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

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

Post by Defiant »

Immunity from COVID-19 appears to gather strength with more time between vaccination and infection, a new laboratory study from researchers at Oregon Health & Science University suggests. The findings carry implications for vaccine recommendations as the pandemic transitions to an endemic state.

Researchers measured the antibody response in blood samples for a group of people who gained so-called “hybrid immunity” through two means: either vaccination followed by a breakthrough infection, or by getting vaccinated after contracting COVID-19. They measured the immune response in blood samples of 96 generally healthy OHSU employees and found that the immune response was uniformly stronger the longer the time period between vaccination and infection. The longest interval measured was 404 days.

Their findings suggest that vaccine boosters should be spaced no more frequently than a year apart, at least among healthy people.
https://news.ohsu.edu/2023/01/25/ohsu-r ... -over-time

I wonder if this is part of the reasoning for a yearly booster?
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Re: Corona Virus: It's a Marathon, Not a Sprint

Post by Smoove_B »

Hadn't seen that; you might be right.

It seems to specifically cover the OG strains through BA.2 so I'd want verification this still holds with XBB 1.5, but that's potentially good news.

From the actual study:
Several key variables influence the protective efficacy of SARS-CoV-2 immunity.

The first is the mechanisms by which immunity is elicited, which may include natural infection or vaccination with any of the different vaccine types.

The second is viral antigenic variation, which encompasses differences in the amino acid sequence and post-translational modification of viral antigens depending on which variant of SARS-CoV-2 the antigens were derived from.

The third is timing between repeat exposures, including the interval between vaccine doses and the much less studied interval between vaccination and natural infection. Additionally, following the last exposure, immunity can wane, leading to decreased protection. However, the durability of responses from different exposure modes can vary greatly.

Finally, other variables exist which have important implications for immunity including age, sex, comorbidities, and certain therapeutic agents. Understanding the impact of these variables is key for risk-stratifying populations and guiding general vaccination strategies.
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Re: Corona Virus: It's a Marathon, Not a Sprint

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Mission accomplished! (In May)
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Re: Corona Virus: It's a Marathon, Not a Sprint

Post by hitbyambulance »

Zaxxon wrote: Mon Jan 30, 2023 8:10 pm Mission accomplished! (In May)
three year anniversary celebration!
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Re: Corona Virus: It's a Marathon, Not a Sprint

Post by Smoove_B »

I wish I could formulate my thoughts as well as others, but this really is fantastic:
I am not suggesting that the United States is covering up the ongoing seriousness of the Covid pandemic, now entering year four. In fact, Ashish Jha, White House Covid response coordinator, was quite blunt last week in The Washington Post about the severity of what we will be facing—not just for months, but possibly for years—in this country:

I am worried that we are going to have, for years, our health system being pretty dysfunctional, not being able to take care of heart attack patients, not being able to take care of cancer patients, not being able to take care of the kid who’s got appendicitis because we’re going to be so overwhelmed with respiratory viruses for…three or four months a year…. I just think people have not appreciated the chronic cost, because we have seen this as an acute problem. We have no idea how hard this is going to make life for everybody, for long periods of time.

But, purposefully or not, the White House has relied on a policy of destructive interference, in which messages like this from Jha, forthright (but strangely passive—as if he weren’t tasked with coordinating our nation’s response to all this) are matched with “don’t worry, be happy” ones, making it difficult to tell the signal from the noise. Meanwhile, the White House’s id—the pundit class—keeps providing cover fire, declaring the pandemic’s toll overstated, or, in the latest twist from the University of California–San Francisco’s Monica Gandhi, offering a “scientific” rationale for doing less (i.e., stop testing, stop masking) by using “endemic” as a talisman to justify throwing our hands up in the air.
Of note:
Meanwhile, it is just getting harder and harder for the rest of us to protect ourselves. If you’re a poor school district, Covid funding for ventilation isn’t nearly adequate to get the job done, even in a rich state like mine. Jha almost gleefully told us last August that vaccines, tests, and treatments for Covid are heading to the private sector: “My hope is that in 2023, you’re going to see the commercialization of almost all of these products. Some of that is actually going to begin this fall, in the days and weeks ahead.”

