The COVID-2019 Thread

[HuangLao]

Damn Chinks...

[harrybarracuda]

Damn Lying Chinks...

FTFY.

[Shutree]

Turtles All the Way Down

The link at the end of this post is a review of the book and the review itself is a very long read. It has made me reconsider some of the things I thought I knew about vaccines. Read with an open mind. This is a short extract of the review:

A central theme of anti-vaxxers has been that many of the vaccines they criticize actually have serious adverse side effects, sometimes doing more harm than good, and I’d always been quite skeptical of this claim. After all, I’d known that prior to their general release new vaccines must typically go through a long period of clinical trials, in which they are matched in randomized, blinded large-scale tests against placebos. But the very first chapter of Turtles claimed that this was mostly a myth and a deception.

According to the authors, such vaccine trials are not conducted against true placebos such as saline solutions, but only against previously approved vaccines. So a new treatment is considered safe if its rate of harmful side-effects is no worse than those of previously approved versions rather than no treatment at all, an illogical approach that seems to make little sense. Thus, the supposed safety and efficacy of current vaccines has only been established relative to a long series of their predecessors, often stretching back decades, and this constitutes the “Turtles All the Way Down” metaphor of the book’s title. This sort of very simple factual claim seems unlikely to have been made unless it were actually true.

Surprisingly enough, the tested rate of adverse vaccine side-effects is sometimes quite significant. For example, during the clinical trials of the Prevnar vaccine, about 6% of the 17,000 infants tested needed emergency room visits and 3% required hospitalization. But because the previous vaccine used for comparison purposes had similarly high rates of negative side-effects, Prevnar was judged safe and effective, a shocking verdict.

There are also cases in which no previously approved version of the vaccine existed for use in such a comparison trial, and one might naturally assume that the only possible choice would be to use a true placebo such a saline solution. Yet as Turtles reveals, in that situation a deliberately crippled version of the vaccine itself is given to the other half of the trial population, a compound which could not provide any benefits but would still probably produce all the same adverse side-effects. The most plausible reason for this strange methodology would be to mask the existence of those adverse side-effects, thereby ensuring the vaccine’s approval.

Turtles summarizes this outrageous situation by stating that each year tens of millions of vaccine doses are administered to infants and toddlers in America, and not a single one of them has ever been tested in clinical trials against an inert placebo. None of this proves that any of these vaccines are dangerous, but it certainly raises that serious possibility.

American Pravda: Vaccines and the Mystery of Polio, by Ron Unz - The Unz Review

[harrybarracuda]

It seems to ignore the fact that *serious* adverse effects of vaccines are measured against *serious* consequences of the disease they are trying to prevent.

Myocarditis being a case in point.

When the full analysis of vaccine vs unvaccinated in this pandemic is actually finished - which could take years - they will have a much better idea of deaths caused by the disease, which will dwarf anything serious in VAERS.

[harrybarracuda]

In another sign of the changing state of the pandemic, an invaluable source of information about the virus over the last three years is shutting down, NPR has learned.
The Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center plans to cease operations March 10, officials told NPR.
"It's bittersweet," says Lauren Gardner, an engineering professor who launched the project with one of her students on March 3, 2020. "But it's an appropriate time to move on."

Johns Hopkins University to shut down its COVID tracker : Shots - Health News : NPR

[harrybarracuda]

WHO being chinky lackeys again.

The World Health Organization will continue pushing until it finds an answer to how the Covid-19 pandemic started, the agency's chief said Wednesday following a report suggesting it had abandoned the search.

"We need to continue to push until we get the answer," Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters, referring to the search for the origins of the virus that first surfaced in China in late 2019.

Solving the mystery of where the SARS CoV-2 virus came from and how it began spreading among humans is viewed as vital to averting future pandemics.

The two main theories that have been hotly debated have centred on the virus naturally spilling over from bats to an intermediary animal and into humans, or escaping due to a lab accident.

But an article on the Nature website Tuesday suggested that the WHO has "quietly shelved the second phase of its much-anticipated scientific investigation into the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic".

It quoted Maria Van Kerkhove, the WHO expert leading the agency's Covid response, saying that "there is no phase two".

https://www.france24.com/en/health/20230215-who-chief-angrily-denies-it-has-quietly-shelved-investigation-into-covid-s-origins

[misskit]

Study: COVID Infection Reduces Hospitalization And Death Risk

Vaccination provides longer protection against COVID-19 than being previously infected, according to a recently published study in The Lancet.


