Coronavirus

[Dave EV]

That’s great, you can make that choice and I’m glad it worked out. Many countries do not recommend it. The WHO says there is no evidence healthy children or teens need a booster.

CNBC link

So it is not at all fringe or misinformation for parents to question it (especially second doses of mRNnA vaccines and boosters)

I only responded to your original post because research indicated that what you said was not true. Nothing in your posted Twitter thread or the subsequent discussion on this forum has demonstrated otherwise…

If that were the case, why would the CDC endorse Pfizer boosters for 12-17 year olds with the following statement?

Data show that COVID-19 boosters help broaden and strengthen protection against Omicron and other SARS-CoV-2 variants. ACIP reviewed the available safety data following the administration of over 25 million vaccine doses in adolescents; COVID-19 vaccines are safe and effective.

WHO itself fully recommends adolescents get vaccinated and that the benefits outweigh the risks. Regarding myocarditus, they say:

Available data suggest that the cases of myocarditis and pericarditis following vaccination are generally mild and respond to conservative treatment, and are less severe with better outcomes than classical myocarditis or COVID-19. The risk of myocarditis/pericarditis associated with SARS-CoV-2 infection is higher than the risk after vaccination

WHO only seems to hold out on recommending boosters to due issues of "global equity". While I agree that more needs to be done to vaccinate the world (not to mention the unvaccinated), I also believe that if the vaccines are available, we should follow our local agencies recommendations.

Agreed for the most part but most parents don’t have time or mathematical acumen to browse ask these studies and quantify all of the various cases per million risks. They just know that mRNA vaccines are giving young people heart issues, that J&J was giving people blood clots, that vaccinated people can still catch/spread it and that their kids are at low risk from severe disease. It doesn’t make them dumb to be cautious about their children. It is a trust and messaging issue at that point and being honest would go along way to establishing that trust.

That is why people should simply follow their local health department recommendations. Who is not being honest here?

 

[EVNow]

Does the Indian medical system know something the US doesn't?

The doctors know they have to prescribe something ….

In India doctors are expected to give some medicine whether it is useful or not. Doctors routinely prescribe antibiotics for common viral colds, for eg. In cases like Covid, where it could potentially turn serious if a doctor does not give *some* medicine, they will be blamed and could face the wrath of family members.

its just prudent to prescribe something, anything …

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

It makes the virus less dangerous for the infected than the flu.

Given a 20x pre-Omicron risk factor for you over the flu, with a (putative) 3x reduction to "just" 7x worse than influenza (perhaps this is accurate, pre-vaccination...):

For you, with two doses of vaccine, it looks like you get about 3x reduction (you'd get about 10x with a booster):

https://twitter.com/x/status/1484239092367781888

So that takes you to about twice as bad as the flu, vs. Omicron, with two doses.

But if you're comparing to fighting the flu from a vaccinated state with a decent vaccine match, you're even worse off.

In any case, I don't think that we can say the virus (even Omicron) is less dangerous than influenza given vaccination with two doses, at this point. Note also that in the last few weeks it has spread about 8x faster than a typical influenza. Another factor to consider, especially in the case of healthcare load which is what you were discussing.

With the booster, it is possibly true that it is less dangerous than influenza, but I would say the exact virulence of Omicron is not well enough known at this point (between vaccinated and unvaccinated) to say definitively. And that rate of spread makes it a big deal.

Again, SARS-CoV-2 bears little resemblance to a seasonal flu, never has, and in my opinion, it won't behave the same way in coming years even after it becomes endemic in a year, or whatever it takes.

If it was private healthcare, government would not be on the hook for those expenses.. One more reason to stay away from single payer healthcare.

Yep, here in the US, these expenses don't exist. It's a miracle.

 

[wdolson]

Vaccinations have a very high degree of reduction of severe disease. It makes the virus less dangerous for the infected than the flu. Nothing is 100%. Swedens problem is due to the fact that they have government run healthcare. If it was private healthcare, government would not be on the hook for those expenses.. One more reason to stay away from single payer healthcare.

The US government has been footing most of the bills for COVID from the beginning.

The US is the only developed country without some form of government run and/or heavily regulated universal health care system. The US pays more per capita for healthcare and gets worse results per capita than any other developed country. The US is the only developed country in the world where people go bankrupt over medical bills.

There are some countries that still have private insurance, but it is regulated like a utility, but the government covers everyone who can't afford their own insurance. Germany does this. Everyone must have a certain level of coverage, and the cost is tightly regulated. Insurance companies can upsell to more coverage and that's where they make their profits.

