outbreak! (ebola, sars, coronavirus, etc)

The CDC announced we're shifting to yearly vaxes. As for transmission effects, it was ever thus, even the original vaccines in early 2021.

As for frequency, I mean...we're still in a pandemic. My friend, whose advice I trust, didn't hesitate when I asked her about a second bivalent jab.

if i wanted to protect others around me, would getting vaccinated make any difference?

Short answer: yes.

The vaccine should make a difference at each of the stages of transmission to others that directly involve you. It should raise the threshold of exposure to the virus required to produce a symptomatic infection in you and if you become symptomatic it should allow your immune system to suppress the amount of virus you shed and the length of time you're shedding it. Everything else about transmission is a variable the vaccine cannot influence.

I got a second bivalent jab this morning at CVS. Using my old card that ran out of space after my pre-bivalent booster in June 2022 helped grease the lie. So did realizing the staff member and I shared a birthday.

guess i'm putting this here because it's political and the other thread is "non-political". it's also US-centric. avert your eyes.

the house has a new GOP-led subcommittee on the coronavirus, and the purpose seems to be to increase the pain of those of us who lost someone to Covid, those of us still suffering from long covid, and those who are going to experience those things in the future. the purpose is not to erase our experiences, but instead to gas light us as much as possible so that we start to think that maybe we were the problem, and that instead of the problem being hundreds of millions of cruel dumbasses who refused to do anything to help and in fact actively opposed it, the problem was the people who got sick and the people who were hurt.

i continue to await the subcommittee on cancer in which the GOP will go to every length to make those who suffered from cancer feel like it was all just a big unnecessary trick that led to lots of people being afraid about getting cancer, and that those who had cancer were lying, weak, and selfish.

i think the high water mark of people giving a fuck about covid was in the first month. every single day since then has been in the direction of "covid was nothing, we never should have done anything about it, lots of people die every day, we don't care about people who die from the flu, we've gotten used to people dying in car wrecks, why should we care about covid". (getting any sort of memorial or day of recognition for a million people dying of covid in the US alone, for example, is absolutely impossible and i am a fool for even thinking it would happen, even though it would mean everything to me to go out and be with the other people who lost people, on that day, and to see them and for all of us to be there)

the needle won't move back toward the direction of empathy until the next pandemic

House Republicans presented with a textbook case of the ailment this week. The newly formed select subcommittee on the coronavirus pandemic met for the first time for what its chairman, Rep. Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio), said would be some “Monday-morning quarterbacking.” It instead became a Tuesday afternoon of false starts and illegal blocks.

Republicans on the panel, some of them medical doctors and others just playing one on TV, offered their predictable assessments. Rep. Debbie Lesko (R-Ariz.) kicked off with the unsupported allegation that “covid was intentionally released” from a Chinese lab because “it would be impossible for the virus to be accidentally leaked.”

Rep. Richard McCormick (R-Ga.) advanced the ball by informing the panel that coronavirus booster shots “do more harm than good.”

And then Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) scored with this extraordinary medical discovery: “Researchers found that the vaccinated are at least twice as likely to be infected with covid as the unvaccinated and those with natural immunity.”

But the panel’s greatest contribution to the science of misdirection was to feature as witnesses three scientists who arguably did more than all others to champion a herd-immunity approach to covid. Two of them were co-authors of the “Great Barrington Declaration,” put out by a Koch-backed group, which argued in 2020 for letting the virus run wild through the population while somehow segregating the old and vulnerable.

Had they prevailed in making herd immunity the official policy, hundreds of thousands more Americans might have died. As it was, President Donald Trump and GOP governors used these scientists’ claims disparaging face masks, isolation and vaccines to whip up resistance to public health restrictions.

One of the witnesses, Marty Makary, a Johns Hopkins surgeon and Fox News regular, used the committee meeting to present a new variant of covidiocy. He declared with absolute certainty that the virus came from a Wuhan lab.

“It’s a no-brainer that it came from a lab,” he declared. What’s more, “at this point it’s impossible to acquire any more information, and if you did it would only be in the affirmative.” He even suggested that two of the nation’s top virologists knew this but “changed their tunes” because they were bribed with grant money by Anthony Fauci.

also fuck this washington post op-ed writer. even with selective editing i can't excise his uncontrollable, annoying snark

the needle won't move back toward the direction of empathy until even after millions needlessly die in the next pandemic

But it's probably safe to assume it'll continue moving in its present direction regardless. Monsters gonna monster.

