Yeah, exactly. It’s HK on a larger scale. Omicron posing more of a threat than it does anywhere else because of poor vaccines, poor vaccine uptake and minimal immunity from prior exposure.
SARS CoV-2 coronavirus / Covid-19 (No tin foil hat silliness please)
- Thread starter Don't Kill Bill
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Yeah, exactly. It’s HK on a larger scale. Omicron posing more of a threat than it does anywhere else because of poor vaccines, poor vaccine uptake and minimal immunity from prior exposure.
Yep. The bad thing about vaccines made from the old recipe with dead viruses is that they only work for the original strain, but won't do much to curb other variants. Sputnik and Sinopharm/Sinovac vaccines are not particularly effective against anything other than the original COVID-19.
The poor vaccine uptake is another problem, but that can be solved with better convincing towards the public. However, little exposure to the virus within the community is also in the equation due the zero-COVID policy, which only delayed the inevitable. Japan, South Korea, Singapore and Taiwan have picked up better immunity now because they saw in the news about how good mRNA vaccines are and because they faced COVID waves as well.
I finally had my booster a few weeks ago and there were still a lot of people at the GP surgery (in the UK) getting vaccines. Was all done in about 5 minutes as well, very quick and efficient.
As a follow up from my previous post, and also not having to fat finger my way through an iPhone, I wanted to add to my comments on the state of current testing. I am almost certainly way deep in the weeds but I need to say that the innovation and brilliance I have seen the last 3 years in the field of molecular diagnostics is breathtaking. I have been working with small startups and huge reference labs for over a decade and where we are now, and where we are going, is awe inspiring. I can see a day in the next few years where every single person can have on their bathroom counter a small device that can run on demand molecular testing in minutes. The technology is already here, now. I have customers developing tests that run 15 minutes from swab to answer. At home. Your home. I can't tell you enough how HUGE that change is from just 3 years ago. And it's not just COVID either. Flu A and B are coming. STD's, cancer, etc. Basically anything that can be tested from a mucus/epidermal source (with blood from pricks sure to come) will be available. It's an exciting time for science and medicine.
Brilliant.
Has the pandemic spending and moves in research funding had an impact on it? Or was this all in progress anyway?
I know some of the PCR labs in the UK are being reconfigured as general purpose "respiratory virus" facilities to cover covid, flu, RSV tests. Obviously a lot better if they can be done on a quick test basis though as it opens up options for A&E staff, GPs, carehomes etc - if the basic price and price per test are ok.
How close do you think we are to seeing the first of these things roll out into the world?
I can really speak with confidence only from a US perspective but I am sure that the trend is worldwide. Here we saw a massive influx in spending for diagnostics thanks to programs like RADx. While the funds flowing out may be happening at a slower pace than optimal it has still motivated academics and small start ups to shoot for the stars with their ideas. From a science persepective almost all of the new diagnostics are utilizing some form of isothermal PCR which uses a unique polymerase (NEB's Bst was the "first" one and their LAMP system is everywhere) to dramatically speed up PCR thanks to the ability to perform it at room temp. Anyone who has done traditional PCR knows a big limiting factor is the speed at which an instrument can ramp the temperature up and down for each step.
To get back to your question I would say that lots of these startups were in some form of infancy but there was no real market for them. The general public was fine with waiting days for test results for pretty much everything. This led to most hospital and clinics ditching the formation of their own molecular testing labs and instead contracting with huge testing labs (LabCorp, ARUP, etc.) to do the testing. With COVID there was finally a market pressure saying "2 days is not fast enough!" and so more and more hospitals and public health departments started doing testing on site or in house. Even so the market is demanding for faster testing and this is where POC devices make an entrance.
There are already products on the market in this area (Lucira's COVID test is one example), but I think this is just the first wave. If the market proves to be as desperate for POC testing as I think I believe the next wave of products will be transformational. Why? Because Lucira and its competitors are temporary solutions. There is no reusable component to the test as once it is complete you toss the whole thing. The price point reflects this and is problematic for long term uptake. The next wave of product will be reusable where you purchase the tests separate. Think of it like a Keurig system. You buy the testing base and then buy the tests separate. My prediction is that within 3 - 5 years we will have access to in home molecular testing for $10-12 a test. I would not be surprised if it get's even lower or is covered by insurance (in the US) as well.
