outbreak! (ebola, sars, coronavirus, etc)

Or maybe I've got that wrong and it isn't the Kent strain that's rampaging round Europe?

that's what i heard (and posted at the time). means we're ahead of the curve on that (not without cost) and hopefully won't follow Europe onto a 3rd wave. but there are always other variants...

The UK strain is thought to be about 1/3 of current cases in the US, extrapolating from 5,000 positively identified, and projected to be the most prevalent come April. Shame there’s no way of stopping it from leaving or entering a country: there are headlines in Queensland because a third case, in total, has been identified, so testing and quarantining obv wouldn’t make a difference in the US or UK.

T(xp) hat's what I thought, amid all the tut-tutting about the situation in Germany or France it doesn't really get mentioned that the death toll is still a lot lower than it was in the UK when the Kent variant was on the loose here.

america needs to be treating central america like a neighbor and distributing vaccine to their governments both local and federal the instant it is fully available to all north americans.

The rising incidence of blood closets after AZ vaccinations is starting to look more concerning, especially as the Australian government has staked the almost whole vaccination campaign on AZ. Still doesn’t seem to be a causal link yet but it’s harder to brush off than it was at the beginning of the weak.

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/apr/03/australian-covid-vaccine-astrazeneca-experts-urgently-meet-after-blood-clot-case-in-melbourne

the UK as well

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-56620646

but 30 cases (7 deaths) in 18m is being deemed acceptable

isn't that comparable to how many clots were found for other vaccines?

initially i was thinking similarly isn't this just an incidence of blood clots that you would expect to see at placebo level - ie not statistically significant? but i think it's due to a combination of issues.

FT has this (£):

Thirty cases of blood clots combined with low platelet counts equates to roughly one case in every 600,000 people who have received the AstraZeneca vaccine. This was a sharp increase from the number of such incidents recorded in the previous MHRA report on 22 March. That showed 4 cases of CVST and no fatalities for the period from January up to 14 March.

All of the reported cases involved people who had received only their first dose of the shot, the MHRA told the FT. “Of the 30 cases in our statement . . . sadly seven have died,” it said.

The UK has not recorded any of the same incidents among people that have received the BioNTech/Pfizer vaccine, the MHRA said.

“No medical intervention is ‘safe’, and the balance of benefit to risk is crucial,” said Professor David Spiegelhalter, chair of the Winton Centre for Risk at the University of Cambridge. “A month’s delay in vaccinating 500,000 people between 44 and 54 would be expected to lead to around 85 severe cases requiring hospitalisation, of which perhaps 5 would die.”

jfc

Belgian police go wild on kids hanging out in a park because it’s April 2021 and European governments are still too stupid to understand how a respiratory disease works, and confident enough in their ignorance to crush their people. pic.twitter.com/6m7nYeKJ8B

— Richard Hanania (@RichardHanania) April 3, 2021

https://healthycanadians.gc.ca/recall-alert-rappel-avis/hc-sc/2021/75309a-eng.php

I've been using two packages of masks made by BYD Electronics the last while that the school gave to me. Had to look around online--the packaging tells you nothing--but they seem to be okay. Did find this from a year ago:

https://cntechpost.com/2020/04/02/chinese-team-develops-new-graphene-mask/

Something new to mess with your mental health.

yeah, I got an email from my son's high school about a week and a half ago telling us to stop using the masks that were distributed at his school. It's totally unclear to me if all graphene masks or unsafe or only those from specific manufacturers. The recall seems to indicate it is all graphene masks. The packaging of the masks did clearly indicate "disposable facemask with biomass graphene". The masks themselves had a grey color rather than white, so if you just have the regular white and blue disposable mask I think you're ok.

https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/fox-news-routinely-attacks-pandemic-health-measures-while-implementing-them-its-own-staff

The good news just never stops with this thing.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/06/health/covid-neurological-psychological-lancet-wellness/index.html

As I've told my wife, there are no 'low risk' ways to catch covid19 and no sure fire ways to avoid it, except zero contact with other humans, which is exceptionally difficult to achieve. You do whatever you can and hope for the best.

The good news just never stops with this thing.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/06/health/covid-neurological-psychological-lancet-wellness/index.html

― clemenza, Tuesday, April 6, 2021 8:47 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

If I might temper this a bit, the headline is extremely sensationalized, but nearly all of the "brain disease" is just garden variety anxiety and mood disorders. And the rates aren't massively higher than the control group. And it's not actually clear that there's a biological link between the disease and the anxiety (gee, you think maybe elevated rates of anxiety might be common during a pandemic?)

