Summary
Covid cases are surging across the U.S. post-holidays, with rising test positivity, hospitalizations, and deaths, while booster uptake remains low.
Only 21.4% of adults and 10.3% of children have received the latest booster, leaving vulnerable groups, including the elderly, at higher risk.
Experts warn of continued dangers from Covid, including long Covid and economic impacts, as the virus has not yet reached an endemic state.
With uncertain federal priorities, researchers stress the importance of monitoring infections, updating vaccines, and using preventive measures to mitigate future waves.
Covid is going to end up being another cigarette situation.
People are going to ignore the “minor” risks for decades, then the long term population effects will kick in and cause massive social problems.
There’s going to be a lot of long term mental decline, heart disease, etc. That’s going to be tied to having had covid a dozen times. The science is already hinting at stacking permant damage.
Some very smart people are significantly concerned about this.
Get your fucking boosters people.
Indeed.
We recently learned that covid causes neurons to fuse. This suggests that over time, a society that doesn’t take precautions against spreading it will become stupider and develop a significantly higher rate of mental and/or physical disorders.
We don’t know how that will take shape, of course, but it reminds me of the prevalence of lead (e.g. from leaded gasoline) through a big chunk of the 20th century, and the corresponding IQ decline and violent crime rise among generations who spent much of their lives exposed to it.
I will endlessly repeat this.
Do you folks remember when US schools opened back up?
Because I do. I remember entire classrooms where every single student was positive. I remember kids getting consecutive infections and the suburbanite Karens in my workplace talking about their kids 5th covid infection in 2 months as if it was no big deal.
I know I’m preaching to the choir, however I cannot stress enough how much COVID fucks you up long term.
As you stated, brain inflammation, chronic pain, literally being significantly, measurably, and noticeably stupider for the rest of your life… and look at how those kids turned out.
I couldn’t imagine a better killer for the most evil empire that human civilization has ever produced.
wasn’t the impact on kids minimal?
https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2023/10/children-covid.html?t
“For almost every infectious disease, the most vulnerable populations are at the extremes of age — the very young and the very old,” said Stanford Medicine professor of microbiology and immunology and of pathology Bali Pulendran, PhD. “But with COVID-19, the young are spared while the old are emphatically not. That’s been a mystery.”
Alas, RFK incoming - we will get to see how low these numbers actually can go, once we have aggressive anti-vax policy from the top-down.
I imagine he’ll cut as much funding for vaccines as he can, maybe making vaccines something insurance companies won’t/can’t cover, etc.
What’s the actual motivation for that though?
Does he genuinely believe that vaccines are actually more harmful than beneficial?
I can imagine why an individual might be hesitant to have a vaccination, but it’s obvious that populations are more productive when everyone is vaccinated.
Yeah, having never had covid, I definitely notice a lot of friends and family around me seeming to struggle mentally with stuff they used to be good at. And some of them physically, too. It has had a pretty noticeable cost already with most of them only getting it 1-3 times so far. If it keeps being around and adding up and people keep thinking of it as not a big deal, I can’t imagine how much more it’s going to affect them in 5-10 years.
So far, none of them have even gotten the specific effects necessary for a “long covid” label, but it has clearly done something.
I reckon polio is a good analogy. That illness doesn’t seem so bad at first. Mild symptoms (or no symptoms at all), seems like you get better. It’s much worse in a small number of cases - potentially causing paralysis and death. But a big issue is post-polio syndrome, which surfaces many years later in a large percentage of people.
fatigue is often the most disabling symptom; even slight exertion often produces disabling fatigue […]
Covid is a bit like that. Most people who get it feel pretty rotten for a few days, and then its apparently over. But we’ve seen that for some people, covid causes permanent brain injuries resulting in chronic exhaustion and brain-fog. It’s unclear precisely how common this this, but we know that repeated exposure increases the risk.
I had never heard of post polio syndrome before… probably because we eradicated it here with vaccines.
It is also drug companies, government, and media misrepresenting the abilities of the vaccine during lockdowns. I think a majority of the population find it hard to trust them after all the talk of 100 percent efficacy and once you get it we will all be safe.
Be honest about medicines and people will build trust in the system at some point but these low overall vaccination rates is shitty. I just had a kid and the amount of people telling me not to vaccinate was worrying and then having to comfort my wife because the amount of peer pressure and anecdotal stories made her anxious.
Yes, our child got everything and he is well.
Edit: Adding a couple of sources and spelling. I also am in support of getting all vaccines, just stating that these things happened and has fueled the confusion and mistrust of a large percentage of the public.
https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/31/health/pfizer-vaccine-adolescent-trial-results/index.html https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QoBSTEFKmDw (Biden saying you won’t get covid although I understand he has no idea what is going on…) https://nypost.com/2021/04/02/cdc-walks-back-claim-that-vaccinated-people-cant-carry-covid/ Rachel Maddow from MSNBC “The virus stops with every vaccinated person…”
Not true. No body ever claimed 100% effectiveness. Effectiveness claims were never once shown to be dishonest or incorrect, though they were often misinterpreted. Vaccine effectiveness also went down as the virus mutated and the formulations had to play catch-up. Even so, they were always highly effective (not 100%) at preventing hospitalization and death.
What fucked up the communication was a boatload of misinformation and distortions from the usual right wing conspiracy theory sources.
The vaccines were effective, but not at the high levels shown under laboratory conditions.
