Coronavirus

[DrGriz]

More good news

COVID and the Heart: It Spares No One | Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

New evidence suggests anyone infected with COVID is at higher risk for heart issues—a risk that persists even in relatively healthy people long after the illness has passed.

publichealth.jhu.edu

I keep seeing patients referred for cardiac stress tests. 6 months ago they were walking 5 miles a day. Now they can barely make it to the end of the driveway. Resting heartrate of 120 (it's called POTS, postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome). Or, maxes out after only 4 minutes on the treadmill but no ischemia. All they had was a normal (outpatient, sick for a few days) case of Covid in February.

That's why I keep wearing a mask in crowds. Better than a booster for the 2020 version of Covid right now. (Yes, I am boosted)

 

[EVNow]

Life in the UK is 99% back to a pre pandemic environment. I can’t remember the last time I saw someone wear a mask. It’s barely spoken about on the TV anymore since Russia decided to invade Ukraine.

Yet, last year this time in UK there were fewer cases and fewer fatalities per day. I think it is just the pandemic fatigue.

Alsoy once someone gets Covid - and its mild - the fear of Covid decreases. Atleast it has to us. So, we are going around a little more, kids are playing with their friends in the park - though still wearing masks.

 

[Darreno]

Yet, last year this time in UK there were fewer cases and fewer fatalities per day. I think it is just the pandemic fatigue.

Alsoy once someone gets Covid - and its mild - the fear of Covid decreases. Atleast it has to us. So, we are going around a little more, kids are playing with their friends in the park - though still wearing masks.

That is not correct, there are less cases now (with no restrictions in place) than this time last year (restrictions in place including, self isolation rules etc).

13th June 2021 cases 7 day average 8755. 12th June 2022 7 day average was 7002. And there are no restrictions and haven't been since last year, that includes fully open travel with no testing or vaccination status requirements to entre.

We are in a much better place now. In fact, 13 June 2021 with heavy restrictions in place there were 171 patients in mechanical ventilation beds with Covid in England. Today 13th June 2022 with zero restrictions in place (havent been in place since last year), there are currently 125 patients in mechanical ventilation beds with Covid in England. That is out of 65 million people.

That is most likely the reason media outlets here have completely given up writing stories about it.

There is truth to less fear, after the first time I had it in Dec 2020 I was no longer worried about catching it personally and based on how mild my last Covid infection was, I am now more worried about flu than Covid. I'm only worried about passing it on to elderly and vulnerable people (anyone really but you calculate the risks). Given in the UK throughout the whole pandemic, the average age of death after testing positive with Covid is about 83.

It is not pandemic fatigue in the UK. People barely talk about Covid anymore. The vast major of people were over the Covid stuff at the end of 2021. I also think its going that way on mainland Europe. I flew to Portugal a few weeks ago, from walking into the airport to landing in Portugal there was no mention of Covid that I saw. Not even on the plane. No requirements (wasn't asked a thing by any authorities).

 

[golfcart]

I mean, it is obviously wrong, right? It doesn’t need an explanation from me for why it’s wrong - if you look at the website it is self-evident that it is, you can guess as to why. Exercise left for the reader.

An unfortunate side effect of garbage information on vaccination rates in this country. Oh well. I don’t think there is any way to compare how states are doing, and this is probably intentional.

Take it up with the Mayo clinic. My only real point was that the state that must not be named is not an outlier in terms of low vaccination rates and cited a reputable source to backup the numbers I posted. That is the best we can do given the state of the data.

Most of my posts regarding the state that must not be named are just combating blatant misinformation (or speculation) made about (un)said state. I typically use widely available data from trustworthy sources. It shouldn't really be controversial.

 

[bkp_duke]

The Mayo clinic data is some of the most robust we have, good tools too if you want to dig down into the data:

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) - Symptoms and causes

www.mayoclinic.org

The Mayo data is sourced directly from the CDC, FYI. If you click on "data sources".

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

The Mayo clinic data is some of the most robust we have, good tools too if you want to dig down into the data:

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) - Symptoms and causes

www.mayoclinic.org

The Mayo data is sourced directly from the CDC, FYI. If you click on "data sources".

So are you saying it is correct? Have you looked at it? Does it seem reasonable to have vaccination rates of 99.9%?

