All things CoronaVirus

[Typical Lax Dad]

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott tests positive for COVID-19

Saw this it’s about expected.

Vaccinated and he will receive the best care.

[Farfromgeneva]

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott tests positive for COVID-19

Saw this it’s about expected.

Vaccinated and he will receive the best care.

Michael Lewis likes to pound on the idea, which I’m in agreement, that it’s all about incentives combined with Talebs concept of “skin in the game”

[Typical Lax Dad]

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott tests positive for COVID-19

Saw this it’s about expected.

Vaccinated and he will receive the best care.

Michael Lewis likes to pound on the idea, which I’m in agreement, that it’s all about incentives combined with Talebs concept of “skin in the game”

Yep

[Farfromgeneva]

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott tests positive for COVID-19

Saw this it’s about expected.

Vaccinated and he will receive the best care.

Michael Lewis likes to pound on the idea, which I’m in agreement, that it’s all about incentives combined with Talebs concept of “skin in the game”

Yep

Just ripped through 6 episodes of this show White Lotus. Aside from one of my very very favorite girls starring in it, it shows how incentives matter amongst rich folks quite well, better than succession in many ways.

[Farfromgeneva]

As Delta Surges, Covid-19 Breakthrough Cases Remain Uncommon
WSJ analysis finds higher risk of infection from strain, but research shows that vaccines still protect against most serious illness

Covid-19 swab tests were administered at a site at Tropical Park in Miami earlier this month. New cases have climbed sharply since June.
PHOTO: EVA MARIE UZCATEGUI/BLOOMBERG NEWS
By Robbie Whelan and Jared S. Hopkins
Aug. 17, 2021 7:30 am ET

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The Delta variant of the Covid-19 virus appears to be breaking through the protection vaccines provide at a higher rate than previous strains, a Wall Street Journal analysis found, though infections among the fully inoculated remain a tiny fraction of overall cases, and symptoms tend to be milder.

U.S. states counted at least 193,204 so-called breakthrough cases among vaccinated people between Jan. 1 and early August, according to data that health departments in 44 states and Washington, D.C., provided to the Journal. The figure represents 0.1% of the more than 136 million fully vaccinated people in those states and the capital.

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The total number of breakthrough cases is likely higher, public-health experts said, because fully vaccinated people with asymptomatic infections likely aren’t getting tested for Covid-19. Additionally, several states said the data were unavailable, while others track only breakthrough cases that result in hospitalizations or death.


Of the 44 health departments that responded to the Journal’s requests, 28 of them also broke down the number of cases they had tracked since the start of July, when the Delta variant emerged as the dominant strain of the virus.

At least 11 states including California and Mississippi counted more than half of their reported breakthrough cases between July 1 and early August, suggesting that the rise of Delta was causing more breakthroughs than earlier strains. In at least six states including Maryland and Minnesota, more than a third of breakthrough cases were reported during that period.


A healthcare worker dressed in a protective gown at a Covid-19 testing site in Mifflin Square Park in Philadelphia last week.
PHOTO: KRISTON JAE BETHEL/BLOOMBERG NEWS
Health departments said that breakthrough cases represented a tiny fraction of Covid-19 infections and resulted in very few hospitalizations or deaths.

Health officials say the milder cases are evidence that the vaccines are working well, though they add some people have misinterpreted the higher rate of breakthroughs with the Delta variant as proof that they are ineffective.

ASK WSJ: COVID-19 VACCINE BOOSTERS

Join Wall Street Journal reporters at 3pm ET on Aug. 18 as they answer your questions about who qualifies for booster shots and when you can expect them to be available. Join the conversation here.

“Let’s be real, here: Breakthrough infections are sort of OK,” said Larry Corey, a virologist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle. “You get infected and you have a cold, maybe an achy fever for 24 hours. But you don’t end up in the hospital, and you don’t end up with that 2.5% chance of dying once you are hospitalized.”

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention stopped tracking most breakthrough cases at the end of April, choosing instead to tally those leading to hospitalization or death. The agency is now tracking breakthrough cases in small cohorts of healthcare workers that yield more representative data, CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said in an interview this month.

