yeah we are all going to simply decide that Covid is over after memorial day.. you can pretty much see that writing on the wall.

Covid officially over here in Cali on June 15th. So, if I don't catch Covid by Flag Day (June 14th), I won't ever again have to worry about getting it.

LOL at California randomly deciding that COVID will continue for an extra month after the CDC changed their guidance. WhY dOn'T tHeY bElIeVe In ScIeNcE?

If Indian variant gets a foothold in Yanklandia, there will be problems.

It's not an 'if' is it? Just a 'when'

[Ignoring the possibility it will be some other more sucessful variant pushing the Indian one aside].

Why, is it thought to be a lot more problematic than other variants? We've had that variant in Canada for months, and cases are coming down sharply now as vaccinations accelerate.

As long as the vaccines continue to be effective against the variants, I think it's very much an "if".

It's looking very hopeful on the vaccine front but it can still hit the unvaccinated hard.

Maybe I'm wrong but I gather the USA has far too people who wont take the vaccine to make it anyhting but a 'when'.

It is outcompeting the Kent variant in the UK, the Kent variant is no slouch. So it extremely transmissible.

The problem (degree of problem is debatable sure) is that if it very very highly transmissible, then the % of unvaccinated + % that still get ill even though vaccinated can probably lead to a wave significant enough to put some strain on health care systems.

Fully vaccinated in the USA (one of the best vaccinators) is only 37%.

One dose =47%.

I think we would all have to agree on a definition of "foothold" to make this more meaningful.

I take "foothold" to mean 'a place of initial penetration that acts as an anchor for Nationwide or State wide 'largely uncontainable' and serious spread'.

I think the bolded is very key there.

If vaccinations rates are high enough I think we could see those populations act as a fire break during Wild fire outbreaks.

Yes the virus will get in to unvaccinated populations, reek some havoc there, but struggle to keep an R high enough to continue its damage as it hits those fire breaks or vaccinated people.

So much like the Flu each year, where we get the seasonal outbreak and not every region is hit as hard and some not at all. It never achieves National or even full State threat levels as the vaccinated provide that R, break.

The big issue here that i see though is, that these unvaccinated pockets, will continue to provide fertile ground for the virus, slamming into these fire break people, to evolve variants to break thru that wall and then cause the type of uncontained spread that makes countries have to re-institute shut down measures as the race to out vaccine (booster shot) the virus is engaged.

It is the very people who decry shutdowns who are making it the most likely that we may live with them forever as rotating required return procedures to provide some 'cooling' of the hot spots as the new booster is brought to market.

Sadly what I am pointing to above is again how the dumbest amongst us (anti vaxxers, covid deniers) can take a defacto leadership position that only allows the rest of us to counter and try to out flank them to protect everyone, including them.


And also to my point above as to another reason the firewall might be very affective is that the people least likely to vaccine are almost certainly on the lowest end of 'mobility' it the country. Less likely to be State hoping as often. Least likely to be attending mass events outside their community. So that speaks to the high burn in their community but lower ability to jump, i theorize.

Plenty of dumb, plenty dishonesty to go around.

No chance of it being uncontainable if that's the standard.

R in the UK is back above 1.

Inevitable* as we opened up before younger people were vaccinated. This time though the question is far more about serious illness than about infections.


*well maybe not with a great track, trace & surge vaccination program but I'm discounting that a lot.

Sure, there's a risk - I was mostly taking (slight) issue with the degree that was being portrayed.

I'm not as concerned with any one variant in particular as I am about vaccine uptake in some areas, especially when you factor in easing restrictions. Even if a given state or region keeps restrictions tighter because their vaccination rate is low, the general public are tired of all this, and I'm concerned they'll just go ahead and behave as if the lifted restrictions elsewhere apply to them as well. Same applies here in Canada and anywhere else if vaccination % varies greatly by region.

Well that is really the point in the UK, the Indian variant (of which there are 3 not sure how much mileage varies between them) has just got its "foothold" just as we are relaxing our mitigations massively, with a highly politicised goal of complete relaxation, no masks, no social distancing etc, less than a month away.

Here is a fun paper by some smart fellows at MIT:

https://arxiv.org/pdf/2101.07993.pdf...RtxkKs8i9rZzBY

Faster than a PCR test: dogs detect Covid in under a second

Faster than PCR and more accurate than lateral flow tests, the latest weapons against Covid-19 have four legs and a wet nose.

A study published on Monday found that people who are infected with coronavirus give off a distinct odour, which these highly trained dogs can detect with pinpoint precision...

Tala is one of six dogs who took part in the Covid study, which has not yet been peer-reviewed. It found that dogs could detect Covid-19 on clothing worn by infected people with up to 94.3% sensitivity: they would correctly identify 94 out of every 100 infected people. This compares with a sensitivity of 58-77% for lateral flow tests, and 97.2% for PCR tests.

However, dogs beat PCR tests on speed, making a diagnosis in under a second. “This includes people who are asymptomatic and also people with a low viral load,” ...

^^^Could be the best form of Vaccine passport.

As someone who supports the current vaccine efforts I am struggling with the logic (or lack thereof around this)???




From what I am seeing in the empirical evidence people under 20 represent a rounding error at best in catching and transmitting covid. The risk is near statistical zero.

So what is the logic and want behind pushing to vaccinate them other than an absolute one that we are chasing 'zero' even if zero is never going to be achieved?