This is a well known issue with the garbage CDC data. (Note that @bkp_duke and (IIRC) @golfcart have recently called out the CDC for their bad data.)

In the end we have only a rough idea of what is going on.

I suspect looking at excess mortality in older age groups by state would be a better proxy for determining vaccination rates than the proxy that the CDC “vaccination rates” provides, but that excess mortality method definitely won’t work either.

Amazingly effective public health here; if they are doing this well we need to duplicate Minnesota’s (and other M states) methods nationwide; they are truly saving every life they can - truly shows the power of effective government:

 

[bkp_duke]

So are you saying it is correct? Have you looked at it? Does it seem reasonable to have vaccination rates of 99.9%?

This is a well known issue with the garbage CDC data.

In the end we have only a rough idea of what is going on.

I suspect looking at excess mortality in older age groups by state would be a better proxy for determining vaccination rates than the proxy that the CDC “vaccination rates” provides, but that excess mortality method definitely won’t work either.

If you are going to call data "garbage" back it up some something STRONG.

We have just your opinion here, which is pretty much worth a lot less than the data itself.

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

If you are going to call data "garbage" back it up some something STRONG.

I already told you I was leaving it as an exercise for the reader! Now you’ve made me waste time, above.

It’s all a sad state of affairs with the CDC data, as you have recently said (or approved, I don’t really remember to be honest).

(
Coronavirus )

Anyway, leaves a lot to be desired, as you have repeatedly agreed with. Oh well.

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

shouldn't really be controversial.

I agree it is not controversial. Everyone knows the data are wrong and are frankly kind of annoyed by it. Sucks. But here we are. What can you do other than move on with life and be frustrated with your government? Arrgh. At least it is not malicious, I guess?

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

People barely talk about Covid anymore. [in the UK]

I’m in the UK right now and everyone I have spoken with so far has talked at some length about COVID. Maybe it depends on the crowd - many of the people I have talked to have not had it and do not wish to get it, and most have been over 70. But even some who have had it have been quite interested in discussing it.

So it certainly still seems to be very much in the minds of those who have not had it who are vulnerable, even though they are triple and in some cases quadruple vaccinated. It’s a little unfortunate, as it is a significant detriment to just living and enjoying life, and I hope new vaccines and treatments will help bring mortality and long COVID to minimal levels and remove nearly all remaining fear.

I agree things “seem” to be back to normal in the UK. It’s quite rare to see someone wearing a mask and it is rare to see someone wearing an N95. An older lady in a care home I visited said when I was wearing my N95 mask (which I wore only inside) that it was a shame that I looked like a Muslim lady. Yikes, lol. I was just trying not to kill anyone.

Fortunately their vaccination rates seem to be very good and I have not heard any crazy talk.

I may well come back with COVID though so I’ll let you know about those low rates in a few days. All sorts of insane risks being taken.

 

[jerry33]

I agree it is not controversial. Everyone knows the data are wrong and are frankly kind of annoyed by it. Sucks. But here we are. What can you do other than move on with life and be frustrated with your government? Arrgh. At least it is not malicious, I guess?

I think the problem here is that vaccinated is not equal to fully vaccinated. They may be either counting one dose as vaccinated, or they may be getting the information from their App, which would be pretty vaccinated heavy. Other methods come to mind, but those are the two most likely (IMHO).

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

I think the problem here is that vaccinated is not equal to fully vaccinated.

Yeah, the data differentiated between full vaccination and single vaccination and they have 99.9% of people over age 65 fully vaccinated in many states. A spectacular success; world leading. China, take note. Obviously doing even better with first doses only.

Amazing stuff. You love to see the vaccination message finally getting through to the older conservative folks in Alabama. In all states, in fact!

 

[heltok]

I am trying to figure out if I should get boosted or not. I have had 2x pfizer and 17weeks ago I had a mild case of omicron(BA.1/BA.2 not sure). So likely my antibody count has been falling. Reading these posts I am starting to worry:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1536297807174422529

https://twitter.com/x/status/1536297820805799937

In my situation, would you get a booster?

I guess my options are:
1. Get boosted and deal with side effects
2. Sit tight and assess. Maybe better vaccine becomes available, observe if numbers increase in my area
3. Assume my 2x vaxx+omicron is enough and move on with my life

Which one do you recommend?

