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24th November 2021, 09:32 PM | #401 |
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Just published:
Elapsed time since BNT162b2 vaccine and risk of SARS-CoV-2 infection: test negative design study https://www.bmj.com/content/375/bmj-2021-067873 |
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25th November 2021, 02:32 AM | #402 |
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The numbers speak for themselves: https://www.worldometers.info/corona...ountry/israel/
Massive post-vaccination wave, dwarfing the previous ones, although deaths were a fair bit lower. That seems to be a fairly universal result, with Europe going through it right now. Germany's numbers are appalling. |
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25th November 2021, 03:00 AM | #403 |
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Mainstream climate science sources • http://www.skepticalscience.com/empi...al-warming.htm • https://arstechnica.com/science/2021...cting-a-future https://www.realclimate.org/index.ph...05/start-here/ Travelphotos >https://500px.com/macdoc/galleries |
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25th November 2021, 03:06 AM | #404 |
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I know Leo well and he's in the middle of campaigning to be Auckland's mayor right now, so he has lots of reasons to talk positive. He may well be right, but I'll wait for more evidence before I declare victory.
His scientific experience is that he's a vet, so while he understands a lot of the science, he's no authority. |
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25th November 2021, 03:09 AM | #405 |
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On the subject of ivermectin and other existing drugs as possible Covid treatments, the Together trial is ongoing. They've stopped looking at hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin, among others, as they found no effect at all. Fluvoxamine Maleate showed a positive benefit, others are still being trialled.
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25th November 2021, 08:37 AM | #406 |
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After reading that, my opinion is that... it would be nice, but I think that there are a number of points made in the article that make me doubt how reliable the opinion expressed is. Still, I will agree with one major premise - the worst part of this pandemic seems to be over, especially with an increasing array of actually effective tools at our disposal to prevent and treat. |
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25th November 2021, 09:54 AM | #407 |
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OECD healthcare spending Public/Compulsory Expenditure on healthcare https://data.oecd.org/chart/60Tt Every year since 1990 the US Public healthcare spending has been greater than the UK as a proportion of GDP. More US Tax goes to healthcare than the UK |
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25th November 2021, 11:53 AM | #408 |
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It's showing exceptionally rapid spread quickly becoming the dominant strain overtaking Delta.
See this tweet: https://twitter.com/Tuliodna/status/1463911571176968194 |
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25th November 2021, 12:05 PM | #409 |
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So they're saying, although I note that officially there are still only 22 cases.
If the Gauteng numbers are right and it's responsible for 90% of infections there, then it might well trouble - there can't be many people in RSA who haven't been vaccinated or infected. I hope the Krauts are checking what's driving their enormous wave right now. |
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25th November 2021, 12:40 PM | #410 |
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The 22 knowns are samples with full genomic decode. Would be nice to know what proportion of all the cases it was and when each of those 22 samples were taken.
Absolutely huge growth rate but overall Covid-19 incidence is low so might be a statistical anomoly. I'm tending toward it not being an anomoly. But this doesn't look good. Growth rate is not mostly an escape from vaccines or prior infection though that may be a factor. Haven't yet seen history data on priors of vax status of those 22. Would be valuable. |
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25th November 2021, 04:57 PM | #411 |
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Apparently Dr John Campbell is promoting more pseudoscience.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LEBGl8MVE-c Mark my words, he is going down the quack rabbit hole and promoting anti-vax. I think his title is an attempt to hide from the You Tube algorithm. |
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26th November 2021, 01:10 AM | #412 |
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UK stops flights from Southern Africa because of new heavily mutated variant.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-59418127 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-03552-w |
26th November 2021, 03:03 AM | #413 |
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26th November 2021, 06:29 AM | #414 |
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26th November 2021, 07:23 AM | #415 |
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Rapid epidemiological analysis of surge in South Africa with sequencing of isolates and look at protective effect of vaccination. But first look is R is currently high.
In vitro work looking at efficacy of neutralising antibodies generated by current vaccines. Porton down is planning on doing some animal work with live virus. Develop probes to pick up this isolate on multiplex PCR. Current PCR can pick up this variant by s drop out, but this may also occur with delta so is non-specific. Increased sequencing across southern Africa. Start developing vaccines that express the spike protein from this new variant. |
26th November 2021, 09:37 AM | #416 |
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On first pass, no problems.