Oh for sure. There are anecdotes here and there popping up on Chinese social media about people dying from covid, but the official numbers didn't move at all.
Put it this way, if there is no death from such high infection rates, why bother with the harsh lock down when it has such a devastating effect on their economy?
Niall Ferguson published this piece yesterday in Bloomberg. While taking into the historical parallel with a past cholera epidemic, he listed a number of elements that could spell trouble down the road should zero-COVID policy remain a thing. It's not only the toll from COVID on public health, but the large implications on trade and GDP. Some of the excerpts about the way COVID has been handled in China really threw off my chair.
China’s ‘Zero Covid’ Has Become Xi’s Nemesis
They have listed 3 deaths or so only in the last 24 hours. But this is the kind of Ron DeSantis-like stuff pushed to an exponential level.
That has to be the biggest indictment of gross negligence if that is true. I know that clinical trials matter and so on, but there sould be no excuse to not get this ready when 1) China already has the recipe for the best vaccine there is and 2) having a top contingency tool is always better than having none. The next part is the translation of a comment on Chinese state media as reported by Ferguson, and it speaks volumes about a delusional sense of exceptionalism that the CCP is trying to project.
Bruh, you have the recipe to have the best weapon there is against the virus. You just blew it.
China’s ‘Zero Covid’ Has Become Xi’s Nemesis
They have listed 3 deaths or so only in the last 24 hours. But this is the kind of Ron DeSantis-like stuff pushed to an exponential level.
That has to be the biggest indictment of gross negligence if that is true. I know that clinical trials matter and so on, but there sould be no excuse to not get this ready when 1) China already has the recipe for the best vaccine there is and 2) having a top contingency tool is always better than having none. The next part is the translation of a comment on Chinese state media as reported by Ferguson, and it speaks volumes about a delusional sense of exceptionalism that the CCP is trying to project.
Bruh, you have the recipe to have the best weapon there is against the virus. You just blew it.
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Exactly. I was discussing this with @jojojo yesterday because I couldn’t work out why they would cynically cook the books to make covid look even less lethal, when that completely undermines their extreme countermeasures. She pointed out that this isn’t the government tweaking figures it’s the discrepancy between local and national figures. Local government might have to meet metrics about pandemic management so it benefits them to pretend they’re losing less lives than they really are. Even though that’s not what the government needs to hear.
There's a fascinating write-up on Twitter trying to explain why Shanghai (and Hong Kong before it) may not have shaken most Chinese people's belief in the standard zero covid response.
Personally I find it horrific - from the children separated from parents, to the people struggling to get food, to the culling of family pets and all done with no realistic end point. Just awful. But I guess for the large number of Chinese people with no desire to travel abroad etc, Shanghai seems like more a warning of what happens if you don't clamp down hard/fast than of the long-term futility of the zero covid approach
Personally I find it horrific - from the children separated from parents, to the people struggling to get food, to the culling of family pets and all done with no realistic end point. Just awful. But I guess for the large number of Chinese people with no desire to travel abroad etc, Shanghai seems like more a warning of what happens if you don't clamp down hard/fast than of the long-term futility of the zero covid approach
Bit random but had to share. Different times.
Omicron targeted vaccine expected to be approves by "late summer"
https://www.google.com/amp/s/fortune.com/2022/04/27/europe-omicron-vacccine-autumn/amp/
https://www.google.com/amp/s/fortune.com/2022/04/27/europe-omicron-vacccine-autumn/amp/
These data look very very bad (need to read whole thread). Is covid still gumming up the UK health service?
@jojojo
Times like these I bet they wish they had a functioning health service like the HSE!
There was an article yesterday which seems crazy. An NHS boss had a stroke, but knew that a category 2 call (which a stroke falls under) would take 2 hours currently, so her husband drove her in potentially saving her life. For an NHS boss to use her knowledge to not actually use the NHS is very worrying.
