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On January 17 2022 15:59 Geisterkarle wrote: Because there are some "inconsistancies" with Djokovic' Covid tests, I basically support the Australian decision.
But on the other hand, for a while now I'm a little bit "pissed" about the treatment of people that got Covid! All our experience of infections in the past and also current research with Covid tells us, that people that recovered are quite safe and have antibodies and so on. And still, they are treated as "second rate people" with Covid! "You got your vaccination January 2021? You are treated as vaccinated now in January 2022." "You got Covid in January 2021 and recovered? Well, since July you are nothing! Get a shot!" Or currently at least here in Germany (and probably in other countries too) for a lot of things you have be tested on top of your vaccination ... or you already got your booster shot! If you did that, you don't have to test for everything. "What? You are vaccinated and got Covid anyway? Sorry, that is not a "booster", get a test!" And in addition to that I learned "What, you got Covid and want to get your booster, because you don't want to test everywhere? No! You have to wait 3 months after your infection for that! Have fun with your tests!"
So, overall, I don't like this "be vaccinated" and ignoring anyone that recovered from Covid! And Australia basically does that with their travel restrictions. So I can't support them too much!
I see the major justification being the fact that vaccinated folks are much less likely to need hospital care when they get omicron. Fundamentally, the biggest problem we face right now is Omicron destroying our medical systems. People are missing out on cancer treatments because you die from breathing issues sooner than you die from cancer. We are creating a ton of death as a result of treating unvaccinated covid patients. This is worth punishing. This is not a personal decision anymore when we have tons of data showing unvaccinated people are the reason our hospitals are overwhelmed.
I wouldn't have a problem with this line of reasoning if we plotted more risks factors than vaccination status, or we if we did for all diseases.
30 yo perfect health unvaxed vs 30 yo obese vaxed, who is at bigger risk from covid? How about who is a bigger risk for the health care system at all? 30 yo unvaxed vs 60 yo fat ? etc etc
It's just arbitrary to discriminate on one variable about one disease.
The obsession with vaccination for this particular disease is just odd to me, seems like scape goating more than anything, specially with how high vaccination is on most western countries already.
We should strive to be a society that can accommodate as many people's problems/illnesses as possible. We were not anywhere near this bad of a situation before covid. There is no reason to stop giving life saving surgeries to fat people when there are plenty of doctors available to do it. That's the basic premise of triage. All of this was still true before covid.
It is not arbitrary. Arbitrary is defined as "Determined by chance, whim, or impulse, and not by necessity, reason, or principle"
Here is a chart showing relative hospitalization by age and vax status
This is a very huge disparity. This is not arbitrary. This is based on the fact that people are making a conscious decision to be vaccinated and subsequently preventing someone from having life saving surgery for cancer or some other illness that kills people in months rather than days. We have no reason to go down this whataboutism rabbit hole when we have an extremely clear case right in front of us.
The graphs in your link really show just how stupid some people with power are about the booster. As someone that will be coerced into getting the booster sometime over the next 2 weeks by decree of our glorious leader Gavin Newsom, let's look at my benefit of getting boosted vs just being double vaccinated.
According to graphs in your source based on the population of Alberta, double vaccinated people aged 12-40 have a rate of ICU admission of 0.0 per 100,000 and a rate of death of 0.0 per 100,000.
But that data was from when Delta was the dominant strain. Now Omicron is the dominant strain. The Kaiser/CDC study I posted 4 pages ago suggests Omicron has 74% less risk of ICU admission and 91% less risk of death. So 91% less risk of death than 0.0 per 100,000. Hmm....
Sure you may ask "But what about your civic duty to your fellow person to get a booster so that you don't contract COVID and infect others?"
We have seen the vaccines are pretty trash at preventing infection, especially with this Omicron variant. In Israel where they are studying a 4th shot they found even a 4th shot is not enough to significantly stop the Omicron variant.
A fourth shot of Covid-19 vaccine boosts antibodies to even higher levels than the third jab but it is not enough to prevent Omicron infections, according to a preliminary study in Israel.