“Natural immunity” has been found to reduce the risk of hospitalisation and death by 88 percent for about 10 months according to one of the largest studies based on data from 19 countries.


As a result, natural immunity is as durable as two doses of Pfizer’s or Moderna’s vaccines, the study stated on Friday.

According to the authors, COVID-19 immunity provides substantial protection against infection with pre-Omicron variants.


A recently developed Coronavirus variant, like Omicron, may erode protection gained from an earlier infection more quickly than older ones.


In the studies on Omicron, past infection is very efficient at preventing severe disease and hospitalization, but vaccination and infection do not provide as much immunity. “That’s immune escape,” Chris Murray, co-author of the report, told Al Jazeera.

Omicron can evade past immunity and infect you, but not necessarily cause severe disease and death. This is according to Murray, director of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington.


Researchers noted that immunity conferred by past infections should be considered when estimating future disease burden from COVID-19. As well, guidance needs to be provided on when a person should be vaccinated as well as how to design policies that require vaccinations or restrict access.


A total of 65 studies were reviewed from 19 countries up to September 2022, so some covered the period when Omicron swept the globe.


The authors report “very high” protection against reinfection by pre-Omicron variants, even after 40 weeks.


“Omicron BA.1 variant protection was significantly lower and declined more rapidly over time compared to previous variants,” the researchers noted.


All variants, however, showed high protection against severe disease, according to the study.


Furthermore, people with immunity from a pre-Omicron variant saw their protection against reinfection wear off much more quickly, dropping to 36 percent after 10 months.


The importance of vaccinations
According to the authors, vaccination, the safest method to obtain immunity, should not be discouraged.


If you have never had the disease and have not been COVID vaccinated, you are at a substantial risk the first time you get infected,” Murray explained. “This infection gives you some long-lasting immunity, but getting vaccinated is much safer.”


“If you are in a high-risk category such as over 60, have comorbidities, diabetes, or a high body mass index, you must keep your immunity high. “A booster is a great strategy,” he said.


As more vaccinated people get re-infected, they will acquire “hybrid immunity” in the future.


According to Cheryl Cohen, an epidemiologist at South Africa’s National Institute for Communicable Diseases, most infections happen in people with strong immunity to severe disease.


It is possible that COVID may have a low seasonal hospitalization burden, similar to other COVID , Cohen stated in a Lancet commentary.


Study: COVID Infection Reduces Hospitalization And Death Risk

[harrybarracuda]

Apparently killing all those people, lying about it, and making their lives a misery for two years before doing it, is another chinky "miracle".

The Chinese government has declared a “decisive victory” in the battle against Covid-19, claiming it had created “a miracle in the history of human civilisation” in successfully steering China through the global pandemic.
The comments were made at a meeting presided over by President Xi Jinping on Thursday. The government said more than 200 million people had been treated for Covid and that China’s death rate from coronavirus was “the lowest level in the world”.

China’s National Health Commission stopped publishing data on Covid cases and deaths on 25 December, after the government suddenly lifted the draconian zero-Covid policies that had restricted movement in the country for almost three years.
On 9 February, it said 83,150 people had died from Covid, which would be an unusually low rate for a country grappling with a wave of the Omicron variant. But there are many other indicators that suggest the virus has ripped through China since December, causing a far higher number of illnesses and deaths than the official data suggests.
Chinese authorities count only Covid deaths that happen in hospitals, an approach the World Health Organization says underestimates the true toll. There have been reports of doctors pressured to leave Covid off death certificates. And mass testing has largely been abandoned. The number of daily tests dropped from 150m on 9 December to 280,000 on 23 January. “We still don’t know how many were infected and how many died at home,” said Prof Jin Dong-Yan, a virologist at the University of Hong Kong.
Since December, hospitals and mortuaries have been overwhelmed with patients and bodies. Using modelling based on the age distribution and vaccination rates in China, Zhanwei Du and Lauren Ancel Meyers, of the University of Texas in Austin, estimate 1.5 million people died from Covid between 16 December and 19 January.
The US, whose population is 334 million compared with China’s 1.4 billion, has reported just over 1.1 million Covid deaths since the start of the pandemic. Europe, home to about 750 million people, has suffered 2 million deaths.
Drugs to treat Covid have become scarce. Pharmacists in several cities have reportedly been opening boxes of ibuprofen and paracetamol to split them into smaller batches in order to serve more customers.
Paxlovid, a medicine developed by Pfizer, has been particularly sought after, with prices rocketing on the illegal market. Agence France-Presse reported that one seller was asking for 18,000 yuan (£2,190) for a single box in January, as many desperate patients looked overseas to try to procure the drug.