"2200-2900 People Still Die Of COVID Every Week In This Country But I Haven't Been One Of Them (Yet)" is a really weird shirt to want a child you've never met to wear

When the next pandemic sweeps the United States, health officials in Ohio won’t be able to shutter businesses or schools, even if they become epicenters of outbreaks. Nor will they be empowered to force Ohioans who have been exposed to go into quarantine. State officials in North Dakota are barred from directing people to wear masks to slow the spread. Not even the president can force federal agencies to issue vaccine or testing mandates to thwart its march.

Conservative and libertarian forces have defanged much of the nation’s public health system through legislation and litigation as the world staggers into the fourth year of covid.

At least 30 states, nearly all led by Republican legislatures, have passed laws since 2020 that limit public health authority, according to a Washington Post analysis of laws collected by Kaiser Health News and the Associated Press as well as the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials and the Center for Public Health Law Research at Temple University.

Health officials and governors in more than half the country are now restricted from issuing mask mandates, school closures, and other protective measures or must seek permission from their state legislatures before renewing emergency orders, the analysis showed.

"gift article" link for those who want to read the rest: https://wapo.st/3J0mqN5

“One day we’re going to have a really bad global crisis and a pandemic far worse than covid, and we’ll look to the government to protect us, but it’ll have its hands behind its back and a blindfold on,” said Lawrence Gostin, director of Georgetown University’s O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law. “We’ll die with our rights on — we want liberty but we don’t want protection.”

jeeeeeeez Lawrence, what a downer, lighten up!

a lot of graves are going to require urine when some of these people shuffle off

fucking death cult iirc

Today in fucking-around-and-finding-out: https://www.vice.com/en/article/z3mb89/ivermectin-danny-lemoi-death

Wait, he'd been taking it daily for ... a decade!?

Lemoi began taking the version of ivermectin designed for animals on a daily basis in 2012, after he was diagnosed with Lyme disease, according to a detailed account of his medical history he gave on a podcast last November.

Man, if he'd gotten into shilling essential oils between Lyme exposure and COVID he could have been any number of my high school classmates.

wow, this thread's revived less and less, eh?

With March ending this is the longest span of no COVID cases anywhere in my life since the beginning.

Two hundred people still die a day, though.

A friend got it at the end of Feb, but otherwise, nothing here for a while, either.

currently doing the rounds in the uk.

dad collapsed and when the medics had ruled out all the usual stuff they tested for covid and he was positive (he'd been to skittles 3 days before). uncle, the one who was meant to be sheltering but has mostly been sheltering in the pub also came down with it from the same event. both better now.

i went into central london for only the 2nd time in 3 years on thursday, 45 minutes on public transport total, started coughing on the saturday, sweating, shivering for a couple of days, still coughing 9 days later.

jeez, koogs, best wishes

are UK numbers still bad? a few months ago my friend teaching there on a temporary contract said that people only wore masks when they HAD covid, but that no one else did at all

(i've been jabbed, COVID and flu, but the last one was start of Oct. it's not been bad bad, more of a chore than anything)

Yeah, I know a few people that have tested positive in the past few months. Between vaccines and treatment, more a pia than anything else. I think right now the transmission rate is pretty low everywhere in America. Now, common colds? Everyone everywhere seems to have the sniffles.

are UK numbers still bad? a few months ago my friend teaching there on a temporary contract said that people only wore masks when they HAD covid, but that no one else did at all

― Goose Bigelow, Fowl Gigolo (the table is the table),

Isn't that how things are here? I just ended a 49-student course and I was the only masked person.

UK reported numbers are up 30% week-on-week lately, so probably vastly higher irl

British Columbia’s restrictions on public testing are so limiting that it is currently estimated to have reported numbers 1% of actual

US deaths have dropped below the 9/11sworth/pw standard this month

i think i unbookmarked this thread. i finally got covid in January and have been more lax about masking since then, but still do it on public transport/ crowded shops more often than not. i had a mild cold the other week and felt more comfortable masking tbh.

i went into central london for only the 2nd time in 3 years on thursday, 45 minutes on public transport total, started coughing on the saturday, sweating, shivering for a couple of days, still coughing 9 days later.

― koogs, Monday, 27 March 2023 17:21 (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

this is basically what happened to me three weeks ago (though it was a Friday when I was in London)...I'm mostly over it but still not as sprightly as I was before

I essentially choose to remain on general guard and I see no reason not to. My hospital still has about ten patients right now because of COVID, and that's just one hospital in the city. I see no need to run an unneeded risk, and with the shift to spring/summer about here, and therefore more chances to hang outside with people, great; I'll happily mask up in the meantime when I'm inside somewhere as needed.

thanks to Elon’s broken new Twitter, despite having blocked him ages ago I am now getting Feigl-Ding pushed back into my feed, had to block him all over again, but not before seeing that he’s back on his dangerous fearmongering bullshit, wildly misquoting Fauci and having everyone in his mentions believing that Fauci is saying “vaccines don’t work”.

