Hungry Squirrel posted:

I'm just assuming that all hell will break loose when the kids go back to school in a week (if not sooner). What do I need to stock up on before the hoarding hordes descend? I'm ordering more Flo and Betadine spray, Kleenex, cough syrup, and chicken noodle soup. I've got three thermometers - with disposable sleeves - and a pulse ox.

I'm not talking about toilet paper and bread, just medical - type supplies.

Soap Scum posted:

i'm just glad we have a byzantine system of checks and regulations that ensure effectively nobody gets desperately needed medicine because without that system one person might get medicine they don't absolutely need and that would drive me nuts!!!

Hungry Squirrel posted:

I'm just assuming that all hell will break loose when the kids go back to school in a week (if not sooner). What do I need to stock up on before the hoarding hordes descend? I'm ordering more Flo and Betadine spray, Kleenex, cough syrup, and chicken noodle soup. I've got three thermometers - with disposable sleeves - and a pulse ox.

I'm not talking about toilet paper and bread, just medical - type supplies.

Hungry Squirrel posted:

I'm just assuming that all hell will break loose when the kids go back to school in a week (if not sooner). What do I need to stock up on before the hoarding hordes descend? I'm ordering more Flo and Betadine spray, Kleenex, cough syrup, and chicken noodle soup. I've got three thermometers - with disposable sleeves - and a pulse ox.

I'm not talking about toilet paper and bread, just medical - type supplies.

Hungry Squirrel posted:

I'm just assuming that all hell will break loose when the kids go back to school in a week (if not sooner). What do I need to stock up on before the hoarding hordes descend? I'm ordering more Flo and Betadine spray, Kleenex, cough syrup, and chicken noodle soup. I've got three thermometers - with disposable sleeves - and a pulse ox.

I'm not talking about toilet paper and bread, just medical - type supplies.

Asproigerosis posted:

I would not hold my breath on being able to get paxlovid after the current batch runs out. The federal response of "until supplies last" tells me it will rely solely on Pfizer deciding on manufacture with 0 government subsidies for a drug that insurers are fighting very hard to not cover. Sounds like a drug not long for this world of free market capitalism.

Steve Yun posted:

I’ve mentioned this a few times but my anesthesiologist friend wore a disposable n95 and goggles in the Covid ward for the first two years of the pandemic, intubating Covid patients who sprayed her with their their Covid geysers and she never got Covid until her parents brought it home from the restaurant

mask efficacy number probably doesn’t translate directly into Covid risk

Platystemon posted:

“Doctor, may we have Paxlovid?”

“We have Paxlovid at home.”

Paxlovid at home:

Platystemon posted:

“Doctor, may we have Paxlovid?”

“We have Paxlovid at home.”

Paxlovid at home:

Hungry Squirrel posted:

I'm just assuming that all hell will break loose when the kids go back to school in a week (if not sooner). What do I need to stock up on before the hoarding hordes descend? I'm ordering more Flo and Betadine spray, Kleenex, cough syrup, and chicken noodle soup. I've got three thermometers - with disposable sleeves - and a pulse ox.

I'm not talking about toilet paper and bread, just medical - type supplies.

https://www.ft.com/content/7ddd24bb-2394-4a63-96f0-464a3ccf6df6 posted:

Expired Pfizer Covid antiviral drugs set to cost Europe $2.2bn, data shows
Millions of Paxlovid pills have gone unused as tight controls restrict access

More than a billion dollars worth of Pfizer’s Covid-19 antiviral drugs procured in Europe have been wasted, according to health data, as tight controls over who can receive the medication left millions of doses unused before their expiry date.

Paxlovid — designed to be given to patients shortly after they test positive for the virus — has been far easier to obtain in the US than in Europe, where access has often been restricted to the elderly or people at high risk of developing severe Covid.

But data from analytics group Airfinity shows European countries including the UK, France, Spain and Italy could have made the medication more accessible without using up supplies, as more than 1.5mn five-day courses of the pill worth about $1.1bn have expired despite their usage dates being extended by six to 12 months.

By the end of February 2024, a total of about 3.1mn courses are set to expire, pushing the cost to European health systems to about $2.2bn, according to Airfinity. The data does not include contracts that were EU-wide.

Marco Gallotta, an analyst at Airfinity, said some countries may have overpurchased [gently caress you] Paxlovid when it became available at the end of 2021, just as the Omicron variant increased global caseloads.