One way or another, anyone with healthcare coverage is paying for everyone else. My health insurance premiums are now more than my mortgage payments. I've been paying my own way since 1994 and never had a claim other than some doctor's office visits.

The US has still has a large number of people without health coverage. When those people get sick, they put off getting health care because they can't afford it until it becomes severe and they end up in the emergency room which is the most expensive form of health care. Because they can't pay, hospitals need to cover the loss by charging more for everything else and those with insurance coverage pay higher premiums because if you go to the hospital you're insurance is going to be paying $10 a pill for ibuprofen.

 

[EVNow]

The biggest strain on world economies came from shut downs. Sweden never shut down or required social distancing or face masks and their numbers aren't much different than similar sized countries that did shut down

What Sweden did was dumb. If every country had followed the same policy that NewZealand & Australia did, we would have gotten rid of Covid a long time back. There wouldn't have been Delta and Omicron variants. Millions would not have died.

Knowing fully well that unrestricted spreading results in variants that escape whatever little immunity contracting the disease gets is beyond dumb.

 

[scottf200]

Makes you wonder if some just come here to troll and waste other people's time ... after a few post, it is clear if they are genuine, ignorant, stupid, or something else.

 

[golfcart]

If that were the case, why would the CDC endorse Pfizer boosters for 12-17 year olds with the following statement?

Data show that COVID-19 boosters help broaden and strengthen protection against Omicron and other SARS-CoV-2 variants. ACIP reviewed the available safety data following the administration of over 25 million vaccine doses in adolescents; COVID-19 vaccines are safe and effective.

WHO itself fully recommends adolescents get vaccinated and that the benefits outweigh the risks. Regarding myocarditus, they say:

Available data suggest that the cases of myocarditis and pericarditis following vaccination are generally mild and respond to conservative treatment, and are less severe with better outcomes than classical myocarditis or COVID-19. The risk of myocarditis/pericarditis associated with SARS-CoV-2 infection is higher than the risk after vaccination

WHO only seems to hold out on recommending boosters to due issues of "global equity". While I agree that more needs to be done to vaccinate the world (not to mention the unvaccinated), I also believe that if the vaccines are available, we should follow our local agencies recommendations.


That is why people should simply follow their local health department recommendations. Who is not being honest here?

I sourced everything I said , if you’ve got a problem with Hong Kong, Norway, Belgium, or any of the other countries policies then take it up with them. I’m not gonna go and repost everything from the thread that I’ve posted but I didn’t lie anywhere.

The original post I responded to was and is still either false or unknowable based on the latest research. Nothing dishonest about stating that. U wanna double vax and boost teenagers then do what u want with your kids nobody is stopping you.

 

[golfcart]

If every country had followed the same policy that NewZealand & Australia did, we would have gotten rid of Covid a long time back. There wouldn't have been Delta and Omicron variants. Millions would not have died.

Unknowable and unlikely. Two developed island nations are not the world… they can easily control their borders and monitor anyone who arrives. We have no idea who is coming into our country and what their COVID/vaccination status is. Same with most other continental nations. COVID spread far and wide before people even knew what was going on that genie wasn’t going back in the bottle. Sure different policies could have slowed the spread but it most likely wasn’t going away.

Developing world still has low vax rates to this day. Delta came from India and omicron came from South Africa. Omicron spreads among vaccinated population so more chance for a vaccine resistant variant to emerge. The learn to live with COVID people have won the argument. Get your shots and get in with your life.

 

[scottf200]

How much do boosters help avoid hospitalization? data now.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1484361931146203137

 

[FloridaSun]

Given a 20x pre-Omicron risk factor for you over the flu, with a (putative) 3x reduction to "just" 7x worse than influenza (perhaps this is accurate, pre-vaccination...):

For you, with two doses of vaccine, it looks like you get about 3x reduction (you'd get about 10x with a booster):

https://twitter.com/x/status/1484239092367781888

So that takes you to about twice as bad as the flu, vs. Omicron, with two doses.

But if you're comparing to fighting the flu from a vaccinated state with a decent vaccine match, you're even worse off.

In any case, I don't think that we can say the virus (even Omicron) is less dangerous than influenza given vaccination with two doses, at this point. Note also that in the last few weeks it has spread about 8x faster than a typical influenza. Another factor to consider, especially in the case of healthcare load which is what you were discussing.

With the booster, it is possibly true that it is less dangerous than influenza, but I would say the exact virulence of Omicron is not well enough known at this point (between vaccinated and unvaccinated) to say definitively. And that rate of spread makes it a big deal.