Who really “hopes” that Americans are going to have to fend for themselves in the rapacious private health care market during a pandemic? If the White House declares the public health emergency over later this year, that will strip protections from millions of Americans, depriving them of emergency health care coverage and lifting key restraints on private insurers’ ability to charge for vaccines, tests, and treatments for those lucky enough to have insurance. Jha, fond of saying “We have the tools” to manage this virus, wants you to believe that “we” will be fine, but it’s not ordinary Americans he is talking about.
So yeah, this was published on 1/26 and 4 days later the ending of the emergency was announced. No one in public health is surprised; it's been telegraphed for 6+ months now.
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Re: Corona Virus: It's a Marathon, Not a Sprint

Post by Kraken »

Once the emergency expires, people with private insurance will have some out-of-pocket costs for vaccines, tests and treatment, while the uninsured will have to pay for those expenses in their entirety.
Insurance covers all other vaccines -- or at least flu, shingles, and pneumonia -- at 100%. Why won't covid vaccines also be "free"?
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Re: Corona Virus: It's a Marathon, Not a Sprint

Post by Zarathud »

It is a continuous health crisis, but still an emergency? Realistically, a Republican controlled House will end our emergency efforts anyway. Sad but true.
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Re: Corona Virus: It's a Marathon, Not a Sprint

Post by LawBeefaroni »

Kraken wrote: Mon Jan 30, 2023 10:42 pm
Once the emergency expires, people with private insurance will have some out-of-pocket costs for vaccines, tests and treatment, while the uninsured will have to pay for those expenses in their entirety.
Insurance covers all other vaccines -- or at least flu, shingles, and pneumonia -- at 100%. Why won't covid vaccines also be "free"?
There's a decent chance it will be covered by insurance if it continues to be effective in reducing serious illness.
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Re: Corona Virus: It's a Marathon, Not a Sprint

Post by Smoove_B »

Kraken wrote: Mon Jan 30, 2023 10:42 pm Insurance covers all other vaccines -- or at least flu, shingles, and pneumonia -- at 100%. Why won't covid vaccines also be "free"?
“Ending the emergency will prompt complex changes in the cost of Covid tests and treatments that Americans are…getting for free.

Any charges they face will vary depending on private insurance, Medicare coverage, Medicaid coverage or no health insurance. Also, what state they live in…”
Big article here, detailing what is going to happen. The ending of the declaration of an emergency is mainly administrative and financial in nature. The usual suspects will take it to mean that COVID-19 is no longer a problem (again) and it's now super extra over (again).

And in all likelihood things will mostly go great (like they mostly did last summer) until we get to the Fall of 2023. I am guessing the first thing to hit the news this October is how no one is getting the updated 2023 Fall booster. Can't imagine why, but let's see if my Magic 8 Ball is correct...
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Re: Corona Virus: It's a Marathon, Not a Sprint

Post by Zaxxon »

On the positive side, no one got the fall 2022 booster and here we are, green everywhere*!
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Re: Corona Virus: It's a Marathon, Not a Sprint

Post by Smoove_B »

I mean, I'm not going to celebrate over an average of ~500 daily deaths each day in January, but it's certainly better than January of 2022, sure.
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Re: Corona Virus: It's a Marathon, Not a Sprint

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Zarathud wrote: Mon Jan 30, 2023 10:42 pm It is a continuous health crisis, but still an emergency? Realistically, a Republican controlled House will end our emergency efforts anyway. Sad but true.
They are definitely trying. House members were on TV supporting McCarthy conversations with Biden to end funding as part of the deficit ceiling bargain.
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Re: Corona Virus: It's a Marathon, Not a Sprint

