Medical Discussion of Coronavirus

[CordMcNally]

Agree we don't know.

But you don't get a second chance here. If it did turn out to be "as bad as Ebola" and we did nothing... Then what?

Imagine the pre covid world. And someone says, we have discovered a new virus in South Africa, it is novel, highly infectious, probably has a mortality rate of at least half a percent, and no one is immune. Wouldn't you expect your government to try to block importation of that virus to your country, or at least try?

At some point governments can't do nothing if they truly fear a game changing variant.

A delay of two weeks doesn't do much, though, unless governments really ramp something up in those two weeks. And since we don't know much about omicron it's pretty hard to know what actions we should take. Aggressive PR campaign for boosters? Distribute 30,000,000 genetic sequencing kits? Break out the emergency ventilator supply?

Probably the travel ban slows the entry of omicron by a matter of days and we do nothing with those days and thus accomplish nothing.

What if? I think people are tired of hearing ‘what if’. This variant is likely already in the US before the travel ban even started. They ban travel from some countries and not others.

The biggest problem is that governments view most new variants as potentially game changing. It’s a boy who cried wolf scenario. Again, people are scared of variants. They’re scared of governments reaction to them.

[Tim]

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/11/28/fauci-says-us-should-prepare-to-do-anything-to-fight-omicron-variant.html

The logic being used is the same as 2 years ago. “To allow us to be prepared”.
“Anything and everything” to lower the curve. The problem is, there is no definition or hint of what needs to be accomplished to be prepared. Thus, the goal posts are defined later and moved.

What is not considered is the value of time for each individual is different. After two years of isolation, my 94 yr old MIL
is running out of time. We “chose” to limit Christmas to my two kids visiting last year. We declined to host the traditional extended family Christmas Eve gathering because we were convinced that most weren’t strictly following the recommended precautions. I am convinced that indoor social gatherings with interactions lead to infections.
However, in two years Grandma wants and needs to see the “new wife” and new great grandchildren. That 5 yr old is now in second grade. That 11 yr old wants to know if he can bring the 13 yr old GF to meet grandma.
This might be her last. There will be a family Christmas Eve gathering this year.

Not requesting vaccination status or masks. Kids will be allowed to head to the game room play pool and foosball and watch movies in the media room.

Covid fatigue, pure and simple. Using isolation as Covid protection just doesn’t have wings and won’t fly anymore.

Yes, I still think large indoor gatherings are higher risk. For the vast majority of the population, “anything and everything” will be rejected. Fact: several have had lengthy Covid hospital stays and long term problems and one of the BILs passed from Covid. The “fear” of Covid messaging is not going to work. Regardless of the variant.
For anyone to expect otherwise is out of touch with the real world. Grandma doesn’t have time for Fauci to “get us prepared”. Neither does the rest of the family.
I hope the vaccines and therapeutics work. I suspect many families are doing the same. Even a “mandate” won’t change this plan. People are moving on with their lives.

[Zaphod]

What if? I think people are tired of hearing ‘what if’. This variant is likely already in the US before the travel ban even started. They ban travel from some countries and not others.

The biggest problem is that governments view most new variants as potentially game changing. It’s a boy who cried wolf scenario. Again, people are scared of variants. They’re scared of governments reaction to them.

I dont think thats been the case, scientists often doing the scariant game, but governments havent done anything, maybe they felt burned by delta or something or their current numbers meant they were more fearful of an increase.

The biggest problem is no one has taken anything seriously, done a bunch of half measures which has slightly slowed the virus but ultimately not changed outcomes, while making everyone mad.

I understand why theyre concerned, with that many mutations theres no way you get as good protection from illness with the vaccine, makes reinfections a near guarantee to rise, etc...However we simply dont know how thoroughly its spreading or if its actually more advantageous, need more data.

[StarTrekDoc]

Wow. Spend a day at Disneyland and this thread blows up 🤪

I think most of us here tend not to be at the fringes and represent a fairly good spectrum of opinions and insights.

It's certainly not a uniform disease even in locales. @jaqen had a very different experience compared to.my colleagues at JMH/UMiami. Same here in San Diego. We had very different experiences between the local hospital system, Kaiser , and university even though we are all within few miles of each other.

The interesting thing about our nation, its not far off from Europe's vaccination rate as a whole. There are definitely regional variations, but it tracks like Europe. The one difference is our rate of infection tracks much higher mostly because our openess and it reflects the higher death per Capita .

Our hospital resources fortunately have more capacity than Europe as a whole and we've been mostly able to weather the surges through most of the country.

As to omicron. Simply don't know yet on how it will compete against Delta. We shall find out shortly in UK and Europe. We are experiencing live a public health pandemic and much will be written on this in future years.

How to 'live with this' remains a very open question since eradication went off the table. I believe the answer is assess every available intervention to mitigate complications and balance that for public good vs public harm. - ie do our job, eh?

