Coronavirus thread

[Mandryka]

Oh, yes it is. This is a very common and quite persistent misunderstanding. The fact that (some) vaccinated could still catch and pass on the virus, doesn't mean that vaccination couldn't make the crucial difference. The level of infectiousness is so much lower that the virus would still die out amongst a mainly vaccinated population. It is the large reservoir of unvaccinated that keeps the virus going!

BTW Another interesting fact: if you have recovered from Covid, you can get it again. Especially if it is another strain.
Just saying...

Did you see the riots in The Hague yesterday? Were you there?

[Que]

Did you see the riots in The Hague yesterday? Were you there?

I live in the Hague, but I was not at the riots. 

There were calls on social media to cause riots and subsequently a lot of bored and dissatisfied youngsters took to the streets.

[krummholz]

The situation is not as drastic as you paint in Holland or Austria or Denmark or France or . . . , at least prima facie. There the decision to constrain the people is a choice, not something which is imposed by morality and the pandemic.

A couple points:

1. I was speaking generally, not addressing the specific situation in any European country (and since I live in the States and all I know of the situation in Austria etc. is what I read/hear on the news, I don't really know enough about it to comment).

2. I would say that the decision to constrain is always a choice, even when it is the obvious and moral thing to do. We always have a choice to behave morally or not, and likewise, governments can choose to act in accordance with common morality, or not.

The state has an alternative strategy: to let prevalence grow and provide care to those who fall ill, many of whom will not be fully vaccinated. They have made their own beds knowingly and freely, and so they must lie on them.

This is the UK way, which I am suggesting is the best way.

Whether that is the best way or not, depends on how much death and long term illness one is willing to accept as a consequence. It is not clear that endemicity is going to be achieved either easily or without great suffering. And I always go back to the fact that requiring people to get vaccinated is not so much a matter of forcing them to act in the interests of their own health, but of that of others who may be vulnerable even though they are vaccinated. And many people who refuse to get vaccinated do so because they have been misled by shady practitioners into thinking the vaccine is riskier for them than it really is (I have a friend in that situation).

[MusicTurner]

WHO CEO for Europe, Hans Kluge, not excluding mandatory vaccines later this year, since it might save up to half a million lives, that would otherwise be lost, he says.

Here in DK, the atmosphere so far is generally against vaccines being mandatory, warnings are that it might also result in polarization and unrest on a much bigger scale than hitherto. A poll says that 41% of Danes are OK with mandatory vaccines.

[Mandryka]

A couple points:

1. I was speaking generally, not addressing the specific situation in any European country (and since I live in the States and all I know of the situation in Austria etc. is what I read/hear on the news, I don't really know enough about it to comment).

2. I would say that the decision to constrain is always a choice, even when it is the obvious and moral thing to do. We always have a choice to behave morally or not, and likewise, governments can choose to act in accordance with common morality, or not.

Whether that is the best way or not, depends on how much death and long term illness one is willing to accept as a consequence. It is not clear that endemicity is going to be achieved either easily or without great suffering. And I always go back to the fact that requiring people to get vaccinated is not so much a matter of forcing them to act in the interests of their own health, but of that of others who may be vulnerable even though they are vaccinated. And many people who refuse to get vaccinated do so because they have been misled by shady practitioners into thinking the vaccine is riskier for them than it really is (I have a friend in that situation).

There is another thing I want to mention parenthetically. The feasibility of the British way in part depends on the level of population immunity obviously. In the UK we have built that up over Summer and early autumn - prevalence has been very high here. That was a deliberately strategy - the aim being to avoid a winter peak, when flu and other winter illnesses have an impact on hospital capacity.

So the British way may not in fact be an option in countries which imposed NPIs in summer.

[Mandryka]

WHO CEO for Europe, Hans Kluge, not excluding mandatory vaccines later this year, since it might save up to half a million lives, that would otherwise be lost, he says.

Here in DK, the atmosphere so far is generally against vaccines being mandatory, warnings are that it might also result in polarization and unrest on a much bigger scale than hitherto. A poll says that 41% of Danes are OK with mandatory vaccines.

Some countries - maybe Denmark, I don't know -  are caught between a rock and a hard place. On the one hand lockdowns are going to make the vaccinated resent the unvaccinated. On the other hand vaccine mandates are going to make the unvaccinated resent the government.

