Corona Virus: It's a Marathon, Not a Sprint

[Alefroth]

I guess this is where we are now. States advising not to get vaccinated.

https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-n ... rcna104912

In a deviation from federal recommendations, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis' administration is advising residents under age 65 not to get the new Covid boosters from Pfizer and Moderna.

"What I have directed our department to do is to provide guidance that really recommends and advises against the use of these mRNA Covid-19 vaccines for anyone under 65," the state surgeon general, Dr. Joseph Ladapo, said at an online panel hosted by DeSantis on Wednesday.

[Punisher]

I guess this is where we are now. States advising not to get vaccinated.

https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-n ... rcna104912

In a deviation from federal recommendations, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis' administration is advising residents under age 65 not to get the new Covid boosters from Pfizer and Moderna.

"What I have directed our department to do is to provide guidance that really recommends and advises against the use of these mRNA Covid-19 vaccines for anyone under 65," the state surgeon general, Dr. Joseph Ladapo, said at an online panel hosted by DeSantis on Wednesday.

You seem surprised. It's Floriduh. I expected things like this a while ago.

[Carpet_pissr]

And guess which state leads the country in Covid deaths…

[Smoove_B]

I guess this is where we are now. States advising not to get vaccinated.

Missouri did the the same thing this week (sorta) on social media. It's shameful.

COVID vaccines will be available in Missouri soon, if you're in to that sort of thing. If not, just keep scrolling!

[Alefroth]

Yeah, that's a pretty bad take from a public health agency, but it still recommends it, unlike FL which said to avoid it.

[Punisher]

And guess which state leads the country in Covid deaths…

Thats 3asy..
The state if Denial

[Max Peck]

Did anyone have "dicey" on their COVID bingo card?

Ottawa enters 'diciest' weeks for viral transmission

The infectious disease forecast for Thanksgiving is looking dicey

[Max Peck]

It's a good thing that COVID is as over us as we are over COVID.

City to end dedicated COVID-19 response, cuts pandemic hires

Ottawa Public Health is ending its dedicated COVID-19 response funded by the province as that funding is set to expire.

Dr. Vera Etches, Ottawa's medical officer of health, told the board of health the public health agency will return to pre-pandemic levels of full-time employees by 2024.

According to Etches, Ottawa Public Health (OPH) grew from 500 employees in March 2020 to 4,400 at the peak of its pandemic response. A majority of those workers were focused on immunization, she said.

"We have been decreasing this number since the peak of Omicron arriving in our community in January 2022," she said during a board of health meeting Monday night.

"But now we'll be back down to about 500 people in the spring of 2024."

In its $87.5 million budget for 2024, which the board of health voted in favour of Monday, OPH earmarked $6.82 million in "one time" COVID-19 funding.

Starting in 2024, the provincial government will no longer pay for municipal costs related to COVID-19 programming.

But Etches says work related to COVID-19 and respiratory illness is not coming to an end.

"Addressing communicable diseases remains a core function of public health," she said. "It means we don't have the same resources, as we did earlier in the pandemic and emergency mode."

Ottawa continues to see high rates of hospitalization and death from COVID-19 in older adults.

Best of all, I like that she says this as if it's a good thing...

"We've seen the demand for COVID-19 vaccination has come down and so ... we're able to meet that demand in the community now," said Etches.

Yeah, if people don't believe they need to be vaccinated, you've done a bang-up job on the public health front.

[Max Peck]

Chronic fatigue syndrome is more common than some past studies suggest, CDC says

Health officials on Friday released the first nationally representative estimate of how many U.S. adults have chronic fatigue syndrome: 3.3 million.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s number is larger than previous studies have suggested, and is likely boosted by some of the patients with long COVID. The condition clearly “is not a rare illness,” said the CDC’s Dr. Elizabeth Unger, one of the report’s co-authors.

Chronic fatigue is characterized by at least six months of severe exhaustion not helped by bed rest. Patients also report pain, brain fog and other symptoms that can get worse after exercise, work or other activity. There is no cure, and no blood test or scan to enable a quick diagnosis.

Doctors have not been able to pin down a cause, although research suggests it is a body’s prolonged overreaction to an infection or other jolt to the immune system.

A jolt to the immune system you say...

[Alefroth]

A jolt to the immune system you say...

