Glumwheels posted:

Mathew Perry died, no drugs.

Glumwheels posted:

Mathew Perry died, no foul play and no drugs. Found unresponsive in his jacuzzi, maybe a heart attack?

He was only 54

Glumwheels posted:

Mathew Perry died, no foul play and no drugs. Found unresponsive in his jacuzzi, maybe a heart attack?

He was only 54

Rescue Toaster posted:

According to my Aranet my house has swung from nearly 1300 to basically perfect outdoor air 550 then back up to like 1300 at times... without opening windows or anything, just over the span of a couple days. No loving clue what's going on with that.

WrasslorMonkey posted:

Vaxxed?

(He had a history of drugs, almost died of opioids)

Rescue Toaster posted:

According to my Aranet my house has swung from nearly 1300 to basically perfect outdoor air 550 then back up to like 1300 at times... without opening windows or anything, just over the span of a couple days. No loving clue what's going on with that.

speng31b posted:

please don't be weird about mathew perry's death

Glumwheels posted:

Mathew Perry died, no foul play and no drugs. Found unresponsive in his jacuzzi, maybe a heart attack?

He was only 54

quote:

The patient was a school-aged child previously diagnosed with a neuroinflammatory condition initially treated with the IFN-γ blocking antibody emapalumab-Iszg and ongoing therapy with steroids and monthly etoposide. The patient had a history of varicella encephalitis and remained on suppressive valacyclovir therapy. In early January 2022, the child developed upper respiratory tract infection symptoms and was diagnosed with COVID-19 at an outside healthcare facility (symptom day 0).

quote:

Results of WGS indicate the patient was initially infected with the SARS-CoV-2 Delta variant before developing a SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant superinfection, which became predominant. Shortly thereafter, viral loads decreased below the level of detection before resurgence of the original Delta variant with no residual trace of Omicron. After 54 days of persistent infection, the patient tested negative for SARS-CoV-2 but ultimately succumbed to a COVID-19-related death. Despite protracted treatment with remdesivir, no antiviral resistance mutations emerged.

quote:

All amplicons from days 4, 13, and 31 were consistent with a Delta variant infection, while nearly all amplicons from day 18 were consistent with an Omicron variant infection with the exception of a single Delta amplicon. These data suggest that the Omicron superinfection started sometime after day 13 with both variants present at day 18 prior to clearance of the Omicron superinfection by day 31.

quote:

Despite the relative stasis in recent months, the sustained presence of Delta lineages after June 2022 underlines its continued circulation and divergence. Furthermore, our analysis of the pairwise p-distances confirms the observation from ML phylogeny (Fig. 4E). During the peak of Delta prevalence, we observed minimal genetic divergence among the samples. However, the samples collected after June 2022 exhibit a marked increase in genetic diversity, as demonstrated by the significantly higher within group pairwise p-distances, as well as an increase of genetic divergence when comparing the initial and more recent Delta sequences (Fig. 4E). This genetic diversification between the peak and post-June samples substantiates the Delta variant’s continuous evolution, even amidst the rise of Omicron lineages. These results suggest that the SARS-CoV-2 Delta variant continued to cause sporadic infections into 2023 despite the near complete global sweep of the Omicron variant. This may indicate that the Delta lineage has adaptive advantages that enable more persistent infections, perhaps in selected niches or patient populations.

quote:

Despite the prolonged administration of remdesivir in this patient, no genetic changes undermining the therapeutic potential of remdesivir were detected, including any novel mutations in the nsp12 gene, that could explain either the persistence or resurgence of the Delta lineage virus or the Omicron superinfection. Although some studies reported de novo emergence of remdesivir resistance mutations [37, 38] the occurrences of such mutations in the GISAID repository continue to be consistently low, indicating their limited presence and lack of fitness [39]. The explanation for persistent viral recovery in this patient while on antiviral therapy remains unclear, though persistent or recurrent viral replication with remdesivir despite the absence or resistance mutations have been reported [40] and may result from a variety of factors including reduced immune clearance of virus or potential compromised penetration of remdesivir into the lung [41, 42].

quote:

The data suggests that the Delta VOC may populate a unique niche within the host that enables its persistence even in response to subsequent superinfections and therapeutic changes. A better understanding of the anatomical population dynamics that occur during co-infection and superinfection is essential for optimizing treatment course and minimizing the risk of viral recombination. Furthermore, continued surveillance and research are necessary to monitor the dynamics of different variants and their persistence as the pandemic progresses. Evidence of long-term community transmission of the Delta variant after the emergence and predominance of Omicron suggests risks for variant re-emergence as the population gains lineage-specific immunity. Ultimately, understanding these factors will be crucial for effective public health measures, such as monitoring and treatments in susceptible populations, developing targeted therapeutics and vaccines, as well as anticipating future emerging and re-emerging infections.

speng31b posted:

please don't be weird about mathew perry's death

Pingui posted:

I wonder why that is

Why It Matters: Covid is still dangerous to some Americans.
More than 1,200 people are dying of Covid each week, according to C.D.C. data.

