Coronavirus (Stanford: credit, home, college)

[1AngryTaxPayer]

Originally Posted by stablegenius

Wow. What a bunch of nuts.

Just think, most of these people work in the "field" and are "licensed". It truly is frightening anyone who is this unstable is certified to give you medications or inject you with a syringe.

[goodheathen]

https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/30/healt...ear/index.html
"Officials also announced that the CDC is expanding the traveler-based Genomic Surveillance Program to airports in Seattle and Los Angeles..."
I presume that's LAX. Took long enough. We're too close to Asia, and Los Angeles is one of the worst-hit big cities in the country.
Any group or 'body' that advocates trying harder to end the pandemic is fine with me.

[CA4Now]

Originally Posted by goodheathen

https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/30/healt...ear/index.html
"Officials also announced that the CDC is expanding the traveler-based Genomic Surveillance Program to airports in Seattle and Los Angeles..."

"...the mission of the Traveler Genomic Surveillance program, a virus-hunting initiative the CDC quietly rolled out in September 2021. Its foot soldiers were deployed at Los Angeles International Airport for the first time Tuesday (1/3/23) morning.

With smiles evident behind masks and thank-you gifts in hand, these sentinels in plain, black scrubs are tasked with seeking volunteers whose flights originated in China who are willing to swab their noses to support the search for new viral variants. Those who agree will receive a free take-home COVID-19 test as a token of America’s appreciation.

Although new to LAX, the CDC program already is underway at international airports in San Francisco, Seattle, New York City, Newark, N.J., Washington and Atlanta. Over the last 15 months, it has persuaded about 80,000 travelers from every corner of the world to participate."

https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/travel/page/tr...c-surveillance

https://www.latimes.com/science/stor...b-noses-at-lax

[goodheathen]

Volunteers? Really? This country needs to get serious and do random checks and quarantine anyone who tests positive.

[goodheathen]

National hospitalizations highest since February. Also, Long COVID usually happening in milder cases. https://www.yahoo.com/news/long-covi...132806892.html
Rapidly spreading new variant more evasive, too.

[goodheathen]

Finally, a study showing that the vaccine doesn't work well on old people.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s43587-022-00343-4

Major caveat - still some effectiveness, possibly life-saving, for old folks, and the study doesn't say whether some old people respond better than others.

Ultimately, that's a large segment of the population that for personal safety should be masking as a rule and staying home a lot, and people who are around them should be considerate.

[CA4Now]

Originally Posted by goodheathen

Finally, a study showing that the vaccine doesn't work well on old people.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s43587-022-00343-4

Major caveat - still some effectiveness, possibly life-saving, for old folks, and the study doesn't say whether some old people respond better than others.

Not sure what "work well" actually means here.

XBB.1.5 is a descendant of XBB, which is a recombinant of descendants of the Omicron subvariant BA.2.

“Our concern is how transmissible it is,” said Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, the World Health Organization’s technical lead on COVID-19. “It does have immune escape ... and the more this virus circulates, the more opportunities it will have to change.”

Health officials also have expressed optimism about the lower numbers of COVID-19 deaths reported this fall and winter. Authorities attribute the trend to a variety of tools that weren’t available previously: an updated COVID-19 booster shot that’s a pretty good match to this winter’s circulating strains; anti-COVID-19 pills such as Paxlovid and molnupiravir that reduce the risk of death; and increased use of masks, particularly in crowded or indoor settings.

Will XBB.1.5, the latest Omicron subvariant, fuel another California COVID surge? What we know:
https://www.latimes.com/california/s...d-surge-follow

[goodheathen]

Originally Posted by CA4Now

Not sure what "work well" actually means here.

XBB.1.5 is a descendant of XBB, which is a recombinant of descendants of the Omicron subvariant BA.2.

“Our concern is how transmissible it is,” said Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, the World Health Organization’s technical lead on COVID-19. “It does have immune escape ... and the more this virus circulates, the more opportunities it will have to change.”

Health officials also have expressed optimism about the lower numbers of COVID-19 deaths reported this fall and winter. Authorities attribute the trend to a variety of tools that weren’t available previously: an updated COVID-19 booster shot that’s a pretty good match to this winter’s circulating strains; anti-COVID-19 pills such as Paxlovid and molnupiravir that reduce the risk of death; and increased use of masks, particularly in crowded or indoor settings.

Will XBB.1.5, the latest Omicron subvariant, fuel another California COVID surge? What we know:
https://www.latimes.com/california/s...d-surge-follow

1) At this point, molnupiravir has almost no effectiveness and basically is a farce, and resistance to Paxlovid is beginning.
2) Any article claiming to be sure of this or that isn't worth much. No studies can tease out all the factors, including death totals, when some are cardiovascular and months later. Of course it's best to be recently boosted, but most people aren't and those who are likely take other precautions. Nobody should be relying heavily on vaccination to reduce risk when it hardly prevents infection. "Works well" would reduce the risk of hospitalization and death to almost pre-pandemic levels, which it decidedly is not among old people.

[sav858]

CDC, FDA see possible link between Pfizer’s bivalent shot and strokes

The CDC and FDA announced on Friday that their surveillance system flagged a possible link between the new Pfizer-BioNTech bivalent Covid-19 vaccine and strokes in people aged 65 and over, but said they were continuing to recommend the shots.

The surveillance “raised a question of whether” stroke risk was elevated in the 21-day period post-vaccination versus 22 to 44 days post-vaccination, according to a statement on the CDC website.

[CA4Now]

Originally Posted by goodheathen

Any article claiming to be sure of this or that isn't worth much. No studies can tease out all the factors, including death totals, when some are cardiovascular and months later.

The article didn't claim to be sure of anything. "Attribute the trend to..." is hardly definitive.