US is averaging over 2000 daily hospitalisations for Covid right now. Big country but still sounds like a lot of hospitalisations. In the medical world hospitalisations are considered a serious outcome. I suspect this would be in line with relatively recent paediatric vaccines like Rotavirus, HIB and chicken pox for hospitalisations even though those diseases cause relatively few deaths in 1st world countries.

Size wise the studies in 5-11 year olds are middling. A few thousand. Enough to get an idea of the more common side effects and comparisons to those over 12, but not rare side effects. We all have different comfort zones on how quickly to take up new medicines, risk benefit etc

Show me the long term studies on mRNA vaccines?
Something greater than three years.
Also how can one evaluate Pfizer when the placebo control group no longer exists?

And to clarify, for older people where covid death rates are near 5%, these mRNA vaccines stack up. For young people where the death rate is a fraction of a percent, risk reward is not there.

Also if you are an obese person it would also help.

A conversation I just overheard at the local Circle-K, "I've had it 3 times and was hospitalized once and I'm fully vaccinated". He used to work there and I see him from time to time, but I've never seen him wearing a mask. I'm betting that vaccination finally happened after the 3rd bout put him in the hospital.

Now the poor clerk who was there has been sick since Christmas. They are certain it's just a cold, but it got so bad they couldn't get out of bed. They now believe it has turned into bronchitis or pneumonia, so they are taking antibiotics. When asked if they have gone to the hospital, "Hell no, that place is full of covid!"

We can go round and round on this. Show me the long-term studies of long Covid.

A good chunk of our country is the control group.

I think you are missing the point of what vaccines are for, they are not just about self-preservation, it's about fighting together to save more lives, have less hospitalizations, and have less economic impact from the virus. Yeah, those young people might die from the virus in low numbers, but unvaccinated young people spread the virus to their parents, teachers, grandparents, etc. who are more likely to die from it. There was a heartbreaking story on NPR of a woman who's sister was unvaccinated and got a haircut unmasked, then hung out with their mother. Turns out the hair stylist gave the sister Covid, and she passed it along to her mother, who passed it along to her father. Both of their parents died. I'm sure your kids would feel pretty awful if they gave you or their grandparents, minister, teacher or librarian Covid and it killed them. I bet they would have wished you vaccinated them, rather than let that happen. You have to think beyond self-interest when it comes to vaccinations and think about the harm you may cause to others with your choices.

The longest human trial I am aware of was on an mRNA vaccine for rabies which started back in 2013 and ran until 2016. Those researchers continue to monitor those patients for any long term effects and thus far none have been reported that I am aware of. So, that's 9 years or so of data so far.

I'm not sure what you are meaning by the placebo group no longer existing. If you mean that those patients were offered the vaccine after it proved effective, that doesn't have any bearing on the long term safety profile of the vaccine. We have millions and millions of vaccinated people and while there are some side effects and reactions (as there are with any medication or vaccine), the overall safety profile we have seen thus far is actually quite good.

Does that help answer your question?

As I have said many times on this thread, each medical decision a patient makes should be made between the patient and their doctor.

I appreciate the sentiment and like I have written before I am pro vaccine if it has had time to prove itself as safe .
I will gladly get a protein/traditional vaccine when available even though I have a degree of natural immunity.

My other issue is the mRNA vaxs do not slow the spread. Australia has areas of 92% double vaxxed and we are hitting 35k cases a day in those same states.
The outbreak at my kids school, there was no noticeable difference in the spread between unvaxxed and vaxxed.

My son did give my wife and I covid as well as his younger sister. His older sister did not catch it even by living in a covid home that had active cases over 20 days!

I wear a mask and whenever there was a chance I had covid I would isolate.

My worry is that everyone is relying solely on vaccines as a way out of this pandemic and not looking at early treatments. Thankfully governments are using monoclonal antibodies which will reduce bad outcomes .

I truly appreciate this sentiment, this is not an option in Australia at the moment... Doctors are not allowed to not recommended the Vax, I know someone who had myocarditis prior to covid outbreak and they would not exempt him from receiving the Vax even as a young male.

