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CR: COVID-19 --Political Talk


Mrs Whiggins

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2 minutes ago, 4th&Five said:

Maybe. That doesn’t mean sitting senators should be calling for him to be jailed. 

Paul has rhetorically overplayed his hand in terms of Fauci at every step along the way. The truth is bad enough and requires no rhetorical flourish. 

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2021/11/30/omicron-stricter-travel-rules-us-entry/

The Biden administration is preparing stricter testing requirements for all travelers entering the United States, including returning Americans, to curb the spread of the potentially dangerous omicron variant, according to three federal health officials.

As part of an enhanced winter covid strategy Biden is expected to announce Thursday, U.S. officials would require everyone entering the country to be tested one day before boarding flights, regardless of their vaccination status or country of departure. Administration officials are also considering a requirement that all travelers get retested within three to five days of arrival.

In addition, they are debating a controversial proposal to require all travelers, including U.S. citizens, to self-quarantine for seven days, even if their test results are negative. Those who flout the requirements might be subject to fines and penalties, the first time such penalties would be linked to testing and quarantine measures for travelers in the United States.

The two testing measures are detailed in a draft public health order written by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that is under review by officials at the U.S. Health and Human Services Department and the White House. The self quarantine-related measures are not in that draft but could be added later if the proposals win broader sign-off, said the officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the order has not been finalized.

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4 hours ago, Don Johnson said:

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Punished?  Pffft.

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JOHANNESBURG, Nov 24 (Reuters) - South Africa has asked Johnson & Johnson (JNJ.N) and Pfizer (PFE.N) to delay delivery of COVID-19 vaccines because it now has too much stock, health ministry officials said, as vaccine hesitancy slows an inoculation campaign.

About 35% of South Africans are fully vaccinated, higher than in most other African nations, but half the government's year-end target. It has averaged 106,000 doses a day in the past 15 days in a nation of 60 million people.

 

https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/exclusive-south-africa-delays-covid-vaccine-deliveries-inoculations-slow-2021-11-24/

Should have never allowed them in the first place.

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5 hours ago, Anastasis said:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2021/11/30/omicron-stricter-travel-rules-us-entry/

The Biden administration is preparing stricter testing requirements for all travelers entering the United States, including returning Americans, to curb the spread of the potentially dangerous omicron variant, according to three federal health officials.

As part of an enhanced winter covid strategy Biden is expected to announce Thursday, U.S. officials would require everyone entering the country to be tested one day before boarding flights, regardless of their vaccination status or country of departure. Administration officials are also considering a requirement that all travelers get retested within three to five days of arrival.

In addition, they are debating a controversial proposal to require all travelers, including U.S. citizens, to self-quarantine for seven days, even if their test results are negative. Those who flout the requirements might be subject to fines and penalties, the first time such penalties would be linked to testing and quarantine measures for travelers in the United States.

The two testing measures are detailed in a draft public health order written by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that is under review by officials at the U.S. Health and Human Services Department and the White House. The self quarantine-related measures are not in that draft but could be added later if the proposals win broader sign-off, said the officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the order has not been finalized.

jfc 

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18 minutes ago, justhookit said:

jfc 

Yeah, that's going to suck, no matter what.  Got kids coming home from Christmas from two separate countries.  Going to have to get a same day test before they leave (actually, not hard for them to get -- Canada and Germany have their shit together in that respect), and then tested AGAIN after they get home?  

Nevermind the testing requirements for us when/if we get to go over to Germany next week to see our kid and such.  Germany actually lets Americans in with proof of vax, which we have (boosted as well).  But we'd have to get tested to fly home, and then after we get home.

Horse has left the barn on Omicron.  The travel restriction shit seems pointless.  A couple of different epidemiologists I have listened to on NPR the past couple of days had the same take -- some testing makes sense, travel bans accomplish almost nothing, because by the time a variant is detected, it's been out in the wide world for weeks.

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This is not smallpox. Vaccination programs are not going to eradicate it.  The animal reservoir implications are significant, and becoming more crystallized. It will go the course of the other coronaviruses.  We can reduce the severity through vaccine priming, prior infection, and therapeutics.  Certain accelerators involved.  I think that we are ultimately just going to have to recalibrate our risk thresholds, keep frosty with the vax updates and boosters, and just generally move on. 

 

 

https://www.science.org/content/article/where-did-weird-omicron-come?

