Coronavirus outbreak

[Elias Pettersson]

 

[D.B Cooper]

On 11/3/2022 at 7:04 PM, Warhippy said:

Estimates and numbers indicate it's overwhelmingly those who are either unvaccinated or immunocompromised making up the majority of fatalities.

 

Shocking

It’s actually the elderly……

[Warhippy]

16 minutes ago, D.B Cooper said:

It’s actually the elderly……

Which tend to be????

[D.B Cooper]

26 minutes ago, Warhippy said:

Which tend to be????

A bunch of dirty anti vaxers?    
hahaha

[Warhippy]

1 minute ago, D.B Cooper said:

A bunch of dirty anti vaxers?    
hahaha

I was leaning towards immuno compromised but sure, if that's their choice

[Boudrias]

15 hours ago, Warhippy said:

I was leaning towards immuno compromised but sure, if that's their choice

Tried to book are 2 booster last week. The hospital isn't doing shots and Shoppers was the only option. They are booked thru November. Called Shoppers and they said to do a 'walk in' and they would try and get us done. Last year the hospital had lineups outside the building with 5 stations inside doing shots. What the hey? 

[JM_]

15 minutes ago, Boudrias said:

Tried to book are 2 booster last week. The hospital isn't doing shots and Shoppers was the only option. They are booked thru November. Called Shoppers and they said to do a 'walk in' and they would try and get us done. Last year the hospital had lineups outside the building with 5 stations inside doing shots. What the hey? 

I'd take them up on the walk in offer and not wait. 

[Gurn]

16 minutes ago, Boudrias said:

Tried to book are 2 booster last week. The hospital isn't doing shots and Shoppers was the only option. They are booked thru November. Called Shoppers and they said to do a 'walk in' and they would try and get us done. Last year the hospital had lineups outside the building with 5 stations inside doing shots. What the hey? 

I  went to a vaxx clinic and told them I couldn't book an appointment that wasn't 6 hours away; and they shot me up right away.

[Boudrias]

9 minutes ago, gurn said:

I  went to a vaxx clinic and told them I couldn't book an appointment that wasn't 6 hours away; and they shot me up right away.

Ya but I am looking for a Covid shot.  

[Gurn]

4 minutes ago, Boudrias said:

Ya but I am looking for a Covid shot.  

Me too.

I just told them at the door " The booking folk keep trying to send me to Comox, or Courtney, or Nanaimo. "  which in my case was truth.

 

[Boudrias]

10 minutes ago, gurn said:

Me too.

I just told them at the door " The booking folk keep trying to send me to Comox, or Courtney, or Nanaimo. "  which in my case was truth.

 

My attempt at humor didn't go over. 

We will be doing a drop in on Tuesday. Thanks. 

[Gurn]

6 minutes ago, Boudrias said:

My attempt at humor didn't go over. 

We will be doing a drop in on Tuesday. Thanks. 

If you had mentioned Surrey- I would have understood.

[Boudrias]

2 minutes ago, gurn said:

If you had mentioned Surrey- I would have understood.

[Playoff Beered]

Covid vaccines prevented 88,000 hospitalizations in the Netherlands in 13 months

https://nltimes.nl/2022/11/07/covid-vaccines-prevented-88000-hospitalizations-netherlands-13-months

[thedestroyerofworlds]

 

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2211029

 

 

Lifting Universal Masking in Schools — Covid-19 Incidence among Students and Staff

 

Abstract

BACKGROUND

In February 2022, Massachusetts rescinded a statewide universal masking policy in public schools, and many Massachusetts school districts lifted masking requirements during the subsequent weeks. In the greater Boston area, only two school districts — the Boston and neighboring Chelsea districts — sustained masking requirements through June 2022. The staggered lifting of masking requirements provided an opportunity to examine the effect of universal masking policies on the incidence of coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) in schools.

METHODS

We used a difference-in-differences analysis for staggered policy implementation to compare the incidence of Covid-19 among students and staff in school districts in the greater Boston area that lifted masking requirements with the incidence in districts that sustained masking requirements during the 2021–2022 school year. Characteristics of the school districts were also compared.

RESULTS

Before the statewide masking policy was rescinded, trends in the incidence of Covid-19 were similar across school districts. During the 15 weeks after the statewide masking policy was rescinded, the lifting of masking requirements was associated with an additional 44.9 cases per 1000 students and staff (95% confidence interval, 32.6 to 57.1), which corresponded to an estimated 11,901 cases and to 29.4% of the cases in all districts during that time. Districts that chose to sustain masking requirements longer tended to have school buildings that were older and in worse condition and to have more students per classroom than districts that chose to lift masking requirements earlier. In addition, these districts had higher percentages of low-income students, students with disabilities, and students who were English-language learners, as well as higher percentages of Black and Latinx students and staff. Our results support universal masking as an important strategy for reducing Covid-19 incidence in schools and loss of in-person school days. As such, we believe that universal masking may be especially useful for mitigating effects of structural racism in schools, including potential deepening of educational inequities.

CONCLUSIONS

Among school districts in the greater Boston area, the lifting of masking requirements was associated with an additional 44.9 Covid-19 cases per 1000 students and staff during the 15 weeks after the statewide masking policy was rescinded.

