Joe, just do it. Don't let them come without at least a PCR test result. I like the tracking also but suspect that'll be doomed to failure.

I needed a couple PCR tests during my international travels this past year. I did have to pay extra for expedited results which I got in 4-6 hours. The PCR tests is doable if we scale up and have the travelers stay in an airport secured area while waiting for test results.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news...eads-rcna63435

On 2 flights, 50% of travelers to Italy from China have tested positive.

Don't worry about being called a racist Joe. It's the right thing to do in uncertain times, there's some unknowns (e.g. new variants?) that may get messy.

Bloomberg - Are you a robot?

Good call Joe but IMO full of holes.

US to require travelers from China to show negative Covid-19 test result before flight | CNN Politics
But I don't like the self-test antigen. IIRC the antigen self-test is much less accurate? Why not a PCR test

If this is really the countries and routes, this is stupid. Nothing to stop them from crossing the border into Vietnam (currently no restrictions travelling into Vietnam) and travelling to US from there.

The key minimums should be proof of vaccination, PCR test for Chinese national regardless of where they are travelling from into the US. Need to plan on how to quarantine if infected (and not voluntary, on my honor, I'll stay away from people while travelling in the US). After X weeks, reassess and possibly expand if there is a spike from other countries.


Joe, take a hard stand. You do not want this coming back to bite you in 2024 if there are spikes traced back to Chinese travelers. There is no "science" to follow here as no one know how bad China will get and what mutations they have. So be over cautious, no one will blame you for that.

Just out of curiosity, do you think Joe Biden reads these forums? Not an attack on anything you've said, I just find it amusing that you address yourself to him on a first-name basis instead of saying 'I think we should do X'.

No, don't think that. But you're right, I didn't do that with Donald or Barrack or Bill or George or Hillary.

I guess it's because Joe is a personable person (but sometimes too touchy feely). So just thought he would appreciate (yeah right) me addressing him directly.

Great news, thanks Italy for acting so fast. Assume we can handle omicron since we've been dealing with it already this past year.

But let's wait for several other sets of testing results before calling the all clear.

Italy Has Not Found New Covid Variants in Tests on Recent Arrivals From China

re: Covid loss of taste

Dixie is someone I follow because she has done the backpacker Triple Crown of Appalachian Trail, Pacific Crest and Continental Divide (those are some serious miles across some serious mountains). She and family came down with Covid a couple years ago and loss their sense of taste (things tasted really bad to them).

In the below video, she describes getting a "Stellate Ganglion Block Procedure" which helped her family regain quite a bit of it. Note that she went to 2 different clinics. She did not have much success with the first but did with the second (in Texas).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRbXnuZkIEY

Thought I'd share and hope it helps you, family, friends, anyone else you know etc. that may be struggling with this long Covid illness.

Welcome XBB.1.5. Whoever and whatever you are

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/12/30/covi...-to-cells.html
It's been in India and Singapore for a while. India prob doesn't have good reporting, but Singapore did have cases & deaths spike but both have been declining since Oct (googled on it).


It's reassuring that it seems we have real time monitoring around the world where countries cooperate.

My family got the gift of Christmas Covid. My wife returned from our family get together on Christmas eve, and said she thought she had a fever. By the next morning, she was truly under the weather with sore throat runny nose and fever. Three days later the whole family had it, everyone at the Christmas eve get together as well. Everyone, except for a couple of people that just recovered from Covid in November.

It turned out that we had a visitor on the 21st that lives with someone who had Covid. That visitor had a fever early in the day, but since he tested negative, he showed up at our house as planned. Since my wife was the only one to in contact with him, I'm using Occam's razor to say that was where we all got sick.

I got myself a prescription for Paxlovid, and the rest of the family toughed it out. My wife recovered completely, and the rest of us are about 95% back to normal, The sore throat was rough, the runny nose non-stop. I didn't have much of a cough. The "Brain Fog" however was rough for me. I'd say rather than foggy, I felt restless, maybe anxious. I couldn't concentrate on anything for more than 10 minutes at a time. No reading, no games on the computer. I even had trouble watching Netflix. I just kept losing interest/attention. It was very strange.

That sucks, hope everyone is 100% soon. Fuck that visitor, they at the very least should have called you and asked if it was ok to still come given the circumstances...

