Corona Virus, Covid and the future

[Chuckanut]

Here is an interesting interview that Dr. Peter Attia had with Dr. Paul Offit.

https://peterattiamd.com/pauloffit2/

As usual, Attia's interviews have a lot of medical talk that most of us won't understand. But, it's worth enduring that to get to the good stuff.

Several points stood out for me:

1. Next winter will give us a good idea about herd immunity. If we don't see a big increase in infections and deaths, we are near it. Otherwise....

2. In absolute terms, the JnJ vaccine is a lot better than the press coverage has indicated. It might even be a bit better than the mRNA vaccines. Differences in the test population make it hard to compare the vaccines.

3. mRNA vaccines can't alter your DNA.

4. There are five levels of vaccine development in history starting with giving cowpox to people so as to prevent smallpox, and advancing to the mRNA vaccines.

 

[Alan]

At a press conference yesterday 2 of the UK scientific advisors also said that they (UK scientific advisory group) believe this winter will see another wave of Covid infections and that the effectiveness of the vaccines in keeping the infection rate low will depend on how many have been fully vaccinated and “variants of concern“ don’t become widespread. I don’t think the words “herd immunity “ were used, but certainly implied.

 

[audreyh1]

An earlier interview with Dr. Offit by Peter Attia he explained how all the different vaccines worked, and I learned about the safety of mRNA vaccines and how they work. It really boosted my confidence in the MRNA vaccines. This was last fall before they were released. And of course since they have been shown to be incredibly effective.

 

[Alan]

Last week I listened to a podcast about the discovery by a doctor in Australia in the 1940s of children born with congenital rubella syndrome (CRS) caused by women being infected with rubella (German Measles) while pregnant. Rubella is mostly a mild infection and 50% of those infected don’t even know it. It is spread from person to person through the air via coughs and sneezes. (Sounds familiar doesn’t it)

Once a vaccine had been developed it proved to be 95% effective and in the UK vaccines were offered to women and girls from age 14 and up. It had a high acceptance rate and the following year there were 140 babies born with CRS which was considered a huge success. They then offered the vaccine to everyone including children and the year following the enhanced rollout there was only a single instance of a baby born with CRS.

In April 2015 the World Health Organization declared the Americas free of rubella transmission. Let’s hope we can collectively rid ourselves of Covid in the not too distant future.

 

[oiseux]

I fear the early declines and the normal summer seasonality will convince the resistant to NOT get vaccinated. This may lead to another small wave, unfortunately, especially if the latest variants do prove to be more transmissible. I was drilling into demographics of the vaccinated that the state/county makes available and it makes clear the stark differences in vaccination rates among different populations. While some areas show very high rates of vaccination (70 to 85%), others are down in the 25 to 30% range.

 

[ivinsfan]

Gosh real scientific info, don't pester us with that..


I found out over the weekend that my SonIL mom is sending him trash videos about how getting vaccinated will cause you major long term health issues. Also Mom told her 89 YO Mother with a bad heart valve that the vaccine is bad for her and if anyone IE..the doctor tries to give to her she must refuse it. If I never see this woman again it will be too soon.



Herd immunity might be a pipe dream OTOH they are perfectly happy to let us get vaccinated to help save their behinds.

 

[Sue J]

Alan, is your son able to get vaccinated yet? You told us he's in his 30's, is it available for his age?

 

[Alan]

Alan, is your son able to get vaccinated yet? You told us he's in his 30's, is it available for his age?

It is opening up to different age groups in different parts of the UK. We were surprised he got the call, but the NE of England has often been ahead of other regions so it would not be unusual that they have already done the majority of the 40 - 45s and are using up vaccine doses to get ahead of the next official drop in age. Possibly having just had pneumonia while in hospital has given him a leg up, I don’t really know. The vast majority here don’t go online trying to book a vaccine appointment, they wait until their local GP office calls them which is what has happened here, and I don’t know of anyone who has turned it down.

 

[Alan]

Alan, is your son able to get vaccinated yet? You told us he's in his 30's, is it available for his age?

Just announced that England has opened up vaccines to 38 and 39 year olds. He is 38 so as I thought, our area is just a little ahead.

Covid-19: Public inquiry confirmed, and vaccines for 38 and 39-year-olds in England https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-57088249

It's coming further down the age range - people aged 38 to 39 in England are being sent text messages inviting them to book their Covid jabs. They'll have either the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines, after the rules were changed to ensure under-40s get an alternative to the Oxford/AstraZeneca jab. The rollout in England is at a similar pace to the rest of the UK, although Northern Ireland is slightly ahead - over-30s are being invited.

 

[Koolau]

Here is an interesting interview that Dr. Peter Attia had with Dr. Paul Offit.

https://peterattiamd.com/pauloffit2/

As usual, Attia's interviews have a lot of medical talk that most of us won't understand. But, it's worth enduring that to get to the good stuff.