China claims ‘decisive victory’ over Covid amid doubt over figures | China | The Guardian

[harrybarracuda]

The Public Health Ministry will begin the roll-out of Pfizer's BA.1 bivalent Covid-19 vaccine next month, according to Dr Thares Krasanairawiwong, chief of the Department of Disease Control (DDC).

Seoul has provided 501,120 doses of this vaccine to help Thailand curb the ongoing spread of subvariants more effectively, such as XBB.1.5 (Kraken) and CH.1.1 (Orthrus).


Govt to roll out new vaccine next month

[malmomike77]

Son of Covid worries, Bird Flu which has spread worldwide has jumped to humans

Bird flu may now be spreading between humans, WHO fears

Health chiefs commission new vaccine in response to the growth of the dominant form of H5N1 virus worldwide

The World Health Organisation is “really concerned” the current bird flu outbreak may now be spreading between people for the first time in more than 25 years.


The WHO has ordered a new bird flu vaccine to be made in response to the rapid spread of the strain of H5N1 avian influenza causing the current outbreak.


An 11-year-old girl died of bird flu in Cambodia this week while her father is also infected and 11 others are under observation, with some showing symptoms. Experts are worried the large cluster might mean that the virus has now evolved to be able to be passed from one human to another.


While captive and wild birds have been decimated worldwide by the current H5N1 strain there has so far been no evidence that it can pass between mammals.


If the virus has been able to cross the species gap from birds to humans then concern around bird flu and its potential to cause a pandemic will escalate.


No sustained transmission of bird flu has ever occurred but limited human-to-human transmission was reported in Hong Kong in 1997.


Dr Sylvie Briand, WHO director of epidemic and pandemic preparedness and prevention, said that the Cambodian outbreak was causing more alarm than isolated cases that have popped up in the intervening two decades.


“When you have only one case, you imagine that it's because this case was exposed to animals, either alive or dead. So for us, it means it is a zoonotic infection,” she said on Friday.


“But when you see that there are a number of potential cases surrounding this initial case, you always wonder what has happened. Is it because maybe the initial case has transmitted the disease to other humans?


“And so we are really concerned about the potential human-to-human transmission coming from this initial spillover from animals.


“This is currently the investigation that is ongoing in the contacts of this girl in Cambodia. We are first trying to see if those contacts have H5N1 infection and that's why we are waiting for the laboratory confirmation of those cases.


“Secondly, once we have this confirmation, we will try to understand if those people have been exposed to animals or if those people have been contaminated by the initial case.”


WHO staff have now been deployed on the ground in Cambodia and the results of these assessments will dictate the next steps.


Dr Richard Webby, director of the WHO Collaborating Centre for Studies on the Ecology of Influenza in Animals, added that “in response to the spread of H5N1 and a little bit of evolution” a new vaccine specifically against the currently dominant strain is now to be developed.


“We are putting another H5 virus vaccine candidate into production and that will start soon,” he said.


Dr Webby added that the current stockpile of candidate virus vaccines - which could be deployed into full-fledged jab drives should the animal infection be proven to have made the jump to spread among people - is also being assessed to see whether it works against the currently dominant form of bird flu.


Evidence suggests that if the current strain behind the ongoing avian pandemic did jump to people then the existing stockpile would work well against it, even if it may take six months to create the updated jab.


“There has been a little bit of work looking at some of the serum collected from people who took part in vaccine trials to some of these earlier H5 clades and several of those people actually worked quite well with some of the recently circulating viruses,” Dr Webby said.


“From a vaccine stockpile and response point of view, I think this is encouraging and suggests the human response to some of the vaccines does induce a broad immunity that cross-reacts with a lot of the clades we are seeing.”