Sometimes - given my thought that lockdown is a choice, not something forced on states, and my general political disillusionment and cynicism  - sometimes I wonder whether the political classes are deliberately using the crisis to create social divisions - any excuse to increase authoritarian measures!

[MusicTurner]

Press here is increasingly bringing interviews with non-vaccinated, hearing their side. Obviously, reasons vary, and some are relatively well-articulated as well. It might calm down tempers a bit, that their voice is heard. Or it might give them a stronger voice, but I don't think so. Yet, who knows.

The actions here were a normalization that went too fast afterwards, contrary to many countries. That's not a very authoritarian behaviour.

I think it's fair to say that class separations are traditionally more outspoken in the UK.

[Mandryka]

This may be interesting if you can get it -- an interview with  Andrew Pollard who's an Oxford epidemiologist. I think it shows a certain smugness about the British approach -- but the general feeling promulgated by media pundits here is that we seem to have done the right thing and that Johnny Foreigner has messed up. Starts at 27.13

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0011vn3/the-andrew-marr-show-21112021?page=1

[Karl Henning]

Opinion: Florida's Republican lawmakers deliver another blow for DeSantis against the common good


By Lizette Alvarez, Contributing columnist
Yesterday at 12:56 p.m. EST

Florida's Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, doesn't often ask for help. He is a go-it-alone kind of guy who has largely chosen to tackle the coronavirus pandemic solo, making a calculated political wager on Darwinian logic, balmy weather and the hobbled common sense of many Floridians.

The results earned Florida top 10 status in per capita U.S. covid deaths — nearly 61,000 as of Friday. But, hey, at least the state's economy is rolling!

Recently, though, DeSantis changed his tune out of necessity. He needed the power of the Republican-packed Florida legislature to help him officially free us Floridians from the tyranny of President Biden's vaccine mandates.

On Wednesday night, during a legislative special session, lawmakers passed a package of bills making it harder for businesses to make sure their Florida employees are vaccinated, and impossible for local governments and schools to require masks or vaccines.

The legislature handed DeSantis a political gift. He can now proclaim to his Republican base that he is America's freedom-iest leader. Then, in a stroke of political theater on Thursday, DeSantis signed the bills into law in Brandon, Fla., amid a predictable fanboy chorus of "Let's go Brandon," a cryptic insult aimed at Biden.

The victory was the governor's latest assault on the noble notion of collective good — a term now seemingly viewed by his supporters as communism writ large.

"I'm a farmer. I look at things in simple terms," said state Sen. Ben Albritton (R) on the Senate floor on Wednesday. "What I believe that we are doing here today is we are choosing to support, protect and defend individual rights."

Democrats tried to counter with logic and verifiable facts, a daring tactic in the Sunshine State: More than 195 million Americans have been vaccinated and, with extremely rare exceptions, they are fine. Most of those in intensive care units are unvaccinated. Children have long been required to get vaccines to go to school. George Washington forced his soldiers to get smallpox vaccines to help win the Revolutionary War.

Then, Democrats evoked the days, not so long ago, when people were hoarding toilet paper and feared that touching a box of cereal at the supermarket might be deadly. Remember how badly we wanted a vaccine? The Democrats even threw the Republicans a bone, pointing out that the vaccine success story was President Donald Trump's doing.

"What has happened to us as a country?" state Sen. Gary Farmer (D) asked on the Senate floor. "Sacrifices are made for the greater good. Not for the squeaky, loud wheel over here who puts rationality and science aside because they want to make a statement."

Children, and teachers, also fell outside the reach of the greater good. The new law codifies that parents, not public schools, decide whether children should wear masks or get vaccinated. Parents who sue defiant schools that ignore the law can recoup their attorneys' fees if they succeed.

Luckily, DeSantis did not get everything he wanted. He pushed for an outright ban on vaccine mandates for private-sector employees and threatened to strip offending companies of their covid-19 liability protection, a rare anti-business gambit by the governor. But lawmakers, apparently haunted by visions of diminished campaign coffers, recoiled. It would have meant aggravating Disney, for example, which mandates vaccinations and masks for most employees at its sites.

