Covid-19 miscellany

[crazyfingers]

Even worse, this is the status in Arkansas.

Missouri appears to be heading down the same road. Current vaccination rate in my county? 27% have the first dose, and only 22% are fully vaccinated. One of our (small) local hospitals has at least one person per day dying from COVID this month. None of the deceased were vaccinated.

I received word that about a dozen people from my former church contracted COVID in the past few weeks. Four of them are still sick after a month and unable to work or leave their house. Again, none of them were vaccinated. This is the second wave to go through that church. You would think after the first time they would have learned....but apparently not.

I am seriously beginning to lose all hope that there will ever be an end to this in my part of the country.

Ruth

To what extent will the sight of people dying in the parking lot at hospitals because the hospitals are full to the gills again get some to finally do what's right and get vaccinated?

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Even worse, this is the status in Arkansas.

Missouri appears to be heading down the same road. Current vaccination rate in my county? 27% have the first dose, and only 22% are fully vaccinated. One of our (small) local hospitals has at least one person per day dying from COVID this month. None of the deceased were vaccinated.

I received word that about a dozen people from my former church contracted COVID in the past few weeks. Four of them are still sick after a month and unable to work or leave their house. Again, none of them were vaccinated. This is the second wave to go through that church. You would think after the first time they would have learned....but apparently not.

I am seriously beginning to lose all hope that there will ever be an end to this in my part of the country.

Ruth

To what extent will the sight of people dying in the parking lot at hospitals because the hospitals are full to the gills again get some to finally do what's right and get vaccinated?

These people are invested in the belief of this lie.

 

[Ruth Harris]

To what extent will the sight of people dying in the parking lot at hospitals because the hospitals are full to the gills again get some to finally do what's right and get vaccinated?

These people are invested in the belief of this lie.

Exactly right. It will have next to no impact at all in this part of the country. They will just say it is "another lie".

Ruth

 

[TomC]

Two stories on CNN today that provide some partial hope that when Government and health care professionals have not been able to get people to get vaccinated, employers may. Some anyway. It's not a silver bullet but might move the needle at least.

It worked on my partner.

His employers were very proactive from the beginning. For most of a year they required both a mask and a clear face shield. About 2 months ago, they reduced the requirements to a mask or a face shield.
My partner was still reluctant. Then they announced that 2 weeks after your second shot neither was required.
He got right down there and is now fully vaccinated.

I'm not in favor of giving the government much power to force people to do or not do stuff. But I'm fine with social pressures, including employers and stores and venues.

Tom

 

[Ruth Harris]

Even worse, this is the status in Arkansas.

Missouri appears to be heading down the same road. Current vaccination rate in my county? 27% have the first dose, and only 22% are fully vaccinated. One of our (small) local hospitals has at least one person per day dying from COVID this month. None of the deceased were vaccinated.

I received word that about a dozen people from my former church contracted COVID in the past few weeks. Four of them are still sick after a month and unable to work or leave their house. Again, none of them were vaccinated. This is the second wave to go through that church. You would think after the first time they would have learned....but apparently not.

I am seriously beginning to lose all hope that there will ever be an end to this in my part of the country.

Ruth

Two stories on CNN today that provide some partial hope that when Government and health care professionals have not been able to get people to get vaccinated, employers may. Some anyway. It's not a silver bullet but might move the needle at least.

Require unvaccinated employees to get tested each week at their own expense and wear N95 masks
In all cases it requires that employers are willing to keep records of those employees who are willing to provide proof of vaccination and segregate out those who are not for more restrictive measures.

My company has strict rules for unvaccinated employees but the company just accepts people's word for it if they are vaccinated or not. I've told the higher up that until the rules state that to get the privileges for being vaccinated, people need to show the proof that they are vaccinated. Until then they won't ever see me at the office. My opinion may not matter much because I only set foot in the office about 3 times a year before the pandemic, I know that there are people who would go to the office if they could be certain that those who say that they are vaccinated actually are vaccinated.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/07/28/tech/google-vaccinations-return-to-office/index.html
https://www.cnn.com/2021/07/28/success/managers-unvaccinated-employees/index.html

We have no companies locally, to my knowledge, that are requiring vaccines or even setting any rules for unvaccinated employees. The only exceptions to that are the local hospitals, which are requiring employees to get vaccinated for the most part, and fast food places who do require their employees to wear masks while working.

