outbreak! (ebola, sars, coronavirus, etc)

haha fair xp

https://brighterworld.mcmaster.ca/articles/researchers-confirm-newly-developed-inhaled-vaccine-delivers-broad-protection-against-sars-cov-2-variants-of-concern/

Because inhaled vaccines target the lungs and upper airways where respiratory viruses first enter the body, they are far more effective at inducing a protective immune response, the researchers report.

dope. can't wait for those to be available, that would be a gamechanger.

No one is asking the teachers to risk their lives. They have access to the vaccine and the booster. A boosted person who is not SEVERELY immunocompromised has basically zero risk of death.

This is too binary. You are missing the real difference between risking your life and risking your death. Substantial changes to your state of health can change the entire course of your life for the worse.

While half a million people around the world have died of covid-19 since the omicron variant of the coronavirus was first detected in November, President Biden’s top medical adviser says the United States is exiting “the full-blown pandemic phase” of the coronavirus crisis.

It’s a sobering statistic — and a reminder of the pandemic’s ongoing toll even as cases start to decline in nearly every U.S. state.

About 100,000 of the deaths since omicron was declared a “variant of concern” occurred in the United States, the World Health Organization said Tuesday. WHO incident manager Abdi Mahamud said in an online Q&A session said the death toll is “tragic” given the availability of “effective vaccines.” He said there have been 130 million reported cases of the coronavirus globally since omicron.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/02/09/omicron-covid-deaths-fauci-pandemic/

500,000 omicron deaths worldwide, with 100,000 in the USA. 20% of the deaths, 4% of the deaths, greatest country in the world

sorry, 20% of the deaths, 4% of the population, i meant.

typos are amazing when you're talking about hundreds of thousands of deaths

never wanna hear about American exceptionalism ever again, although I guess we were exceptional at dying

This is too binary. You are missing the real difference between risking your life and risking your death. Substantial changes to your state of health can change the entire course of your life for the worse.

^This is hilarious. "Risking your life" literally means to risk death.

Regardless of what the phrase "literally means," it's true that teaching is a profession that comes with some serious health risks, and Covid, even with vaccines, adds to them.

Glad to bring a bit of hilarity into your life. Now go out and do something that simply puts you at high risk of going blind, because hey, it's not like I'm asking you to risk your life, eh?

Is there any data on the risk of severe long term symptoms for a vaxed person (not to speak of boosted, which I assume is too recent a phenomenon to have good data)?

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-00177-5

Researchers in Israel report that people who have had both SARS-CoV-2 infection and doses of Pfizer–BioNTech vaccine were much less likely to report any of a range of common long-COVID symptoms than were people who were unvaccinated when infected. In fact, vaccinated people were no more likely to report symptoms than people who’d never caught SARS-CoV-2.

Admittedly not peer-reviewed yet. But Nature is a reputable journal.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/victoriaforster/2021/02/08/did-covid-19-cure-this-persons-cancer/?sh=82340264217f

It's a rule (which probably has a name) that when any headline is in the form of a question, the correct answer is 'no'.

Beveridge's Law

The answer (no) will shock you

It's a rule (which probably has a name) that when any headline is in the form of a question, the correct answer is 'no'.

feel like that clickbait tactic had faded a bit in recent years ,and is back in full force now.

did this clickbait tactic go away when everyone figured out it was annoying?

i found a FB status I wrote like 9 years ago bitching about this lol

Betteridge's Law, not Beveridge

Mr. Betteridge thanks you. (writes note on hand in ink)

It's a rule (which probably has a name) that when any headline is in the form of a question, the correct answer is 'no'.

― more difficult than I look (Aimless), Thursday, 10 February 2022 bookmarkflaglink

Knew this link was going to bring in the goods.

^I believe this is normally called "trolling".

Named for Gustave Troll, a French phrenologist and companion of Verlaine's.

^I believe this is normally called "trolling".

― more difficult than I look (Aimless), Friday, 11 February 2022 bookmarkflaglink

I believe you are farting again.

projection is pretty amazing stuff

I lucid dreamed a fart

-Maynard James Keenan

jfc

Pfizer-BioNTech & @US_FDA have shelved the idea of authorizing #Covid vaccine for children under 5 before having data on the 3rd dose. https://t.co/epi2kW65OZ

— Helen Branswell (@HelenBranswell) February 11, 2022

well, science!

everybody gets justifiably nervous when it comes to little kids and no one wants to be the fall guy if something goes wrong

early february: let's announce a plan to publicly review the data so far on feb 15
feb 11: hang on

great stuff

correct thread

Great. So my 18-month-old can’t get a vaccine Pfizer themselves say is safe & effective.

This would be like saying nobody can get vaccinated with 2 doses because 3 may be better & we’re still testing that.

Unacceptable & frankly no group that can vote would have to deal w/this https://t.co/2ijepAZh3v

— Govind Persad (@GovindPersad) February 11, 2022

also correct thread

Honestly fuck the FDA

— Joel Wertheimer (@Wertwhile) February 11, 2022

Jesus, just an absolute disaster of handling this. Awful.

correct https://emilyoster.substack.com/p/no-pediatric-vaccine-review-for-now

I cannot emphasize strongly enough what a complete messaging and public relations fiasco this is. Whether it is appropriate to approve the vaccine at this phase or not, I cannot say. What I can say with 100% certainty is that this is about the worst possible way the process could have been run.

while i value and enjoy the condescension reflex among certain posters, if you take the time to look into the details here, it's very bad.