Re the Pfizer placebo vs vaccinated group, I'm sure I read there were more deaths in the vaccinated group ...

I know this is just an excuse you're using and you'll just jump to the next one, but non-mRNA vaccines are available:

https://www.health.gov.au/initiatives-and-programs/covid-19-vaccines/who-can-get-vaccinated#access-to-vaxzevria-astrazeneca

Great John Burn-Murdoch summary of where they are at in London/UK right now.

Good news at least at first blush, but once you dig in it gets more muddled. Especially when you expand the analysis globally.

This wave is different. More cases, less hospitalization (as a percent)…And when they are hospitalized, less severe.

BUT

“ What we’re seeing is the real-world manifestation of what many have said for weeks: reduced severity is great news, but pressure (on the hospitals) is a function of both severity & volume”

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1478339769646166019.html

This is the first I've heard of this. All sources I have report reduced effectiveness of mRNA vaccines against omicron but still somewhat effective (~ 30%). I know this isn't an option in some countries, but a booster dose appears to double the effectiveness against omicron.

Also... how do you know that those 35K cases would not have been much greater if not for the vaccinated?

So what early treatment are you referring to? The MAB's are very expensive and are now ineffective against omicron. The new oral antivirals are in such short supply, they won't make a dent globally for some time.

You say you aren't anti vaxx but some of your statements suggest otherwise.

Like a majority of people you have likely already received multiple vaccines over your lifetime for diseases / viruses that are far less deadly and serious then Covid-19. When the polio vaccine was invented did the world wait for the 5, 10, 20, etc year studies? No, the same goes for other vaccines as well including the chickenpox vaccine. If we had to wait for 10 and 20 years studies no one would get vaccinated, and more people would be affected.

Here in the US around 3,000 people died of polio during the worst of that epidemic. Covid-19 has killed over 800,000 in the US yet some people are throwing a fit over a vaccine for a virus that has killed far more people versus polio. Why is that? It's because this pandemic has sadly turned political and there's so much misinformation spreading online about it.

Also, there's basically 3 ingredients in the MRNA vaccines, the doctor in this video from Duke Health explains it well. I have 0 concerns getting the MRNA based vaccines, especially when they have less of an impact on the body / cells versus traditional vaccines.

1. MRNA, protein derived from a surface molecule that helps Covid bind to our cells (active part of vaccine)
2. Delivery vehicle that allows MRNA to come into cells, lipid nanosphere, tiny ball of fat (normal fats) that brings MRNA into cell
3. Carrier molecule, Poly Ethylene Glycol (PEG), common chemical in food and cosmetics
4. Saline it's mixed with and potassium as a stabilizer

Leaky vaccine? You don't seem to understand what a vaccine is or much about corinaviruses in general.

You also keep ignoring the fact those vaccinated, while still able to transmit this highly mutated virus (not the Wuhan strain it was designed to target), shed virus for a shorter period of time and thus are contagious for a shorter period of time than the unvaxxed.

As for your implication that a "leaky vaccine" is responsible for the mutations we've seen to this point, that is another false statement. Delta developed in India at a time less than 5% of that country was vaxxed. Omicron came from South Africa, another lowly vaxxed country. They also think it developed in someone immuncompromised whose body couldn't fight off the virus so it remained there a long time. The opposite of what happens in most vaccinated people.

Repeating the same thing doesn’t make it true.

Let’s look at real world data shall we? Where did the variants come from?

Alpha Variant - UK prior to vaccines being available.

Beta Variant - Ghana, prior to vaccines being available.

Delta Variant - India, prior to vaccines being available.

Gamma variant - probably Brazil, prior to vaccines being available.

Lambda variant - Peru, prior to vaccines being available.

Mu variant - Colombia, January 2021, very few patients vaccinated at the time of emergence (the graph I looked at was zero but there may have been some healthcare workers or high level government officials vaccinated at the time).

Omicron variant - South Africa, November 2021. Only 23% of their population was fully vaccinated at the time of emergence.

So, what pattern do we see? I would say I see a pattern of high population density countries with a high poverty rate and low vaccination rates or vaccines were not available at the time the variant emerged.