I don't know of a single store or public place within 50 miles or so who even request masking or social distancing by those entering their doors. That includes those fast food places. So even though the employees are masked, you are still at risk from other customers.

Ruth

 

[marc]

To what extent will the sight of people dying in the parking lot at hospitals because the hospitals are full to the gills again get some to finally do what's right and get vaccinated?

These people are invested in the belief of this lie.

Exactly right. It will have next to no impact at all in this part of the country. They will just say it is "another lie".

Ruth

Yup, even with loved ones dying there are people who will still deny it. A doctor even said one patient asked that they don’t put COVID on his death certificate if he dies. Supporting the lie even beyond death.

 

[crazyfingers]

Even worse, this is the status in Arkansas.

Missouri appears to be heading down the same road. Current vaccination rate in my county? 27% have the first dose, and only 22% are fully vaccinated. One of our (small) local hospitals has at least one person per day dying from COVID this month. None of the deceased were vaccinated.

I received word that about a dozen people from my former church contracted COVID in the past few weeks. Four of them are still sick after a month and unable to work or leave their house. Again, none of them were vaccinated. This is the second wave to go through that church. You would think after the first time they would have learned....but apparently not.

I am seriously beginning to lose all hope that there will ever be an end to this in my part of the country.

Ruth

Two stories on CNN today that provide some partial hope that when Government and health care professionals have not been able to get people to get vaccinated, employers may. Some anyway. It's not a silver bullet but might move the needle at least.

Require unvaccinated employees to get tested each week at their own expense and wear N95 masks
In all cases it requires that employers are willing to keep records of those employees who are willing to provide proof of vaccination and segregate out those who are not for more restrictive measures.

My company has strict rules for unvaccinated employees but the company just accepts people's word for it if they are vaccinated or not. I've told the higher up that until the rules state that to get the privileges for being vaccinated, people need to show the proof that they are vaccinated. Until then they won't ever see me at the office. My opinion may not matter much because I only set foot in the office about 3 times a year before the pandemic, I know that there are people who would go to the office if they could be certain that those who say that they are vaccinated actually are vaccinated.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/07/28/tech/google-vaccinations-return-to-office/index.html
https://www.cnn.com/2021/07/28/success/managers-unvaccinated-employees/index.html

We have no companies locally, to my knowledge, that are requiring vaccines or even setting any rules for unvaccinated employees. The only exceptions to that are the local hospitals, which are requiring employees to get vaccinated for the most part, and fast food places who do require their employees to wear masks while working.

I don't know of a single store or public place within 50 miles or so who even request masking or social distancing by those entering their doors. That includes those fast food places. So even though the employees are masked, you are still at risk from other customers.

Ruth

OSHA needs to get involved but they probably need to have the vaccines graduate from emergency use status.

Like why is that taking so long. Get them in the same status that all kinds of other vaccines are in. I don't understand the wait.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

NPR had a person on and he noted the critical part now the process is storage considerations as part of approval.

 

[ZiprHead]

The CDC is now recommending that even the vaccinated should start wearing masks again indoors. The delta strain is that pernicious.

Frankly, I'm seeing more and more of the vaccinated are getting pissed off at the unvaccinated. For good reason, I'd say.

 

[ZiprHead]

COVID-19 linked to 'substantial' drop in intelligence, new research finds

People who had been hospitalised and put on a ventilator saw the biggest deficit in the Great British Intelligence Test - equivalent to a seven-point drop in IQ.

People who have recovered from COVID-19 are more likely to score lower on intelligence tests, new research has found.

Scientists tested 81,337 people between January and December last year as part of the Great British Intelligence Test, including almost 13,000 who had been infected with the virus.

Those who had been on ventilators saw the biggest deficit - equivalent to a seven-point drop.

After controlling for factors including age, sex, first language and education level, researchers found those who had contracted COVID saw the greatest underperformance on tasks requiring reasoning, planning and problem-solving compared to those who had not had the virus.

The study said: "These results accord with reports of long-COVID, where 'brain fog', trouble concentrating and difficulty finding the correct words are common."

The observed deficit in performance was "not insubstantial", with the drop seen in people placed on a ventilator larger than in those who had previously suffered a stroke.

C'mon, anti-vaxxers. You have so little intelligence left to lose already.

 

[Toni]

Except for the issue of long covid.

Or: pure speculation, a re-emergence of the disease in another form, such as chicken pox: shingles.

These are viruses which embeds itself into genome, C19 is not one of them. it can't do that.