The vaccines led to a increase in the number of antibodies “even a little bit higher than what we had after the third dose,” said Regev-Yochay, director of the infectious diseases unit.
“Yet, this is probably not enough for the omicron,” she told reporters. “We know by now that the level of antibodies needed to protect and not to got infected from Omicron is probably too high for the vaccine, even if it’s a good vaccine.”
So a booster isn't likely to do much to prevent me from getting COVID and it's not going to do much to prevent me from becoming seriously ill or dying because I already have good protection from that... so what's the rationale then? What's the rationale for forcing college kids to be triple vaxxed if they want to keep attending their university? Frankly, I don't think there is one. This is probably why members of the FDA advisory panel on vaccines resigned in protest when Biden first started pushing boosters last Summer.
On January 18 2022 01:48 Geisterkarle wrote: Ok, my "recovered rant" got the better of reality!
Germany actually said, that "recovered" is just "good" for 3(THREE) months! Why? Because... Omicron!? So, if you get infected with omicron right now, your "recovered" state is invalid in 3 month because ... probably still Omicron around!??? What the hell is this shit? (sorry, I can't use any less language...) Also I can't find it's complete source, but in another forum someone quoted something/-one (https://community.rejoined.de/t/coronavirus/38/680 - German), that many people that are recovered are not vaccinated, so this is just a further push to get more vaccinations going! So if that is true, there is no real scientific reason that recovered are more likely to get another infection or have dangerous sideeffects if they get it; it is just politics! To repeat myself: What the hell is this shit?
I clicked tagesschau.de, searched for omicron and found the article (German) in like 20 seconds. You can also look up why the decision was taken on the RKI website. I'll help you out and quote it for you + Show Spoiler [in German again] +
Die Dauer des Genesenenstatus wurde von 6 Monate auf 90 Tage reduziert, da die bisherige wissenschaftliche Evidenz darauf hindeutet, dass Ungeimpfte nach einer durchgemachten Infektion einen im Vergleich zur Deltavariante herabgesetzten und zeitlich noch stärker begrenzten Schutz vor einer erneuten Infektion mit der Omikronvariante haben. (1) (2) (3)
(1) Neil Ferguson, Azra Ghani, Wes Hinsley and Erik Volz. Hospitalisation risk for Omicron cases in England. Imperial College London (22-12-2021)
(2) UK Health Security Agency: SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern and variants under investigation in England. Technical briefing 34
(3) Wissenschaftliche Begründung der STIKO für die Empfehlung zur Verkürzung des Impfabstands zwischen Grundimmunisierung bzw. Infektion und Auffrischimpfung auf einen Zeitraum ab 3 Monaten
Diese Vorgaben werden regelmäßig überprüft und können sich gemäß Stand der Wissenschaft ändern.
The gist is, that the RKI currently sees scientific evidence tantamout to omicron giving less and shorter protection against all variants. Two English sources in the spoiler above. Given a change in scientific evidence, the guidance will be amended.
Please, do not rely on what others have written in another forum, especially if it's a hot topic and government guidance is easily accessible.
Actually, in the second source there is a table (3) that shows, that vaccinated without booster had worse protection than someone without vaccination but recovered!
Maybe the unlinked first source has something with time. But for now I don't see anything that shows that recovered is invalid 3 month after infection. It basically "just" shows that unvaccinated recovered is worse than vaccinated recovered. And that is prior Omicron! That only looks at Delta -> Omicron. Why someone _now_ infected with Omicron should have a high chance to get Omicron again in 3months ... I'm not sure if there are people out there, that we could look at!
Sorry, don't buy it!
Also, because I look at that mentioned table: Someone with Booster has basically the same protection as someone recovered with "only" two shots. So I'm back to: Why does that not count as a "booster"? Because numbers here show, it does!
Dr. John Campbell does excellent job in describing the whole situation from different angles since the while Covid thing started, he's using hard science and data. Could be very helpful on topic
On January 18 2022 19:07 Geisterkarle wrote: Actually, in the second source there is a table (3) that shows, that vaccinated without booster had worse protection than someone without vaccination but recovered!
