and surgeries.

We should all get vaccinated and stay out of the hospitals.

Did you see this...only 21% of Republicans think Biden won the election in 2020. Are there any declared republicans on this board that are that misinformed?

https://www.newsweek.com/just-21-percent-republicans-say-biden-probably-definitely-won-2020-poll-1664390

So we can agree there are crazies on both sides?

dusty7 wrote:So we can agree there are crazies on both sides?

Of course we can.

45% of Democrats and 79% of republicans are idiots.

Covid hospitalizations in Illinois are down 9.3% from a week ago. I hope this means that the surge has already peaked.

Our 7 day average new cases started rising around December 28, started dropping Jan 13. I am sure we will see a large rise tomorrow after 3 day weekend, but will continue to drop.

Hospitalizations were slowly rising starting in early November with larger increases on early December.

As many have stated, the surge will last about 8 weeks. We are 6 weeks into the surge. Things should look much better come Valentines Day.

dusty7 wrote:Our 7 day average new cases started rising around December 28, started dropping Jan 13.  I am sure we will see a large rise tomorrow after 3 day weekend, but will continue to drop.  

Hospitalizations were slowly rising starting in early November with larger increases on early December.

As many have stated, the surge will last about 8 weeks.  We are 6 weeks into the surge.  Things should look much better come Valentines Day.  

west central il is still soaring up.

How many people were fired or lost their jobs on the false narrative that prior infection was not good enough and they had to get vaccinated?  

https://www.wsj.com/articles/prior-covid-19-infection-offered-better-protection-than-vaccination-during-delta-wave-11642619009?mod=mhp

Funny how fast this is all changing.  Britain just lifted all mask mandates, will the US be the next to follow?

Why not use masks made in America?
https://mobile.twitter.com/BryanSteil/status/1484248893495943169

My family and I have been and continue to be on the side of 'if a majority of Dr.'s, at least the one's we listen to, say do this or do that, we will do our best to do this or that for the better good'; but I'll admit, my wife and I have had more than one conversation in the last few months regarding masks and the mandates to quarantine kids who are not symptomatic and haven't tested positive. I think it's getting to the point that those types of things need to go. Masks in schools and indoor sporting events is a joke...the players never wear them correctly if at all, and the same is true for the school setting; and the masks they're wearing aren't good enough even if they are worn correctly. Enough is enough there...lets move on. Great Britain is going to be watched very closely over the next few weeks to see how this plays out over there. I'm quickly becoming inclined to say they're approach may be something that needs to be looked at in a larger view. And I say that knowing my family and I will continue to get the necessary boosters as recommended by our Dr.'s and other smart people in our lives.

I agree with the masks during indoor sports. I have been to several basketball games and I have yet to see a single athlete wearing the mask correctly. The fact that it is still enforced is beyond idiotic. In fact, during a JV game the other night, we had a kid who's mask, that he was wearing under his chin, came off and the ref immediately blew the whistle and told the kid to put the mask back on. The kid proceeded to put it under his chin and the game continued.

On the booster side, I was told by my doctor to wait a few more months due to having antibodies which is evident from blood work. I had a really bad reaction to the 2nd Pfizer dose and I don't want to go through that again so my doctor said as long as you have anti-bodies there is really no reason to get a booster.

dusty7 wrote:
Why not use masks made in America?
https://mobile.twitter.com/BryanSteil/status/1484248893495943169

Wow! Bryan Steil got his ass burned in that thread you posted.

Teetime wrote:

dusty7 wrote:
Why not use masks made in America?
https://mobile.twitter.com/BryanSteil/status/1484248893495943169

Wow! Bryan Steil got his ass burned in that thread you posted.

Yep, whenever you post anything on social media you are going to get burned. Doesn't matter what side you are on those who disagree with you are going to be louder than those who agree with you, that's just the nature of social media.

I am sure there are probably Made in the USA masks that will be distributed but if the government is going to be handing them out, I think it would be wise to get them all made in the US. Do something to benefit American companies.

Interesting study from cdc

“By early October, persons who survived a previous infection had LOWER case rates than persons who were vaccinated alone"

https://twitter.com/KDVR/status/1484651372687540230

I just read this

https://usafacts.org/articles/what-does-data-say-about-covid-vaccines-and-natural-immunity/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=ND-COVID&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI6_33ssLE9QIVCMqUCR25xAzxEAAYASAAEgLLFPD_BwE

So a combination of infection and vaccination is the best? Do these studies show that for those who had COVID and received the vaccine are unlikely to need a booster?

Covid hospitalizations in Illinois are down 29% since January 12.

From "The Dispatch" this morning:

FDA Revokes EUA for Monoclonal Antibodies

"The Omicron COVID-19 variant may be milder than its predecessors, but the new strain is still wreaking havoc, in large part because it’s proven able to chip away at the effectiveness of several tools in our existing pandemic toolbox. The vaccines—particularly three doses of them—still do a strong job at keeping people alive and out of the hospital, but their ability to prevent infection and transmission entirely has taken a hit. Rapid antigen tests are still able to detect an Omicron infection, but less reliably than infection with previous variants.