[Jaqen Haghar MD]

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/11/28/fauc...n-variant.html
What is not considered is the value of time for each individual is different. After two years of isolation, my 94 yr old MIL
is running out of time. We “chose” to limit Christmas to my two kids visiting last year. We declined to host the traditional extended family Christmas Eve gathering because we were convinced that most weren’t strictly following the recommended precautions. I am convinced that indoor social gatherings with interactions lead to infections.
However, in two years Grandma wants and needs to see the “new wife” and new great grandchildren. That 5 yr old is now in second grade. That 11 yr old wants to know if he can bring the 13 yr old GF to meet grandma.
This might be her last. There will be a family Christmas Eve gathering this year.

Well. My father was never really a heathy guy, overweight, diabetic, and non-compliant, big and stubborn and ornery in his old age. It still took a while to really catch up with him though. By the time it was the end of 2019, he was 84 and not doing well at home, with my mom trying in vain to hold everything together. And all the kids living far away. ….It was finally time to get him to a place with a lot of full time help.

One of my brothers found a great place near the majority of my family several states away from NY. It was a private nursing home, no insurance accepted and pretty expensive, but they really went above and beyond with their residents and their care. We moved him in there, and my mother moved locally also, and sold the house. It was long in coming, but an essential move, close to most of my siblings and extended family again, where there was a lot of help close by. A relief to everyone.

In short order, he was doing much better there. Happy, energetic, engaged. No longer moping around isolated at home all the time, and thriving in a more social environment with lots of interactions, and good energy. It was a strange but good change, the same one we saw in his parents when they went into nursing homes in their 90s. So odd to see, but obviously good and a big relief. He was almost like a kid again.

This place took great pride in how they operated. They kept the residents active and engaged, arranged outings, and my mom was so happy with things there, visiting him every day. She fought the good fight, but was now relieved to get some rest and see him doing so well.

When Covid hit, this place didn’t F-around. They clamped down like the jaws of life. Visitations through FaceTime only for a while, then from outside through a window only. Still, he was happy and doing well.

When vaccines came, everyone was fully vaccinated there, residents and staff. Eventually they eased back to in-person visitations with masks and such, as the pandemic died down. Not a single case there… Not one case…. For about 19 months.

In October 2021, they had their 1st case. I guess likely brought in by someone who was vaccinated, but who knows for sure. My father was fully vaccinated, but not a healthy guy. A bunch of the residents got sick, and eventually after a couple of weeks, he got it too.

My mom and family were hopeful, after all, it was just like a little cold at first. I figured though, he’d last about ten days til things got bad, like it does for so many….. I think he made it to day six.

I got the call toward the end of my night shift when he died, about 6 weeks ago now, I guess. I finished the shift, stayed about 2 hours late to clean up everything. I don’t remember if I had any Covid cases that day. Covid had already burnt out locally here.

I didn’t tell anybody. I didn’t leave work. I didn’t even change the expression on my face at the nurse’s station when I got the call, or until I got home late that morning. No one where I work knows about it.

They did everything they could do at that place to prevent this. Exceeded every rule, and played things smart and careful, yet still it happened. What does it all mean? …Maybe something …maybe nothing.

It’s been a long couple of years, just about. I think sometime in the future, some of us will look back on everything from the first years of fighting Covid 19, and stare blankly off into the distance, and mutter something like the line from “Josie Wales”…

”I guess we all died a little, in that d*amn war.”

[FIREshrink]

I dont think thats been the case, scientists often doing the scariant game, but governments havent done anything, maybe they felt burned by delta or something or their current numbers meant they were more fearful of an increase.

The biggest problem is no one has taken anything seriously, done a bunch of half measures which has slightly slowed the virus but ultimately not changed outcomes, while making everyone mad.

I understand why theyre concerned, with that many mutations theres no way you get as good protection from illness with the vaccine, makes reinfections a near guarantee to rise, etc...However we simply dont know how thoroughly its spreading or if its actually more advantageous, need more data.

And just because people are "tired" of covid doesn't mean the virus has to play along. I guess people were tired of WWI and WWII and the plague and the Hundred Years War and a bunch of other nasty epochs in history, doesn't mean they get to just lay down their guns and "go back to normal."

[Hatton]

Well. My father was never really a heathy guy, overweight, diabetic, and non-compliant, big and stubborn and ornery in his old age. It still took a while to really catch up with him though. By the time it was the end of 2019, he was 84 and not doing well at home, with my mom trying in vain to hold everything together. And all the kids living far away. ….It was finally time to get him to a place with a lot of full time help.

One of my brothers found a great place near the majority of my family several states away from NY. It was a private nursing home, no insurance accepted and pretty expensive, but they really went above and beyond with their residents and their care. We moved him in there, and my mother moved locally also, and sold the house. It was long in coming, but an essential move, close to most of my siblings and extended family again, where there was a lot of help close by. A relief to everyone.

