COVID-19 News and Discussions

[R8Z]

A few points I've seen this week:

- The Ivermectin study (the big one, 220k+ people) I was hoping to be pristine has had a nut-head heading the study (Lucy Kerr, believes in hipnosis treatment and other esoteric bs I found on her own website), which is great shame because it puts a lot of doubt on it even though initially it looked pristine. I sincerely hope the raw data gets out (it's from the unified Brazilian health system) and someone does a retrospective study on it, but the damage is already done. IVM is personally back to 50% works or doesn't to me.
- Everybody is talking about COVID excess deaths but Australia had a zero covid policy with great success (very high rate of tests and case tracking) and also has an astonishing rate of excess deaths in the same period. I personally would blame lockdown-fever or the jab side effects, but this is still to be seen.

[wjfox]

lockdown-fever

What do you even mean by this?

- Everybody is talking about COVID excess deaths but Australia had a zero covid policy with great success (very high rate of tests and case tracking) and also has an astonishing rate of excess deaths in the same period. I personally would blame lockdown-fever or the jab side effects, but this is still to be seen.

What are you talking about??

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/exce ... US~GBR~USA

[Cyber_Rebel]

Letting this happen will kill people in almost every population group. 9/10 Americans are covid deniers now it seems. No one wears a mask. No one social distances. No on cares. It's not a matter of letting, "rational people" work it out. Unless a person is a hermit they will be exposed as literally every contact around them will endanger them. Personal action is only so effective when collective action is nonexistent! We need restrictions and they won't come. Everyone's so up in arms about China forcing quarantines and here I am wishing our governments would do literally anything at all.


Now to post what I came here for. If the case counts in the US and Canada don't start curling up soon I will become convinced that they are simply not being counted or that the statistics are otherwise rigged. Even if they do curl up if they don't match european data rest assured we are being lied to. **** this hell.

I just got back from a 3 day weekend trip in Canada, and have to say there actually is a difference in how people perceive public health measures compared to the states. Many people still (were required at the time) wore mask, and some still were respectable to social distance. Mind you, this wasn't the case all the time, but it was certainly more prevalent. The Canadians I talked to who were fed up with restrictions weren't because they were really anti-vax nor deniers, but just Covid fatigued.

On the other hand, the weekend parties with the younger crowd and St. Patrick's Day in Quebec will no doubt lead to many increased cases. This crowd is also the most fed up and had the harshest measures.

What you said is also ties into our previous argument. I know you believe America is not a "true" democracy and really I'm inclined to agree. I'm familiar with the studies done in which the oligarch class basically influence and often "guide" policy in the U.S., but, where we disagree is just how much of this terrible outcome is also the fault of the people. The masses being unengaged along with the general hyper-individualist culture of the U.S. when compared to Canada and elsewhere is also very much at fault. If you attempted some of the things you stated on this board priorly, for example, a "war-time" economy to combat climate change, the American populace would literally have your head.

The case counts possibly not being accurate is something I'm expecting along with minimal restrictions. If the main people entering hospitals are still majorly the same anti-vax denier types, then it's just a necessary evil towards policymakers. It's also left up to the individual, but I have to say as someone who actually has been ridiculed and even threatened for simply wearing a mask, these people can all just go get fucked at this point. Like said before, these people are causing the deaths of others who need surgeries or have health issues by overloading the healthcare system. Going "simply have a better healthcare system" when these people are also the ones who vote against even having one is also an exercise in futility. Tis why I stated it plainly, let them have their "freedom," including freedom from healthcare so others who need it may receive it.

I also apologize if it seems like I ignored your previous post, I didn't, but I've been having a break with the left over a lot of things like this. Believing in the collective good is still an ideal I share, but for the opposite reason as yourself or someone similar might. It's because I don't believe people are wholly inherently good, and truly are naturally selfish animals who need to be better educated towards better outcomes. It's too simple to say that the "elites" are the sole problem while not addressing the root issue of human nature itself.

[caltrek]

Congress’s Epic Pandemic Funding Failure
by Dylan Matthews
March 22, 2022

https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2298 ... prevention

Introduction:

(Vox) As I write this, the White House is warning that it will soon run out of funding to address the Covid-19 pandemic.

Without additional money, uninsured Americans will stop being able to get free tests and treatments for Covid-19 after March 22, and won’t be able to get free vaccinations through the federal Uninsured Program after April 5. The White House says it won’t be able to buy additional antiviral pills or new monoclonal antibody treatments for people with Covid, or to fund surveillance that could catch future waves of the virus.

