Re: CORONAVIRUS-Updates, discussion, etc

[Agartha]

I don't know how they arrived  to that conclusion when the UK has more deaths than countries in Europe 

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1115043/coronavirus-deaths-timeline-in-the-eu-5/

[Rogue]

Yes, that is quite confusing isnt it! Like so many of these things nowadays you get so little detail available.

[TrueCrazyLion]

I don't know how they arrived  to that conclusion when the UK has more deaths than countries in Europe 

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1115043/coronavirus-deaths-timeline-in-the-eu-5/

Interesting website! (I always find stats interesting, as long as they’re compiled properly, LOL)
But yeah, strange result.

Recently I’ve been coming across a lot of articles like this:





From what I’ve been hearing these last few days, with the combination of having the vaccines and having increasingly less harmful variants of the virus, it sounds like we might be getting nearer the point now where this virus starts to be treated more like colds and flu viruses, and it starts to become safer to do that as well. Not yet, but it is getting closer!

[Lenzabi]

Sadly, we have millions of anti-vaxxers refusing to get vaccinated, so hospitals are full of these selfish idiots. Folks with life threatening illnesses like heart attacks are turned away for the lack of beds these self centered cretins are taking up because they refused to get the precautions for whatever bizarro reasons .

[Agartha]

Same everywhere, despite the fake data they post online, hospitals are actually full of unvaccinated people.

[TrueCrazyLion]

Actually, would I right in thinking that Omicron has a death rate way lower than any of the previous variants? In fact I’m struggling to think of anyone who’s died of it, in spite of the massive numbers of cases?
(I admit I’ve been lazy and not Googled it yet, I should do that, LOL!)
But all the reports on Omicron so far have only been about the number of people catching it, it seems… 
This variant is starting to feel like a turning point in the pandemic.

Edit: Just did a Google search and found this recent result:

https://www.express.co.uk/life-style/health/1531607/How-deadly-is-Omicron-variant-WHO-report-evg/amp

Apparently one person in the UK has died of it so far.

It feels like Omicron is so heavily mutated that it’s effectively a B-spec version of the original virus, refurbished and repackaged, with many of the original characteristics and behaviours transformed.
And as Aggie said in a previous post, it’s become much cleverer too. 

I’m sooo glad I got my booster when I did!!

[Rogue]

Just one death, that does sound odd. Australia had it's first during Christmas. I'm not sure how many there have been since.

[TrueCrazyLion]

Yeah, I guess stats like these can be updated at any time as new info(Hopefully reliable info) becomes available. But it did feel more positive to me to read that!

What bothers me about Omicron now, having read up some more, is that it seems to have managed to completely evade the AstraZeneca vaccine and that the Pfizer vaccine has been reported to only be 30% effective against it. So for someone like myself(I had two doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine and then a Pfizer booster), it now feels like I’m not well protected against Omicron at all. As it is, I’m super glad I got my booster at the end of November, just as this variant was starting to take hold; otherwise it seems I would’ve had no real protection at all against it. Which is scary!

[Agartha]

Because of the posts above I thought I better share the following.
This is recent data for patients admitted to ICU (critical care). The number of patients with a booster is so small you can't even see it. Same with the double vaccinated. The raw data is here: https://www.icnarc.org/Our-Audit/Audits/Cmp/Reports





If you wonder why there are more inpatients aged 60-69 than 70+: it's only because after 70 only a few meet the criteria to be worth taking up an ICU bed, I know it sounds harsh but that's how it is.

[Rogue]

That is interesting data, especially for the unvaccinated!

[Lenzabi]

And i am sure many of the dead unvaxxed were also suffering long term health issues

[TrueCrazyLion]

Great post, Aggie! And it looks like the two original doses of the vaccine are still making the biggest difference!

That’s definitely comforting to know for those of us who’re vaccinated.

[Agartha]

That's why I posted the graph, just to show they do make a difference.
We may have not found the perfect vaccine yet, and we may never be able to, but what we have is making a difference.