Pittsburgh Fentanyl Cloud posted:

Lol it’s been a while since I saw a concrete deaths number, 1200 deaths a week is as many deaths per year as murders and car crashes combined

Woodsy Owl posted:

Good news, fellow parents of young children! The CDC finally updated their guidance to clarify interchangeability of brands for 6mo+

https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/covid-19/clinical-considerations/interim-considerations-us.html#Interchangeability

So there is a lot of flexibility now wrt 6mo+ vaccine interchangeability. TLDR Go for same brand if you can, but different brand is absolutely permitted if that's all your provider stocks.

My kid got Moderna Bivalent for her first dose, Pfizer 2023-2024 for her second dose. So this guidance applied to her. I'm debating whether to get her a second Pfizer 2023-2024 for her third dose or go with the Moderna 2023-2024. Will probably do the Pfizer again, since that's closer to homologous dosing which is apparently the recommendation for her age group 6mo+. Her pediatrician is willing to give her a fourth Pfizer, kind of just ignoring the first shot being Moderna bivalent and so doing a whole series with Pfizer. I feel like that's also an option you can push for because the footnotes in the appendix for the dosing schedule says explicitly that children should get homologous doses when possible.


It's cool how I have to read this poo poo

NeonPunk posted:

I'm still a believer in the theory that molnupiravir was responsible for the OG Omicron

Diamonds On MY Fish posted:

So, my 5yo has been sick almost every single week, for a couple days each week, since Kindergarten started in early August. I've been passing it off as the typical thing that happens to new kindergarteners when they're exposed to new viruses. But this is just getting extremely excessive. The idea just popped into my head that it could be long COVID? We all had COVID once in May. He's tested negative on a RAT every week. Does that sound like it could be LC? And if so, how would I approach a doctor about that without sounding crazy?

Platystemon posted:

The Oldest Man posted:

A couple random days each week? That actually sounds a lot more like environmental poisoning than long covid to me. Like mold at the school or something.

speng31b posted:

please don't be weird about mathew perry's death

Diamonds On MY Fish posted:

So, my 5yo has been sick almost every single week, for a couple days each week, since Kindergarten started in early August. I've been passing it off as the typical thing that happens to new kindergarteners when they're exposed to new viruses. But this is just getting extremely excessive. The idea just popped into my head that it could be long COVID? We all had COVID once in May. He's tested negative on a RAT every week. Does that sound like it could be LC? And if so, how would I approach a doctor about that without sounding crazy?

Pingui posted:

At this pace immune debt should be eliminated in no time:

https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/72/wr/mm7228a4.htm posted:

Notes from the Field: Multipathogen Respiratory Virus Testing Among Primary and Secondary School Students and Staff Members in a Large Metropolitan School District — Missouri, November 2, 2022–April 19, 2023
(..)
A total of 3,232 surveillance specimens were tested, including 872 (27.0%) from staff members and 2,360 (73.0%) from students (Table). Student specimens included 90 (2.8%) from pre-K students, 1,413 (43.7%) from elementary school students, 479 (14.8%) from middle school students, and 378 (11.7%) from high school students. A median of four specimens per participant (IQR = 3–5) were collected; these included 80 (2.5%) in November, 404 (12.5%) in December, 711 (22.0%) in January, 798 (24.7%) in February, 824 (25.5%) in March, and 415 (12.83%) in April. Overall, 805 (24.9%) specimens tested positive for any virus (95% CI = 23.4%–26.4%). A substantially higher percentage of pre-K specimens tested positive (40.0%) compared with staff member specimens (14.1%) (p<0.001).** Overall, rhinovirus/enterovirus (RV/EV) was detected most frequently (392; 12.1%), followed by all seasonal coronaviruses including NL63, HKU1, OC43, and 229E (181; 5.6%). Among specimens from pre-K and elementary school students, RV/EV (14.4% and 17.1%, respectively), adenovirus (12.2% and 3.3%, respectively), seasonal coronaviruses (6.7% and 8.1%, respectively) and human metapneumovirus (4.4% and 3.7%, respectively) were frequently detected. Among staff member specimens, RV/EV (4.8%), seasonal coronaviruses (3.8%), and SARS-CoV-2 (3.3%) were frequently detected. Influenza and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) were infrequently detected from surveillance specimens, possibly because testing commenced after the occurrence of early seasonal peaks (4,5). More than one virus was detected in 81 (2.5%) specimens.

