longslowdistance
Posts:2881
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| 04/17/2021 07:42 PM |
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Good news is the rising numbers here are mainly among the young, who mostly do OK.
Bad news is the variant incubator issue.
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Orange Crush
Posts:4499
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| 04/17/2021 08:29 PM |
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| Those two are tied. The young seem more susceptible to P1. That’s well established here in numbers we’re seeing. A big rise in hospitalization of younger age groups, a good percentage of them with serious effects. |
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longslowdistance
Posts:2881
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Orange Crush
Posts:4499
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| 05/18/2021 06:18 PM |
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Canada has now caught up to US in terms of percent population with at least one dose. Some interesting looking graphs and analyses below.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/canada-pandemic-turning-point-covid-19-1.6027497?fbclid=IwAR2-9Qjpfd0ebLEV7LH0sC7dpGxaSJDVdrgKGHi7BGnXgv4vliH4dCmr_TE
A more normal summer will lie ahead but a full return to normal will likely only in in Fall once everyone has had their second shot. Despite the overall case counts cratering due to vaccinations, hospitalizations are still quite high due to variants having more serious effects.
Kids will get their first shot end of this week so we will be a one dose family. Had a first garden get together with friends in over a year last weekend. Drank a bit more beer which then led to a very long unplanned bike ride the next day (100 miler). |
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longslowdistance
Posts:2881
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| 05/18/2021 08:46 PM |
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| A lot of folks without vaccines have some or near total immunity due to prior infection, likely more here in 'merica than Canada for whatever reasons. It's complicated, but surely that version of immunity is contributing to the US's and to a lesser degree Canada's improving outlook. I remain super frustrated with US public health mouthpieces who dodge questions regarding to what degree natural immunity is contributing to our very welcome dropping infection rates that are approaching herd immunity. They reflexively mouth the fatuous observation that having had Covid does not 100% prevent future infection. Everyone knows that the vaccines don't prevent that either. I get they they are trying to stay on message (get that shot, previously infected or not!) but this dissembling enables the antivaxxers, which is the last thing we need. |
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longslowdistance
Posts:2881
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| 05/18/2021 08:49 PM |
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| PS, did I make it clear that I am pissed off at these uberconservative Feds? They are enabling the anti-everything Fox News crowd and various other naysayers who abide in deeper and darker rabbit holes, which is bad for each and every one of us and our families. |
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Orange Crush
Posts:4499
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| 05/18/2021 08:56 PM |
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Contributions of prior infections to immunity is an interesting question. Had not thought of that. I can see the difficulty of capturing this. The contribution of vaccinations in dropping infection rates is a controlled test leading to reliable data. The impact of prior infectees in dropping rates is not a controlled test (unless of course we were to take a bunch of them and subject them to virus as second time, volunteers anyone?).
That contribution would be less so here in Canada because our per capita infection rates were a lot less than yours. Anyway this doesn’t seem to be a topic of conversation here.
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79pmooney
Posts:3180
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| 05/18/2021 08:58 PM |
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Beginning to do "normal" stuff. Got a haircut! The woman who's been cutting my hair for a long time (17 years?) has seen me once since a year ago February when I stopped in to say hi and leave her a sealed envelope with the tips she hadn't seen. Took my tube amplifier to the best tube doctor in town. It's been a couple of years since I've seen him. (Tube amps are like senior citizens. All goes better when they have their personal physician.)
I saw traffic and smelled car fumes. There were some real gifts buried in that forced vacation from modern life.
I like that people are now saying they're vaxxed. Still almost everyone here wears masks when indoors and many outdoors. Yes, there will be those who aren't and say they are to take advantage of the opportunities. I'm predicting there will be enough spreader events that responsible businesses will have to start carding customers to have a safe workplace and not be part of the problem and that this will start the next uproar over freedom.