“Governments were keen to buy the highly efficacious antiviral and had a difficult challenge of estimating demand with so many unknowns,” he said.

But a drop in cases and a sharp reduction in testing had hit the take-up of antiviral drugs, which needed to be taken shortly after the onset of symptoms, he said. “This means countries haven’t been able to administer all of their stockpiles before they expire, despite extensions to the shelf life.”

Pfizer said: “Expiry and destruction of doses can be an unavoidable consequence of a pandemic, a natural result of manufacturers and governments collectively aiming to address the public health crisis at speed with the overarching objective of protecting their populations.”

There have also been concerns over how Paxlovid interacts with other common medications, which restricts how often it can be prescribed.

The European country with the biggest expiry rate is the UK, where an estimated 1mn doses worth $700mn were out of date by early December, the data shows. Another 550,000 doses are expected to expire in February, with a further 650,000 by the end of June. [2.2mn doses total out of 2.75mn]

In December 2021, at the height of the Omicron wave, the UK agreed to buy 2.75mn courses of Paxlovid. The country’s National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, the public health body, recommends the drug be used only for people with serious underlying health conditions such as cancer and HIV or recipients of transplants.

The UK health and social care department said more courses had been used, without offering its own data. A spokesperson said the government had “acted fast to secure enough stock of antivirals” at a time of “high global demand”.

The restrictions have been less stringent in other European countries, with elderly citizens and people with more common risk factors such as diabetes and obesity able to obtain the drug. Yet more than 200,000 Paxlovid courses expired before they could be used in Spain and about 100,000 each went out of date in France and Italy.

Even in the US — the largest market for Covid outpatient treatments — demand for Covid antivirals has fallen, tracking the reduced burden of Covid and a drop in testing for the virus. [absolutely love 2 point trend lines, very good]

About 5.3mn courses were prescribed in the US this year, 24 per cent down on 2022. The US government arranged with Pfizer to return 7.9mn Paxlovid courses at the end of 2023, at an estimated cost to the company of $4.2bn.

In Japan, the regulator has approved another antiviral, Xocova, from drugmaker Shionogi. Authorisation of Xocova for use by standard risk patients has expanded the Covid antivirals market.

The market was relatively robust over the summer on the back of a rise in infections. That prompted Shionogi in late October to upgrade its annual guidance for domestic sales of Xocova, while it lowered its target for international sales. The drug is not yet approved in the US or Europe.

According to Shionogi, roughly 23 per cent of patients who tested positive for Covid were prescribed oral drugs for treatment when public funding was available. But this is forecast to fall now that people must pay out of their own pocket for antivirals. A course of Xocova costs up to ¥9,000 ($64).

https://www.deccanherald.com/india/new-corona-variant-is-variant-of-interest-not-variant-of-concern-2831128 posted:

New Corona variant is Variant of Interest not Variant of Concern
'India had managed the Covid-19 pandemic much better than many powerful countries,' Dr Ishwar Gilada said.
(..)
“In fact Omicron acted as a Variant of Support (VoS) for India and only after its entry two years back, our country opened-up, schools/colleges started, tourism took off, socialisation and conferences started, and the economy boomed,” he said.
(..)

Pingui posted:

Avert your eyes if you aren't wearing welding goggles. This is an insanely hot take.

quote:

'India had managed the Covid-19 pandemic much better than many powerful countries,'

DominoKitten posted:

Any country that found itself constructing pyres in parking lots with the well heeled begging for oxygen on Twitter as the hospitals collapsed while the poor went hungry due to COVID restrictions did not in any way manage the pandemic better. It only did better at reporting far less official COVID deaths than actually occurred. I know everybody here knows this but I swear my working memory is absolutely going to drive me to madness if I don’t reflexively spout off sometimes.

Pingui posted:

Kishida please, my people yearns for cheap anti-virals.

https://edition.cnn.com/2024/01/01/health/virus-season-rising-levels-flu-covid-rsv/index.html posted:

Respiratory virus activity is high and rising across the United States, CDC data shows

As seasonal virus activity surges across the United States, experts stress the importance of preventive measures – such as masking and vaccination – and the value of treatment for those who do get sick.