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Kraken wrote: Mon Jan 30, 2023 10:42 pm
Once the emergency expires, people with private insurance will have some out-of-pocket costs for vaccines, tests and treatment, while the uninsured will have to pay for those expenses in their entirety.
Insurance covers all other vaccines -- or at least flu, shingles, and pneumonia -- at 100%. Why won't covid vaccines also be "free"?
Pfizer quarterly guidance came out just now on their earnings call. They are budgeting for a huge drop as the payment for COVID x is being transferred from government spend to insurance/private sector spend in 2023. How that comes out of our pockets differently? Presumably in the cost to be insured going up while our higher cost of COVID emergency treatment taxes currently paying just go somewhere else. Insurance will pay drug companies less because it's not an emergency anymore, I guess. Which seems counter intuitive, given our collective stance on price gouging. shrug I only imagine prophylactics (vaccines) prices and usage going down while treatment prices (antivirals, etc...) go up.

Stock down 3% as of this post on the guidance.

https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/ ... L-GUIDANCE
Estimated total demand for Comirnaty doses - U.S. (includes use of existing government supply)


~65 million doses


Compared to ~92 million doses† in 2022
Estimated proportion of symptomatic COVID-19 patients treated with an oral antiviral treatment - global*, excluding China


~17%


Compared to ~12%† in 2022 (partial year only); Increase due to greater awareness/education and full-year implementation
Estimated timing for transitioning Comirnaty and Paxlovid to commercial market in the U.S.


Second half of 2023


Assumes prior absorption of existing government supply
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Re: Corona Virus: It's a Marathon, Not a Sprint

Post by Zaxxon »

It sounds like the WHO may be laying the groundwork to end the emergency declaration for COVID around the same time as the White House:
the committee noted that the pandemic seems to be nearing an "inflection point," at which COVID-19 will shift from an acute crisis to a sustained, lower-level threat. Although overall vaccination rates need improvement in many countries, 13.1 billion doses have gone into arms worldwide, leading to high levels of protection in frontline and high-risk populations. Overall, 89 percent of health workers in the world have completed a primary series, as have 81 percent of people over the age of 60. Additionally, higher levels of population immunity are being established with a mix of vaccination and infection.

"There is little doubt that this virus will remain a permanently established pathogen in humans and animals for the foreseeable future," WHO concluded. But with population immunity high in many places and getting higher, the focus should shift to "long-term public health action." That includes continuing to improve vaccination rates, particularly in high-priority groups. It also means boosting disease and variant surveillance, increasing uptake of COVID-19 treatments, and preparing for future outbreak events.

"While eliminating this virus from human and animal reservoirs is highly unlikely, mitigation of its devastating impact on morbidity and mortality is achievable and should continue to be a prioritized goal," WHO said.

Overall, WHO set the stage for a transition out of the crisis phase of the pandemic and into a new normal with SARS-CoV-2. While the PHEIC status remains for now, the committee will meet again in three months to reassess the situation.

"We remain hopeful that in the coming year, the world will transition to a new phase in which we reduce hospitalizations and deaths to the lowest possible level, and health systems are able to manage COVID-19 in an integrated and sustainable way," Tedros said in remarks Monday.
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Re: Corona Virus: It's a Marathon, Not a Sprint

Post by Smoove_B »

Interestingly (or maybe only to me), the WHO emergency declaration isn't quite the same as the United States emergency declaration (despite both using the same term). Yes, both involve administrative elements and providing aid (financial, expertise, resources) but the WHO is much more focused on the global impacts and the lack of vaccinations and support in countries that are largely being ignored. Their declaration is one that encompasses scale to a greater degree than the American use of the term.

Either way, I don't think the WHO emergency declaration system was ever intended to address something like a 3+ year pandemic so it wouldn't surprise me if they dial it down as well. To be fair, none of our domestic programs and response were in any way capable of addressing a 3+ year pandemic so it's not like that is unusual.

