Zantie posted:

Sorry I missed this earlier. I'm not terribly familiar with Island county but I'm assuming it's because it's pretty remote compared to the bigger cities like Seattle. I don't know if their spikes are something like tourism/summer events that bring more people in, if it's a super-shedder who goes there to visit every so often or what.

The map's a little tricky since I had to screenshot it from the dashboard but this will hopefully provide some geographical context to where Oak Harbor and Coupville are in relation to the others on the western half of Washington.

Zantie posted:

Can't remember, is there anything about Kaiser and Novavax?

Jort Fortress posted:

Nearing 24hrs after the Novavax shot and regret to inform you that it hosed me up pretty good!

Chills, fever, body aches, pain in armpit, racing heart...basically everything the Moderna shots did to me, but slightly less intense. I will say that the symptoms seem to be going away faster and I'm about 75% back to normal. My wife is immunocompromised and only had light fatigue, WTF.

Strep Vote posted:

Costco ran out of novavax lol. There was only one dose, so I'm getting it, I guess, since I'm in school and the spouse works at home. Everything is so dumb. They called me ten minutes til the appointment when I was 500 yards from the Costco to ask if Pfizer was ok. aaaaaaaaaaaaa

¡tools!

mawarannahr posted:

I visited one of the San Juan islands back in May... outside the tourism season people might not be congregating as much. there is a daily ferry though and public enclosed spaces like a supermarket and schools. maybe a wave that starts in a city takes a while for infected persons to travel to the island and have the opportunity to infect others, which explains some lag? idk.

cenotaph posted:

Rite aid was letting me make an appointment for novavax but I suspected it was just their system being stupid so I called to ask and they said they don't have it and don't know when they're getting it.

Jizzny Princess posted:

I was hoping to get Novavax through my work but they aren't giving it out so far. They also decided anyone getting their vaccine gets to not mask anymore in majority of settings. Not that anyone really does and if they do it's maybe a surgical mask at best.

I work in a hospital.

Wrex Ruckus posted:

anecdote: I've been seeing more auras in the wild recently.

call_of_qthulhu posted:

had more people ask about my envo in the past month than ever.

pretty much every time I've gone to home depot I've seen the same employee, she asked once about it the first time I showed up there and I told her that there's one just as good in thr paint aisle. she's been wearing an aura ever since, up from a baggy blue

Shiroc posted:

Me starting masking had nothing to do with mandates or social pressure so I don't see any reason to stop because of them going away is how I think about it in concrete terms.

mawarannahr posted:

what's a good Halloween costume that goes with an aura or a secure click?

GXL posted:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2WpOu_sRDQ

This song contains satirical references to gun violence. I DO NOT SUPPORT GUN VIOLENCE. I DO NOT SUPPORT GUN OWNERSHIP. I DO NOT SUPPORT CARRYING CONCEALED WEAPONS.

If you decide to quote this post, I’d really appreciate if you included the disclaimer text so that it doesn’t get lost in the shuffle.

Thanks again, CSPAM covid thread. Couldn’t have done it without you. Fare thee well.

TOTAL SYMPTOMATIC COVID INFECTIONS TO DATE: 0

Platystemon posted:

Shady Amish Terror posted:

I said it in the previous thread but I'll reiterate here, maybe the most actually frustrating part of this pandemic hasn't been the predictable minimization from libs or denial from chuds, but seeing so many supposed leftist/progressive/communist/what-have-you folks rankle at the idea of mask-wearing to protect vulnerable people or even themselves. It's such an incredibly low bar for any kind of supposedly humanist philosophy and a huge proportion of people beefed it.

The Oldest Man posted:

Your mistake was believing most of the people around you hold any kind of ideology or philosophy at all.

Gunshow Poophole posted:

Last customer through the door tonight had a clean, well fitting aura on and I made sure to mention it and thank her for looking out for me and others. She literally said "I feel more and more like one of those Japanese soldiers who weren't told the war was over"

https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/eu-delays-approval-novavaxs-revised-covid-vaccine-ft-2023-10-15/ posted:

EU delays approval of Novavax's revised COVID vaccine - FT

European Union (EU) regulators have delayed a decision to give approval for Novavax's (NVAX.O) variant-tailored COVID-19 vaccine, the Financial Times said on Sunday.

The European Medicines Agency (EMA), which was due to approve the updated vaccine last Friday has requested more information from the company, the FT report added.

"As part of the ongoing review process, (the EMA) has additional questions, which we are answering expeditiously," Novavax told the Financial Times.

The EMA has questions on the potency of the vaccine's latest version, and it seeks to ensure its characteristics are going to be the same across different production sites, the FT report said, citing a person with knowledge of the matter.
(..)

https://www.healio.com/news/pediatrics/20231014/pediatric-vaccination-reduces-long-covid-during-omicron posted:

Key takeaways:

• Up to 3% of children with a SARS-CoV-2 infection may develop long COVID.
  
• COVID-19 vaccination is associated with a reduced likelihood of post-COVID conditions.

“A recent systematic review estimated that 1% to 3% of children could have one or more post-COVID conditions after a COVID-19 illness,” Anna R. Yousaf, MD, a medical officer at the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, told Healio.