Maybe the unlinked first source has something with time. But for now I don't see anything that shows that recovered is invalid 3 month after infection. It basically "just" shows that unvaccinated recovered is worse than vaccinated recovered. And that is prior Omicron! That only looks at Delta -> Omicron. Why someone _now_ infected with Omicron should have a high chance to get Omicron again in 3months ... I'm not sure if there are people out there, that we could look at!
Sorry, don't buy it!
Also, because I look at that mentioned table: Someone with Booster has basically the same protection as someone recovered with "only" two shots. So I'm back to: Why does that not count as a "booster"? Because numbers here show, it does!
The error bars are also gigantic on that table, with a 95% CI of 4-67% for unvax'd, -6%-57% for 2 dosed with no prior infection.
top trending story on reddit today, the title reads "Omicron is not that mild: 50,000 to 300,000 more US deaths projected by March: COVID-19 updates"
For anyone getting complacent about the coronavirus because the now-dominant omicron variant typically causes less-severe disease than previous strains, here's a sobering thought: 50,000 to 300,000 more Americans may die of COVID-19 before the current surge ebbs in mid-March.
Up to 300,000 more dead by mid-March. That's roughly 60 days from now. So up to 5,000 deaths a day every day for the next 60 days. Yet we haven't even hit 5,000 in a single day at the peak of Delta... So now we are going to break that record for 60 days straight? lol
Why do so many people have to be so stupid. It seems like half of people believe that COVID is a hoax by China to get Trump out of office and the other half just want to stroke their dicks to the fear porn the media sells to them without even questioning if it makes any sense. Where have all the sane people gone??
For anyone getting complacent about the coronavirus because the now-dominant omicron variant typically causes less-severe disease than previous strains, here's a sobering thought: 50,000 to 300,000 more Americans may die of COVID-19 before the current surge ebbs in mid-March.
Up to 300,000 more dead by mid-March. That's roughly 60 days from now. So up to 5,000 deaths a day every day for the next 60 days. Yet we haven't even hit 5,000 in a single day at the peak of Delta... So now we are going to break that record for 60 days straight? lol
Why do so many people have to be so stupid. It seems like half of people believe that COVID is a hoax by China to get Trump out of office and the other half just want to stroke their dicks to the fear porn the media sells to them without even questioning if it makes any sense. Where have all the sane people gone??
Its exactly what they told us in the UK when we had the massive omicron wave. A week later they were like "................"
One possible scenario for Norway suggested between 90k and 300k daily infections. We have 5.5 million inhabitants. Since then we've had a massive surge, peaking at 15k in one day.
Why do so many people have to be so stupid. It seems like half of people believe that COVID is a hoax by China to get Trump out of office and the other half just want to stroke their dicks to the fear porn the media sells to them without even questioning if it makes any sense. Where have all the sane people gone??
Replace the Corona with almost any issue and it stays the same. I have no idea, my own friends circle is largely no different sadly.
For anyone getting complacent about the coronavirus because the now-dominant omicron variant typically causes less-severe disease than previous strains, here's a sobering thought: 50,000 to 300,000 more Americans may die of COVID-19 before the current surge ebbs in mid-March.
Up to 300,000 more dead by mid-March. That's roughly 60 days from now. So up to 5,000 deaths a day every day for the next 60 days. Yet we haven't even hit 5,000 in a single day at the peak of Delta... So now we are going to break that record for 60 days straight? lol
Why do so many people have to be so stupid. It seems like half of people believe that COVID is a hoax by China to get Trump out of office and the other half just want to stroke their dicks to the fear porn the media sells to them without even questioning if it makes any sense. Where have all the sane people gone??
Our news orgs in the US are really irresponsible. I dont know if its the people doing the work not being trained or the higher ups demanding clickbate/ratings or a combination of both.
Im so turned off by the media just reporting on problems with limited or no details and then offering up no details on potential solutions or what solutions are being investigated. I know they dont want to be seen as advocates for specific solutions but there needs to be a line drawn somewhere. You telling me about ice shelfs in the artic, natural disasters, wars, poverty, etc does nothing for me if no solution is offered or discussed. It just makes me feel helpless.