That's not how chickenpox re-emerges as shingles.

https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/shingles/symptoms-causes/syc-20353054

Shingles is caused by the varicella-zoster virus — the same virus that causes chickenpox. After you've had chickenpox, the virus lies inactive in nerve tissue near your spinal cord and brain. Years later, the virus may reactivate as shingles.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

These are viruses which embeds itself into genome, C19 is not one of them. it can't do that.

Doesn't mean it can't hide out in the body.

To hide it have to embed itself into genome and stay dormant, otherwise it's active and you are sick or at least viral load positive.
Hiding in the genome is the only way of hiding.

1) HIV can be driven to undetectable levels--but comes back if you quit taking the drugs.

2) In 1982 a mosquito bit me and I got malaria. In 2003? it came back--original infection, I haven't set foot in the malaria zone since then. Malaria certainly can't hide out in the genome.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Has anyone mentioned shoes?
My podiatrist just mentioned shoes.

Expect a coming shortage of shoes.
Because where they make the shoes we buy, they're not COVIDing well.
According to him, Bangladesh has a vaccination rate of about 1.6%, which is having an incredibly unsurprising effect on their shoe industry.

Well, fortunately I have a stockpile of shoes. (Nothing to do with Covid, it's just that it's so hard to find shoes that do fit that I tend to stockpile when I find comfortable ones.)

Exactly right. It will have next to no impact at all in this part of the country. They will just say it is "another lie".

Ruth

Yup, even with loved ones dying there are people who will still deny it. A doctor even said one patient asked that they don’t put COVID on his death certificate if he dies. Supporting the lie even beyond death.

Well, I actually would like the doctor not to put Covid. Rather, the death certificates for people like this should say "hoax".

The CDC is now recommending that even the vaccinated should start wearing masks again indoors. The delta strain is that pernicious.

Frankly, I'm seeing more and more of the vaccinated are getting pissed off at the unvaccinated. For good reason, I'd say.

Duh! The CDC was idiotic in removing the mask mandate before.

 

[bilby]

These are viruses which embeds itself into genome, C19 is not one of them. it can't do that.

That's not how chickenpox re-emerges as shingles.

https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/shingles/symptoms-causes/syc-20353054

Shingles is caused by the varicella-zoster virus — the same virus that causes chickenpox. After you've had chickenpox, the virus lies inactive in nerve tissue near your spinal cord and brain. Years later, the virus may reactivate as shingles.

Your link is mostly correct; Whether Barbos is too, depends on what he means by 'embeds itself in the genome'. Varicella (VZV) latency is characterised by the presence of episomal plasmids in axons; These aren't a part of the nuclear genome, and are not incorporated into the chromosomes, but they are DNA (rather than RNA). I would certainly hesitate to characterise this as 'embedding itself in the genome'.

It's now been determined that VZV latency is strictly Axonal, rather than being characteristic of satellite cells as implied by your link (and as was understood to be the case for a long time for sound clinical reasons, and which would have implied replication as part of routine mitosis - which would require closer involvement in the nuclear genome). PCR and laser-capture microdissection has definitively determined that the VZV episome in fact resides directly within ganglionic neurons during latency, rather than being incorporated into the DNA of nearby cells. (Eshleman, Shahzad and Cohrs, Future Virol. 2011 Mar; 6(3): 341–355)

TL;DR you are right, and he is out of date.

 

[blastula]

More Newsom hypocrisy;

California Governor Gavin Newsom pulls his kids from summer camp after his son, 10, was pictured maskless indoors in violation of his rules for kids ages two and older. Newsom on July 9 ruled that children in California must still wear face masks at school and at summer camps, despite the CDC changing its rules to say that face masks were no longer necessary.

DailyMail

Hopefully this prick get recalled.

And I guess the "we follow the science and data" mantra has been thrown out altogether as the CDC has recommended vaccinated people and kids wear masks despite zero evidence to support that decision.
[*] Compliance will be low.

*Citation needed, still waiting.

 

[barbos]

That's not how chickenpox re-emerges as shingles.

https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/shingles/symptoms-causes/syc-20353054

Your link is mostly correct; Whether Barbos is too, depends on what he means by 'embeds itself in the genome'. Varicella (VZV) latency is characterised by the presence of episomal plasmids in axons; These aren't a part of the nuclear genome, and are not incorporated into the chromosomes, but they are DNA (rather than RNA). I would certainly hesitate to characterise this as 'embedding itself in the genome'.

