Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!
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@boomzilla It's not as clear cut as that, yes, but I believe that it contributes to murkying the whole situation. And the psychological side effect of preventive measures being less-well accepted when the risk is lower (in part) thanks to the preventive measures is obvious when looking at e.g. the acceptance of vaccines overall.
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@remi yeah, I agree that the psychology is complicated. But also people really like to feel like they have some control so even ineffective measures may be popular for their theater value.
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@boomzilla I agree, it cuts both ways. Inefficient measures are still going to be seen positively (by some) because security theatre, but efficient measures will be seen negatively (by some) because their efficiency is masking the risk.
And that's just considering the psychological aspect, i.e. only the totally irrational part.
Damned if you do, damned if you don't.
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@Bulb said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
We need to have a civil discussion
Nooooooo! Anything but going back to Discourse!
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@Zerosquare “The choice is simple: follow the anti-COVID measures, or use Discourse.”
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@Gurth said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@Zerosquare “The choice is simple: follow the anti-COVID measures, or use Discourse.”
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@boomzilla said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
longer term effects of increased poverty and delayed medical care.
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@LaoC good old trickle down... wait...
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@topspin said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@LaoC good old trickle down... wait...
It all... aha... falls into place when you realise money is an attractor.
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@GOG said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@topspin said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@LaoC good old trickle down... wait...
It all... aha... falls into place when you realise money is an attractor.
There is a proverb about this: Devil always shits on the bigger heap.
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Promising news:
They identified bigger falls in infections and hospitalisations both in the over-60s, who were vaccinated first, and in the cities which vaccinated the largest proportion of their populations earliest.
These relative changes were not seen in earlier lockdowns.
This gives early but encouraging signs the falls can be linked to the vaccine, and not just to current restrictions.
...They estimated this meant the vaccine was 92% effective when used in a population - very similar to the 95% Pfizer found in a controlled clinical trial.
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@topspin said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@LaoC good old trickle down... wait...
We get massive government intervention and suddenly the rich are even richer and the poor are even poorer!
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@Kamil-Podlesak said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
There is a proverb about this: Devil always shits on the bigger heap.
Have used Java. Can confirm that about the heap size.
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PSAKI: "Even after you’re vaccinated, social distancing and wearing masks will be essential."
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- This is not the Garage. Why quote Psaki here?
- I think she's right for the time being.
We don't have data yet that vaccinated people cannot transmit the disease. Therefore anybody remains suspect for the time being, even if you've had the vaccine. It is best that the real vulnerable patients need to be vaccinated first and given time to develop immunity before you can lift restrictions for the entire population. It remains to be seen if other measures might be taken (e.g. quarantining the vulnerable) so the majority of the population is less restricted, but I'm also not sure if anybody wants to risk even trying to prove that such plan would work.
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@JBert said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
anybody remains suspect for the time being, even if you've had the vaccine
Tell that to the man in the street …
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Computers are the virus.
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From: https://www.iltalehti.fi/koronavirus/a/af75eaad-f4bf-4393-833a-7c5ef565a768
Finland will be giving "rna-vaccines" solely to persons over 70 years of age. And will be giving the 2 shots 12 weeks apart.
This decision was, apparently, based on calculations on what would provide the largest return. The new strategy was prompted by the lower than expected availability of vaccines.
In other news, Finland has set an upper age limit for the AstraZeneca vaccine.
...This is the first time since the start of the pandemic that I get the feeling that someone in our government is actually awake and capable of decisionmaking.
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Nothing quite like taking action far too late to inspire confidence!
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Just got an email from the county. They have a site where you can check on your vaccine registration:
https://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/apps/EMRS/RegistrationValidation
This is my status:
You are currently registered to receive a COVID-19 vaccination appointment from Fairfax County. You registered on 01/28/21, and we are currently scheduling appointments for individuals who signed up on 01/18/21. If you would like to be removed from our waitlist for any reason, please call our call center at 703-324-7404.
Will be interesting to see how quickly the days go by.
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@boomzilla I wish you the best of luck with that, but you should be aware of my mother's experience:
Phase 1:
M: *registers online*
: You've registered! Please check your e-mail for details.
... four hours later...
M: "I haven't got an e-mail yet, let's double-check."
M: *calls the Fairfax County Health Department*
M: *waits on hold for 45 minutes*
M: "I am$name
, here are my$details
, am I on the list?
: "Nope, can't find you. Please try again."
M: "Well can't you add me now?"
: "Nope, please try again online."
M: "So what if that doesn't work?"