Don't know if we already talked about this but it confirms what we (happily) suspected:

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/outdoor-transmission-accounts-for-0-1-of-state-s-covid-19-cases-1.4529036?

xp it's a terrible headline. it says 17% of people who survive covid have an anxiety disorder. that's ... pretty much the prevalance in the general population, no?

ha it's actually 19% in the general population, so if anything it seems like people find covid a soothing and calming experience.

The percentage refers to those receiving a diagnosis within 6 months, not the prevalence in the population overall.

Yeah if anything the best comparison would probably be % of people within the non-covid having equivalent population who received a diagnosis during the same time period. Like many of these studies that get blown up in the media, however, it's not properly controlled.

Even that aside, calling anxiety a "brain disease" is highly sensational and misleading. I mean yes, it's a "disease" in the most general sense of the term if it reaches chronic/disorder levels, and yes, it does involve the brain. But there are a lot of potential reasons increased anxiety or mood disorder could be correlated with COVID without having any direct connection to the virus.

Also, who is the control group for people recovering from COVID having anxiety? Who doesn't have anxiety right now?

It’s a cnn dot com article

Apparently no less than 92 variants have been identified in Brazil, where the situation is completely out of control and 100 000 additional deaths are projected by the end of April. Not only is that fucking psychopath Bolsonaro murdering the population of his own country, I'm starting to think he'll get the rest of us killed as well.

never forget:

Jair Bolsonaro is a dangerous populist, with some good ideas https://t.co/hwHnFLbvUI

— The Economist (@TheEconomist) January 3, 2019

jfc

We should always trust an incompetent authoritarian to implement the few good ideas they espouse in public. Like Trump and his big infrastructure ideas. That went wonderfully.

Man that is so sad.

Yup, but tell me again about how Lula and Dilma were "corrupt."

Disappointed to learn that rock critics, either past or present, have not been deemed essential workers.

Hey, take it on over to Rock-Star Journalist Lisa Robinson Has Lived in Her Apartment for 45 Years

If you are in IL and were waiting for eligibility to open up on 4/12, go look for appointments NOW. Tons just opened.

Make u think

Ted Nugent: "Why weren’t we shut down for COVID one through 18?"

COVID-19 is named after the year in which the first infection was reported: 2019. https://t.co/0jDXasC7hk

— Detroit Free Press (@freep) April 12, 2021

I didn't go to see Richard III because I hadn't seen the first two plays

Sacked of henry iv part two because, wait am i doing it right

Got my first (Moderna) shot on Saturday! Almost passed out because it was a needle. Then yesterday afternoon I got SUPER nauseous and couldn’t even sit or lie down without getting the worst spins of my life. I threw up a bunch of times to where I could lie down. Pretty much slept til this morning. Still feeling dizzy and nauseous but it isn’t as bad. Except I’m supposed to work. We’ll see how this goes...

sorry to hear about the nausea - seems to be really hit and miss with everyone! i was mostly ok, my partner got hit hard. (both of us pfizer). and our downstairs neighbors just got J&J and it really knocked them on their ass. feel better soon!

What a read.

“Close to 130 countries containing 2.5 billion people have yet to administer a single dose.” https://t.co/cGsoO9qrAw

— Alex Press (@alexnpress) April 12, 2021

Illustration is pretty good anyway

Will honestly say that at this point, it seems like we're going to be living the way we are right now for the foreseeable future. People are over it and just don't care if others die because the way we deal with death in this fucked-up country is to look the other way and blame the dead person for their own mortality.

(Speaking for the US)

It's not the way I deal with it, and I'm American. Really wish people would stop saying "we" do all this appalling garbage!

If there's a covid truther/anti-mask/freedom/Q protest anywhere within a few hours of me, I'm going to show up and ruin everything for them. that's different for me at least!

Really wish people would stop saying "we" do all this appalling garbage!

In most cases, this kind of "we" should be taken to mean "people who aren't like me, because obviously I know better and am proving it by criticizing the people who are like this".

I know! And I’m starting to take it personally!

Seems a bit... excessive:

https://globalnews.ca/news/7756911/astrazeneca-covid-19-vaccine-stop-used-denmark/

To be fair, I think what table meant by the "we" is that, like it or not, "we" (citizens of the US) are going to be stuck where we are for quite some time because we have so many selfish idiots and anti-vaxxers. I don't think that's disparaging anyone itt or any ilxors to say, because of the actions of others, "we" are all going to be kind of stuck longer than necessary.

As Eric Church might say, that was a cold one.

I think if vaccination rates stall out with a large portion of people refusing them, we will soon see many more people saying "fuck it" and making more aggressive moves back towards regular life regardless.

I'm kind of getting there myself. I'm vaccinated, my family is vaccinated, I've already punted a year+ of my life, I'm gonna start doing shit