New Coronavirus threat

[ngatimozart]

I think it could spread from wild animals to humans. In 2009 a H1N1 strain jumped from swine into humans. Although it was not as bad as the 1918 pandemic due to the fact people already had a high degree of immunity to H1N1. If covid does jump from wild animals to humans, likewise I think it won't be as bad as the 2019 pandemic due to pre-existing immunity.

Paull Fuzzball permanently banned for trolling and being a previously permanently banned member posting using a different ID.

It is commonly known that some of the COVID range of viruses have the ability to jump from wild animals to humans. There is sufficient research published within the scientific literature discussing this. @Paull Fuzzball has been pushing claims that are somewhat spurious when unpacked.

 

[Boagrius]

I thought I was getting de ja vu for a minute there. You can lead a horse to water...

 

[John Fedup]

No surprises in this article. Patients showing up with advanced stage cancers due to fear of going to hospitals due to COVID. The backlog of delayed surgeries is huge here. No wonder doctors are facing burnout. In Ontario we have gone from 600 to 1,500 new cases per day in a little over one week.

https://www.cbc.ca/1.6278131

Ontario health officials are reporting more than 1,600 new COVID-19 cases on Saturday for the first time since late May.
Ontario logs more than 1,600 new COVID-19 cases for first time since late May

 

[ASSAIL]

A local shock jock recently compared the focus society puts on COVID to the way in which we have almost ignored all other causes of death.
eg. In approximate figures over 200,000 people die each year, 1000 died of COVID, 70,000 die of cancer.
Where’s the balance?

'Only COVID matters': Ben Fordham highlights deaths other than coronavirus

Ben Fordham has called for perspective as Australia records its 1,000 COVID death. Australia is ranked 118th in the world for total COVID deaths. At its peak, coronavirus was killing 5,000 people a day in India, 4,000 a day in Brazil and 3,000 a day in America. Australia has had 56,000 cases of...

www.2gb.com

 

[Boagrius]

Strikes me as an apples and oranges comparison. Other causes of death like cancer, heart disease, road deaths etc are well understood and controlled.

A novel, pandemic inducing virus (that can potentially produce new, more virulent and more contagious strains at short notice) is a different beast entirely. It is only natural (and sensible) for people/experts to want to track how it is behaving, with the number deaths being but one intuitive and helpful metric to this end.

 

[ASSAIL]

Strikes me as an apples and oranges comparison. Other causes of death like cancer, heart disease, road deaths etc are well understood and controlled.

A novel, pandemic inducing virus (that can potentially produce new, more virulent and more contagious strains at short notice) is a different beast entirely. It is only natural (and sensible) for people/experts to want to track how it is behaving, with the number deaths being but one intuitive and helpful metric to this end.

COVID ranks 38 in the causes of death in Australia for 2020
I’m not downplaying the importance of the pandemic, I’m simply stating the other consequences which should
have been given greater emphasis by our medical and bureaucratic leaders.

 

[Boagrius]

COVID ranks 38 in the causes of death in Australia for 2020
I’m not downplaying the importance of the pandemic, I’m simply stating the other consequences which should
have been given greater emphasis by our medical and bureaucratic leaders.

What consequences do you think have not been given sufficient emphasis? It's a bit misleading to distil the "severity" of the pandemic down to the number of deaths it caused after significant mitigation efforts (lockdowns, social distancing & contact tracing, mask wearing, nationwide vaccination campaigns) have successfully had their effect.

 

[kato]

COVID ranks 38 in the causes of death in Australia for 2020
I’m not downplaying the importance of the pandemic, I’m simply stating the other consequences which should
have been given greater emphasis by our medical and bureaucratic leaders.

In Germany for 2020 Covid-19 as a primary cause (i.e. "died from Covid" - somewhere around two thirds of all "died with Covid" deaths) amounted to 4.0% of all deaths, placing it on par with all non-natural causes of death such as poison or wounds combined (4.2%) or gastrointestinal diseases (4.3%).

The only complexes with higher occurence were cardiovascular diseases (34.3%) and cancer (23.5%), pneumological diseases (6.2%) and psychological diseases* (6.0%).

For 2021 Covid-19 will likely rank third after cardiovascular diseases and cancer and amount to somewhere around 6-7%.

*) e.g. suicide, substance abuse, dementia-related lack of body control.

 

[seaspear]

How do you distinguish between deaths solely of covid or where covid was present and may have been a contributing factor ? There is also the concern that to provide a safe place to work you eliminate or reduce risk ,ordinarily a work injury does not mean you spread it to your family

 

[seaspear]

This provides some idea of hospital admissions in N.S.W in the early stages
https://www.health.nsw.gov.au/Infectious/covid-19/Documents/in-focus/hospitalisations.pdf This article provides further clarity on the effectiveness of vaccinations newsGP - Unvaccinated patients dominate COVID deaths and ICU

 

[Boagrius]

How do you distinguish between deaths solely of covid or where covid was present and may have been a contributing factor ? There is also the concern that to provide a safe place to work you eliminate or reduce risk ,ordinarily a work injury does not mean you spread it to your family

You have trained medical professionals to make those determinations. The simple reality is that a virus like SARS-Cov-2 will frequently cause additional health complications, so expecting victims to typically die with only COVID19 is to misunderstand the disease at a fundamental level.

 

[John Fedup]

Eventually there will be research reports detailing how COVID delayed normal health care delivery due to hospitals being overwhelmed with COVID patients thus delaying diagnosis and surgery. Also, many delayed visiting physicians or were unable to meet.

 

[seaspear]

Apologies for the date of this article but it suggests that when this article was written if Australia had followed England and Wales in their responses many thousands would have died extra

COVID-19: how many Australians might have died if we’d had an outbreak like that in England and Wales?

