Mostly Apolitical Thread for Discussing/Venting our Rational/Irrational COVID-19 Fears and Experiences in 2020

yesterday my employer announced plans to reopen in september were postponed until further notice

a non-circumstantial biologically motivated argument (i.e. better than my numerology looking at waves) that this is going to be a short, sharp burst:

Excellent pictorial explanation of what a "shorter serial interval" (almost certainly true for Delta in my view) means for delta from @wanderer_jasnah. https://t.co/f7GkzdKs4w

— zeynep tufekci (@zeynep) July 27, 2021

Makes sense, and sucks that you have to make a choice around it.

also, I've never really understood why people with children have pretty much never worn masks

Have consistently, from March 2020 til now, seen families with masked kids and unmasked parents.

do to jvc

A masked kid is a rarity where I am.

and that’s the anecdotal conga

Returned from epic trip to island off the Maine coast. Masks in decline but still quite in use, particularly in Western Mass, where we stopped on the way up and way back so I could do some serious book shopping.

On the island, of course, no one wore masks... except in the general store, where nearly everyone was masked up while doing their shopping.

do to jvc

thanks autocorrect

ha, wasn't sure if you were blaming me for something ("due to jvc") or confirming the same thing ("do too jvc")

Masks coming back in Vegas. Masks back in Savannah. Masks back in Provincetown. Disney mask situation ... evolving. Name a vacation destination and I can probably tell you which direction this is going in.

Incidentally, here's part of the Savannah mayor's fed-up statement:

"I know the question will come - are we effectively punishing those who did the right thing and took the vaccine? And the answer is yes, we probably are," Mayor Johnson said. "The minority is being punished because of the inaction of the majority. We have the ability to determine our own fate, our own destiny, by doing what we can to improve our vaccination rates. As for me, the short and long-term health effects associated with COVID-19 are too high, so I chose vaccination. And I hope you will, too."

Scrolling through some of the Illinois and Chicago COVID threads about the new CDC guidelines this morning, I find it not at all comforting to see that approximately 80% of the people commenting are absolutely furious about even the implication that they might be asked to wear a mask indoors again. Seems good.

People are done with that shit. Ironically, this might help more people get vaccinated or get authorities and businesses to mandate vaccines, which would be good.

I mean, I get it. It is an absolute shame we are heading back in this direction because dumbfuck Americans prefer to take their medical advice from their dumbest cousin's Facebook feed, but it doesn't fill me with confidence to see all the people responding to this news with, "not going to wear one", "come make me", "I refuse to wear a mask again", etc etc.

Dane County is recommending masks indoors again, although our vax rate is 70%. I'm back at the office and no one has been wearing masks, no word from the company yet on anything (apparently employee vax rate is like 97%).

I think that for people like me for whom "wear a mask when you go in the store" just doesn't feel like a big deal, it is a challenge, but a challenge I really have to be serious about, to internalize the fact that for many other people, not just MAGA-motivated reasoners -- hell, maybe *most* other people -- it is truly a burden.

definitely saw more masks around town after last night's news from CDC came out. I'm working on ordering K95s for when I do venture out and for my folks. we'd been using them but got lazy and went back to surgical.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/britain-covid-cases-plummet-mystery/2021/07/28/4fa3a734-ef7c-11eb-81b2-9b7061a582d8_story.html

Possible explanation for what seems to be a pretty short sharp wave:

Excellent pictorial explanation of what a "shorter serial interval" (almost certainly true for Delta in my view) means for delta from @wanderer_jasnah. https://t.co/f7GkzdKs4w

— zeynep tufekci (@zeynep) July 27, 2021

DeSantis however has forbid local officials from reinstituting mask mandates and won't issue a state-wide one himself, so I don't know that widespread adoption is coming back.

the media isn't really helping with its frequent watering down of what the CDC said. the CDC said 'some' vaccinated people might be able to spread the virus, even though rare, as some tests showed that a few infected vaccinated had similar viral loads in their nose to unvaccinated, whereas with Alpha, usually just about every infected breakthrough case had a much lower viral load. So they're bringing back the masks to account for this still-remote but growing possibility - however, the media reported it as "vaccinated people can spread the virus" as if every breakthrough case will carry this risk, which isn't what she said. Likewise, reporting it as a reversal, an admission that 'we got it wrong' when in reality they always left open the possibility that this mask guideline would return if cases spiked again. It's unfair to expect the policy to remain static without regard to circumstances.

unfortunately, the "why get the vaccine?" crowd is back and full-throated. I've already seen the "what's the point of getting a shot if I still have to mask?" as if this question hasn't been answered to death for 8 months. at this point, though....it makes sense why they're bringing back the mandate and we can't base every strategy on "how are the stupid people going to interpret this?". i just hope this doesn't depress vaccine turnout further, as it was starting to upswing late last week.

xpost read that yesterday, and it was really helpful in understanding. but soooooooooooo many people are skeptical right now of the UK's decline being a reflection of them actually peaking. not just your wingnuts. some are convinced the UK is manipulating the data based on pure circumstantial bullshit ("they stopped testing"), but the infection rate has also been on the decline since 7/22, which doesn't support that.