Instead, Florida companies can require vaccinations as long as they offer five opt-outs: medical or religious exemptions, evidence of natural immunity from covid based on a medical test, or the willingness of the employee to be tested periodically or wear a mask. Exemptions under the new law also include pregnancy or "anticipating pregnancy," a vague term that presumably gives cover to practically all women in the workforce. If these alternatives are not offered, businesses risk fines of at least $10,000 per violation.

The Biden administration also offers exemptions, only they are narrower. Health-care and nursing-home workers can apply for religious or medical carve-outs. And other private-sector employees of large companies can opt out by getting tested every week.

The new Florida law also forces some businesses into a tug of war between the state and federal government. Hospitals, nursing homes and other care facilities that accept Medicare and Medicaid stand to lose crucial funds if they don't adhere to Biden's vaccine mandate.

DeSantis and Republican legislators have abandoned any pretense of conservative opposition to big government, wresting control from schools, local governments and private companies — the entities that would know what's best for their own communities, employees and bottom lines. They are even planning a new agency, a state version of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, to skirt Biden's rules.

There is, however, a sliver of good news to come out of this not-so-special session: The legislation expires in June 2023. Let's hope by then it will have become irrelevant.

[Karl Henning]

GOP embraces natural immunity as substitute for vaccines — 11:24 a.m.
Associated Press

Republicans fighting President Joe Biden's coronavirus vaccine mandates are wielding a new weapon against the White House rules: natural immunity.

They contend that people who have recovered from the virus have enough immunity and antibodies to not need COVID-19 vaccines, and the concept has been invoked by Republicans as a sort of stand-in for vaccines.

Florida wrote natural immunity into state law this week as GOP lawmakers elsewhere are pushing similar measures to sidestep vaccine mandates. Lawsuits over the mandates have also begun leaning on the idea. Conservative federal lawmakers have implored regulators to consider it when formulating mandates.

Scientists acknowledge that people previously infected with COVID-19 have some level of immunity but that vaccines offer a more consistent level of protection. Natural immunity is also far from a one-size-fits-all scenario, making it complicated to enact sweeping exemptions to vaccines.

That's because how much immunity COVID-19 survivors have depends on how long ago they were infected, how sick they were, and if the virus variant they had is different from mutants circulating now. For example, a person who had a minor case one year ago is much different than a person who had a severe case over the summer when the delta variant was raging through the country. It's also difficult to reliably test whether someone is protected from future infections.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported in August that COVID-19 survivors who ignored advice to get vaccinated were more than twice as likely to get infected again. [emphasis mine — kh] A more recent study from the CDC, looking at data from nearly 190 hospitals in nine states, determined that unvaccinated people who had been infected months earlier were five times more likely to get COVID-19 than fully vaccinated people who didn't have a prior infection.

[Florestan]

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported in August that COVID-19 survivors who ignored advice to get vaccinated were more than twice as likely to get infected again. [emphasis mine — kh] A more recent study from the CDC, looking at data from nearly 190 hospitals in nine states, determined that unvaccinated people who had been infected months earlier were five times more likely to get COVID-19 than fully vaccinated people who didn't have a prior infection.

In response to a request made under the Freedom of Information Act (FOI) the U.S. Centers for Disease Control & Prevention ("CDC") admitted it does not have any documented cases of unvaccinated people being re-infected or transmitting Covid to another person after acquiring natural immunity.

In September a New York attorney, Elizabeth Brehm, had requested "documents reflecting any documented case of an individual who: (1) never received a COVID-19 vaccine; (2) was infected with COVID-19 once, recovered, and then later became infected again; and (3) transmitted SARS-CoV-2 to another person when reinfected."

The CDC responded in a letter dated 5 November.  "A search of our records failed to reveal any documents pertaining to your request," a spokesperson for the CDC replied. "The CDC Emergency Operations Center (EOC) conveyed that this information is not collected."

[Daverz]

In response to a request made under the Freedom of Information Act (FOI) the U.S. Centers for Disease Control & Prevention ("CDC") admitted it does not have any documented cases of unvaccinated people being re-infected or transmitting Covid to another person after acquiring natural immunity.

In September a New York attorney, Elizabeth Brehm, had requested "documents reflecting any documented case of an individual who: (1) never received a COVID-19 vaccine; (2) was infected with COVID-19 once, recovered, and then later became infected again; and (3) transmitted SARS-CoV-2 to another person when reinfected."