I personally can do nothing about the conflict in Ukraine other than vote in every election. It does not help me to stress the fuck out about possible ww3 in headlines when I can do nothing with this information but raise my bloodpressure.
top trending story on reddit today, the title reads "Omicron is not that mild: 50,000 to 300,000 more US deaths projected by March: COVID-19 updates"
For anyone getting complacent about the coronavirus because the now-dominant omicron variant typically causes less-severe disease than previous strains, here's a sobering thought: 50,000 to 300,000 more Americans may die of COVID-19 before the current surge ebbs in mid-March.
Up to 300,000 more dead by mid-March. That's roughly 60 days from now. So up to 5,000 deaths a day every day for the next 60 days. Yet we haven't even hit 5,000 in a single day at the peak of Delta... So now we are going to break that record for 60 days straight? lol
Why do so many people have to be so stupid. It seems like half of people believe that COVID is a hoax by China to get Trump out of office and the other half just want to stroke their dicks to the fear porn the media sells to them without even questioning if it makes any sense. Where have all the sane people gone??
Our news orgs in the US are really irresponsible. I dont know if its the people doing the work not being trained or the higher ups demanding clickbate/ratings or a combination of both.
Im so turned off by the media just reporting on problems with limited or no details and then offering up no details on potential solutions or what solutions are being investigated. I know they dont want to be seen as advocates for specific solutions but there needs to be a line drawn somewhere. You telling me about ice shelfs in the artic, natural disasters, wars, poverty, etc does nothing for me if no solution is offered or discussed. It just makes me feel helpless.
I personally can do nothing about the conflict in Ukraine other than vote in every election. It does not help me to stress the fuck out about possible ww3 in headlines when I can do nothing with this information but raise my bloodpressure.
The situation in Ukraine is all kinds of fucked up, but it isn't true that you cannot do anything about it other than vote every 4 years. You can write to your representatives to put pressure on NATO to help Ukraine (or refrain from helping if you think Russia should just invade without repercussions). You can go out into the street and protest in front of the Russian embassy. You can go out into the street and protest in front of the White House, Congress, or wherever else you want, preferrably in an organized group to make your voice heard.
Similarly, you can't do anything about the tsunami in Tonga. But you can donate to the red cross or any other organization that is there to provide emergency relief. You could plan your next holiday to Tonga to either relax on the beach and spend in the local economy, or a working holiday to help rebuild houses, etc.
To lower the chance of various environmental collapses in the future, you can also stop flying, eat local sustainably vegetarian food, use more bicycle and walking or public transport rather than a car, recycle your waste and reduce plastic consumption in general, switch off electronic devices when not in use and in general reduce reliance on electronic devices, etc. etc. to be more environmentally friendly (and not only your carbon footprint, but all pollutants).
Sure, every individual is merely an individual, but it isn't true you can't do anything with that information.
top trending story on reddit today, the title reads "Omicron is not that mild: 50,000 to 300,000 more US deaths projected by March: COVID-19 updates"
For anyone getting complacent about the coronavirus because the now-dominant omicron variant typically causes less-severe disease than previous strains, here's a sobering thought: 50,000 to 300,000 more Americans may die of COVID-19 before the current surge ebbs in mid-March.
Up to 300,000 more dead by mid-March. That's roughly 60 days from now. So up to 5,000 deaths a day every day for the next 60 days. Yet we haven't even hit 5,000 in a single day at the peak of Delta... So now we are going to break that record for 60 days straight? lol
Why do so many people have to be so stupid. It seems like half of people believe that COVID is a hoax by China to get Trump out of office and the other half just want to stroke their dicks to the fear porn the media sells to them without even questioning if it makes any sense. Where have all the sane people gone??
Our news orgs in the US are really irresponsible. I dont know if its the people doing the work not being trained or the higher ups demanding clickbate/ratings or a combination of both.