The virus mutated. Vials were not transported at -70°C.
I live in NYS. I had to pay $200+ out of pocket for the booster because my medical insurance would only cover vaccines administered by a doctor’s office, and the booster was only distributed to pharmacies. My medical insurance does not cover ANY prescriptions because apparently it’s an optional DLC now.
Only CVS and Walgreens were given the boosters too so they could set whatever price they wanted.
I don’t know a single other adult other than my partner that paid out for the booster because it was so expensive. If my immune system worked I could play roulette with vaccines too, but it doesn’t so I just continue to get my physical safety held hostage for more money.
CVS MinuteClinic are actual doctors, so they may be covered. That’s how I got my HPV vaccines, which would have been $300 per dose if the pharmacist administered it instead. It was free with MinuteClinic.
Same. Too much insurance not covering anything bullshit and I don’t have a few hundred dollars to dump on this because of paying hundreds and hundreds of dollars for the insurance that doesn’t do anything. It speaks to the absolute failure of a healthcare system. I have half a mind to just go uninsured. Then maybe I can afford the vaccines at least as a first line of defense against illness. It’s not like I’m not gonna get shrecked for ten bajillion dollarys by the insurance company if I actually got sick anyways.
I see the other comment though and will try a CVS.
CVS and Walgreens are not the only pharmacies that received the latest booster.
Covid, pneumonia, norovirus all surging at the same time.
Mpox and bird flu glare from the corner, bidding their time.
Ebola looks up from their book and yawns.
I was reading the posts from one of my local animal rescues last night about how they’re dealing with hundreds of dead snow geese that are testing positive for avian flu. They were begging for more money, PPE, and medicine to euthanize the ones not dead yet and crematory fees for dealing with the hundreds of contaminated bodies. That state and fed don’t seem to be pulling their weight in this, and they’re nervous about using the same equipment and vehicles they have for their healthy animals for so much bird flu. The photos and videos they showed were devastating.
Meanwhile, comments section was filled up asking how they know it’s bird flu, that bird flu is a gov conspiracy (US or China, both were covered) or this is what the mystery drones were gassing us with, and something about a “fog you could taste” (???) that was to blame for this.
If other animals like vultures get to the dead geese first, it just spreads the flu more, and if people try to dispose of the geese themselves, it can spread to their cats or birds at home.
People will just complain about the price of eggs as we lose so many animals, and potentially people.
And such news doesn’t seem to be hitting mainstream, or at least I’ve missed some of it. Pandemic level stuff is so 2020 and not click worthy maybe.
If other animals like vultures get to the dead geese first
My mind always goes to the “what ifs”, and reading that my first thought past more spread was…what happens when a natural system of carrion breakdown loses part of its mechanism? Dead animals will still decay, but not as fast and complete without the help, and diseases can come from rotting corpses that just sit.
Norovirus is far and away the worst thing I’ve ever gotten. I cannot emphasize how much it sucked to be shit-puking every 20 minutes for three days. Sip of water? Hour on the toilet somehow. It made no sense. Where was the liquid coming from?
From the ghost hitting me in the stomach with a bat every 30s I guess.
I had something like that when I was a lot younger. I had pneumonia recently. I had to take a week off work, and I work from home. Was down and out for the entirety of November, it started coming back mid-December, but I was smart enough to notice right away and got a third round of antibiotics.
Pneumonia was worse, in my opinion. However, I am told that norovirus is only killed by bleach - not by hand sanitizer or ammonia-based wipes. And that you’re contagious for a couple of weeks after your symptoms start, so people “get better” after three or four days, then go wandering out in the world unwittingly spreading infection. That’s just plain evil.
Genuine question (not an anti vaxxer): If the vaccine doesn’t stop you from getting the virus (my understanding is that it makes the symptoms less severe but doesn’t prevent the infection), how does it help keep it from spreading?
It both reduces chance of infection and severity of infection, and furthermore reducing the symptoms makes it less transmissible because the congestion symptoms are part of how it moves from person to person (coughing and such). The vaccines aren’t perfect because covid can evolve so quickly but they’re miles better than nothing
No, Chance of infection is unchanged. Only environmental factors like masks, hygiene and location stop a virus from entering the body.
Yes, symptoms are reduced.
Yes, recovery time (and therefore time in an infectious state) is reduced.
Your link is to one study at one point in time with the mutations that were currently prevalent and the vaccines at that time. Beyond all those limitations, it was also only looking at identified breakthrough infections.
Here is a counter example study.
People have a tendency to cherry pick and misinterpret studies. That’s what experts are for.
I got a booster in September as I was planning a trip to India, but I will say that thing knocked me on my fucking ass so much. As much as I believe in vaccination, it’s gonna be a hard sell to my brain to go back next year and get it again.
Whenever a vaccine kicks my butt like that I just tell myself “good job, having a strong immune reaction.” If the vaccine was that bad I imagine the real deal would be much worse, especially without the vaccine.
Also, my dad died of COVID pre-vaccine, so I’m taking the vaccine whenever it’s offered to me.
I know what you mean. Like, I understand that the vaccination is definitely worth taking. But feeling sick for a day after taking it saps the motivation to get it again. I want the vaccine, but it’s so much harder to organise getting it again after having a negative experience like that. (Note, I’ve have a few covid vaccinations; and only once did I feel sick for a day because of it.)
