Covid-19 miscellany

[blastula]

ffs, the authoritarian control freaks will not give up;

US health officials are pushing ahead with a Covid vaccine mandate for travelers entering the country — despite no evidence it reduces infection rates.

Daily Mail is such trash.

you have evidence to the contrary?

You asking for evidence? Are you having a laugh??

 

[bilby]

Daily Mail is such trash.

you have evidence to the contrary?

Nobody has evidence to the contrary. The Daily Mail is, objectively and demonstrably, such trash.

 

[TSwizzle]

ffs, the authoritarian control freaks will not give up;

US health officials are pushing ahead with a Covid vaccine mandate for travelers entering the country — despite no evidence it reduces infection rates.

Daily Mail is such trash.

you have evidence to the contrary?

You asking for evidence? Are you having a laugh??

Obviously.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

ffs, the authoritarian control freaks will not give up;

US health officials are pushing ahead with a Covid vaccine mandate for travelers entering the country — despite no evidence it reduces infection rates.

Daily Mail is such trash.

Yeah - the article says it reduces severe cases and deaths, but then tries to pooh-pooh that by noting that it doesn’t curtail overall cases.
As if, like, reducing severe (publicly costly) cases and death isn’t a good reason to promote it.

Wut.

How many of those cases are actually going to be a public burden, though, given that travelers are generally not poor? I think this is far more politicians who need to do something rather than be seen as not trying. Never mind that it's going to have effectively zero effect on Covid in the US. You require vaccination for entry for disease you don't have in your country, not for those that are endemic.

 

[repoman]

Is there a betting pool for when there will no longer be a US travel mandate for covid vaccination?

Please enter your bets.

I bet by July it will be removed.

 

[The Colourful Jester]

W.H.O. Ends Global Health Emergency Designation for Covid

The decision has little practical effect but is a significant moment in the struggle against a virus that has killed millions and upended lives throughout the world.

www.nytimes.com

That' something I guess.

 

[TSwizzle]

A Supreme Court justice has labeled the avalanche of covid lockdown measures imposed across America as among 'the greatest intrusions on civil liberties in the peacetime history of this country'. Justice Neil Gorsuch delivered an excoriating review of the restrictions enforced at both a state and federal level by executive officials.
In a statement written as part of a Supreme Court case about Title 42, Gorsuch said emergency decrees were issued during the pandemic 'on a breathtaking scale'.
'Governors and local leaders imposed lockdown orders forcing people to remain in their homes. They shuttered businesses and schools, public and private,' he wrote.
'They closed churches even as they allowed casinos and other favored businesses to carry on. They threatened violators not just with civil penalties but with criminal sanctions too.'

Daily Mail

Indeed, the anti science authoritarians were drunk on power.

Never again.

 

[ZiprHead]

Indeed, the anti science authoritarians were drunk on power.

Never again.

Strange. Anti science? I see no medical degree in Gorsuch's history.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

A Supreme Court justice has labeled the avalanche of covid lockdown measures imposed across America as among 'the greatest intrusions on civil liberties in the peacetime history of this country'. Justice Neil Gorsuch delivered an excoriating review of the restrictions enforced at both a state and federal level by executive officials.
In a statement written as part of a Supreme Court case about Title 42, Gorsuch said emergency decrees were issued during the pandemic 'on a breathtaking scale'.
'Governors and local leaders imposed lockdown orders forcing people to remain in their homes. They shuttered businesses and schools, public and private,' he wrote.
'They closed churches even as they allowed casinos and other favored businesses to carry on. They threatened violators not just with civil penalties but with criminal sanctions too.'

Daily Mail

Indeed, the anti science authoritarians were drunk on power.

Never again.

1,000,000+ dead. Yet you have the balls to talk about science.

It was the mother of all intrusions because the hospitals would have been decimated.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Indeed, the anti science authoritarians were drunk on power.

Never again.

Strange. Anti science? I see no medical degree in Gorsuch's history.

Not only that, but the QOP seems to usually get it wrong on anything scientific.

 

[ZiprHead]

Former Trump adviser Michael Flynn is launching an online community for 'COVID-19 unvaccinated people,' where you can find blood donors, surrogates, and 'unvaccinated singles.' A founding membership costs $2,500.

The purpose of the site, called 4ThePURE, is to connect those who "courageously stood against the COVID-19 jab campaign," Micheal Flynn said in an ad.

www.businessinsider.com

Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, Donald Trump's former national security adviser who pled guilty to lying to the FBI in 2017, is launching an online community dedicated to people who have not been vaccinated for COVID-19.

The community is called 4thePURE, and members can connect with blood donors, sperm donors, breastmilk donors, surrogates, and unvaccinated singles, according to the website. It will also have a directory of "COVID-19 unvaccinated patriot businesses."

Studies have shown the vaccine doesn't have "deleterious effects" on semen, nor is it unsafe to donate blood or breastmilk if a donor is vaccinated.