I guess in summary, I'm sure we'll take these lessons (both globally and domestically) to prepare for the next pandemic so that when it happens again we can have a much more appropriate response.

(pauses for laughter)
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Re: Corona Virus: It's a Marathon, Not a Sprint

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Ashish Jha wrote: I am worried that we are going to have, for years, our health system being pretty dysfunctional, not being able to take care of heart attack patients, not being able to take care of cancer patients, not being able to take care of the kid who’s got appendicitis because we’re going to be so overwhelmed with respiratory viruses for…three or four months a year….
So, just don't have a heart attack/get cancer/have appendicitis during those 3-4 months a year. People have to do their part too, you know.
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Re: Corona Virus: It's a Marathon, Not a Sprint

Post by LordMortis »

CNBC says Pfizer charge the Gub'ment $20 per dose. When they transition to commercial, they plan to charge between $110 to $120 per dose. There is apparently causing ??? political fallout. No explanation of who the that fallout is with or what the fallout is.
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Re: Corona Virus: It's a Marathon, Not a Sprint

Post by Smoove_B »

LordMortis wrote: Tue Jan 31, 2023 1:43 pm There is apparently causing ??? political fallout. No explanation of who the that fallout is with or what the fallout is.
I can possibly fill in some data. Look to see what people like Bernie Sanders or AOC are saying right now about the pending end to the domestic emergency declaration and what it will mean for 30+ million Americans after 5/11.

Bonus points if you can find anyone from the party saying anything about it - the continued shift of responsibility to individuals and/or the involvement of private sector by the way of insurance and private health. It's like the entire idea of public health is fading from our collective consciousness.
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Re: Corona Virus: It's a Marathon, Not a Sprint

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LordMortis wrote: Tue Jan 31, 2023 1:43 pm CNBC says Pfizer charge the Gub'ment $20 per dose. When they transition to commercial, they plan to charge between $110 to $120 per dose. There is apparently causing ??? political fallout. No explanation of who the that fallout is with or what the fallout is.
I'm sure that this is hard to answer, but is Pfizer taking a loss on the vaccine at $20 / dose?
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Re: Corona Virus: It's a Marathon, Not a Sprint

Post by LordMortis »

Can't find what you are talking about but when I searched their names 5/11 did come up.

https://www.politico.com/newsletters/po ... r-00080216

COVID EMERGENCIES TO END MAY 11 — The Biden administration will end the Covid-19 national and public health emergencies on May 11, the White House said Monday in a major step meant to signal that the crisis era of the pandemic is over, POLITICO’S Adam Cancryn reports.
I wonder if that has anything to do with his meeting with McCarthy and coming up with compromises for raising the debt ceiling. I sure wouldn't trust the GOP on those compromises, if so.
BIG, BAD BERNIE? At cocktail parties and on phone calls, K Street is swapping stories about what Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) is planning to do as the leader of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, POLITICO's Megan Wilson reports.

Some health care lobbyists say they’ll have to sign a waiver to meet with HELP staff. Others said all meetings with lobbyists would have to be videotaped or they’ll have to get permission from the committee’s staff director to get a meeting.

None of the rumors are true, Sanders’ office says, but their ubiquity underscores how unnerved many on K Street are at the prospect of a Sanders-led Senate HELP Committee and how grim they see their task for the next two years.
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Re: Corona Virus: It's a Marathon, Not a Sprint

Post by LawBeefaroni »

The last tranche I saw, Pfizer and Moderns got $3.2B for 105M doses. That's about $30/dose. Keep in mind that that's a huge order and a volume discount. The Feds take on distribution and delivery.