Earlier this week, the Food and Drug Administration announced another casualty of the Omicron wave: Two monoclonal antibody treatments, manufactured by Regeneron and Eli Lilly.

“Because data show these treatments are highly unlikely to be active against the omicron variant, which is circulating at a very high frequency throughout the United States, these treatments are not authorized for use in any U.S. states, territories, and jurisdictions at this time,” Dr. Patrizia Cavazzoni, director of the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, said on Monday. “In the future, if patients in certain geographic regions are likely to be infected or exposed to a variant that is susceptible to these treatments, then use of these treatments may be authorized in these regions.”

Even with other COVID treatments coming down the pike, losing monoclonal antibodies (at least in the short term) is a blow. Tens of thousands of Americans are currently hospitalized with COVID-19, and—while Omicron does tend to send fewer people to the ICU—many current and future patients would have benefited from an effective version of the treatments. But you wouldn’t necessarily expect the move to be controversial—who wants to take an expensive drug that’s known not to work?

Nevertheless, many prominent Republicans and conservative entertainment figures furiously denounced the move. Gov. Ron DeSantis accused the Biden administration of revoking access to the treatments “without a shred of clinical data to support its decision,” attributing the change to “the whims of a floundering president.”

But DeSantis’ response was tame compared to that of his press secretary, Christina Pushaw, who retweeted this claim from conspiracy theorist Mike Cernovich: “The FDA is trying to make it so that people in Florida die of Covid. They’ll kill people to harm Republicans. Steel yourselves for the evil that is being unleashed.”

There have been plenty of partisan debates about various COVID-19 treatments the past two years—hydroxychloroquine, ivermectin, etc.—but there’s long been a consensus about the efficacy of monoclonal antibodies. For months, DeSantis—in an apparent attempt to position himself as serious about the pandemic without riling up his base’s anti-vaccine cohort—has been a major cheerleader for the therapy, holding press conferences from clinics where it was being offered and promoting it in his regular cable news appearances. Last September, he pushed back strongly against the Biden administration’s shift toward rationing the government’s weekly allotment of the treatments more equitably among the states—a move that reduced Florida’s supply while Delta was still raging.

If there was always going to be a contingent of Floridians who insisted on going unvaxxed—and there would have been, no matter what DeSantis did—it made sense that the governor would spend his time and political capital pumping an effective treatment.

But Omicron, with its dozens of mutations, has changed the game. In study after study after study after study—dating back well over a month—researchers have lamented the variant’s ability to evade previous defenses. “A minor form of omicron is completely resistant to all antibodies in clinical use today,” one report from Columbia University and Hong Kong researchers found. “The authors note that omicron is now the most complete ‘escapee’ from neutralization that scientists have seen.”

(The studies found one exception among drugs already authorized by the FDA: sotrovimab, an antibody treatment produced by GlaxoSmithKline, retained some effectiveness against Omicron. The FDA is keeping that in circulation, and at least one antibody infusion center in Florida has already switched from Regeneron’s drug to sotrovimab this week.)

Perhaps most surprised by DeSantis’ “without a shred of data” claim would be Regeneron and Eli Lilly themselves, as both drugmakers publicly backed the FDA’s decision and pledged to come back with updated treatments that work for newer variants.

“The original REGEN-COV antibody cocktail has been administered to millions of people globally and works well against Delta and other serious variants of concern,” a Regeneron spokesperson said in a statement. “However, it does not work against the Omicron variant in lab tests, which tells us that it is also not going to work in people who are infected with this variant. According to the CDC, over 99 percent of COVID cases in the U.S. are now caused by the Omicron variant, and thus the FDA’s decision to amend the Emergency Use Authorization was appropriate at this time.”

Why is it that monoclonal antibodies have become essentially useless against Omicron, when the COVID vaccines, although diminished in their effectiveness, continue to provide some protection? The likely cause is the difference in the sort of protection each therapy offers. The immune response triggered by a COVID vaccine does result in the production of antibodies that strongly resemble those acquired directly in Regeneron or Eli Lilly’s treatments. But a vaccine also triggers the body to produce more broad-spectrum defenders against infection known as T-cells. And T-cells are thought to be much better at retaining their efficacy against variant forms of viruses than are antibodies alone.

You like strained military metaphors? Think of a body at war with COVID, with an individual virus as an enemy fighter jet. If the defense knew of and could access an exploit in the plane’s computers’ programming, they might be able to bring it down with no fuss—that’s antibody protection. But that strategy could be defeated if the exploit was patched—that’s a new viral variant. Fortunately, patch or no patch, you can still shoot the plane out of the sky with a good old missile—that’s T-cell protection.

Of course, T-cell protection alone isn’t as good as a combination of T-cells and functional antibodies, which may explain why the vaccines too are flagging somewhat in the face of Omicron—particularly against infection. But the difference does illustrate why the current generation of monoclonal treatments seems to be dead in the water."

