Medical Discussion of Coronavirus

[K82]

I have no idea if masks work or not to decrease COVID infections. I suspect there's benefit to decreasing viral load - even if it ends up being a small decrease - but I can't find data that's clearly convincing. And that's a really hard study to design well and carry out. What is obvious to me is that the initial lockdown period was critically important. Do y'all not remember the crazy ************************ we were doing? Intubate anyone who fails 6lpm by nasal cannula? Intubate in a box? Extubate under plastic shower curtains? Split a vent between two patients? Split a bipap between 2 patients? ************************ WBD wrote a very thoughtful and moving post about the weight he carried having to plan for rationing care. We needed a month or two to breathe and figure out how to handle this disease. We didn't know what we were doing - and that's understandable. Now vents are never the limiting factor - and that's not because Ford produced a bunch. We don't use them very often and for good reason.

Forcing everyone to stay home had tons of negative effects, granted. But if we hadn't paused and figured out what to do we would have had hundreds of thousands more deaths all from our ignorance. Oh, and I don't see how you can look at Scandinavia and not see that some combination of measures must have worked. I included Denmark bc it has much higher pop density - and a less isolated location - but still has similar demographics for comparison. If you're interested - besides pop density (Sweden = 1.6x Norway), they're incredibly similar (demographics, genetics, immunization rates, etc) but Norway took a much more cautious approach.

All that said, now that we're well immunized, it's time to move on. I just hate hearing this revisionist garbage when y'all were there and must have noticed that slowing the spread for a couple months allowed us to learn and adapt during a critical time.

I don't disagree with you that the start of this whole thing was very stressful and we did the best we could with what we knew. The landscape was constantly changing and we adjusted. But, that being said, I think we can look back now and say that some of the stuff we thought was game changing was likely not doing much. We can stop that now.

I just found out that Norway and Finland had similar lax mask mandate policies to Sweden so I don't know that you can make much of the differences: https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2...mask-adoption/

Its tough to adjust for all the variables between places. But that being said, I still think that if masks were a game changer then we would see stark differences between states and countries that used strict mandates from those that didn't and we don't see it.

[xraygoggles]

Omicron BA.2 seems to be on the rise - people speculating possible wave in April-Summer in US.

It seems to be 30% more infectious than BA.1, but has similar levels of morbidity.

[Tim]

Omicron BA.2 seems to be on the rise - people speculating possible wave in April-Summer in US.

It seems to be 30% more infectious than BA.1, but has similar levels of morbidity.

“Vaccines Authorized For
Children 4 years and under:

• None

Children 5–11 years old:

• Pfizer-BioNTech

Teens 12–17 years old:

• Pfizer-BioNTech

Everyone 18 years and older:

• Pfizer-BioNTech
• Moderna
• Johnson & Johnson’s Janssen

*Everyone ages 18 years and older should get a booster dose of either Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna (mRNA COVID-19 vaccines) at least 2 months after receiving the Johnson & Johnson’s Janssen (J&J/Janssen) vaccine in most situations.

Widespread vaccination for COVID-19 is a critical tool to best protect everyone from COVID-19 and COVID-19 related complications.

Everyone ages 12 years and older should get a COVID-19 booster shot. Learn more about booster shots.”

With the potential of the need for “annual” vaccines, it is difficult to find impartial data.
Basically the effectiveness of boosters needs to be balanced against cost, prevention, and potential side effects. Anecdotal and emotional arguments tend to cherry-pick to support a point of view.
We are far enough along that data has to be available and could provide a set of impartial facts. All the questions about blood clots (stroke) heart problems , pregnancy etc. should be settled by facts. Of course we don’t know long term effects, but we know something.
By age group I assume the data should support the risks for adopting a blanket booster compared to the risks.
The over 18 was further broken out in vaccine priorities. This was because of risk.
Phase 1b: frontline essential workers; persons ages 75+.

Phase 1c: persons ages 65-74; persons ages 16-64 with high-risk conditions; essential workers not included in Phase 1b.

Phase 2: all people 16+


I really think raw data should analyzed by impartial professionals would help. The problem is finding impartial professionals. At least provide the same data even if separate interpretations exist,

Just a hope that CDC will release data and defend recommendations. Pediatric deaths from COVID just dropped 24%!
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/n...rror?_amp=true

This will be an ongoing issue as long as data is a moving target, incomplete and conclusions reached based on an undisclosed criteria.
More light than darkness is needed. Boosters included.

