Coronavirus

[IWXwx]

9 minutes ago, BuffaloWeather said:

You can get herd immunity through infection as well, like we have throughout history with almost every other pandemic. 

Yes, but it certainly would be less deadly if a higher percentage of people just get the vaccine. I do understand and agree with what you are saying though.

[BuffaloWeather]

Just now, IWXwx said:

Yes, but it certainly would be less deadly if a higher percentage of people just gets the vaccine. I do understand and agree with what you are saying though.

I don't agree with it either but its their personal choice. Those vaccinated cannot get severely sick, and those that refuse the vaccine have made their choice and accept the risks.  I think you're right and we hit 60-65% vaccinations countrywide. I think that will be enough though along with prior infections for herd immunity. 

[Hoosier]

On the topic of herd immunity... I agree with what is said in this story.  Just try to get as many people vaccinated as possible and stop focusing as much on a catchy term that in some ways is a moving target.  Theoretically, a place could get to herd immunity and then pop back out as seasons change or if other variants come out that cut into the efficacy of vaccines, etc.  

 

 

Is herd immunity to COVID-19 possible? Experts increasingly say no.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2021/04/19/herd-immunity-us-likely-impossible-but-vaccines-can-control-covid/7139419002/

[BuffaloWeather]

CDC says fewer than 6,000 Americans have contracted Covid after being fully vaccinated

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/04/19/cdc-says-there-have-been-less-than-6000-breakthrough-covid-cases-among-fully-vaccinated-americans.html?__source=iosappshare|com.apple.UIKit.activity.CopyToPasteboard

[BuffaloWeather]

% received at least one dose by age

Age	Apr-19	Apr-18	Apr-12	Daily Δ	Weekly Δ
75+	79.6%	79.5%	78.0%	0.10 pp	1.6 pp
65-74	81.2%	81.0%	78.9%	0.15 pp	2.3 pp
50-64	57.4%	57.0%	52.6%	0.40 pp	4.9 pp
40-49	44.6%	44.1%	39.4%	0.50 pp	5.2 pp
30-39	38.2%	37.7%	33.3%	0.48 pp	4.9 pp
18-29	28.6%	28.2%	23.8%	0.48 pp	4.9 pp
0-17	1.81%	1.71%	1.16%	0.09 pp	0.65 pp
16-17	15.9%	15.1%	10.2%	0.82 pp	5.7 pp
16+	50.0%	49.6%	45.7%	0.40 pp	4.4 pp
All	40.3%	40.0%	36.8%	0.32 pp	3.5 pp

% fully vaccinated by age

Age	Apr-19	Apr-18	Apr-12	Daily Δ	Weekly Δ
75+	65.7%	65.4%	62.7%	0.20 pp	2.9 pp
65-74	65.0%	64.7%	60.5%	0.33 pp	4.5 pp
50-64	35.0%	34.3%	28.1%	0.65 pp	6.9 pp
40-49	25.3%	24.9%	20.8%	0.46 pp	4.5 pp
30-39	21.1%	20.7%	17.5%	0.38 pp	3.6 pp
18-29	13.9%	13.6%	11.2%	0.28 pp	2.7 pp
0-17	0.35%	0.33%	0.22%	0.02 pp	0.14 pp
16-17	3.1%	2.9%	1.89%	0.19 pp	1.2 pp
16+	32.3%	31.9%	28.0%	0.41 pp	4.3 pp
All	26.0%	25.7%	22.5%	0.33 pp	3.5 pp

[outflow]

https://www.kbtx.com/2021/04/19/new-strain-of-covid-19-identified-by-texas-am-researchers/

[TimB]

1 minute ago, outflow said:

https://www.kbtx.com/2021/04/19/new-strain-of-covid-19-identified-by-texas-am-researchers/

Texas. Well look at that, the defiance of the people of Texas managed to produce a covid variant that hopefully isn’t resistant to the vaccine.

[BuffaloWeather]

2 minutes ago, TimB84 said:

Texas. Well look at that, the defiance of the people of Texas managed to produce a covid variant that hopefully isn’t resistant to the vaccine.

I remember when this pandemic first started and all the doctors/scientists were saying that Covid-19 does not mutate rapidly like the flu virus does. They were quite wrong about that one. Seems there is a different mutation every day. 

[Hoosier]

The thing I'm curious about is how the pace of covid mutations compares to other coronaviruses that were already out there.  Is it on the quicker side or does it just seem that way because of all the attention that covid is getting?

[mattb65]

This data scientist projected the vaccination rates and infection rates back in December with adjustments made up until early March. What's impressive to me is that he correctly projected when cases would start to plateau and slowly increase through the last 6 weeks and appears to correctly have predicted the peak in cases to within a week. Let's hope he's accurate with how fast and how far cases drop over the next two months. 

https://covid19-projections.com/path-to-herd-immunity/

He is also the only site that I've seen where the vaccination rates were projected out in time.  He predicted ahead of time that new vaccinations would rise and peak about 1 week ago and then fall sharply over the next month and remain at a relatively low level until the fall when presumably younger people will be approved to get vaccinated. He made this apparently accurate projection without any knowledge of the J&J clotting issue.

This is a long way of saying that though vaccine rates are likely to drop over the next few weeks, try not to get discouraged,  we probably have enough people vaccinated to get cases through the summer to an extremely low level,  even "well below 10,000" .

If things go as expected and no crazy escape variant emerges then the next stress test will be in the fall.

I'm curious once we get cases really low if we'll be able to utilize rapid testing and tracing more effectively to try and contain localized outbreaks. It seems like NZ and Australia have shown that this is possible but only when the virus isn't widespread. 