One of my sisters tested positive for Covid late last week. She called me yesterday, sounded bad over the phone and told me that she felt bad. She told me that she was going to have a monoclonal antibody infusion. I’m guessing that her Doctor wanted her to have it because her lungs are compromised.
Now I read this that this treatment isn’t effective against Omicron. I don’t know what to believe any more.

an interesting case.
seems harsh to me.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/brigham-and-womens-hospital-boston-refusing-heart-transplant-man-wont-get-vaccinated/

OSUBucks wrote:One of my sisters tested positive for Covid late last week. She called me yesterday, sounded bad over the phone and told me that she felt bad. She told me that she was going to have a monoclonal antibody infusion. I’m guessing that her Doctor wanted her to have it because her lungs are compromised.
Now I read this that this treatment isn’t effective against Omicron. I don’t know what to believe any more.

My wife's cousin had it over Xmas, vaxed, overweight, and a smoker, had monoclonal treatment and was better in 2 days.  

What should you believe? What did the media say 6 months ago? Reverse it and that is the appropriate method to protect you and all those around you.  

As Lefty stated, I am over all of this politically pushed so called mitigations.  None of them have worked and more and more people are not following them. States with mask mandates are no better off than those without. It's time to change our approach and become comfortable with people doing what they feel best protects them.

If you are scared of getting sick and want to wear a mask, good news, they are free at the local drug store, grab your N95s and you are protected, even from those wearing cloth masks or nothing at all.

How can colleges cancel in person classes yet have full student sections at basketball games?  It makes no sense at all and is just posturing and holding on what little power they have to letting people get their lives' back to normal. Fewer and fewer people are listening.    

Here soon, cases will drop dramatically because of at home testing, which will not be reported to health departments, and those in power will pay their own backs and exclaim how good of a job they did in bringing numbers down.  Well, if this is what will beat the virus, why did it take two \"f\"ing years to implement free at he testing?  We are being led by idiots, every one of them.

It’s good to hear that the monoclonal treatment helped your wife’s cousin. Hope it does the same for my sister. I agree with you that there seem to be contradictions in the decision making regarding Covid. I’ve already noticed that at my gym fewer people are wearing masks than they used to. People wear them when entering the building then pull them down which is what I do too. If you’re not health compromised this variant isn’t going to kill you. One of my daughters works at one of our local hospitals. She tested positive a couple weeks ago. She quarantined for 5 days and went back to work. She had a stuffy nose and had a little fatigue.

Interesting article here on the number of breakthrough deaths. It is around 40% in Illinois in the month of January.

https://wirepoints.org/nearly-40-percent-of-all-illinois-covid-deaths-in-the-last-month-are-breakthroughs-what-gives-wirepoints-quickpoint/

dusty7 wrote:Interesting article here on the number of breakthrough deaths.  It is around 40% in Illinois in the month of January.  

https://wirepoints.org/nearly-40-percent-of-all-illinois-covid-deaths-in-the-last-month-are-breakthroughs-what-gives-wirepoints-quickpoint/

That is interesting and a lot more than I thought it would be. These breakthrough deaths are vaccinated but not people who have also boosted, at least that’s what I read. I don’t have data on the ages of the people in these breakthrough deaths. My suspicions are that they are older folks.

OSUBucks wrote:

dusty7 wrote:Interesting article here on the number of breakthrough deaths.  It is around 40% in Illinois in the month of January.  

https://wirepoints.org/nearly-40-percent-of-all-illinois-covid-deaths-in-the-last-month-are-breakthroughs-what-gives-wirepoints-quickpoint/

That is interesting and a lot more than I thought it would be. These breakthrough deaths are vaccinated but not people who have also boosted, at least that’s what I read. I don’t have data on the ages of the people in these breakthrough deaths. My suspicions are that they are older folks.

Probably so, the elderly dying has been the theme for this entire pandemic. But also would like to see the differentiation between With COVID and From COVID, that data is sorely needed and no clue why it isn't being released. Probably to keep their narrative to keep up all the meaningless and confusing mitigations.

dusty7 wrote:

OSUBucks wrote:

dusty7 wrote:Interesting article here on the number of breakthrough deaths.  It is around 40% in Illinois in the month of January.  

https://wirepoints.org/nearly-40-percent-of-all-illinois-covid-deaths-in-the-last-month-are-breakthroughs-what-gives-wirepoints-quickpoint/

That is interesting and a lot more than I thought it would be. These breakthrough deaths are vaccinated but not people who have also boosted, at least that’s what I read. I don’t have data on the ages of the people in these breakthrough deaths. My suspicions are that they are older folks.

Probably so, the elderly dying has been the theme for this entire pandemic. But also would like to see the differentiation between With COVID and From COVID, that data is sorely needed and no clue why it isn't being released.  Probably to keep their narrative to keep up all the meaningless and confusing mitigations.  

I would like to see all the data to be accessible to anyone with a laptop or smartphone.