COVID-19 Megathread 6: Return of the Omicron

[GP270watch]

This Senator Cruz didn't live up to its guarantee. Where can we exchange it for a new one?

https://twitter.com/BadCOVID19Takes/status/1418179020412362755

 What a smarmy POS.

[Fargobison]

https://twitter.com/JuliaDavisNews/status/1418274325405241350

It is hard for some to make educated decisions when they have been lied to for months on end about this thing. So many outlets have given complete clowns like Alex Berenson and Charlie Kirk a megaphone.

[GP270watch]

https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1418333946639695882?s=20

 WOW

[Fargobison]

Literally every patient in the ICU with covid where I work is unvaccinated, each and everyone of them absolutely should have been. The intensivist that works here grilled our latest admit about what they were thinking, it just gets tough after all the phone calls we had to make to families who couldn't see their family member and would never see them again.

[Mr.Phips]

Literally every patient in the ICU with covid where I work is unvaccinated, each and everyone of them absolutely should have been. The intensivist that works here grilled our latest admit about what they were thinking, it just gets tough after all the phone calls we had to make to families who couldn't see their family member and would never see them again.

Very hard to feel sorry for these people.  They chose for this to happen by not getting vaccinated.  You can’t help those who refuse to help themselves.

[Calthrina950]

https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1418333946639695882?s=20

 WOW

I actually saw this segment when it aired, and I mentioned it the other day on here. I don't feel sorry for those people who have that kind of sentiment.

[Hammy]

Had to take an ibuprofen/acetaminophen (single dose 250mg/500mg) for a posture-induced tension headache. It was over 24h after the second dose by that point--what's the risk of the antibodies being suppressed? I had no pain reliever prior to either dose, and none after the first dose.

[Kamala's side hoe]

I have posted this elsewhere:

http://generational-theory.com/forum/thread-6002-post-78058.html#pid78058

Some conclusions that I draw...
 
1. It may surprise many of us that Hispanic populations have overtaken non-Hispanic whites, let alone blacks, in life expectancy. That may reflect culture. Hispanic culture seems much more optimistic and life-affirming than the non-Hispanic mainstream.

(snark not related to this thread on Talk Elections)

2. So what causes the higher life expectancy among Hispanic-Americans despite being poorer as a whole? First, not smoking as much. The second-lowest state in the percentage of smokers is California, which has a surprisingly-large Mormon population (that is part of it; Utah is 51st among the States and the federal district in consumption of tobacco products, and California is a distant 50th), and Hispanics account for much of the low smoking rate in California. Not smoking offsets the effects of air pollution in infamously-smoggy L.A. Texas, which has some very poor populations as in states to its east from Oklahoma in the west to North Carolina and Georgia in the east, is below average in tobacco use and the states to its east are all above average. (Missouri, Kentucky, and West Virginia fit this pattern, too of poverty and heavy smoking). Texas Hispanics, largely Mexican-Americans, are really-light smokers. That explains much. Another factor is that Hispanics have more tightly-knit communities. One is not alone, which explains how Mexican-Americans were much less-likely than others to die during a heat wave in Chicago in 2015. Someone was looking out for elderly Hispanics to make sure that they had fans and could keep their windows open. Blacks and poor whites often got neglected... and died for that neglect.

3. The strengths of Hispanic communities depend upon them being close to each other. With COVID-19 that may have been too close in housing, let alone many workplaces (as in food-processing places in which many of them work) or in the hospitality business and retailing in which they see everyone, infected or not. COVID-19 ravaged Hispanics as it did not ravage non-Hispanic whites or even blacks. Non-Cuban Hispanics vote heavily Democratic irrespective of economic status, and if they endured a disproportionate number of deaths from COVID-19, then that made have made the 2020 vote closer in Arizona and Nevada than many of us expected.

On a related note...

I'm pretty sure most of the differences we see across racial groups are due to differences in average socioeconomic status and educational attainment. But there are still some interesting differences across racial groups, even after controlling for education.

1) Black Americans with post-secondary education have noticeably higher mortality rates than their White counterparts, while 2) Latinos have noticeably lower mortality rates than Whites and Blacks at every educational level. Meanwhile, 3) Asian/PI Americans' mortality rates resemble those of Latino Americans, but with drastically lower mortality rates at the Less-than-HS and postgraduate levels. (AIAN should be fairly obvious.)