COVID-19: how many Australians might have died if we’d had an outbreak like that in England and Wales?

www.mja.com.au

 

[DDG38]

A local shock jock recently compared the focus society puts on COVID to the way in which we have almost ignored all other causes of death.
eg. In approximate figures over 200,000 people die each year, 1000 died of COVID, 70,000 die of cancer.
Where’s the balance?

'Only COVID matters': Ben Fordham highlights deaths other than coronavirus

Ben Fordham has called for perspective as Australia records its 1,000 COVID death. Australia is ranked 118th in the world for total COVID deaths. At its peak, coronavirus was killing 5,000 people a day in India, 4,000 a day in Brazil and 3,000 a day in America. Australia has had 56,000 cases of...

www.2gb.com

"A local shock jock" - I stopped reading there. This has been one of the biggest problems dealing with this pandemic, too many unqualified, talking head media voices creating division via creating pseudo controversy for the sake of outrage/conspiracy clicks. During a global health crisis we should be listening to the scientific experts and not unqualified idiots cherry picking data they don't understand.

 

[Todjaeger]

"A local shock jock" - I stopped reading there. This has been one of the biggest problems dealing with this pandemic, too many unqualified, talking head media voices creating division via creating pseudo controversy for the sake of outrage/conspiracy clicks. During a global health crisis we should be listening to the scientific experts and not unqualified idiots cherry picking data they don't understand.

I disagree. IMO one should not be listening to the unqualified, idiots, or those who cherry-pick data which they do not (and quite often could not) understand - full stop. A global health crisis should not be needed for people to realize the all too predictable outcomes from listening to those who exhibit any one of the above characteristics, never mind all of them...

 

[OPSSG]

It’s been about two years since Covid emerged, one year since vaccine distribution began, and a month since Omicron upended hopes for a winter of recovery.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1477476266827816962

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) blamed the Biden administration for COVID-19 woes in his state while accusing other state leaders of allowing “hysteria.”

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1478081411085217792

Meanwhile in Florida, the Omicron wave of infections goes up by 948% in just 2 weeks, according to The Guardian.

COVID-19 hospital admissions typically lag about 5 days after COVID-19 cases; and the rate of increase in infections may be understated due to lack of testing capacity in Florida.

DeSantis reiterated that officials would not allow Florida’s public schools to close, despite a major spike in coronavirus cases fueled by the Omicron variant. The governor insisted—despite ample evidence to the contrary—that masks were largely ineffective and that kids “do not need to be doing any crazy mitigation.“Just let them be kids,” he said. “I think it’s pretty clear, a lot of this mitigation, it hasn’t worked period.”

Multiple studies of schools that reopened in fall 2020 and had high compliance with mask-wearing have been shown to have low numbers of covid transmission. And the American Academy of Pediatrics said mask-wearing will not make it more difficult for children to breathe, nor will it interfere with a child’s lung development.

Brian Hughes, the co-founder and associate director of American University's Polarization and Extremism Research and Innovation Lab said, "there are decades of research supporting the idea that people take their information from trusted sources, which can be people in their lives or political leaders. "When a political leader is spreading dangerous false information and when they have been warned numerous times that this is detrimental to the public's health and wellbeing, a private platform has every right to take action," added Hughes.

In early April 2021, YouTube took down a video featuring Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and a group at a 18 Mar 2021 coronavirus roundtable. The online video platform, owned by Google, cited as its rationale that the video contained false statements about the efficacy of children’s mask-wearing.

 

[swerve]

IIRC De Santis has tried to ban businesses from requiring employees to be vaccinated, tested, or wear masks.

I think the problem is that he sees everything as political. Protecting oneself & others from infection is seen by him & his ilk as a political act, not a health & safety measure, & rejecting protection is a badge of political identity.

 

[John Fedup]

De Santis, poster child for what is wrong in America at the state level, especially wrt COVID.

 

[ASSAIL]

De Santis, poster child for what is wrong in America at the state level, especially wrt COVID.

I don’t usually offer opinions on US politics/Covid management however I think your one liner needs amplification.
There’s much “wrong” with the US and probably the worst corruptions of civility have been the huge increases in civil disorder, murders and chaos occurring in the liberal Blue cities, NYC, LA, Chicago, SF, Portland et al whose Blue Mayors have led the charge to defund police.
The inevitable result is the huge increase in migration away from, in particular, the NE/NW and California where both living and business conditions have been so badly harmed.
The recipients have been mainly Florida and Texas and to a lesser extent Idaho all of which have boomed.
Trump and Biden are both incompetent and what started as a downhill trickle under Obama turned into a torrent of mal administration under the latter two, I pity the thinking US voter.
Obviously the country is deeply divided and it will probably get worse after the Mid Terms where the Dems will lose both houses and the administration will be neutered so for the next 2.5 years…nothing.
I’ll leave it there but I declare an interest, my wife is US citizen rabid Dem, my brother, a US naturalised citizen living in Idaho who declares a pox on both sides. Both are followers of the shit fight currently raging in Washington and beyond.

 

[ngatimozart]

Well I just say a pox on all pollies. May the fleas from 10,000 camels infest their armpits and may their arms be to short to reach their armpits.

Today or tomorrow I shall head off for the third jab (booster). My daughter tells me that the nurses at her work said to drink a lot of fluids, because the after affects of the booster jab are stronger than those of the first two. All of my jabs are the Pfizer vaccine.

Speaking of vaccines, I am also entitled to get the shingles vaccine free until October. After that it will cost me in excess of $200.00 for the jab. I have a year from last October to get it because here you are only entitled for the free jab for the first year from the date of 65th birthday. The interesting thing is you can't have it a month either side of the Pfizer COVID-19 jab. Only found both of those things out the other day.