Coronavirus / COVID-19

[Viking]

Interested to know what others with more knowledge think:

Considering that the whole thing could be fabricated and that there is no way to do a background check on the author, it might be best to treat it as noise and discard it rather than analyze it.

I don't want to speak for the rest of you, and at the risk of sounding self-centered, but COVID-19 is an infinitely-greater hazard to my wellbeing than Ebola.

The most recent outbreak of Ebola might have killed fewer people than COVID-19 as well; 2254 registered deaths per 18 February.

[Beskar]

Surprised no one has posted about the Wuhan-400 conspiracy theory yet.
https://fullfact.org/online/book-did...t-coronavirus/

[ReluctantSamurai]

The most recent outbreak of Ebola might have killed fewer people than COVID-19 as well

Maybe so but, considering the location of the outbreak, it has a chance to be very disruptive to certain areas of the global economy if it spreads to DRC's mine districts. Considering that the DRC produces 30% of the world's tantalum, and neighboring Rwanda 31%, widespread mine closures for any extended length of time, would hit the electronics industry pretty hard. Yet......

......you hardly hear about this because, IMHO, the DRC and Rwanda are relatively poor third world countries.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Huge spike in cases, both in county and state. Link
Positivity rate soaring, especially in county. Link
Vaccination rate among college age below state and national averages. Link

Answer? Open school as usual, normal class modes, on January 10th as scheduled.




An administrator finally said we can use distance learning for the first few weeks...

[Montmorency]

The US and EU have done a better job facilitating vaccine transfers to lower-income countries than I expected they would pre-Delta. More than a billion doses* delivered so far including bilateral donations, donations to COVAX, monetary contributions bilaterally and to COVAX, and cost-sharing. A few billion more promised for this year, not implausibly. The majority of the human population had received a full course inoculation by the beginning of the winter (implying the majority of low-income countries' needs can easily be met through our 1st World efforts), so the only real obstacle we continue to face is advanced denialism and pro-virus political movements worldwide.
https://www.kff.org/coronavirus-covi...very-mechanism
https://www.unicef.org/supply/covid-...rket-dashboard

*Possibly many millions more if including doses purchased directly by COVAX using donor contributions, but I've had a hard time hashing out what exactly has been physically delivered to donee countries so far, and by what mechanism.

On the other hand, it seems I was wrong to argue that sharing mRNA vaccine patents and expertise with mid-income countries like India and Brazil wouldn't have much effect on the pandemic. Had that work begun in mid-2021, capacity for hundreds of millions more monthly doses of Comirnaty and the other one could have been projected to be online before the end of this year. Though to be fair, back in June I was hoping the pandemic would formally conclude by the end of 2022, obviating future vaccine demand. Maybe if we're lucky with Omicron it still will.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/...-vaccines.html

[Montmorency]

Looks like common sense:

THREAD: I keep being asked when we can go "back to normal" or "like it was before". My personal thoughts:

We've added a new disease to our population, more infectious and more severe than flu.

The world pre 2020 no longer exists - we may want it to, but it just doesn't.

Vaccines are amazing but do wane - esp vs sympomatic infection. Immunity from infection wanes too.

Surely Omicron has proven that high levels of antibodies in your population are no guarantee against v high levels of illness & disruption.

We *could* act as we used to & accept millions of people getting sick once or twice a year. Yearly education, business disruption. And gradually, a slightly sicker pop'n. That seems to be the current plan in UK and e.g. US.

But that's NOT the *old normal* - it's worse

We *can't* go back - but we *can* go forward *if* we accept we need some adaptations - driven by what we have *learned*.

Learning:

1. Outdoors is pretty safe - so let's invest research and funding into making indoor air as much like the outdoors as possible It's *not* easy, but it *is* possible - we did it with clean water, electricity infrastructure, CFCs, telephone and broadband... The best thing about cleaner indoor air is it works against *any* airborne disease and also reduces e.g. allergies.

2. Vaccinate the world as soon as possible - and keep working towards vaccines that are longer lasting and more variant proof.

3. Invest in global infrastructure to support surveillance of new variants of Covid *and* other new infectious diseases. There will be more.

4. Add permanent surveillance of Covid infection rates in UK to existing programmes for flu, measles etc in public health

5. Invest in understanding & treating longer term clinical impacts of Covid, inc organ damage & Long Covid + treatments (eg antivirals) for acute phase.

6. We need to urgently increase funding and staffing for NHS if it is expected to cope with regular Covid surges *and* existing backlogs *and* years of understaffing and not enough money. This includes *supporting* existing staff to stay..!

7. There *will* still be future surges. We need to have a plan to deal with these surges - as we do for other diseases. A plan which is supported by the rapid outbreak identification & rapid understanding of virulence & transmission we've learned to do so well in the UK! The plan might include (temp) reintroduction of large scale testing (inc better tests?), high quality masks in indoor spaces and - *if & only if* there is a serious threat from e.g. a new variant (or disease!) - further measures, such as targeted test, trace & isolate. A plan should *not* mean long national lockdowns, which represent a failure of public health systems. In fact, refusing to do the *learning* in "learning to live with Covid" is the biggest risk for such future lockdowns.

8. We also need to invest massively in reducing inequalities: in health, in housing, in workplaces, in sick pay, in education - this will make us more resilient to future outbreaks and reduce ill health and death - from Covid & everything else!

Both nationally & globally. Fundamentally, world is different now. Acting as if it isn't, which UK seems determined to do, may feel good in short term but will result in a new normal worse than the old one.

I prefer for us to build a new normal that's *better* than frequent sickness & disruption. 13/13

[Furunculus]

I'm confused by the premise of the article:

"A new world demanding new solutions, and one in which the US and UK are refusing to recognise!"

Most of those measures are ones that the UK at least is just as far in support of as many other nations, and possibly a damn sight further than most too. #2 #3 #4 #5 #6

#1 does seem to speak to the new paradigm the author refers too, and while it is not at all clear to me that this is a direction that the UK is prioritising nor too can I see any definitive trend to that goal that leaves the UK looking like an outlier. And don't forget, Sturgeon (in the UK) has an ambitious plan to saw the bottoms off of school doors up and down the nation of scotland!

#7 seems to be a mild sentiment in favour of good practice that would see appropriate measures applied in moderation as and when a situation demands it. Grand! But again, i'm not seeing the UK as an outlier here...

#8 is interesting tho: "We also need to invest massively in reducing inequalities...". This is hardly a revelatory change in response to some grand reset in how the world behaves post covid. It is quite literally how the US and UK have been as a general trend vs european social democracy. The two have always placed a greater emphasis on negative liberty than positive. It is the status-quo, that has survived 50 years of democratic choice, and will be up to the electorate if the want to upend the accepted political settlement just because covid came along.

[Montmorency]

She didn't say the UK is an outlier.