I would attribute 1 to systemic anti-black racism within US society that contributes to increased stress among black Americans, and 2 to cultural factors that are peculiar to Hispanophone Latin America (strong family ties, celebratory attitude towards life and living) and their diaspora, although there might be some survivorship bias-like impact from the successful immigrant experience that persists for a couple generations?

3 is harder to explain, because idk why it would only apply to the least and most educated Asians/PIs. My best guess is that the relative recency of the Asian immigrant experience means that the "less than HS" Asian population is disproportionately elderly family reunification immigrants who live in multigenerational households with their adult children, while postgraduate educated immigrants tend to be more in touch their home countries' cultures, and likely to follow public health/social distancing protocol?

It's also possible that postgraduate Asians/PIs are more likely to work from home due to being less likely to be in clinical healthcare fields. But who knows.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

Literally every patient in the ICU with covid where I work is unvaccinated, each and everyone of them absolutely should have been. The intensivist that works here grilled our latest admit about what they were thinking, it just gets tough after all the phone calls we had to make to families who couldn't see their family member and would never see them again.

Very hard to feel sorry for these people.  They chose for this to happen by not getting vaccinated.  You can’t help those who refuse to help themselves.

What we can do is hold the mass-murdering scum that make up Republican leadership and Fox News accountable for the deaths their deliberate campaign of misinformation has led to.  That so many of their victims are their own cultists doesn't absolve them even a little bit.

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

https://twitter.com/DrewSav/status/1418235650101415943

I love drew!

Well, that is not exactly wrong. If there are renewed restrictions, the same idiots who ignored them earlier will also ignore them now.

However, it is effectively the same sort of argument as the argument that you should not bother voting (and voting for Democrats specifically), because even if you do vote for Democrats, and even if they do get a trifecta, they won't bother to do anything to stop "Republic"ans from rigging the electoral system (and the judicial system) in their favor, and consequently they won't be able to do anything regarding any policy issues in the future either, even if you continue to vote for them, and even if they suddenly changed to the point where they would actually do something if you did vote for them and if they did in the future actually manage to overcome all the obstacles that they previously (i.e. now) failed to eliminate that block them from doing anything - along with (probably/presumably) additional obstacles that "Republic"ans will probably add as soon as they re-gain power.

Likewise that appears not to be wrong either. It is also is essentially defeatist, and amounts to giving up. I can understand the impulse, but..... It is also like saying after Pearl Harbor that we may as well give up, because doing otherwise would be incredibly costly and difficult. And true, it was incredibly costly and difficult.

Or like saying at the start of the civil war that it is not worth bothering to keep the Union together and end the scourge of slavery, because the south would just continue to cause problems in the future (also not exactly wrong).

So you are advocating for lockdowns that still won't stop the spread ?

No, if you read my post I don't think I was advocating for any particular policy, but rather was simply noting that this particular reasoning for opposing lockdowns is kinda problematic.

I will say, however, that I think it is unfair to evaluate "lockdowns" as a policy in general by just looking at "lockdowns-as-practiced-in-USA-in-2020" and assuming that is the only possibility, especially when there are other parts of the world which had "lockdowns" that were much more successful.

Given this, obviously anyone would be a fool to advocate American-style lockdowns as a policy option. In truth though, all discussion of policy in the USA is kind of irrelevant and will be until fundamental structural issues are fixed, because the notion of "policy" presupposes having a functional government and rising to a basic level of social cohesion amongst the population.

And so as regards public health in general, the only viable "policy" I can see for the USA is to first alter the government so that it is possible to have functional public health policy in the first place, rather than make-believing that this is currently possible.

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

Had to take an ibuprofen/acetaminophen (single dose 250mg/500mg) for a posture-induced tension headache. It was over 24h after the second dose by that point--what's the risk of the antibodies being suppressed? I had no pain reliever prior to either dose, and none after the first dose.

I researched this briefly when I was taking the vaccine.

The most important thing to know is that when they did the vaccine trials, they had no restrictions on the use of pain relievers by people receiving the vaccines (and presumably a good # of people took one afterwards at varying points). So the high general vaccine efficacy found in studies is not assuming that you don't take any pain relievers.

However, there is some reason to believe that it is probably/logically a bit beneficial to delay taking pain relievers after taking the vaccine, based on some other vaccines being more effective if you do that. That is more likely to be the case with taking a pain reliever before (or potentially very soon after) taking the vaccine than if it is a longer time period. If there is such an effect though, it is also probably not that big in the first place.

So if you waited more than 24 hours, then you probably got the maximum possible benefit from your vaccine that you could realistically get.