Tens of thousands of people have been admitted to hospitals for respiratory illness each week this season. During the week ending December 23, there were more than 29,000 patients admitted with Covid-19, about 15,000 admitted with the flu and thousands more with respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV, according to data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Nationally, Covid-19 levels in wastewater, a leading measure of viral transmission, are very high – higher than they were at this time last year in every region, CDC data shows. Weekly emergency department visits rose 12%, and hospitalizations jumped about 17% in the most recent week.
(..)
“It’s a wave of winter respiratory pathogens, especially respiratory viruses. So it’s Covid, it’s flu, and we can’t diminish the importance of RSV,” said Dr. Peter Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at the Baylor College of Medicine. “So it’s a triple threat, and arguably a fourth threat because we also have pneumococcal pneumonia, which complicates a lot of these virus infections.”
(..)
“Remember, all of these numbers are before people got together for the holidays,” Hotez said. “So don’t be disappointed or surprised that we even see a bigger bump as we head into January.”
(..)
According to the CDC, hospital bed capacity remains “stable” nationally, including within intensive care units. But with high levels of respiratory viruses, hospitals in at least five states are returning to requiring masks.
(..)

Phigs posted:

The people in charge know best. You should not try to circumvent the very good and perfect rules to get your hands on Pax.

I'm still COVID zero and that's unlikely to change so I haven't been paying attention. Any new developments besides this new variant/wave happen in the last few months?

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36580041/ posted:

Abstract
In order to prepare for the twindemic of influenza and SARS-CoV-2 infection, we investigated the association between influenza infection and subsequent severity of SARS-CoV-2 infection. A population-based nationwide cohort study was performed using data from the National Health Insurance Service (NHIS) in the Republic of Korea. This study included 274,126 individuals who underwent SARS-CoV-2 PCR testing between 20 January 2020 and 1 October 2020. Among these patients, 28,338 tested positive for SARS-CoV-2, and 4,003 of these individuals had a history of influenza. The control group was selected through 1:1 propensity score matching. In the group of 4,003 COVID-19-positive individuals with no history of influenza, 192 (4.8%) experienced severe illness from COVID-19 infection. In the group of 4,003 COVID-19-positive individuals with a history of influenza, 260 (6.5%) had severe illness from COVID-19, and the overall adjusted odds ratio (aOR) was 1.29 (95% confidence interval 1.04-1.59). Among the 4,003 COVID-19-positive individuals with a history of influenza, severe COVID-19 infection was experienced by 143 of 1,760 (8.1%) with an influenza history within 1 year before the onset of COVID-19, 48 of 1,129 (4.3%) between 1 and 2 years, and 69 of 1,114 (6.2%) between 2 and 3 years before COVID-19 onset, and the aORs were 1.54 (1.20-1.98), 1.19 (0.84-1.70), and 1.00 (0.73-1.37), respectively. In conclusion, individuals who had an influenza infection less than 1 year before COVID-19 infection were at an increased risk of experiencing severe illness from the SARS-CoV-2 infection. To control the public health burden, it is essential that effective public health control measures, which include influenza vaccination, hand washing, cough etiquette, and mask use are in place.

DominoKitten posted:

I swear my working memory is absolutely going to drive me to madness if I don’t reflexively spout off sometimes.

DominoKitten posted:

Any country that found itself constructing pyres in parking lots with the well heeled begging for oxygen on Twitter as the hospitals collapsed while the poor went hungry due to COVID restrictions did not in any way manage the pandemic better. It only did better at reporting far less official COVID deaths than actually occurred. I know everybody here knows this but I swear my working memory is absolutely going to drive me to madness if I don’t reflexively spout off sometimes.

Animal-Mother posted:

Rescue Toaster posted:

I know years ago we all joked about how there would be a market catering to people who have permanently hosed sense of smell and/or taste.

Well I see Campbell's now has loving Ghost Pepper Chicken Noodle. There's at least a dozen other 'Spicy' soup varieties. And way beyond the things you might expect like chili or gumbo or whatever. Just total nonsense.

jetz0r posted:

remembering things is a lockdown

tuyop posted:

pingui you’re working so hard, thank you

tangy yet delightful posted:

We refused to give this drug to people with covid and now it's expiring, look at this big huge problem and how it actually means we shouldn't develop drugs or buy them for usage in the future.

Rescue Toaster posted:

I know years ago we all joked about how there would be a market catering to people who have permanently hosed sense of smell and/or taste.

Well I see Campbell's now has loving Ghost Pepper Chicken Noodle. There's at least a dozen other 'Spicy' soup varieties. And way beyond the things you might expect like chili or gumbo or whatever. Just total nonsense.

JAY ZERO SUM GAME posted:

I mean I’ve loved spicy food my whole life

you’re probably not wrong it’s an influence though