NHS boss feared waiting for ambulance after stroke - BBC News
The HSE is far smarter than them. There’s an easy way to avoid scary data like that. Don’t collect it. Problem solved!
On a serious note, does anyone know the actual chances of getting omicron again?
I'm getting married next Friday and have a tingle in my throat today, and when I got it three months ago, it started with a sore throat
On a serious note, does anyone know the actual chances of getting omicron again?
I'm getting married next Friday and have a tingle in my throat today, and when I got it three months ago, it started with a sore throat
Could definitely be a reinfection. You might be best to follow the HSE’s lead here.
uh, is there one?
Multiple layers of problem I think. Ambulance service has lost staff (+ high absences due to Omicron). A&E are picking up the slack because the GP system has been overwhelmed by the COVID backlog. And basically, things are pretty much business as usual elsewhere, so it's all the usual demands (traffic accidents etc) + COVID related calls, A&E visits.
I was with a family member last week who has had recent surgery and who had fallen. Long story short - I was told by the visiting district nurse that, "she needs A&E - blood gushes out when I disturb the dressing," and that an ambulance could take an hour to arrive but I could drive her there myself if I wanted. Call me a wimp - but I was terrified that I would disturb the dressing getting her from wheelchair to car so stuck with the ambulance. As it turned out the wait for the ambulance was only ten minutes - but I'd rather not have had to make that decision.
don't test, hide til symptoms gone
I think pretty much everyone at the wedding has had it by now anyway so feck 'em.
Correct answer.
Also correct answer.
As expected death toll much higher than initially stated.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-05...n-estimates-15-million-covid-deaths/101043014
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-05...n-estimates-15-million-covid-deaths/101043014
I've read some of the WHO stats. Overall the figures seem plausible but when you look at individual countries it's harder to call. The estimates are based on "excess deaths" but to get those you have to choose an "expected deaths" baseline.
For some countries (including the UK) the baselines look pretty plausible based on the 5 years prior to the pandemic. For others, like Germany, they look more suspect. There's no doubt that there's been massive underreporting in some countries - but I'm not that convinced that WHO's analysis is better than the one produced by the Economist or the FT for example.
The headline graph for example:
But it all relies on that estimate of "expected deaths" as discussed here:
Incidentally the BBC graphic also ignores the error bars on the WHO data. It's not a League table, just a cautionary tale about reported v actual COVID deaths.
I had it at the end of March and was sick enough in bed for three days with a fever and lost sense of smell, along with brain fog. The first few weeks back in work were tough and everything took me longer to do and figure out. I've had to take notes and screenshots in order to follow my train of thought through solving a problem when I never would have before for something similar. It's improving all the time but I'm still not as sharp as I was mentally and am now wondering if I ever will be.
That sounds rough mate. Thankfully you're improving as time goes on and hopefully you'll continue that way and make a full recovery.
Hopefully so, it's quite strange. Thanks mate.
Thankfully. Otherwise we’d have to have a discussion about… whisper it… Sweden
Man, everything told in this video about the inhumane conditions of the (still undergoing) lockdowns in Shanghai is just heartbreaking. Thanks for the report being as true and raw as possible, Vice News.
Absolutely nonsensical for this to be going on for 38 days now.
Absolutely nonsensical for this to be going on for 38 days now.
Thankfully. Otherwise we’d have to have a discussion about… whisper it… Sweden
Mourinho.gif
Thankfully. Otherwise we’d have to have a discussion about… whisper it… Sweden
No discussion required innit
The fecker has finally got me.
Started a new job last week, now work in the USA and commute every day (it's hybrid WFH but to start i wanted to go in every day). Finally got COVID after a week after never getting it before and working in person for the past 2 years 
Couldn't make it up. It's likely not actually from work, think I got it from my s.o. But still. Funny. Not fun though.
Couldn't make it up. It's likely not actually from work, think I got it from my s.o. But still. Funny. Not fun though.
When will the pandemic officially be declared over?