COVID-19 (Novel Coronavirus) Update

[Rollerstud98]

Originally Posted by suburbanite

Been back in Ontario at my parents place this week and they had the news on so it was the first time I'd seen cable news in a while. There was a brief 40-second segment on a house fire that killed 3 children this morning, followed by a 30-minute press conference from Newfoundland where they revealed that 30 people have died throughout the entire pandemic. 10% of NL's Covid deaths were realized in one tragic accident this morning, and all I could think was that we should ban all use of natural gas and flammable items in residential homes to prevent that from ever happening again.

Guess we all need concrete beds!

[SpongeG]

Czech anti-coronavirus vaccine folk singer dies after deliberately getting infected with Covid-19, son says
By Radina Gigova, CNN

Updated 11:29 AM ET, Thu January 20, 2022

(CNN)A Czech folk singer who was opposed to having a coronavirus vaccine has died after deliberately contracting the virus, according to her son.

Hana Horká, of the folk band Asonance, died Sunday at the age of 57 after intentionally exposing herself to the virus at home while her son and husband were sick, according to CNN affiliate CNN Prima News.
Horká wanted to infect herself so she could be "done with Covid," her son, Jan Rek, told Prima News on Monday.
"I came here because the debate is very important and I want to warn people," said Rek, who added that both he and his father had been vaccinated.

...

The idea of intentionally trying to catch the Omicron Covid-19 variant is increasingly popular, but doctors have warned against doing so.
"People are talking about Omicron like it's a bad cold. It is not a bad cold," said Dr. Robert Murphy, executive director of the Havey Institute for Global Health at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago, Illinois. "It's a life-threatening disease."

https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/20/europ...ntl/index.html

[manny_santos]

Originally Posted by SpongeG

Czech anti-coronavirus vaccine folk singer dies after deliberately getting infected with Covid-19, son says
By Radina Gigova, CNN

Updated 11:29 AM ET, Thu January 20, 2022

(CNN)A Czech folk singer who was opposed to having a coronavirus vaccine has died after deliberately contracting the virus, according to her son.

Hana Horká, of the folk band Asonance, died Sunday at the age of 57 after intentionally exposing herself to the virus at home while her son and husband were sick, according to CNN affiliate CNN Prima News.
Horká wanted to infect herself so she could be "done with Covid," her son, Jan Rek, told Prima News on Monday.
"I came here because the debate is very important and I want to warn people," said Rek, who added that both he and his father had been vaccinated.

...

The idea of intentionally trying to catch the Omicron Covid-19 variant is increasingly popular, but doctors have warned against doing so.
"People are talking about Omicron like it's a bad cold. It is not a bad cold," said Dr. Robert Murphy, executive director of the Havey Institute for Global Health at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago, Illinois. "It's a life-threatening disease."

https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/20/europ...ntl/index.html

Doesn’t cornholio live in that country?

[Peggerino]

I feel sorry for that son. Imagine losing a parent for such a stupid reason... that'd definitely mess me up big time

[travis3000]

Originally Posted by Peggerino

I feel sorry for that son. Imagine losing a parent for such a stupid reason... that'd definitely mess me up big time

This story hits close to home for me. My mom and step dad both caught Delta back in the summer and went through hell. Both were on oxygen, felt horrible, and had some nights where they didn't know if they were going to make it. Thankfully they have recovered and are back to 100% normal. To add insult to injury both still refuse to get vaccinated. So again they are sitting ducks to this new variant, ready to put their body through hell once more. I am very worried about the long term effects to ones body by getting hit with Covid, especially with people I love. I worry about it everyday.

[Loco101]

Originally Posted by samne

I do hope we follow the UK model and open things up. Unfortunately our current governments are relentless in “safety” mandates. Having kids wear masks in class all day and the cancellation of typical school things is just heavy handed and cruel to be going on this long. In the UK it’s up to the parents if masked as it should be.

I really hope that Ontario doesn't open too much up too quickly to the point that we will see a huge wave in April and May like last year. But I will add that I'm all for removing most restrictions for those with three vaccine shots.