Several points stood out for me:

1. Next winter will give us a good idea about herd immunity. If we don't see a big increase in infections and deaths, we are near it. Otherwise....

2. In absolute terms, the JnJ vaccine is a lot better than the press coverage has indicated. It might even be a bit better than the mRNA vaccines. Differences in the test population make it hard to compare the vaccines.

3. mRNA vaccines can't alter your DNA.

4. There are five levels of vaccine development in history starting with giving cowpox to people so as to prevent smallpox, and advancing to the mRNA vaccines.

I was watching a program the other day on vaccination through history. I always thought cowpox was the first vaccination - discovered more or less by accident by milkmaids who got cowpox from milking and then were immune to small pox. BUT apparently, there were people in Africa (I think it was back in the 1500s perhaps) who intentionally made a small slit in, for instance the leg and infected it with small pox. They GOT small pox BUT 98% of them lived instead of the usual 10 to 20% death rate for small pox contracted by the usual routes of infection. They were then immune for life. According to the program, there is evidence this practice actually dated to ancient Egypt, but I think the evidence is more sketchy than what was documented by such folks as Cotton Mather around 1700 IIRC. Once it became known as reasonably effective, the practice was then instituted among the gentry and even the royalty of the age before filtering down to "the people."

By the way, when African slaves tried to explain this to folks in what is now the UK or possibly all of Europe, no one would listen to them until the powers that be, began to hear of it through "educated" sources. As usual, we ignore "folk" medicine and first hand accounts at our peril. I'm not suggesting we base our science around such things, but don't always dismiss folks we consider "ignorant." Some times, great-grandma knew what she was talking about even though she couldn't explain why willow tea was good for aches and pains. YMMV

 

[audreyh1]

Europe (including British royal family) and North America were also doing those smallpox inoculations before the cowpox discovery, but on a very limited scale because it was so dangerous.

 

[Koolau]

Europe (including British royal family) and North America were also doing those smallpox inoculations before the cowpox discovery, but on a very limited scale because it was so dangerous.

Yes, according to the documentary, the fact that the Royals would do such a thing made it acceptable to the common man. This was an early example of the ruling class leading. It's much like watching many of our politicians being first in line to get the shot - of course, for their trouble, they get criticized for crowding ahead of the line. You can not win, so do what you think is right and let the chips fall where they may since YMMV.

 

[EastWest Gal]

Thank this thread for the insight it gives all of us.

It makes sense that cowpox or smallpox inoculation through the skin were much less dangerous than natural infection through the respiratory tract. Most deadly infectious diseases for which we have vaccines are respiratory tract infections. Polio is a GI tract infection. They have in common a large surface area and moist environment favorable to replication and spread. Even the plague and anthrax are not nearly as fatal when spread through skin contact rather than the respiratory tract.

 

[audreyh1]

Hospitalizations are dropping, but it seems very stubborn.

I watch the numbers on the New York Times COVID-19 statistics page. Nice detailed maps showing county level information as well as aggregate. I understand this is behind a firewall now.

I’ve noticed that since April when we had a rise in both daily average case numbers and hospitalizations, that daily average new cases have been dropping much faster than hospitalizations. The recent peak in new cases occurred around April 15, and a recent peak in hospitalizations about a week later around April 21. Both have been declining since, but the drop in average daily new cases has been much steeper. The slope for average daily new cases is down like 45% in the past two weeks, whereas the hospitalizations have only dropped about 20% over the same period.

Just think that’s kind of odd. The hospitalizations have been stubborn in spite of how many of the more vulnerable been fully vaccinated.

Daily tests have dropped too, but not nearly as fast as average daily new cases, so it doesn’t seem to be an under testing situation. And I know in a lot of areas positivity rates are getting very low, like under 1% in some examples which is amazing. ETA: I just read that nationwide test positivity rate is 2.25% which is pretty low and it does seem like testing is keeping up.

I suppose it’s possible that the hospitalization rate has increased a bit because of the new COVID-19 variants. In some areas far more young people have been hospitalized due to the newer variants.

 

[Koolau]

I watch the numbers on the New York Times COVID-19 statistics page. Nice detailed map showing county level information as well as aggregate. I understand this is behind a firewall now.

I’ve notice that since April when we have a rise in both daily average case numbers and hospitalizations, that daily average new cases have been dropping much faster than hospitalizations. The recent peak in new cases occurred around April 15, and a recent peak in hospitalizations about a week later around April 15. Both have been declining since, but the drop in average daily new cases has been much steeper. The slope for average daily new cases is down like 45% in the past two weeks, whereas the hospitalizations have only dropped about 20% over the same period.

