The COVID-2019 Thread

[malmomike77]

My view is probably a bit simplistic too. Irrespective of the hemisphere and seasons, the virus is having most success in densely populated regions

Thing is virus epidemiology relies on transmission and mutation. It doesn't really want to kill the host so the development of mutations and their spread becoming ever milder may be the way out of this. Once the predominant variants are mild in form it may be best to just let it run riot. Talk in the UK is about lifting all restriction in March and living with it like we do Flu.

[hallelujah]

Thing is virus epidemiology relies on transmission and mutation. It doesn't really want to kill the host so the development of mutations and their spread becoming ever milder may be the way out of this. Once the predominant variants are mild in form it may be best to just let it run riot. Talk in the UK is about lifting all restriction in March and living with it like we do Flu.

Talk of it being sooner from something I glimpsed yesterday.

Obviously, the deadlier Delta variant is still at work too in many places, so the sooner Omicron supersedes this the better. Seemingly, it's not better to deal with the devil you know as far as Covid is currently concerned.

[harrybarracuda]

It doesn't really want to kill the host

It doesn't "want" to do anything, you spanner. Although it probably has a slightly higher IQ than you.

[Switch]

Extraordinary deduction ... Good Lord, give him a banana!

Meanwhile, I'm a bit concerned that the UK is playing down Omicron when the deaths yesterday were up to 438...

COVID Live - Coronavirus Statistics - Worldometer

Are you suggesting that infections in highly populated areas is a lie, or a coincidence that you can ignore? Honestly!

[malmomike77]

It doesn't "want" to do anything, you spanner. Although it probably has a slightly higher IQ than you.

An expression hazza much like you use Fuck and Cvnt evert other word, got it? or has being cooped up in that desert shithole talking to yourself all day addled you to the point your pea brain can't follow a simple sentence

[harrybarracuda]

Republicans. They're "pro-life".

The Florida Department of Health Medical Director that oversees areas of Orange County including Orlando has been put on leave for encouraging his own staff to get vaccinated.

Orange County Medical Director Dr. Raul Pino wrote an email to staff on Jan. 4th encouraging them to get vaccinated and boosted for COVID-19.

In it he wrote, “I have a hard time understanding how we can be in public health and not practice it.”

After sending the email he was placed on administrative leave.
In an email to WMFE, the Florida Department of Health has confirmed Pino was put on leave because, “the decision to get vaccinated is a personal choice that should be free from coercion and mandates from employers.”
Florida DOH says it’s even conducting an inquiry into whether any laws were broken by sending the email.
Republican Governor Ron DeSantis has banned vaccine mandates in the workplace, and the state has seen a surge in Omicron cases.

Florida Department of Health confirms Dr. Raul Pino put on leave for encouraging Orange County Department of Health employees to get vaccinated - Central Florida News - 90.7 WMFE

[harrybarracuda]

Amazing how many people in Sandbox can't believe they test positive on Day 5...

PHUKET: Local authorities have vowed to take decisive legal action against tourists who fail to wear face masks in public, saying failure to comply with the disease control requirement is rampant in the island province.
Pol Col Thanet Sukchai, the immigration chief in Phuket, said on Wednesday tourists were failing to wear face masks in public places, and local authorities had resolved to more stringently enforce the requirement from the local communicable disease committee.
Phuket governor Narong Woonciew had already asked the Phuket consuls of 22 countries to communicate the face mask mandate to their citizens, Pol Col Thanet said.
"Violators will be arrested and prosecuted... The Phuket health office has been assigned to file relevant complaints. Examples must be set," he said.
The Phuket governor would soon form an operational team to enforce the rule, he said. Local police would take the lead and inspect people at key locations, including Soi Bangla and Patong areas.
On Jan 7, the governor issued an order for people to wear face masks when they go out unless they are eating, drinking or exercising.
Violation of the order carries a penalty of up to 20,000 baht under the Communicable Diseases Act, plus a fine of up to 40,000 baht and/or a jail term of up to two years under the Executive Decree on Public Administration in Emergency Situations imposed to control Covid-19.
The local immigration chief did not elaborate on the extent to which actual punishments will be imposed on those who fail to wear face masks in public.