Dr Wenqing Zhang, WHO Global Influenza Programme chief, added that there were almost 20 current H5 vaccines licensed for pandemic use, and the new one would add to this armoury.


The WHO announcement comes after the UKHSA commissioned Covid-like modelling for bird flu should person-to-person transmission be found in the UK.


The UKHSA has activated a new technical group to create modelling for a potential human outbreak of bird flu, which includes Prof Neil Ferguson, who was instrumental in the first Covid lockdown in 2020, and UKHSA chief medical adviser Prof Susan Hopkins.


The UKHSA is also looking into bird flu lateral flow tests, documents show, as well as investigating what is the best lab-based test to pick up the virus.


A source close to the matter told the Telegraph that a host of permutations were being drawn up, including a U-shaped severity curve, akin to seasonal flu; a Covid-like scenario where the oldest and most frail are more likely to die; and the possibility that it is dangerous to all people, like Spanish flu.


One of the scenarios being investigated by officials is if the virus is relatively mild, with an infection fatality rate of 0.25 per cent, similar to Covid.


The most severe hypothesis is if the virus is as deadly in people as the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic, with a fatality rate of around 2.5 per cent, and a hospitalisation rate of one in 20.


Some estimates of bird flu’s fatality rate in humans are as high as 60 per cent but experts say this may be misleading and inflated by sampling bias from when H5N1 first emerged 20 years ago.


The modelling marks an escalation in preparedness by health authorities as the country’s worst-ever bird flu outbreak continues to ravage poultry farmers and wild bird colonies alike.

Bird flu may now be spreading between humans, WHO fears

[harrybarracuda]

That's it, I'm no longer going to eat raw chicken or eggs with chicken shit on them.

[misskit]

New Data Links Pandemic’s Origins to Raccoon Dogs at Wuhan Market

An international team of virus experts said Thursday that they had found genetic data from a market in Wuhan, China, linking the coronavirus with raccoon dogs for sale there, adding evidence to the case that the worst pandemic in a century could have been ignited by an infected animal that was being dealt through the illegal wildlife trade.


The genetic data was drawn from swabs taken from in and around the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market starting in January 2020, shortly after Chinese authorities had shut down the market because of suspicions that it was linked to the outbreak of a new virus. By then, the animals had been cleared out, but researchers swabbed walls, floors, metal cages and carts often used for transporting animal cages.


In samples that came back positive for the coronavirus, the international research team found genetic material belonging to animals, including large amounts that were a match for the raccoon dog, three scientists involved in the analysis said.

The jumbling together of genetic material from the virus and the animal does not prove that a raccoon dog itself was infected. And even if a raccoon dog had been infected, it would not be clear that the animal had spread the virus to people. Another animal could have passed the virus to people, or someone infected with the virus could have spread the virus to a raccoon dog.


But the analysis did establish that raccoon dogs — fluffy animals that are related to foxes and are known to be able to transmit the coronavirus — deposited genetic signatures in the same place where genetic material from the virus was left, the three scientists said. That evidence, they said, was consistent with a scenario in which the virus had spilled into humans from a wild animal.


A report with the full details of the international research team’s findings has not yet been published. Their analysis was first reported by The Atlantic.


The new evidence is sure to provide a jolt to the debate over the pandemic’s origins, even if it does not resolve the question of how it began.


In recent weeks, the so-called lab leak theory, which posits that the coronavirus emerged from a research lab in Wuhan, has gained traction thanks to a new intelligence assessment from the U.S. Department of Energy and hearings led by the new Republican House leadership.


But the genetic data from the market offers some of the most tangible evidence yet of how the virus could have spilled into people from wild animals outside a lab. It also suggests that Chinese scientists have given an incomplete account of evidence that could fill in details about how the virus was spreading at the Huanan market.


Jeremy Kamil, a virus expert at Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center Shreveport who was not involved in the study, said the findings showed that “the samples from the market that had early COVID lineages in them were contaminated with DNA reads of wild animals.”


Kamil said that fell short of conclusive evidence that an infected animal had set off the pandemic. But, he said, “it really puts the spotlight on the illegal animal trade in an intimate way.”


Chinese scientists had released a study looking at the same market samples in February 2022. That study had reported that samples were positive for the coronavirus but suggested that the virus had come from infected people who were shopping or working in the market, rather than from animals being sold there.