Looks good for vaccination. When even some 180 days after second dose only 20% get infected and likely by delta, that's better than was hoped. (Not ideal, but booster against delta/ny might correct it) There's anomaly, where younger population has increased risk of infection, which might be pointing at missing variables (like amount of risky behavior). Reminder: Main target/endpoint was 50%+ against hospitalization. As always keep following disclaimer from paper on mind:
Quote:
I tried and failed to find any study that would investigate amount of antibodies (A, G and M) after vaccination over time. (Respectively, there are few, but they use indexes or other similar incomparable values and I can't use them to compare it with my own lab results after Covid) Does anybody know about such study? |
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26th November 2021, 11:24 AM | #417 |
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The new variant is called "Omicron". I would not have been surprised if they'd called it "Omigod!"
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26th November 2021, 12:12 PM | #418 |
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From never before seen to a Variant of Concern (highest level) in just over 2 weeks. Boggling. The Director of CERI (Centre for Epidemic Response & innovation, South Africa) states over 1,000 cases a day of Omicron are occurring there.
Quote:
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26th November 2021, 01:27 PM | #419 |
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26th November 2021, 01:30 PM | #420 |
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Word is that it's also hit Israel and Hong Kong, among other locations. If it's in Hong Kong, it's everywhere. This may be the one that does us in.
I like "end of the world!" stories, but not real ones. I'm not embarrassed to be pessimistic or paranoid about this. I can even imagine unvaxxed mobs doing smash & grabs for vaccines when it gets really bad. (I know... it's already really bad.) |
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26th November 2021, 01:33 PM | #421 |
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For anyone who (like me) was wondering what's going on with the quick adjustability of the vaccines, Reuters reports that Pfizer/Biontech (a) would be able to redesign their vaccine for Omicron within about 6 weeks, and ship initial batches in around 100 days, and (b) do have versions specifically for both Alpha and Delta, undergoing clinical trials, but "Those efforts are not meant to yield commercial products; the exercise is carried out to establish a routine with regulators that will help speed up any future vaccine relaunch."
[I'd been a bit surprised that a new version for Delta wasn't out already, but I suppose the current ones seem to be good enough in that context. I'm also aware that (as I understand it) it's often best to boost with the same antigen, to get a stronger response even if it's not precisely targeted. Obviously doesn't apply if a new variant completely escapes the existing vaccine.] |
26th November 2021, 01:54 PM | #422 |
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26th November 2021, 02:20 PM | #423 |
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Hong Kong quarantines arrivals in addition to requiring vaccination certs and negative tests on arrival.
Omicron showed up on day 4 for an arrival from SA. Another traveler, in a room across the hall, tested positive on day 8 apparently catching it from the first. Both were fully Pfizer vaxxed. Both with low CTs (under 20) on the first positive tests. With luck they have contained it. Problem is that most countries don't quarantine. It's likely out and about most everywhere. Not looking good. |
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26th November 2021, 03:35 PM | #424 |
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Surely the response to this is to continue vaccinating, and increase the rate at which people are vaccinated, and get vaccines to as many people around the world as possible.
The rich world cannot just seal up the borders indefinitely while new variants are spawned throughout the unvaccinated world. |
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26th November 2021, 05:19 PM | #425 |
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26th November 2021, 06:10 PM | #426 |
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Right. Sealing up borders is not a long term solution. Vaccination is. The current unknown is the efficacy of vaccines agsinst hospitalization/death for Omicron. Limited evidence at this point is that vaccines don't do much to prevent infection hence spread once it's loose in a country. Current vaccines may or may not be good at controlling more serious consequences. If they don't we have technology that can adapt vaccines to Omicron or anything else. Optimal approach will depend on what the data shows about the above. Depending on what that evidence turns out to be short term lockdowns and/or border controls may be needed. Until that data comes, which is in a few weeks, strict border controls for those that currently impliment them may need to be continued on the precautionary principle. . Once it's loose in a country border controls are counterproductive. The decision is state by state.
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26th November 2021, 06:17 PM | #427 |
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Divine intervention is probably needed for those countries that don't quarantine travelers like Hong Kong. Sadly, that's the large majority like USA/UK/Europe and many others. Hong Kong may well get by on luck.