Vaccines!

[LordMortis]

Chronic fatigue syndrome is more common than some past studies suggest, CDC says

Health officials on Friday released the first nationally representative estimate of how many U.S. adults have chronic fatigue syndrome: 3.3 million.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s number is larger than previous studies have suggested, and is likely boosted by some of the patients with long COVID. The condition clearly “is not a rare illness,” said the CDC’s Dr. Elizabeth Unger, one of the report’s co-authors.

Chronic fatigue is characterized by at least six months of severe exhaustion not helped by bed rest. Patients also report pain, brain fog and other symptoms that can get worse after exercise, work or other activity. There is no cure, and no blood test or scan to enable a quick diagnosis.

Doctors have not been able to pin down a cause, although research suggests it is a body’s prolonged overreaction to an infection or other jolt to the immune system.

A jolt to the immune system you say...

Six months? I have always linked mine back to Mono that about destroyed my liver and presumably epstien barr sticking around after.

[Punisher]

A jolt jab to the immune system you say...

Vaccines!

Fixed it!

[Jaymon]

I feel like thats affecting me. I'm tired like, all the time. Full nights sleep and naps don't help. I assumed it was bad health and stress (I suddenly find myself needing the plural for apocalypse), I feel like my thinking is slowed, and I have tinnitus. Is this diabetes? is this depression? is this long covid? is this stress? or am I just getting old? Can I just dump all those things in a pan and bake them up into a loaf of crap.

[Smoove_B]

I know that no one cares anymore, but what little information is being reported (data from week ending 12/16) is suggesting things are not great. Stay safe for the coming holidays my fellow OOers

Weekly U.S. COVID update:

- New cases: 274,398 est.
- Average: 229,430 (+22,803)
- States reporting: 50/50
- In hospital: 18,233 (+601)
- In ICU: 1,902 (+84)
- New deaths: 1,693
- Average: 1,492 (+102)


The breakdown for this week's case numbers:

- Reports from 30 states: 153,884
- Estimate for 20 states: 120,514
- Total new cases: 274,398

Today's total is up 12% from last week.

COVID cases continued to rise this week, with notable increases in New York, Texas and Florida. Until now, Florida had lagged behind in this winter's wave while experiencing high levels of flu.

Nationwide, nearly 275,000 new cases were reported this week, the highest since early February. However, it's difficult to compare numbers to previous years due to limited testing and reporting.

Of note:

During the past week, at least 23,432 Americans were admitted to hospital with COVID-19, also the highest since February. Hospitalizations are likely to continue to increase through the rest of December.

Finally, nearly 1,700 new deaths were reported this week, the 14th week in a row with more than 1,000 new deaths, or more than 20,000 deaths during the same period.

[YellowKing]

Anecdotally it's bad - my dad just got over it and my mother-in-law just tested positive today. I've known more people coming down with Covid in the past month than I have all year. Exacerbated by the rise of RSV like what my wife and I have had this month. At least my work finally put some masking requirements in place.

[Smoove_B]

Yeah, I have nothing but anecdotes at well and so many people in my family circles and extended contacts are sick. My parents have something (they're on day 7 right now) and they sound horrific. Both visited a doctor last week; neither were given a COVID test - they're in their late 70s. They tried to get a follow up visit this morning but were told only one doctor is currently working w/ two admin staff; everyone else in the office is sick. Spoiler - no one was wearing masks last week when they visited. My wife's work had some big Q4 officers meeting last week and (big surprise) half the people that went on Friday are now sick.

I'm trying to do everything I can to not be sick for Xmas (or right after Xmas into the New Year), but I feel like the chances of that happening are approaching zero as the days tick by.

[Punisher]

I thought we all agreed that if we stopped talking about it Covid would just get bored and go away?

[LordMortis]

Not liking the odds. We'll have a small spreader event for XMas at my parents and I'm also hearing more and more people coming down with the 'Rona.

[Smoove_B]

More data from the wastewater wizards

December 18th Update:

Case increases continue, with JN.1 Pirola dominance expected within a week. Near 1 million/day, and not near the peak yet.

965,000 new infections/day
1 in every 340 became infected today
1 in every 34 people currently infected

[Max Peck]

This COVID study has been tracking immunity for 3 years. Now it's running out of money

A long-running study into COVID-19 immunity has unearthed promising insights on the still-mysterious disease, one of its lead researchers says — but she's concerned its funding could soon dry up.

