Coronavirus 2020-22

[Yu Ominae]

California taking off 330,000 Moderna vaccines temporarily due to six healthcare workers having severe allergic reactions.

[mangamuscle]

OK, just heard this in youtube and googled this article

Doctor’s Death After Covid Vaccine Is Being Investigated

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/12/h...ine-death.html

This is unsettling because if I understand correctly, the vaccine might have triggered an immune response that killed the platelets, since by the looks of it even after transfusion his condition didn't improve.

I hope this is a one in ten million glitch (meaning less than a hundread in the USA will die in the vaccination process) and not a signal of a long term degenerative process triggered by the vacine.

As always, comments welcome.

[Anh_Minh]

There is also the possibility it had nothing to do with the vaccine. Vaccinate enough people and sooner or later someone will drop dead shortly thereafter.

[Jaden]

Yeah, a one in ten million glitch is what I would expect if everyone got injected with water. Based on previous mass vaccinations, I would expect more like one in 10,000-100,000 to die or get some crippling side-effect, linked to the vaccine.

Because those cases will be rare, and based on some cryptic interaction with genetic disposition or underlying disease, it's difficult to study, and usually the mechanisms remain unknown. But it certainly happens.

[Guardian Enzo]

Here's the reality. 1 in 10K people could drop dead instantly as a direct result of the vaccine (which absolutely has not been and will not be happening), and it would still be a slam dunk that everyone should receive it. Both for personal and societal benefit.

[Jaden]

That's right...just like many other public health measures, it's like the trolley problem. Being pragmatic, as long as I'm certain that the numbers are favorable, I can pull the lever and not have to worry about any people that might get ran over.

The numbers might even be better this time. With the H1N1 vaccines, many casualties were linked to toxic adjuvants, which are not contained in most of the new COVID vaccines. At same time, I can't rule out them having some new, unforeseen problem...but for now, I want to believe that experience from past pandemics makes it easier to deal with subsequent ones.

[mangamuscle]

Well, it is well into 2021, isn't it time to change the name of the thread to sars-cov 2? This will probably still be an issue in 2022 and MERS and sars-cov (the original one) are also coronavirus.

On local news, we have gone retro, on Sundays stores are closed by order from the governor. They keep adding new beds but hospitals as we inch closer to full capacity every day. Vaccines for medical personnel are arriving in very small quantities and it has been public that many bureaucrats are getting their dose at the same time.

I am somehow glad that I live in a city that is "dirty, ugly and not-tall" because the new USA regulations on travel (negative tests and quarantine) are going to decimate those cities that do expect some dollars from tourism, no spring breakers this year.

[Yu Ominae]

https://hongkongfp.com/2021/01/23/ju...nnel-deployed/

Jordan and Yau Ma Tei is cordoned off.

[SeijiSensei]

Why it took someone twenty-four hours to enter South Korea

I thought I'd write about my experience re-entering South Korea, where I reside, during this global pandemic. It wasn't a 5 minute job like in London Heathrow where I was out in no time. Instead, it took 24 hours.

https://twitter.com/koryodynasty/sta...10393715564544

[mangamuscle]

Twins With Covid Help Scientists Untangle the Disease’s Genetic Roots

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/18/h...-genetics.html

This article makes me think that covid19 virus load makes a big difference on the lethality of the disease. This would explain how the new mutations are more deadly (still an assumption, I know), it is not that they are more deadly, but if they require a lower virus load to overload the immune system, it is more likely the infection will probe more lethal on the average.

On a different note, I am also starting to think that "virus have decreased lethality as times goes by" does not apply nowadays, because we have a higher level of mobility only dreamed a century ago (when the last pandemic struck).

[mangamuscle]

SARS‐CoV‐2‐induced remission of Hodgkin lymphoma

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/...1111/bjh.17116

Maybe the old adage "What does not kill me makes me stronger " isn't so far from the truth (in specific cases, of course) O_o;

[OH&S]

So the Lowy Institute has just compiled a Covid Performance Index where they assess the pandemic responses for 98 countries and assign them an index score for how they have performed throughout the duration of the pandemic.

Its an interesting read (with pretty interactive graphs) and compares a number of factors including:

• Regions
• Political Systems
• Population Size
• Economic Development

There are some interesting results hidden within (namely how poorly democratic countries have performed in very recent times compared to authoritarian countries; though it could be because it Winter in the Northern Hemisphere). (Actually this was an incredibly stupid take on my part).

Also interesting is that the report separates China data from Taiwan as China has a lack of publicly available data (And is therefore excluded from the country rankings).