“Over 65 million children in the U.S. have had a SARS-CoV-2 infection, meaning there is the potential for thousands of children in the U.S. to have” one of these conditions, Yousaf said. “There are also very few data on associations between COVID-19 vaccination and post-COVID conditions in children.”

Yousaf and colleagues enrolled children in the Pediatric Research Observing Trends and Exposures in COVID-19 Timelines (PROTECT) study and followed them for up to a year and a half.

They collected weekly nasal swabs from participants, who were surveyed about their health, including their history of COVID-19 vaccination and illness and any underlying medical conditions.

“Any child [who] had a positive SARS-CoV-2 screening test during the study was sent a survey on post-COVID conditions to be completed 60 days or more after their positive test,” Yousaf said. “This survey asked about any new or ongoing symptoms lasting more than 1 month from the child’s positive SARS-CoV-2 test. If a child or caregiver reported a symptom, we asked how long the child had been experiencing that symptom.”

Based on the results, the researchers calculated the odds of long COVID symptoms among vaccinated and unvaccinated participants. They defined being vaccinated as receiving at least a two-dose primary messenger RNA vaccine series 14 days or more prior to SARS-CoV-2 infection.

Among 622 participants, 67% were vaccinated and 5% reported a long COVID symptom for at least 1 month.

Vaccination was associated with a 34% decreased likelihood of one or more long COVID symptoms (adjusted OR [aOR] = 0.66; 95% CI, 0.43-0.99), a 48% reduced likelihood of two or more symptoms (aOR = 0.52; 95% CI, 0.32-0.83) and a 47% reduced likelihood of respiratory long COVID symptoms (aOR = 0.53, 95% CI 0.33-0.87), the researchers reported.
(..)

https://www.cell.com/cell/pdf/S0092-8674(23)00978-9.pdf posted:

Highlights
• Infants and young children mount antibody responses that are durable for up to 300 days
• Atypical innate response in blood: no inflammatory markers; high IFNα and chemokines
• Robust upper respiratory tract antiviral and inflammatory responses
• Single-cell transcriptomics and epigenomics in the first weeks and months of life

Summary
The dynamics of immunity to infection in infants remain obscure. Here, we used a multi-omics approach to perform a longitudinal analysis of immunity to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) in infants and young children by analyzing blood samples and weekly nasal swabs collected before, during, and after infection with Omicron and non-Omicron variants. Infection stimulated robust antibody titers that, unlike in adults, showed no sign of decay for up to 300 days. Infants mounted a robust mucosal immune response characterized by inflammatory cytokines, interferon (IFN) α, and T helper (Th) 17 and neutrophil markers (interleukin [IL]-17, IL-8, and CXCL1). The immune response in blood was characterized by upregulation of activation markers on innate cells, no inflammatory cytokines, but several chemokines and IFNα. The latter correlated with viral load and expression of interferon-stimulated genes (ISGs) in myeloid cells measured by single-cell multi-omics. Together, these data provide a snapshot of immunity to infection during the initial weeks and months of life.

Graphical abstract

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2023-10-infant-immune-unique-effective-responses.html posted:

Research led by the University of Tübingen, Germany, along with partners at Stanford University, Emory University and the Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, U.S., has looked into infant immune responses following SARS-CoV-2 infections during the initial months of life.

There has been a lack of comprehensive, system-wide, longitudinal analysis of how infants and young children respond to SARS-CoV-2 infection regarding their immune systems' development, antibody responses, and innate immune activation. Researchers collected data on children, adults and mothers to get a comparative picture of infant immune reactions.

Blood and nasal swab samples were obtained from infants and young children in the IMPRINT cohort at the Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center. Children were tested weekly for SARS-CoV-2, and the cohort included 54 infected infants and young children, including 27 infants with paired pre-infection samples. An additional 27 matched control infants and young children represented healthy controls who consistently tested negative from birth to sampling.

In addition to the pediatric cohort, 62 blood samples were obtained from 48 adult COVID-19 patients and ten healthy control samples, collected from the Hope Clinic at Emory University in Atlanta and the Stanford University Medical Center. Blood samples were also obtained from 41 mothers with mild COVID-19, including three with paired pre-infection samples and three matched controls.

In contrast to adults, infants and young children displayed robust and durable antibody responses against SARS-CoV-2. These antibody titers remained high for up to 300 days, whereas antibody responses tend to decay more rapidly in adults.

In the blood, there was an upregulation of activation markers on innate cells in the children but no significant increase in inflammatory cytokines. Memory B and T cell responses in infants were significantly lower than in adults. However, they showed increases in multifunctional T helper 17 and 1-type CD4+ T cells characterized by the production of interleukin-2, interferon-gamma, and tumor necrosis factor-alpha, making them triple-positive.

Infants mounted a robust mucosal immune response characterized by inflammatory cytokines, interferon α, and markers associated with T helper 17 and neutrophil responses. This mucosal response was particularly pronounced in the nasal mucosa.