: "I dunno... *click*"Phase 2:
At the doctor's office:
M: "The county tells me that I'm supposed to work with you to get my vaccine."
: "No? We're not getting any vaccine. That's handled through
$city::hospital
. Are you a resident of$city
?"
M: "No, Fairfax County."
: "Sorry, you'll have to work with Fairfax County.
... several hours later, two of which were on hold with Fairfax County Health Department...
: "That's right, you need to go through your doctor."
M: "But she said to talk to you."
: No, we're distributing vaccines to all
$local_hospital
locations, and their affiliated doctors will handle appointments."
M: "But my doctor is affiliated with$another_local_hospital
, and they told me to talk to you. Where am I supposed to go?"
: "Just talk to your
$local_hospital
doctor. *click*"Phase 3:
: (in a televised address) "... so I want to reassure everyone: if you've already preregistered through your local health district, you do not need to preregister again; you're already in the system..."
First, the state registration system literally does nothing. Second,
introduces a separate program, almost immediately afterward:
: "We have worked with
to start with their [pharmacies] that are within reach of those who are more vulnerable..."
An infographic is displayed showing where the 36 selected
locations in
$state
are. None are in Fairfax County, even though it is the most populous, richest, and most infected (in terms of raw cases) in the state.There is one in$city
, about 10 miles away.The local news outlets missed this subtle point when they reported on the speech: If you registered through Fairfax County Health Department, you're supposed to also register at
. It doesn't flow from your state registration. Furthermore,
IT screwed up, and let anyone register, instead of just
$state
Health Department preregistrants. All appointments were gone within two hours of the site going live. My mom doesn't know any of this, but she's smart enough not to trust anyone who uses the word "automatic".M: (on phone with
$city
) "I'd like to register for my vaccination."
: "Yes ma'am, we offer flu vaccines, when would you like?"
M: "... uh, no, my COVID-19 vaccination."
: "I'm sorry ma'am, we don't do that here. You're the fourth person who's asked."
M: "$state
Health Department has a list ofwith incoming vaccine.
's website has your location in a press release as the local
with vaccine. Fairfax County told me to come to you for vaccine. And now you're telling me that you're not getting any?"
: "Sorry ma'am, it was a mistake. I'm afraid I can't help you. Goodbye. *click*"
And it was a mistake. They listed a
$city
location, but they meant to list a$sw_county
location. A county whose name differs by two letters, and has only six cases county-wide.Phase 4:
I just looked up M's registration on that status checker. This is her status:
You are currently registered to receive a COVID-19 vaccination appointment from Fairfax County. You registered on 01/16/21, and we are currently scheduling appointments for individuals who signed up on 01/18/21. If you would like to be removed from our waitlist for any reason, please call our call center at 703-324-7404.
I asked her if she'd heard anything. Nope, nothing.
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@TwelveBaud said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
I wish you the best of luck with that, but you should be aware of my mother's experience:
Heh. Yeah, I figure I've got some time before my number comes up. We'll see if they start getting their act together.
My mom and I were getting ready to register her for her second dose but now her county is going to be emailing people to make their second appointments when the time comes.
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Whew! This had the potential to wreck my summer plans.
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@boomzilla said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
Whew! This had the potential to wreck my summer plans.
I'd wait at least one Sunday News Cycle before spiking the football, Biden's team has already shown quite the willingness to compel CDC into
changing its mindreevaluating the science
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@izzion fair point.
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Dutch judge threw out the curfew effective immediately. The law the curfew is based on can only be used in case of emergency, and the current situation does not meet those criteria.
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@PleegWat said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
Dutch judge threw out the curfew effective immediately. The law the curfew is based on can only be used in case of emergency, and the current situation does not meet those criteria.
Legal shenanigans ensue. I would advice everyone in NL to stay indoors after 21:00 tonight regardless of the outcome.
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@PleegWat Though I think the Viruswaarheid people are nut jobs and that the curfew isn’t a bad idea, it is good to see that when laws are being misapplied, judges will rule that illegal.
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@Gurth As I understand it, this is a preventative measure but introduced based on a law which requires an acute, unexpected emergency. And obviously that doesn't work.
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@PleegWat Exactly. This should teach the cabinet to do its homework better.
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The trillion dollar question:
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@Bulb said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
The trillion dollar question:
theory: China subcontracted to Indian developers. Those devs discovered a genetic marker in Indian people and hid an 'avoid this' action in the virus. The initial high death toll was just getting rid of those without the marker.
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@dcon
, but the
is
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@Bulb said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
but the
is
Oops. Forgot which thread this one was...
