I feel for you Grant. I mean, her boss shouldn't be asking that. They should be keeping her home until she's either negative and your daughter isn't contagious anymore. We didn't try to change anything in our home, and it was pretty clear that everyone was going to be sick. By the time it even looked like it might be Covid, everyone had been exposed and was feeling something. I hope that she comes through it without feeling too awful.

My wife is 2 weeks past her initial symptoms and is still exhausted. She's up for a bit, back to bed, all day long, still dealing with sore throat and congestion.

This is why a liability shield for COVID is awful. These exact stupid situations.

We all know what the right thing to do is, but we're not allowed to do them.

SI

Looks like 2Q for the regular folks.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/13/healt...ssy/index.html
My wife would fall under 1b. I guess me and the kids would fall in group 2.

They'll be lucky if it's not closer to September before they have enough vaccinated.

Given the timeline for the two injections, vaccinating the WH staff first is pretty much bullshit.

There's people in the WH that didn't already get infected ? ;)

On that point, are people who already got it going to get the vaccine? Eventually, you can get it again from what I understand. So by June I expect that even Covid positives from 2020 would need to get the vaccine, right?

Yeah I don’t believe anything out this administration. Azar on TV this morning saying by end of March regular folks can walk into a Walgreens or CVS and get the vaccine like the flu vaccine. Sorry but does anyone believe that based on this administrations track record? I would say yeah that might happen March 2022. I am hoping my wife a public school teacher and my 90 year old mother can get the vaccine by August. As for me and my five teen age kids by Thanksgiving 2021. We should have reasonable expectations.

Not good news... 1000 cases of a new variant of the virus here

Trying to link to the BBC story, but been having problems posting links for a while without taking up the whole screen...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-55308211

https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/14/healt...ess/index.html

Hey, remember for a few minutes in the summer when there were a handful of studies that were like "family transmission isn't terribly high" "or surprisingly rare" or whatever? Unsurprisingly, when we look closer at it, that is not the case and, frankly, never it really intuitively made sense.

In my mind, we generally don't quite understand the "how" of the virus but we understand the "what". It's a black box - we understand the outputs and inputs but we don't understand the exact mechanism. Viral load seems to matter a huge deal so duration and density of exposure are the major factors. Being older and/or with comorbidities exacerbate the illness significantly... but that's true of most illnesses. However, it's unlike the flu in that the old and the young are particularly vulnerable - more the old.

Remember how, at first, kids were not going to die. And then they did.

The airline industry keeps touting a study or two about how it's really safe to fly right now. Only, all that I've seen have been funded by industry groups and, again, it doesn't intuitively make sense with what was know about the disease.

Opening schools is really safe? C'mon, we know better. Any parents with kids will tell you how kids catch every illness under the sun and spread them around at school. There's no reason to think COVID would be any different. And, again, anyone with kids knows how well different age groups of kids will follow different sets of instructions like wearing masks and keeping socially distant.

That's not to say there aren't/won't be odd little quirks to the illness. But I've just been really skeptical of every time a study comes out that says it behaves significantly different than we think it should. We're past the point where we should be acting like we don't understand many of the major facets of this illness.

SI

Back to the Doctor today with testicular pain that started late Saturday. There's no way that this is related to Covid, right? Good news is that it's not torsion. I was fully prepared to spend the rest of the day back at the hospital, but it wasn't that. It is indeed related, and can last for 3 months. He is really frustrated with all this. Next up is an ultrasound on his balls to make sure that he's got good flow. His doctor expects it to be fine, but needs to be totally sure. He said that my son is the 3rd case of this he's seen, but nobody else in his Dr group has had one. Typically it's with the worst cases, but my son seems to have really stepped out of the typical results here. He's down in the tenths of percent of total cases.

Poor guy. That is not where you want pain.

His mood must be absolute shit. Best wishes for him, and you by extension.

Yikes. Sorry to hear that PM :(.

Sorry to hear him going through this.

Yes, I would never have thought it was related. Pretty weird.

Woke up this morning with symptoms. And of course Gmail was down right when I need to notify the principal. So I also called it in. Spoke to healthcare folks. They're marking me as presumed positive due to transportation issues to get tested. A mobile unit is coming to town Friday so I'll hike over and get tested then.

Mandatory 10 day quarantine and trying to navigate the paperwork needed since I'm going to teach from home unless I reach a point where I have to be hospitalized.

Sorry, Izulde. Hope everything goes well.

Sent from my SM-N960U using Tapatalk

It's unknown as of yet how long either immunity 'version' (infection or vaccine) actually lasts for the majority. Just because there are confirmed reinfectionss doesn't mean it won't last quite a bit longer for the vast majority. On the flipside, the fact that reinfections are rare also doesn't guarantee it won't happen more often in a few months. Immunology is devilishly complex from what i understand (or not understand). So far the consensus is that it will fall somewhere between looooooong term immunity (the first SARS patients still are most likely immune) and a somewhat 'cycle' type thing.
It definitely is not a flu situation as some allude to on social media, simply because the issues with the flu are ones that aren't aplicable here (Flu is actually a varity of different viruses and disctinctly different 'sub-strains' that also change rather rapidly from season to season). Which again does not mean there aren't other factors at play. Just that whatever will turn out to be the case, it's not a "well, just look at flu" thing.