In short order, he was doing much better there. Happy, energetic, engaged. No longer moping around isolated at home all the time, and thriving in a more social environment with lots of interactions, and good energy. It was a strange but good change, the same one we saw in his parents when they went into nursing homes in their 90s. So odd to see, but obviously good and a big relief. He was almost like a kid again.

This place took great pride in how they operated. They kept the residents active and engaged, arranged outings, and my mom was so happy with things there, visiting him every day. She fought the good fight, but was now relieved to get some rest and see him doing so well.

When Covid hit, this place didn’t F-around. They clamped down like the jaws of life. Visitations through FaceTime only for a while, then from outside through a window only. Still, he was happy and doing well.

When vaccines came, everyone was fully vaccinated there, residents and staff. Eventually they eased back to in-person visitations with masks and such, as the pandemic died down. Not a single case there… Not one case…. For about 19 months.

In October 2021, they had their 1st case. I guess likely brought in by someone who was vaccinated, but who knows for sure. My father was fully vaccinated, but not a healthy guy. A bunch of the residents got sick, and eventually after a couple of weeks, he got it too.

My mom and family were hopeful, after all, it was just like a little cold at first. I figured though, he’d last about ten days til things got bad, like it does for so many….. I think he made it to day six.

I got the call toward the end of my night shift when he died, about 6 weeks ago now, I guess. I finished the shift, stayed about 2 hours late to clean up everything. I don’t remember if I had any Covid cases that day. Covid had already burnt out locally here.

I didn’t tell anybody. I didn’t leave work. I didn’t even change the expression on my face at the nurse’s station when I got the call, or until I got home late that morning. No one where I work knows about it.

They did everything they could do at that place to prevent this. Exceeded every rule, and played things smart and careful, yet still it happened. What does it all mean? …Maybe something …maybe nothing.

It’s been a long couple of years, just about. I think sometime in the future, some of us will look back on everything from the first years of fighting Covid 19, and stare blankly off into the distance, and mutter something like the line from “Josie Wales”…

”I guess we all died a little, in that d*amn war.”

I am sorry for your loss. It sounds like your family did everything it could.

[Sampter]

Covid fatigue for sure. I wonder if the US would be behaving differently to the pandemic if the main at risk population was children/young adults instead of the elderly and chronically ill.

[jacoavlu]

Covid fatigue for sure. I wonder if the US would be behaving differently to the pandemic if the main at risk population was children/young adults instead of the elderly and chronically ill.

of course

[Zaphod]

I have covid fatigue. Whether or not this variant turns out to be anything, just it happening, very predictably, in a short time, was crushing. Each one just extends this into our new normal longer. It sucks.

[xraygoggles]

Covid fatigue for sure. I wonder if the US would be behaving differently to the pandemic if the main at risk population was children/young adults instead of the elderly and chronically ill.

US would also likely be behaving differently if it wasn't disproportionately hospitalizing/killing off predominately lower SES, people of color, etc.

[setsail26]

Yes, I have COVID fatigue too. And not really from any restrictions, because I am a homebody and my hobbies are outdoors. I guess homeschooling really sucked, but I suspect we aren't going back in that direction. I'm tired of the arguing. Tired of thinking that people who are dying are stupid. Everyone already hated everyone else and COVID has made that immeasurably worse. All this has made us all a little stupid. That will be the most lasting impact of COVID.

[StarTrekDoc]

Jaqen Haghar MD sorry to hear that. Sucks. These past years suck with lives disrupted, habits changed. Some more than others. My heart goes out to all those impacted by this.

. Both sets of parents are sick of it too despite in their 80s they're going out. Mom wants to do Vegas forw new years. She's not cowering at home and going to max protect but will live life until she can't

Each will find their balance to this new normal. Soldier on folk

[Tim]

“Sometimes the best course of action is to wait and see and say “I don’t know.””
Glad the war analogies were brought up.FIREshrink
Growing accustomed to Fear is actually valid. Just saying guns seem useless with Covid. People adapt to the “new normal”.

https://awealthofcommonsense.com/2021/11/growing-accustomed-to-fear/

Ben is a much better writer than I. Each person is now reacting according to their own personal experience.
The war analogies don’t work anymore.
For this particular variant, zero actionable advice so far. Communication a potential threat is wise. You have governments taking action based on what? The fear factor or politics without a basis in science.
One “expert” declared that “he represents science”.
Any criticism of him is an attack on science.
Nothing actionable there either. In more recent history, nuclear threats are examples. That would lead to dusting off the air raid drills (school kids getting under the desk).
It really doesn't matter the examples used. Each individual is reacting from their own perspective and likely not changing their perspective.

[Shant]

As one of the vulnerable people I don't think full lockdown makes sense. If I were in charge, and I'm glad I'm not, I would get the testing and manufacture going on vaccine effectiveness and on a modified vaccine mRNA package, increase surveillance of positive samples for the variant, and increase restrictions locally only where the variant is found if the data at that time shows disease severity warrants it. Mostly because once the children are vaccinated that's about as good as it's ever going to get.