Sorry to hear. Great that everyone has recovered.

How well did the Paxlovid work? Like an antibiotic and feeling better in 12 hours or so? (You’re the only person I know that’s taken it)

And when did you get your last vaccination?

Our family got hit for the first time as well. Wife tested positive on Christmas Day (Merry F'n Christmas), she was the most sick. I got sick a few days later, seems to be a reduced version of what she had. I never tested positive even though I had the same symptoms as her, just a few days later.
Thankfully we all got the Omicron booster about 3-4 weeks ago, so I think it kept things from getting bad. Weird symptoms , a lot of gastro intestinal symptoms which was not typical with older versions of the virus.

Glad you guys are feeling better.

I'm scheduled to get the updated booster (my 5th shot) in about 10 days. I figured it makes sense since I'm going on a cruise next month and I'm over 50. My wife likely will too, although she's unable to do it until maybe the end of the month due to some testing she's having done on her hip.

Her parents, in their mid-late 70s, are going with us and have only had the original plus 1st booster quite a while ago. I sense the same vaccine skepticism from them that I get from my parents, who've only had the original shots.

One of my co-workers was just talking about how she got COVID over break. And it came out that she had only gotten the two shots plus the first booster. And she had no idea that the bi-valent booster was even a thing.

And this is a normal well-educated person. Which makes me wonder how much a lack of uptake on the 4th+ shot is people just not realizing that it is out there.

We tend to think of things as either pro-vax or anti-vax. But there is a well-meaning-but-busy complement of people out there.

State of MD texts me periodically to remind be to get boosters. Apparently I only need to wait two months between them, so I think I might be about due already.

Because they've already been vaccinated, hope you can reason with them (more enclosed spaces, more crowds, you are most likely to get sick etc.)

If that doesn't work, do the reverse parental guilt trip on them. "You wouldn't want the kids to get sick because of you do you?"

My mom took my 92 year old father to the hospital today. He hasn't been feeling well and his doctor recommended he go. Turned away from the first one because they have no beds. Went to second one and tested positive for covid. they put him on oxygen and my mom just texted me this hospital also has no bedss. I'm not sure what the next move is.

Nope, not gonna touch it. Not even gonna tell them I'm getting another shot.

I talked to my parents Tuesday. They brought up the Hamlin thing and first thing they said was that this is happening to hundreds of athletes all over the world because of the vaccine. I just muttered to myself and talked past it. If they want to die, that's their choice. I only see them 2 or 3 times a year, so it's not worth my mental health to pointlessly argue with them when they have 52 weeks of relentless 24 hours news telling them what to think.

I love my parents, but I take the "muh freedom" thing to heart. You want to fuck yourself over, be my guest.

I was talking about your wife's parents going on the cruise with you. Are they as bad as your parents?

No, but only by degrees. That's not my place. My wife isn't going to raise it and I'm not either.

Everyone has recovered except my daughter. She is on day 8 and while improving she is feeling tightness/heaviness in her chest. We picked up a home pulse-oximeter, and she is right at 95%. We’ll keep an eye on that and get her to urgent care if it doesn’t improve tomorrow.

As for Paxlovid, yes within 6-12 hours I felt a very positive difference. The only negative I felt was a terrible taste in my mouth for five days. They call it Paxlovid mouth. Reminds me of dry heaves/bile taste.

That was my experience with Paxlovid too. The taste is absolutely awful, but symptoms went away fast after taking it. I wonder how quickly I’d have recovered as I was heading in the right direction, but glad I didn’t have to find out I guess.

Thanks for sharing guys.

Its good to know Paxlovid really works (just like my reliable z-packs when I need it).

My uncle just called me, my dads brother. Uncle is a doctor. Dad is 92 and in the hospital with covid. Doing ok and uncle thinks he will recover, but that this is probably the beginning of the end. apparently my grandfather smoked a box of cigars a week when they were kids and I never knew but the second hand smoke has scared my dads lungs. Uncle thinks that combined with what getting over covid will take likely will result in him going downhill and being the beginning of the end.

Trying to process and hope he is wrong, but he is 92 and I am also trying to be real.

My thoughts are with you at this difficult time.

Sorry to hear that, Lathum.

