Raiad posted:

kids are never getting vaccinated, new variant that has no name despite cutting a bloody swath through countries that previously managed to keep covid under control will probably hit us in a couple of weeks or so and i'm looking to this poo poo being relevant again because time is a flat circle

Dog Case posted:

The last loving line because of course

https://www.bostonglobe.com/2022/03/16/metro/meet-hard-core-maskers-who-never-leave-home-without-an-n95/

quote:

Guy Mendilow, 44, a performance artist from Roxbury, said that “respect” is exactly why he will continue to wear a mask indefinitely.

“This is a form of courtesy,” he said. “In more collectivist countries, mask usage has been a norm for quite some time with no connection to COVID.”

quote:

History and emotion collide in a sweeping family story brought to life by radio-theatre narration, theatrically projected sand animation and a riveting musical score.

The Forgotten Kingdom is a personal family travelogue through an unraveling Mediterranean world at the turn of the 20th century, glimpsed in settings of Ottoman Sephardi women’s songs portraying the experiences of family members and neighbors caught up in the upheaval of wars and migrations.

Acclaimed Ukrainian sand animation artist, Kseniya Simonova, crafts ephemeral flowing narratives for Guy Mendilow Ensemble’s storytelling and music. Mendilow’s cinematographic score radically reframes traditional Sephardic tunes and songs with elegant, multi-layered arrangements. The bittersweet rawness of Tango; the rhythmic fire of classical Arabic percussion; gorgeous vocal harmonies and other pan-cultural influences layer over the harmonic roots of Western classical music.

With lyrics in Ladino, an endangered blend of archaic Spanish, Turkish and Greek, and English narration, the show renders scenes of a culturally rich day-to-day Ottoman life from before WWI through the early 20th-century’s violent population displacement and tearing-apart of communities. By mid-century, former Ottoman Sephardi communities had population reductions as high as 98%.

Simonova’s breathtaking landscapes of sand give a dreamlike, intensely emotional quality to the story. Characters move in and out of flowing landscapes, through coastal Mediterranean villages, Hungarian forests and ships setting out across the sea.

In an adventure that “explodes with artistry, refinement, and excitement,” (Hebrew Union College, OH) The Forgotten Kingdom moves audiences with questions about struggles we still face today.

pancake rabbit posted:

i must confess that i've been away for this thread for some time due to various personal and mental health reasons

however

my work is planning on sending me on a mandatory flight in july, pretending there's no chance a surge will be happening at that point. in the hypothetical scenario that i do end up having to take that flight (plz don't tell me to , i need the health insurance and it pays v well), what's the best way these days to get a 4th shot aka 2nd booster

are we still providing fake names and getting a full (repeat) 1st dose, or is 'oops i forgot my vaccine card' the better option

Dog Case posted:

The last loving line because of course

https://www.bostonglobe.com/2022/03/16/metro/meet-hard-core-maskers-who-never-leave-home-without-an-n95/

quote:

But Shira Doron, an infectious disease specialist at Tufts University Medical Center, makes a distinction between individual mask usage and population-wide policies.

“Masks work, obviously,” she said. “I get up close and personal with patients who are COVID-positive. I wear an N95 and I’ve never had COVID.”

But at this stage of the pandemic, she doesn’t believe one-size-fits-all solutions make sense, and she worries about unintended consequences.

“Are we deepening the rift in society, when we ask everybody to do something that really not everybody needs to be doing?” she said.

Dog Case posted:

The last loving line because of course

https://www.bostonglobe.com/2022/03/16/metro/meet-hard-core-maskers-who-never-leave-home-without-an-n95/

Tzen posted:

alright time to stop reading that thread, back to reality,
https://twitter.com/CDCgov/status/1504200854013947910

quote:

Forecasts of New Cases

- Ensemble forecasts combine diverse independent team forecasts into one forecast. They have been among the most reliable forecasts in performance over time, but even the ensemble forecasts do not reliably predict rapid changes in the trends of reported cases, hospitalizations, and deaths. They should not be relied upon for making decisions about the possibility or timing of rapid changes in trends.
- COVID-19 case forecasts did not reliably predict rapid changes in trends over time, with more reported cases than expected falling outside the forecast prediction intervals for 1-, 2-, 3-, and 4-week ahead case forecasts. Therefore, even though case forecasts will continue to be collected and analyzedexternal icon, they will no longer be posted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
- Forecasts of new and total deaths and new hospitalizations continue to be available. Previous case forecasts will still be available.

Tzen posted:

https://twitter.com/BNODesk/status/1504262956112044033
lmao
2,228 mild deaths, take your masks off you sickos

Tzen posted:

https://twitter.com/BNODesk/status/1504262956112044033
lmao
2,228 mild deaths, take your masks off you sickos

Platystemon posted:

Sex Arse of Calais posted:

I can't draw clocks but I did draw this in a couple minutes of free time using ideas given to me many many pages ago(that I am sorry for stealing)

not enough labels, I think it's too subtle.

