uziq
Member
+492|3423

Dilbert_X wrote:

OK five months, wow what a difference

Still doesn't take account of new variants which may need a different vaccine, so we're back to three months if we're lucky.
that's 5 months of protection using OLD vaccines against NEW variants.

BETTER treatments are on the way.

why are you so fucking miserable?

the WHO currently advise 'the vulnerable' against travelling because of the new variant..

because if you're healthy and have recently been jabbed, you are basically FINE as far as covid is concerned.

why don't you fucking cheer up and read a few scientific studies? you sound like a pathetic little child.

in the future we will literally have antiviral pills to take whenever we catch covid, as well as better-tailored vaccines.

JFC.
SuperJail Warden
Gone Forever
+634|3690
I don't want to be too nonchalant about COVID since it could still kill me and many others. But I hate this whole Omnicron scare. It feels like 9/11/War on Terror all over again. "We killed the Delta variant but COVID has a new leader: Omnicron"

Oh and skipping Xi in order to not offend the Chinese...bad show. Of course it wouldn't make a difference to a lot of pig people but even reasonable non-Chinese are going to be a irked by that. I could understand if COVID started in Saudi Arabia but the thing literally started in China. And China has shown like zero remorse. I can't argue too hard against someone who wants to see Chinese blood over COVID at the point.
https://i.imgur.com/xsoGn9X.jpg
DesertFox-
The very model of a modern major general
+794|6655|United States of America
Omicron is a profoundly unsexy letter. People were familiar with delta, at least.
unnamednewbie13
Moderator
+2,053|6742|PNW

Among the people making a big stink about that are rags like Newsmax and those who think the virus is a lie-rus.

It does beg to question exactly how common of a surname Xi is. According to wikipedia, it is not. NYP reports that Mu is a common surname that the WHO did not see fit to skip. If a letter of the Greek alphabet was Trump, they'd be infuriated if WHO didn't skip it. And tbh, WHO would probably skip it, without specifying openly that it was to specifically avoid offending Trump and Trumpers.

Mu to Omicron is still in alphabetical order. Order is maintained.
uziq
Member
+492|3423
so preliminary results and studies coming out of south africa paint this basic picture:

  • omicron is more infectious and might reinfect people more rapidly than previous variants (due to its level of variation).
  • all current vaccines are still effective against it (and better vaccines are possible; antivirals are being approved this winter).
  • it appears to cause less severe illness than delta at the moment, but the sample numbers are admittedly too small to conclude.


what was that i was saying about a potential new variant emerging that is way more infectious but not as deadly? people getting reinfected often by a 'mild' version of covid, thus giving them antibodies and immunity, is not exactly a nightmare scenario. of course, not having new variants or a fourth/fifth wave of covid would be ideal ... but there we are.

i notice dilbert isn't being so triumphal about this closed flights thing. the variant is practically everywhere and spreading at will. i thought banning flights as soon as we noticed a new variant would work?
Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,810|6076|eXtreme to the maX

uziq wrote:

what was that i was saying about a potential new variant emerging that is way more infectious but not as deadly? people getting reinfected often by a 'mild' version of covid, thus giving them antibodies and immunity,
Not terrific immunity if you keep getting reinfected is it?
Here a former state premier is triple vaccinated but so sick with Delta he can't talk.
i notice dilbert isn't being so triumphal about this closed flights thing. the variant is practically everywhere and spreading at will. i thought banning flights as soon as we noticed a new variant would work?
Thats the exact opposite of what I've repeatedly said - keep flights closed so when we notice a new variant its already been prevented from travelling.

Your observational and analytical skills are terrible.
If you're ever nominated to be an honorary STEM person I'm going to have to object.

Also I notice a lack of triumphalism in you, now that exactly what I predicted - the most mutated version so far coming out of Africa and immediately infecting the world thanks to excess travel and lack of compartmentalism - has transpired.

Last edited by Dilbert_X (2021-12-02 14:30:11)

Русский военный корабль, иди на хуй!
uziq
Member
+492|3423
vaccination could never stop you from becoming reinfected with an infectious disease, dilbert. the idea is that your body has sufficient immune resources to fight it off and stop it from becoming a serious illness. vaccines don't put a forcefield around all of your orifices or make yourself impermeable on a cellular level. the new strain seems to trigger a renewed immune response quicker than previous strains – which isn't necessarily a bad thing.

people are probably going to have an encounter with covid once every few years, like they do with a bout of cold or flu, for the rest of forever. the best you can do is take a vaccine and, yes, hope that you do catch a relatively mild strain that will prepare your immune system all the better for months/years ahead.

