Coronavirus

[Nikka]

the world is doomed

[broncofan]

Over 300,000 Americans dead in less than a year. Over 3000 dying a day now. Which statistic is more important to you?

I did some digging early on because there was a lot of sophistry about mortality rates for covid compared to flu. The mortality rate of influenza A often cited is .1% but it was difficult to find whether it was a case fatality rate or an infection fatality rate. On CDC's website, one can see that the statistic is calculated by deaths from flu divided by positive tests for flu. This is a case fatality rate and does not take into account mildly symptomatic cases or asymptomatic flu cases which also exist.

While there is greater testing sufficiency for flu than covid, people are also less motivated to test for it because it's rightly considered less of an epidemiological threat. I eventually found a stat for flu that cited its IFR or infection fatality rate as .025% which is one quarter of its listed CFR. This makes sense but I can't verify it. But it would put the IFR of flu at about 1/28 that of the commonly estimated IFR for Covid.

Anyhow, CFRs for covid depend on how good the testing program is in a country. We've seen the CFR as high as 10% when only very sick people are tested or less than 2% when a testing regime is good. The IFR, which is estimated from serological surveys and sometimes from cruise ships in which everyone was tested, is believed to be about .7%. But if someone has tested positive already, the CFR will give a better idea of their mortality risk because they've crossed the threshold required to get a test. Also, there is not chance that IFR for covid is anywhere near as low as .25%, which one might infer from Torris' post above.

People try to make covid look similar to flu by comparing IFR of Covid to CFR of Flu. Even doing that covid is 7 times more deadly but that underestimates the difference.

[broncofan]

https://www.vox.com/science-and-heal...contagiousness

Anyhow, I found an article that said the same thing. They have an epidemiologist who estimates flu ifr at .02-.05%. This would make the mortality difference between flu and covid anywhere between 14 and 35x.

[Fitzcarraldo]

She should've stayed on the island:
https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/30/enter...bit/index.html

[filghy2]

Anyone know anything about potential HIV infection/susceptibility from potential Covid vaccines?

https://www.ajmc.com/view/researcher...id-19-vaccines

Interestingly, an Australian project to produce a Covid vaccine was abandoned because it was producing false HIV positive results. I wonder if there's a connection? https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-12-...sults/12975048

[filghy2]

This seems to have been overshadowed by recent events, but global deaths from this pandemic have just passed 2 million. https://virusncov.com/
Deaths in the USA have also just passed 400,000, which is over 1,200 per million population. That is a higher death rate than all but a handful of European countries. In other words, the USA under Trump has done worse than all of those shithole countries he has derided.
Well done all you Covid deniers and minimisers.

[sukumvit boy]

How Covid-19 unlocked the era of messenger RNA vaccines
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-00019-w

[Stavros]

Two trends that people need to be aware of-
a) younger people are not immune to infection, in fact rates are rising;
and b) being vaccinated is not a 'get of gaol' card, you may still become a carrier and a threat to others.

Yes, the rate of infections and fatalities may slow this year, but the public health impact I believe will demand the retention of lockdown procedures probably for most of this year, if responsible Governments adhere to the science. This is unwelcome news for everyone, and I am alarmed at the thought that the UK Government may relax lockdown restrictions as early as next month. Basically, we are not close to defeating this pandemic, and can only hope to have it under control by Christmas, if we ever do. The best we can hope for is that Covid 19 be reduced to a constant, but not extensive threat, and as we have 'flu jabs every year, so there may need to be annual Covid jabs too, even if limited to those over 75 and those with vulnerable health conditions.

"At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, reports indicated that the disease was mostly affecting older adults, and that young people were more likely to have milder cases of the disease.

But according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), over the summer, in the United States, people under age 30 accounted for more than 20% of COVID-19 cases and were seen as more likely to transmit the virus than others. This trend has continued into the fall.
Coronavirus infections requiring hospitalization are not only possible in younger adults, but the rate of these cases is increasing as the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus continues to spread. Lisa Maragakis, M.D., M.P.H., senior director of infection prevention at Johns Hopkins, sheds light on the new data."


https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/heal...re-at-risk-too

"After I get a COVID-19 vaccine, is it safe to visit in person with friends and family?
Answer From Daniel C. DeSimone, M.D.

After getting a COVID-19 vaccine, it's still important to take safety precautions, such as avoiding close contact with others, to prevent the spread of the virus that causes coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Further research is needed to understand the immunity that a COVID-19 vaccine provides and how long protection lasts before experts will consider changing current safety recommendations."
https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-...n/faq-20506463

[tslvr]

Why on earth would President Biden announce there is nothing we can do to stop the trajectory of virus this past Friday? Are we just supposed to give up?

[filghy2]

Why on earth would President Biden announce there is nothing we can do to stop the trajectory of virus this past Friday? Are we just supposed to give up?

What he actually said was that it would take some time to turn things around, which is a completely different point. When you inherit a virus that is spreading rapidly (nearly 200,000 new cases per day), and the incubation period is up to 2 weeks, it isn't possible to stop it quickly, especially when the federal government does not have the power to order lockdowns. Even countries that have been much more successful have taken weeks to get on top of more limited outbreaks.

Or would you prefer that he just told you it would vanish by magic?