 

[blastula]

Real life General Ripper.

 

[ZiprHead]

Good catch.

 

[Rhea]

A Supreme Court justice has labeled the avalanche of covid lockdown measures imposed across America as among 'the greatest intrusions on civil liberties in the peacetime history of this country'. Justice Neil Gorsuch delivered an excoriating review of the restrictions enforced at both a state and federal level by executive officials.
In a statement written as part of a Supreme Court case about Title 42, Gorsuch said emergency decrees were issued during the pandemic 'on a breathtaking scale'.
'Governors and local leaders imposed lockdown orders forcing people to remain in their homes. They shuttered businesses and schools, public and private,' he wrote.
'They closed churches even as they allowed casinos and other favored businesses to carry on. They threatened violators not just with civil penalties but with criminal sanctions too.'

Daily Mail

Indeed, the anti science authoritarians were drunk on power.

Never again.

One man who did not study science or medicine wrote an opinion on the topic of responses to a medical issue.

I mean, the quoted article seems accurate that the emergency decrees were breath-taking; but they weren’t misplaced. And he’s right that governors and local leaders imposed lockdowns. But that wasn’t misplaced. They closed churched, and I don’t know why Casinos were left open, that’s weird, but given the number of people who died from going to church - it wasn’t misplaced.


So a lawyer complains that the medical establishment doesn’t know what it’s doing.

Yawn.

Oh, wait, isn’t he the same guy who wants to be in the room with my gynecologist and me and override my doctor’s opinion?

Oh, SFTU, lawyer.

 

[scombrid]

Not just STFU lawyer. STFU energy industry shill fuckface lawyer placed on the court for no other purpose than to undermine government so that multinational corporations can more easily dump negative externalities on the commons while siphoning government subsidies. A little pandemic collateral damage is nothing to them in that aim.

 

[TSwizzle]

I mean, the quoted article seems accurate that the emergency decrees were breath-taking; but they weren’t misplaced. And he’s right that governors and local leaders imposed lockdowns. But that wasn’t misplaced.

There is nothing to support lockdowns were successful at "stopping the spread".

Never again.

 

[bilby]

I mean, the quoted article seems accurate that the emergency decrees were breath-taking; but they weren’t misplaced. And he’s right that governors and local leaders imposed lockdowns. But that wasn’t misplaced.

There is nothing to support lockdowns were successful at "stopping the spread".

Never again.

Not only is there a shitload of evidence that lockdowns were highly successful at stopping the spread, some of that evidence was placed right in front of your very nose right here in this thread.

You've asserted, without evidence, that kids with Covid don't spread it to others very much.

Which is true if you care to look into it.

View attachment 35604

No, it isn't.

The most recent lockdown in Queensland was required to eradicate the outbreak depicted in the above graphic. This cluster was analysed in great detail, with each case traced back to the person who infected the individual, and confirmed with full genome sequencing of the virus for every patient (something only possible because we had no other cases in the state at the time).

It's clear from this outbreak that the most significant vectors were children; And transmission both in schools, and between schools at extracurricular activities, was the main route by which the virus spread from one family to another. In most cases, adults either contracted the virus from their own children, or from children that they taught or supervised.

You are simply wrong. Which, as you have provided zero evidence to support your claims, should surprise nobody.

Why do you guys hate science?

Why are you quoting an article that is citing an economics paper and calling it "science"?

No offense laughing dog.

Also, seeing the death rates in Australia and New Zealand resulted in one-fifth the deaths we saw in the US, clearly restrictions are a possible method of reducing deaths. But America was never actually in a "lockdown". And what it was, was only for a short period before a few in the GOP hijacked a global health emergency and turned it into a political cash cow.

As soon as it became clear to the Trump maladministration that most of the early deaths were in big cities (particularly New York), where most voters lean Democrat, your nation was doomed.

My state has seen 2,734 deaths from Covid, of which 8 occurred before restrictions were lifted in January of 2022.

Not a typo. Eight deaths in all of 2020 and 2021, in a state with 5.2 million people, whose first recorded case was in January 2020.

Two years of mandatory mask wearing in public, eight deaths. One and a sixth years of optional (but recommended) mask wearing in public, 2,726 deaths.

Anyone who says that restrictions (including, but not limited to, mandatory use of masks) are ineffective has to explain this small (580 times) difference in death rate per annum from Covid in Queensland.

To add:

We have a similar population to that of South Carolina, but approximately 10% of that state's total fatalities to date, demonstrating the value of locking down hard, until a sizeable fraction of our population had been vaccinated.

The much derided plan to lock down, vaccinate, and then slowly return to normal with the expectation that that would lead to fatalities, but far fewer of them than would've occurred without strict measures, has been completely vindicated by the facts.

Half-arsed measures didn't work. To people who have only the USA to look at, it's easy to imagine that the fact that half-arsed measures were ineffective is an indication that nothing should have been done. But it's equally supportive of the counter proposal that far more should have been done.

