Coronavirus Outbreak

[Josh]

It just contributes to the general sense of craziness right now. At my school, about half the staff right now is out with Covid or good old fashioned flu. I was out sick with 102 degree fever last week.

Looks like CO is the latest COVID hotspot - 90% of hospital beds filled, most ICU units packed to capacity. We'll pray for you folks. We're all weary of this thing.

Thank you. It's exhausting. About a month ago, the local county board of comissioners banned vaccine and masks mandates. I don't know if it holds any legal teeth, but we are seeing the consequences of low vaccination and masking rates. I think pretty much the entire staff and student body right now is exhausted and weary from how Covid is impacting life. I've lost class period instruction time because most of the class was pulled in order to get tested. What a mess.

You have zero evidence it is due to that. Florida has done the same thing, yet they have surprisingly low covid death and hospitalisation rates.

Like it or not, there are no measures that can be taken to prevent covid (short for people never leaving their house for the rest of their lives, and in an apartment building, even that doesn’t work - it can spread through walls).

Our church has a nursing home in the south. A few residents had covid. They were kept COMPLETELY isolated. Nobody in or out of their rooms. They had a method for delivering food and removing the trays with staff in full PPE. The staff did not get or spread covid.

But one of these residents somehow spread it to the residents in neighbouring units. My theory is it went through the electrical sockets in the walls, or the duct work.

There is nothing that can be done to prevent the spread. We all have to get it and get over it. And vaccines are not very effective; if they were, vaccinated people wouldn’t be getting sick with it.

[Ken]

You have zero evidence it is due to that. Florida has done the same thing, yet they have surprisingly low covid death and hospitalisation rates.

Nonsense, Florida has the 7th highest death rate since the start of the pandemic and the 5th highest in 2021 during the most recent delta wave. Unless you consider it "surprising" that they are not quite as bad as Mississippi or Alabama.

[Ernie]

Like it or not, there are no measures that can be taken to prevent covid (short for people never leaving their house for the rest of their lives). There is nothing that can be done to prevent the spread.

I agree with this. However there are things that can be done to mitigate the spread.

We all have to get it and get over it.

I assume you are not intending this to be a factual statement, and rather as a suggestion for what you think people should think and do?

[Robert]

Florida has the 7th highest death rate since the start of the pandemic and the 5th highest in 2021 during the most recent delta wave.

That is pretty good since they have such a large elderly population.

[Ken]

Florida has the 7th highest death rate since the start of the pandemic and the 5th highest in 2021 during the most recent delta wave.

That is pretty good since they have such a large elderly population.

The elderly population in FL is actually very highly vaccinated. Florida's vaccination rates across the board are far higher than its neighbors and more comparable to northern states. So I suppose the FL numbers could have been much worse if they had the vaccination rates of say MS or AL.

[nett]

Florida has the 7th highest death rate since the start of the pandemic and the 5th highest in 2021 during the most recent delta wave.

That is pretty good since they have such a large elderly population.

The elderly population in FL is actually very highly vaccinated. Florida's vaccination rates across the board are far higher than its neighbors and more comparable to northern states. So I suppose the FL numbers could have been much worse if they had the vaccination rates of say MS or AL.

http://ww11.doh.state.fl.us/comm/_partn ... latest.pdf

Vaccine impact doesn't look statistically significant to me based on this report.

Which is it Ken? Is Florida highly vaccinated, therefore doing great, or are they doing really poorly because of their poor enforcement?

you need to make up your mind.

[nett]

Like it or not, there are no measures that can be taken to prevent covid (short for people never leaving their house for the rest of their lives). There is nothing that can be done to prevent the spread.

I agree with this. However there are things that can be done to mitigate the spread.

We all have to get it and get over it.

I assume you are not intending this to be a factual statement, and rather as a suggestion for what you think people should think and do?

If everyone has to get it, what good does it do to try to prevent spread?

[Ken]

That is pretty good since they have such a large elderly population.

The elderly population in FL is actually very highly vaccinated. Florida's vaccination rates across the board are far higher than its neighbors and more comparable to northern states. So I suppose the FL numbers could have been much worse if they had the vaccination rates of say MS or AL.

http://ww11.doh.state.fl.us/comm/_partn ... latest.pdf

Vaccine impact doesn't look statistically significant to me based on this report.

Which is it Ken? Is Florida highly vaccinated, therefore doing great, or are they doing really poorly because of their poor enforcement?

you need to make up your mind.

Florida is doing poorly compared to most other states on hospitalizations and deaths because they have resisted and opposed the public health measures that most other states have implemented. But they have better vaccination rates than most or all of their southern neighbors which is perhaps why they aren't at the bottom of the barrel along with MS and AL.

I'm not sure what you think is inconsistent about that. It is entirely predictable.

[Soloist]

I've seen multiple accounts of how the vaccine needs to be grouped with these other efforts, otherwise its not good enough. I've seen plenty of conflicting data surrounding efficiency/drop off for the vaccine and also for natural immunity. Clearest data in my mind is out of Israel, and so far it looks like a booster is needed around 4-6 months and natural immunity is going strong with relatively low rates of repeat infections when the analysis is conducted with equal weight and time of infection/vaccination. Data that so far seems very sketchy is surrounding the asymptomatic cases; ie if it was false positives or they didn't actually acquire a robust immune response... Yet, none of the studies are assessing asymptomatic immunity compared to symptomatic or vaccinated immunity.

My prediction is that natural immunity will be very poor in the asymptomatic groups, but stay strong and robust for years in the symptomatic groups (exceptions for immune deficient people). Vaccine will need at least 1-2 additional boosters, and variant boosters would be required at some point or a new vaccine entirely. I'm expecting a virus to show up at some point due to selective pressure that is resistant to the current vaccines and evade it, while natural immunity will still be robust.

Data also is showing a very robust immune response for prior infected getting a "booster" vaccine, which for an asymptomatic case could be very useful for their personal health.

As for the exemptions, the drums keep beating louder. My work basically rubber stamped the approval, while others approve but then suspend without pay. The media is starting to fuss about this inconsistent application, and I expect at some point some form of regulatory supervision to be implemented in the states still allowing it. They might very well just remove exemptions entirely, as the Supreme Court seems unfavorable to it right now. The ruling our president made, outside of the federal employees, so far has done nothing with both Medicaid and OSHA not producing any rules at least last I checked...

This whole thing is a mess still with such increased hate on both sides...

[Ernie]

I've seen multiple accounts of how the vaccine needs to be grouped with these other efforts, otherwise its not good enough. I've seen plenty of conflicting data surrounding efficiency/drop off for the vaccine and also for natural immunity. Clearest data in my mind is out of Israel, and so far it looks like a booster is needed around 4-6 months and natural immunity is going strong with relatively low rates of repeat infections when the analysis is conducted with equal weight and time of infection/vaccination. Data that so far seems very sketchy is surrounding the asymptomatic cases; ie if it was false positives or they didn't actually acquire a robust immune response... Yet, none of the studies are assessing asymptomatic immunity compared to symptomatic or vaccinated immunity.

My prediction is that natural immunity will be very poor in the asymptomatic groups, but stay strong and robust for years in the symptomatic groups (exceptions for immune deficient people). Vaccine will need at least 1-2 additional boosters, and variant boosters would be required at some point or a new vaccine entirely. I'm expecting a virus to show up at some point due to selective pressure that is resistant to the current vaccines and evade it, while natural immunity will still be robust.

Data also is showing a very robust immune response for prior infected getting a "booster" vaccine, which for an asymptomatic case could be very useful for their personal health.

This all seems very reasonable to me!