SARS-CoV-2 Coronavirus (COVID-19)

Got my 4th COVID vaccination April 12. The pharmacy said there were no 'free' shots, now $40, because of failure to pass the recent Biden budget. Having Medicare Part B, I got my shot for free.

I have been following the New York Times COVID map. So far, only New England has a widespread outbreak. But I understand the vaccine takes 3 weeks to reach peak protection.

Bob Wilson

 

the out break is among younger people who can't get a second booster.

the good news is that hospitalizations have been low.

the bad news is that they are now creeping up. the next few weeks will be important to watch.

philly has reinstated indoor mask mandates

 

I had been watching and came to similar conclusions. Remembering how Florida screwed up Omicron, I want to be prepped for the BA.2 wave.

Bob Wilson

 

cool, congrats on getting into a hospital without all the stupid gestapo crap.

hope she's cruising along post op now

 

it was a pretty bad flu. glad it's over.

 

Minor note on the 4th shot. There was a day or so of malaise which is not unexpected. There comes a time when a vaccination can lead to a side-effect as the body fights the vaccine.

Bob Wilson

 

agreed, we had it on mot of the shots.

cases and hospitalizations still climbing here, i hope hospitalizations top out before restrictions become necessary again.
half the hospitalized are vaccinated, hopefully deaths are being prevented.

 

Sad to see people are still so indignant about public health and/or being wrong. Every human struggles with safety compliance, it is a known phenomenon in epidemiology, but that's only supposed to result in lapses in safety and the not the total refusal and malicious compliance that comes from misinformation and fear-mongering.

"Looks like the medical industry is finally recognizing natural immunity." except natural immunity has always been recognized, it just wasn't worth the risk to hospitals when everyone was unvaccinated and transmission was peaking.

 

twas ever thus. if musk gets his hands on twitter, it will only get worse

 

It is hard for me to see how. The noise level is too high. Too many ‘cute’ posts and an absence of technical information.

Bob Wilson

 

it sounds like no censorship to me, no one gets banned, even if they yell fire in a crowed theater

 

Death by Lockdown | AIER

Increasing deaths not virus related.
.

 

"“Drugs, Suicide, and Crime: Empirical Estimates of the Human Toll of the Shutdown” by economists Audrey and Thomas Duncan cited empirical literature on the human toll of economic devastation."

There were studies cited there that looked into the health cost of unemployment and economic down turn. It is a well studies subject apparently. (A little rude to leave off her name) Maybe if we had better safety nets in place, we could have reduced that human toll some.

"This article forecasted more than 100,000 excess deaths due to drug overdoses, suicide, alcoholism, homicide, and untreated depression – all a result not of the virus but of policies of mandatory human separation, economic downturn, business and school closures, closed medical services, and general depression that comes with a loss of freedom and choice."

And what were the predicted death estimates from the virus itself? In the millions? We are approaching 1 million excessive deaths from the pandemic. Taking the forecast as is, that leaves the virus still having killed well over 8 times as many. Best evidence for the lock down being worse than the virus comes from 2020, during peak shut down, where deaths from COVID to other excess deaths might have been 1.23 to 1.

Looks bad for the shutdown side, but assumes COVID deaths wouldn't have gone higher without intervention. Not likely, but if it did stay at such levels, the numbers of dead and sick would have a negative impact on the economy, which would lead to excessive deaths still happening from those causes. Sweden couldn't avoid an economic downturn.

 

it's a tragedy on both sides. there is no perfect solution. yet.

the virus has wreaked havoc on the world. people who deny that usually have ulterior motives.

we were completely unprepared, and probably will be again

 

Dateline: November 2, 2020. More than 17 months ago.

And referring to its forecast article "Drugs, Suicide, and Crime: Empirical Estimates of the Human Toll of the Shutdown – March 28, 2020"

I.e. both articles are very seriously outdated now. And both pre-date the final reports showing that suicide actually went down in 2020, not up. Their forecasts got the direction of that item wrong.

How about something updated more recently, not just from something covering less than the first one-third of the pandemic?

 

Sorry, the date somehow missed me, tho I'd looked into the topic for some time but feared posting something that would raise accusations of left/right-isms & thus question validity. So ...
From the insurance industry relatively recently;

Mortality Crisis: Insurers See Rise In Non-COVID Deaths – InsuranceNewsNet

 

"Over the first three quarters of 2020, overall death claims for life insurance increased 14%, but over the first three quarters of 2021, the increase was 20%, according to Marianne Purushotham, LIMRA corporate vice president and head of data sciences. About 60% of those deaths were related to COVID"

A 20% increase is roughly in line with 2021's excess deaths reported by the CDC, which showed 22% for the full year (not just 9 months):



... though a bit of arithmetic on these figures suggests that closer 3/4ths of excess deaths in 2021 were from covid-19.

"Non-COVID death claims spanned the spectrum of causes, Purushotham said. ... Three causes of death were elevated – those related to diabetes, hypertension and kidney disease, she said. They are afflictions that require regular medical attention and maintenance, which were more difficult to access during the height of the pandemic.

“Some of this increase across non-COVID is coming from delays in getting medical treatment or care for existing conditions,” said Purushotham, cautioning that is an educated guess at this point. “People are afraid to go to their doctors, and they worsen their health by doing that.”"

That sounds roughly in line with other reports I've read, though a few more conditions with elevated rates may have been on those lists too.

"According to the CDC, in 2020:
• Life expectancy for the U.S. population in 2020 was 77 years, a decrease of 1.8 years from 2019. ...
• Nine of the 10 leading causes of death in 2020 remained the same as in 2019, although five causes switched rank. Heart disease and cancer remained the top two leading causes, and COVID-19 became the third leading cause of death in 2020."

 

it happened.

 

Twitter open source , and not censoring everyone they disagree with...

it's gonna hurt some feeling for sure, can't wait

 

wait, you mean decreasing everyone's livelihood, freedom, and happiness has a negative effect on their lives ? no way !

and there are still people that are begging their government to remove their freedoms again

it's crazy, but it's still happening