China Corona Virus Outbreak

[tsupermario]

Israel's immunity dipped in the face of Delta

Nearly 80% of Israeli adults are fully vaccinated against COVID-19, which constitutes 58% of the country's relatively young population, according to NPR.

Over half of the population was fully vaccinated by March 25, and for a moment, it looked like the country was on its way to herd immunity.

But the rising case rates in Israel may indicate that the protection afforded by vaccines wanes over time. Health officials and Pfizer scientists noted a lapse in protection six to eight months after the second shot, which was timed right around the Delta variant's arrival in Israel this summer.

Half of the seriously ill COVID patients currently hospitalized in Israel were fully vaccinated five or more months ago. Most of them are over 60 years old and have comorbidities, putting them at a higher risk of developing severe illness.

Israel's COVID-19 Infection Rate Is Rising Despite High Vaccine Uptake

[dr. d]

If your body immune system weakens then shingles might appear.

Sent from my SM-N910C using Tapatalk

that is correct.
but it is incorrect that vaccination tends to lower the body's immune status, even if temporarily.

[dr. d]

Do you know this lady dr d? She was a former professor of pharmacology



Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

well,
jody did admit that the sample size may be too small...

ganito na lang,
to see just how useful the vaccine is,
if, as some reports say, half of ncr has been vaccinated,
then why is it that of the 265 admitted (and presumably, needed hospitalization), the majority (187 or 70%)) were unvaccinated, and only 78 or 79 (30%) were vaccinated?
the vaccine works.
not perfectly, but it works.
"it pays to get vaccinated."

[Gumusut_Amige]

Business Insider
A year and a half after Sweden decided not to lock down, its COVID-19 death rate is up to 10 times higher than its neighbors
Aria Bendix
Sat, August 21, 2021, 7:55 PM·7 min read

• Sweden decided not to implement a full-scale lockdown during the pandemic.
  
• It now has up to 10 times as many COVID-19 deaths per capita as its Nordic neighbors.
  
• Sweden also didn't fare much better economically, suggesting its gamble didn't pay off.

It now has up to 10 times as many COVID-19 deaths per capita as its Nordic neighbors.

Sweden also didn't fare much better economically, suggesting its gamble didn't pay off.

Months before the first COVID-19 cases were detected, public-health experts ranked Sweden as one of the most prepared countries to handle a pandemic. But in March 2020, Swedish health authorities surprised the world with their unorthodox approach: Rather than locking down and requiring masks, as many countries did, Sweden let residents decide individually whether to take those precautions.

The gamble, Swedish authorities predicted, would pay off in the long run. Ideally, vulnerable people would choose to stay home, the economy wouldn't suffer too much, and healthy people might get mild COVID-19 cases that ultimately contributed to the population's collective immunity.
But a year and a half into the pandemic, it's clear that bet was wrong.
Sweden has recorded more COVID-19 cases per capita than most countries so far: Since the start of the pandemic, roughly 11 out of every 100 people in Sweden have been diagnosed with COVID-19, compared with 9.4 out of every 100 in the UK and 7.4 per 100 in Italy. Sweden has also recorded around 145 COVID-19 deaths for every 100,000 people - around three times more than Denmark, eight times more than Finland, and nearly 10 times more than Norway.

Had Sweden implemented tighter rules, experts told Insider, the country might have seen a COVID-19 death toll more similar to those Nordic neighbors.
"They underestimated the mortality tremendously," Claudia Hanson, an associate professor at Sweden's Karolinska Institute, told Insider.
"Sweden became a dream for many people to think one can do it differently," Hanson added. But in retrospect, she said, "it was maybe not a good idea."