[ProudModerate2]

https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1418333946639695882?s=20

 WOW

I actually saw this segment when it aired, and I mentioned it the other day on here. I don't feel sorry for those people who have that kind of sentiment.

I don't get tired watching it (over the last two/three days).
It's so captivating. I just sit and pause for a while, thinking that maybe I'm from another planet or maybe this patient must be.
It just does not compute at any level, and my brain is left stewing in Twilight-Zone-like confusion.
Absolutely amazing (in the worst possible way).

[Frodo]

U.S. Vaccine Panel Signals Support for Covid-19 Booster Shots

A panel of health experts advising the U.S. government on vaccines expressed preliminary support for giving Covid-19 boosters to immunocompromised people, but said they were waiting for regulatory action before making a formal recommendation.

A work group of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices panel also on Thursday endorsed the continued use of J&J’s vaccine, despite a recent warning about a low risk of a rare neurological disorder among people taking the shot.

The ACIP panel, which advises the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, develops recommendations for use of vaccines generally in the U.S. The committee is comprised of experts in infectious diseases, immunology and public health.

Its consideration of boosters came as evidence grows that Covid-19 vaccines are less effective among people with weakened immune systems than for the rest of the general population, increasing the risk of infection and severe disease.

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

Here's the CDC report:

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/vsrr/VSRR015-508.pdf

Nothing jumps out at me as an error. It seems that's just how it's calculated. I don't think there's an issue with reporting it. You've given the caveats. Covid deaths will likely decline so life expectancy will likely go back up.

This is unrelated to covid, but I never realized that Hispanics have a significantly higher life expectancy than white people across the board.  Prior to 2020, Hispanics lived an average of 3 years longer than whites, which is a pretty huge difference when you think about it.  I wonder why that is.

[ProudModerate2]

The surreal lives of Arkansas nurses fighting Covid-19 inside the hospital and denial on the outside.

Watch the attached video for a 7 minute summary of the article.
https://us.cnn.com/2021/07/22/us/arkansas-covid-nurse-vaccine/index.html

[GeorgiaModerate]

https://twitter.com/DavidBegnaud/status/1418409503578632195

[Inmate Trump]

https://twitter.com/DavidBegnaud/status/1418409503578632195

McConnell and DeSantis have been kinda pushing the vaccines more recently too.

Way to go, Republicans.  You're six months too late.

[pbrower2a]

There isn't a cure for the common cold and never was that's why we still in this Covid Recession, but people are taking it to the extreme, Doctors cannot cure the Common cold when you are at the Hospital, going to hospital over Covid, doesn't solve your problem

It has to do with your A1C level, high sugar levels maintain fevers

That's why injections and protein shots that are in the freezer and meds bring down your A1C levels to eradicate the virus

The same meds they use in IVs is I'm the Covid shot, so stop going to ICUs, I went one time and that was it

This is abstruse medical information, and if so it surely has peer-reviewed material documenting that.  It does not make sense. I see much deprecation of sugars and starches as food sources for sundry reasons.

It would obviously be tempting to give sugars to people with colds to fend off the lethargy... but note well that protein shots are not vaccinations.

As soon as COVID-19 became a threat I made sure to get a flu shot so that I would not have a flu that might cause me to have a hospital stay in a time in which hospitals might become slaughterhouses for COVID-19. I know well how many stupid people are out there. Think of alcoholics, dopers, smokers, and speeders.

Give credit where it is due to the pharmaceutical industry for developing safe and effective vaccines fast... and to government for ensuring that people don't even have the excuse of cost or inconvenience for not getting inoculated. Side effects? I got flu-like symptoms, chest pains, and diarrhea after my first inoculation in February, which indicated  that

(1) I had done a good job of avoiding COVID-19,
(2) I would have had a rough time with COVID-19, and
(3) getting the inoculation was a very good idea.

I have a pre-existing condition in an auto-immune disorder, even if it is 'only' psoriasis.

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

If you thought that Republicans were dumb before, just wait until the Delta variant plows through the remaining Republican unvaccinated population.

Cognitive deficits in people who have recovered from COVID-19
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/eclinm/article/PIIS2589-5370(21)00324-2/fulltext

Abstract

Background

There is growing concern about possible cognitive consequences of COVID-19, with reports of ‘Long COVID’ symptoms persisting into the chronic phase and case studies revealing neurological problems in severely affected patients. However, there is little information regarding the nature and broader prevalence of cognitive problems post-infection or across the full spread of disease severity.