Walid Gellad, a drug-policy researcher and physician at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, said the CDC shouldn’t have stopped tracking all breakthrough cases because it made it tougher to know whether asymptomatic transmission is fueling the pandemic.


Public health employees entered information online during a Covid-19 mobile vaccination clinic in Long Beach, Calif., last week.
PHOTO: PATRICK T. FALLON/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES
Since Jan. 1, there have been 16,578,509 cases of Covid-19 in the U.S., according to Johns Hopkins University. The seven-day moving average of new daily Covid-19 cases rose to 130,710 on Monday, its highest level since February and up from 13,118 at the end of June, the Johns Hopkins data showed, as the highly contagious strain has spread, largely among the unvaccinated.

“Part of it is simple math: We can and should expect that as the overall number of cases goes up, the number of breakthroughs is going to go up,” said David Dowdy, an infectious diseases physician at Johns Hopkins. He said behavior is changing, too: “We are all interacting with one another more closely than we were a few months ago.”

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A U.K. study of people who tested positive for Covid-19, published in July in the New England Journal of Medicine, found that the vaccine from Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech SE was 94% effective at preventing symptomatic Covid-19 from the previously dominant Alpha variant, compared with 88% against the Delta variant. The study found no reduction in the vaccine’s ability to protect against serious illness and hospitalization in infections from the Delta variant.

Doctors who see Covid-19 patients in states with high levels of breakthroughs said vaccinated patients who become infected typically experience mild symptoms that don’t result in hospitalization and recover within a week or two.

“All we’re really seeing, with vaccine breakthrough cases that come into the hospital, are people who are over 80 or have a compromised immune system,” said Jorge Bernett, an infectious disease specialist with John Muir Health in Walnut Creek, Calif. “Basically everyone who is on a ventilator is unvaccinated.”

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Breakthrough Covid-19 Cases Raise Questions About Immunity
Breakthrough Covid-19 Cases Raise Questions About Immunity
While Covid-19 vaccinations are highly effective at preventing hospitalizations or death from the virus, they’re not foolproof in preventing infection. This poses problems for events like the Olympics and raises broader questions about immunity in the long term. Photo: David Crigger/Bristol Herald Courier/Associated Press
The CDC has recommended universal masking indoors in areas with substantial levels of spread and in all schools nationwide, regardless of vaccination status.

The CDC said it based its guidance on data collected during a July outbreak in Provincetown, Mass., in which 127 vaccinated patients who became infected were observed to produce similar viral loads as those found in 84 infected people who were either unvaccinated or partially vaccinated. The agency says those observations indicated that the Delta variant may spread quickly even among vaccinated people.


An internal CDC document from July outlining the agency’s communications strategy on vaccines estimated that the Delta variant could be causing 35,000 symptomatic breakthrough infections each week.

A CDC spokeswoman said that estimate was based on agency modeling data.

Rina Salhout, a fully vaccinated 39-year-old mother of two who lives in Hudson, N.Y., said she developed flulike symptoms and temporarily lost her sense of taste after she visited the Boston’s Children’s Museum in July with her family. She tested positive for Covid-19, but she said that her symptoms resolved within a few days and that she didn’t spread the illness to her family.

“I never had the chance to really feel like I had Covid, but I believe the vaccine saved us,” Ms. Salhout said.

Is the Delta variant of Covid-19 causing you to change your plans to dine indoors, travel or shop? And if so, how?

[old salt]

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott tests positive for COVID-19

Saw this it’s about expected.

Vaccinated and he will receive the best care.

Vaccinated & boosted. Asymptomatic. Receiving the same monoclonal antibody Rx available to the public.

[ggait]

How common is it to get monoclonal treatment for a vaxed and symptomatic person. Who also has been boosted?

Seems ironic to be going over the top on a likely nothing burger infection. But while also bad mouthing other easy cheap and effective measures. Especially relating to kids who of course don’t have the option to get vaxed.

Kinda Trumpy, no? Or Marie Antoinette?