Sorry to hear that news Lathum, hoping he can beatthe odds.

Post Script to my Family's covid run. My daughter wasn't getting better quickly, so after nine days we went the urgent care route to have her evaluated.

Funnily enough when they learned she'd been fighting symptoms for 10 days, they said "Sure come right into the office. Wear a mask. You're way less contagious now than you were a week ago." They evaluated her decided no pneumonia and prescribed her an inhaler and some prednisone that have worked tremendously for her. She is almost completely recovered now.

Glad your daughter is doing better. I am sure you & wife are very relieved.

Haven't read anything about any major spikes internationally with Chinese travelling in masse again. And Chinese New Year is Jan 22 so there'll be a lot of travelling domestically around then.

China says 60,000 people have died of Covid since early December | CNN

But for both sides (and context), US had a couple months between 89K and 96K.

My Grandma’s funeral on Tuesday turns out to have been a super-spreader event. So far 10 people (including my Mom and Bro-in-law) have tested positive. I’m still negative, and if I test negative tonight, I’ll assume I dodged a bullet.

Fucking virus.

Ouch. Sorry to hear.

Hopefully no one gets too seriously ill.

I got my 5th shot yesterday, first booster since June. Like in June, about 12 hours after I got it, I got the chills/aches/slight fever which were pretty much gone by this morning. Last time it was much more intense but I also got the shingles and Tdap shot at the same time, so that was probably the reason.

I decided to get the updated booster since we're going on a cruise in 4 weeks.

Also got my 5th on Friday, as it was my first in a new country they gave me a full 3rd dose instead of the booster and then they told me to come back in 4 months for the Omnicron booster (or I guess whatever the latest is by then).

First time I haven’t had any flu like symptoms but damn if it didn’t affect my lymph nodes to swell to the point where my neck and back ached like nothing before. All cleared up 48 hours later though.

Are y’all getting the 5th because of age, etc? Or is recommended for everyone now?

I’m in an at risk group due to illness and lingering (borderline at this point) immunocompromised state, so that’s why I’m playing it as safe as I can.

Plus the first two I got were clinical trials that have no paperwork attached, so as far as any doctor I talk to is concerned this was only my third.

I'm 51. I believe it's officially recommended for those over 50, but I think they are generally recommending it for pretty much everyone. Not many people are taking them up on it, as far as the stats I've seen.

Been watching people commenting on the World Economic Forum at Davos--to even get in, you need a negative PCR test. If you test positive or refuse to test, they just deactivate your badge. No muss; no fuss. No angry rants from Hannity.

And in most of the pictures, you see high-end air filters everywhere.

Basically, the economic elite have been telling us to pretend that the pandemic is over. But, of course the pandemic is not over. And they are way too rich and powerful to have to pretend that it is.

That's just for suckers like us and our kids.

I just got my first booster in a year and the flu shot. I got Pfizer this time instead of Moderna. Arm isn’t as sore as I remember it being. I had a fever for a minute but I’m basically normal after 2.5 days.

I did the same, went from Moderna to Pfizer for my 5th shot. Remember it being more sore longer (but hard to tell) but no fever or anything else.

xkcd: Pathogen Resistance

Crazy to remember the optimism in human nature during the early stages of the virus.

I still wonder what would have happened had Trump won and been so tied to the triumph of HIS vaccine. Would the crazies have won out and forced him to pivot to some sort of "this isn't the vaccine I ordered them to create, they are killing thousands of people!" or would getting the vaccine have been a source of red hat pride?

I suspect it would have been lost in all the news about Trump transforming himself into a permanent dictator, and the country as a whole turning into a theocratic police state.

IIRC there were major challenges with delivery of the vaccines the first 3-4 months of 2021 and deaths were still rising.

My guess is he would have pointed fingers at distribution fall guys but ultimately taken credit for it and gotten many of the 38-42% onboard.

But WTFK with him

Thanks to Elon's "For Me" tab on Twitter, I'm seeing video after video of people claiming to have physical issues after getting the vaccine, most of them doing this shaking thing that looks really, really fake. Is this the latest attempt to con people into believing that vaccines are killing/debilitating thousands of people, or has this been a thing for some time? Or, against all evidence of what appears to be bad acting, is any of this actually real?

