Short answer is no. “Artificial” viruses are created by the exact same process that generated these new variants. Only in a lab, instead of in people.
SARS CoV-2 coronavirus / Covid-19 (No tin foil hat silliness please)
- Thread starter Don't Kill Bill
- Start date
Short answer is no. “Artificial” viruses are created by the exact same process that generated these new variants. Only in a lab, instead of in people.
Its always going to happen even with lockdown. Once a new variant is here and in circulation its always going to spread. The best you can do is slow it down.
There's going to have to be a change in tactics at some point because trying to stop things that you can't realistically expect to stop isn't an answer. Neither is trying to impose lockdowns every time a new variant crops up or flirting with ideas like vaccine passports which would become pointless within months.
I don't know what its like where you are but round here people are carefully obeying lockdown measures by going around doing whatever the feck they feel like, which is always going to be the outcome after 3 months of lockdown. The other option is riots (which we've had a little sprinkling of thrown in). A bit of sun over the easter weekend and half the population of the UK will be back on Southend beach again as well.
Just need to hope we can keep on top of the vaccine game. I would have thought given the death/risk of serious illness rate for different age groups, and the hassle with creating enough vaccines for the entire world, they'd have just had a cut off point for the vaccine and concentrate on getting it updated and ready for the most vulnerable again, rather than obsess with getting it to absolutely everyone, but I don't know how the complexities of these things work or what effect it has on transmission etc. Though I can imagine if they started trying to give everyone in the world the flu jab every year rather than just prioritising the people its actually potentially lifesaving for, for example, it would cause far more problems than it would solve.
The Prime Minister here in Italy has said that health workers working with the sick will be obliged to have the vaccine - there have been cases this week of hospital patients contracting Covid from non-vaccinated staff (who were offered the vaccine at the beginning of the Italian roll-out, but refused it).
There's going to be some formalisation in law it appears (a decree). I assume that if you're a doctor or nurse, have no contraindications to the vaccine and you choose not to have it, you'll have to look for another job.
There's going to be some formalisation in law it appears (a decree). I assume that if you're a doctor or nurse, have no contraindications to the vaccine and you choose not to have it, you'll have to look for another job.
Red zone in Florence! Looks like I'm leaving at the right time. Meanwhile in California:
- The State of California has announced plans to expand vaccine eligibility to people 50 years and older starting April 1, and to people 16 years and older starting April 15.
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Other than seeing where they currently are with regards to their waves there is virtually nothing that can be taken from these charts considering they are all to their own scales.
Thanks.
What is with Turkeys numbers though
that graph man, looks like they started reporting cases, government didn't want backlash, so just have up reporting cases the next week.Nearly 9k cases today in NL, and weekend figures are usually the lowest.
The only value is to show the trends in terms of number of cases.
I totally agree.
I live in London and in mid April, will have been in some form of lockdown for 8 out of the last 13 months.
We have amongst the worst death rates in the World while being one of the most locked down countries on the planet - how does this even happen? Govt incompetence.
The at risk people have all received 1st doses of the vaccines.
I really do hope that this lockdown thing doesn't become the norm in the coming years.
The issue is that a precedent has been set and the Govt may choose to lockdown for other illnesses, such as the flu or even for other reasons.
I live alone and for me, it's been like living under house arrest - barely leaving the home apart from food shopping. Mentally, this has been challenging.
If the scientists had their way, we'd probably be in lockdown for the next 10 years.
rant over
Agreed on this.
Anyone who doesn't want lockdown or wants life to return to normal is a bad human for not caring about those at risk.
In Uk, those at risk have had a chance to have the vaccine. And if they want, they are welcome to shield and stay at home. The whole country and more importantly the economy, is taking a battering and it'll be us, the citizens, who have to pay for it.
That isn't correct, we've only given 3.2m their second dose so those at risk haven't got full protection yet. The road map, at the moment, seems sensible and dare I say it, measured.
So another freakish case yesterday. Was evaluating a 67 year old woman with no priors for an extremely acute dementia. She actually came because she fainted but as I was about to discharge her she started to make some extremely weird questions and I explored her mental state more deeply. Eventually called her husband who told me she was acting very weird for the last 4 days. I called neurology and we decided to have her stay for the night for a brain CT-scan this morning. She spent all night behaving like someone with mid-stage dementia. Coming to me with weird questions (like wanting to pay me for my work several times), forgetting what exam she was about to make, thinking it was already time to leave, etc. I even have the impression her cognitive state deteriorated during my 12-hour shift with her. As the CT came without major changes, neurology wanted to evaluate for epilepsy and electroencepahlography is only available during week days. As she had to wait more than 48 hours in total, she did a Covid test which came positive.
It's either a big coincidence (our incidence is still reasonably low) or is that Covid presenting as acute dementia... Never heard of something like that yet. Perhaps micro-strokes due to coagulation problems?
It's either a big coincidence (our incidence is still reasonably low) or is that Covid presenting as acute dementia... Never heard of something like that yet. Perhaps micro-strokes due to coagulation problems?
Maybe delirium rather than dementia? Doesn’t take much to tip frail elderly into delirium. Be interesting to see how she does after recovering from acute illness.
EDIT: Although calling 67 “elderly” is a stretch. The older I get the further out I push the transition from middle-aged to elderly!