The Stop the Spread project, a collaboration by the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute (OHRI) and the University of Ottawa, has been monitoring antibody responses to COVID-19 in hundreds of people since October 2020.

For the first 10 months of the project, about 1,000 people sent in monthly samples of their blood, saliva or sputum — a mixture of saliva and mucus — for analysis.

The researchers then winnowed that group to about 300 and kept following them as vaccines were developed and new variants emerged.

While there are other longitudinal COVID-19 studies underway, Stop the Spread is notable because it launched so early in the pandemic that some participants hadn't even fallen ill yet, said Dr. Angela Crawley, a cellular immunologist with OHRI and one of the project's co-investigators.

That gave them access to cells and plasma untouched by the COVID-19 virus — a unique baseline, Crawley said, from which they've since tracked changes in immune responses and antibody levels.

But with the pandemic approaching the four-year mark, she and other researchers worry enthusiasm to fund COVID-19 research like Stop the Spread is waning — and that could have implications for how Canada tackles future outbreaks.

"Research funding has dwindled, and, you know, things change," she said. "So a lot of what we've built is under threat of collapse."

It's clearly a branding problem. If they went with something like "Studying the Harmlessness of COVID Infection" they'd have plenty of ongoing funding...

[Kraken]

One of our friends just got her first case of covid, which is surprising because she’s an author who’s constantly doing book signings and similar promotional events.

My radio told me that covid risk is currently “moderate” in MA, which is better than most of the country is doing. Nobody (including me) is masking or distancing or taking any other precautions anymore.

[Max Peck]

The current COVID situation here is "generally stable, but very high" because saying it's stable makes the "very high" seem just fine.

[Smoove_B]

My radio told me that covid risk is currently “moderate” in MA, which is better than most of the country is doing. Nobody (including me) is masking or distancing or taking any other precautions anymore.

Yes this is a COVID-19 thread and sure, I'm quite focused on it, but respiratory viruses are ripping through America now, data as of 12/14:



I wouldn't encourage people to raw-dog the air right now in situations where you're sharing space with randos. It's not just COVID-19; viruses are trying to take over.

[coopasonic]

I suddenly became ill on Thanksgiving and missed the family gathering. Do you think they would be suspicious if the exact same thing happened on Christmas?

In my defense, they could tell I was really sick on turkey day as I tried to play video games and gave up after about three minutes because I couldn't properly focus.

[El Guapo]

This COVID study has been tracking immunity for 3 years. Now it's running out of money

A long-running study into COVID-19 immunity has unearthed promising insights on the still-mysterious disease, one of its lead researchers says — but she's concerned its funding could soon dry up.

The Stop the Spread project, a collaboration by the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute (OHRI) and the University of Ottawa, has been monitoring antibody responses to COVID-19 in hundreds of people since October 2020.

For the first 10 months of the project, about 1,000 people sent in monthly samples of their blood, saliva or sputum — a mixture of saliva and mucus — for analysis.

The researchers then winnowed that group to about 300 and kept following them as vaccines were developed and new variants emerged.

While there are other longitudinal COVID-19 studies underway, Stop the Spread is notable because it launched so early in the pandemic that some participants hadn't even fallen ill yet, said Dr. Angela Crawley, a cellular immunologist with OHRI and one of the project's co-investigators.

That gave them access to cells and plasma untouched by the COVID-19 virus — a unique baseline, Crawley said, from which they've since tracked changes in immune responses and antibody levels.

But with the pandemic approaching the four-year mark, she and other researchers worry enthusiasm to fund COVID-19 research like Stop the Spread is waning — and that could have implications for how Canada tackles future outbreaks.

"Research funding has dwindled, and, you know, things change," she said. "So a lot of what we've built is under threat of collapse."

It's clearly a branding problem. If they went with something like "Studying the Harmlessness of COVID Infection" they'd have plenty of ongoing funding...

Not big brain enough. You need to establish two groups, one called "Studying the Harmlessness of the Supposed COVID Infection" and one called "Frantically Trying to Stop COVID Before It Kills Us All" and then do distinct fundraising through both.