At some point, those same researchers, including some affiliated with the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, posted the raw data from swabs around the market to GISAID, an international repository of genetic sequences of viruses. (Attempts to reach the Chinese scientists by phone Thursday were not successful.)


On March 4, Florence Débarre, an evolutionary biologist at the French National Center for Scientific Research, happened to be searching that database for information related to the Huanan market when, she said in an interview, she noticed more sequences than usual popping up. Confused at first about whether they contained new data, Débarre put them aside, only to log in again last week and discover that they held a trove of raw data.


Virus experts had been awaiting that raw sequence data from the market since they learned of its existence in the Chinese report from February 2022. Débarre said she had alerted other scientists, including the leaders of a team that had published a set of studies last year pointing to the market as the origin.


An international team — which included Michael Worobey, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Arizona; Kristian Andersen, a virus expert at the Scripps Research Institute in California; and Edward Holmes, a biologist at the University of Sydney — started mining the new genetic data last week.


One sample in particular caught their attention. It had been taken from a cart linked to a specific stall at the Huanan market that Holmes had visited in 2014, scientists involved in the analysis said. That stall, Holmes found, contained caged raccoon dogs on top of a separate cage holding birds, exactly the sort of environment conducive to the transmission of new viruses.


The swab taken from a cart there in early 2020, the research team found, contained genetic material from the virus and a raccoon dog.


“We were able to figure out relatively quickly that at least in one of these samples, there was a lot of raccoon dog nucleic acid, along with virus nucleic acid,” said Stephen Goldstein, a virus expert at the University of Utah who worked on the new analysis. (Nucleic acids are the chemical building blocks that carry genetic information.)


After the international team stumbled upon the new data, they reached out to the Chinese researchers who had uploaded the files with an offer to collaborate, hewing to rules of the online repository, scientists involved with the new analysis said. After that, the sequences disappeared from GISAID.


It is not clear who removed them or why they were taken down.


Débarre said the research team was seeking more data, including some from market samples that were never made public. “What’s important is there’s still more data,” she said.


Scientists involved with the analysis said that some of the samples had also contained genetic material from other animals and from humans. Angela Rasmussen, a virus expert at the Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization at the University of Saskatchewan in Canada, who worked on the analysis, said that the human genetic material was to be expected given that people were shopping and working there and that human COVID cases had been linked to the market.


Goldstein, too, cautioned that “we don’t have an infected animal, and we can’t prove definitively there was an infected animal at that stall.” Genetic material from the virus is stable enough, he said, that it is not clear when exactly it was deposited at the market. He said that the team was still analyzing the data and that it had not intended for its analysis to become public before it had released a report.


“But,” he said, “given that the animals that were present in the market were not sampled at the time, this is as good as we can hope to get.”

New Data Links Pandemic’s Origins to Raccoon Dogs at Wuhan Market

[harrybarracuda]

Of course we'll never know, because the chinkies hid the evidence.

[misskit]

COVID-19 cases will probably rise after Songkran festival

COVID-19 infections are expected to increase two weeks after the Songkran festival, but the situation will remain under control, because hospitals have the capacity to take the extra patients, according to Associate Professor Dr. Nitipat Jiarakul, director of the Thoracic Society of Thailand.


He noted that, during the pre-Songkran period, the number of COVID-19 patients admitted for treatment at large hospitals had increased from March, but most of the patients had mild symptoms.


The patients included actor Nattawut Skidjai recently posted on Instagram saying that it was the first time that he was infected and advising Songkran revellers to exercise caution and wear face masks.


Mongkolkit Suksintharanon, leader of the Thai Civilized Party, said in his Facebook post that he was also infected with COVID-19 for the first time and his blood-oxygen level and blood pressure are normal, but he is a little hoarse. He added that his infection meant he was unable to meet people during the Songkran festival.


Dr. Nitipat said there is no need for Songkran revellers to work from home after the festival, but advised those who live with elderly people and those at high-risk to monitor their health for symptoms associated with COVID-19.

COVID-19 cases will probably rise after Songkran festival | Thai PBS World : The latest Thai news in English, News Headlines, World News and News Broadcasts in both Thai and English. We bring Thailand to the world

[harrybarracuda]

They did. But 'flu levels. 1000+ hospitalisations and 5 deaths in a week. Nationwide.