I don't see the UK as being a model for Ontarians but at least we can watch and see what happens there. Masking should still be required in schools until COVID numbers get below a certain amount.

[GeneralLeeTPHLS]

Originally Posted by Loco101

I really hope that Ontario doesn't open too much up too quickly to the point that we will see a huge wave in April and May like last year. But I will add that I'm all for removing most restrictions for those with three vaccine shots.

I don't see the UK as being a model for Ontarians but at least we can watch and see what happens there. Masking should still be required in schools until COVID numbers get below a certain amount.

I agree 100%. There's a reason I don't exactly look forward to going back to work....I'm going to be in a mentality with understanding there's a chance of a shutdown of restarants/gyms/cinemas and other venues until there's some kind of assurance sometime in the future that we've moved on to a different phase in the pandemic. Which....we have in some manners, but not according to our leadership. Anyway, I'm just pessimistic due to the gong show of last spring...in many ways that was a bad April, May and June.

[SpongeG]

Originally Posted by Loco101

I really hope that Ontario doesn't open too much up too quickly to the point that we will see a huge wave in April and May like last year. But I will add that I'm all for removing most restrictions for those with three vaccine shots.

I don't see the UK as being a model for Ontarians but at least we can watch and see what happens there. Masking should still be required in schools until COVID numbers get below a certain amount.

Ireland will be dropping a lot of restrictions soon.

Nphet clears way for extensive easing of Covid-19 restrictions, including end to 8pm curfew

Cabinet will meet on Friday to consider timeframe for implementation
about 11 hours ago Updated: about 10 hours ago
Jennifer Bray

The State’s public health team has cleared the way for the easing of almost all Covid-19 restrictions over the coming days.

The National Public Health Emergency Team met on Thursday and agreed to recommend the removal of the 8pm closing time for hospitality and the end of the requirement for a Covid-19 pass to gain access to pubs and restaurants.

The digital pass will still be needed for international travel, however.

The team also cleared the way for the removal of crowd limits as well as an end to restrictions on permitted household guests. A phased return to work has also been recommended in order to give workplaces time to organise their own individual public health measures, a source said.

Some of the only restrictions to remain will be around the requirement to wear a mask in retail and on public transport, as well as existing public health measures in places likes schools.

[SpongeG]

we are now up to 14 cases where I work, the latest note was posted today. A few of the people who had it between Christmas and New Year are now back at work, it seems only one BOH staff has tested positive, the rest were all FOH, the ones who have contact with customers and two managers.


Hospitalizations are up in BC. 13 deaths.

By Simon Little Global News
Posted January 19, 2022

British Columbia reported another 13 COVID-19 deaths on Wednesday, as the number of active cases in the province’s hospitals neared 900 for the first time.


Health officials reported 895 positive cases in hospital settings, up 41 overnight, along with 115 cases in critical or intensive care.

The province also reported another 2,387 confirmed cases of COVID-19, though daily case totals are no longer viewed as reliable due to limited access to testing.

As of Wednesday, 86.4 per cent of B.C.’s population ( per cent of those eligible) have had one dose of vaccine, 80.7 per cent of B.C.’s population ( per cent of those eligible) have had two doses, and 31.9 per cent of B.C.’s population ( per cent of those eligible) have had three doses.

Fully vaccinated people made up 74.1 per cent of new cases over the past week and 68.2 per cent of hospitalizations over the past two weeks.

...

https://globalnews.ca/news/8524840/b...nuary-19-2022/

[SpongeG]

CORBEVAX, a new patent-free COVID-19 vaccine, could be a pandemic game changer globally
January 19, 2022 8.46am EST Updated January 20, 2022

The world now has a new COVID-19 vaccine in its arsenal, and at a fraction of the cost per dose.

Two years into the COVID-19 pandemic, the world has seen over 314 million infections and over 5.5 million deaths worldwide. Approximately 60% of the world population has received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. But there is still a glaring and alarming gap in global access to these vaccines. As a virologist who has followed this pandemic closely, I contend that this vaccine inequity should be of grave concern to everyone.