While multifunctional CD4 T cell responses were reduced by roughly two orders of magnitude in the infants, observations of persistent antibody responses lasted much longer. The study's findings raise the possibility of designing vaccine formulations to take advantage of these innate immune system activation pathways to avoid causing the collateral immunopathology often associated with unwanted inflammation.

Piggy Smalls posted:

went to try to get my Covid vaccine and they said it’s 130 dollars. I had thought it was free but they told me it’s no longer free. when did this happen?

Gunshow Poophole posted:

"I feel more and more like one of those Japanese soldiers who weren't told the war was over"

https://edition.cnn.com/2023/10/15/politics/covid-19-pandemic-benefits-ending-dg/index.html posted:

Several Covid-19 pandemic-era benefits have recently expired, leaving millions of people without the economic assistance they’ve come to rely on.

Congress passed a number of sweeping spending packages during 2020 and 2021, authorizing trillions of dollars in aid meant to provide economic relief to struggling households. Many of those programs, like direct stimulus payments, the enhanced child tax credit and expanded unemployment benefits, expired long ago.

But there are some pandemic relief benefits that are just now coming to an end. Nearly 30% of Americans with some college education are resuming monthly federal student debt payments this month after a three-year plus hiatus. One in three children enrolled in child care programs supported by American Rescue Plan Act, or ARPA, grants are projected to lose their spots since the federal funding expired at the end of September. And one in five Medicaid enrollees could be kicked off the program by the end of May.

CNN analyzed the data to see how many US households could be impacted.


Overall household debt grew in the pandemic, even though student loan debt remained steady
After a yearslong pause on student loan payments provided temporary relief to federal loan borrowers, interest on student loans resumed in September and payments resumed in October.

As payments on federal student loans were paused during the past three years, Americans continued to take on different kinds of debt. Credit card debt grew from $820 billion at the start of the pandemic to over $1 trillion three years later, according to data from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Mortgage debt increased from $9.8 trillion to $12 trillion. Student loan debt remained steady at the $1.5 trillion marker.

Some economists are concerned that borrowers may have difficulty affording their student loan payments if they have taken on additional debt of other kinds. More student loan borrowers are currently behind on other types of bills than they were before the Covid-19 pandemic, according to a study by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.



Child care programs expected to close down across the country, costing parents billions in earnings
An estimated 70,000 programs could be shuttered, and 3.2 million children could lose their spots now that a federal pandemic stabilization grant program expired at the end of September, according to The Century Foundation. As a result, parents could be forced to quit their jobs or cut back hours and are expected to lose billions in earnings in total.


[ed. this chart is interactive at the link, if you want to see the specifics of your state]

Medicaid disenrollment rates highest in Texas, Idaho
Medicaid enrollment steadily increased for both adults and children during the pandemic. In March, there were nearly 45% more adults and nearly 24% more children with Medicaid coverage than there were in February 2020. But millions of Americans will be kicked off their health care plans in coming months as states terminate coverage for residents deemed no longer eligible. Disenrollments began in April, and nearly 8.7 million enrollees have lost their coverage as of October 11, according to KFF.

So far, Texas reports the highest disenrollment rate of any state with 66%, followed by Idaho with 64%, according to KFF.


[ed. also interactive]

SNAP work requirements returned in October, which could result in at least 500,000 Americans being dropped from the program
With the declaration of the Covid-19 public health emergency in 2020, the work requirement for certain adults to receive food stamps was put on hold. That mandate, however, returned in October now that the public health emergency is over.

Able-bodied adults between ages 18 and 49 without dependents are only eligible for food stamps for three months out of every three years unless they work — or participate in an approved training or education program — for at least 20 hours a week. An estimated 500,000 people could lose access to food stamps as a result, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

This requirement now also temporarily extends to Americans between ages 50 and 52, as stipulated in the debt ceiling package that lawmakers agreed to in June. That’s about 450,000 more adults who could lose out on food stamp benefits, according to CBPP. Those ages 53 and 54 will be subject to the work requirement next fall.

Steve Yun posted:

https://twitter.com/stm2121/status/1712661505454317838?s=46

Bono says he won’t bring up anyone from the audience because he has “a cough” and then hugs The Edge, saying it’s okay because he’s already “immune to the coronavirus”

mawarannahr posted:

I visited one of the San Juan islands back in May... outside the tourism season people might not be congregating as much. there is a daily ferry though and public enclosed spaces like a supermarket and schools. maybe a wave that starts in a city takes a while for infected persons to travel to the island and have the opportunity to infect others, which explains some lag? idk.

Why Am I So Tired posted:

Good straightforward article that crams a lot into a little space. Could be one to send to people.

https://twitter.com/TaylorLorenz/status/1712879553897537733
https://www.thenation.com/article/society/covid-pandemic-panic-calm-advice/

It's refreshing seeing an article flat out state that everyone's at risk for Long COVID.

Pingui posted:

Impressive Friday afternoon news dump; I hope everyone enjoyed the tools while they had them.

Dog Case posted:

The San Juans are in San Juan County. Island County is only Whidbey and Camano islands, both of which you can drive to on bridges. Whidbey has a large navy base and the busiest state park in the state