Riobard

Wise move. Break the circuit. It’s the UK variant and it may be inflated by cross-border travel from Cambodia. Thailand will have to revert back to 14-day quarantine; 10 days is too leaky wrt to a strain that is more contagious, with a longer contagion period, than original wild-type CoV. This is likely partly the cascade effect of an identifiable quarantine breach in Cambodia in February, with cases surging there now about 25% higher rolling incidence than Thailand after having had a negligible volume of cases since the pandemic commenced. Thailand scaled back quarantine duration April 1st. They didn’t see the newer smaller leaves coming and switched to a rake with tines spread too far apart. Hindsight is 20:20. It’s all happening very quickly. I would not be surprised if this scuppers Thailand’s plan for local cluster vaxx for the tourism spot Phuket in order to deploy the limited supply to infection hotspots.

I am returning to this basically because I had questioned the value of CoronaVac. Not that I should be considered an influencer either way, but I should point out that this vaccine now seems to be proving itself reasonably well in overall real-world effectiveness, 67%, in Chile and is acquiring much acceptance particularly in Brazil. Also large reductions in hospitalization and death. The good PR reduces hesitancy there and that can compensate somewhat for lesser efficacy relative to some of the other vaccines. It also appears to come with minimal side effects / adverse events. I did not want to trash-talk it a while ago and then fail to report more recent news about it as well as my increased optimism about this Sinovac product.

Addendum: the occurrence of the rare clots of concern is not that common with COVID apparently. So there are clots and there are clots. But 10x greater risk with COVID than vaxx for the worrisome clot types with the long 4-word label , according to Oxford U.

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I found it on Hooman Noorchashm’s recent Twitter feed. But the feeds of a few ‘armchair’ yet qualified clinicians and epidemiologists that I and many others respect, as they seem to relentlessly jump on every COVID story that comes out and unpack it objectively, without an apparent personal agenda of their own, make no mention of this one. ——- Because the thromboembolism factors are quite widespread in COVID itself, and the onset of associated problems occur on a variable timeline, retrospectively testing for nucleocapsid-specific antibodies that confirm previous infection prior to vaccination among those vaccinated presenting with the clotting syndrome won’t necessarily tell you whether the clotting is precipitated by vaccination as opposed to the clotting emerging latently, temporally coincidental to post-vaxx, as an aspect of having had COVID. It may be that the rare clotting shows glaringly following vaccination because vaccination is an easily identifiable singular antecedent. In contrast, the same clinical phenomenon, while known, is obscured or buried among many other symptoms or complications requiring primary attention among folks sick with COVID. So you won’t have had a news cycle that was just sayin’: BTW, you def don’t want COVID cuz apart from the risks of needing intubation you may get antibodies clumping platelets together. Also different political animals.

And that is why Brazilian ‘trade’ should be a bona fide tax-deductible medical xpense.

Rio mayor now infected, and symptomatic again, with New CoV after having had CoV Classic 11 months ago.

On another note, as somebody that pushed for health education literature for the general public that did not exceed, for example, the Flesch-Kincaid 5.0 literacy level, the brief CDC quote above fails. OK OK, somebody may now take a swipe at me. LOL. But this forum is not representative of average community literacy.

The Phase3 trials assess for baseline SARS-CoV-2 status and stratify accordingly for analyzing efficacy and vaccination response. Pfizer/BNT had 6.2% with prior infection. J&J had 9.8%. These research subjects are identifiable, and clinical sequelae associated specifically with CoV exposure history are evaluable. However, the rarity of clotting that leads to acute illness may not yield much additional info by going back to that cache of serum samples that is small relative to real-world uptake. Noorchashm did have a very compellingly persuasive 5 minutes with Tucker Carlson of Fox News. So his concerns are not totally “buried”. He did hold back, though, in pointing out the obvious, that proximal profit margins would depreciate if those recovered from CoV were bypassed for inoculation.

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Dunno. Whenever Brazil 2.0’s many off-limits aspects, too many to list right now, are cleared, I guess, and flights are greenlit. Apparently as a Canadian I cannot transit through USA returning from Brazil, Panama connections are currently wonky and likely also subject to restrictions, and the EU is recommending all its member countries join the ones banning flights to and from Brazil.

See, I cannot submit ... guess the system sees me as exclusively ativo and will allow other ‘characters’ of questionable repute. ;>D

My Twitter feed reveals case reports about the syndrome, eg one just published in NEJM, that suggests causal factors other than the past/recent CoV infection one. It’s probably too complex an issue to attempt to unravel in discussion here on the Board. Also, the author Noorchashm does not list an institutional affiliation. Though it would likely be important to follow his simple to execute recommendation. You could spend days following feeds of high-profile clinician scientists on this ... Eric Topol, Eric Feigl-Ding, Hilda Bastian, loads of others, and get many varied opinions.