 

[Daniel in SD]

In my situation, would you get a booster?

I guess my options are:
1. Get boosted and deal with side effects
2. Sit tight and assess. Maybe better vaccine becomes available
3. Assume my 2x vaxx+omicron is enough and move on with my life

Which one do you recommend?

2.
Wait for data that shows that a booster after infection helps. Though I guess I would get a booster if I had no side effects from the last dose.

Now I'm wondering if I should have gotten Omicron before BA.4/5 which now appears to be 50% of new infections in San Diego...

 

[wdolson]

I keep seeing patients referred for cardiac stress tests. 6 months ago they were walking 5 miles a day. Now they can barely make it to the end of the driveway. Resting heartrate of 120 (it's called POTS, postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome). Or, maxes out after only 4 minutes on the treadmill but no ischemia. All they had was a normal (outpatient, sick for a few days) case of Covid in February.

That's why I keep wearing a mask in crowds. Better than a booster for the 2020 version of Covid right now. (Yes, I am boosted)

My partner has had that sort of problem since the 1980s. She had a severe allergic reaction to an antibiotic. It took many years to recover and she had to learn to walk again. Most people don't know about it because she appears normal, but her at rest heart rate is around 90-100 and her heart can go way up, then she just has to sit still and wait until it comes back to normal.

Her heart will also go nuts sometimes when she's at rest. Fortunately a shot of the liquid form of the herb hawthorne brings those storms under control in about 5-10 minutes. But only sitting still for a few minutes brings her heart rate under control when it goes nuts from exertion.

As part of her long COVID her stamina is worse and she's having more episodes where her heart goes nuts for no reason. We used to go for walks around the neighborhood. She would sometimes need to stop and rest, but she could walk 1/2 a mile or so.

Now any kind of hill leaves her exhausted and unable to go much further. In the last few months she has gotten to a point where she doesn't have to sit down after climbing the stairs, but still her blood pressure can crash. We were parked a couple of levels up in a parking garage a while back. After climbing the first level she was in such bad shape I had to find an elevator and practically carry her to the elevator.

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

Now I'm wondering if I should have gotten Omicron before BA.4/5 which now appears to be 50% of new infections in San Diego...

As is well known and clear from above tweets, and the experts in this thread have said, it just gets more and more mild, so clearly it just makes sense to wait. Seriously, I don’t know why one would resign oneself to infection even though it seems like delaying inevitable. I think it is far from clear that there will be significant risk to those who are properly vaccinated against Omicron. So makes sense to wait for that at least, even if variants in future end up a problem. Taking reasonable care when possible seems like a good plan.

Hopefully I’ll escape without an infection after my carelessness here.

Which one do you recommend?

I’d do 1, though the thread you referenced suggests you don’t have THAT much to worry about - you likely still have significant immunity; even though death rates are going up it’s difficult to know in which groups this is occurring and most likely it is dominated by the small number of unvaccinated and immunocompromised. Still, why not get a little extra protection - it very likely will help, even if only a small amount for a couple months - and may well make for a very mild infection. I got my fourth dose earlier in the hopes that the clock will have expired on that when Omicron vaccine becomes available. And I’m hoping they revise it to actually target the latest variant in the BA.2 group rather than Omicron BA.1 but they probably won’t because everything is stupid now. But in any case there’s not much downside to getting another dose unless you have had a very bad reaction (can put aside your mother’s issue; it’s likely quite irrelevant to your situation)”. OAS is what it is.

 

[Darreno]

I’m in the UK right now and everyone I have spoken with so far has talked at some length about COVID. Maybe it depends on the crowd - many of the people I have talked to have not had it and do not wish to get it, and most have been over 70. But even some who have had it have been quite interested in discussing it.

So it certainly still seems to be very much in the minds of those who have not had it who are vulnerable, even though they are triple and in some cases quadruple vaccinated. It’s a little unfortunate, as it is a significant detriment to just living and enjoying life, and I hope new vaccines and treatments will help bring mortality and long COVID to minimal levels and remove nearly all remaining fear.

I agree things “seem” to be back to normal in the UK. It’s quite rare to see someone wearing a mask and it is rare to see someone wearing an N95. An older lady in a care home I visited said when I was wearing my N95 mask (which I wore only inside) that it was a shame that I looked like a Muslim lady. Yikes, lol. I was just trying not to kill anyone.