Sweden's approach: allow residents to move freely

sweden no lockdown

Students eat ice-cream in Stockholm, Sweden on August 21, 2020. Martin von Krogh/Getty Images
Life didn't look much different in Sweden last year: As coronavirus cases tore across the country, residents went to bars, attended school in person, and walked around maskless.
Many disease experts warned that the lax approach would result in unnecessary death. But Anders Tegnell, the chief architect of Sweden's coronavirus strategy, was wary of depriving residents of income or personal freedom.
"You can't open and close schools. That is going to be a disaster," he told the Financial Times in September. "And you probably can't open and close restaurants and stuff like that either too many times. Once or twice, yes, but then people will get very tired and businesses will probably suffer more than if you close them down completely."
Tegnell compared lockdowns to "using a hammer to kill a fly."
So Sweden became one of the few European nations that did not implement a full-scale lockdown. Its population mobility from March to May of last year went down the least out of 28 countries examined by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Public transport and leisure activities dropped just 22% during that time, compared with 66% in Spain (the country that saw the highest reduction in mobility).
Masks weren't required, either. A recent analysis from Arash Heydarian Pashakhanlou, an associate professor at the Swedish Defence University, found that Sweden's Public Health Agency decided against a mask mandate even when burgeoning evidence supported it - and long after the scientific community had overwhelming encouraged the practice.
Sweden did, however, still take some precautions: It closed high schools and universities in the spring of 2020, required social distancing in bars and restaurants, and asked the sick and elderly to stay home. Public gatherings were also limited in size to varying degrees over the course of the pandemic.
Sweden's strategy would 'likely result in a massacre' in a different country
Sweden coronavirus
An outdoor restaurant in Stockholm on March 26, 2020. TT News Agency/Janerik Henriksson via REUTERS
When Sweden opted for a no-lockdown strategy in March 2020, scientists were still sorting out how deadly and contagious the virus was. But already, according to email exchanges published by freelance journalist Emanuel Karlsten and the Swedish newspaper Expressen, Tegnell was considering allowing the virus to infect young, healthy people as a means of increasing immunity in the population.
Hanson said she was "absolutely disgusted" by Tegnell's approach because it presumed knowledge that scientist didn't have at the time.
"Is he God, or even above?" she said. "That's what was terrible with the Swedish approach: the supremacy."
In a paper published in September 2020, philosophers Mirko Farina and Andrea Lavazza argued that many lives could have been saved if Swedish health authorities had followed the strategy of their Nordic neighbors.
"On paper they're all good scientists, but de facto in practice, most of them end up missing some basic human values," Farina told Insider.
Their paper also argued that Sweden's low density and small population - combined with residents' trust in national authorities - likely prevented a deadlier outcome. If a denser, more populous country like Italy were to adopt Sweden's strategy, they wrote, it would "likely result in a massacre."
Sweden didn't fare much better economically than its neighbors
sweden store
Store manager Domenica Gerlach works in the Lifvs unmanned supermarket store in Veckholm, a village of a few hundred people, on May 6, 2021. Jonathan Nackstrand/AFP/Getty Images
Farina said one benefit of Sweden's approach, however, may have been less stress, anxiety, or depression among its residents.
The latest World Happiness Report showed that Sweden remained one of the happiest countries in the world in 2020, based on how residents rated their quality of life and reported experiencing positive or negative emotions. But the report also found that prioritizing an open economy wasn't conducive to overall happiness.
"Driving community transmission to zero and keeping it there has been better for all the pillars supporting happy lives: good health, good jobs, and a society where people can connect easily with each other in mutual trust and support," the authors wrote.
Plus, Sweden's economy still shrank 8.6% from April to June of last year - its largest quarterly fall in at least 40 years. By comparison, Denmark's economy shrank 7.4% during that time, Norway's 5.1%, and Finland's just 3.2%. (None of these economies shrank by more than 4% over the course of 2020, though.)
Sweden's unemployment rate also rose from 6.6% in March 2020 to 9.5% in March 2021. Norway, Denmark, and Finland all saw unemployment rise by smaller margins: around one percentage point, on average.
"We live in highly interrelated world," Farina said. "If something major strikes, it's going to be affecting everyone everywhere, irrespective of the national measures that you take."
Swedish scientists lamented their country's approach
Sweden coronavirus
A resident at a nursing home in Gothenburg, Sweden gets a COVID-19 vaccine on January 7, 2021. Fredrik Lerneryd/Getty Images
Scientists called for changes to Sweden's strategy as early as April 2020. In an open letter that month, more than 2,000 experts criticized the government's decision not to lock down. Two months later, 23 Swedish doctors and researchers publicly questioned the nation's laissez-faire mask policy.
Eventually, after Sweden's daily COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations, and death skyrocketed from October to December, the country closed non-essential public spaces, such as gyms, pools and libraries, and recommend masks during rush hour on public transport.
"Countries that had mandatory restrictions have done better than us," Lars Calmfors, a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, told the Wall Street Journal in December.
"We like to think of ourselves as being very rational and pragmatic," he added. "I can't recognize my country anymore."
Hanson, too, lamented the fact that Swedish authorities failed to course-correct sooner.
"Some people saw this tsunami coming," she said. "So why didn't we run?"