There's speculation R0 is in measles range but without measles lower IFR. If so it's going to be a race with vaccine dev. This has the makings of a real black swan event. Meanwhile, 1 in 6 passengers from SA to Amsterdam in 2 flghts today are testing positive for Covid-19. Unreal percentage! Not known what proportion are Omicron but, given SA's realtively low case rate until maybe a week ago, I'd say the fraction is way over 50%. Holy crap. https://www.reuters.com/world/europe...am-2021-11-26/ |
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26th November 2021, 08:31 PM | #428 |
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26th November 2021, 11:45 PM | #429 |
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27th November 2021, 09:44 AM | #430 |
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Numbers are in and it's not quite as bad. 61 out of 600 passengers tested positive or just over 10%. All were required to have a negative rapid flow test prior to departure.
What's quite odd is that SA has a very low Covid-19 incidence. Order of magnitude lower than most EU countries. Even in the peaks of the epidemic prevalence rarely went over 2% and SA prevalence is supposidly under .1%. What's special about these travelers? Stayed at the same hotel? Also flights landed in the UK. Passengers were not tested but told to go home and self isolate. Meanwhile 2 people in the UK have tested positive and are linked to SA travel. |
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27th November 2021, 09:50 AM | #431 |
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"If you trust in yourself ... and believe in your dreams ... and follow your star ... you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things" - Terry Pratchett |
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27th November 2021, 10:51 AM | #432 |
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Sounded good until I got to this part:
The official noted that hospitals have not been overburdened by Omicron patients and that the new strain is [sic] not been detected in vaccinated persons. The passengers from SA were vaccinated and 10% of them tested positive. So I find this extremely unlikely. Added: Looks like the prevalence is up. 2.8k cases yesterday and cases tripling every 6 days over the last 2 weeks. Prevalence probably around .5% now adding in all the cases detected in the last 14 days and applying a factor of 4 or so for cases not detected. Still a large distance from the plane passengers. Another update: The same person was quoted differently in a Telegraph piece: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-h...says-symptoms/ She said, in total, about two dozen of her patients have tested positive for Covid-19 with symptoms of the new variant. They were mostly healthy men who turned up “feeling so tired”. About half of them were unvaccinated Also symptoms quite different. No loss of smell for instance. If, in fact, this turns out to be mild that would be great. But it's a bit early to know. Also, turns out that the UK keeps records of PCR test details and there was a uptick in S gene dropout (Omicron trait) in the last week. Small numbers and statistically noisy. |
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27th November 2021, 11:57 AM | #433 |
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It looks to me like fairly premature comment. Covid in all the forms to date has been mostly mild in younger people, so it's no surprise - although probably good news - that omicron is acting the same way.
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27th November 2021, 12:07 PM | #434 |
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Yeah. My guess is the good doctor, who also chairs the SA Med. Assoc., is under pressure to mitigate the economic consequences of countries closing borders with SA.
Probably won't know for a few weeks. Would be nice if it wasn't as serious. Seems unlikely but possible. There would be a transmission advantage if it produced more asymptomatic disease or was asymptomatic for longer after infection. |
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27th November 2021, 12:57 PM | #435 |
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That was my first thought, immediately after Ramaphosa had had a cry about countries cutting them off.
Also, I'm completely pissed off at blaming the west for holding up vaccines. South Africa is 100% the architect of its own position regarding vaccines, and blaming the west is a sly political ploy. Note the date of this piece: https://theconversation.com/south-af...one-now-163784 Interesting point, and probably impossible to gauge the answer with vaccine sin play, but it looks to me as though none of the variants are actually more deadly, they just transmit more readily. And yes, the next 3-4 weeks will be interesting, because it's clear, with cases seeded across the world, that it's well and truly out of the bag. |
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27th November 2021, 01:02 PM | #436 |
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Am I the only person who noticed WHO skipped straight past "xi" in the Greek alphabet?
I can understand them skipping "nu" due to potential confusion, but I don't see a problem with Xi. |
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27th November 2021, 01:24 PM | #437 |
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27th November 2021, 01:47 PM | #438 |
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27th November 2021, 03:25 PM | #439 |
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The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.Bertrand Russell Zooterkin is correct Darat Nerd! Hokulele Join the JREF Folders ! Team 13232 Ezekiel 23:20 |
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27th November 2021, 04:31 PM | #440 |
The Grammar Tyrant
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Sorry mate, I thought it was so obvious I was being sarcastic that I didn't think anyone would respond.
I actually mentioned it a month or so back when I was looking at the upcoming letters of the Greek alphabet. It might already be in Australia: https://www.stuff.co.nz/world/austra...-test-positive |
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