Does anyone know how soon after infection you can in turn be infectious? Googling has only turned up the information that you can be infectious 48 hours before you have symptoms, but it seems unlikely that 5 minutes after you were infected you would already be able to infect others. (I have a practical interest in this question, due to exposure to someone who was exposed to someone else a few hours earlier...)

I've had a hard time finding anything more specific than that, sadly. There's definitely a incubation period though, it's not exposure-instainfection-transmit.

Hoping it's a false alarm for you!

Anecdotally, I had a friend last year test positive on a Tuesday night, where that previous Monday evening, several of us had close contact with her, and nobody else at the gathering caught it. So it definitely varies.

Thanks! Not worried for myself, the real situation is that person A has covid, person B spent time with them, I'm person C who then spent time with person B, and then I spoke to person D who has a reason to avoid getting covid.

I would guess D is probably ok but probably worth them keeping an eye

i think i looked this up a while ago when my relatives were considering risk of sitting on a train then visiting elderly parents the same day. think we established infection would not happen that quickly.

Coworker and 6 of his family group caught it 3 weeks ago at his parents' house, none serious fortunately. He's back at work after testing negative but still has a cough and fatigue.

I just go by 24 hours, so e.g. if I’m in my unmasked college class, I’ll be ok if I see someone for dinner the next night but I’ll be more careful around other people after that. By and large though, in London where I live, no one I know masks that much except for me, so there’s no longer much point in being “careful for other people” — although I’m careful for myself.

I will sit unmasked in cafes and friends houses and occasional quick meals now - that’s a big quality of life improvement for me, and I’m comfortable with the risk. But I don’t see any point in going unmasked on transport or in a big shop. It’s really no bother to mask in those situations.

totally, that's pretty much what I do as well

Can't find the 'ilxors with covid' thread, but me and my bf have it again. Pretty sure he picked it up from work again. We're both vaccinated but I'm really struggling with it, very shivery and full of aches.

:( - i'm sorry to hear that

We're both vaccinated but I'm really struggling with it

my anecdotal understanding is that UK folks under 70 are unlikely to have had one bivalent, let alone two?

my 4th jab, from local chemist, was the SpikeVax bivalent, last october. (AZ, AZ, Moderna, Spikevax)

First day back from Spring Break for us and half of my kid's class is out with some bug (fever/nausea) that doesn't appear to be COVID.

my anecdotal understanding is that UK folks under 70 are unlikely to have had one bivalent, let alone two?

― least said, sergio mendes (sic)

This is true for us. Two vax, one booster, not bivalent as far as I understand it. Will the original vaccines have faded in usefulness by now? I thought there'd be some residual benefit.

I'm in London, and had the bivalent in November as I'm considered a social care worker

My partner is in the "everybody else" list, and she had hers in January.

Bivalent 2 for over 75s is just kicking off now.

I'm not sure how often you're supposed to have the bivalent - you can have your second now, if it's been more than three months since your last jab. I think it's supposed to be twice a year?

It's not officially mandated in the States (where our bivalent jab rates are pitiful anyway), but I lied to get a second bivalent jab in March.

The US has just approved a second bivalent for 65 & older/vulnerable folks. Doesn't look like they'll greenlight gen. pop. any time soon.

I think they are strategically waiting to get on a once a year combined COVID/flu shot routine. Or at least just a single annual shot.

Six months is the semi-informal allowance in the US now, though there's not really any messaging of official guidance on it. I got my bivalent the first morning they were available, and the second six months to the day after that, and they just confirmed the date on my card without asking any other questions - this will vary from pharmacist to pharmacist, ofc.

As soon or often as you're allowed after an update to spike proteins, three months after an infection, and twice a year absent other factors is probably a good rule of thumb rn.


Will the original vaccines have faded in usefulness by now? I thought there'd be some residual benefit.

Better than nothing, but potentially not much residual - even the first bivalents available were trained on OG omicron from nearly a year earlier, and we've now had sixteen months of international "let 'er rip" strategies creating more and more enthusiastic and creative variants. And of course, everyone's individual experience of infection varies, and vaccination only reduces risk. Isolate as much as possible, rest more than you think you should, and take as much ibuprofen as you have in the house - good luck!

there is still residual benefit against severe disease regardless, though that also wanes over time, just not as badly as transmission protection wanes. many of those who were vaccinated/boosted and die were not up to date on their boosters.

mom is hesistant to get her and dad done again, and I get the why (dad's easy as he sleeps, but mom and I have to coordinate as I'm mostly solo while she's recovering), but i'm going to encourage it. i got my second bivalent, mostly by trickery.