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@dcon said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
The initial high death toll was just getting
rid of those without the markera buggy initial version that didn't actually check for the marker. for the usual stereotype of Indian development standards.
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@Applied-Mediocrity said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
Is that something unique to this coronaviruses, all coroanaviruses, all viruses of the next higher taxonomic distinction, or all viruses?
While, yes I am trying to be funny, I still legit want to know.
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@Karla "A virus is small. You just won't believe how teensy-weensy, mind-bogglingly small it is."
Lungpox is ~80-120 nm diameter. Largest known virii are 1500 nm, a single red blood cell is 20 µm (20,000 nm) and a single finest grain of sand is 90 µm (less than one tenth of a millimeter).
Indeed, I had not thought about it at length nor used Science, just assumed that while it's small, given the world's population and the big trouble it's caused, the total volume would be much higher. Numbers are weird. Death Star cost how much again?
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@Bulb said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
The trillion dollar question:
I can probably answer that mystery.
In order to try to stop the mountain of bodies from growing, they handed out Ivermectin, Hydroxycloroquine, Zinc, and every other anti-viral with any indication that they might shorten/alleviate COVID symptoms. Formal studies be damned. The coctail kinda kept people from dying in droves quite as large.
In the meanwhile, due to poverty, social isolation or disposable masks were non-doable for most of the population. So the virus made the rounds to everybody, and now all survivors have natural immunity.
Edit: P.S. Somebody's opinion-piece, who lives in India, kinda backs that up:
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@Applied-Mediocrity said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
Indeed, I had not thought about it at length nor used Science, just assumed that while it's small, given the world's population and the big trouble it's caused, the total volume would be much higher.
You've got a very small number (complicated because we don't know how well they pack, nor do we really care) times a very big (and rather uncertain) number. The result is probably correct to within an order of magnitude or two.
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@acrow said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
In the meanwhile, due to poverty, social isolation or disposable masks were non-doable for most of the population. So the virus made the rounds to everybody, and now all survivors have natural immunity.
Also, as mentioned in the previous link, the country is very young, demographically:
India is a very young country as well. Only 6% of Indians are older than 65. More than half the population is under 25.
That's a great profile for a disease that mostly kills old people.
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@boomzilla said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
That's a great profile for a disease that mostly kills old people.
Old and/or unfit. Comorbidities such as diabetes make it much more likely to croak from COVID-19.
Surprisingly though, prevalence of diabetes in India is only behind the U.S. by a couple of percentage points, according to https://endocrinenews.endocrine.org/u-s-leads-developed-nations-in-diabetes-prevalence/.
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In a hospital in Braunschweig (Germany), 88 staff member received the Astra-Zeneca vaccine. The next day, 37 of them were on sick leave...
See
That's great quality of Astra-Zeneca, proven throughout their development, too: during a study, several participants received the wrong amount.
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@BernieTheBernie said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
That's great quality of Astra-Zeneca, proven throughout their development, too: during a study, several participants received the wrong amount.
Although...didn't they get less than planned? Which seemed to have worked out better, efficacy-wise?
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The side-effects are basically as predicted from the studies. Some people have flu symptoms for one or several days. The news making the rounds are mostly about the higher than expected number of people getting these side-effects.
On the one hand, with very large numbers of people getting vaccinated, it's unsurprising that some subsets (e.g. one hospital) have a higher or lower number of people getting side effects than the statistical average. On the other hand, without doing the maths, this seems far higher than what could be expected statistically. So there may be some other factors involved that need to be studied more closely.Personal anecdote while we're at it: My mother got the BioNTech vaccination. First dose was completely free of side effects, second dose she had bad flu symptoms (feeling sick, temperature, etc.) for a day, but was fine again the next day.
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@topspin said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
Personal anecdote while we're at it: My mother got the BioNTech vaccination. First dose was completely free of side effects, second dose she had bad flu symptoms (feeling sick, temperature, etc.) for a day, but was fine again the next day.
My mom's first dose of that was fine. She's now scheduled for the second dose next week. A friend of her's had a similar experience as your mom, but I think it was with the Moderna vaccine. These are typical vaccine symptoms, though. It's usually just your immune system reacting like you're sick.
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@boomzilla said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
It's usually just your immune system reacting like you're sick.
… which is the whole damn point, so that when the real thing turns up, it gets jumped on immediately.
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@dkf yeah, but it's interesting that so many people never seem to get that. I don't recall ever having those sorts of symptoms after a vaccination (maybe it did when I was too young to remember) but I've known a lot of people who have.
I get why it can be scary, and it's not like previously believed to be weakened / dead virus vaccines haven't gone wrong in the past.