The CDC responded in a letter dated 5 November.  "A search of our records failed to reveal any documents pertaining to your request," a spokesperson for the CDC replied. "The CDC Emergency Operations Center (EOC) conveyed that this information is not collected."

That FOIA letter doesn't mean anything.

[MusicTurner]

An official survey here in DK from March 2021 found that you are 80% protected, if you've had the disease, 50% if you are above 65 years. Meaning that if you had tested positive, the likelihood of testing positive again would be 1/5 or 1/2, compared to not having had the disease. It was based on 4 mio PCR tests from people who had several tests, and the positive tests had to be at least 3 months apart. Due to the low, registered infection rates in DK generally, for 80% protection, it meant that in reality, 6.5 out of 1000 positives were tested positive twice.

Now there may be some other factors at play also for these statistics, for example some people being in an environment with a bigger risk of infection, some virus types being more infectuous etc., but probably not influencing the bigger picture that much anyway.

[Florestan]

That FOIA letter doesn't mean anything.

It means exactly what it says, namely that (1) the CDC does not have any documented cases of unvaccinated people being re-infected or transmitting Covid to another person after acquiring natural immunity and (2) they don't have them because they don't collect such information.

This of course doesn't mean such documented cases don't exist, but begs the question why the CDC, which is supposed to be so greatly knowledgeable exactly about that issue as to make at least two authoritative pronouncements about it (see Karl's quote above), does not collect, and keep records of, such essential information.

[Pohjolas Daughter]

Opinion: Florida's Republican lawmakers deliver another blow for DeSantis against the common good


By Lizette Alvarez, Contributing columnist
Yesterday at 12:56 p.m. EST

Florida's Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, doesn't often ask for help. He is a go-it-alone kind of guy who has largely chosen to tackle the coronavirus pandemic solo, making a calculated political wager on Darwinian logic, balmy weather and the hobbled common sense of many Floridians.

The results earned Florida top 10 status in per capita U.S. covid deaths — nearly 61,000 as of Friday. But, hey, at least the state's economy is rolling!

Recently, though, DeSantis changed his tune out of necessity. He needed the power of the Republican-packed Florida legislature to help him officially free us Floridians from the tyranny of President Biden's vaccine mandates.

On Wednesday night, during a legislative special session, lawmakers passed a package of bills making it harder for businesses to make sure their Florida employees are vaccinated, and impossible for local governments and schools to require masks or vaccines.

The legislature handed DeSantis a political gift. He can now proclaim to his Republican base that he is America's freedom-iest leader. Then, in a stroke of political theater on Thursday, DeSantis signed the bills into law in Brandon, Fla., amid a predictable fanboy chorus of "Let's go Brandon," a cryptic insult aimed at Biden.

The victory was the governor's latest assault on the noble notion of collective good — a term now seemingly viewed by his supporters as communism writ large.

"I'm a farmer. I look at things in simple terms," said state Sen. Ben Albritton (R) on the Senate floor on Wednesday. "What I believe that we are doing here today is we are choosing to support, protect and defend individual rights."

Democrats tried to counter with logic and verifiable facts, a daring tactic in the Sunshine State: More than 195 million Americans have been vaccinated and, with extremely rare exceptions, they are fine. Most of those in intensive care units are unvaccinated. Children have long been required to get vaccines to go to school. George Washington forced his soldiers to get smallpox vaccines to help win the Revolutionary War.

Then, Democrats evoked the days, not so long ago, when people were hoarding toilet paper and feared that touching a box of cereal at the supermarket might be deadly. Remember how badly we wanted a vaccine? The Democrats even threw the Republicans a bone, pointing out that the vaccine success story was President Donald Trump's doing.

"What has happened to us as a country?" state Sen. Gary Farmer (D) asked on the Senate floor. "Sacrifices are made for the greater good. Not for the squeaky, loud wheel over here who puts rationality and science aside because they want to make a statement."

Children, and teachers, also fell outside the reach of the greater good. The new law codifies that parents, not public schools, decide whether children should wear masks or get vaccinated. Parents who sue defiant schools that ignore the law can recoup their attorneys' fees if they succeed.