Just think that’s kind of odd. The hospitalizations have been stubborn in spite of how many of the more vulnerable been fully vaccinated.

Ours have been coming down quite nicely. I think we had just over 40 hospitalized out of 1.4 mil people. IIRC we're at 52% of our 1.4 million with both shots.

Our governor refused to let up on several restrictions (masks inside, gatherings, etc.) until 70% are fully vaccinated. But since the ineligible age 0 - 12 keiki are 200,000 out of 1.4 million, that's effectively requiring 82% vaccination of those eligible to be vaccinated. IOW - it won't happen. YMMV

 

[braumeister]

Received an interesting email from the medical practice I use. One of the items in it was this:

The average American gained 29 pounds during COVID

I found that impossible to believe, so I went looking for the survey that said so.
Found it here: Stress in America

What boggled my mind was that the survey results were misinterpreted. The line quoted gives the impression that we all gained a lot of weight during the pandemic and the average was 29 pounds.

In fact, what the survey (of 3,000 adults) found was that 61% had an undesired weight change (either up or down) and 42% of that group gained (so 26% of the whole sample). The average of the gainers was 29 pounds (median was 15).

We all had a rough time over the last year, but I think this borders on scaremongering.

 

[jldavid47]

In fact, what the survey (of 3,000 adults) found was that 61% had an undesired weight change (either up or down) and 42% of that group gained (so 26% of the whole sample). The average of the gainers was 29 pounds (median was 15).

My wife lost over 30 pounds and I lost 10, both quite desired. We both ate better and began regular exercise. Go figure.

We all had a rough time over the last year, but I think this borders on scaremongering.

Scaremongering? From the media I'm shocked! Shocked, I tell you!

 

[pdxgal]

What boggled my mind was that the survey results were misinterpreted.

"Ko'olau's law" in his tagline says it all

 

[Freedom56]

This is an interesting article and not inconsistent with what Pfizer, BioNTech, and Moderna have stated. The issue is that variants will spread among animals and back to humans.

In some pockets of the United States, if you squint hard enough, the coronavirus pandemic might feel like it’s almost over. Larry Brilliant would beg to disagree. With U.S. COVID-19 deaths soon to surpass the domestic toll from the great influenza of a century ago even as widely available vaccines have worked wonders, Brilliant, the epidemiologist who worked with the WHO to help eradicate smallpox and was the science adviser for the eerily prescient film Contagion, thinks there’s still plenty left to worry about—but also lots of good news to appreciate.



https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-doctor-who-eliminated-smallpox-says-covid-19-is-here-to-stay

 

[audreyh1]

I wish my last name was Brilliant! I would definitely have gotten my PhD then.

 

[Freedom56]

California rolled out a digital vaccination record. After you enter your information, you get a link via email or text to a QR code containing your proof of vaccination including dates of first and second doses (as applicable). You can take a screen shot of you QR code and retain it on your phone.

https://myvaccinerecord.cdph.ca.gov/

 

[Alan]

California rolled out a digital vaccination record. After you enter your information, you get a link via email or text to a QR code containing your proof of vaccination including dates of first and second doses (as applicable). You can take a screen shot of you QR code and retain it on your phone.

https://myvaccinerecord.cdph.ca.gov/

That sounds similar to what NHS England has done, we have the vaccination record and a QR code available on the NHS app.

 

[Chuckanut]

Here's one argument that at some point this virus will run out of mutations and we will be stuck with whatever mutation gives the virus the best chance of long term survival.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-021-01421-7

Indeed, more-fit variants can be expected to emerge over time (the occurrence of which will need to be monitored meticulously, as these pose a potential public health threat), but we believe that these will not continue to emerge indefinitely: nothing is infinite in nature, and eventually the virus will reach its form of ‘maximum transmission’. After then, new variants will provide no further advantage in infectivity. The virus will thus stabilize and this ‘final’ variant will prevail and become the dominant strain, experiencing only occasional, minimal variations.

 

[rodi]

California rolled out a digital vaccination record. After you enter your information, you get a link via email or text to a QR code containing your proof of vaccination including dates of first and second doses (as applicable). You can take a screen shot of you QR code and retain it on your phone.

https://myvaccinerecord.cdph.ca.gov/

Thanks for posting this. CA database was missing my second dose. I've submitted a "trouble shooting request" through the state website.

 

[Born2BRetd]

California rolled out a digital vaccination record. After you enter your information, you get a link via email or text to a QR code containing your proof of vaccination including dates of first and second doses (as applicable). You can take a screen shot of you QR code and retain it on your phone.

https://myvaccinerecord.cdph.ca.gov/

I checked my record also and found they are missing my first dose which isn't a surprise since I received a leftover vaccine. I have submitted a troubleshooting request.

Thank you for posting the link!