Phuket vows tough action on unmasked tourists

[dirk diggler]

5.5 days since close contact and I'm still testing negative. One more test tomorrow and I'm convinced I'm good to go.

[harrybarracuda]

I hope he gets it bad.

AUSTIN (Nexstar) — Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has tested positive for COVID-19, according to an email statement from his office.
A spokesperson for the Office of the Attorney General told Nexstar Wednesday, “We can confirm that General Paxton has tested positive for COVID-19. He remains working diligently for the people of Texas from home.”
The office did not specify when Paxton tested positive, what his symptoms are or potential exposures. The Republican AG has been a leading voice against COVID-19 vaccination mandates, but his office did not immediately say what Paxton’s vaccination status is.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton tests positive for COVID-19 | ArkLaTexHomepage

[malmomike77]

Hmmm

High Covid death rates skewed by people who died from other causes, admits Sajid Javid

Health Secretary reveals daily government figures might be unreliable as ONS data show fewer deaths registered to Covid


Daily reported Covid death figures are too high because people are dying from conditions unrelated to the virus after testing positive, Sajid Javid has admitted.


On Wednesday, there were 359 deaths reported in Britain, but the Health Secretary said that “many” people were being included in the count who “would not have necessarily died of Covid”.


His comments came after death data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show a large discrepancy in weekly death registrations compared to the figures released on the Government dashboard.


For the week ending Jan 7, the UK Health Security Agency reported 1,282 deaths of people who had died within 28 days of testing positive for coronavirus.


However, ONS data show there were just 992 death registrations with Covid mentioned on the death certificate in that week.


For deaths where Covid was the primary cause, the difference is even starker, with just 712 registrations, meaning that 44 per cent of the Government’s daily reported figures in that week may not be true Covid deaths.


At a Downing Street press conference on Wednesday, Mr Javid warned that the daily figures are no longer reliable because of the surge in omicron infections.


“We estimate that around 40 per cent of the people with Covid in hospital are there not because they’ve got Covid, but they happen to have Covid, so it’s what you might call an incidental infection,” he said.


“That’s almost double the percentage that we saw with delta, and that’s important because the deaths that are being reported of people who were Covid-positive within 28 days of passing away, many of those people would not have necessarily died of Covid.”


Before omicron hit, the number of deaths reported by the ONS was consistently higher than the Government dashboard data because their figures include people who have died at hospital and in care homes.


However, the trend has since changed, with dashboard figures way higher than those published by the ONS.

More: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/01/19/high-covid-death-rates-include-people-did-not-die-virus-admits/

[hallelujah]

^As I've mentioned numerous times before (and as recently as yesterday in the US and Canada).

Here are the stats (again from the Office for National Statistics) on the number of deaths, broken down by age and sex, where only Covid appears on the death certificate (Feb 2020 to December 2021).

COVID-19 deaths and autopsies Feb 2020 to Dec 2021 - Office for National Statistics

Table 1: Number of deaths where COVID-19 was the only cause mentioned on the death certificate, 1 February 2020 to 31 December 2021, by sex and age group, England and Wales

Age group	Males	Females
<1	1	0
1-4	0	0
5-9	0	0
10-14	0	1
15-19	1	0
20-24	4	1
25-29	12	3
30-34	24	7
35-39	42	15
40-44	52	24
45-49	87	43
50-54	138	52
55-59	234	92
60-64	254	102
65-69	279	119
70-74	357	204
75-79	395	252
80-84	492	402
85-89	470	533
90+	520	971

Hmmmm indeed.

[hallelujah]

^As I've mentioned numerous times before (and as recently as yesterday in the US and Canada).

Here are the stats (again from the Office for National Statistics) on the number of deaths, broken down by age and sex, where only Covid appears on the death certificate (Feb 2020 to December 2021).

COVID-19 deaths and autopsies Feb 2020 to Dec 2021 - Office for National Statistics

Table 1: Number of deaths where COVID-19 was the only cause mentioned on the death certificate, 1 February 2020 to 31 December 2021, by sex and age group, England and Wales

Age group	Males	Females
<1	1	0
1-4	0	0
5-9	0	0
10-14	0	1
15-19	1	0
20-24	4	1
25-29	12	3
30-34	24	7
35-39	42	15
40-44	52	24
45-49	87	43
50-54	138	52
55-59	234	92
60-64	254	102
65-69	279	119
70-74	357	204
75-79	395	252
80-84	492	402
85-89	470	533
90+	520	971

Hmmmm indeed.