If the vaccines are causing the mutations why are the variants not coming from the most highly vaccinated countries? We should be seeing an explosion of variants in the highly vaccinated countries like the US, Great Britain, France, Germany, etc. We aren’t. I’ll wait for your answer.

If you keep repeating misinformation enough, it eventually gets "some" people to believe it. The big lie (German: große Lüge) is a gross distortion or misrepresentation of the truth, used especially as a propaganda technique.

There could be better tracking of variants in those countries. Just throwing that out there as a possibility as why we don't see those first reported in highly-vaccinated countries.

Edit - for clarity, I'm pro vaccine.

You’re suggesting there is better tracking of variants in India, Brazil, Colombia, Peru and South Africa than in the US and Europe? Just clarifying if that’s your position. The medical infrastructure in the US and Europe is vastly superior to those other countries so I would think variant tracking and testing would be BETTER in the US and Europe, not worse.

LOL, still being used today!!

New variant out of France today. Yikes.

And here is a summary from Eric Topol on the vaccines and the immune response vs omicron:

https://erictopol.substack.com/p/humans-2-omicron-1?r=1652h&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web

I'm suggesting when one is trying to make a point, to consider all the variables rather than reach a single conclusion - IE you insinuating that it's just the lack of vaccines in non-Western countries. You might be right, and there's no argument here that it should be a priority of all nations to ensure COVID doesn't get out of control in the world. But there's also a large enough pool of unvaccinated folks in western nations as well.

We know South Africa was the first to report Omicron. We don't know that it originated there. It may have. It may not have. I'm not a watchdog for organizations doing genome sequencing, so I can't comment on who has the better systems, political will, and media to report it. Omicron was found in samples in the Netherlands that predate South Africa reporting it.

LOL - It sure is.

I’m down at Disney World.

Zero social distancing. Masks optional outside.

Just curious, how many of you will never visit again due to Disney not being strict with the virus?

You should’ve seen the expo this morning. Shoulder to shoulder.

broken record.gif

57B71F52-582D-4595-A119-93E029DBB0E6 (resized).jpeg

1/4 of our staff are out at work today either with Covid or because they were exposed to it and are getting tested. This is only going to get worse over the next couple weeks. I'm hiding in my office.

In March of 2020 I cancelled my September 2020 trip. I sort of figured I'd reschedule for February 2021... Then around June 2021 I was thinking I was vaccinated and it was time to think about scheduling for February 2022... Nope.

Here are my conclusions. Disney isn't able to enforce anything for multiple reasons.
1. They are in Florida.
2. People are assholes.
3. People are dumb.

After the pandemic is over, I'll go back to Disney. Disney's real issue is that they will give me less value for my dollar now. They need to worry about that more than trying to enforce common sense on the unwashed masses of idiots currently in the parks.

Something for you to look forward to:

https://newatlas.com/health-wellbeing/patent-free-coronavirus-vaccine-protein-subunit/

You might want to re-read my post. I did not insinuate that it was just the lack of vaccines causing the variants. What I insinuated was that when you have a dense population with generally poor hygiene conditions and poor medical infrastructure that many infectious diseases are going to flourish including viral ones. That's not to say that other countries can't produce variants, the more the virus can replicate the more likely variants will emerge. Lack of vaccination contributes to the overall transmission of COVID in the population but the other factors probably play a larger role.

I'm open to discussing other alternatives but I think if you are going to suggest that countries with minimal medical capabilities somehow have better viral tracing than countries with vastly better medical capabilities then I'm going to ask for some evidence of your assertion. You can't just shrug your shoulders and say "we don't know" and think that is a valid counterargument.

You do have a valid point about the origins of Omicron, we don't know for sure it originated in South Africa because there are other pockets of Omicron infection that were reported about the same time without obvious travel links to South Africa. I think it would still be considered more likely than not that it did originate there, however, since that is where the main outbreak occurred and since we know Omicron is highly infectious it would stand to reason that the place where it originated would likely see an outbreak. As you said, we can't know for certain due to international air travel.