[Bart]

An interesting take on the data for waning efficacy in Israel.

https://www.covid-datascience.com/post/ ... vaccinated

[MDlaxfan76]

https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/p ... ust-2.html

Hospitalizations for Covid by state as of Aug 17 and % change past two weeks

Florida remains highest at 74 per 100,000 with a 53% increase over last 14 days.
Separate article indicates 50% of all ICU beds in Florida now filled with Covid, also highest in US.
Fortunately, lots of ICU beds in Florida so only some hospitals are totally full, whereas some states have nearly no open ICU beds left.

Much less docs and nurses, etc.

[CU88]

TEXAS LOOPHOLE: “The Paris Schools Board held an emergency meeting and decided to require masks as part of the dress code -- which they say falls within their authority.

https://www.kxii.com/2021/08/18/paris-i ... ress-code/

[wgdsr]

An interesting take on the data for waning efficacy in Israel.

https://www.covid-datascience.com/post/ ... vaccinated

thanks, bart. excellent article for the amateurs out here like me. had been searching out israel results and takes more than others as they were 1st to bat (although some confounding on past disease, one shotters and boosters as he mentions). but as they're in a surge, we're fortunate to have their info. small country so death data maybe won't be as good (but good for them). hopefully any waning is muted, and numbers like 80s and 90s % can stick.

[youthathletics]

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott tests positive for COVID-19

Saw this it’s about expected.

Vaccinated and he will receive the best care.

Vaccinated & boosted. Asymptomatic. Receiving the same monoclonal antibody Rx available to the public.

Seems our therapeutics have come quite a long way or the virus runs its course faster. Just spoke to one of my childhood friends. Had gastric bypass a few years ago, never had CV-19 vaccines, still a bit overweight....tested positive last week, and is home slowly getting better each day. Said he just gets winded faster than usual. He never exercises but does perform manual labor for work in his own business.

Anyone seen any articles that may describe my friends situation. Never had CV19, no vax, but just recently popped for cv19/delta? Meaning, does Delta have less, more, or quite the same impact on the body is the original CV-19.

[Farfromgeneva]

How common is it to get monoclonal treatment for a vaxed and symptomatic person. Who also has been boosted?

Seems ironic to be going over the top on a likely nothing burger infection. But while also bad mouthing other easy cheap and effective measures. Especially relating to kids who of course don’t have the option to get vaxed.

Kinda Trumpy, no? Or Marie Antoinette?

Cake cake cake - I know tons of people that think they’re steers but are something very different when confronted with reality on the ground.

[Farfromgeneva]

https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/p ... ust-2.html

Hospitalizations for Covid by state as of Aug 17 and % change past two weeks

Florida remains highest at 74 per 100,000 with a 53% increase over last 14 days.
Separate article indicates 50% of all ICU beds in Florida now filled with Covid, also highest in US.
Fortunately, lots of ICU beds in Florida so only some hospitals are totally full, whereas some states have nearly no open ICU beds left.

Much less docs and nurses, etc.

It’s impossible to know but my aunt died recently and she had been going back and forth between FL and SE PA recently a number of times so even in their warped trump got screwed let’s go to Parler minds they think she got it in Fl.

[Typical Lax Dad]

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott tests positive for COVID-19

Saw this it’s about expected.

Vaccinated and he will receive the best care.

Vaccinated & boosted. Asymptomatic. Receiving the same monoclonal antibody Rx available to the public.

Seems our therapeutics have come quite a long way or the virus runs its course faster. Just spoke to one of my childhood friends. Had gastric bypass a few years ago, never had CV-19 vaccines, still a bit overweight....tested positive last week, and is home slowly getting better each day. Said he just gets winded faster than usual. He never exercises but does perform manual labor for work in his own business.

Anyone seen any articles that may describe my friends situation. Never had CV19, no vax, but just recently popped for cv19/delta? Meaning, does Delta have less, more, or quite the same impact on the body is the original CV-19.

My guess is he’s not likely to develop a severe case and die so that means Delta is more like the flu.

[MDlaxfan76]

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott tests positive for COVID-19

Saw this it’s about expected.

Vaccinated and he will receive the best care.