If the final cost for the vaccine ends up being $120 or so, that's not crazy.
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Re: Corona Virus: It's a Marathon, Not a Sprint

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You can't find anything because they've said nothing; no one has. The "fallout" you hear is the Democrats undermining their own political party with their silence. Maybe they're just finding out about it like we did (doubtful) or they're planning to respond in the coming days (possibly). But to me this looks uncoordinated and janky - like it's being quickly cobbled together knowing (as you've pointed out) that the House GOP is going to pull financial shenanigans.To be this has big, "Oh you're going to fire me? You can't fire me because I quit!" energy.
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Re: Corona Virus: It's a Marathon, Not a Sprint

Post by Smoove_B »

LawBeefaroni wrote: Tue Jan 31, 2023 2:22 pm If the final cost for the vaccine ends up being $120 or so, that's not crazy.
There's also quite a few doses left that were already subsidized by the feds - meaning there's some supply in existence right now that should be offered at $20 a dose for everyone and then possibly (for a while) to people that are insured. it's a moving target but the uninsured/under-insured are going to be paying that $120 price sooner than later, arguably and likely the people that need it the most. I'd seen a breakdown this morning of what someone believes the cost/service shifting will look like (over time); can't seem to find it again but I'll slap it in here if I can.

EDIT: Here you go
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Re: Corona Virus: It's a Marathon, Not a Sprint

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Smoove_B wrote: Tue Jan 31, 2023 10:47 am I guess in summary, I'm sure we'll take these lessons (both globally and domestically) to prepare for the next pandemic so that when it happens again we can have a much more appropriate response.
(pauses for laughter)
I wonder if we'll even bother to declare anything a pandemic going forward.
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Re: Corona Virus: It's a Marathon, Not a Sprint

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I think we will, but I'm not sure what it'll mean. I'm also pretty confident we're all going to see it happen again before another 100 years pass, so there's that.
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Re: Corona Virus: It's a Marathon, Not a Sprint

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Smoove_B wrote: Tue Jan 31, 2023 2:23 pm But to me this looks uncoordinated and janky
Ah, I see this is your first day meeting the Democratic Party.
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Re: Corona Virus: It's a Marathon, Not a Sprint

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LawBeefaroni wrote: Tue Jan 31, 2023 2:22 pm The last tranche I saw, Pfizer and Moderns got $3.2B for 105M doses. That's about $30/dose. Keep in mind that that's a huge order and a volume discount. The Feds take on distribution and delivery.

If the final cost for the vaccine ends up being $120 or so, that's not crazy.
It is still crazy since both pfizer and moderna are making huge profit from the pandemic even with the current "non-profit" pricing.
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Re: Corona Virus: It's a Marathon, Not a Sprint

Post by Kraken »

Victoria Raverna wrote: Tue Jan 31, 2023 11:56 pm
LawBeefaroni wrote: Tue Jan 31, 2023 2:22 pm The last tranche I saw, Pfizer and Moderns got $3.2B for 105M doses. That's about $30/dose. Keep in mind that that's a huge order and a volume discount. The Feds take on distribution and delivery.

If the final cost for the vaccine ends up being $120 or so, that's not crazy.
It is still crazy since both pfizer and moderna are making huge profit from the pandemic even with the current "non-profit" pricing.
Weaning is going to be uncomfortable after sucking the government's teat for three years.
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Re: Corona Virus: It's a Marathon, Not a Sprint

Post by LordMortis »

The thesis on Cramer tonight "Wallstreet is finally over its post COVID hangover" so for him COVID is three iterations of in the past. So there was post COVID some time ago, and then after that we had a post COVID hangover, and NOW we're finally over it in the investment world.
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Re: Corona Virus: It's a Marathon, Not a Sprint

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Let's hope it's not just hair of the dog.
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Re: Corona Virus: It's a Marathon, Not a Sprint

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Colorado's case count and currently-hospitalixed #s saw their first rise since Thanksgiving today. A trend? Find out next week!
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Re: Corona Virus: It's a Marathon, Not a Sprint

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Something strange going on here in my county in TN. Tomorrow, Friday, all schools both county and city are to be closed for a 'thorough' cleaning they say due to illness. They dont say what illness it is though. Weird. And they are closing it all up on Friday instead of just waiting until Saturday. Seems like ..well dont know what. Must REALLY need to get it done or something. First I heard of it is when I saw it on my locals news webpage.
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Re: Corona Virus: It's a Marathon, Not a Sprint

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

Post by Smoove_B »

Could be, but I've never known a school to communicate shutting down for a "deep cleaning" over RSV. Norovirus? Maybe. In the early days of the pandemic? Sure. But in 2023? That's odd.