Methods

We sought to confirm whether there was an association between cross-sectional cognitive performance data from 81,337 participants who between January and December 2020 undertook a clinically validated web-optimized assessment as part of the Great British Intelligence Test, and questionnaire items capturing self-report of suspected and confirmed COVID-19 infection and respiratory symptoms.

Findings

People who had recovered from COVID-19, including those no longer reporting symptoms, exhibited significant cognitive deficits versus controls when controlling for age, gender, education level, income, racial-ethnic group, pre-existing medical disorders, tiredness, depression and anxiety. The deficits were of substantial effect size for people who had been hospitalised (N = 192), but also for non-hospitalised cases who had biological confirmation of COVID-19 infection (N = 326). Analysing markers of premorbid intelligence did not support these differences being present prior to infection. Finer grained analysis of performance across sub-tests supported the hypothesis that COVID-19 has a multi-domain impact on human cognition.

Interpretation

Interpretation. These results accord with reports of ‘Long Covid’ cognitive symptoms that persist into the early-chronic phase. They should act as a clarion call for further research with longitudinal and neuroimaging cohorts to plot recovery trajectories and identify the biological basis of cognitive deficits in SARS-COV-2 survivors.

The size of the cognitive deficits they found seem to correlate pretty strongly with severity of symptoms, but they found negative effects even for mild symptoms.

Discussion
Our analyses provide converging evidence to support the hypothesis that COVID-19 infection is associated with cognitive deficits that persist into the recovery phase. The observed deficits varied in scale with respiratory symptom severity, related to positive biological verification of having had the virus even amongst milder cases, could not be explained by differences in age, education or other demographic and socioeconomic variables, remained in those who had no other residual symptoms and was of greater scale than common pre-existing conditions that are associated with virus susceptibility and cognitive problems.

The scale of the observed deficit was not insubstantial; the 0.47 SD global composite score reduction for the hospitalized with ventilator sub-group was greater than the average 10-year decline in global performance between the ages of 20 to 70 within this dataset. It was larger than the mean deficit of 480 people who indicated they had previously suffered a stroke (−0.24SDs) and the 998 who reported learning disabilities (−0.38SDs). For comparison, in a classic intelligence test, 0.47 SDs equates to a 7-point difference in IQ.

So .47 standard deviations = 7 points of IQ



7 IQ points lost if on a ventilator. Nearly 4 if you are hospitalized but not put on a ventilator, and lesser but clearly measurable amounts of IQ loss are to be expected if you get even mild symptoms (maybe a point or two on average).

So, the population is going to be getting dumber the more that people keep getting infected. That will be especially the case among Republicans, given the low vaccination rate of Republicans. So average Republican intelligence is going to drop (and has been dropping throughout the pandemic). Unfortunately, the same is true for non-Republicans also, but to a lesser extent (due to higher levels of vaccination).

[GP270watch]

Here's the CDC report:

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/vsrr/VSRR015-508.pdf

Nothing jumps out at me as an error. It seems that's just how it's calculated. I don't think there's an issue with reporting it. You've given the caveats. Covid deaths will likely decline so life expectancy will likely go back up.

This is unrelated to covid, but I never realized that Hispanics have a significantly higher life expectancy than white people across the board.  Prior to 2020, Hispanics lived an average of 3 years longer than whites, which is a pretty huge difference when you think about it.  I wonder why that is.

Fiber.

  Experts have tried to say it's a combo of less smoking, less drinking, and more social interaction but numerous studies have tried to account for this and still find the so called "Latino paradox". I think it's simple as diet and the fiber that many Latinos eat across different cultures from beans, corn, fruits and vegetables, yams and roots like yucca. The Latino diets have more fiber and it has positive health benefits, even though Latinos are poorer and have higher obesity even the Latinos who are in poor chronic health live longer than their White and Black countrymen.

[GeorgiaModerate]

For months, conservative Nashville, Tennessee-based radio host Phil Valentine has repeatedly made posts on multiple social media platforms telling his fans that if they weren't at risk for Covid-19, they shouldn't get the vaccine.

That message changed on July 23, when the Valentine family made a public statement on the Facebook page of his talk radio station's Facebook page.

"Phil contracted the Covid virus a little over a week ago and has since been hospitalized and is in very serious condition, suffering from Covid Pneumonia and the attendant side effects," the family statement reads, which emphasizes that Valentine has never been an anti-vaxxer. "(Phil) regrets not being more vehemently 'Pro-Vaccine' and looks forward to being able to more vigorously advocate that position as soon as he is back on the air, which we all hope will be soon."

https://www.cnn.com/2021/07/23/us/radio-host-vaccine-trnd/index.html

[It’s so Joever]

If you thought that Republicans were dumb before, just wait until the Delta variant plows through the remaining Republican unvaccinated population.