The first French patient who had the variant just returned from a trip to Cameroon which is where he most likely contracted it.

"France has good surveillance for Covid variants, meaning any new mutant strains are quickly picked up."

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10365005/Covid-tracking-scientists-France-spot-variant.html

So again, we see a variant likely originated in a poorer country with poor medical infrastructure and high poverty rates and was picked up by a western European country with better viral surveillance infrastructure.

This is not news people, this is common in the world of infectious diseases. Diseases grow, mutate and originate in low income, low hygiene, densely populated places. We've known this since humans started living in communities.

This is so true, so let’s recap some of the “Big Lies” that we were told to us over the past 9 months.

If you get vaccinated, you cannot catch COVID.
If you get vaccinated, you cannot get sick from COVID.
If you get vaccinated, you cannot spread COVID.
This is a pandemic of the unvaccinated.
All of the above came straight from the “Big Guy”!

Yesterday’s Big Lie, Children are not safe in school due to the unvaccinated - Peppermint Patty

It’s a Pandemic caused by the vaccinated, according to this most recent study (12/31/21). Look, it’s NPR.

https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2021/12/31/1067702355/omicron-is-spreading-like-wildfire-scientists-are-trying-to-figure-out-why

Researchers compared the spread of omicron and of delta among members of the same household and concluded that omicron is about 2.7 to 3.7 times more infectious than the delta variant among vaccinated and boosted individuals.

But here's an interesting additional point: For unvaccinated people, there was no significant difference in rates of infection between delta and omicron. That would indicate that both variants are about at the same level of transmissibility among the unvaccinated. In other words, under those circumstances, omicron is not necessarily more transmissible than delta.

If confirmed, the findings would support the idea that omicron's increased transmissibility can be ascribed to its "immune evasiveness" — not some other characteristics that make the variant inherently more transmissible, the authors conclude.

This is also what a small study from the University of Maryland may hint at, although here, too, the findings are preliminary and yet to be peer-reviewed.

Researchers measured how much virus that vaccinated people who were infected with omicron were releasing into the air after shouting and singing. Four out of the five were exhaling ample amounts of virus into the air — comparable to the amount shed by unvaccinated people earlier in the pandemic.

"But what's striking is that I was expecting to see the amounts be much higher, and they are not," says Dr. Don Milton, an infectious disease aerobiologist at the University of Maryland School of Public Health, who led the study.

The findings suggest that the spread of omicron could hinge, in part, on the fact that more vaccinated people are contagious and shedding virus, not necessarily that each infected individual is releasing a lot more virus into the air. And if the results hold true, Milton says long-distance transmission is unlikely to become a new concern with omicron, above and beyond what's already been seen with other contagious variants like delta.

You have been away for awhile. I put myself in danger by going somewhere I should not have gone. After 14 days of working to shed this case of Covid I got, I would not touch Disney with an eleven foot pole. My world now is "2 is company and 3 is a crowd". I will remain this way until this stuff is in the rear view mirror.

I know you are vaccinated. Good for you.

There is no way to know, of course, but I feel if I had not have been vaxxed, I don't think I would be here today. And where I was at, no one was wearing a mask.

As covid continues to cause havoc around the country, I read where govt. services will be slim pickings. No stimulus checks with be coming. I imagine rent relief is going to be a thing of the past. If it continues, we will all be on our own, like some of the less wealthy countries.

NYC's new mayor is going the DeSantis direction it sounds like. He is not shutting down the schools or anything else.

And now he is leaning on the banks to get their people back in the offices.

https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/04/economy/eric-adams-covid-banks/index.html

"NYC Mayor Eric Adams to big banks: We need you back in the office"

" New York City Mayor Eric Adams is not pleased with the shift back to remote work by Wall Street banks and other major employers in the Big Apple."

"We have to open up," Adams told CNN's Brianna Keilar on Tuesday. "I need my city to open. And we have to be safe, we have to double down on vaccinations and booster shots."

" Adams worries that empty offices will hurt the broader ecosystem of businesses that rely on office workers and business travelers, including everything from dry cleaners and restaurants to hotels.