By the way, and I see no reason why I shouldn't seek to justify the point I have made while others have called me every name under the sun, but who have since been surprisingly quiet since I published yet more facts last weekend (and, as we see above, here are some more current facts from the most recent end of year records)...

....If we take the first 5 rows of the statistics as a sample:

<1	1	0
1-4	0	0
5-9	0	0
10-14	0	1
15-19	1	0

...we have a total of 3 deaths in almost a year between people being born up to the age of 19.

If we do the same for the last 5 rows...

70-74	357	204
75-79	395	252
80-84	492	402
85-89	470	533
90+	520	971

...we have a staggering 4,596 deaths.

Now, while you may not particularly like my point of view, Misskit, and others who have fallen prey to the scare-mongering left-wing press, at least give me my voice in allowing conclusive proof of what I have always said: this is almost exclusively a virus of the elderly/vulnerable.

Of course, these figures don't make me "happy" to see people die but, even then, as you can see from the figures, it's not a death sentence and you have a plus 90% chance of surviving as an "elderly" person according to many reports.

We need to get a sense of perspective, people. Facts, not fear.

[misskit]

Meat Loaf Dead at 74 from COVID

[katie23]

^from the article (abt Meat Loaf)

"Our sources say Meat Loaf has been outspoken about COVID, railing with folks in Australia recently about vaccine mandates. We do not know if he was vaccinated."

So he probably didn't do "that" (vaccination).

RIP Meatloaf (an anti-vaxxer). I've always wondered what "that" meant in his song.

[hallelujah]

Meat Loaf 'seriously ill with COVID-19' before death

By all accounts, he was an anti-vaxxer despite being overweight, in his 70s, and suffering from a number of health issues.

Bat out of hell? More like batshit fucking crazy.

It's hard to have much empathy with anti-vaxxers when you repeatedly see stories like this. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.

[misskit]

Doesn’t say he was not vaccinated. It says he railed against mandates in Australia.

[hallelujah]

Common sense starting to prevail in the UK.

From 2 days ago.

All plan B Covid restrictions, including mask wearing, to end in England | Health policy | The Guardian

Spreading as far as the WHO too.

Coronavirus digest: Travel bans ineffective, WHO says | News | DW | 19.01.2022

[hallelujah]

Doesn’t say he was not vaccinated. It says he railed against mandates in Australia.

That's why I said by all accounts.

[hallelujah]

Protests against Covid vaccine mandates for NHS staff in the UK today.

LIVE: Protest against Covid vaccine mandate for NHS staff held in city centre - Manchester Evening News

[misskit]

Omicron has changed the shape of the pandemic. Will it end it for good?

The world feared the worst when a worrying new coronavirus variant emerged in late November and ripped through South Africa at a pace not seen before in the pandemic.


But two months later, with Omicron dominant across much of the globe, the narrative has shifted for some.


"Levels of concern about Omicron tend to be lower than with previous variants," Simon Williams, a researcher in public attitudes and behaviors towards Covid-19 at Swansea University, told CNN. For many, "the 'fear factor of Covid' is lower," he said.

Omicron's reduced severity compared to previous variants, and the perceived likelihood that individuals will eventually be infected, have contributed to that relaxation in people's mindsets, Williams said. This has even caused some people to actively seek out the illness to "get it over with" -- a practice experts have strongly warned against.


But some within the scientific community are cautiously optimistic that Omicron could be the pandemic's last act -- providing huge swathes of the world with "a layer of immunity," and moving us closer to an endemic stage when Covid-19 is comparable to seasonal illnesses like the cold or flu.


"My own view is that it's becoming endemic, and it will continue to stay endemic for some time -- as has happened with other coronaviruses," said David Heymann, professor of infectious disease epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
"All viruses try to become endemic, and to me this one looks like it's succeeding," he said.

Covid-19 has evolved with great unpredictability, and the variant that superseded Delta could have been more sinister, experts say; but the world ultimately got a dominant strain that is sweeping through populations with ease, without causing the same degree of hospitalizations, severe illnesses and deaths that previous variants have done.