 

[RyanDe680]

4 hours ago, TimB84 said:

Texas. Well look at that, the defiance of the people of Texas managed to produce a covid variant that hopefully isn’t resistant to the vaccine.

Unfortunately there's no way to know the origin of any variant.

[dan11295]

The virus can only mutate so much. All of these variants are targeting the same 3-4 portions of the spike protein. The virus changing so much that suddenly it can reinfect a significant part of the population again in a short time frame is just not going to happen.

[TimB]

56 minutes ago, RyanDe680 said:

Unfortunately there's no way to know the origin of any variant.

I’m certainly aware of this, but it’s yet another opportunity to smear Texas. But those opportunities are low hanging fruit these days.

[schoeppeya]

14 minutes ago, TimB84 said:

I’m certainly aware of this, but it’s yet another opportunity to smear Texas. But those opportunities are low hanging fruit these days.

Smear for what? They're doing better than a lot of places and are more open than a lot of places... that fact just makes some people's heads explode. 

[StormfanaticInd]

Over 294k cases today and thousands ore dead in Brazil. Its not over yet

[Malacka11]

Okay, please don't bake me if this logic is flawed, but wouldn't it make sense for Texas to be doing better than other states because it's massive in size and therefore can contain more people yet still have them be more spread out? I know that there's massive urban centers in Texas but surely its sheer size must account for some of the distortion

[madwx]

Texas has been a very middle of the road state in terms of Covid deaths per capita.  Not as good as Florida(!) or California but not nearly as bad as Alabama and Mississippi.

[cutlew]

6 hours ago, Hoosier said:

The thing I'm curious about is how the pace of covid mutations compares to other coronaviruses that were already out there.  Is it on the quicker side or does it just seem that way because of all the attention that covid is getting?

Mostly the second imo. Variants especially get a lot of attention for the scare factor but luckily, despite being perhaps slightly more transmissible, none has noticeably changed the course of the pandemic (vaccine still works, fatality rate similar, etc). From a biological standpoint, the mutation rate is probably no different among the coronaviruses given that they have similar genome size and share a proofreading enzyme.

One big caveat though - the increased transmissibility of covid would give it exponentially more opportunities to have those mutations occur vs. less infectious coronaviruses that affect fewer people and therefore reproduce fewer times. And it really is a matter of time and random chance that a variant might emerge that would be of more consequence.

[StormfanaticInd]

More than 315k cases in India today 

[IWXwx]

I noticed that for Indiana, the seven day moving average death rate dropped to 4 yesterday. That is the lowest moving average since 3/25/2020 when the pandemic really started to take off. Now cases have been creeping back up, but I really like that the death rate is at 4 a day and still dropping.

[StormfanaticInd]

So far the death rate in Michigan hasn't really gone up that much. Vaccines working? 

[BuffaloWeather]

 

[StormfanaticInd]

Just now, BuffaloWeather said:

 

Really encouraging data the past couple of days. Let's keep this up!!

[dan11295]

Getting nice drops in cases and positivity now nationwide. For Michigan the 21-day time lag CFR is down to ~1% compared to  ~1.5% in December. Good sign the vaccines are working.

 

[Hoosier]

1 hour ago, IWXwx said:

I noticed that for Indiana, the seven day moving average death rate dropped to 4 yesterday. That is the lowest moving average since 3/25/2020 when the pandemic really started to take off. Now cases have been creeping back up, but I really like that the death rate is at 4 a day and still dropping.

Where are you getting 4?  I am seeing 9.  Either way, a heck of a lot better than before.

[IWXwx]

8 hours ago, Hoosier said:

Where are you getting 4?  I am seeing 9.  Either way, a heck of a lot better than before.

https://www.coronavirus.in.gov/2393.htm?fbclid=IwAR3CFm09EUk2AjKgLB0aSiJ1AQ65zVhb-lSFPjjhtdqCfhIna0ULNreHLAc

[TimB]

On 4/20/2021 at 10:24 PM, cutlew said:

Mostly the second imo. Variants especially get a lot of attention for the scare factor but luckily, despite being perhaps slightly more transmissible, none has noticeably changed the course of the pandemic (vaccine still works, fatality rate similar, etc). From a biological standpoint, the mutation rate is probably no different among the coronaviruses given that they have similar genome size and share a proofreading enzyme.

One big caveat though - the increased transmissibility of covid would give it exponentially more opportunities to have those mutations occur vs. less infectious coronaviruses that affect fewer people and therefore reproduce fewer times. And it really is a matter of time and random chance that a variant might emerge that would be of more consequence.

Exactly the point. People need to get vaccinated before this happens, so we can finish this thing off before a variant develops that renders the vaccines ineffective. You think the divisions in this country are bad now? Wait until the anti-vaxxers are the reason we weren’t able to end the pandemic.

[BuffaloWeather]

My mother in law has had a 102+ fever for 3 straight days with the 2nd Pfizer shot. She got the shot Saturday. Its the sickest shes ever been. Crazy how some people have no reaction and others do. She never had covid before either. 

[WaryWarren]

1 hour ago, BuffaloWeather said:

My mother in law has had a 102+ fever for 3 straight days with the 2nd Pfizer shot. She got the shot Saturday. Its the sickest shes ever been. Crazy how some people have no reaction and others do. She never had covid before either. 

Tell her to get on Jonger and dta1984's exercise plan.

[TimB]

7 minutes ago, WaryWarren said:

Tell her to get on Jonger and dta1984's exercise plan.

Exercise plan? You mean @winterwx21? Or Bills QB Josh Allen, perhaps? Sorry, folks.