If the world has learned anything from this pandemic, it’s that viruses do not need a passport. And yet approximately 77% of people in high- and upper-middle-income countries have received at least one dose of the vaccine – and only 10% in low-income countries. Wealthy countries are giving boosters, and even fourth doses, while first and second doses are not available to many worldwide.

But there is hope that a new vaccine called CORBEVAX will help close this vaccination gap.

How does the CORBEVAX vaccine work?
All COVID-19 vaccines teach the immune system how to recognize the virus and prepare the body to mount an attack. The CORBEVAX vaccine is a protein subunit vaccine. It uses a harmless piece of the spike protein from the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 to stimulate and prepare the immune system for future encounters with the virus.

Unlike the three vaccines approved in the U.S. – Pfizer and Moderna’s mRNA vaccines and Johnson & Johnson’s viral vector vaccine, which provide the body instructions on how to produce the spike protein – CORBEVAX delivers the spike protein to the body directly. Like those other approved COVID-19 mRNA vaccines, CORBEVAX also requires two doses.

https://theconversation.com/corbevax...lobally-174672

[cabotp]

Originally Posted by O-tacular

And I don't. Given the provincial polling at the moment it doesn't look like the majority of Albertans will either come the next provincial election.

The problem with that is it permits the fringe groups to elect their fringe candidate to win the election.

You could have 100 people voting for 3 candidates. If only 1 person votes for candidate A. Then candidate A ends up winning. That 1 person's votes becomes more powerful than the other 9 votes combined.

[O-tacular]

Originally Posted by cabotp

The problem with that is it permits the fringe groups to elect their fringe candidate to win the election.

You could have 100 people voting for 3 candidates. If only 1 person votes for candidate A. Then candidate A ends up winning. That 1 person's votes becomes more powerful than the other 9 votes combined.

Except the NDP has enough support to easily win with vote splitting on the right. Conservative voters who switch to Wildrose /Freedumb party were never going to vote for Rachel Notley.

[MolsonExport]

Fill McAntivaxxer is back at it!

Originally Posted by Phil McAvity

Covid could be buried? You're kidding right? A year and half ago we were told to "flatten the curve" which happened yet the fear-mongering rhetoric continued warning of dire consequences like vast numbers of corpses and overcrowded hospitals and what happened? People died like they always have and hospitals were kept at near-capacity like they've always been in spite of the best fear-mongering efforts of most of the media, desperate for a story. Then in record time the vaccines showed up and everyone breathed a sigh of relief thinking we can finally all get back to normal but again, it didn't happen, we were still addled by bureaucratically-imposed hypothetical solutions to try and mitigate the spread of a virus that was never even dangerous in the first place. This thing will never end regardless of how benign omicron is because people are just too fucking stupid to understand that government is hindering us all in this, not helping and most people don't care about studies, facts, reason, evidence, science or math, they only care about how they "feel" and they "feel" like the government is protecting them

what a fucking loony tunes.

[someone123]

The Czech story is interesting and has some nuance. The woman who died tried to get covid by exposing herself to a known infected person because of the vaccine passport system in that country which accepts proof of prior infection and not just vaccination. She should have gotten vaccinated but that bad outcome was a mix of many factors and public policy encouraged her to get infected.

Phil McAvity's post is interesting too. It's not true that SARS-CoV-2 is not dangerous but a lot of the other stuff rings true. For example I don't think there is any clear end goal or "off-ramp" to restrictions right now, even though most of the population is at minimal risk due to vaccination and vaccines/restrictions aren't doing much to bring down the spread.

[MolsonExport]

^err, what is happening with our hospitals?

In this Ontario hospital, it's mostly the unvaccinated who are overwhelming the ICU

Unvaccinated 60 times more likely to end up in ICU with COVID-19, Ontario data shows

I've fucking had it with antivax shitheads like Fill who have greatly contributed to perpetuating this goddamned pandemic

[O-tacular]

I think Fill's McCavity must be full of corn.