Im so turned off by the media just reporting on problems with limited or no details and then offering up no details on potential solutions or what solutions are being investigated. I know they dont want to be seen as advocates for specific solutions but there needs to be a line drawn somewhere. You telling me about ice shelfs in the artic, natural disasters, wars, poverty, etc does nothing for me if no solution is offered or discussed. It just makes me feel helpless.
I personally can do nothing about the conflict in Ukraine other than vote in every election. It does not help me to stress the fuck out about possible ww3 in headlines when I can do nothing with this information but raise my bloodpressure.
The situation in Ukraine is all kinds of fucked up, but it isn't true that you cannot do anything about it other than vote every 4 years. You can write to your representatives to put pressure on NATO to help Ukraine (or refrain from helping if you think Russia should just invade without repercussions). You can go out into the street and protest in front of the Russian embassy. You can go out into the street and protest in front of the White House, Congress, or wherever else you want, preferrably in an organized group to make your voice heard.
Similarly, you can't do anything about the tsunami in Tonga. But you can donate to the red cross or any other organization that is there to provide emergency relief. You could plan your next holiday to Tonga to either relax on the beach and spend in the local economy, or a working holiday to help rebuild houses, etc.
To lower the chance of various environmental collapses in the future, you can also stop flying, eat local sustainably vegetarian food, use more bicycle and walking or public transport rather than a car, recycle your waste and reduce plastic consumption in general, switch off electronic devices when not in use and in general reduce reliance on electronic devices, etc. etc. to be more environmentally friendly (and not only your carbon footprint, but all pollutants).
Sure, every individual is merely an individual, but it isn't true you can't do anything with that information.
This should be in every news story because they offer no solutions only problems.
The protesting bit or writing representatives sounds great but I have a job and a life and theres a new crisis every other day. I cannot solve these problems myself other than voting.
top trending story on reddit today, the title reads "Omicron is not that mild: 50,000 to 300,000 more US deaths projected by March: COVID-19 updates"
For anyone getting complacent about the coronavirus because the now-dominant omicron variant typically causes less-severe disease than previous strains, here's a sobering thought: 50,000 to 300,000 more Americans may die of COVID-19 before the current surge ebbs in mid-March.
Up to 300,000 more dead by mid-March. That's roughly 60 days from now. So up to 5,000 deaths a day every day for the next 60 days. Yet we haven't even hit 5,000 in a single day at the peak of Delta... So now we are going to break that record for 60 days straight? lol
Why do so many people have to be so stupid. It seems like half of people believe that COVID is a hoax by China to get Trump out of office and the other half just want to stroke their dicks to the fear porn the media sells to them without even questioning if it makes any sense. Where have all the sane people gone??
Our news orgs in the US are really irresponsible. I dont know if its the people doing the work not being trained or the higher ups demanding clickbate/ratings or a combination of both.
Im so turned off by the media just reporting on problems with limited or no details and then offering up no details on potential solutions or what solutions are being investigated. I know they dont want to be seen as advocates for specific solutions but there needs to be a line drawn somewhere. You telling me about ice shelfs in the artic, natural disasters, wars, poverty, etc does nothing for me if no solution is offered or discussed. It just makes me feel helpless.
I personally can do nothing about the conflict in Ukraine other than vote in every election. It does not help me to stress the fuck out about possible ww3 in headlines when I can do nothing with this information but raise my bloodpressure.
To be frank, aren't we stroking our dicks to the same type of fear, but using the different source and methods? Trying to be as inbiased as possible, not sure it works properly. And let's be honest "The lab leak" theory - when taken into account, it looks awfully realistic...even if by definition it looks like a script for one well known movie.
In the end we might get lucky once again with relatively harmless mutations, it could've been so much worse. Plot armor worked this time, but the next great filter might be not that lucky to us :D
WHO says ‘no evidence at all’ healthy kids need booster shots against COVID
World Health Organisation (WHO) chief scientist Soumya Swaminathan on Wednesday said there is “no evidence at all” that healthy children and adolescents need booster doses against the coronavirus disease (Covid-19).
Addressing a press conference, Swaminathan said that while there seems to be some waning of vaccine immunity over time against the rapidly spreading Omicron variant of the coronavirus, more research needs to be done to ascertain who needs booster doses.