[CordMcNally]

Omicron BA.2 seems to be on the rise - people speculating possible wave in April-Summer in US.

It seems to be 30% more infectious than BA.1, but has similar levels of morbidity.

I honestly don't think very many people care at this point.

[Jaqen Haghar MD]

We are seeing the first little upticks in cases now. Nothing major, no admissions. Just some people trickling in here or there, a couple a day, after essentially having no cases at all for a while.

This could just be because we are slammed and swamped, with travelers and vacationers from up north right now. Everywhere down here is packed even more than usual for the travel season. We shall see.

[snowcanyon]

I honestly don't think very many people care at this point.

I would imagine the immunosuppressed and elderly would care very much.

We seem to follow the UK by a few weeks; they are having huge caseloads (despite not testing), and high surges in hospital admissions, but not a significant bump in ICU admits or deaths. They are much more vaccinated and boosted than we are, and are giving the elderly a fourth dose, which we are not getting here because we ran out of money to buy doses.

[JWeb]

You can slice and dice the data to mean anything you want. FL also has a much older population, wouldn't they be harder hit just due to that? As I look at all the charts from different states and countries, if all this lock down, mask mandate stuff made any real difference, wouldn't we be seeing marked differences in different locations? And yet, its not there. We have two years of data to look at it. We need to come to grips with the fact that it just didn't make any statistical difference.

You can't just compare states to states. They are too diverse. Take Nebraska, for example. Nebraska never really had a state mask mandate, but Lincoln and Omaha did and that is half the population. Lincoln had the strictest mask mandates and had significantly lower COVID rates than Omaha and even lower COVID rates than outstate Nebraska. Omaha had lower COVID rates than outstate Nebraska. And, of course, Lincoln and Omaha are more dense than the rest of the state.

This doesn't prove masks work obviously, but shows that you aren't even close to showing that they don't.

[snowcanyon]

I think it's funny people demand insanely high levels of proof that masking works when it's such a cost-effective, low-burden intervention.

[Tim]

I guarantee Fauci and political strategists have a great interest. Hitting the talk show circuits. Probably more political capital rather than research capital invested. There is an election coming up.

[xraygoggles]

I think it's funny people demand insanely high levels of proof that masking works when it's such a cost-effective, low-burden intervention.

'The point of modern propaganda isn't only to misinform or push an agenda. It is to exhaust your critical thinking, to annihilate truth.' - Garry Kasparov

& if there's one thing that's sorely lacking in the general population, it's critical thinking skills.

[Zzyzx]

I honestly don't think very many people care at this point.

Pediatrics does:
The Omicron variant resulted in five times as many hospitalizations of children ages 4 and younger than during the previous COVID peak, when the Delta variant was the prevalent strain, according to CDC data released on Wednesday.

[K82]

I think it's funny people demand insanely high levels of proof that masking works when it's such a cost-effective, low-burden intervention.

I guess I disagree that its cost effective and low burden. I find it a pain in the butt and I think there are very real detrimental aspects of this practice, especially for kids.

[K82]

I guess I disagree that its cost effective and low burden. I find it a pain in the butt and I think there are very real detrimental aspects of this practice, especially for kids.

And "insanely high levels of proof"? How about reasonable levels of proof?

[K82]

You can't just compare states to states. They are too diverse. Take Nebraska, for example. Nebraska never really had a state mask mandate, but Lincoln and Omaha did and that is half the population. Lincoln had the strictest mask mandates and had significantly lower COVID rates than Omaha and even lower COVID rates than outstate Nebraska. Omaha had lower COVID rates than outstate Nebraska. And, of course, Lincoln and Omaha are more dense than the rest of the state.

This doesn't prove masks work obviously, but shows that you aren't even close to showing that they don't.

Good point. I think its pretty tough to show if they work or not.

[Tim]

Good point. I think its pretty tough to show if they work or not.

My stupid take is any debate is not about whether masks work or not. Or even a recommendation. The “requirement” vs “recommendations”. Not much new data there.
For any segment of the population the silence is deafening.