Every study of the post-marketing data I've seen indicates that the frequency of any adverse events for any of the main COVID vaccines are extremely low.

In Thailand now. Masks are optional but all locals are wearing them even out in the open, literally like 100%. Ive found contradictory info but think masks are required on public transportation (rail). I’ve been putting a mask on then but not while walking around.

I guess it’s a good thing they’re all wearing masks as Thailand is expected Chinese tourism hotspot. BTW Happy Chinese New Year. On to Australia next.

Have a safe trip!

It's out of control!

This is me after 1 dose of Pfizer on 1/5/2021 in the hospital. I was a very healthy 45 year old who managed a surgery center. Two years later I am still having major issues pic.twitter.com/al2yTTga5j

— Nathan (@Humanstein) January 22, 2023

I mean, if that's the result, I'm going to take more shots, not less.

someone posted one of these as an earnest plea to convince people that the jab is poison... but it was so horribly done and likely faked that it has now become a meme with the same wording applied to scores of different dances, jumping motions, and whatnot (as a mockery of the initial anti-vax effort)

I've lost track of how many shots I've had now. The booster timelines started to overlap at some point while people were timing things differently for travel etc. Are people just going to get them every 6 months or a year now?

From the stats I've been seeing, most people seem to be giving up, and just skipped the last round.

But what about those of us who love the shots and getting in a long guilt-free nap once in a while?

There are a bunch of them and they are all so, so bad.

Apparently, you can make some videos open a GoFundMe and rake in some cash from the rubes.

Well sure, they don't have a stolen election investigation to fund at the moment.

I've had my max dosages and feel GREAT!


Speaking of this. I got a HepA vacc today and did this very thing!

I believe I've had 5 shots in all. Basically, every time I became eligible, I got the next one. Although I did delay a bit the last time to try to time it to be most effective when we went to Disney in October.

The people faking side effects reminds me of this classic.

One of the people that have been trying to push this is lady that claims she was vaccinated early on and has been doing this shaking shit for nearly 2 years.

I looked at her twitter account and a guy claiming to be her doctor backed her claims. I thought it was really strange a doctor would post on twitter about a patient's health so I decided to look into him.

Turns out it's this guy:

Pierre Kory - Wikipedia

He was one of the doctors that was really popular with the anti-vaxxers early on because he has claimed from the beginning that the vaccines are ineffective, has pushed ivermectin as a miracle cure, ect.

And this is what he's up to now:

Only the best people.

We've reached rock bottom. The anti-vaxxers now believe Demar Hamlin died and it was an actor at the game this weekend.

We need some kind of conspiracy theory Venn diagram for this. How big is the overlap with say the moon landing conspiracy theorists?

One shot a year recommended except for those most vulnerable. We’re officially in the new normal, endemic, treat it like the flu phase.

Well just a FDA proposal right now and let’s give it another 4-6 weeks to make sure there’s no major mutation because of China opening up.

In Australia now. In Thailand, it seemed like 100% locals wearing masks even when walking outside in fresh air. In Australia, almost complete opposite.

I met a white Australian that was a proud carrying (on phone apparently) of having a medical exception to vaccinations. He looked pretty healthy to me. Thinking he’s an Australian Trumper but we didn’t talk politics.

It's so easy to believe too. All that snow and he's cloaked in darkness, can't see any distinguishing features.

My state legislature wants to ban food with vaccines in it. Wait until they figure out how many vaccines livestock get.

There's a handful of stuff like that proposed every year, but every year I get less confident it will be fall away to the background when sanity is restored.

The thing is, an honest attempt at food safety/livestock treatment bill would be great.

But that is, of course, not what this is about at all.

Yeah, like wiping out abuse of antibiotics in livestock would actually be healthier for all of us

But, again, not what this performative bs is about

SI

In today's news, the covid vaccine apparently causes AIDS.

Can’t say I disagree with the timing, just part of returning to (new) normal. I assume this means we’ve not detected any worrying outbreaks from China.


Get your vaccines now …

Good news.