Here a former state premier is triple vaccinated but so sick with Delta he can't talk.
we have already established that delta is the worst version to get due to its vastly increased viral load. we aren't seeing that with omicron. we have already linked you, multiple times, large-scale data sets that show how many fully vaxxed people as a percentage grow seriously ill with delta variant, and you can see yourself that it is a tiny, tiny minority. but here you are once again, arguing from anecdote.

keep flights closed so when we notice a new variant its already been prevented from travelling.
but there will always be new variants, everywhere on the planet, at all times.

so that de facto means your best strategy is 'keep flights closed forever'. what happens when a highly successful new variant springs up in a london or a tokyo or even a melbourne? international flights to africa surely won't be a problem then. major cities tend to involve the movement of peoples from a wide region.

how many times do people have to drill this into you? flights and international travel, with all precautions, began to resume when nation x, y, and z reached widespread vaccination. which is surely sensible. because variants are NEVER going away. the idea we can take a 'preventative' measures and essentially extinguish nasty new variants in the cradle is mostly a total fantasy. that's not what serological analysis is for; it's there so we can get a good idea on where this thing is headed and to steer our own vaccine/public health efforts accordingly. but we are not in control of the virus's heading: that's Nature. nothing short of a smallpox-style total vaccine, of which we have devised about 4 in human history, is going to extinguish covid now.

you misunderstand how viruses work and the dynamics of this pandemic on about 3 different levels. it's really quite something.

Dilbert_X wrote:

Also I notice a lack of triumphalism in you, now that exactly what I predicted - the most mutated version so far coming out of Africa and immediately infecting the world thanks to excess travel and lack of compartmentalism - has transpired.
i'm not catastrophizing about omicron. that's because 'the most mutations' doesn't == the most deadly, the most lethal, the most vaccine-resistant, the most threatening, etc. only you make that rudimentary mistake of thinking 'more mutations' is a 'worse' version of covid. i'm waiting for the data to confirm the actual nature of the problem, neither triumphalist nor defeatist. amazing when you actually your eye on the science and not the news headlines, isn't it?

Last edited by uziq (2021-12-02 16:42:28)

uziq
Member
+492|3423
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/ … rial-finds

In a study published in the Lancet, researchers on the UK-based Cov-Boost trial measured immune responses in nearly 3,000 people who received one of seven Covid-19 boosters or a control jab two to three months after their second dose of either AstraZeneca or Pfizer vaccine.

Those boosted with Pfizer after two doses of AstraZeneca had antibody levels a month later nearly 25 times higher than controls. When the Pfizer booster was given following two Pfizer shots, antibody levels rose more than eightfold.

The most potent booster in the study was a full dose of the Moderna vaccine, which raised antibody levels 32-fold in the AstraZeneca group and 11-fold in the Pfizer group. When Moderna is used in the UK booster programme, it is given at a half-dose.

“These are remarkably effective immunological boosters, way above what is needed to prevent hospitalisation and death,” said Prof Saul Faust, the trial lead and director of the NIHR clinical research facility at University Hospital Southampton NHS Foundation Trust.
but dilbert has an anecdote about an ex-state premiere in australia so hold your horses, the lancet!
uziq
Member
+492|3423
in other news, russia has posted 810,000 excess deaths since the pandemic begun, but report their covid fatalities as 1/4 of this figure.

in october they had 3,000 excess deaths per day. if covid isn't killing them all off, something else very big and very serious is.

wasn't shahter in a persistent state of poor health? hope that guy is okay. sounds like a hellscape.
unnamednewbie13
Moderator
+2,053|6742|PNW

https://www.reddit.com/r/Damnthatsinter … ntivaxxer/

You know, the funny thing is that even if it was a face-to-face, the conversation would sound exactly the same, with the antivaxxer speaking over every response to get through their rehearsed spiel without getting thrown off their stride.
SuperJail Warden
Gone Forever
+634|3690
You've read the story about the German man who killed his three children and wife over a fake vaccine card?
https://i.imgur.com/xsoGn9X.jpg
unnamednewbie13
Moderator
+2,053|6742|PNW

He was afraid of being arrested according to his suicide note. So I guess instead of let the rest of his family live their lives in peace, he decided to peace out with the lot.