I'm not sure how to separate some of the more legitimate concerns from the "I will frame every bit of positive COVID news as a bad thing because I am Eeyore" concerns, as some of them are coming from actual math dudes or healthcare workers.

It's depressing to see all this happening again (mandates, restrictions, overcrowded ICUs in the south, etc etc), no matter what. Doubly distressing to see this round is self-inflicted. This fucking country.

though there are definitely overcrowded ICUs and hospitals losing capacity in some areas (like lol my state), the plus side is it's not happening nationally like it did last year, and so far, deaths haven't shot up nationally (but again, trailing statistic, so we're likely to see more increases in the coming weeks). vaccinations are saving lives and we shouldn't see the carnage we saw last winter. but you're right that it was avoidable.

is this the first study on waning of antibodies?

The 6 month vaccine efficacy date from @Pfizer/@BioNTech_Group's randomized trial, new preprinthttps://t.co/ByzNjzsdOP
Any symptomatic infection
2 months 96%
2-4 months 90%
4-6 months 84%
For protection vs severe illness solid all the way through at least 6 months *97%*

— Eric Topol (@EricTopol) July 28, 2021

finally going to admit something, but foolishly, I got a third shot. the only reason being that my last shot was September of 2020 and living with two elderly parents, I was afraid of waning immunity at a time where the data wasn't robust as to how long protection lasted. and my trial study is absolutely useless in helping us understand what we were supposed to do since we were vaccinated almost a year ago.

after doing it, I realized how foolish it was, as an actual booster is likely to contain a much lower dose, and the haven't tested the safety of getting a third shot at a full dose. I received two days worth of nasty side effects.

I would 100% want a third shot if I'd gotten vaxxed last September, are you kidding me? You did good as far as I'm concerned.

side note, I don't know why anybody would want to be a immunity/infection disease scientist or physician right now and post on Twitter.

every helpful tweet is followed by 7 people going "well ACKSHUALLY" and offering armchair criticism of their methodology despite not knowing how any of it works.

some are convinced the UK is manipulating the data

this seems extremely unlikely, unless they are doing it in cooperation with the netherlands where the exact same thing is happening at the same time. and in coordination with india for that matter.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E7UChP0VEAUvpP-?format=png&name=small

lol some people seized on that as proof.

OMG WHY ARE THEY FOLLOWING THE SAME PATTERN? COLLUSION!!!!

mic-droppy thread from Angela Rasmussen:

We should worry about the future "worse" variants that will likely result from uncontrolled spread.

But they are not likely to "escape vaccine-induced immunity." There are several reasons why this is the case. https://t.co/2Q5PxEBgbf

— Dr. Angela Rasmussen (@angie_rasmussen) July 27, 2021

whisper it, but there's some very vague hints that this wave is peaking in southern calfifornia, 5ish weeks in, which would be on time if the UK/netherlands is the template.

What is the significance of the shorter "peaking" and faster infections? Lower R number? Or what?

What was already going to feel like a potentially long fall and winter is going to feel even longer for parents with kids under 12:

New from #Pfizer. #COVID19 vaccine data expected for children ages 5-11 by end of September. This is later than previously expected. Authorization not likely until end of 2021.

— Dr. Sanjay Gupta (@drsanjaygupta) July 28, 2021

not directly related to R (although if the infectious stage is shorter you could imagine that either reducing R because people are infectious for less time, or increasing R because people are less likely to know they've got it while they're still infectious).

the point is more (from my POV as someone trying to figure out how long my kids are going to have to hunker down this time): if people are infectious for a shorter period of time, that implies the population level wave of infections will also be shorter (say 2-3 months instead of 3-4 months).

although if the infectious stage is shorter you could imagine that either reducing R because people are infectious for less time, or increasing R because people are less likely to know they've got it while they're still infectious

Thanks, caek. I was thinking of the former without taking into account the latter.

Right: R is "new infections per infection" but doesn't tell you the doubling time, which is governed by lower-case "r", see

https://royalsociety.org/-/media/policy/projects/set-c/set-covid-19-R-estimates.pdf

Shorter infectious period + same R = (roughly, of course) shorter doubling time: same overall level of population penetration but it all happens over a shorter period of time (which is BAD if you are worried about hospitals being overwhelmed but in hi-vax pops like UK the great news is that the amplitude of the hospitalization spike is going to be way way lower than in previous waves)

...per CDC: viral loads in Delta breakthrus=those in non-vaxxed pts. That means concern #1 is real. Today, @NEJM Israeli study: 19% breakthru infctns led to symptoms 6 wks later; supports concern #2. https://t.co/4tjkl7Ndjn Upshot: vaxxed should mask indoors until ⬆vax, ⬇cases.

