Coronavirus (No Politics)

[Carnifex]

Poor police, they must know by now that their protracted holiday is over.

 

[lackblogger]

The Queen has tested positive for Covid. She's 95 and not in perfect health. I'm not a big royalist, but I honestly hope she pulls through, she deserves a more serene and comfortable exit when her time does finally come.

 

[Carnifex]

Ack, I'd not heard nor read that news. I also hope she pulls through, that would be a terrible way for her to check out of the mortal realm.

 

[SleepingDog]

The Palace are playing it down and you can bet that she will get the best treatment that is available. The Palace spokespeople are saying that the symptoms are mild and she is well enough to carry on working though I saw somewhere that working meant "light duties". Mind you she is 95 I wonder how many in their 90's could do light duties?

 

[lackblogger]

Mind you she is 95 I wonder how many in their 90's could do light duties?

Amazingly enough, the other major national treasure, David Attenborough is 95 as well, and he's very much out and about:

Though hasn't got Covid yet, thankfully. Well, as far as we know.

 

[SleepingDog]

UK to end restrictions?

An analysis by the BBC suggests that the current versions of covid-19 are now no worse than flu in the UK. They show some analysis which indicates that for those over 16 nearly 100% have antibodies against covid. While vaccinations are not doubt a major contribution those in the younger age group have probably got them from surviving the virus.

The excess deaths (defined as the average over the last 5 years compared to the current level) is slightly negative. (Data to 4th Feb 2022). [Need to be a little careful of the 5 year average since it includes 2020 and 2021 which will raise it's level.]

Is the war over? A few caveats. Firstly, vulnerable groups still exist but with new antiviral treatments this may not be a bad as it could be. Secondly, long covid is still around though for those who have been vaccinated long covid, probably (based on 15 studies), lasts half as long as for those unvaccinated. Estimates suggest that 2% of the UK population has long covid.

Risk experts believe that we are treating covid as a "Dread Risk" - the mental and emotional toll of the pandemic means people overestimate the actual risks. This is common in people and is a survival mechanism. Ignoring risks can get you killed so we focus on it but it can become paranoia.

Expectations are that by the end of the week/ month all covid restrictions will have been removed. I think that this is the right way forward. If a new variant arrives then we will deal with that then.

Personally I have been to two plays in the last month, been to the cinema and hit the restaurant a few times. So far so good.

lackblogger - good point but that's still just a sample of two. Happy that they are both ok.

 

[pibbuR]

Yes. Things look good at the moment. However the virus still mutates, and there has been at least one report of one Omicron variant (BA.2) which may be even more infectious and also more dangerous.

The report is still not peer reviewed, so we don't know for sure. Time will tell.

I agree with you that currently it's farily safe to lift restrictions, but as you say, we have to be prepared to handle possible, more severe, developments.

pibbuR who currently has covid symptoms, but a negative test.

PS. There are other more dangerous viruses out there that may (or may not) some day cause pandemics. The original SARS virus (10% lethality), MERS (20-30% lehtality) and Nipah (more than 50 % die). I've also mentioned before that there is an Ebola strain with airborn transmission (the Reston strain). Fortunately this one doesn't cause disease i humans, but it is an indication that an airborne transmissible Ebola variant, capable of infection humans, may arise. We should (and maybe we do) start developing vaccines against these viruses. Those vaccines may however never be needed, thus we can't expect complanies to do develop them without public funding. DS.

 

[SleepingDog]

This is from a few days ago.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-60601750

It appears that a gene TYK2, if faulty, contributes to the immune system over-reacting and attacking healthy cells. Trials suggest that this treatment can cut death risk by about a fifth in patients needing hospital care for severe Covid. It is thought that this does not replace other treatment benefits but adds to the impact of treatment.

A point made was that people are stilling catching covid and becoming very ill. So this is good news.

 

[Alrik Fassbauer]

Hamsters might have been involved in an outbreak in Hongkong : https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4017393

Original article in which I found it : https://www.spektrum.de/news/covid-19-hamster-sorgten-fuer-corona-ausbruch-in-hongkong/1994416

 

[SleepingDog]

Interesting articles. Liked the last comment in the newspaper article

"The latest study now highlights pet trafficking as a way to spread the virus, says co-author Leo Poon, a virologist at the University of Hong Kong. "But to be fair to the hamsters," says Poon: People would be much more likely to infect each other than with their pets."

The last sentence gives some perspective?

 

[Carnifex]

Poor hamsters, always catching the blame, even back in the early days of Everquest the poor beasties got in trouble!

 

[OverIt]

Good find, early use of aspirin "significantly"(25-30% less) reduces death in people over the age of 60 or have comorbidities.

The study
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2790439

For this cohort study, patients were identified using the National Institutes of Health’s National COVID Cohort Collaborative (N3C) Data Enclave.9 Patients were included if they were hospitalized with a diagnosis of SARS-CoV-2 confirmed by polymerase chain reaction or antigen test results and if they met criteria for moderate COVID-19 severity on the first day of hospitalization. Patients who were not hospitalized or who met criteria for severe COVID-19 on the first day of hospitalization were excluded from the study.

The association between early aspirin and decreased mortality was greater in patients older than 60 years (F statistic = 10.8; P for interaction = .001) and in patients with at least 1 comorbidity (F statistic = 20.2; P for interaction <.001). This was consistent after subgroup balancing, and patients receiving early aspirin between ages 18 and 40 years and 41 and 60 years did not have lower odds of mortality. However, patients between ages 61 and 80 years (OR, 0.79; 95% CI, 0.72-0.87; P < .001) and older than 80 years (OR, 0.79; 95% CI, 0.69-0.91; P < .001) receiving early aspirin had lower odds of mortality. In patients without comorbidities, there was no association between early aspirin and mortality (OR, 0.99; 95% CI, 0.80-1.23; P = .96), whereas in those with 1, 2, 3, and more than 3 comorbidities receiving early aspirin, there were lower odds of mortality (1 comorbidity: 6.4% vs 9.2%; OR, 0.68; 95% CI, 0.55-0.83; P < .001; 2 comorbidities: 10.5% vs 12.8%; OR, 0.80; 95% CI, 0.69-0.93; P = .003; 3 comorbidities: 13.8% vs 17.0%, OR, 0.78; 95% CI, 0.68-0.89; P < .001; >3 comorbidities: 17.0% vs 21.6%; OR, 0.74; 95% CI, 0.66-0.84; P < .001). (Figure 3).