"We have low-skilled employees who can't do remote employment from home, or telecommuting," Adams said. "It is time to open up, and feed our ecosystem, our financial ecosystem."

=====================================================================

And I want to say to mayor, what magic pill do you have that will make the unvaccinated want to get vaccinated?

Meanwhile, a couple of NY banks just poked a stick in his eye.

https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/05/investing/american-express-blackrock-work-from-home-omicron/index.html

" Two more major financial companies urge workers to stay at home

"American Express and BlackRock are the latest major companies to urge employees to start 2022 by working remotely as Covid-19 cases skyrocket.

"We have seen an exponential increase in the spread of the Omicron variant across the world," AmEx CEO Stephen Squeri said in a memo to employees on Tuesday. "We encourage all those who can do their jobs effectively from home to continue doing so."
New York-based AmEx said it has decided to delay the January 24 launch of a new flexible working plan that will require most employees to be in the office one to three days a week.
The AmEx (AXP) CEO said the launch is delayed "until we feel comfortable bringing a large number of colleagues back together in the office."

" Meanwhile, BlackRock (BLK), which is also based in New York, is encouraging employees to "work from wherever they are most comfortable" as a result of the Omicron variant, company spokesperson Aziz Nayani told CNN.
"Our offices are still open and employees can work from the office if they choose to," the BlackRock spokesperson said.

And here you can read how the airlines kept stepping on their dicks every every decision they made.

https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/05/business/holiday-flight-cancellations-blame/index.html

And tongues are starting to wag and looking find someone to blame because mistakes of being made with regards to Omicron. People are blaming the administration, blaming anyone that can point a finger at.

But this airline guy calls it for what it is with regards to the airlines.

" Kelly said no matter what preparations the airlines made, the surge in Covid cases brought on by the very contagious Omicron variant was going to cause problems.

"No one could have planned for Omicron. It's the curveball of curveballs," he said. "I give the industry a thumbs up for trying to plan as much as they could."

I'm more likely to go because of this.

I work in a small company of 12 people. My boss, the CTO, tested positive over the weekend. Our office manager tested positive over the weekend. Our sales manager tested positive today. Another worker had a family member test positive today. Think I'm going to work from home for a few days...

Why are you like this? Dude just go have fun. Or don't?

You asked if someone could account for why the variants originated there, I posited an explanation - I'm not terribly attached or invested in this as an argument, nor suggesting you're wrong - I'm not a person of faith and will admit ignorance where I have it. That's a conversation, I'm not trying to win here.

Though I do think it can be fallacious to equate poor medical access to the average person to lack of expertise in the country. India has some of the best medical facilities around, though I'm not going to pretend that level of care is offered to most people in India. I don't know enough about South Africa's culture, income disparity, or medical facilities to know if it's similar there.

Got to have some fun conversations at work today about having some plans in place if/when we have major disruptions to our food supply - we all see the massive call offs, stories of Wal*Marts (60 of them in the past month!) temporarily closing, etc but I haven't heard a peep from anyone else at my company on preparing for some bad scenarios. I'm hoping for the best, but trying to line things up so we can scrap by if our primary grocery distributor has no drivers/can't deliver to us for a few days/whatever.

I'm not suggesting anyone hoard, but I don't think it would be the worst idea to have stock and maintain a couple week's extra supply of food/toiletries/pet food right now.

I spend as much as I used to, just in different locations. Instead of takeout near my office, it’s takeout near my house. Instead of gasoline for my commute, it’s pinball. Instead of a night down in NYC for dinner and a show, it’s an electrician to wire in ceiling fans.

Adams can worry about it all he wants. But that’s not going to get me back into his city before the pandemic is over. Besides, once it does end, businesses near my house will be the ones complaining. Someone is always going to be complaining.

So you are saying the amount of mutations from Delta to Omicron is in no way related to vaccines that are less then 90% effective? While admitting the world isn’t sure where Omicron actually originated? Huh.. I haven’t heard many scientific organizations making this call. It is scientific fact that viral particles replicate in vaccinated individuals- mutations can happen.

I missed it, where do you think you picked up Covid?