Cognitive deficits in people who have recovered from COVID-19
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/eclinm/article/PIIS2589-5370(21)00324-2/fulltext

Abstract

Background

There is growing concern about possible cognitive consequences of COVID-19, with reports of ‘Long COVID’ symptoms persisting into the chronic phase and case studies revealing neurological problems in severely affected patients. However, there is little information regarding the nature and broader prevalence of cognitive problems post-infection or across the full spread of disease severity.

Methods

We sought to confirm whether there was an association between cross-sectional cognitive performance data from 81,337 participants who between January and December 2020 undertook a clinically validated web-optimized assessment as part of the Great British Intelligence Test, and questionnaire items capturing self-report of suspected and confirmed COVID-19 infection and respiratory symptoms.

Findings

People who had recovered from COVID-19, including those no longer reporting symptoms, exhibited significant cognitive deficits versus controls when controlling for age, gender, education level, income, racial-ethnic group, pre-existing medical disorders, tiredness, depression and anxiety. The deficits were of substantial effect size for people who had been hospitalised (N = 192), but also for non-hospitalised cases who had biological confirmation of COVID-19 infection (N = 326). Analysing markers of premorbid intelligence did not support these differences being present prior to infection. Finer grained analysis of performance across sub-tests supported the hypothesis that COVID-19 has a multi-domain impact on human cognition.

Interpretation

Interpretation. These results accord with reports of ‘Long Covid’ cognitive symptoms that persist into the early-chronic phase. They should act as a clarion call for further research with longitudinal and neuroimaging cohorts to plot recovery trajectories and identify the biological basis of cognitive deficits in SARS-COV-2 survivors.

The size of the cognitive deficits they found seem to correlate pretty strongly with severity of symptoms, but they found negative effects even for mild symptoms.

Discussion
Our analyses provide converging evidence to support the hypothesis that COVID-19 infection is associated with cognitive deficits that persist into the recovery phase. The observed deficits varied in scale with respiratory symptom severity, related to positive biological verification of having had the virus even amongst milder cases, could not be explained by differences in age, education or other demographic and socioeconomic variables, remained in those who had no other residual symptoms and was of greater scale than common pre-existing conditions that are associated with virus susceptibility and cognitive problems.

The scale of the observed deficit was not insubstantial; the 0.47 SD global composite score reduction for the hospitalized with ventilator sub-group was greater than the average 10-year decline in global performance between the ages of 20 to 70 within this dataset. It was larger than the mean deficit of 480 people who indicated they had previously suffered a stroke (−0.24SDs) and the 998 who reported learning disabilities (−0.38SDs). For comparison, in a classic intelligence test, 0.47 SDs equates to a 7-point difference in IQ.

So .47 standard deviations = 7 points of IQ



7 IQ points lost if on a ventilator. Nearly 4 if you are hospitalized but not put on a ventilator, and lesser but clearly measurable amounts of IQ loss are to be expected if you get even mild symptoms (maybe a point or two on average).

So, the population is going to be getting dumber the more that people keep getting infected. That will be especially the case among Republicans, given the low vaccination rate of Republicans. So average Republican intelligence is going to drop (and has been dropping throughout the pandemic). Unfortunately, the same is true for non-Republicans also, but to a lesser extent (due to higher levels of vaccination).

I’ve always wondered what a negative IQ would look like. Luckily for us, we will get some real World evidence.

[DaleCooper]

Chicago schools are said to be mandating masks for everyone whether vaccinated or not. This will probably be the norm in all Democratic cities, I'm guessing.

[jamestroll]

The St. Louis City and County mask mandate places me in an awkward situation.

I alway have pushed for common sense measures like masks when they were needed and today vaccinations. If I am pushing for the economy to be open I also need to support the measures that will allow it.  Therefore, I am not opposed to mask mandates in crowded venues.

However, I am also worried of the back lash. St. Louis County has county level elections in 2022 and the Democratic Party is on life support in Missouri and could lose further legislative seats in St. Louis County, MO..

I also fear its a slippery slope back into closing schools and businesses down again in the winter.

[Bandit3 the Worker]

Chicago schools are said to be mandating masks for everyone whether vaccinated or not.

How do they expect to enforce this?