Unrelated, but there was a slight tweak to the models from last week regarding hospitalizations nationwide:


The @CDCgov is no longer predicting that COVID-19 hospitalizations "will likely decrease" over coming month

"will remain stable or have an uncertain trend"
I'm pretty sure this is related to XBB.1.5 "sloshing" it's way across America, having now left the NE.
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Re: Corona Virus: It's a Marathon, Not a Sprint

Post by Smoove_B »

That pesky excess mortality data again


"almost every week for more than 6 mos, [CDC] has calculated that total excess mortality was 50% larger than & often almost twice as large as the number of official #Covid19 deaths, which we tend to regard as the central public health anomaly of the age."
From the associated article:
And though the pattern has continued for three years, there isn’t medical or scientific consensus about what is driving it. Instead, perhaps several hundred thousand “unexpected” deaths have been explained only by loose conjecture. “We’ve got to figure this out,” the University of Minnesota epidemiologist Michael Osterholm told me. “And in order to do that, you’ve got to have that discussion: Wait a minute, this is bigger than people think.”

What are the hypotheses? The first is delayed care — that the pandemic made people postpone treatment for various problems, as doctors and hospitals triaged resources, sending them toward those ill with Covid-19 and away from other issues, and canceled visits and screenings prevented new diagnoses (and therefore treatment).

A second hypothesis is about the indirect effects of pandemic restrictions: not just missed medical care but social isolation, anxiety and unemployment, which can worsen a wide range of conditions, as well as, potentially, suicide and homicide and even car accidents and overdoses, to the extent they each deviated from historical patterns.

A third hypothesis is that Covid-19 infection does harm to the body that can linger after recovery for some people — not just in what is conventionally called long Covid, but also in other ways, by disturbing the function of various organ systems. (Damage to the cardiovascular system has been one particular area of research focus.) “We still don’t really grasp the entire spectrum and breadth of disease yet,” the Yale immunobiologist Akiko Iwasaki told me. “We are still learning.”

Over the last year, papers exploring another theory — involving the risks of these “post-acute sequelae” with reinfection, not just initial infection — have also raised a considerable amount of alarm. Nearly every one of the many experts I spoke to about these papers emphasized their shortcomings, most notably that its authors were looking only at health outcomes among those people who had gone to see a doctor, feeling ill. The effect size was, if real, almost surely much lower than the write-ups suggest, they told me. But nearly every expert also was careful to say that, all things being equal, a reinfection was indeed bad for you, that especially if you were not in great health you’d want to avoid them and that in particular cases a reinfection could certainly contribute to the death of a patient from causes other than classic Covid pneumonia.

Another hypothesis is that Covid infection damages immune function in some patients in a long-lasting way. Here, too, there have been papers published tracing immunological effects, though there has also been a lot of contestation and pushback against — and contextualizing for — narratives of significant and widespread immunological dysfunction.
Of note:
I’ve laid out each of these hypotheses separately, but of course, they are not disentangled. Among the many lessons of the pandemic, for me, has been how much more complicated and baffling disease severity and death are, even beyond the heartbreak it causes — how unpredictable the progression of illness can be, how simplistic it often feels to apply a single cause of death, and how random individual outcomes can seem.
There's actually some really interesting data analysis, if you're into that sort of stuff but in closing:
Where does this leave us? More Americans are still dying than expected, which means at some point the United States may have to reset its expectations for how many will die in a given year at least a bit higher. The country long ago walked away from most mitigation measures beyond vaccination. (And even there, booster uptake has been quite low.) This week, the Biden administration declared it would bring an end to the Covid-19 public health emergency in May, which means that whatever the intuitive implications of these questions, it’s unlikely that, however they are resolved, all that much about pandemic policy will change.