Guy probably had more wrong with him than a fake card.
SuperJail Warden
Gone Forever
+634|3690
I heard the hospital listed all the deaths as COVID /s
https://i.imgur.com/xsoGn9X.jpg
Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,810|6076|eXtreme to the maX
All deaths are listed as covid now
Русский военный корабль, иди на хуй!
SuperJail Warden
Gone Forever
+634|3690
Cases, hospitalizations, and deaths are all on the rise. Double digit gains. We have been at a steady 1,000 deaths a day for months now. 790,000 so far. I expect us to reach a million by Spring.
https://i.imgur.com/xsoGn9X.jpg
uziq
Member
+492|3423
winter was always going to be bad. friendly reminder that travel bans haven’t achieved shit. omicron is seeded and spreading pretty much everywhere. it’s expected to become the dominant strain over winter and nothing short of total lockdowns and strict social isolation is going to retard its spread; and even then it’s not as if it’s going to be completely, absolutely and perfectly eradicated. nature is calling the shots and we can only respond.

Last edited by uziq (2021-12-08 09:25:12)

SuperJail Warden
Gone Forever
+634|3690
Why do you want people to die of COVID?
https://i.imgur.com/xsoGn9X.jpg
RTHKI
mmmf mmmf mmmf
+1,736|6707|Oxferd Ohire
Cause they won't shut up about fake vaçcines and democrats

Last edited by RTHKI (2021-12-08 12:12:16)

https://i.imgur.com/tMvdWFG.png
Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,810|6076|eXtreme to the maX

uziq wrote:

friendly reminder that travel bans haven’t achieved shit.
Half-assed travel restrictions haven't achieved shit, you're right.

What we need is half a dozen professors collaborating on a ten year international multi-factor study
"Effectiveness of leaving the stable door wide open then half-closing it after the horse has bolted"

Meanwhile in India

Mounds of contamination lie scattered along an open yard dotted with shacks. Impoverished women sort out PPE kits, syringes, fluid bottles, and gloves as their children play nearby.

Welcome to the grey market of Covid medical waste hauled from some of Delhi's leading private and government hospitals.

An India Today investigation found large junkyards in the national capital region procuring the pandemic trash for re-sale.

COVID WASTE FOR RETAIL, WHOLESALE, RECYCLING
Along the Delhi-Ghaziabad border at Bhopura, discarded protective gear was being dried under the summer sun on an open compound. When probed, workers and their operators explained that the waste is prepared for local retailers, wholesalers and for recycling units.

READ: Maharashtra Police busts factory stuffing mattresses with used face masks

"The PPE kits are being dried up here. Sorting is done straight down," said one worker.

"Where does this material come from?" asked India Today's reporter.

"Our material comes from RML and other hospitals," Bhandari replied, supervising sorting and loading for deliveries.
His truck driver disclosed the destination.

The Covid scrap, the driver revealed, was headed to a recycling factory at Loni in Ghaziabad. "There's one mill there at Loni, near the roundabout along the canal," he replied when asked about the location to which he was supplying the material.

A worker at one of the scrap yards sorting through Covid waste, including syringes (Photo Credits: India Today)
Individual buyers looking for cheap kits and syringes also buy the stuff from the same Bhopura yard by the kilos.
When approached, Sunil Kumar, its operator, offered used fluid bottles, syringes and PPE gear in bulk.

"How much quantity of PPE kits can you offer?" the reporter asked.

"From 400 to 500 kilos," Kumar replied. "You can also get 200-250 kilos of (fluid) bottles."

He claimed to be getting Covid medical waste from two private hospitals at Patparganj and Vaishali in Delhi.

INDIA UNDER-REPORTING COVID WASTE?
India has generated 203 tons of Covid medical waste per day during the pandemic, according to the data issued by the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) till May 10, 2021. The quantity makes up almost 20 per cent of the total biomedical trash generated since the outbreak began.

Delhi accounted for 18.79 tons per day and Uttar Pradesh 15.91, the CPCB figures show.


Covid medical waste up for sale at the scrap yard at Bhopura (Photo Credits: India Today)
But even this hefty percentage might be an under-representation, warns a recent study by the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE).

"While the Covid-19 caseload has increased by a massive 234 per cent between the first and second waves of the pandemic, Covid-19 biomedical waste generation went up by only eleven per cent. The CPCB attributes this mismatch to better segregation of the waste, but our research points clearly to under-representation," said Atin Biswas, a programme director at the CSE.

READ: How sewage water can alert authorities on Covid-19 hotspots, virus strains

On its part, the CPCB has already recommended separate arrangements for handling, segregating and disposing of Covid bio-medical waste at designated disposal facilities equipped with incinerators.

WASTE ENDING UP AT UNORGANIZED YARDS
But a lot of infectious refuse seems to be ending up in unorganized yards, India Today's Special Investigation Team found.

"You can check PPE kits, the vests, in the garbage," said Aslam, an operator of a junkyard at Arthala in Ghaziabad, pointing towards a heap of discarded gear.