Covid cases, deaths rise after Songkran

[misskit]

Health Ministry launches annual Covid jab campaign

Health authorities in Thailand have started to provide another round of COVID-19 boosters, this time as single jabs for the entire year, as new cases continue to rise after the Songkran holidays.


According to the National Communicable Disease Committee, any COVID-19 vaccine approved by the Food and Drug Administration can be used as an annual shot, with the number of doses a person has already received no longer taken into consideration.


Health authorities are encouraging the elderly, people with underlying health conditions, and children under 5 years old to get their annual boosters, as well as people who work in crowded conditions or are required to interact with many people, and medical and public health workers.


The committee also recommends that the COVID-19 vaccine can be delivered alongside a flu shot in a single visit, by administering each vaccine into different arms. The two vaccines, if administered on different dates, can be given without the requirement to delay a subsequent shot by any specific amount of days.


This recommendation is made as Thailand will soon enter the rainy season, which is considered a flu season in the country, while new cases of COVID-19 have been on the rise since the Songkran holidays. The vaccines are now available through many hospitals and clinics across the country.


The Ministry of Public Health reported a total of 1,811 new COVID-19 cases on 23-29 April 2023, including 157 patients developing lung infections, 79 patients requiring manual ventilation, and 10 deaths. The latest figure was higher than the previous two weeks, where the case number grew from 435 cases on 9-15 April, to 1,088 cases on 16-22 April, to the latest figure of 1,811 cases.

Health Ministry launches annual Covid jab campaign

[misskit]

WHO declares end to COVID global health emergency

LONDON, May 5 (Reuters) – The World Health Organization on Friday declared an end to COVID-19 as a global health emergency, marking a major step toward the end of the pandemic that has killed more than 6.9 million people, disrupted the global economy and ravaged communities.


The WHO’s Emergency Committee met on Thursday and recommended the UN-agency declare an end to the coronavirus crisis as a “public health emergency of international concern”, which has been in place for over three years.


“It is therefore with great hope that I declare COVID-19 over as a global health emergency,” said WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, adding that the end of the emergency did not mean COVID was over as a global health threat.


The WHO’s emergency committee first declared that COVID represented its highest level of alert on Jan. 30, 2020. The status helps focus international attention on a global health threat, as well as bolstering collaboration on vaccines and treatments.


The decision to end the global health emergency status was supported by a majority of the committee, said Didier Houssin, head of the agency’s COVID emergency committee.


Lifting it is a sign of the progress the world has made fighting the disease, but COVID-19 is here to stay, the WHO has said, even if it no longer represents an emergency.


The death rate has slowed from a peak of more than 100,000 people per week in January 2021 to just over 3,500 in the week to April 24, 2023, according to WHO data, reflecting widespread vaccination, availability of better treatments and a level of population immunity from prior infections.


Ending the emergency could mean that international collaboration or funding efforts are also brought to an end or shift in focus, although many have already adapted as the pandemic has receded in different regions.


“The battle is not over. We still have weaknesses and those weaknesses that we still have in our system will be exposed by this virus or another virus. And it needs to be fixed,” said the WHO’s emergencies director Michael Ryan.


The WHO does not declare the beginning or end of pandemics, although it did start using the term for COVID in March 2020.


“In most cases, pandemics truly end when the next pandemic begins,” Ryan said.


Last year, U.S. President Joe Biden said the pandemic was over. Like a number of other countries, the world’s biggest economy has begun dismantling its domestic state of emergency for COVID, which officially ends May 11, meaning it will stop paying for vaccines and testing for many people and shift responsibility to the commercial market.


Other regions have taken similar steps. The European Union said in April last year the emergency phase of the pandemic was over, and the WHO’s African head, Matshidiso Moeti, said in December it was time to move to routine management of COVID across the continent.


The WHO’s declaration comes just four months after China ended its prolonged severe COVID restrictions and was ravaged by a big surge in infections.


In many parts of the world, testing has dwindled dramatically, and people have largely stopped wearing masks. In some countries, mask-wearing mandates have resumed during COVID outbreaks. The WHO published a plan this week advising countries on how to live with COVID long-term.

WHO declares end to COVID global health emergency | Thai PBS World : The latest Thai news in English, News Headlines, World News and News Broadcasts in both Thai and English. We bring Thailand to the world

[harrybarracuda]

And let's hope that is a once-in-a-fucking-lifetime experience.