[Smoove_B]

WHO reclassifying JN.1 as a separate VOI (variant of interest), removing it from under BA.2.86:

Due to its rapidly increasing spread, WHO is classifying JN.1 as a separate variant of interest (VOI) from the parent lineage BA.2.86. It was previously classified as VOI as part of BA.2.86 sublineages.

As of 16 December 2023, 7344 JN.1 sequences had been submitted to @GISAID from 41 countries, representing 27.1% of the globally available sequences in epidemiological week 48 (27 Nov to 3 Dec 2023). See Table 1 in risk evaluation.

The associated public health risk is comparable to other #Omicron subvariants. JN.1 (and all SARS-CoV-2 variants in circulation) continue to cause disease and too many are falling ill, requiring hospitalisation or advanced clinical care, are dying, are developing #LongCOVID.

We'll see what comes of this...

[Isgrimnur]

Not big brain enough. You need to establish two groups, one called "Studying the Harmlessness of the Supposed COVID Infection" and one called "Frantically Trying to Stop COVID Before It Kills Us All" and then do distinct fundraising through both.

Where's the control group?

[Max Peck]

Not big brain enough. You need to establish two groups, one called "Studying the Harmlessness of the Supposed COVID Infection" and one called "Frantically Trying to Stop COVID Before It Kills Us All" and then do distinct fundraising through both.

Eh, maybe. The first group would get all the government funding and corporate sponsorship, but I suppose the second group could set up a gofundme.

[WYBaugh]

Hey Smoove, I had a booster on July 4th. When should I get the bivalent booster?

[Smoove_B]

Hey Smoove, I had a booster on July 4th. When should I get the bivalent booster?

The recommendation was for 60 days (CDC) to 90 days (researchers) from your last vaccination. So...immediately?

[WYBaugh]

Hey Smoove, I had a booster on July 4th. When should I get the bivalent booster?

The recommendation was for 60 days (CDC) to 90 days (researchers) from your last vaccination. So...immediately?

Thank you! Will be my job this week.

[Smoove_B]

Depending on your age and/or other health conditions, see if they will hit you with anything else (like Pneumovax or RSV) and definitely the flu if you haven't received it already.

I have a (senior) friend of the family wintering in FL right now and she's indicated everyone around her has COVID - it's just washing over all the 55+ people in her senior community, so definitely don't delay!

[Smoove_B]

NY hospitalizations possibly starting to jump, following increase of JN.1 as the dominant (~33%) strain being reported in NY:



If you expand the Tweet (I'll die on the hill for people still calling it Twitter), you can see there's been a 118% increase in wastewater reporting SARS-CoV-2 detection from a week ago.

I can only reiterate - mask up while out. Test right before gathering; skip events if you're feeling sick. All signs are pointing to *another* post holiday wave of illness; whether or not it'll lead to an increase in hospitalizations (or worse) remains to be seen.

[LordMortis]

As I'm generally isolated, it will be test a couple days after gathering up and I probably will. Especially if I feel at all sick.

[Smoove_B]

Best you can do is keep a window cracked - let fresh air in. Ideally get some air filter working to try and intercept floating particulates. Hopefully you're not looking at a large gathering and can trust people to do the right thing if they're not feeling well.

(pauses for laughter)

[Zaxxon]

Best you can do is keep a window cracked - let fresh air in. Ideally get some air filter working to try and intercept floating particulates. Hopefully you're not looking at a large gathering and can trust people to do the right thing if they're not feeling well.

(pauses for laughter)

[Isgrimnur]

Corsi–Rosenthal Box

[Smoove_B]

Corsi–Rosenthal Box

If you're motivated and crafty, absolutely. Not sure if the costs are still $100 though....

[LordMortis]

Best you can do is keep a window cracked - let fresh air in. Ideally get some air filter working to try and intercept floating particulates. Hopefully you're not looking at a large gathering and can trust people to do the right thing if they're not feeling well.

(pauses for laughter)

The vaccination status will probably be around 50%. The odds of ventilating in winter three years in to this? That's gonna be about zero unless I say I'm staying home without.

[Alefroth]

WHO reclassifying JN.1 as a separate VOI (variant of interest), removing it from under BA.2.86:

So mycoplasma doesn't actually have anything to do with mushrooms. It sounded like a pretty horrible affliction.