I'm told its no worse than the flu.

Undertoad wrote:

starting to wane at two months and as low as 20% efficacy after six months

it is depressing

Yeah, it looks like vaccinated can catch it and spread it but just won't end up hospitalized. Now that we have the wave, it would seem a good time for a booster to slow the spread. Be kind to your health care workers, they're being tested again.

“Protection against SARS-CoV-2 infection appeared to wane rapidly following its peak after the second dose, but protection against hospitalization and death persisted at a robust level for six months after the second dose,” the researchers wrote.

Good protection but obviously not perfect protection. You can feel good about your vaccinated status. They've become very careful about over promising as this thing is a mother fucker. My own decision to boost was based on the assumption that we'd get a winter wave from school and cold weather. It would be nice if the stock market decided it was time for me to retire cuz I'm getting older and can assume I am wading in the Covid daily due to my work. Since I am vaxxed maybe continuous low level exposure will benefit me in the long run. They'll be able to tell us that in 20 years.
 

I got that wrong.
767,000 from January 2020 to today. Some places say 771,000.
385K last year, 386K so far this.
Those are shocking numbers and should be much more prominent in the news.

Last edited by Diaphone Jim (11/24/2021 12:47 pm)

Happy Monkey wrote:

X% effective means (100-x)% not. 

also:

griff wrote:

...but protection against hospitalization and death persisted at a robust level...

overheard at work today wrote:

..If we're all vaccinated, why do we have to wear these damn masks?

*sigh*

I have a truck that has seatbelts and airbags.  I have to manually don my mask, I mean seatbelt everytime I get behind the wheel.  Does it offer me any kind of protection from being t-boned or rear-ended or side-swiped or other wise fucked over, vehicularly speaking?  No.  Do these things I pay for and voluntarily impose on my own physical freedom in my own space have any benefit to me?  Yes.  As griff pointed out, they offer me protection against being hospitalized or killed.  From the risk that is out there, all you idiot drivers.  And that's the same reason you should also be wearing your own mask and have your own vaccinations.  For your OWN benefit.

But sure, some of us don't bother with the benefit, some of us eschew seatbelts and airbags, like me.  But my choices in this analogy carry minimal risk to those around me, unlike infected, unmasked though vaccinated virus vectors.  If I rear end your car while on my bike, you might not even notice.  But if I breathe my virus laden unfiltered exhaust on you, cause, y'know, gotta breathe, you are at risk.  Cause, y'know, YOU gotta breathe too.

It's whiny dumb bad faith/probably not innocently ignorant bitching.  Shut the fuck up.

https://apnews.com/article/coronavirus-pandemic-new-variant-southern-africa-33fa0983af6c9f961a186f4f4bb1147d

BRUSSELS (AP) — A slew of nations moved to stop air travel from southern Africa on Friday, and stocks plunged in Asia and Europe in reaction to news of a new, potentially more transmissible COVID-19 variant.

 

Side note.

I got the booster Wednesday afternoon, easy peasy.

Thursday morning, cook cook cook eat drink rest, the regular.  My deltoid was *REALLY* sore.  Y'know that game you played with your little brother, "Hey, let's see who can punch the softest!  I'll go first."  Punch him, lightly, he punches me, lightly, I punch him really softly, he just barely grazes my arm, then I wind up and knuckle punch him with all my power... "OH!, I lose."  

Yeah.  That's what this third shot was like in my arm.  Ow, ow, ow, stop staring so hard at my arm, jeebus!

So, Thanksgiving was nice, we had a marvelous dinner at about 3:00, nom nom nom, and at 6:00 I was run over by a Nap-Truck.  Nodding, can't keep my head up much less my eyes open, hey, sorry all, I really, really have to go to bed.  TMI ahead.

As I was undressing to go to bed, like goodnight go to bed, I was overtaken with cold.  I've been cold before, I've been hypothermic before.  This felt like that.  Teeth chattering, uncontrollable shaking, feeling freezing cold. I was frightened, honestly.  I got in bed, fully tucked in, feet, neck, back, knit cap, they whole shebang.  I suffered considerably and the prospect of leaking in some cold air to roll over to get my phone to ask Twil to come help me was too daunting.  Eventually I feel asleep and awoke almost two hours later, warm, but sweaty thanks to my several good blankets.  At least it was warm in here at last.

At 11:00, I got up again, I needed to pee.  And I put on my robe, it was a struggle to uncover myself in stages I felt so cold.  Twil was still up in the front room and she said maybe you have a fever.  I checked it with out Braun forehead thermometer, 101.7.  

Tha's pretty high for me, four or more degrees that thermometer normally reads for me on the same forehead.  I think the booster shot stimulated my immune system into PANIC mode, let's burn this sucka out mode.  All that energy going to raise my temperature left a deficit for staying awake and vertical.... The combo knocked me out.

Today's Friday, I'd already asked for this day off so I didn't have to go to work.  Lucky.  I'm glad I got the booster.  I think my immune system is papered with Wanted: Covid posters everywhere inside an it's able to raise a posse--no---a torch wielding mob in about 24 hours.  We will burn this thing DOWN! 

Pfizer booster this noontime.  So far, so good.

Moderna booster about 11:30AM and all is well.

Pfizer booster a couple of days ago. A sore arm, but nothing worse. Mr Limey got chills on and off for a few hours the day after. Other report being hit by a pole-axe (all my neighbours got done on the same day and traded sob-stories on the local messengergroup).

It may work out like that but vaccination still seems like a far better route to me. Many, many more infections means many, many more opportunities for mutation and there's no guessing at how infectious or dangerous any future versions of the virus might be.

Undertoad wrote:

  It appears to be far more transmissible and far less dangerous

An example of subjective reasoning using open loop thinking.

SARs was many times more deadly.  Therefore it killed much less people.  Covid is less dangerous.  Therefore it is killing many times more people.

That subjective and open loop reasoning is how junk science gets promoted.  Until statistics (science) is applied, then nobody can make any accurate conclusion about danger.  A covid variant, that is less deadly, can mean many times more deaths or less deaths.  A pandemic is a closed loop system.
 

Last edited by tw (12/06/2021 9:13 am)

https://www.northcentralpa.com/covid-19/geisinger-pleads-to-public-as-hospitals-exceed-capacity-cases-surge/article_6c392732-5847-11ec-ab05-bb1b0a9b1d93.html
Pennsyltucky, we have a problem.

The current state of Geisinger hospitals is both battleground and overrun, war-time field hospital. According to Reed, "patients are seeing 10 to 20 hour wait times" for emergency care, "inpatient beds and ICU beds are full," and medical providers are practicing "waiting room medicine" in the form of rapid tests, scans, and supplied oxygen.