Luckily, DeSantis did not get everything he wanted. He pushed for an outright ban on vaccine mandates for private-sector employees and threatened to strip offending companies of their covid-19 liability protection, a rare anti-business gambit by the governor. But lawmakers, apparently haunted by visions of diminished campaign coffers, recoiled. It would have meant aggravating Disney, for example, which mandates vaccinations and masks for most employees at its sites.

Instead, Florida companies can require vaccinations as long as they offer five opt-outs: medical or religious exemptions, evidence of natural immunity from covid based on a medical test, or the willingness of the employee to be tested periodically or wear a mask. Exemptions under the new law also include pregnancy or "anticipating pregnancy," a vague term that presumably gives cover to practically all women in the workforce. If these alternatives are not offered, businesses risk fines of at least $10,000 per violation.

The Biden administration also offers exemptions, only they are narrower. Health-care and nursing-home workers can apply for religious or medical carve-outs. And other private-sector employees of large companies can opt out by getting tested every week.

The new Florida law also forces some businesses into a tug of war between the state and federal government. Hospitals, nursing homes and other care facilities that accept Medicare and Medicaid stand to lose crucial funds if they don't adhere to Biden's vaccine mandate.

DeSantis and Republican legislators have abandoned any pretense of conservative opposition to big government, wresting control from schools, local governments and private companies — the entities that would know what's best for their own communities, employees and bottom lines. They are even planning a new agency, a state version of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, to skirt Biden's rules.

There is, however, a sliver of good news to come out of this not-so-special session: The legislation expires in June 2023. Let's hope by then it will have become irrelevant.

I keep hearing/reading stories like these which are heartbreaking:

https://www.newsweek.com/unvaccinated-pregnant-woman-tragically-dies-covid-after-baby-delivered-prematurely-1649786

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/pregnant-nurse-who-refused-the-vaccine-loses-unborn-child-and-dies-from-covid-19/ar-AANJKDC

https://chicago.suntimes.com/columnists/2021/5/7/22424708/pregnant-woman-covid-vaccine-hesitant-charmaine-bailey-avalon-park-chicago-cook-county-coronavirus

Here:  I received my booster shot yesterday after waiting about 45 minutes in a big box store.  I didn't have an appointment, but they managed to fit me in just fine without delaying anyone else (as far as I could tell).  Sore arm, but otherwise, feel fine.

PD

[MusicTurner]

Good to hear about your booster, and congrats!

[Pohjolas Daughter]

Good to hear about your booster, and congrats!

Thanks!   

PD

p.s.  Reminds me that I need to rescan my card, make a duplicate, and then tuck the original one back away (before it gets all crumpled and bedraggled in my purse).   I purposely went back to the same *store where I had received my original shots so that, should I lose card, I can easily pull up the info (plus also that QR code should I travel and need it).

*though I think that I would have been fine to just have gone to another store as it's part of a chain.

[MusicTurner]

In spite of the details, that was a quick & effective option for the 3rd jab! Here in DK, mine will probably be in January, 6 months after the 2nd. Some elderly family members above 70 are receiving it these days ...

[Pohjolas Daughter]

In spite of the details, that was a quick & effective option for the 3rd jab! Here in DK, mine will probably be in January, 6 months after the 2nd. Some elderly family members above 70 are receiving it these days ...

Is it by appointment only in Denmark?  Here, it seems that it varies by pharmacy/organization.  I tried doing some checking around for a friend of mine who works a lot of hours.  He's determined to get it at only one pharmacy chain and to get the same vaccine, so it's making it a bit more difficult.  He could have received his booster shot at the same place that I went to (we were running around doing some errands together and they also had doses of his vaccine in addition to mine), but was too concerned that he would have a reaction to it and didn't want to risk missing any work.

PD

[MusicTurner]

Here it's centrally organized, you can't decide yourself, until you get the call from the health authorities & some options for appointments.
They're hoping to speed procedures up a bit, but if children are going to be vaccinated here soon, that's probably going to strain the system as well. The EU approval of Pfizer vaccines for children is expected within a couple of weeks, and then the countries will make decisions.

My mother had a good deal of reactions to the first 2 shots (Pfizer), and zero to the 3rd ... it surely varies a lot, from person to person.