Vaccinated & boosted. Asymptomatic. Receiving the same monoclonal antibody Rx available to the public.

Seems our therapeutics have come quite a long way or the virus runs its course faster. Just spoke to one of my childhood friends. Had gastric bypass a few years ago, never had CV-19 vaccines, still a bit overweight....tested positive last week, and is home slowly getting better each day. Said he just gets winded faster than usual. He never exercises but does perform manual labor for work in his own business.

Anyone seen any articles that may describe my friends situation. Never had CV19, no vax, but just recently popped for cv19/delta? Meaning, does Delta have less, more, or quite the same impact on the body is the original CV-19.

The article posted a few days ago did a good job of explaining what they do know about Delta, how it's far 'stickier' in its ability to attach to human cells and it produces orders of magnitude more viral load in throat. Thus, rapid spread and thus lots of negative outcomes, hospitalizations...but vaccines do work to reduce impact in lungs, etc once immune system kicks in.

In both alpha and delta, people with various risk factors are more likely to have negative outcomes, but not dispositively...people with various risk factors can get a mild case, even be asymptomatic...while the person with exact same risk factors gets it and dies...no way to know for sure why. Those with no risk factors have a better chance of low impact, but some few do have serious cases and even die. No way to know exactly why. Best guess is degree of exposure but could be just luck of the draw.

With very high vaccination rates among the most vulnerable, we would indeed expect fewer negative outcomes per infection with delta than alpha. But delta does seem to be having much more impact among younger people than alpha, with many more negative outcomes, hospitalizations etc. But this may simply be because delta is spreading so easily and getting to more people who will have a bad reaction...or it may be that delta is actually tougher on young than alpha...I don't think we know that just yet.

But don't in the slightest think that someone who one would think could have a bad reaction doesn't means that delta is actually less deadly. Or that the next person in the same situation wouldn't have a very different outcome.

[kramerica.inc]

Interestingly, a friend got Covid. Had a myriad of health issues for the past 10 mos. Debilitating and long term for his respiratory, immune system and blood. No cures found, ever shifting symptoms. But he's on his feet. Now his employer is mandating everyone to get a vaccine. Due to his current state and the way the virus messed up his immune system, DRs are advising him any of the vaccines would likely kill him.

What's the solution for the employer?

[Farfromgeneva]

Interestingly, a friend got Covid. Had a myriad of health issues for the past 10 mos. Debilitating and long term for his respiratory, immune system and blood. No cures found, ever shifting symptoms. But he's on his feet. Now his employer is mandating everyone to get a vaccine. Due to his current state and the way the virus messed up his immune system, DRs are advising him any of the vaccines would likely kill him.

What's the solution for the employer?

I’m sure there’s an exception for health conditions that would be negatively impacted (severely) by getting the vacc. No responsible manager would create a system otherwise because they create the same existential risk of failure of the business as an outbreak among employees would.

[SCLaxAttack]

Interestingly, a friend got Covid. Had a myriad of health issues for the past 10 mos. Debilitating and long term for his respiratory, immune system and blood. No cures found, ever shifting symptoms. But he's on his feet. Now his employer is mandating everyone to get a vaccine. Due to his current state and the way the virus messed up his immune system, DRs are advising him any of the vaccines would likely kill him.

What's the solution for the employer?

I haven’t heard or read of a single instance of a mandatory vaccine rule for employment not having exceptions for medical or religious grounds.

I’m guessing a doctor’s note will suffice.

[MDlaxfan76]

Interestingly, a friend got Covid. Had a myriad of health issues for the past 10 mos. Debilitating and long term for his respiratory, immune system and blood. No cures found, ever shifting symptoms. But he's on his feet. Now his employer is mandating everyone to get a vaccine. Due to his current state and the way the virus messed up his immune system, DRs are advising him any of the vaccines would likely kill him.

What's the solution for the employer?

I haven’t heard or read of a single instance of a mandatory vaccine rule for employment not having exceptions for medical or religious grounds.

I’m guessing a doctor’s note will suffice.

Yup, as long as it's not a quack doc...but sounds like the friend has a legit issue.
So, fall back is regular testing.