I touched on this theme this here in the forum months ago when referring to ADE ... antibody-dependent enhancement of disease, and I had added that the FDA EUA submissions had referenced it ... that it is a consideration about which little is known viz COVID. Know your natural immunity status by antibody testing and your CoV infection status by viral testing (as many cases are asymptomatic or paucisymptomatic), at the point of inoculation planning prior to actually pursuing artificial immunity, at least prior to the first (sole) shot of a 2-dose (single-dose) regimen. What is cray-cray is those jabbing you protecting themselves from transmission because you may be infected and contagious at the time. The meta message being: you are about to be inoculated possibly too late against a disease that you may currently have, but seeing as you are here, roll up your sleeve. Why would you want the huge payload of immune system stimulation with a compounding of simultaneous virus and a viral facsimile? Additionally, some of the limited vaccine stock could be (have been) deployed to those without any protective immunity, saving more lives at a point of product scarcity. The population percentages of those with protective natural immunity can be quite substantial where prevalence has been high. This doctor authoring the piece suggests screening for nucleocapsid antibodies after the fact, investigating the clotting, as regular antibody testing would conflate natural and artificial immunity. For pre-vaxx purposes ... note that I am far from being an expert ... I believe the generic antibody tests are fine. I think they target the antibodies specific to the viral spike protein. My personal go-to has been the Roche CoV antibody assay. Mind you, I tend to get sore throats likely related to allergies so that is one feature that has propelled me at times into getting (free) local viral tests, followed occasionally by the pricey antibody test I have to pay for in Quebec. I also checked that I did not have natural infection antibodies prior to receiving my first dose in an all-blind placebo-control RCT. I quarantined assiduously to ensure I would not have been recently or currently infected at the point of inoculation.

There’s a difference. I just cannot remember what it is. And inertia prevents me from investigating and trying to roll back to basic. Maybe I will at the next annual charge.

My sense is that if you need 343 pages with countless references the answer remains: don’t know. Which is good for the married men ... can keep their wives off-balance.

I think my use of Grindr Xtra has averaged to about $100 per hour and I have never had an actual meetup.

It puzzles me at this point why nomenclature such as the vaccine and the shot(s) is still utilized. It’s as if one goes to the fast-food restaurant and has the hamburger ... when in a rush and a pinch it is a good option to go to a fast-food restaurant and have a hamburger.

We are all in it together. ;>) BTW, how do you add emoticons in post text? I always get a warning it is not permissible.

A huge amount of moving parts and we will likely see a lot of comparative metrics. Say we keep it to risk of blood clots among those inoculated and the proportion of clot-poz vaxx recipients dying. And vet out dumb analogies such as crushed by a vending machine. Risk of acquiring CoV by age, risk of dying from COVID stratified across age (in Canada .064% or 1-in-1,570 by reported CoV incidence age 20-49; or .002% when estimating true case incidence). Risk of blood clots associated with CoV itself, itself also a quantifiable probability, degree to which clots occur and contribute to mortality variance among the infected, adjusting mortality rate according to case incidence ascertainment bias (undercount) as I did for Canada, etc etc. Risk of blood clots associated with other elective products such as birth control pill or smoking, risk of dying of blood clots associated with vaccine if post-vaxx surveillance and pre-emptive intervention were to be added, controlling for comorbidity in assessing risk of COVID death among those <50 and in assessing risk of clots among vaxx’d <50, etc, etc. Haven’t had my morning coffee yet, but in the spirit of adding illustrations ... the death table, not the clot metrics, is from CDC.

I take back what I wrote several weeks ago about Montreal. Our case incidence is trending up again, now at a level that would have to settle down quite a bit to reach last summer’s nadir levels (yellow arrow) that allowed partial re-reopening. However, the goal of one vaxx dose for everybody that wants one seems achievable by July 1st. The tide may turn.

Oops. It’s only compatible with iOS and Mac; comes automatically with iPhone, iPad, etc.

I hope that one realizes that when one hole has had enough and needs a break there are other hole options. @BlkSuperman, do you have the iMovie app? I have it on my iPhone. One can easily merge the individual clips into one seamless video. Sorry if this suggestion seems bossy ... we beggars should not try to be choosers. Let me know if you want to be walked through it, that is, if you are off your back long enough.

The average person cannot grasp the probability math.

Delete ... sorry I must be back my old terrible habit of hitting Quote when I meant to click Edit ... edit used to be at the bottom of the field. AFAIK, the impulsive false step is irreversible once clicked. That is why some of my posts look like full quotes, I guess. Let’s consider it rehearsal for driving you all insane to the point where there will be no getting around reducing the two Latin American sections to one. ;<)