Again, SARS-CoV-2 bears little resemblance to a seasonal flu, never has, and in my opinion, it won't behave the same way in coming years even after it becomes endemic in a year, or whatever it takes.


Yep, here in the US, these expenses don't exist. It's a miracle.

You took my quote out of context. My statement is that if you are FULLY VACCINATED, you have less chance of dying from COVID than dying from the flu. It significantly reduces chance of severe illness and death. Your numbers you presented is death rate to unvaccinated people. Death rate of the vaccinated is lower than death rate from the flu.

 

[bhzmark]

The doctors know they have to prescribe something ….

In India doctors are expected to give some medicine whether it is useful or not. Doctors routinely prescribe antibiotics for common viral colds, for eg. In cases like Covid, where it could potentially turn serious if a doctor does not give *some* medicine, they will be blamed and could face the wrath of family members.

its just prudent to prescribe something, anything …

Or they do studies on early treatment and those people were in this study. What's funny is the people who dismiss even investigating early treatment.

 

[FloridaSun]

Yeah, fewer deaths and better economic outcomes. What's the downside again? Oh, right, you want to sacrifice as many lives as possible for the "economy", even if it doesn't result in a better economy. Sweden had more than 5 times the number of deaths per million than Finland and Norway. 5 times. Think about that.

Try to stick to the topic of Sweden vs it's neighbors since that's a more valid apples to apples comparison. Florida has the benefit of a climate conducive to more outdoor activities, though they still managed to have an extremely high spike in infection rates, higher per capita infections than even NY.

The climate has nothing to do with it. Everyone is indoors in summer because it's way too hot.. We had tons of cases in summer but deaths were much lower than other states. Florida is one of the highest populated states and yet, we are only #18 in deaths per million residents while we had very high infection numbers. Deaths are lower because of better herd immunity. Do you have any other explanation why Florida has lower death per million than virtually all the states that locked down? We did NOT have less cases per million residents, just less deaths.. I'd like to hear the theories why less COVID patients die in Florida.
The real reason is a combination of vaccinations and natural immunity due to previously contracting it.

 

[FloridaSun]

Or they do studies on early treatment
View attachment 758439

I took vitamin C, D and Zinc prior to getting my shots. All those are immune system boosters.

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

You took my quote out of context. My statement is that if you are FULLY VACCINATED, you have less chance of dying from COVID than dying from the flu.

FULLY VACCINATED = 2 doses
UP TO DATE = 3 doses (atm), or not yet eligible for a booster.

You did not read my post, apparently. With Omicron, it’s a little early to say for sure (no one knows for certain right now exactly what is the death rate). But with the assumption it is 3x less severe than Delta (I've seen this estimate), your statement appears to be likely false. If you were boosted (meaning up to date on vaccinations, which is better than being fully vaccinated) your statement would very likely be true, at least with Omicron. As I said in my post…sigh. Even if Omicron is 5x less severe, the risk to a double-vaccinated non-boosted individual is still similar to influenza (depends on the influenza). I've posted the supporting data above.

——-
Re: Back to the risk of COVID in children

Risk for children, as far as I can tell; going to cover 5-17 separately from 0-4: I use cases, not infections.

Stats (some of these are lagged a bit but this is meant to be rough):
1) There are about 54 million children in the US age 5 to 17.
2) There have been 7.14 million cases in 5 to 17 age group. (So perhaps 25 million infections at most.)
3) Cumulative hospitalization rate is 70/100k, so this means a total of 70*540 = 37,800 hospitalizations in this group.
4) There have been 770 documented deaths in this 5-17 group.

So 1 in 188 diagnosed cases in the 5-17 group is hospitalized.
1 in 9300 cases dies in this 5-17 group. (1 in every 50 hospitalizations.)

Earlier I included 0-4 (20 million kids), which is a higher risk group. For 0-4, 1 in every 55 cases is hospitalized, and 1 in every 4500 dies (1 in every 80 hospitalizations)!

This data is all from the CDC. Again, it lags a bit.

For reference/comparison, there's the same number of people over 65 as there are between 5-17 (54 million). There have been 6 million cases in this group.

1.27 million hospitalizations (2351/100k). 1 in 5 cases hospitalized. 550k deaths. 1 in 11 cases dies.

Any errors, please point them out. I'm actually shocked how high it is for children. (But this is all consistent with about a 3x change in risk per decade.)

 

[Dave EV]

We had tons of cases in summer but deaths were much lower than other states. Florida is one of the highest populated states and yet, we are only #18 in deaths per million residents while we had very high infection numbers. Deaths are lower because of better herd immunity.

That makes no sense. Higher infections = higher hospitalizations = higher deaths. Only if Florida was somehow better at treating COVID than others would
higher infections = lower deaths.