Fortunately their vaccination rates seem to be very good and I have not heard any crazy talk.

I may well come back with COVID though so I’ll let you know about those low rates in a few days. All sorts of insane risks being taken.

Maybe making conversation, idk. I have conversed more in this thread in a few posts about covid than to anyone in person for months.

UK ONS reported over 95% of the UK has had covid now. I would of thought the majority of the remaining 5% are in the older generations who have been shielding. Admittedly I don’t visit care homes or elderly people so I haven’t been around that age group (70+).

No one wants to be sick, let alone with covid. Thankfully we have vaccines to help protect people to some point.

It does negatively impact life quality for certain people. My father-in-law was having cancer treatment throughout the pandemic, he had to lock himself away for almost 2 years which wasn’t good mentally for him. He works in a hospital so he couldn’t even go to work.

I am out and about around London most of the week and live a good hour outside of London. It is most certainly back to normal living (unless you visit a hospital or home for elderly people).

Vaccine rates in the UK are good. 91.3% of over 12s are single dosed, 87% 2 doses, 68.4% 3 doses. It has slowed down now though.

Rates are low here comparative to the population and given there are zero restrictions. We have a central GOV database which is very informative here in the UK. The only caveat with the data it leans on the side of over reporting. As an example, deaths are ‘died with covid if test positive within 28 days’ not ‘of’ and admissions are testing positive when entering the hospital even if you go there for a broken arm. That is why looking at the patients on ventilator beds is a better representation. England Summary | Coronavirus (COVID-19) in the UK

Let’s hope covid just disappears somehow in the future so no one has to worry.

Hopefully you have a great trip and don’t become sick of anything.

 

[golfcart]

I agree it is not controversial. Everyone knows the data are wrong and are frankly kind of annoyed by it. Sucks. But here we are. What can you do other than move on with life and be frustrated with your government? Arrgh. At least it is not malicious, I guess?

I guess the real question is whether or not it is wrong in a similar way across states or if you think it is wrong in a way that biases for/against certain states. And if you think it is wrong in a biased way then what your source is for that stance. Because at the end of the day, nothing you have said about the data being "wrong" refutes my claim that all data indicate that the state that must not be named has reasonably high vaccination rates for adults... particularly the age 65+ crowd.

Do I really think that a bunch of states have 99.9% of people vaccinated in the 65+ age group? Probably not. Do I think that sorting the states in descending order of stated 65+ vaccination rate percentage gives a pretty good idea of how states rank? Yes I do. This is really the important part of my argument. The state that must not be named is not an outlier, once again, despite the outsized criticism (un)said state receives.

I recall quite clearly the government of (un)said state being quite proactive about getting at-risk people vaccinated as soon as they were available. My parents had no issues getting theirs and were encouraged by the state and local government to do so. The internet seems to recall that as well.

http://ww11.doh.state.fl.us/comm/_partners/covid19_report_archive/vaccination-plan/vaccination_plan_latest.pdf

In Fl*rida you don't even need to go out and get the vaccine, the vaccine comes to you (in my best Yakov Smirnov voice LOL).

Are you homebound? Florida is bringing COVID-19 vaccinations to you.

If you’re homebound and would like to register for a vaccine, there are ways to receive it where you live.

states.aarp.org

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

guess the real question is whether or not it is wrong in a similar way across states or if you think it is wrong in a way that biases for/against certain states. And if you think it is wrong in a biased way then what your source is for that stance.

As I said, I think we can just say that we don’t know where things stand. Whether it is the same in all states or biased depends on the reason for the massive errors. I haven’t even bothered to think about it - it is not worth it. I just don’t prefer to support an argument with obviously incorrect data so was pointing out this data was not correct.

 

[Daniel in SD]

It seems to me that either the vaccination numbers are off or the death numbers are off. Maybe something else I'm not thinking of?

COVID-19 Deaths Among Older Adults During the Delta Surge Were Higher in States with Lower Vaccination Rates | KFF

This analysis looks at the relationship between vaccination rates and COVID-19 deaths for adults 65 and older since the Delta variant took hold, and finds that states with lower vaccination rates among adults ages 65 and older had higher death rates among older adults during this period.

www.kff.org