That raises the question of where Omicron’s predecessors lurked for more than a year. Scientists see essentially three possible explanations: The virus could have circulated and evolved in a population with little surveillance and sequencing. It could have gestated in a chronically infected COVID-19 patient. Or it might have evolved in a non-human species, from which it recently spilled back into people.

 

Screenshot-2021-11-18-163248.jpg

Edited by Anastasis
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The other theory that is interesting is that omicron has been widely distributed for some time.  The severity is lower, thus less surveillance; however, there have been a number of different S drop out PCR results observed in UK and USA and could theoretically have been omicron circulating.  South Africa caught it because they have very robust sequencing infrastructure (Oh snap, you got the HIV!).

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1 hour ago, Anastasis said:

The other theory that is interesting is that omicron has been widely distributed for some time.  The severity is lower, thus less surveillance; however, there have been a number of different S drop out PCR results observed in UK and USA and could theoretically have been omicron circulating.  South Africa caught it because they have very robust sequencing infrastructure (Oh snap, you got the HIV!).

That's what Gottlieb has been saying.

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Another study indicating vaccinated less likely to spread the virus.  There goes my gym revenge tour.

 

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A new study of NBA players, staff, and household members provides yet more evidence that fully vaccinated people who get a breakthrough case of COVID-19 may be less infectious than their unvaccinated peers.

The data, collected when the Alpha and Delta variants of the coronavirus were dominant, supports a commonly-held theory among experts.

Last July, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention walked back earlier guidance that had said vaccinated people need not wear masks indoors, saying they should do so in areas of the country experiencing high rates of infection. At the time, CDC Director Rochelle Walensky cited the rise of the highly transmissible Delta variant and "worrisome" new science that indicated vaccinated individuals "may be contagious and spread the virus to others."

The new study, published by the peer-reviewed New England Journal of Medicine, does not challenge that claim — researchers found that people with breakthrough infections may be just as contagious as unvaccinated people.

However, researchers found that individuals with breakthrough illnesses are infectious for a shorter period of time, reducing the opportunity for them to pass the virus onto others. What's more, previous evidence suggests vaccinated people are also far less likely to be infected in the first place, especially if they have received a booster shot.

The vaccinated have a shorter transmission window, the study found
To reach their findings, scientists partnered with the National Basketball Association and analyzed 19,941 viral samples from 173 people enrolled in the professional league's occupational health program between November 2020 and August 2021. Under the program, NBA players were subject to regular testing for COVID-19.

According to the study, vaccinated people remained infected for 5.5 days, on average, compared to 7.5 days for unvaccinated people. That's 48 hours — or roughly 36% — less time to infect others. 

Researchers found no difference between those who received the two-dose Pfizer-BioNTech mRNA vaccine and the one-dose viral vector vaccine from Johnson & Johnson. (Moderna's mRNA vaccine was not assessed due to a small sample size.)

"Our work provides the most detailed information to date about how viral concentrations change in the body across the full duration of SARS-CoV-2 infection," study co-author Stephen Kissler said in a statement. Kissler is a research fellow at the Department of Immunology and Infectious Diseases at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, which led the study.

The findings support earlier claims about vaccines
While the NBA partnership provided a steady stream of samples, it also produced a study population that was overwhelmingly young, healthy, and male, and therefore not representative of the public at large.

It was also conducted before the rise of Omicron, the latest variant of concern. While it's not yet clear whether Omicron is more infectious or virulent than Delta, more research is needed to see how well our vaccines fend it off.

Nevertheless, the findings support what Dr. Anthony Fauci, the US's top infectious disease expert, said last summer: that vaccinated people are "less likely" to spread the virus. Previous studies have also found that vaccinated people typically experience shorter, milder symptoms if they are infected, as well as a faster pace of clearing the virus, all of which points to a narrower window for transmission.

 

https://www.businessinsider.com/nba-vaccinated-people-less-likely-to-spread-covid-to-others-2021-11

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16 hours ago, Anastasis said:

This is not smallpox. Vaccination programs are not going to eradicate it.  The animal reservoir implications are significant, and becoming more crystallized. It will go the course of the other coronaviruses.  We can reduce the severity through vaccine priming, prior infection, and therapeutics.  Certain accelerators involved.  I think that we are ultimately just going to have to recalibrate our risk thresholds, keep frosty with the vax updates and boosters, and just generally move on. 