Read the original article on Business Insider

A year and a half after Sweden decided not to lock down, its COVID-19 death rate is up to 1 times higher than its neighbors

[tsupermario]

it depends on how you look at this whole covid thing

do you think it was blown out of proportion by the media and governments all over the world overreacted?

na-kondisyon tayo since last year to fear covid

we gave away our freedoms -- to move around freely, to socialize... we even allowed loved ones to die alone

coz that's the protocol

sa ibang bansa they're calling it medical tyranny

curtailment of certain freedoms in favor of public safety? seems to be whats in play in florida.. mask mandate vs freedom to choose to wear mask or not

On Wednesday, three Florida county school boards voted to require nearly all of their students to wear masks at school. Now at least five school boards, some in the state’s most populous areas, have mask mandates that openly defy an order from Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis seeking to make masks optional in schools.

…

DeSantis, meanwhile, has largely framed his opposition to school mask mandates as an issue of parental rights. In late June, DeSantis signed a “Parents’ Bill of Rights” into law, which limits state and local governments’ power to “infringe on the fundamental rights of a parent to direct the upbringing, education, health care, and mental health of his or her minor child.” A month later, DeSantis cited that law in an executive order purporting to ensure “parents’ freedom to choose” whether their child should wear a mask at school.

Although DeSantis’s July 30 order does not forbid children from wearing masks, it instructs the Florida Health and Education Departments to impose rules preventing school districts from “violat[ing] parents’ right under Florida law to make health care decisions for their minor children” — such as the decision to not wear a mask.

Ron DeSantis’s anti-mask crusade triggered an open revolt from school boards - Vox

[uls]

Israel's COVID-19 Infection Rate Is Rising Despite High Vaccine Uptake

the protection elicited by vaccine faded

and it also has to do with the variant

if it was still wuhan variant may protection pa sana yan

[Athrunzala]

Israel's COVID-19 Infection Rate Is Rising Despite High Vaccine Uptake

This is what they call Antibody Dependent Enhancement...

[tsupermario]

well,
jody did admit that the sample size may be too small...

ganito na lang,
to see just how useful the vaccine is,
if half of ncr has been vaccinated,
then why is it that the of the 265 admitted (and presumably, needed hospitalization), the majority (187 or 70%)) were unvaccinated, and only 78 or 79 (30%) were vaccinated?
the vaccine works.
not perfectly, but it works.
"it pays to get vaccinated."

then find out what % in the 30% have comorbidities or immunocompromised

[dr. d]

then find out what % in the 30% have comorbidities or immunocompromised

i am reminded of some colleagues.
they had this large collection of study data.
by concentrating on some aspect of the data, they would come up with various papers from the same collection of data.
OT.

[uls]

vaccine was supposed to keep people with co-morbid out of the hospital (A3 category)

ung maospital kung wala bakuna --> hanggang mild to moderate lang pag may bakuna

[tsupermario]

“COVID is not a big killer, but contagious,” he stressed. He pointed out that more Filipinos died from tuberculosis and heart diseases than COVID. For instance, he said, there are 1 million active tuberculosis cases in a year and 75 Filipinos die a day from TB.