Study: No new COVID variants from China since zero-COVID policy lifted – POLITICO

Don’t trust what China reports but can’t fake airplane pee & poop

Our current wave is starting to subside and it was the weakest since the start of the pandemic. Well, it was weakest with regards to case positivity rate (again, case numbers have always been hot garbage since we can't test everyone) and hospitalizations. The wastewater levels in December were really high but I wonder if it was fewer people with higher levels of virus

Covid-19 Positivity Rate Across TMC Hospital Systems - Texas Medical Center

SI

Yup. Seems like consensus that COVID is over. After all, we are down to a death rate of (quick math)... as many Americans dying every 7 or 8 days as the number who died on 9/11, the greatest national tragedy of our memory.

I know, most of the perished were over 50, clinically overweight, or had rare, dreadful diseases like high blood pressure... so they mostly don't count as actual deaths. None of them could have lived a life worth anything to us anyhow.

Fun times.

I realize that's over the top, I'm just... so torn about this. Knowing some people with serious long covid symptoms has just made me permanently pissed off about it.

It's crazy to back to the beginning of pandemic and think "this is where we ended up".

The politicians on the right that turned this into something political, quite literally, have hundreds of thousands of deaths on their hands.

We're still wearing masks at the hospital I work at although it sounds like that will be lifted in the early spring except in patient areas. I'm guessing masks in patient areas will be a permanent change from this.

I don't know if there's a reliable way to determine the "second hand smoke" equivalent here, but I'm pretty well satisfied that the vast majority of these people have no one to blame but themselves at this point. It's pretty clear we don't want to live in a nation where we're "forced" by the government to do things that are good for us. So this is what you get.

Went to see Springsteen in Dallas last night and Little Steven and Soozie Tyrell were missing due to covid.

I wouldn’t go that far. I think many that got long covid got them prior to vaccinations, or got them because of delta-to-omnicron-to-whatever mutations that rendered the then vaccine not as effective (e.g. don’t think efficacy is now that orig 90%). To your point, don’t know the % but I’d assume not a small minority.

But yeah, if someone got long covid because they did not get vaccinated because they willfully ignored it, I’m not losing any sleep over it.

Moderna is keeping shots free in the US after the bad publicity.

I’m actually more concerned about treatment costs if you end up in ER or hospital stay. No one I know went to the hospital. I know treatment was free or heavily subsidized by insurance back when. It would be good for that to continue.

Shush you, that way lies Universal Health Care. :p

what bad publicity

You can always count on Bernie.

I agree with Bernie on this one. I don’t know how much the US really subsidized all expenses (100% or 60% or ?) and they may have been able to profit more using those resources selling other stuff (e.g. the opportunity cost).

But Moderna is probably much ahead on the overall ‘balance sheet’ with all the good publicity, stock appreciation, acceptance of mRNA, leveraging lessons learn from their development of the vaccine etc.

Go sic ‘em Bernie.

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/02/15/mode...rice-hike.html

New Idaho Bill Would Criminalize Anyone Administering Covid-19 mRNA Vaccines

One of the most exhausting things about modern conservatism is that it cannot accept winning.

MAGA won the COVID wars. The state of emergency is ending. Vaccines aren't required. Masks aren't required. Everything is open.

If people don't want to mask and vax, then they don't have to. They won.

But MAGA is fueled by perceived grievance. So it isn't enough that everyone is getting to do what they want. They have to try to make it a crime for people who don't agree with them to have the freedom to make a personal choice with which they disagree.

I. Am. So. Tired.

Is it that crazy though? American society values convenience over indirect or diffuse health threats. I've got plenty of bad takes and Trump/Republicans made it worse than I figured but that much always seemed obvious to me. The loud voices who refused to put a mask on for 15 minutes in the grocery store or on public transportation were always assholes and we never wanted to have the societal conversation about what we considered acceptable deaths but the silent majority also voted with their actions and showed they had a higher risk tolerance for themselves, their social circles, and especially society as a whole than people want to admit. If this thread has just become a place to vent that's cool, sometimes we all need that, but if the goal is to do better now and long term it seems the most pertinent thing is figuring out how to convince people it's a serious enough threat they should individually choose more risk-averse behaviors. And unfortunately any top down solution will only be perceived paternalistically so organically just keeping the information about long covid out there in front of people seems to be the best solution. It's a bad one, but like my grandma always said you can lead a horse to water but you can't make him wear a condom to reduce the risk of disease transmission if he tries to fuck it.

