This is from the Johns Hopkins coronavirus resource center:
@āCardinal Fangā the article I posted is from the NY Times on October 12:, a week ago today:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/12/health/coronavirus-pandemic-vaccine-optimism.html
@oldmom4896 Your article was just posted, but this part of it:
"There have been rare cases of people becoming infected twice; "
is based on a reference from August 24th if you hover over or click on the link. Itās old news (Covid age) in the article.
I should add that in spite of that particular part being older news, Iām still very optimistic about medical advances allowing for a different (more back to normal) future hopefully by this time next year.
As the article said, weāre already ahead of where the Spanish flu would have had us. I donāt think thatās at all due to differences in the actual illness. I think itās because our medical care even at the start of Covid is way ahead of where it was in 1918-1920.
Medical researchers are my heroes, not just with Covid, but with all that they have helped us with compared to earlier in history - vaccines, antibiotics, imaging, nutrition, etc, etc, etc.
At this point, there is no vaccine.
There is a lot of hoping, which leads to speculation.
Watch this doesnāt turn into its own form of spin. Some media- and some scientists, marketers, and public figures- are trying to soften the edges of this. But the reality is we still do not know what will be available, when, who will be a likely candidate- and how it will- or wonāt- work.
The flu shot, eg, is not a full preventative.
Iām hopeful, sure. But weāre very much in a waiting game, for now.
We (Creeklanders) are very much in a waiting game here - watching the tidal wave grow around us. The other day someone told me, āDonāt worry, 75% of the people who have died - probably meaning in our state - are over age 70.ā While thatās true (just did the calculations as of last week and itās 78%), that also means to me that 1 in 5 PA deaths were under age 70, including 428 in my age group and 17 in my kidsā age group - then add in all of those like my son who are dealing with long haul issues.
Others can feel free to take their chances. We prefer not to except in very select situations - like trying to care for/see FIL and letting our son visit in Nov. As more places are becoming lax with their employees, weāre cutting them off our list of places weāll get food from (groceries or take out). A Popeyeās location just became the latest weāre not returning to when we saw an employee working inside with no mask at all. She looked like a prime candidate for major issues based upon her weight too. Personally, I donāt get it, but itās her choice - and ours. We do not need to get food from there.
We feel extremely fortunate that we donāt have to work in places or with people who wonāt even try to be safe. I wish everyone who wanted it had that option.
If I had COVID once, then a few months later, had a mild sore throat, or a sniffle or two for a day or so, I would most likely not seek treatment or be tested for COVID because I would assume that a mild sore throat for a day or so was simply allergies.
So no one would know about my very mild COVID reinfection.
I think we still have so much to learn about this illness.
The vaccines are being tested against how they prevent symptomatic disease. The researchers are not testing participants regularly to find out if they have an asymptomatic infection. So, no, the vaccines are not trying to prevent asymptomatic infection. That is not how these vaccines are being tested.
It would be good if the vaccines prevented asymptomatic infection. But we are not going to know whether they do until well after successful vaccines are approved and deployed.
@oldmom4896, sorry, I mixed up the article you posted with the article @txtwins posted. @txtwinās article, from August, said scientists think that a second covid infection would be less severe than the first one, but since then weāve seen evidence of second covid infections that were worse than the first one.
I wrote the draft below months ago(April?), and never posted it. I think it becoming newly relevant, because after a summer of relative quiet, numbers in the ER are picking up again, fast. I donāt see any way out of a difficult Christmas season. Morale is low, as there have been mass layoffs due to the cancelling of elective surgery, and large financial losses. Equipment is STILL in short supply. Really?
W works in a major midwestern city ER that still hasnāt gotten slammed too much. One shift will be panicky, another not so much. Protocols change almost daily, it seems. Some employees still donāt seem to understand the stakes, and are close talking, without masks. W tells her nurse that she assumes that everyone has Covid, and that she should act appropriately.
Masks are under lock and key. Equipment is being rationed.
Just yesterday they found out that they can only do 4 tests per day because of a swab shortage, and is only for inpatients and providers, yet another more rural system has drive through testing for anyone that only takes 24-48 hrs. Had a friend just do it.