Among the 3,232 symptom surveys sent, 2,393 (74.0%) were completed. Pre-K students had the highest prevalence of reporting one or more symptoms (41.1%) compared with high school students, among whom prevalence of symptoms was lowest (14.0%) (p<0.001).
(..)

Note that this is surveillance testing.

Platystemon posted:

Here’s a heavy one.

Resurgence of SARS-CoV-2 Delta after Omicron variant superinfection in an immunocompromised pediatric patient

This strongly implies that the child was infected with Omicron while in the hospital, to which he was admitted on day four.

It’s been a year since we even had working monoclonal antibodies against SARS‑CoV‑2. Sotrovimab did work at the time this child was hospitalized, but it was never authorized for either hospitalized patients or for patients under twelve years of age.

Pingui posted:

lmao at this, fingers crossed it was a false positive.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2949903823000325 posted:

Abstract
As the emergency phase of the COVID-19 pandemic subsides, the long-term health problems caused by SARS-CoV-2 infection are becoming increasingly clear. So-called Long COVID, or post COVID-19 condition, is a debilitating illness that impacts functioning for months and even years after infection. Alongside physical symptoms, Long COVID has a particularly insidious effect on cognition and language. While many studies have documented non-linguistic cognitive impairments in people with Long COVID, what has not been documented to any significant extent is the presence and duration of language difficulties in Long COVID. This study addresses this lack of research by examining the cognitive-linguistic skills of 41 adults with Long COVID. These adults were assessed at two time points using a test protocol of 12 language tasks. This paper describes the findings of the 6-month follow-up study. Results indicate that difficulties in immediate and delayed verbal recall persist long after the onset of COVID symptoms, even as improvements occur in verbal fluency and the informativeness of spoken discourse. It is argued that these difficulties are a significant contributing factor in a lack of work return in these adults. Implications of these findings for the provision of speech-language pathology services to these adults and occupational health policies relating to Long COVID are discussed.
(..)
2. Long COVID and “brain fog”
(..)
[ed. this is mainly describing the prior study and is included for context]
Cummings (2023b) examined language and communication difficulties in 973 adults who responded to an online Long COVID survey. These participants (mean age = 47.4 years) were asked to indicate if they experienced 11 language and communication problems as part of their Long COVID illness. Table 1 lists the frequency of these problems among the respondents in the study. The table shows that these difficulties had a high prevalence among participants, with nine of 11 behaviours reported in over 50% of respondents. Additionally, 83.2% of respondents reported feeling frustrated by their communication skills following COVID-19, 54.9% were embarrassed by their post-COVID communication skills, 71.3% reported communicating less frequently after COVID-19, and 65.8% had less desire to communicate. These figures clearly indicate that a sizeable burden of language and communication difficulty accompanies “brain fog” in Long COVID.



To understand the nature of these language and communication difficulties, Cummings (2023a) conducted a study of 92 adults with Long COVID. Of these adults, 81 reported brain fog as part of their condition. These adults, who had an average age of 49 years, were not hospitalised during their acute COVID infection and had mild illnesses for the most part. Several received medical intervention and support at home from paramedics and doctors. Prior to developing COVID-19, 92.4% were in employment. Participants were interviewed on average 351.7 days (11.7 months) following the onset of their COVID symptoms. All participants completed a series of 12 language tasks that were administered online. These tasks examined verbal recall (immediate and delayed), verbal fluency (category and letter), sentence generation, confrontation naming and discourse production. There were five discourse production tasks used in the study. These tasks examined picture description (one task), procedural discourse (two tasks), and narration of different complexity (two tasks).

