And hopefully it means that the vaccines are proving effective at reducing the risk of death, even if death is not the only risk associated with contracting covid, especially multiple times?
Interestingly, vaccines are proving less effective and waning more rapidly- relative to the population, which is all hopped up on COVID antibodies due to the constant COVID transmission. It's a hard thing to wrap your head around because a lot of these numbers are moving target relative to a changing population.
I guess the question is: what do you think we should do about it? There's nothing to talk about with it because that's it. We don't have a flu thread because it's part of our lives now. I don't think anyone is under the impression that it's going to disappear suddenly and there's nothing novel about discussing it anymore.
I don't have a new answer on what to do about it, but there is some other news that might be worth mentioning. I assumed everyone kinda gets their news elsewhere at this point, but just a few things to note:
Turns out CO2 itself is a contributor to COVID transmission - not just because that's what we exhale and you see more CO2 with higher COVID as a result, but because the physical properties of CO2 actually provide a buffer for the virus particles when aerosolized, allowing them to survive for longer. Basically, ventilation may actually be more important than filtration, in terms of long term, indoor events. Majority of the particles de-activate within 20 minutes (most of the deactivation happening in the first 5 minutes, even) without the aid of 800+ ppm CO2, so you could actually feel safe from aerosols entering a room 20 minutes after someone else who had COVID left it, as long as the room you're entering has a low enough CO2 concentration. Which is actually very easily measurable! And important for policy on ventilation going forward.
Newest vaccinate update coming soon- the FDA is recommending it target the JN.1 COVID lineage, but the specific variant is up in the air. I'm hoping they choose one of the currently spreading versions rather than an earlier variant, but Novavax can't move as fast as MRNA and the FDA may want everyone to be targeting the same variant for simple communication to patients and a more consistent immune profile for the vaccinated population.
Violet Blue, who runs the Pandemic Roundup (https://www.patreon.com/violetblue?filters[tag]=Pandemic Roundups), has a COVID Safety Handbook with a lot of good resources coming out soon, which has been funded on Kickstarter. I can't vouch for all of her stuff because some of it feels a bit sensationalized, but there are some genuinely useful resources in there and it might be interesting to others in this thread.
Have you seen any longer term studies on vaccine effectiveness for hospitalizations and deaths? I was having a hard time tracking this down after I posted the original graph for excess deaths.
From what I could find immunization against infection wains pretty quickly, but it’s generally pretty effective for hospitalizations and deaths even after a while (only study I did find was around 75% effective for hospitalizations after a year). Which would match the fact that even though we have relaxed all restrictions hospitals aren’t overrun.
I don’t think it can all be explained by thinning of the at risk population. I couldn’t really figure out how to google for that, but as an example assisted living facilities are at over 80% occupancy (which is down from pre-covid, but not like an order of magnitude lower).
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FencingsaxIt is difficult to get a man to understand, when his salary depends upon his not understandingGNU Terry PratchettRegistered Userregular
And hopefully it means that the vaccines are proving effective at reducing the risk of death, even if death is not the only risk associated with contracting covid, especially multiple times?
Interestingly, vaccines are proving less effective and waning more rapidly- relative to the population, which is all hopped up on COVID antibodies due to the constant COVID transmission. It's a hard thing to wrap your head around because a lot of these numbers are moving target relative to a changing population.
I guess the question is: what do you think we should do about it? There's nothing to talk about with it because that's it. We don't have a flu thread because it's part of our lives now. I don't think anyone is under the impression that it's going to disappear suddenly and there's nothing novel about discussing it anymore.
I don't have a new answer on what to do about it, but there is some other news that might be worth mentioning. I assumed everyone kinda gets their news elsewhere at this point, but just a few things to note:
Turns out CO2 itself is a contributor to COVID transmission - not just because that's what we exhale and you see more CO2 with higher COVID as a result, but because the physical properties of CO2 actually provide a buffer for the virus particles when aerosolized, allowing them to survive for longer. Basically, ventilation may actually be more important than filtration, in terms of long term, indoor events. Majority of the particles de-activate within 20 minutes (most of the deactivation happening in the first 5 minutes, even) without the aid of 800+ ppm CO2, so you could actually feel safe from aerosols entering a room 20 minutes after someone else who had COVID left it, as long as the room you're entering has a low enough CO2 concentration. Which is actually very easily measurable! And important for policy on ventilation going forward.
Newest vaccinate update coming soon- the FDA is recommending it target the JN.1 COVID lineage, but the specific variant is up in the air. I'm hoping they choose one of the currently spreading versions rather than an earlier variant, but Novavax can't move as fast as MRNA and the FDA may want everyone to be targeting the same variant for simple communication to patients and a more consistent immune profile for the vaccinated population.