And yet the story of the pandemic looks quite different depending on how we make sense of that excess excess. If we attribute most of those hundreds of thousands of additional deaths to Covid infection — probably the least complicated, Occam’s razor explanation — it raises the direct toll of Covid-19 in the United States to close to 1.5 million. If we attribute it to delayed care and social isolation, it implies some amount of pandemic overreach, and if we attribute it to long Covid and post-acute sequelae it suggests the possibility of an ongoing public health burden. It would be nice to really know.
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stimpy
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Re: Corona Virus: It's a Marathon, Not a Sprint

Post by stimpy »

Honestly, the only time I even read or hear about Covid these days is on here.
What that means?
No idea. Just saying......
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malchior
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Re: Corona Virus: It's a Marathon, Not a Sprint

Post by malchior »

Weirdly I heard about it at my dentist's visit yesterday (still require masking) and a COVID exposure questionnaire. My wife was screened for it at her doctor's appointment this morning, and my job just instituted new COVID meeting policies after the CEO and some of his guys got it at a quarterly meeting. We now require screening and testing for meetings/gatherings.
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Re: Corona Virus: It's a Marathon, Not a Sprint

Post by Smoove_B »

What that means?
It means that things are working as intended. I can only say that for many communities (demographics, not geographic) COVID-19 is a daily concern. But yes, I totally agree - no one is talking about the ~500 daily deaths or the 15K+ people that died in January of this year (about 25% of the total from January of 2022). Better? Sure. Horrific and largely preventable? Absolutely.

Regardless we've entered a new phase (probably started at some point in the Fall of 2022) and the next one will be after 5/11/23.

The focus right now should be on (1) vaccinations and (2) improving indoor air, particularly in work places. #1 violates freedom (so it's bad) and #2 requires corporations and business to spend money on things that don't increase profits, so good luck.

Interesting times.
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stimpy
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Re: Corona Virus: It's a Marathon, Not a Sprint

Post by stimpy »

malchior wrote: Fri Feb 03, 2023 1:53 pm Weirdly I heard about it at my dentist's visit yesterday (still require masking) and a COVID exposure questionnaire. My wife was screened for it at her doctor's appointment this morning, and my job just instituted new COVID meeting policies after the CEO and some of his guys got it at a quarterly meeting. We now require screening and testing for meetings/gatherings.
I've been to the dentist 3 times in the last few months.
No masks or testing other than temperature taken by ear.
Just yesterday I went to my dermatologist and no masks or checks.

Work had a retirement party and then our Christmas party a week after.
No mask. No tests.
A few people, including the co-owner and his wife got Covid.
Nothing was said or done concerning it whatsoever.

I know it's still out there, but from what I can tell on a day to day basis, no one is doing much of anything about it anymore.
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Re: Corona Virus: It's a Marathon, Not a Sprint

Post by ImLawBoy »

Mixed bag here. All the medical facilities my family and I go to (doctors' offices, hospitals, eye doctor, etc.) require masking. When I go for a haircut and walk in with my mask on, my barber reaches into his drawer and puts on a mask without any discussion. COVID is still a topic of discussion among neighbors and co-workers (usually about who might have had it recently). I see it mentioned regularly in the news and on TV.

When I go to the grocery store or out to get lunch or something, I'm one of the few still wearing a mask. Most of the rest of the world has moved on. I've gone out with friends a few times and I wear a mask unless eating or drinking, but I stand out like a sore thumb (although given where I live, I don't get any weird looks or nasty comments). The twins are among the 3 in their class who still get weekly COVID tests.

My suspicion is that the medical facilities will drop masking requirements in May when we hang the "Mission Accomplished" banner.
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