The performance of participants with Long COVID and brain fog in the study was significantly weaker than that of healthy participants in three areas: verbal recall; verbal fluency; and discourse informativeness. This pattern of weak performance was maintained relative to adults with COVID-19 who had no brain fog in verbal recall (immediate and delayed), letter fluency, and Cinderella narration. A group of adults with chronic fatigue syndrome was included in the study to control for the effects of debilitating fatigue on language and cognition. Relative to these adults, adults with Long COVID and brain fog also had significantly poorer performance in the areas of immediate and delayed verbal recall and Cinderella narration. Against this poor performance in verbal recall, verbal fluency, and the informativeness of spoken discourse, adults with Long COVID and brain fog performed comparably to healthy participants on tasks examining sentence generation and confrontation naming. It was concluded that adults with Long COVID and brain fog retained the ability to produce well-formed, meaningful language. But they were unable to leverage their structural language skills to produce informative discourse on account of underlying cognitive processing problems. This study and its findings form the background to the current investigation.

A follow-up study was conducted 6 months after this study to address several questions. First, because Long COVID is a relatively new condition with a still uncertain course, cognitive-linguistic outcomes beyond the first year are yet to be established (recall that the adults in the first study were tested, on average, 11.7 months after the onset of COVID symptoms).
(..)
[ed. this is the new follow-up study]
3.1. Participant characteristics
A total of 41 adults from the study reported in Cummings (2023a) were tested again at 6 months after their first assessment. The age, gender, education, and test status of these adults at follow-up are displayed in Table 2. This table also shows the time since COVID onset which was 625 days (20.8 months) on average. The only basis on which these adults were selected for participation in the follow-up study was their willingness and availability to undertake further testing at exactly 6 months after the date of their first assessment. Several participants from the first study were invited to participate in the follow-up study but declined because of a severe deterioration in their Long COVID condition. The 26 healthy (non-COVID) participants who participated in the first study were invited to participate in the follow-up study. However, only 11 of them qualified to take part as the remaining 15 participants developed COVID-19 between the first study and the follow-up study.
(..)
The four groups of participants in the study are categorised as follows: COVID participants at Time 1 (FirstCovid), COVID participants at Time 2 (SecCovid), healthy participants at Time 1 (FirstHealthy), and healthy participants at Time 2 (SecHealthy).
(..)
3.5. Results
(..)

(..)
4. Discussion
In summary, adults with Long COVID displayed significantly weaker performance than healthy adults in immediate and delayed verbal recall at the 6-month follow-up study. This was consistent with their poor performance in verbal recall in the first study and indicated that this area of cognitive-linguistic performance had not improved during the 6-month period between the first and follow-up studies. The absence of statistically significant differences between adults with Long COVID and healthy adults on all other language tasks indicated that adults with Long COVID had improved their performance in several areas that were weak in the first study. These areas are verbal fluency (letter and category fluency) and discourse informativeness. The fact that adults with Long COVID had effectively closed the gap between their performance and that of healthy adults in verbal fluency and discourse informativeness suggested that there had been some spontaneous improvement in these cognitive-linguistic skills in the 6 months between the first and follow-up studies.

These findings are also supported by comparing the performance of adults with Long COVID at the first study and the follow-up study. There were no statistically significant differences on immediate and delayed verbal recall between first and follow-up studies in adults with Long COVID, indicating that there had been no improvement in this area of performance.
(..)
The reduced informativeness that had been a feature of these adults’ performance on these tasks in the first study had effectively resolved by the time of the follow-up study. We will see below, however, that this finding still masked some significant discourse difficulties in these adults.
(..)
At follow-up, adults with Long COVID performed as a group similarly to healthy adults on discourse production tasks. However, this group performance nevertheless masked difficulty on discourse tasks of several adults with Long COVID. For some adults, complex narration based on the fictional story Little Red Riding Hood was particularly challenging. These narratives often displayed reduced informativeness. Some information was simply omitted while other information was conveyed in the wrong order.
(..)
CL’s reduced informativeness during the production of spoken discourse is not related to any deficit in her structural language skills. She was able to produce well-formed, meaningful language that contains a range of grammatical constructions and an appropriate vocabulary for her educational level and professional background – CL was a masters-qualified professional writer and health coach before her COVID illness. Notwithstanding her strong structural language skills, CL was unable to leverage these skills to produce informative discourse.
(..)
Below, a 56-year-old woman (‘LL’) with Long COVID is attempting to name pictures during the confrontation naming task in the follow-up study. LL was a primary school teacher prior to her COVID illness. She was 14.3 months post COVID onset at the time of her second assessment. Although LL named 17 of 20 items correctly – a score that placed her performance just below the mean score of 18.5 in healthy adults in the follow-up study – she displayed considerable inefficiency during her naming of several test items (see Table 5).