[Lenzabi]

Booster shot trip soon.

[TrueCrazyLion]

Hoping that goes well Lenz!

Nearly 2 months already since I got my booster, I’m starting to think I should phone up soon to see when I’ll be eligible for another vaccination.

[Rogue]

The five stages of covid...

https://fortune.com/2022/01/18/fauci-covid-pandemic-five-stages/amp/

[TrueCrazyLion]

OK… The headline of that article made depressing reading, but the article itself doesn’t, and makes a lot of sense. 

RE Phase 1 of the pandemic: My understanding is that the “truly pandemic” lasts for 5 strains of the virus, and the after the first 4 mutations it effectively loses its potency and becomes endemic.

Omicron was strain 4 of this virus.

I think that - in the UK at least - we’re now seeing the signs of this trend of Stage 1 starting to wane, and it looks like the herd immunity stage is beginning to be approached. Not there yet, but it is at least looking foreseeable now.

Obviously due to travel restrictions and the differing availability of vaccines, different countries around the world are at different stages of their pandemic, so this will be happening at different speeds worldwide.

I think the most difficult decision to make will be when we feel that the time is right to “let the virus go” and just let everyone around the world be safely exposed to it, which I think is how coronaviruses were naturally kept in the immunity zone by humanity prior to this especially nasty one appearing.
I think that if we can make sure it’s relatively safe to expose ourselves to this virus and then go back to living normally again, that will be the best way to beat this virus in the long term. Remembering that there are millions of viruses in the air around us, all the time, being breathed in; each one of them would be doing us harm if we hadn’t developed immunity to them by constantly being exposed to them. We can do the same with Covid.

The final two stages mentioned in the article won’t need to be reached if we achieve immunity to the virus and it becomes like a cold or the flu(Personally I think it’s more likely to become another common cold-causative virus over time). Although we should still try and eliminate it if we can.

My very long 2 cents. LOL

[Agartha]

I only just had time to read the article, which is very interesting. 

The thing with Covid is the 'surprise' factor, we still don't know whether there will be a new mutation that takes us back to day 1. Other diseases we learned to live with (flu, dengue, etc) have a pattern and even though we have not been able to eliminate them, we know what's coming and we can deal with them. That's still not the case with covid. 

Lion, the best way to get immunity with certain viruses (especially with Covid) is immunization. We have evidence that people who had covid without the vaccine, are not as protected as those whose immunity comes from vaccines.

[TrueCrazyLion]

You’re totally right, that’s actually the one thing which I meant to say in my last post but ultimately forgot to - that the way to safely achieve that herd immunity is with immunisation via the vaccines - at least for a long time, maybe even a few years - until we know we can predict how the virus is going to behave and we know we’re not taking undue risks by exposing ourselves to it naturally. The “head start” which the vaccines are giving us is crucially important in that respect. That’s helping us negate the virus’s “surprise factor”. 

And yes, you’re right about the vaccines giving us better immunity than catching the virus too. I read recently on my C-19 app that with the original virus, the vaccines were over 80% effective against severe illness from it, where contracting it once only gave a person maybe 60% protection against severe illness from reinfection with it. Because the natural uneducated response from the body’s immune system is a “punch drunk” one where it churns out indiscriminate protection against all the virus’s proteins, whereas the vaccines specifically target the virus’s spike protein(The important bit, LOL) and train the immune system much better.
Reading that actually gave me a lot of peace of mind, having had the the vaccine already!

Certainly I’m more than happy to keep getting vaccinated(Maybe every 2-3 months, if necessary) for a long time into the future if it continues being necessary or recommended. It’s a minuscule price to pay for being able to go back to safely living normally again!

[Lenzabi]

I think like the flu, we will be stuck with COVID-19, but whether it will become a mellow disease we can easily deal with all the time is another story.  Even after vaccinations, I may still need to go out to shop and go to medical appointments in a mask anyway due to my health issues.

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