The open talk of being vaxxed is going to start pressuring the undecided and "haven't gotten to it" types and maybe even convert an anti or two. |
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longslowdistance
Posts:2881
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| 05/18/2021 09:38 PM |
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| Natural immunity is another area where our CDC has frankly dropped the ball. Yes prior infection does not confer lifeline long immunity. Neither do the vaccines. The poobahs are so focused on the valid "get a shot" message that they are undermining a bigger message that may enable various skeptics, antivaxxers, and other wingnuts that pollute the wider conversation. |
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79pmooney
Posts:3180
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| 06/03/2021 07:57 PM |
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Yet another vaccine yesterday. Another sore arm, then a general feeling of nothing being right and assorted pains. Old injuries, throughout my hands and other parts of my body that have seen real work. Got shot in the shoulder with that nail gun so my shingles wouldn't get loose. (The rest of them. They nailed down the first ones back in January.)
This one wasn't about protecting others. This one was selfish. I've seen shingles already. When I was too young under the old guidelines for the previous vaccine. That time I saw the characteristic ring of spots as I was getting into riding gear at work to commute home. Thought I'd ask the nurse about them since I walk right past medical on the way to the bike stands (and shower there every bike commute morning). Now I was dressing in a good sized bathroom, several feet from the sink and mirror. The spots were obvious. Had I been home using my far smaller bathroom, missing them for days seems very likely. (I never got the itches or pain from them that many report.)
That nurse wouldn't let me leave until I'd called my doc and got an appointment the next day. (Took her a minute to diagnose me and my doc about the same.) Both stressed I had to get the medicine within 72 hours of first symptoms and since most of us aren't spending our days undressed in front of mirrors, most of us don't know when that window opened. Later, my mom told me of the stories of her mom and her aunt. Aunt didn't trust doctors. She'd had a botched surgery as a young woman that locked her knee straight for the rest of her life. Didn't go to the doc to address the spots. Went through 3 months of pure h***. Her sis later saw her spots and right away went to the doc and went through a few weeks of discomfort as I did.
So I am almost done! One more vax. Pneumonia. Then next fall, probably the latest flu. The year of 5 vaxes and one more to go, hernia repair, colonoscopy. Red Cross wants me to give blood and platelets. (Cancer procedures that have been on COVID hold are happening.) I really don't want to see another needle, especially those big ones. I do have fatty lumps in several places that have been there for years/decades that I want to get rid of. Probably next fall when my arms won't be seeing sunlight. Yes, another procedure, but one with the payoff of a slightly better, more comfortable life. (I'll look better in a bathing suit also!)
Can't really complain. My high school classmate has as many titanium knees as I do bikes plus a hip to offset my ti seatposts and stem. (I like that stuff. And I like putting it where I can see it.)
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Orange Crush
Posts:4499
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| 06/07/2021 11:31 AM |
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OK, I will have to make work of that shingles vaccine too. Coming fall/winter most likely. Any other old agey type shots I should think about? I have all the usual vaccinations one gets as kids.
Meanwhile just booked Covid-shot two for tomorrow evening. Astrazeneca again because that is first opportunity that came up. Ironically I should be eating cake at time of my booking as it will be my 56th but I will take this instead and cake later. Still waking up when I booked I thought it was for today. 56th also means 40th year of road riding and 50th year of bike commuting.
BC is now making quick work of the vaccination race. Around 80% have received dose 1 and rapid progress is being made on second doses. Plan is to be fully back to normal by September with closely monitored intermediate metrics next week and early July. |
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79pmooney
Posts:3180
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| 06/07/2021 01:21 PM |
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Actually you kinda got the timing right. I felt a lot better after my shot than I did the next day.
The first date they wanted to give me for my colonoscopy was my birthday. I was very quick to say no! |
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Orange Crush
Posts:4499
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| 06/09/2021 07:41 PM |
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| No side effects from AZ dose 2 other than a mighty sore shoulder. |
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longslowdistance
Posts:2881
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| 06/09/2021 08:28 PM |
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Hey OC,
Please nudge your PM to open the US border. He is confusing June 2021 with June 2020. Kinda embarrassing, frankly. |
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longslowdistance
Posts:2881
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| 06/09/2021 08:40 PM |
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| The hospital I work at is down to a single Covid patient on a vent - haven't seen that in a looooong time. Still sucks for that poor person and his/her family, but we are getting back to baseline. Just like Canada will be in three weeks. |
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