[prawnograph]

Hasn't gone away just yet; Ms P last week - that's five of the seven from her office staff since April, all but one were first-timers.
I had it last June, wouldn't have known if not for the test. Daughters remain Covid-free, #1 fled the house for a week as soon as she heard the news and stayed with friends, though did drop in every day as far as the gate to drop off food and water.


Last evening at a temple for a friend's father's funeral, back again tonight/tomorrow and cremation Saturday afternoon.
Whether the boosters would have helped him i don't know - he had a heart attack early last year that nearly saw him off and never fully recovered.

Eight monks in masks. I did think it would be handy when it came to the chanting if one had forgotten the words, who'd know.

[harrybarracuda]

Hasn't gone away just yet; Ms P last week - that's five of the seven from her office staff since April, all but one were first-timers.
I had it last June, wouldn't have known if not for the test. Daughters remain Covid-free, #1 fled the house for a week as soon as she heard the news and stayed with friends, though did drop in every day as far as the gate to drop off food and water.


Last evening at a temple for a friend's father's funeral, back again tonight/tomorrow and cremation Saturday afternoon.
Whether the boosters would have helped him i don't know - he had a heart attack early last year that nearly saw him off and never fully recovered.

Eight monks in masks. I did think it would be handy when it came to the chanting if one had forgotten the words, who'd know.

I suspect that's Thai fearmongering more than anything.

I know a ton of people that have caught it in the last few months, rarely with any symptoms other than the sniffles.

I suspect at this point it really is below the 'flu in mortality and I don't know how many people even bother with the 'flu vaccine (I do ever since I had a wicked bout back in the day).

[Stumpy]

I know a ton of people that have caught it in the last few months, rarely with any symptoms other than the sniffles.

My BIL contracted Covid 2.5 weeks ago. First time. He has been one of those mask on wash hands everywhere he goes type as has been his wife. He has been fully vaccinated but it has kicked his ass. Been in and out of the hospital with respiratory issues and is still showing a dark line for Covid. He is taking a shit load of meds. He passed it to his wife who has had very high fevers and awful rashes on her legs and a few bloody noses ( Wife says these are symptoms of the newest version). Then their daughter caught it and she has been OK but on and off high fever and cannot taste anything.

Like I think we all know, It is here to stay and will mutate every year like the flu.

[harrybarracuda]

My BIL contracted Covid 2.5 weeks ago. First time. He has been one of those mask on wash hands everywhere he goes type as has been his wife. He has been fully vaccinated but it has kicked his ass. Been in and out of the hospital with respiratory issues and is still showing a dark line for Covid. He is taking a shit load of meds. He passed it to his wife who has had very high fevers and awful rashes on her legs and a few bloody noses ( Wife says these are symptoms of the newest version). Then their daughter caught it and she has been OK but on and off high fever and cannot taste anything.

Like I think we all know, It is here to stay and will mutate every year like the flu.

Did they actually test for the variant or are you just assuming this?

Were they in high risk groups for age, physical condition?

More to the point, have they had it before?

[Stumpy]

Did they actually test for the variant or are you just assuming this?

Were they in high risk groups for age, physical condition?

More to the point, have they had it before?

I am not sure if they tested for the Variant. I do know from pictures he sent of the Covid tests it was a double heavy black line.

My BIL is 49. Health is normal and no special conditions. My SIL the same. She is also 49.

They have been extremely diligent on mask wearing, alcohol wipes, social distancing etc. Even when they have come and stayed at our place, they wear masks etc.

This is the first time they all have had Covid

[harrybarracuda]

I am not sure if they tested for the Variant. I do know from pictures he sent of the Covid tests it was a double heavy black line.

My BIL is 49. Health is normal and no special conditions. My SIL the same. She is also 49.

They have been extremely diligent on mask wearing, alcohol wipes, social distancing etc. Even when they have come and stayed at our place, they wear masks etc.

This is the first time they all have had Covid

That's a bitch. A bit of light reading suggests the return to school has sparked a bump in numbers.

10 things to know about Thailand’s latest Covid-19 wave

New Covid strain mild but children need watching

[Stumpy]

That's a bitch.

Yeah.....They are both still sick as hell.