Without further ado, the Top 10 and most interesting rankings (Average performance in the 36 weeks following the 100th confirmed case of the virus):

TL;DR…

Various Rankings

Sorry; dynamic content not loaded. Reload?

Interesting observations:

• Island countries tended to perform better as they had better control of their borders. Performing well within their countries essentially guaranteed them a place in the top 10. Except in the Philippines. And Indonesia.
• United States sucks so bad when compared to all other Western democracies.
• Brazil performed the worst out of all ranked countries.
• Sweden performed the worst out of all the Nordic countries; further display of proof that their strategy failed.
• Rwanda was the best performing African country (and came in 6th).
• Ukraine and Romania were the worst performing European countries.
• India is performing the worst out of the countries in the Indian subcontinent.

EDIT: I've realized that with just the rankings, you aren't able to tell just how badly the countries have performed towards the bottom. So I've added their scores as well.

[cyberdemon]

Not surprising for the US. Trump never put any effort into fighting it. His very nature only created more and more superspreader events. It’s funny if you think about it. If he had just taken appropriate steps and even just slowed the spread, a 2nd term would have likely been guaranteed. Instead he worried about how much a collapsed economy would hurt his campaign. So he tried to salvage that even as the virus raged rampant. In the end, so many died and the economy tanked and he lost re-election as a result all because of his pride.

[Guardian Enzo]

Countries with nationalist leaders did poorly. Countries with female leaders tended to do well. Also worth noting that Taiwan has an epidemiologist as a VP, and that no doubt helped their cause.

[mangamuscle]

Yeah, we are 2nd place!
Sir, you have the rankings upside down!

This might seem like a joke, but that is par for the course for our cavernarian president, who is atm isolated after contracting covid19 himself and must be thinking "If bolzonaro and trump are still alive, I will be back in business in no time". I am fully expecting to have a new president before spring, would not be surprised if this was all along the plan of his second in command.

Bloomberg had already made some articles about my country being one of the worst if you get infected with covid19. I live in a city where we are above the national average, which does not mean things are not getting scary every time I turn on the news. Organized crime has even started to steal oxygen tanks, they have become a commodity for those sick at home.

[Jaden]

Though it's true that Sweden performed the worst out of all Nordic countries, it's not like they're devastated: https://twitter.com/GrahamNeary/stat...74424074952709

I guess it just means that due to sparse population, good economy and healthcare, they were never in that much danger regardless of strategy.

[EroKing]

Originally Posted by OH&S

[*]India is performing the worst out of the countries in the Indian subcontinent.

Deaths per 1 million population = 111 currently. Meanwhile, European countries and Murica as much as 5-15 times worse. No single country in the world with this large of a population, while sharing a border with China in the first place managed to do this well.

Dramatic drop in Covid cases gives India hope of return to normal life.

Originally Posted by Guardian Enzo

Countries with nationalist leaders did poorly. Countries with female leaders tended to do well. Also worth noting that Taiwan has an epidemiologist as a VP, and that no doubt helped their cause.

Modi is gonna cry yo.

[ganbaru]

Originally Posted by EroKing

Deaths per 1 million population = 111 currently. Meanwhile, European countries and Murica as much as 5-15 times worse. No single country in the world with this large of a population, while sharing a border with China in the first place managed to do this well.

Dramatic drop in Covid cases gives India hope of return to normal life.

Are India's number believed to be accurare? There's a number of countries than might fudge their number, others to be unable to have the right picture of the situation.

[EroKing]

Originally Posted by ganbaru

Are India's number believed to be accurare? There's a number of countries than might fudge their number, others to be unable to have the right picture of the situation.

The actual number cases of those who got infected very well had been much higher due to limited testing then but the number of deaths shouldn't be off by much. You look at the city of Mumbai today with so many people out and most things back to normal, that the official numbers of active cases just a little over 5500 does seem to be believable. Herd immunity seems close in the capital - Delhi too.

Personally, I wouldn't do a victory lap. The future seems dark with the situation in the U.S. and Europe. With every single infection the virus learns and can evolve/mutate into something far, far deadlier. With daily cases worldwide hitting as high as close to 840k in one day, chances of it goes up by a lot. Even with vaccines, we don't know where we will be in the next 2-3 months. It's still a race, between the virus and humanity. But for now, seems much safer than months ago to go out here. Not that I'm gonna, the hikikomori life for the past year has been super comforting...

[Guardian Enzo]

Viruses don't generally evolve into something "far deadlier". Over time in fact the opposite generally happens, because that's where the evolutionary benefit is.