Do you have any other explanation why Florida has lower death per million than virtually all the states that locked down? We did NOT have less cases per million residents, just less deaths.. I'd like to hear the theories why less COVID patients die in Florida.

Yeah - early on Florida fired and then arrested the data scientist responsible for keeping track of COVID data because she refused to manipulate the data to make it looks like Florida was doing better than it actually was. It's highly likely that Florida has been fudging the numbers ever since. One should look at the excess deaths analytics in Florida to try to figure out how that compares to other states.

 

[NikolaACDC]

Do you have any other explanation why Florida has lower death per million than virtually all the states that locked down? We did NOT have less cases per million residents, just less deaths.. I'd like to hear the theories why less COVID patients die in Florida.

Because the gulf states were hogging the supply of monoclonal antibodies to treat all the people that ended up in the hospital

Nation Short On Supply Of Key Covid Treatment—Desperate States Told To Reduce Requests
"The HHS spoke with public health leaders from seven Southern states last week asking them to reduce their orders of monoclonal antibody treatments by about 30% due to limited supply, the official told Forbes over the phone.
These seven states, which the official could not immediately name but said are located along the Gulf Coast, are facing some of the U.S.’s most severe Covid-19 outbreaks and have been utilizing about 70% of the nation’s distribution of monoclonal antibodies to help reduce hospitalizations in their already overburdened healthcare systems."

Sure must be nice when other people get to pay for the results of your careless behavior
Monoclonal Antibody Treatment for COVID-19: What to Know
"The cost of Regeneron’s two-drug cocktail is $1,250 per infusion, according to Kaiser Health News. The federal government currently covers this.
Compare this to the cost of a single dose of the COVID-19 vaccine — about $20 — which is also covered right now by the federal government.
The cost of GSK’s and Vir’s monoclonal antibody costs about $2,100 per infusion. This is covered by a combination of government payments, reimbursements, and GSK’s copay program, reports USA Today."

 

[JRP3]

The climate has nothing to do with it. Everyone is indoors in summer because it's way too hot.. We had tons of cases in summer but deaths were much lower than other states.

Florida had two things going for it, covid was initially late getting there and when it did the climate still allowed many activities including tourism to happen outdoors. I guess you're unfamiliar with the beaches and outdoor bars and restaurants, as well as amusement parks, which drive a lot of business to Florida? Florida also has well publicized questionable reporting practices. By getting hit with covid later Florida was able to take advantage of the many treatments that had been developed to lower death rates which were not available to the states which were hit early. However even with all those advantages Florida still managed to have worse per capita cases AND deaths than the majority of states, including California.

Florida is one of the highest populated states and yet, we are only #18 in deaths per million residents while we had very high infection numbers. Deaths are lower because of better herd immunity. Do you have any other explanation why Florida has lower death per million than virtually all the states that locked down? We did NOT have less cases per million residents, just less deaths.. I'd like to hear the theories why less COVID patients die in Florida.
The real reason is a combination of vaccinations and natural immunity due to previously contracting it.

I explained above why Florida had lower death rates than SOME states, though worse than the MAJORITY. Your claim that Florida had better protection because of herd immunity falls flat since your infection per capita was the 6th worst in the country. That's not immunity in the least.

 

[ohmman]

Moderator Note: 5 posts moved away to Politics Quarantine. While some involvement of politics is likely on this topic, getting into ideological discussions would be a distraction and doesn't comply with the Forum Rules.

Thanks for understanding.

 

[EVNow]

Or they do studies on early treatment and those people were in this study. What's funny is the people who dismiss even investigating early treatment.

Link to the study with numbers we can see ?

Absolutely no issue investigating early treatment. Ready for inhaling Hydrogen Peroxide ?

Besides - the reality on the ground is the doctors will prescribe whatever they can - even if its just some vitamins. They don't want to get beaten up if the patient dies.

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

Or they do studies on early treatment and those people were in this study. What's funny is the people who dismiss even investigating early treatment.
View attachment 758439

I certainly hope this treatment may be potentially beneficial in this observational trial on mild cases, however, even if it is, unfortunately it will not address the primary issue at hand, which is hospitalizations and death.

Everyone really, really wants something to work! Fortunately many therapies do help, a little, and are used all the time. Even if it takes a very high NTT, it’s still something. And now hopefully some targeted therapies will really help turn the tables, if they can be manufactured in sufficient quantities. And hopefully we’ll continue to get lucky with variants and there will indeed turn out to be a sustained tradeoff between virulence and transmission, and Omicron is not a “one-off.”