Experts caution that there may be setbacks along the way -- just as Omicron's make-up was unexpected, the next variant could present a more serious public health risk and delay the end of the pandemic.


And many countries, particularly where vaccination coverage is low, could still face overwhelmed hospitals due to the current Omicron wave.


But a political urgency is appearing in much of the West to return societies to a sense of normality -- with the transmissibility of Omicron forcing leaders to choose between rolling back public health measures or seeing their workforces and economies risk grinding to a standstill.


And for the first time since the spread of Covid-19 stunned the world in early 2020, some epidemiologists and leaders are willing to entertain the prospect that the virus might be making steps toward endemic status.

MORE Omicron has changed the shape of the pandemic. Will it end it for good?
- CNN

[panama hat]

Omicron has changed the shape of the pandemic. Will it end it for good?

It's confusing as to why Omicron should be the end of covid-19 . . . Delta is not dependent on micron and is still killing thousands

[harrybarracuda]

It's confusing as to why Omicron should be the end of covid-19 . . . Delta is not dependent on micron and is still killing thousands

In most countries it's elbowing Delta out of the way as the predominate strain. If it provides a level of immunity against Delta, that's a good thing.

[misskit]

Omicron Variant Now Causing COVID Infections in All Provinces of Thailand

BANGKOK (NNT) - The Omicron variant of the virus that causes COVID-19 is now being detected in all provinces of Thailand, with health authorities expecting almost every new coronavirus infection to stem from the new strain by the end of this month.


Dr Supakit Sirilak, director-general of the Department of Medical Sciences, said 86.8% of 3,711 samples analyzed from January 11 to 17 are of the Omicron variant, while only 13.2% are the Delta variant.


If specimens are limited to the 1,437 samples collected from international travelers during the period, 96.9% were Omicron and just 3.1% were Delta. Of the 2,274 samples collected from domestic transmission cases, Omicron made up 80.4% of samples while Delta was 19.6%.


Dr Supakit said random analyses of people repeatedly infected with COVID revealed that immunity against previous variants was ineffective in protecting against Omicron. However, he said it is now clear that the symptoms of the Omicron variant are less severe than those of Delta, adding that almost all new infections in Thailand will be from Omicron by the end of this month.


According to the director-general, the number of severe COVID cases and deaths will continue to fall if new infections can be limited to no more than 10,000 per day. He also said that as long as no new variants or severe mutations of the coronavirus come into play, the Omicron strain may help end the pandemic, as predicted by many experts.


Dr Kiattiphum Wongrajit, Permanent Secretary for the Ministry of Public Health, said cooperation from all parties in implementing disease control measures kept this month’s wave of outbreaks from reaching the peaks forecast in some simulations. However, he said the rising number of infections in Greater Bangkok is drawing concern, adding that the capital has more relaxed restrictions than other provinces and is also the one with the highest rate of population movement. He further noted that he would like as many senior citizens to get vaccinated as possible despite Omicron symptoms being generally less severe, as members of high-risk groups may develop severe symptoms regardless.


The permanent secretary also said the Ministry of Public Health will follow up on daily developments concerning the extension of drinking hours to 11 PM. Outbreak clusters or violations of relaxed alcohol regulations will result in venues being shut down.

https://thainews.prd.go.th/en/news/d...20123155510605

[panama hat]

In most countries it's elbowing Delta out of the way as the predominate strain.

I don't know if they are competing viruses, but . . .

If it provides a level of immunity against Delta, that's a good thing.

. . . then absolutely.

I haven't seen any data on that yet, though . . . not that I'd understand it anyway.

[harrybarracuda]

I don't know if they are competing viruses, but . . .
. . . then absolutely.

I haven't seen any data on that yet, though . . . not that I'd understand it anyway.

You don't understand this?

The Omicron variant is spreading rapidly and is likely to be cause of almost all local Covid-19 infections by the end of this month, according to the Department of Medical Sciences.
From Jan 11 to 17, Omicron was found in 97% of infected arrivals from overseas sampled for thorough checks, and 80% of local cases, with the Delta variant accounting for the rest, department director Supakit Sirilak said on Friday.

https://www.bangkokpost.com/thailand...-by-months-end