Now if perhaps the argument was 'we are trying to eradicate covid and reach zero in our society so that it is gone, ...no more' I could maybe make the leap that this group is important. But given that it seems almost a certainty already that yearly boosters and potentially new vaccines for problematic variants may be required like a yearly flu shot why would we start a 1 year old, who gets almost zero benefit between ages 1-2 on a yearly vaccination routine?

It seems to me that the raw data suggests that anyone under 20 should not be vaccinated but those yearly vaccines (if required) should begin thereafter.

And yes, I do believe we always have to be aware and concerned about a parallel profit motive by big Pharma that may run parallel to the public health motive and utilize concern to boost profits.

Thoughts?

Rather than addressing the rest of your post, I think it's best to start here, as the foundation of your logic seems deeply flawed. I have no idea where you're getting this "rounding error" idea, unless you're relying simply on the one graph you posted about one small time range in one health region. Looking at the BC Covid Dashboard, 10.6% of BC Covid cases are in the 10-19 age group, which makes up 12.7% of our population. Even the 0-9 age group has 5.6% of the cases - significantly lower than the 10% they represent of the population, but still far from a rounding error. Nationally, the 0-19 age group represents 18.8% of Canadian cases, an even higher percentage than in BC (16.2%). So while they appear to be less susceptible to Covid than other age groups (which is why they were at the bottom of the priority list), there are far too many cases in that age group to be simply skipped.

I should add, rereading your post I see that you said "catching and transmitting" - I know I've heard before that some experts feel transmission from kids is lower, so that also needs to be factored in to prioritization. But I don't think that changes things to the point where they can be left out of vaccinations, unless you have data to show otherwise.

Admittedly a lot of the data I looking at is coming from the BFI thread and a certain poster who I know has a real penchant for combing thru mountains of data and ONLY then posting the stuff that supports his position. So I try to take it with massive grains of salt and try to verify myself where I can.

Here is the latest steal from that thread.



And i think a valid point being that almost certainly many of the 300 kids who died of the 40 MM in that group would have had pretty serious pre-existing conditions.

And i am not 'against' kids being vaccinated. I am just struggling to figure out what the point is, if they are unlikely to get it, has almost no impact if/when they do, and are not considered meaningful risk factors to continue the spread or mutation of it, especially if the adult population gets vaccinated thus minimizing community spread greatly.

I am always weary of the Big Pharma profit motive also in parallel play to any health procedures. Especially ones that they can build guaranteed recurring revenue off of such as this. An infant vaccinated who will then need a lifetime of boosters is a massive profit win for them. MASSIVE.

We've seen to many 'accidental leaks' over the years of top Pharma Execs strategizing on how they can coordinate to get the 'required science' and then lobby government to do things like adjust the acceptable blood pressure or cholesterol rate downward which over night would 'require' doctors to recommend their patients start taking lifelong meds to regulate it and then Big Pharma mapping out how that translates to profits but in those meds but also in the meds of that percent that develops 'complications' and thus needs other meds.

Very detailed profiting off of people considered healthy the day before and then unhealthy that day.



(I am tagging O.A.F. K in here as he has shown a great ability to cut thru data BS such as what we see regularly in the BFI.)

I don't know whether this question should go in the Biden thread or this thread.

What do we think of Fauci and Biden publicly opening the door (or conspicuously declining to close the door) to the possibility that the COVID was caused by some sort of lab breach in China rather than zoonosis?

I doubt that that Biden wants a lab breach to be the actual explanation. In other words, I don't think he would encourage speculation on this point either for kicks or to score political points. If conclusive evidence were to emerge in support of a lab breach, I doubt that there would be any serious repercussions for China. More likely, it would underline that Western democracies lack both the will and the ability to exert leverage over China.

Cracking the door on this point makes sense if Biden wants to minimize the political blowback in the event that convincing evidence of a lab breach becomes public. Is there another explanation?

And if that is the explanation, should we expect more evidence to emerge in support of a lab breach?

This is a good reminder that neither scientists nor authority figures are perfect or immune from societal pressures and thus their pronouncements should not always be trusted without critical push back.

There was never I time I accepted that the 'lab leak' theory was completely discredited and the zoonotic theory was a proven consensus view such that even raising the other as possible (not probable) was being treated like climate denial.

I always say it as a reaction to Trump and those seeing how Trump would demonize the Chinese and use it to drum up hate based support for himself, if they conceded that.

I am not saying either theory is correct or not, or trying to 'weight' them, just that it is not 'settled science'.


I had the same issue with the early Mask guidance. I bought N95 masks early in Feb through Amazon and they were widely available and I was trying to tell others (friends and family) they should buy them and kept getting countered with "the CDC says now masks don't work'. Again complete nonsense, and proven so latter. The nonsense was jumping to such an absolute conclusion and pretending it is 'settled' so early.

Many try to say later, including many top scientists that was said because they were trying to protect supplies for 1st line responders but that is a lie. A lie told to avoid simply saying they got it wrong. Those supplies were readily available and they were not buying them up for 1st responders and instead many charities were gathering them up and sending them back to China to help out there. In early March I took my N95 masks to my community fire hall and donated them as by that point they were finally acknowledging they worked and now there was a true shortage.

So my view is that Biden's agencies have let him know there is nothing conclusive either way and Trump being Trump made it difficult to discern. So he realizes now he has to leave that door open and see where the data takes them.