Here the question isn't wether the virus side of things changes too much, but if the immune systems reaction is creating enough of a protection for long lasting immunity. And if it does, the question is wether it protects against re-infection or 'only' against illness, meaning it'll be less severe the 2nd and 3rd time around. Where again a few counter-examples of people having a worse reaction don't mean that isn't the case for the vast majority. There's hardly ever any "always" with immunology or health in general.

And the vaccines come with pretty much the same caveats. They are designed to get the body to follow a certain 'playbook', but it's not foolproof. And the longevity itself, while not so rarely actually being longer from vaccination than infection (think of a vaccine as a pretend-infection optimized for the best outcome), still can't be pinpointed any better simply because the reference point from infections isn't there.

in short, i doubt there will be a "no vaccine for infected persons" formula, but on the other hand also not much harm if skipped for now. Especially if they still show antibodies (which of course i don't know if there are plans to provide that information via testing). Considering likely some 75% or more never get diagnosed, more in spring than now, there will be plenty who get both (and no, that's not a problem).

Man Izulde, very sorry to hear that. (((big hug)))

I find it fascinating how media makes a narrative fresh again by choosing different numbers and assigning new meaning or combining vastly different study designs for an article Because the comprehensive META study basically bang on consolidates the earlier estimates. We always knew homes are 'hotspots' but the numbers also were surprisingly low. Which never meant "non-existant" but simply not high enough to explain the amount of spread.

And with kids the fact remains, that it spreads less than expected when comparing it to other viruses, to them and from them. It's just that nuance is a lost art and people want it to be all or nothing. With an Influenzavirus keeping schools open would be impossible, with this it is justified to at least try und n tandem with keeping transmissions lowiah in general. Unfortunately that part has proven nigh impossible without a heavy hand. But this remains the problem, not schools properly monitored and managed (of course not simply doing business as normal, that's daft) somehow kickstarting things.

I think we know this already but reinforcing the "light at the end of the tunnel" news - regular people probably Mar-Apr-May.

I won't be surprised if the roll-out is faster and early part of that timeline. A focused President should be able to do wonders.

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/14/covi...ly-spring.html

I'm supposed to do some traveling to plan a potential cross country move in May/June, the timing will be perfect it would appear.

So our county (Dekalb, GA) decided while cases are spiking higher than it's been, it's a GREAT time to open schools. So the plan is for teachers to go back January 4 and then students go back two weeks later. They used to have a cases per 100k standard, but they've decided to discard that because they are waaaay too far from meeting that standard.

Our hospital starts vaccinating staff tomorrow. No word on a schedule or where our IT department will fall in line.

Let us know how it goes (and any side effects) !

Spent way too much time today looking at the COVID tracking project website. Based on current cases per 1MM people, the SE / Texas are among the lowest rates while the NE / MW are the bigger hot spots. Based on mask-wearing and public policy that surprised me. Do we think that is mostly driven by weather and increased indoor contact or just randomness of the virus?

https://www.tmc.edu/coronavirus-upda...ositive-cases/
Texas and the SE got hammered hard in the 2nd wave (if we're counting March as the 1st, Summer as the 2nd, and now as the 3rd). We've been heading back up for the last month but it seems like other places were ahead of our pace early on. I think our worst months are going to be January and February while I think maybe some of the other parts of the country are cresting now.

https://www.tmc.edu/coronavirus-upda...pital-systems/
That said, I think we're at a fraction of cases we were at then. We were running at an insane 20%+ on tests back then so we were badly under-counting cases.

I think people did modify their behavior here a bit back in June or July. But it's been back to "normal" for a while now so I'm not sure why it's taking until now to start ramping back up.

Maybe the weather is a significant factor - either physically or socially (more people indoors). It's been posited but I haven't seen a great conclusive study as to why.

SI

We're back into semi-lockdown for 5 weeks. "Black Friday" will forever be about the rise of COVID-19 deaths and the second lockdown of 2020. What non-sense is it to have people cheer while having no frickin' clue why they brought over a should be unique to the USA tradition, which gets widely frauded with by yanking up prices 33% a week earlier to be able to claim to give 25% off.

How can someone be a nurse 9 months into a pandemic and still be "politically motivated" to refuse a vaccine?

Dr. Joseph Varon, chief of critical care at Houston Memorial Medical Center, tells NPR that half of his nurses won't take the COVID vaccine for 'political' reasons:

"Most of the reasons that most of my people don’t want to get the vaccine are politically-motivated."

— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) December 16, 2020

What are they worried about politically? That the numbers might go down and that would benefit Biden?

The country is split. Half want the virus to continue to infect people and the other half doesn't. No need to make it more confusing than it is.

5 days ago I was in a store to grab something real quick. I saw only two people without a mask, one was wearing an RN badge from the local hospital.

I know one nurse who isn't getting it because, well, it might make her look like a liberal. For some it's as basic as "my tribe isn't afraid of coronavirus, and my tribal identity is the most important identity I have."

Yeah, I guess that's it. F reality, I am more concerned with being true to Trump/GOP than I am to my patients.

As I've said before, there are people I know in the medical profession, work in ERs, etc. who think the whole mask thing is absurd, have no plan to take the vaccine, etc. For some of them it isn't political, they believe the long-term older studies about mask effectiveness, don't buy the newer vaccine tech being used here, think it's too much of a rush, etc. Medical professionals.

There's a real divide here.

Agree 100%. Both groups most definitely exist.

Even though both groups exist there is one of those two groups that is substantially larger, and newer to the entire argument against masks. Besides, all the people who are holding onto the old study that was published have ignored subsequent studies related, and instead of looking for the best answers are picking and choosing what is convenient for them.

Like the guy I flew with who based his entire point of view on the 'hoax' of global warming because he'd been flying over Siberia for 15 years and nothing had ever changed, therefore 'hoax'.

That is why I asked about the specific group that said it was political. The people you are describing all seem to have non political reasons. I may agree or disagree with the reasoning but I do understand for the most part. That divide makes sense to me. I don’t understand not taking the vaccine because it may make them look like a liberal.

I think Ben summed it up - being accepted by their tribe matters more.

I also think social media has allowed us to be so open about our beliefs to so many people that its harder to change your opinion/belief when you've been so vocal one way to so many people. When it was just you and your nuclear family and maybe a few people at work, it's a lot easier to flip on a position when you get more facts or are confronted with reality. But now, the embarrassment of admitting you got duped is too great, so these people are doubling down on these positions, to the point of believing misinformation and lies. And it's easy to do, because you can find support for literally ANY position and that justifies it.

Not really. Most of those people are complete morons and in the minority.

I can maybe see young people being wary of the vaccine for awhile till it's been tested more. Anyone over 50 though is an imbecile for not getting it.

Even if you don't believe in science and think masks are ineffective, there is no harm in wearing them. It's like using a blinker at a light when there are no cars around.

What is there to be done then? If we get to a point where everyone who wants the vaccine can actually get it...? I mean, at a certain point don't you just have to shrug and let them do what they want, consequences be damned? Go ahead, kill yourself tilting at windmills all you like.

Problem is it’s relatively unlikely they go ahead and kill themselves but they may well still kill somebody at risk given all the vaccines are somewhere south of 95% effective.

So they can still stop us getting to herd immunity which means things still can’t get back to normal - which ironically is completely counterintuitive to their overall goals. But can’t let the snowflake libtard virus win or something.

I think it's perfectly okay for some not to want to take it right away and yeah, taking it gives me a little pause as there has not been any long term studies and it is new tech. But the pros outweigh the cons.

I have no problems taking it in Mar+. But unsure if I really want to take it in in Dec (but reserve the right to change my mind).

Re: healthcare professionals, I was not able to find a poll. As of Nov, there was a poll that said about 65-35% would take it. My guess (and hope) is healthcare professionals will be much less than 35%.

As for masks, not sure what the study is but how could it not help lessen the spread, even some?

Here's are the categories of people who should/not take it (at least for now).

https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/16/healt...ine/index.html

Well, and the vaccines are guaranteed to kill some people. Everything carries risk with it. But the risks from not taking the vaccine far, far outweigh the stories about them killing people. Those stories are going to be the headlines on many news leads, but it's not going to focus the story. Instead it'll be how someone got sick, died, and how the vaccines are now suddenly unsafe. Then there will be lawsuits, and a shitload of negative coverage. Guaranteed. But you know, if we don't have any vaccines instead of a few thousand who might die, it'll be a few hundred thousand more who die without it.

Well, this isn't the first group of people that Brian claims to know an entire set of, that isn't represented by a single person here or a single person known by anybody here. Do all these medical professionals come from the Reason.com comments, by any chance?

People who tried to spread the virus should not be first in line for a vaccine.

COVID-19 the leading cause of death for US police officers in 2020

Bingo. This is a 30something in great physical condition and I don’t believe her to have any comorbidities. Odds are if she gets it, she’s fine in a few days. Just a combination of selfishness and overly tribal identity—neither of which are uncommon traits in our society.

I have a sister and brother that are RN's. I have 2 SIL that are RN's. I have a BIL that is an OBGYN. Of that group, one said they would not take it anytime soon. I don't view this relative as crazy or irrational, just a different way of assessing risks vs benefits.

So yeah, they exist.