Although LL named all five target words in Table 5 correctly, three without prompts, several behaviours indicated that her lexical access and retrieval were compromised by cognitive inefficiencies. First, lengthy timed pauses occurred throughout LL's responses. These pauses gave LL more time in which to access and search her mental lexicon; they were an adaptive strategy to compensate for slow information processing. Second, the examiner’s use of phonemic cues facilitated LL’s naming of the words chisel and cannon. The provision of these sound cues provided LL with the additional activation that was required to trigger the production of these words. Third, LL talked around the target word cannon (e.g., “I know these are shot […] with the Queen and it's her birthday”). So-called circumlocution helps LL achieve additional activation of the target word so that the threshold for naming can be reached. Fourth, LL produced expressions of frustration (e.g., ah God) and statements that conveyed her struggle during naming (e.g., I can’t think what it’s called). These remarks further suggested that naming was a laboured, inefficient cognitive process for LL.

Sentence generation also posed difficulties for adults with Long COVID, even when scores on this task were in the normal range. In Table 6, a 58-year-old woman (‘AM’) with Long COVID is attempting to generate sentences based on combinations of two, three, and four spoken words. AM was a health care assistant before her COVID illness. She was 14.2 months post COVID onset at the time of her second assessment. Although she achieved a score of 5 out of 6 on this task – the average score of healthy adults on sentence generation in the follow-up study was 5.19 – AM’s responses were laboured and inefficient (see Table 6).



Several features of AM’s responses suggest that this task was particularly challenging for her. AM produced many false starts and repetitions of words and phrases as she worked her way towards her final utterance. Lengthy timed pauses and frequent use of fillers (e.g., um, eh) provided AM with more time in which to undertake sentence encoding. Statements such as “why do I find this so difficult” suggested that AM’s subjective cognitive experience during this task was one of considerable struggle. In short, although AM’s sentence generation score was comparable to that of healthy adults, her execution of the task revealed significant cognitive inefficiencies in her sentence encoding. The presence of cognitive difficulties in adults with Long COVID who have normal test performance has implications for the assessment of these adults (Cummings, 2023c). This issue is addressed in Section 5.2 below.
(..)
5.1. Employment
This follow-up study has shown that adults with Long COVID continue to experience significant cognitive-linguistic difficulties nearly two years after the onset of their COVID illness. With difficulties of such an extended duration, it is to be expected that Long COVID has a significant impact on employment and the ability of individuals to return to work. This study also collected information on participants’ pre-COVID employment and on employment outcomes at an average of 20.8 months (range = 6.8–31.8 months) after the onset of illness. Prior to their COVID illness, 90.25% of participants were either in employment or in full-time education (see Table 7). Most participants were employed in healthcare (31.71%) and education (31.71%). By the date of their second assessment, 97.3% of participants who had been in employment prior to COVID-19 had not been able to return to their full pre-COVID occupational role (see Table 8). Additionally, 69.44% had not been able to return to any type of employment by the date of their second assessment. In the absence of employment, participants had taken early retirement (8%), had received ill health retirement (28%), or were dependent on social security benefits (48%) for financial support (see Table 9). An altogether smaller number, just four participants (16%), had been able to return to their pre-COVID occupational role with adjustments after the date of their second assessment.




(..)

JAY ZERO SUM GAME posted:

there's basically no chance of there ever being a sterilizing vaccine right? i figure we can accept that now.

Zodium posted:

it's time to let me smoke in bars again.

HazCat posted:

JAY ZERO SUM GAME posted:

there's basically no chance of there ever being a sterilizing vaccine right? i figure we can accept that now.

JAY ZERO SUM GAME posted:

there's basically no chance of there ever being a sterilizing vaccine right? i figure we can accept that now.

Rescue Toaster posted:

I don't believe we've ever developed a sterilizing vaccine for any coronavirus, in human or animals.

Pingui posted:

It increases the mutational space a bit, but seeing what BA.2.86* can cook up on its own, seems more likely to get jumps in immune evasion (to me, a layman)

Gunshow Poophole posted:

*pounding table*

orf8! orf8!

maxwellhill posted:

sterilizing as in "can't transmit for a while", though...