Platystemon posted:

I’m a hardcore shoer.

I never leave home without shoes.

Let’s flip the script and get some psychologists and sociologists to weigh in on infectious disease.

Zugzwang posted:

I must have said “it is absolutely astonishing how dumb things are” hundreds of times this year. And every time I say it, it’s because things have somehow gotten even dumber.

Welp. It is absolutely astonishing how dumb things are. At least they can’t get any dumber now, right guys!

……guys?

Pittsburgh Fentanyl Cloud posted:

It's incredible that D&D is dumber and more hosed up than the game forum mod who ate rancid fat and probed people who laughed at him for doing it.

Snowglobe of Doom posted:

Ideas I stole red-handed and would steal again

Sex Arse of Calais posted:

hope you don't mind me using your beans n brunch idea because it cracks me the hell up.

NeonPunk posted:

(..)
Just wanted to post this article for this graph.



Hmm, it sure is a mystery on whatever is happening!

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/03/17/chinas-elevated-covid-cases-may-not-hit-the-economy-as-hard-as-feared.html posted:

China’s elevated Covid cases may not hit the economy as hard as feared

• Mainland China reported for Wednesday a second-straight day of declines in new confirmed Covid-19 cases.
  
• The omicron wave is “more similar to the power shortage episode from late last year,” said Dan Wang, Shanghai-based chief economist at Hang Seng China. She was referring to abrupt factory power cuts in the fall that temporarily affected production.
  
• The supply chain shocks are relatively light so far, but the primary economic impact is on consumer spending and the services industry, said Bruce Pang, head of macro and strategy research at China Renaissance.

(..)

Snowglobe of Doom posted:

Fuckin LOL I knew they cut their cases forecasts from 4 weeks down to 2 weeks because their accuracy was embarrassingly bad but now they've stopped posting cases forecasts altogether

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/science/forecasting/forecasts-cases.html

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2202542 posted:

Efficacy of a Fourth Dose of Covid-19 mRNA Vaccine against Omicron

In this open-label, nonrandomized clinical study, we assessed the immunogenicity and safety of a fourth dose of either BNT162b2 (Pfizer–BioNTech) or mRNA-1273 (Moderna) administered 4 months after the third dose in a series of three BNT162b2 doses (ClinicalTrials.gov numbers, NCT05231005. opens in new tab and NCT05230953. opens in new tab; the protocol is available with the full text of this letter at NEJM.org). Of the 1050 eligible health care workers enrolled in the Sheba HCW COVID-19 Cohort,1,2 154 received the fourth dose of BNT162b2 and, 1 week later, 120 received mRNA-1273. For each participant, two age-matched controls were selected from the remaining eligible participants (Fig. S1 in the Supplementary Appendix, available at NEJM.org).

After the fourth dose, both messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccines induced IgG antibodies against the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) receptor-binding domain (Figure 1A) and increased neutralizing antibody titers (Fig. S3); each measure was increased by a factor of 9 to 10, to titers that were slightly higher than those achieved after the third dose, with no significant difference between the two vaccines. Concurrently, antibody levels in the control group continued to wane (Table S5). Both vaccines induced an increase in live neutralization of the B.1.1.529 (omicron) variant and other viral strains by a factor of approximately 10 (Figure 1B), similar to the response after the third dose.3 We found that the fourth dose did not lead to substantial adverse events despite triggering mild systemic and local symptoms in the majority of recipients (Fig. S2 and Table S4A and S4B).

Because of the extremely high infection incidence and meticulous active surveillance with weekly SARS-CoV-2 polymerase-chain-reaction testing, we were also able to assess vaccine efficacy with a Poisson regression model (see the Supplementary Appendix). Overall, 25.0% of the participants in the control group were infected with the omicron variant, as compared with 18.3% of the participants in the BNT162b2 group and 20.7% of those in the mRNA-1273 group. Vaccine efficacy against any SARS-CoV-2 infection was 30% (95% confidence interval [CI], −9 to 55) for BNT162b2 and 11% (95% CI, −43 to 44) for mRNA-1273 (Figure 1C). Most infected health care workers reported negligible symptoms, both in the control group and the intervention groups. However, most of the infected participants were potentially infectious, with relatively high viral loads (nucleocapsid gene cycle threshold, ≤25) (Table S6). Vaccine efficacy was estimated to be higher for the prevention of symptomatic disease (43% for BNT162b2 and 31% for mRNA-1273) (Fig. S4).