Aslam, the operator of a junkyard at Arthala in Ghaziabad (Photo Credits: India Today)
"Where are you getting this material from?" the reporter asked.

"From small hospitals," Aslam answered.

He then went on to show used syringes and bottles.


"We sell this material by weight. This PPE kit is sold at Rs 10 per kilo, the fluid bottles at Rs 57 (per kilo), and syringes at Rs 63 per kilo," Aslam said.

The scene was no different at a junkyard in Delhi's Shram Vihar, with women seen sorting Covid waste from the piles of medical trash. "It's medical waste from hospitals," said one of the workers.
https://www.indiatoday.in/coronavirus-o … 2021-07-12

Can't really think of a better way to make this thing worse.

At this point we're fucked. Covid is into the wild animal population, third world countries are going to churn out new variants faster than the vaccines can keep up. Half-assed vaccine programs in third world countries couldn't be better designed to produce vaccine defeating variants.

China has it right with closed borders, everyone else has wasted all the effort of lockdowns to satiate travel-obsessed morons.
Русский военный корабль, иди на хуй!
unnamednewbie13
Moderator
+2,053|6742|PNW

First world countries haven't exactly been on top of vaccination rates throughout 2021.
Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,810|6076|eXtreme to the maX
African countries are so slow India is scaling back vaccine production.

They're so fucking dumb they can't even take free vaccines.
Русский военный корабль, иди на хуй!
uziq
Member
+492|3423
blame the global south for vaccine inequality — priceless.
unnamednewbie13
Moderator
+2,053|6742|PNW

Dilbert_X wrote:

African countries are so slow India is scaling back vaccine production.

They're so fucking dumb they can't even take free vaccines.
And some people in first world countries who live within a block of a pharmacy haven't gotten their vaccines. Might give them magnetic 5G nanobots.

You wouldn't even get your vaccine for awhile because you had your doubts.
uziq
Member
+492|3423
dilbert seriously thinks that closing the door to the brown and black hordes of the world is going to magically fix the rank stupidity of his fellow white people. it’s not like the 30-40% of first-world populations which won’t get a vaccine can’t spread it freely, kill each other every winter, and incubate new strains. no. new mutant strains come from dirty, tainted people who live in unhygienic poor developing nations. look at this news article he found about unsanitary conditions in india!

and he thinks he is scientific. jesus christ. kys.
uziq
Member
+492|3423
anyway. most studies suggest that booster doses cover omicron. will better-designed vaccines need to be designed in the future? absolutely. they are already in development. every clinician and virologist knows that we need longer-lasting vaccines with higher rates of retained immunity and the ability to respond to variants.

but this is just the nature of the game with mutative corona-type viruses. we haven't eradicated the common cold or flu, and we won't find a silver bullet for covid-19, either, not unless new tech such as mRNA delivers some serious 'great leap forward' in the science of immunization (not impossible considering the literally global efforts and incentives now to deliver such a thing).

studies this week i have read have shown positive results for:
  • booster shots improving immunity for ~6 months in the vast majority of the population (i.e. winter booster strategies are viable for the future).
  • mixing AZ/J&J-type traditional vaccines with an mRNA vaccine delivers a particularly strong and resilient form of immunity (i.e. better-designed vaccine programmes are available to us, here and now, without the need for radically revamped vaccines themselve).
  • a third dose of pfizer shows very good results against all known variants (i.e. just getting the same vaccine on a repeated basis, every 6-9 months, will protect you from serious illness and death to a very high likelihood, for the foreseeable).


so i'm not too concerned about this variant spreading and becoming the most dominant. will we need social distancing measures and to pivot to 'emergency' winter-time measures? that's highly likely until everyone gets onboard with these vaccine/booster drives. but we do need to think about the annual winter-time top-up shot becoming a regular fixture of our lives, just like old people trundle along to their local health centre for a flu jab as soon as the cold weather and nasty respiratory illnesses come around. it is prudent and the vaccines really do work.

omicron right now is the most-mutated strain yet. but it hasn't evaded our vaccine tech and doesn't seem to be killing people at anywhere near the rate of delta, i.e. its viral load or capacity to harm is not as severe. that's a small blessing. a highly mutated strain such as this, though, is evidently straining the reliability of our ability to test/trace and respond effectively. i have also seen news this week that certain sub-strains of omicron are not showing up on our default battery of PCR/LF tests. it's simply too different to be caught in the quick set of filters we have devised for day-to-day testing. our testing, diagnostics and vaccines will have to progress in lock-step with this thing, just as we have been doing with flu for decades now. there is NO other alternative at this point.

Last edited by uziq (2021-12-08 17:14:03)

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