I thought about that, but 1) she wasn't the elderly type, you know what I mean people between 60-70 vary a bit and she generally seems on the healthier end of people of that age and 2) no signs of infection (which will be most of the Covid cases I get because of there's any she would be triaged to the Covid area). Analytics fine, no CRP, etc.
Though for her sake I do hope it's some kind of delirium, because at least that's reversible.
At the risk of turning this into an episode of House did you do a tox screen? Would also wonder about drug induced delerium. Maybe accidental overdose? A guy I know once had both his parents admitted via A&E in an acute confusional state only to later find out they’d found some hash brownies he’d made and ate the lot!
With all these new variants popping up, and probably evolving more and more to be resistant to the vaccines, it feels like we could be in lockdown to varying degrees in perpetuity
Don't see it happening as people won't perpetually put up with lockdowns and will just get around the rules even more than they do now.
Interesting. Thanks.
I am no doctor, but I remembered reading about something like this in sideeffects in newspapers at home (bit more long term side effects).
There has been articles at home about brain tissue damage due to covid-19. I found this link in one of them: https://n.neurology.org/content/95/12/e1754
Another study has also showed a higher risk for developing Alzherimers, Parkinsons and other mental health problems due to covid-19. https://alz-journals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/alz.12255
So it's not lupus?
feck. You beat me to it by a minute.
Socioeconomic context made all those unlikey, even the medication story doesn't fit with that - none, and believable. It's a small land, we know people well, though of course surprises always occur. If intoxication is a cause, it will be noticed very soon anyway, as she becomes abstinent. At least 36 hours ago...
I think it's probably dementia, early signs not valued by the family yet (needs more time for history, not in A/E where I work). Probably got decompensated by early Covid infection and made it more obvious. I'll follow the record, I do that often for cases that interest me.
What can people do though, realistically? Will probably mean the end for the hospitality industry (and overseas travel) so not many places to meet up anyway, apart from houses. People seem to have got used to being locked down now and many even seem to oppose any attempts to open things up.
Wrong immunity will be built up throughout the population even if one can evade some of the protective measures of your immune system you will still have some form of protection so will become ill but a lot less then when the whole thing originally started.
Which is why all pandemics eventually filter out we can just "cheat the system" as such with vaccine technology these days to speed up the process.
We might have localised quarantines for major outbreaks, but booster vaccines for the vulnerable will ensure the NHS won't be at risk of being overwhelmed and the decisions will then change entirely. National lockdowns in perpetuity isn't remotely plausible.
It's ridiculously bad here. 35%+ of tests are coming back positive and we are only testing 80k-90k per day. 'Lockdown' we are in is a joke because you can still go pretty much everywhere, only thing is shopping malls and restaurants are closed and even then restaurants have been opening against restrictions, and the few that have done this are absolutely packed now. Churches are open for Easter time too and you can expect them to be slammed with people despite theoretical 1 person per 20 sqm restriction. We are also getting 600 covid-related deaths per day, 100-150 without any secondary diseases present and excess deaths are at 1k+ per day.
Many laughed at me last year when I said this could go on for a few years on and off with significant restrictions during that time. At this point I'd take a long year lockdown if I was guaranteed back to normal in Q2 2022.
Many laughed at me last year when I said this could go on for a few years on and off with significant restrictions during that time. At this point I'd take a long year lockdown if I was guaranteed back to normal in Q2 2022.
The length this damn thing goes on for is the biggest surprise/shock for me. Apparently this is all down to the long incubation phase. If it had been an influenza virus it would all be done and dusted by now.
Where’s here?
sounds awful buddy.Poland I thinkWhere’s here?
Firmly believe it'll go on essentially forever with yearly peaks and troughs similar to Influenza. Plenty of countries with low median age populations who have loads of other diseases that make Covid look like nothing will never have any will or need to try and control it. In Africa for example you get 400k~ annual deaths from Malaria alone, mainly young children.
I don't see how you can have SARS-CoV2 endemic in huge portions of the world and not expect it to continually spread back elsewhere. Sure you can do like China or Australia and turn your country in to a Covid fortress, you'll have to keep that up indefinitely, even if it takes a hundred or a thousand years Covid gets in eventually and becomes endemic just like everywhere else.
The future looks like a managed version living with it for me, nature isn't actually giving us a choice here. Eventually people will see it like Influenza, though that could take a while.
I was under the impression that the data coming from countries working through their vaccination processes was showing significant drops in new infections through each age group as they do them.
Antigenic evolution makes it probable we'll need new vaccines pretty often.
That is also what happens with Influenza.
Evolutionary game of cat and mouse essentially.
Will be part of living with it. As with Influenza eventually fades to the background.
PolandWhere’s here?
Yeah but once this vaccine set has been delivered to the majority of the worlds population we will see countries no longer needing to lockdown. Yes there will need to be follow up vaccines to deal with new strains but we wont be seeing the sort of years we have in 2020 and 2021. Sure we will have to live with it but its not going to be as restrictive going forward.
I'm just wondering what is the plan for countries like Australia and NZ? Even with everyone vaccinated, opening up their borders will result in cases. Are they hoping that at this point, there won't be any serious cases?
CATCHING COVID-19 AT A COVID-19 VACCINE PRODUCTION FACILITY
https://theintercept.com/2021/03/29/covid-vaccine-worker-safety-warp-speed-catalent/
https://theintercept.com/2021/03/29/covid-vaccine-worker-safety-warp-speed-catalent/