Limitations of the study include its nonrandomized design and the 1-week difference between enrollment in the two intervention groups, generating potential biases. To overcome this, we assessed each intervention group separately and used a Poisson model accounting for calendar time. In addition, despite similar requests for weekly SARS-CoV-2 testing, adherence was slightly lower in the control group. We did not sequence the infecting virus and cannot be absolutely certain that all cases were caused by the omicron variant; however, during the study period, omicron accounted for 100% of the isolates that were typed. Finally, our cohort was too small to allow for accurate determination of vaccine efficacy. However, within the wide confidence intervals of our estimates, vaccine efficacy against symptomatic disease was 65% at most.

Our data provide evidence that a fourth dose of mRNA vaccine is immunogenic, safe, and somewhat efficacious (primarily against symptomatic disease). A comparison of the initial response to the fourth dose with the peak response to a third dose did not show substantial differences in humoral response or in levels of omicron-specific neutralizing antibodies. Along with previous data showing the superiority of a third dose to a second dose,4 our results suggest that maximal immunogenicity of mRNA vaccines is achieved after three doses and that antibody levels can be restored by a fourth dose. Furthermore, we observed low vaccine efficacy against infections in health care workers, as well as relatively high viral loads suggesting that those who were infected were infectious. Thus, a fourth vaccination of healthy young health care workers may have only marginal benefits. Older and vulnerable populations were not assessed.

https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/wr/mm7111e2.htm posted:

Hospitalization of Infants and Children Aged 0–4 Years with Laboratory-Confirmed COVID-19 — COVID-NET, 14 States, March 2020–February 2022

Summary
What is already known about this topic?

COVID-19 can cause severe illness in infants and children, including those aged 0–4 years who are not yet eligible for COVID-19 vaccination.

What is added by this report?

During Omicron variant predominance beginning in late December 2021, U.S. infants and children aged 0–4 years were hospitalized at approximately five times the rate of the previous peak during Delta variant predominance. Infants aged <6 months had the highest rates of hospitalization, but indicators of severity (e.g., respiratory support) did not differ by age group.

What are the implications for public health practice?

Important strategies to prevent COVID-19 among infants and young children include vaccination of currently eligible populations such as pregnant women, family members, and caregivers of infants and young children.

(..)
During Omicron predominance, 63% of hospitalized infants and children had no underlying medical conditions; infants aged <6 months accounted for 44% of hospitalizations, although no differences were observed in indicators of severity by age.
(..)
During March 1, 2020–February 19, 2022, weekly hospitalization rates (hospitalized patients per 100,000 infants and children aged 0–4 years) peaked during Omicron predominance, in the week ending January 8, 2022, at 14.5. This peak hospitalization rate during Omicron predominance was approximately five times the peak during Delta predominance (2.9) (week ending September 11, 2021) (RR = 5.0; 95% CI = 3.8–6.8). Hospitalization rates among infants aged <6 months were approximately six times as high during the peak week of Omicron predominance (68.1) as during Delta predominance (11.1) (RR = 6.1; 95% CI = 3.9–10.0); Omicron-predominant versus Delta-predominant hospitalization RRs were also elevated among infants and children aged 6–23 months (16.9 versus 3.3; RR = 5.1; 95% CI = 3.1–8.5) and 2–4 years (4.7 versus 1.4; RR = 3.5; 95% CI = 2.0–6.3) (Figure). Monthly ICU admission rates were approximately 3.5 times as high during the Omicron predominance peak in January 2022 (10.6) as during the Delta predominance peak in September 2021 (3.0). Hospitalization rates among infants and children aged 0–4 years decreased by the week ending February 19, 2022 (3.9).
(..)

Janitor Ludwich IV posted:

i know covid is over but it seems like it's over in places where people have been forced to inject the gray death drug?

Pingui posted:

?

Janitor Ludwich IV posted:

i am 10,000 posts behind but i don't have to wear a mask anymore in my state in australia so it's very much over

A Bakers Cousin posted:

Clocks posted:

if an infectious disease expert doesn't believe everyone should wear masks for covid then really what hope is there in convincing the general public that's been inundated with masks off propaganda??

Clocks posted:

if an infectious disease expert doesn't believe everyone should wear masks for covid then really what hope is there in convincing the general public that's been inundated with masks off propaganda??

Der Meister posted:

there is no hope

pancake rabbit posted:

https://twitter.com/gavreilly/status/1504267721365671942

McCracAttack posted:

https://twitter.com/washingtonpost/status/1504283948955930627

lmao if either one catches COVID during the "over" phase.

Koirhor posted:

how the gently caress is that possible, seriously what the gently caress

Thoguh posted:

Doesn't matter though, I'm sure both him and Pelosi are getting treated right now just in case rather than waiting to see if they pop positive or not so there is a 100% chance that they'll be fine.

StrugglingHoneybun posted:

Pingui posted:

Data on the fourth dose of mRNA vaccine:

quote:

vaccination of healthy young health care workers may have only marginal benefits