The administration wants $22 billion; House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has tried to pass $15 billion only to face a rebellion from both Republicans and Democrats angry that the money would come out of the Biden stimulus plan’s funds for state governments. If this stalemate holds, the federal effort to halt the virus could effectively be over, even though the pandemic itself clearly isn’t.

That would be a disaster. Equally disastrous, though, is that Congress is simultaneously refusing to invest heavily in preventing the next pandemic.

The failures that made Covid-19 such a catastrophe — and kept the federal government and international community from squelching it when it was still a minor outbreak — still exist. We still lack the ability to adequately monitor new infectious diseases, and we still don’t invest sufficiently in preparing treatments and vaccines for viruses that could cause a pandemic if unchecked.

[caltrek]

‘A New Beginning’: New Zealand to Drop Covid Vaccine Passes and Mandates
March 22, 2022

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/ ... d-mandates

Introduction:

(The Guardian) New Zealand will do away with vaccine passes and vaccine mandates for some of the workforce in early April, in a major loosening of the country’s tough Covid-19 restrictions.

The prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, announced the changes on Wednesday morning, citing high vaccination rates, better data to identify which environments are high risk, and modelling that suggests the country’s Omicron outbreak would peak in early April.

The country reported 20,087 new cases on Wednesday, 960 people in hospital and a further 11 deaths, bringing the total number of Covid-19 deaths since the start of the pandemic to 210. New Zealand has officially recorded more than 500,000 cases of Covid-19 – nearly all of them during the Omicron wave – but modellers expect the true figure could now could be as high as 1.7 million. Modelling suggests Auckland has now reached peak cases, with numbers slowly dropping, and the rest of the country is expected to reach its peak by 5 April.

“We’ve been signalling for some time that when we come off the peak, that would be the time to be able to ease the use of things like vaccine passes and mandates,” Ardern said.

The changes include scrapping all gathering limits in outdoor settings and removing requirements for people to use the Covid-19 tracer app to scan in when entering businesses. Hospitality and other venues can increase their indoor gathering limit from 100 to 200 from Friday.

[Miky617]

By the end of today, The Worldometer website will show the US having surpassed 1,000,000 deaths due to Covid. Actual figure may be much higher, of course. The US population in 2020 was 329.5 million. That's about 0.3% of the population gone, which may not sound like much, but for every 1,000 people in the country, at least three are reported dead due to Covid.

To put it in perspective for myself, my high school totalled roughly 1,000 people at the time I graduated. If three of those students died in a car wreck, that would be the talk of the year, and it undoubtedly would have earned a moment of silence and a special mention at the graduation.

[wjfox]

Thank goodness the pandemic is "over". Time to drop all measures aimed at lowering spread.

Oh wait.

[Xyls]

In case you all thought this was over...

[weatheriscool]

Patients with Covid and flu double the risk of dying, say scientists
Source: Guardian

Covid-19 patients who have been hospitalised should also be routinely tested for flu, researchers have said. The call was made after the publication of a paper in the medical journal the Lancet that revealed having both conditions more than doubles the risk of a patient dying.

Scientists also discovered that individuals who had contracted both Sars-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19, and influenza viruses were more than four times more likely to require ventilation support and 2.4 times more likely to die than if they just had Covid-19.

“We found that the combination of Covid-19 and flu viruses is particularly dangerous,” said Professor Kenneth Baillie of Edinburgh University. “We expect that Covid-19 will circulate with flu, increasing the chance of co-infections. That is why we should change our testing strategy for Covid-19 patients in hospital and test for flu much more widely.”

*snip*

“We were surprised that the risk of death more than doubled when people were infected by both flu and Covid-19 viruses,” said Professor Calum Semple of Liverpool University. “It is now very important that people get fully vaccinated and boosted against both viruses, and not leave it until it is too late.”

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/ ... scientists

[weatheriscool]

Free COVID-19 tests ending for uninsured Americans
Source: ABC

Americans who don't have health insurance will now start to see some of the free COVID-19 testing options disappear, even if they are showing symptoms.

Quest Diagnostics, one of the largest testing companies in the country, told ABC News that patients who are not on Medicare, Medicaid or a private health plan will now be charged $125 dollars ($119 and a $6 physician fee) when using one of its QuestDirect PCR tests either by ordering a kit online or visiting one of the 1,500 Quest or major retail locations that administer the tests, such as Walmart or Giant Eagle.

This week, federal funding to cover the cost of COVID-19 testing and treatment for uninsured Americans officially dried up; any further infusion of cash hinges on Congress passing the White House's request for billions more in COVID relief, which is still stuck at an impasse.

Quest has begun notifying its clients and partners they can no longer expect to be reimbursed for uninsured claims, barring additional funding from Congress.

Read more: https://abcnews.go.com/Health/free-covi ... itter_abcn