Violet Blue, who runs the Pandemic Roundup (https://www.patreon.com/violetblue?filters[tag]=Pandemic Roundups), has a COVID Safety Handbook with a lot of good resources coming out soon, which has been funded on Kickstarter. I can't vouch for all of her stuff because some of it feels a bit sensationalized, but there are some genuinely useful resources in there and it might be interesting to others in this thread.
Is it eventually possible to combine the COVID and Flu shot?
Oh my god I really, really, REALLY hope that we do actually move forward with the ventilation upgrades. As someone who who is severely allergic to just about everything indoors it would be nice to not need a ton of allergy pills/shots/etc.
I think I linked to it sometime earlier, but ASHRAE basically did last year.
It'll get incorporated with the new I-Codes when various places update them, probably over the course of ~9 years, (but plenty of new buildings do better than minimum because it's easier to just keep things consistent with the newer standards) and then take however long for things to actually replace existing square footage.
Basically think about how many places are now ADA compliant and how many places aren't. And also think about it in comparison to the 80's. This will go faster because mechanical systems get replaced on a semi-regular schedule compared to retrofitting ramps.
+3
daveNYCWhy universe hate Waspinator?Registered Userregular
The nice thing about H5N1 is that NIAID et al have been worried about it for a very long time so it won't be quite the curveball COVID was, but there's lots of bad side from what control and vaccination resistance is likely to occur with another pandemic any time soon... but if things hold off there are promising candidates for mRNA universal vaccines for flu that would really be a boon
Good news for me, but the anti-vax crazy talk is mainstream now; so there will still be a hell of a death count. Never mind how off the rails things will get when idiots start talking about the government already having a vaccine ready for a disease they've never heard of. Pure conspiracy talk that'll be.
Shut up, Mr. Burton! You were not brought upon this world to get it!
The nice thing about H5N1 is that NIAID et al have been worried about it for a very long time so it won't be quite the curveball COVID was, but there's lots of bad side from what control and vaccination resistance is likely to occur with another pandemic any time soon... but if things hold off there are promising candidates for mRNA universal vaccines for flu that would really be a boon
Good news for me, but the anti-vax crazy talk is mainstream now; so there will still be a hell of a death count. Never mind how off the rails things will get when idiots start talking about the government already having a vaccine ready for a disease they've never heard of. Pure conspiracy talk that'll be.
Yes with the polarization of the antivax movement along political lines, a really bad flu that we're somewhat prepared for is going to make the tinfoil hat guys lose their minds because of what is going to seem like very targeted deaths.
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ahavaCall me Ahava ~~She/Her~~Move to New ZealandRegistered Userregular
got my 6th shot today. so 4th booster.
asked about getting the kid a booster.
apparently the going reality down here is that kids, if they've had the first 2 shots, don't need to get another booster until they're older. like, 16.
which seems weird.
but is also on all the suggestions/recs that i could find from the govt and the childrens hospital.
Posts
Have you seen any longer term studies on vaccine effectiveness for hospitalizations and deaths? I was having a hard time tracking this down after I posted the original graph for excess deaths.
From what I could find immunization against infection wains pretty quickly, but it’s generally pretty effective for hospitalizations and deaths even after a while (only study I did find was around 75% effective for hospitalizations after a year). Which would match the fact that even though we have relaxed all restrictions hospitals aren’t overrun.
I don’t think it can all be explained by thinning of the at risk population. I couldn’t really figure out how to google for that, but as an example assisted living facilities are at over 80% occupancy (which is down from pre-covid, but not like an order of magnitude lower).
That's what I did last year, and will probably do again this year
I think I linked to it sometime earlier, but ASHRAE basically did last year.
ASHRAE 241-2023
It'll get incorporated with the new I-Codes when various places update them, probably over the course of ~9 years, (but plenty of new buildings do better than minimum because it's easier to just keep things consistent with the newer standards) and then take however long for things to actually replace existing square footage.
Basically think about how many places are now ADA compliant and how many places aren't. And also think about it in comparison to the 80's. This will go faster because mechanical systems get replaced on a semi-regular schedule compared to retrofitting ramps.
Good news for me, but the anti-vax crazy talk is mainstream now; so there will still be a hell of a death count. Never mind how off the rails things will get when idiots start talking about the government already having a vaccine ready for a disease they've never heard of. Pure conspiracy talk that'll be.
Yes with the polarization of the antivax movement along political lines, a really bad flu that we're somewhat prepared for is going to make the tinfoil hat guys lose their minds because of what is going to seem like very targeted deaths.
asked about getting the kid a booster.
apparently the going reality down here is that kids, if they've had the first 2 shots, don't need to get another booster until they're older. like, 16.
which seems weird.
but is also on all the suggestions/recs that i could find from the govt and the childrens hospital.
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