[travis3000]

As soon as I saw the Omicron variant in South Africa I knew the entire world would be back to some sort of lockdown, although I figured they would be quicker then previous ones. The strain is less severe which is great news, however it spreads at an unbelievable rate. So even if the variant is 50% less severe compared to Delta which most studies seem to indicate, the fact that it spreads like wildfire overrides any benefit of lower severity.

It was inevitable that entire populations would become infected over a 60-90 day period. Hospitals would be in trouble due to staffing, and an influx of people rushing in all at once. This isn't some conspiracy it's just common sense.

As Omicron infections start to fall which they are in South Africa, the UK, many parts of the US/Canada, the hospitalizations will follow in the weeks ahead. At this point its fine to get rid of lockdowns and restrictions and resume normal life.

Lets just hope no future variants emerge that derail our progress. We are lucky that Omicron burns so fast, the disruption will be less than previous waves. Vaccination is by far our best ticket out of this. We need to focus on getting third world countries vaccinated faster as this helps everyone in the long run. Therapeutics will also help immensely.

[WarrenC12]

Originally Posted by someone123

The Czech story is interesting and has some nuance. The woman who died tried to get covid by exposing herself to a known infected person because of the vaccine passport system in that country which accepts proof of prior infection and not just vaccination. She should have gotten vaccinated but that bad outcome was a mix of many factors and public policy encouraged her to get infected.

It sounds like they tried to appease anti-vax morons by accepting previous infection. There's a wide gap between the risks of each path.

That idiot fucked around and found out.

The anti-vax community is self fulfilling. The people that change their minds are dead and can't speak out against the ideals from inside the group.

[O-tacular]

Even though overall infections are decreasing there is still going to be a surge in coming weeks in hospitalizations. We have more people in hospital in AB now than at any point in the pandemic including during the infamous Best Summer Ever. Even Kenney is saying we'll probably peak at 1500 in hospital by the end of the month. The other problem is that newborns seem to be more seriously affected this time. There are close to 40 infants in hospital right now in our province which is something like 4%.

[Innsertnamehere]

Originally Posted by travis3000

As soon as I saw the Omicron variant in South Africa I knew the entire world would be back to some sort of lockdown, although I figured they would be quicker then previous ones. The strain is less severe which is great news, however it spreads at an unbelievable rate. So even if the variant is 50% less severe compared to Delta which most studies seem to indicate, the fact that it spreads like wildfire overrides any benefit of lower severity.

It was inevitable that entire populations would become infected over a 60-90 day period. Hospitals would be in trouble due to staffing, and an influx of people rushing in all at once. This isn't some conspiracy it's just common sense.

As Omicron infections start to fall which they are in South Africa, the UK, many parts of the US/Canada, the hospitalizations will follow in the weeks ahead. At this point its fine to get rid of lockdowns and restrictions and resume normal life.

Lets just hope no future variants emerge that derail our progress. We are lucky that Omicron burns so fast, the disruption will be less than previous waves. Vaccination is by far our best ticket out of this. We need to focus on getting third world countries vaccinated faster as this helps everyone in the long run. Therapeutics will also help immensely.

1. new variants will come. COVID behaves a lot like the Flu, regular new variants and annual flu shots required to protect against it in the approach for the flu / covid season.

2. Cases peaked in Ontario about 2 weeks ago now and hospitalizations and ICU admissions appear to have peaked around yesterday. It's all downhill from here. By the time January 31 comes around all metrics will be down substantially.

I trust this will likely be the last lockdown of the winter, I just have to question if we will see the same thing again next January when COVID season returns again.

My bet is that cases drop precipitously into early March, then another wave occurs then, if not as bad as the current wave, just like last year. Everyone gets on edge, then it falls into the summer and everyone basically forgets about it for 6 months. Maybe mask mandates are finally dropped towards August. Then October rolls around, cases start to creep up again... and skyrocket right before christmas with a new "zeta" variant or something that gets everyone freaked out again.. we'll see if we get lockdowns again. I'd be surprised if we aren't still looking at mask mandates and vaccine passports again next winter, even if we do perhaps see a temporary reprieve over the summer, and manage to avoid another "lockdown".

The reality is hospitals are likely going to be overwhelmed for years to come every winter.