Based on where we were when the pandemic started? Yes, it's a surprise. When we didn't have a ton of information on COVID and it hadn't been politicized yet there wasn't a great deal of divide yet on how to handle or approach it. It didn't become political until a couple of months in when right wing media and politicians found a culture war to fight with the left.

Early on the lockdowns were popular enough that there wasn't a lot of pushback. It wasn't until the 2nd half of 2020 that clear lines were being drawn politically on how we should handle COVID. The right (such as Desantis) is trying to rewrite history and claim they were always against lockdowns, vaccines, ect but the facts say otherwise.

I guess my summary would be: based on March/April 2020 to now? Yes, surprise. From the 2nd half of 2020 to now? Not much of a surprise.

Idaho is kind of an under the radar crazy state.

Greater Idaho movement: Idaho House of Representatives passes bill to discuss border relocation

They are setting the ground rules for the next time. Next time, there won't even be the 2-3 month grace period where most everyone accepted a shutdown, schools closing, masks, etc. They've rewritten all of the Covid timeline as if they were right from March 10, 2020 until now. And that's where we will start if we ever go through something like this again.

People as a general whole were never going to accept long term lockdowns absent a clear and immediate threat once the economic costs and (probably more importantly) inconvenience of them became apparent.

When I sit in traffic I draft an essay about being a liberal knee-deep in Idaho state government. The wackiness, the horrors, how both sides kind of hate you, but also how public service really really feels like service.

Mostly, I know that the very most important thing is to recruit the next generation of young, diverse, liberal, educated, intelligent public servants all over, and, how neither side wants that. The right wants to stay in power, the left is discouraging young liberals from joining these systems. Or even moving to or staying in red states. I don't argue about politics much in real life but there has been tension in my friend group about (those of us that work there) staying in Idaho government. But to me its more important than ever to do both of those things.

Your grandma sounds like an interesting lady

SI

I'd like to see every person responsible for the lockdown era convicted of crimes against humanity and summarily executed. (and yes, I'm aware of the vacuum that'd create in both political parties) AFAIC there is really no vengeance adequate for the devastation & misery they wrought.

The war was won, but at tremendous and unforgivable cost. And the heaviest price possible should be exacted so that it can never happen again.

Fauci & his eager minions are no less deserving of the closest thing to appropriate punishment -- using Nuremberg as a starting model -- that can be devised.

Interesting read on how Covid impacted kids, not only in loss of learning opportunities (which impacted those already struggling disproportionately more) but also mental health.

How has COVID-19 affected children’s education and mental health? - Vox

My kids were already in college but article didn't talk about impact to college level. Beats me on what the right solution(s) are and the weighing of cost-benefit.

It seems kids of every decade (except 90s?) have some sort of albatross hanging over them that they need to overcome.

After 2 years our hospital is closing its drive though testing tent next month.

Running under an assumption that the pre-vaccine mortality rate for COVID peaked at 14% and maybe averaged 5% (stats), that's anywhere from a 1 in 7 to 1 in 20 chance of dying from this epidemic.

Apparently it was not enough to get society to broadly stick with mitigation measures.

Anticipating that there will be another pandemic in the future, what mortality rate do you think we'd need to see before people would fall in line, based on this experience?

That study on mortality rates is so deeply caveated and wordsmithed, it's bordering on outright disinformation, as a non-expert.

I don't think anyone is arguing that the chance of dying, for a given person getting covid, is 5-14%. There's a massive under-reporting of cases that is buoying that number into hysterical-sounding territory, which the authors fully acceded right away.

I don't know what the accurate answer is to that far more intuitive question is... but it's definitely not 5% or more, even among the USA unvaccinated... right?

Well, throw out that assumption, then, as it's rather tangential. I guess where my head was at is that COVID convinced me that it would take a truly existential threat for society, as currently constructed, to actually respond meaningfully and correctly en masse, and I wonder exactly what the nature of that threat would need to be (e.g. a pandemic with a 50% mortality rate?).

I think 25-50% (after what I saw with people's reaction to covid) AND it'll be dependent on the media coverage of it to some extent. If it looks like Black summer than it'll move people ( people attacking people for their brains)... otherwise it might not be enough to move the zombies (and I don't mean the zombies).