“There is no evidence right now that healthy children or healthy adolescents need boosters,” she said. “No evidence at all.”
I wonder if it's a coincidence that the US/Germany are 2 countries leading the way to recommend boosters to children and pfizer/biontech are US/German companies.
World Health Organisation (WHO) chief scientist Soumya Swaminathan on Wednesday said there is “no evidence at all” that healthy children and adolescents need booster doses against the coronavirus disease (Covid-19).
Addressing a press conference, Swaminathan said that while there seems to be some waning of vaccine immunity over time against the rapidly spreading Omicron variant of the coronavirus, more research needs to be done to ascertain who needs booster doses.
“There is no evidence right now that healthy children or healthy adolescents need boosters,” she said. “No evidence at all.”
I wonder if it's a coincidence that the US/Germany are 2 countries leading the way to recommend boosters to children and pfizer/biontech are US/German companies.
Certainly not needed for Omicron. Once the Omicron vaccine is out, kids should get that.
Personal anecdote: My anti-vax cousin who got covid got covid again while traveling to mexico during this omicron peak, lol. Her and her all her kids got covid prior to the delta variant. Now they've all got covid again. Feel bad for her kids.
Putting aside the provocative headline and accusation, it's now becoming more common for mainstream media to post articles with contradictory messages of how mild or serious Omicron can be.
It's probably quite normal for scientists to strongly disagree with each other. But maybe the media should exercise more prudence in publishing what experts say, or give more balanced articles (rather than biased sounding headlines). I'm all for giving the public as much information as possible, but all this reporting is really causing confusion and risk misleading people.
People are happy to mislead themselves. While the media has many faults if people can’t actually read articles beyond the headline, or understand what a worst case scenario prediction is, there’s only so much much massaging of articles one can do.
Maybe it’s the bubble I inhabit and using this thread primarily to source things, I personally haven’t felt all that confused through the pandemic.
As it stands omicron doesn’t seem as serious as was feared, with the potential bonus side effect of widespread immunity from infection from a (relatively) benign variant.
Which is, well a good thing? People seem more intent to crow about who got it wrong rather than that central state of affairs. Especially people who themselves have been categorically wrong in almost all of their positions and intuitions thru this period in history
Some areas of the USA in particular are ready to just let it rip though, so we'll see in a month or two what the result of that will turn out to be.
On another note, it hasn't really been in the news much from what I've seen, but about 1/4 of staff from my India based coworkers are currently actively infected with covid. Might be a fluke, and I don't know if they had a party/gathering, but it's quietly running through the rest of the world too.
On January 20 2022 08:09 BlackJack wrote: WHO says ‘no evidence at all’ healthy kids need booster shots against COVID
World Health Organisation (WHO) chief scientist Soumya Swaminathan on Wednesday said there is “no evidence at all” that healthy children and adolescents need booster doses against the coronavirus disease (Covid-19).
Addressing a press conference, Swaminathan said that while there seems to be some waning of vaccine immunity over time against the rapidly spreading Omicron variant of the coronavirus, more research needs to be done to ascertain who needs booster doses.
“There is no evidence right now that healthy children or healthy adolescents need boosters,” she said. “No evidence at all.”
I wonder if it's a coincidence that the US/Germany are 2 countries leading the way to recommend boosters to children and pfizer/biontech are US/German companies.
Certainly not needed for Omicron. Once the Omicron vaccine is out, kids should get that.
Personal anecdote: My anti-vax cousin who got covid got covid again while traveling to mexico during this omicron peak, lol. Her and her all her kids got covid prior to the delta variant. Now they've all got covid again. Feel bad for her kids.
I'd feel much more sorry for the kids who are forced to stay home from school, wear face masks, and genereally not see anyone or do anything because of a disease that is harmless to them.
BBC piece dealing with misleading quotes and claims related to recent interview with Pfizer boss (which also polluted this very thread): https://www.bbc.com/news/59994912
In short: antivaxxers gonna antivaxx (lie, cheat and take out of context).