I don't know that anyone truly believes that vaccination programs will eradicate this virus, no matter how optimistic we might have been at one point.  

I agree that eventually it will go the course of the other coronaviruses.  The question is at what cost in lives and permanent damage to those to survive?  Here's hoping that Omicron ends up being that extremely contagious but not severe variant that overtakes all of the others and renders this thing no worse than what we previously knew as the common cold.

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50 minutes ago, DDD Dad said:

Here's hoping that Omicron ends up being that extremely contagious but not severe variant that overtakes all of the others and renders this thing no worse than what we previously knew as the common cold.

That is a reasonable thing to hope but the odds are pretty good that it will mutate again, and the chances of the new mutation being more deadly are just as good as the chances that it will be milder.

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Mini-Rant incoming

I am flying to the USA from Singapore on Saturday.

Yesterday (Thursday Singapore time) I got my COVID test. The test was at 10am (when office opened).

Today (Friday Singapore time) I got the results at 8am (that is 22 hours).  Singapore may be the best medical country in the world, and if not it is top 10. So this results time seems pretty reasonable.

Tomorrow (Saturday Singapore time) I fly -- SIN -> AMS, AMS - IAH.  With a 2 hour layover in AMS, this is 34 hours of travel time.  This doesn't count transport to the airport and waiting at the airport.

So -- 22 hours to get test results + 34 hours of travel = 2 days+.  It is physically impossible for me to get tested 24 hours before arriving in the US.

Luckily, i am arriving Sunday US time and this stupid bullshit rule goes into effect on Monday.

Who the fuck is coming up with these stupid rules?

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11 hours ago, Fastbreak said:

Mini-Rant incoming

I am flying to the USA from Singapore on Saturday.

Yesterday (Thursday Singapore time) I got my COVID test. The test was at 10am (when office opened).

Today (Friday Singapore time) I got the results at 8am (that is 22 hours).  Singapore may be the best medical country in the world, and if not it is top 10. So this results time seems pretty reasonable.

Tomorrow (Saturday Singapore time) I fly -- SIN -> AMS, AMS - IAH.  With a 2 hour layover in AMS, this is 34 hours of travel time.  This doesn't count transport to the airport and waiting at the airport.

So -- 22 hours to get test results + 34 hours of travel = 2 days+.  It is physically impossible for me to get tested 24 hours before arriving in the US.

Luckily, i am arriving Sunday US time and this stupid bullshit rule goes into effect on Monday.

Who the fuck is coming up with these stupid rules?

FYI, the test is 24 hours before departure.

I was recently doing similar math between testing when I land in the UK and having to test 48 hours before for France.  Fortunately, it is 48 hours before departure and not 48 hours before arrival, so I can thread that needle provided shit doesn't go sideways and everything shuts down in the interim.

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Also, let's be clear, IMO, we should lift the travel bans since it is obvious Omicron has been circulating for a while locally.  However, the US should not allow ANYONE who is unvaccinated to fly to the US.  Further, if you are unvaccinated, you should not be allowed on a fucking plane.  

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24 minutes ago, PenelopeWitherspoon said:

FYI, the test is 24 hours before departure.

I was recently doing similar math between testing when I land in the UK and having to test 48 hours before for France.  Fortunately, it is 48 hours before departure and not 48 hours before arrival, so I can thread that needle provided shit doesn't go sideways and everything shuts down in the interim.

I thought it just had to be the day before departure, and not 24 hours?  Which, well just fuck.  Besides the ridiculousness of this when omnicron's been here for awhile, I have my first international trip in 2 years next week.  Between the restrictions going, and then coming back in, with a departure at 5 am and a connection, fingers crossed.

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51 minutes ago, PenelopeWitherspoon said:

Also, let's be clear, IMO, we should lift the travel bans since it is obvious Omicron has been circulating for a while locally.  However, the US should not allow ANYONE who is unvaccinated to fly to the US.  Further, if you are unvaccinated, you should not be allowed on a fucking plane.  

I would love to see an airline offer flights for only the unvaccinated (pilots, flight attendants and passengers.)  Vaccinated people are not allowed not that any of them would want to be on this flight either. 

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7 minutes ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

I would love to see an airline offer flights for only the unvaccinated (pilots, flight attendants and passengers.)  Vaccinated people are not allowed not that any of them would want to be on this flight either. 

I could get on board with this, no masks allowed either.  The caveat is the flights all have to be designated MH370.  

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