It's now been determined that VZV latency is strictly Axonal, rather than being characteristic of satellite cells as implied by your link (and as was understood to be the case for a long time for sound clinical reasons, and which would have implied replication as part of routine mitosis - which would require closer involvement in the nuclear genome). PCR and laser-capture microdissection has definitively determined that the VZV episome in fact resides directly within ganglionic neurons during latency, rather than being incorporated into the DNA of nearby cells. (Eshleman, Shahzad and Cohrs, Future Virol. 2011 Mar; 6(3): 341–355)

TL;DR you are right, and he is out of date.

I am not out of date, just wrong. Actually I remember reading about claims that flue can hide in nerve cells too, in some people.
So yeah, C19 could too potentially.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Nearly 85,000 cases today. Floriduh is over 16,000 and helping to seed the disease across America. CDC is reversing policy on masks indoors because of alleged data that required immediate protocol changes. Nearly half the US states are over 1,000 daily new cases today. The anti-vaxxers have successfully caused their own surge. Congrats you fucking idiots.

More Newsom hypocrisy;

California Governor Gavin Newsom pulls his kids from summer camp after his son, 10, was pictured maskless indoors in violation of his rules for kids ages two and older. Newsom on July 9 ruled that children in California must still wear face masks at school and at summer camps, despite the CDC changing its rules to say that face masks were no longer necessary.

DailyMail

Hopefully this prick get recalled.

And I guess the "we follow the science and data" mantra has been thrown out altogether as the CDC has recommended vaccinated people and kids wear masks despite zero evidence to support that decision.
[*] Compliance will be low.

*Citation needed, still waiting.

I believe it is 'broken clock'.

 

[TSwizzle]

And I guess the "we follow the science and data" mantra has been thrown out altogether as the CDC has recommended vaccinated people and kids wear masks despite zero evidence to support that decision.[*]

*Citation needed, still waiting.

I’m as disappointed in the CDC as you are. They provide no supporting evidence for their arbitrary directives.

 

[barbos]

Nearly 85,000 cases today.

Hooray! in Covid19 Olumpics US is well ahead of Russia again (per capita) Russia. Russia is still ahead in daily deaths.

 

[Toni]

To hide it have to embed itself into genome and stay dormant, otherwise it's active and you are sick or at least viral load positive.
Hiding in the genome is the only way of hiding.

1) HIV can be driven to undetectable levels--but comes back if you quit taking the drugs.

2) In 1982 a mosquito bit me and I got malaria. In 2003? it came back--original infection, I haven't set foot in the malaria zone since then. Malaria certainly can't hide out in the genome.

Some viruses can and do insert themselves into part of human DNA and leave part of itself behind, causing a mutation which may or may not be edited out by our cells. Sometimes when the mutation remains, it can lead to certain kinds of cancer. An example of this is any of the more than 100 different HPV viruses.

HIV can be driven to undetectable levels through antiretroviral drugs. The anti-retrovirals work to suppress the replication of the HIV retrovirus.

Malaria is not a virus. Malaria is disease caused by one of several different plasmodium parasite species. It causes damage by breaking out of the cells it lives in. Anti-malarial drugs can suppress or even eliminate malaria from the body. Humans can be reinfected when they are bitten by another mosquito carrying any of the species of plasmodium parasite that causes malaria. I've known people who were re-infected multiple times. Because it is not a virus or a bacteria, the body does not really become more immune to malaria.

COVID 19 is caused by a coronovirus, so called because of the crown like structure of spikes on its surface. A virus is just a strand of RNA or DNA encased in a protein coat. It is unable to replicate itself without inserting itself into the DNA of another living organism and using that organism's DNA replicating structures to replicate itself. This is true of all viruses.

This is a very simple description of COVID 19: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/types.html

Some viruses are eliminated from the human body but some viruses manage to hide in certain parts of the body, even after illness has passed (if the person was ever actually ill from the virus). Two examples of this type of virus are varicella-zoster virus which causes chickenpox as the primary infection/disease but the virus remains within the nerve endings and can re-emerge to cause shingles; a second type of virus which can cause disease from mild to serious is the Epstein Barr virus which can cause infectious mononucleosis. The virus remains in the body after the patient has recovered and can be reactivated if the patient becomes too run down and spread even if the patient is asymptomatic.


Viruses DO NOT hide in the genome!