And a glance at places that did far more, would tell anyone that that's the right conclusion.

Of course, when accepting these facts would entail admitting that you lobbied for the needless deaths of millions of people, it can be very difficult to say "sorry, we were wrong". But it's something that must be said, if you are to avoid the same disaster next time around.

You do realize what context is, right? That the spread of alpha (which didn't seem to be transmissible to the vaccinated) by the unvaccinated helped lead to variants like Delta and Omicron which can now be caught and spread by the vaccinated.

The mutations were in the mail long before vaccines were rolled out.

Omicron, probably, but the vaccines predate Delta. The design of the vaccines predates even Beta.

So, you folks got your way.

Not until all the draconian mandates are lifted and emergency powers revoked.

You got your way in that you're getting most everyone infected.

Never mind that there will be another that your herd immunity won't work against.

If the draconian lock downs and required masking don't work - as places like CA and NY have spikes in cases regardless of their policies - isn't it better to let people be free? The virus is part of the world now. It ain't going anywhere. Learn to live with it. Stop the fear mongering.

They do, and did, work.

You just never tried them, because of idiots claiming that they couldn't possibly work.

They worked here in Queensland, right up until the idiots in our federal government used exactly the argument you just presented, along with some specious arguments about vaccination levels (90% of eligible population isn't the same as 90% of population), to persuade the non-expert politicians running the states to abandon this highly successful strategy, that has kept the number of fatalities in our state to single digits.

Not single digits per day, per week, or per month. Single digits in total. In a population about that of South Carolina.

For every Queenslander who has died of Covid, 2,106 South Carolina residents have perished. Draconian lockdowns and mandatory mask wearing are the difference between these two sets of figures.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I mean, the quoted article seems accurate that the emergency decrees were breath-taking; but they weren’t misplaced. And he’s right that governors and local leaders imposed lockdowns. But that wasn’t misplaced.

There is nothing to support lockdowns were successful at "stopping the spread".

Never again.

It wasn't going to stop the spread but it saved a lot of lives anyway because the hospitals were crashing even with the load spread out. No lockdown, a lot more people would have died. It still appears to be the #4 killer in America (and note that everything above it is groups, not individual items), although many of the cases seem to be being reported as one of a variety of clot-induced deaths instead of as Covid. And while the picture on Long Covid is much less clear it continues to look like it's going to be a big cause of disability.

 

[lpetrich]

"Long COVID" can be debilitating.

• Dianna Cowern (@thephysicsgirl) / Twitter
• Physics Girl - YouTube
• "It takes over my mind" - Dianna Cowern aka Physics Girl shares traumatic long COVID experience - Sportskeeda
• YouTuber "Physics Girl" dealing with long COVID as her sister helps from Denver - CBS Colorado
• Physics Girl & the Devastating Effects of Long COVID – Skepchick

Sportskeeda:

Month 1: The battle begins
As Dianna Cowern entered the first month of her Long COVID journey, she found herself grappling with extreme fatigue.

...
Month 2: The mental fog
By the second month, Cowern's fatigue persisted, but she also began to notice another distressing symptom - brain fog.

...
Month 3: The emotional toll
As the months passed, Cowern's emotional well-being also took a hit. The unrelenting nature of her symptoms, coupled with the uncertainty of her recovery, began to affect her mental health.

...
Month 4: The resilience within
Despite the challenges, Dianna Cowern found solace in the support of her loved ones and the online community.

...
Month 5 and Beyond: A ray of hope
As Cowern continues her battle with long COVID, she remains hopeful for the future.

CBS News:

Dianna Cowern, also known as "Physics Girl" on social media, has been dealing with chronic fatigue and other symptoms for nine months. She has a severe case of long COVID -- experiencing symptoms long after an initial COVID infection.

"I can't talk...I can't move," said Cowern in a video on Facebook.

Skepchick (Rebecca Watson):

We’ve been hearing more and more about long COVID, starting even back in the summer of 2020 when Ed Yong highlighted the stories of “long-haulers.” In the three years since, we’ve seen more and more people showing symptoms of the disease: extreme fatigue that gets worse after any exertion, fevers, shortness of breath, cough, heart palpitations, anxiety, joint pain, diarrhea – basically just a full-body shit show.

And of course that’s the sort of general list of problems that lead to skepticism, in both the general public and in the medical field, that the people presenting with these symptoms aren’t just, well, making it all up. Long COVID, like Bell’s Palsy and schizophrenia, are diagnosed by exclusion. That means that there is no easy blood test that pops out a little card that says “Long COVID” – instead, doctors have to do tests that rule out other diseases, until the only option left is long COVID. That leads a lot of people, including experts, to suggest that those are just the symptoms of life, and that the patient just needs to go to therapy and get some exercise and they’ll be right as rain.

She then points out that that's how doctors diagnosed chronic fatigue syndrome for a long time.

 

[repoman]

hmmm