That's an excellent post and educational.

the final "What do I do now?" section is all correct and good advice, but the penultimate paragraph glosses over the fact that the thing that is holding most parents back is not fear for their kids safety (or even care for their community). it's the mitigation policies in place at daycares which, rightly or wrongly, mean a "return to normal" is not possible because it's against the rules. vaccination is a big deal not because we'll all suddenly feel a lot safer, but because it's presumed to be the path to loosening restrictions.

fun fact: my kids are not allowed to daycare for 10 days if they travel outside LA county.

btw they were supposed to meet to discuss the data on tuesday, but they were supposed to release the data today. that's how late this change is.

So is Persad advocating that the FDA authorize the Pfizer vaccine for 6 mos. - 2 years, where efficacy has been shown? Or is he saying they should authorize for 6 mos. - 5 years, even though Pfizer says efficacy has not been shown, with 2 shots, for 2-4 year olds?

i think persad is advocating it be approved immediately at this dose for all under 5s.

the heavily trailed results (which are what caused the FDA to *ask* pfizer to submit while the trial for the third dose was WIP) are:

*efficacy* has not been shown at any age range. the goal of an immunobridging trial is to demonstrate safety and antibodies. they found levels comparable to vaccinated teenagers in 6m-2, but lower levels in 2-4. the lower levels were still higher than naive 2-4. there were no safety issues. it sounds like the omicron wave gave them a bit more efficacy data than expected but not enough for a strong result (which is not needed for approval).

i guess reasonable people can disagree about what the FDA should have recommended on tuesday, given what we know about the current data. that in itself is a pretty big clue that maybe the FDA shouldn't have encouraged pfizer to submit in this extremely unusual way. maybe then they wouldn't have announced a confidence boosting two month postponement on the day the data was supposed to be released.

good stuff from ed yong as per

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2022/02/covid-pandemic-immunocompromised-risk-vaccines/622094/

🚨I wrote about immunocompromised people—what they’ve been through, their frustrations, and their hopes.

This is a plea to think about those who don’t get to be done with the pandemic, and to prioritize them as a matter of moral and medical urgency. 1/https://t.co/DBI6ssL1a5

— Ed Yong (@edyong209) February 16, 2022

Posted this to the other thread, but early reports on child long covid symptoms largely lacked controls, and controlled studies are increasingly suggesting it's not a big worry (albeit we can't 100% know if there's some down the road effect lurking)

https://www.statnews.com/2022/02/14/controlled-studies-ease-worries-widespread-long-covid-kids/?fbclid=IwAR0Tv2MEJq0ume-UThpLNwQH5RrVXaNILeLLDAQdJOqcjjV-Hxu8hauhuE0

What I find so confusing is that people mean REALLY DIFFERENT things by "long COVID," ranging from "I still felt overtired a month later" to "I am disabled to the point of not being able to work and likely will be for life"

Definitely. "Long COVID" is a misleading term because it sounds like some kind of long-lasting virus. It is in fact just a collection of symptoms. No one actually has "Long COVID," they have a two-month persistent cough caused by COVID, or a month of fatigue caused by COVID, or six months of anosmia caused by COVID, all of which are different. And in some cases it's just correlation, not causation, which is why the controls are so important (not to mention that a lot of early reports relied on surveys where there was no actual confirmation of COVID, and prolonged symptoms seemed to be higher in self-reported COVID vs test-proven COVID).

No one actually has "Long COVID," they have a two-month persistent cough caused by COVID, or a month of fatigue caused by COVID, or six months of anosmia caused by COVID, all of which are different.

Or they have permanent disability, which is really different!

promise this isn't the beginning of tweet diarrhea from me again. it's been a while, indulge me.

anyway, of course CNN picked up on a pre-print today about BA.2 subvariant of Omicron being 'more pathogenic' than BA.1 (original Omicron), which was done in a lab study with hamsters, and as of yet doesn't really match real world observation.

that isn't what i'm sharing, but rather, sharing real world data talking about what South Africa knows about BA.2 vs BA.1.

I now am retiring for 3 months as per my contract.

[Thread] 1. How fast is BA.2 (a subvariant of the #Omicron variant) spreading in SA and is it making people sicker than BA.1 (the original form of #Omicron)?

Cheryl Cohen, @nicd_sa: pic.twitter.com/59Nd1hlATJ

— Mia Malan (@miamalan) February 16, 2022

Definitely. "Long COVID" is a misleading term because it sounds like some kind of long-lasting virus. It is in fact just a collection of symptoms. No one actually has "Long COVID," they have a two-month persistent cough caused by COVID, or a month of fatigue caused by COVID, or six months of anosmia caused by COVID, all of which are different.

please don't post shit like this

for anyone reading this who has long covid, apologies for this, we all know it's wrong but we put up with it because our world is horrible

you're right it is all those things

plus a whole lot of other things