ECOP calls for GCQ by Sept. 1 – Manila Bulletin

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there should be a comparison on the # of death caused by heart attack before and during this pandemic

[dr. d]

vaccine was supposed to keep people with co-morbid out of the hospital (A3 category)

ung maospital kung wala bakuna --> hanggang mild to moderate lang pag may bakuna

the original objective of the vaccine, was to protect the general population.
segway to those with co-morbidity, was brought about by subsequent observation.

[uls]

then find out what % in the 30% have comorbidities or immunocompromised

kung expected pala maospital ang comorbid kahit may bakuna, ano talaga ang trabaho nung bakuna?

prevent death lang?

it wasn't long ago expectations were so high

people expected vaccinated people can't get infected and can't transmit

people were shocked when someone vaccinated tests positive pero asymptomatic

it's like "di pwede mag positive yan nabakunahan yan eh"

standards drop so fast no?

now vaccinated people end up in hospital and it's like "kaya pala, may co-morbidity eh"

[uls]

can standards drop more?

of course

[dr. d]

there should be a comparison on the # of death caused by heart attack before and during this pandemic

according the journal of the american medical association network publication,
for american mortalities for 2020,
heart disease contributed to 690K deaths, cancer contributed 598K deaths, and covid contributed 345K deaths.
4th was "un-intentional injuries" at 192K. "aksidente".
suicide had 44K .

[dr. d]

kung expected pala maospital ang comorbid kahit may bakuna, ano talaga ang trabaho nung bakuna?

prevent death lang?

it wasn't long ago expectations were so high

people expected vaccinated people can't get infected and can't transmit

people were shocked when someone vaccinated tests positive pero asymptomatic

it's like "di pwede mag positive yan nabakunahan yan eh"

standards drop so fast no?

now vaccinated people end up in hospital and it's like "kaya pala, may co-morbidity eh"

standards are set.
reality sets in.
standards change.

[Monseratto]

Highly Vaccinated Israel Is Seeing A Dramatic Surge In New Cases : Goats and Soda : NPR

1. Immunity from the vaccine dips over time.

2. The delta variant broke through the vaccine's waning protection.

3. If you get infected, being vaccinated helps.

4. Israel's high vaccination rate isn't high enough.

5. Vaccinations are key, but they are not enough.

6. Booster shots offer more protection — if you are one of the world's lucky few to get them.

Looming question: Will we need COVID-19 vaccines every several months? We don't know.

[uls]

madali lang

get all cause mortality data noong 2018, 2019

compare that to 2020 and 2021

see if there's an excessive number of deaths in 2020 & 2021 compared to 2018 & 2019

[tsupermario]

kung expected pala maospital ang comorbid kahit may bakuna, ano talaga ang trabaho nung bakuna?

prevent death lang?

or serious disease? similar to the argument sa mrna vs inactivated virus.

it wasn't long ago expectations were so high

people expected vaccinated people can't get infected and can't transmit

people were shocked when someone vaccinated tests positive pero asymptomatic

it's like "di pwede mag positive yan nabakunahan yan eh"

standards drop so fast no?Q

probably because its a new disease/virus unlike anything seen or happened before

now vaccinated people end up in hospital and it's like "kaya pala, may co-morbidity eh"

the % would be useful as data, for govt policy siguro or any personal use/consumption

[uls]

Highly Vaccinated Israel Is Seeing A Dramatic Surge In New Cases : Goats and Soda : NPR

1. Immunity from the vaccine dips over time.

thanks to Israel for providing real world data

they started vaccinating in Dec/Jan

2. The delta variant broke through the vaccine's waning protection.

yep fading protection + partial-escape variant

4. Israel's high vaccination rate isn't high enough.

and we're still believing in 70% herd immunity haha

5. Vaccinations are key, but they are not enough.

Israel found out the hard way

they normalized in Apr/May

threw away masks