— Bob Wachter (@Bob_Wachter) July 28, 2021

There were 1,497 workers in the study.

There were 39 breakthrough cases (2.6 percent)

19 percent of the breakthroughs - which comes to 7 or 8 workers out of the original 1,497 -had Covid symptoms beyond 6 weeks.

— Bill Grueskin (@BGrueskin) July 28, 2021

acquaintances of mine already grousing about having to wear the mask again, asking "why did I bother getting the shot?".

i don't know how to keep explaining to these dumdums other than to be relieved they already got shots at least

xpost weird thing is that study was 85% of the cases in that study were Alpha strain.

likewise, that study said in all case studies, the person who passed on the virus was unvaccinated. so I am guessing Bob's thoughts in the Tweet aren't connected. i.e., the CDC is saying that the viral load in unvaccinated people = the same as vaccinated people in many cases, and we see that unvaccinated people can cause long COVID, so be careful.

someone quoted that the study about increased viral load that the CDC is referring to was a study in mice but I haven't verified that yet.

it was an idiot theology student and Bob Wachter is a trusted resource though so I'm gonna go with "probably not the case"

positive news - 754k vaccinations reported in US today, continuing slight uptick in vaccinations over the last week.

My mom just got back from a long planned trip to a couple of countries in Africa. Lots of precautions, lots of planes, lots of transfers, lots of PCR tests, and it seems she returned unscathed. Fingers crossed.

My parents had a trip to Oz planned for the fall, that's been cancelled (thank God)

so I see a lot of grousing, some even from scientists/infectious disease doctors about the last CDC guidance. most of it is because it's unclear (which I do agree with - relying on citizens to know if they're in a high transmission zone will likely go very poorly). but some are actually challenging the data, and yet up until now I couldn't find it.

I'm seeing this cited as the study behind the "vaccinated people can transmit" announcement yesterday: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.05.08.443253v3 . anybody know if it is?

doesn't help the cause that the 3 scientists/doctors (one of who is an Epi at Johns Hopkins, another who works in the NIAID-NIH) I've seen shitting on the study seemed to be smug assholes who had some kind of ulterior motive.

also, here's some Ashish Jha

https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/life-in-a-half-vaccinated-country

and

The Israeli estimate of relatively high immune escape from Delta that a lot of you were freaking out about now looks like it was the result of sloppy statistical analysis. https://t.co/F5sHsJDFF1

— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) July 28, 2021

Seems to be a pretty common theme with these Israeli studies lately, no? Here's some depressing data that's going to rapidly go viral... followed by some clarifications/updates that don't seem to go viral nearly as fast.

Anyway, struggling today with having to cancel plans we optimistically made during that flush of bright news earlier this summer. We were on the fence about traveling to my cousin's wedding in September anyway (this is already her second rescheduling since her original date was June 2020), but with the delay in 12 and under vaccinations and the location being in a hot spot, we officially sent our regrets. And it looks like our planned trip to the UP later next month is less and less likely to happen with each passing day/news update.

It felt like we were seeing the light at the end of the tunnel (which believe me, I am not confusing with COVID 0 by any means) earlier this summer, but... fucking America. We ruined it. A massive super spreader event 10 miles from my house kicking off today isn't helping my sour mood.

Tomorrow I'm going for my first hospital appointment and my first bus ride since March last year. Next month I'm going for my first train ride (London to Broadstairs) to an AirBNB.

It feels like most of my friends are doing these things now, even the ones who are as (or more) chickenshit than I am, but still feel pretty anxious about it! Not as much as if I hadn't been vaxxed, but still anxious.

i mostly saw this among people who seemed to have not-so-great ulterior motives, but now starting to see this on scientists I follow and trust on Twitter, asking the CDC for the data they used in the study. this person is not questioning re-instituting masks, but wanting to be shown the data, and questioning some of the source of the CDC's data. appears to work for NIAID-NIH:

We desperately need clarity out of the CDC regarding their assertion that they have data demonstrating vaccinated individuals can transmit Delta variant due to similar viral load as unvaccinated individuals mainly due to the fact this assertion is partially based off of a

— Chise 🧬🧫🦠💉 (@sailorrooscout) July 28, 2021

Even before we get to the actual after effects of Lollapalooza, I'm wondering if we will see a huge spike in Chicago cases because of all of the people traveling in and taking tests to get access. Hearing anecdotal reports of hour and a half to two hour waits at express locations for testing. Presumably we might see a significant spike even before the spread impacts start kicking in.

Absolutely shameful that Chicago allowed this to proceed.