Miscellany about COVID

[MattcAnderson]

Hopefully in another six months, we will have this Covid virus on the run.

Some of my friends are not so optimistic.

"So you've heard of small pox, get ready for itty bitty pox."

Matt

[kriesel]

"Carrot and stick" approach to incentivizing vaccination in Austria https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...customers.html (NSFW)

[Dr Sardonicus]

Originally Posted by Dr Sardonicus

<snip>
Meanwhile, we have the case of Jeffrey Smith, being treated for COVID-19 in West Chester Hospital in Ohio. Smith's wife got a doctor to prescribe ivermectin, then sued to compel the hospital to administer it. Butler County Common Pleas Judge Gregory Howard obliged her. On Monday, September 6, the order was undone by Butler County Judge Michael A. Oster Jr. Judge Oster had held a hearing to resolve the legal question of whether Plaintiffs would, by "clear and convincing" evidence, likely prevail in their suit, as required for granting a preliminary injunction. He concluded that the answer was no, hence no injunction could be granted.

From the facts revealed in the hearing, we learned that the doc who wrote the scrip, Dr. Fred Wagshul, had neither examined the patient nor consulted his medical records, and did not have hospital privileges at West Chester hospital. At the hearing, Dr, Wagshul testified that "I honestly don't know" if continued use of ivermectin would benefit the patient. (Sounds to me like the doc was using a human being as a guinea pig.) It also turns out that neither Mr. nor Mrs. Smith got vaccinated, because they considered the vaccine to be "experimental."

It also turns out that Mr. Smith had more than COVID to contend with. During his hospital stay he had been sedated and intubated. His sedation had worn off, and he had ripped out his tubes, causing him to aspirate, among other things, food particles from his feeding tube. He subsequently developed a bacterial lunch infection.

Mr. Smith now seems to be recovering - the hospital has been reducing his degree of ventilation. Of course, his wife and her attorney are saying his improvement is due to ivermectin.
<snip>

I decided to check up on this story. Mr. Smith died September 25. In a September 26 update to the GoFunMe page to help pay his medical bills, his wife appared to blame the hospital:

9/26/2021 Update:

Unfortunately, after a long hard fought battle, Jeff has passed away from complications, due to his hospital care.

[Dr Sardonicus]

COVID-19's first known case was a vendor from Wuhan wet market, Arizona scientist says, disputing WHO report

An Arizona-based scientist believes the first known case of COVID-19 was from a vendor at a Wuhan wet market and not an accountant who reported symptoms much later and lived miles away from the market.

The study by Dr. Michael Worobey, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Arizona, was published Thursday in the journal Science.
<snip>
In February 2020, Wuhan authorities said they had identified the first COVID patient as a male accountant who fell sick on Dec. 8, 2019, and had no link to the market. And earlier this year, the WHO visited China and interviewed the accountant whom they described in March 2021 as the first known case.
<snip>
In his study, Worobey said the accountant's illness reported on Dec. 8, 2019, was likely a dental problem related to baby teeth that he had retained into adulthood. He cited hospital records that pinpoint the man's COVID-19 onset date as Dec. 16, 2019, five days after the wet market vendor contracted the disease.<snip>

Fauci: COVID-19 hospitalizations rising among vaccinated

"What we're starting to see now is an uptick in hospitalizations among people who've been vaccinated but not boosted," Fauci said Tuesday. "It's a significant proportion, but not the majority by any means."

EDIT: Thought I'd add this...

In the Court of Appeals Second Appellate District of Texas at Fort Worth... Opinion

Jason Jones faces death at Texas Health Huguley Hospital Fort Worth South, and his wife Erin - having heard that Ivermectin might help her loved one - filed suit to force the hospital and its relevant staff to give her husband the drug. The trial court, reluctant to force the hospital and its physicians to administer a treatment they opposed, instead issued a temporary injunction ordering Huguley to grant a Houston-based, Ivermectin - prescribing physician temporary hospital privileges for the sole purpose of administering Ivermectin to Mr. Jones in Huguley's intensive care unit.

But judges are not doctors. We are not empowered to decide whether a particular medication should be administered, or whether a particular doctor should be granted ICU privileges. Our role is to interpret and apply the law as written. Although we may empathize with a wife's desire to try anything and everything to save her husband, we are bound by the law, and the law in this case does not allow judicial intervention. Just as we cannot legislate from the bench, we cannot practice medicine from the bench. Therefore, we vacate the trial court's temporary injunction.

[kriesel]

New variant concerning, leading to a new round of travel bans
https://science.thewire.in/health/b-...ant-yet-found/

[chalsall]

Originally Posted by kriesel

New variant concerning, leading to a new round of travel bans...

Please forgive me for this, but what part of evolution isn't clear?

New variants are to be expected. Travel bans are irrational.

Further... Some countries are highly reliant on Tourism (and the Forex this brings).

Keeping people afraid is part of "the game"...

[Dr Sardonicus]

Originally Posted by chalsall

Please forgive me for this, but what part of evolution isn't clear?

New variants are to be expected. Travel bans are irrational.
<snip>

Curiously, Africa heretofore seems to have had a fairly low incidence of COVID-19 despite low vaccination rates.

Now, a new variant shows up in southern Africa - and elsewhere.

Are people dropping from it like flies in Africa or anywhere else? Not AFAICT. Does anyone have a good idea of whether it's more virulent than delta, more contagious, or more resistant to vaccine-generated antibodies than previous variants? Not AFAICT.

It has shown up in places outside of Africa - including Hong Kong, Israel, and Belgium. Barring travel from South Africa to prevent its spread sounds like closing the barn door after the chickens have flown the coop!

The scientific designation of the new variant is B.1.1.529 and the Greek letter assigned to it is omicron.

[Till]

Yesterday 61 out of ~600 passengers from South Africa to Netherlands tested Covid positive:
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe...am-2021-11-26/


Lets see how many of them bear the new variant...

[ATH]

Omicron is found in Italy and suspected in Germany and Czech Republic and now 2 cases in Denmark as well.

[Dr Sardonicus]

This CNN story has some interesting quotations.

"Any time we've seen a new variant, it's already spread around the world. So the fact that Omicron is in multiple countries in Europe ... is not necessarily an ominous sign," said Dr. Peter Hotez, dean of the School of Tropical Medicine at the Baylor College of Medicine.

"And also remember: We've not seen any evidence that Omicron produces more severe disease than any of the other variants."
<snip>
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said Saturday that it has not detected any cases of the Omicron variant in the US.

But Dr. Anthony Fauci told NBC Saturday that he would "not be surprised" if the Omicron variant was already in the US.

"We have not detected it yet, but when you have a virus that is showing this degree of transmissibility and you're having travel-related cases they've noted in other places already, when you have a virus like this, it almost invariably is going to go all over," Fauci said.

Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, noted that travel restrictions allow health experts to have additional time to study the variant and understand it in a more significant capacity -- including whether the current vaccines are effective against Omicron.

"The vaccines we use may very well be able to contain this. And then it won't be as serious as some people are surmising it might be. A lot of unknowns," Fauci told NBC. "You don't want people to panic, but you want to know we're doing everything we can to stay ahead of this."
<snip>

[Uncwilly]

FWIW: The flu that was responsible for the pandemic about 100 years ago is still with us. Right now this current pandemic may wind up being like the flu.