Violet's pandemic roundup is particularly depressing this week.All those cheesy zombie films got one thing right: we would still be expected to show up for our shifts at the mall, and the real monsters weren't actually the zombies.
This virus is like measles and polio: a virus with long-term impact.
Even a "mild" case in a vaccinated individual can lead to long-term issues which cause a measurable uptick in all-cause mortality in the first 6 months, and get progressively worse with time. [...]
Perhaps the most terrifying study is from Oxford University, which examined the effects of vaccination on long COVID symptoms, because not only did it find that vaccination does not protect against Long Covid, but that Long Covid symptoms become more likely over time [...] "Vaccination does not appear to be protective against long-COVID features, arrhythmia, joint pain, type 2 diabetes, liver disease, sleep disorders, and mood and anxiety disorders." [...]
Since our vaccines don't stop transmission, and don't appear to stop long-term illness, a "vaccination only" strategy is not going to be sufficient to prevent mass disability.
"Just to give you an idea of how bad that is, a three-sigma or a one-in-200-year catastrophe would be 10% increase over pre-pandemic," he said. "So 40% is just unheard of." [...]
They explained that they're seeing deaths months after workers "recovered" from Covid from infection-related health consequences (heart attacks, vascular problems, etc.). These deaths don't get classified as "from Covid" because they're no longer "positive."
We don't remember polio nowadays, only longpolio.
In 29.5%, it presents as diarrhea, GI distress. Only 0.5% of cases present with neurological symptoms. For the vast vast majority of people who got a disease which left hundreds of thousands disabled for the rest of their lives, polio was a few days of having the shits. If that.
There is absolutely no way the US would recognize polio as a problem nowadays, or do anything at all useful to try to stop it.
We are not going to write checks to incentivize people to sit at home, and we are not going to bail out businesses if the economy seems strong.
SF Teachers Planning a Mass 'Sickout' on Thursday Over COVID Safety Frustrations:
Hundreds of teachers have signed an online petition saying they won't work Thursday because of SFUSD's alleged COVID safety failings, but can you really have a sickout when more than 10% of the staff is already legitimately out sick? [...]
"By withholding our labor, by reclaiming our time and our health, we send the message that if SFUSD, the City, State, and Federal Government do not invest in seriously addressing this pandemic (and the ongoing issues which make dealing with the pandemic so challenging for public schools), we can shut the whole system down. And we will!"
I'm pretty sure I've said it before, and perhaps, likely, even here.
But the people obsessed with "No New Normal" are doing their level best... to create that New Normal. Straining with all their might to birth it into existence, at the cost of themselves and their loved ones.
With how Omicron is ripping through the populace, we can only hope -- as in wish, vainly -- that it also induces less Long COVID.
I was under the impression that the Oxford study, while initially terrifying, has since been debunked due to bad methodology, but I cannot tell but "posting charts to Twitter" is how research is shared.
Link to study showing LongCOVID is a manifestation of placebo effect:
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2787741
This is a French reproduction of a German study with a similar result.
Explain the "placebo" shit to the people now a-year-and-a-half (or more) into bodily pains and being unable to smell or taste.
I'm sorry for anyone who is suffering, but this is complicated and we should consider that if studies suggest no correlation, their problem is likely not COVID.
No, we shouldn't. We shouldn't consider those any more than we consider horse paste or bleach-injections.
Consider FACTS, like this Guardian tag fully dedicated to Long COVID: https://www.theguardian.com/society/long-covid
Long COVID is not a joke. Just as these actual scientists who studied it for over a year:
...or someone whose very headline provides the perfect perspective:
Not diminishing it, but it's worth noting that the Guardian will create tags for anything that obsesses them, e.g. TV presenter/irritant Jeremy Clarkson: https://www.theguardian.com/media/jeremyclarkson
I suppose I don't really have one, other than that the tag is not necessarily indicative.
Meanwhile, one study on long Covid may suggest that the self-rported symptoms may not all be associated with Covid, when Covid is confirmed by testing: here.
1) If you don't know the difference between "placebo" and "nocebo" I don't know why anyone should listen to you.
2) The first problem with Long COVID is a nosology problem and until that gets addressed, any effort to quantify it is going to be useless.
"the death rate is up a stunning 40% from pre-pandemic levels among 18-64 year olds"
See https://stump.marypat.org/article/1581/excess-mortality-for-working-age-adults-way-up-in-third-quarter-of-2021-driven-by-covid-and-drug-overdoses: an actual actuary drills into the stats to show that Americans of working age are killing themselves with drugs and were doing that before anyone died "after testing positive for CV19"