Our nursing homes are showing evidence of infection, but deaths havenāt started yet.
I am bracing for news that;
- my 90yo parents have it, and I can't visit them.
- MIL has it
- W is infected. I would be able to accept this better if they just had decent damn equipment. This country has disgraced itself in it's lack of preparedness. She has been needle pricked before by a HIV positive patient, attacked by a knife wielding psychiatric patient, and had all sorts of other of other things happen to her, but none so stupid as what she is facing now. The fact that she also has to put up with rascist mutterings both behind her back and to her face(she is Asian American) just adds another layer of difficulty.
Winter will cause more people to stay indoors with all of the doors and windows closed tightly. And with so many people giving up on COVID-19 mitigation (social distancing etc.), the season of traditional family gatherings will probably result in lots of virus parties.
My direct area is pretty good about the distancing, masks, etc. Everyone I know also carries some sort of Purell product.
But this is New England. On the tip of everyoneās lips is: what about winter, when you canāt, eg, dine outside? Right now, some places have heating pots on their patios (or when they close of a block of a street, near tables.) None of us think this will work when the worse cold comes.
Some places have already put up large canopy tents outside. It helps and a breeze does circulate. But itās an expensive proposition for those places.
As a comparison, I know firsthand that evenings can be cool in CA, this time of year. Itās about like that here, right now, as the sun sets. But using Dec 1 as a mark, it could be 40 during dinner hours. And thatās considered a mild month. In Jan, average day highs only range to about 40.
Iām thinking we might need to start an āold lives matterā movement.
I am quite irked that people somehow think that hitting retirement age somehow makes people expendable.
Iām totally with you on that. Itās part of why weāre doing what we are doing to try to help FIL continue his quality of life. Heās 92, but if his heart issues donāt take him, he could live to be 102 - who knows? His mind is still very sharp and he enjoys his life. We play strategy games and donāt need to give him any senior citizen ādiscountsā to help him win.
The folks dismissing the old age deaths also donāt realize that they will someday be over 70 too, if they live that long. When one is young, they tend to think old age is some blur in everyone elseās future, not theirs. I also think itās why many donāt save for retirement even when they have enough that they could. They donāt believe itās real - or how quickly time flies. I have no idea how to get them to care TBH.
Honestly, I think thatās the scariest part of this pandemic. Not the virus itself, but what itās revealing about our society.
I suspect that if young people were dying instead of old, but at the exact same rates, or response would be very different.
A fairly optimistic evaluation of the risks of flying:
https://www.npr.org/2020/10/20/925678211/scientists-consider-how-air-travelers-can-lessen-their-covid-19-risk
I believe that the transcribed text will be available later today.
Breathalyzer test . This could be done before someone enters a classroom/office/stadium, etc in the future. keeping fingers crossed.
The coronavirus pandemic has caused nearly 300,000 more deaths than expected in a typical year
The covid-19 pandemic has left about 285,000 more people dead in the United States than would be expected in a typical year, two-thirds of them from the disease itself and the rest from other causes, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Tuesday.
The CDC said the coronavirus, which causes covid-19, has taken a disproportionate toll on Latinos and Blacks, as previous analyses have noted. But the CDC also found, surprisingly, that it has struck 25- to 44-year-olds very hard: Their āexcess deathā rate is up 26.5 percent over previous years, the largest change for any age group.
Some of the increased death rate in the younger crowd is due to car accidents. There were fewer accidents when the shut down occurred, but a higher than normal percentage of accidents were fatal. Too many people were driving like idiots and speeding, etc. Higher speeds = higher chance of fatal accidents.
I donāt have the link at my finger tips now, but I remember reading it somewhere in the past couple of months.
Otherwise, as the article suggests, at my guyās hospital in NY they talked about how at least some of Feb and Marchās deaths were likely Covid and not the flu as recorded. Iām not sure how much of that is going on now though.
He also says people are afraid to go to hospitals and arenāt exercising as much so heart attacks and strokes are also more fatal now than they used to be (hearsay according to my guy - havenāt seen anything official on that - the car accident one was a news report citing data).