[Muttley]

 

[-Vintage Canuck-]

 

[6of1_halfdozenofother]

Quote

‘Immunity debt’: Why experts say this new term promotes COVID-19 ‘misinformation’

By Teresa Wright  Global News

Posted November 12, 2022 5:00 am

 Updated November 12, 2022 7:15 am

The term “immunity debt” is circulating widely online as an explanation for a significant surge in respiratory illness in Canada, but infectious diseases experts say the term and the narratives around it are “dangerous” and can promote COVID-19 “misinformation.”

 

Two variations of how “immunity debt” is being interpreted have emerged in recent weeks, as emergency departments and children’s hospitals across the country have been swamped with more patients sick with respiratory viruses than they can handle.

 

 

The first hypothesis suggests people’s immune systems are weaker now, due to a lack of exposure to viruses while observing COVID-19 public health measures over the last two-and-a-half years.

 

But this notion that governments and public health officials have been “coddling” the public’s immune systems by wearing masks and staying home and that this has eroded people’s immunity to other viruses like influenza or respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) is simply not true, says Colin Furness, an infection control epidemiologist and assistant professor in the faculty of information at the University of Toronto.

 

“That is, in my estimation, and any immunologist will tell you this, nonsense,” he said.

 

“It imagines that the immune system is like a muscle where, if you’re not using it, then you lose it, it atrophies.”

 

In fact, Furness likens the immune system to a collection of photographs. When people take photos and put them away in an album, the photos don’t fade over time just because they aren’t being looked at regularly.

 

 

With age, the immune system does start to become less effective at preventing illness, in the same way an elderly person might find it harder to see their photos as their eyesight weakens.

 

But this is a function of age affecting the immune system, not because it is not getting enough exposure to illnesses, he said.

 

“In children and in young, healthy people, there is absolutely no mechanism by which your immunity weakens on its own,” Furness said.

 

“In other words, you don’t have to keep getting sick in order to be healthy. It makes no sense at all in any way, shape or form — when we encounter a pathogen and we form an immune response to it, that is a lifelong memory, no question.”

 

Dr. Samira Jeimy, an allergist and clinical immunologist at St Joseph’s Health Care London, agrees, saying the idea that one’s immune system can be weakened due to lack of exposure to illness “shows a basic lack of understanding of how the immune system works.”

 

“There’s almost like an old wives tale, that you need to get sick to develop a healthy immune system. That’s actually not true.”

 

In reality, children who get RSV infections repeatedly or at a young age are at more risk of diseases like asthma that will follow them all through their lives, she said.

 

The second interpretation of the term “immunity debt” purports that more babies and children than ever are getting seriously ill with respiratory viruses because there was delayed exposure to these illnesses over the last two-and-a-half years — again due to lockdowns and masks.

 

As a result, there is now a double cohort of children and babies getting exposed to RSV, flu and other viral illnesses all at once, thanks to the lifting of masking and distancing in schools and daycares, and this is why children’s hospitals are being overrun.

 

While part of this may be true, it doesn’t explain why so many children are not only getting sick, but are also becoming seriously ill to the point of needing hospitalization, Jeimy said.

 

Earlier this week, Ottawa’s children’s hospital CHEO was forced to open a second pediatric ICU due to “unprecedented” numbers of children needing intensive care. It’s just one of many children’s hospitals reporting a significant and historically high number of children in need of hospital and intensive care.

 

So why are so many kids experiencing severe illness from seasonal viruses?

 

Emerging evidence suggests COVID-19 may be to blame, Furness says.

 

“COVID, like many viruses, harms the immune system as part of its strategy,” he said.

For a virus to infect a host, it needs to either disguise itself or mutate to prevent the immune system from weeding it out. Or it needs to attack the immune system itself, he explained.

 

What isn’t yet clear is how much damage COVID-19 may be doing and what long-term effects this could have, he said.

 

“The leading hypothesis now is that COVID is harming the immune system. To what extent and how permanently, these are things we don’t know. But that’s what the data seem to be telling us and it’s something we should be really concerned about.”

 

This is one of the reasons both Jeimy and Furness say they are deeply concerned about the theories around “immunity debt” and why they say they’ve taken steps to speak out publicly to debunk the narratives that emerge from it.

 

Blaming COVID-19 public health measures like masking and distancing on the current surge in respiratory illness across the country is not only false, it promotes the notion these measures should be shunned at a time when they should be embraced even more, Jeimy said.

 

“I actually think (immunity debt) is a dangerous term to throw around because it sort of confers a negative connotation to public health measures that have saved us from morbidity,” she said.

 

While this idea may have come from a willingness among some to find easy explanations to complex problems, there is concern that it’s also part of some campaigns of “misinformation” about COVID-19 measures and vaccines that have been proliferating online and in many communities, she added.

 

“If, God forbid, we have another pandemic strike us and mitigation measures need to be instituted, or even in the case of this pandemic, if we run into a situation where we have to reinstate some of our NPI (non-pharmaceutical intervention) measures, using this term sort of builds up a resistance among the general population to these measures.

 

And I think that’s harmful short term and long term.”

https://globalnews.ca/news/9272293/immunity-debt-covid-19-misinformation/

 

Watch people try to conflate this:

Quote

“The leading hypothesis now is that COVID is harming the immune system. To what extent and how permanently, these are things we don’t know. But that’s what the data seem to be telling us and it’s something we should be really concerned about.”

with "[insert public health measure here] is harming the immune system" or some other conspiracy theory.  

 

And just to re-iterate another excerpt within the article:

 

Quote

Blaming COVID-19 public health measures like masking and distancing on the current surge in respiratory illness across the country is not only false, it promotes the notion these measures should be shunned at a time when they should be embraced even more, Jeimy said.

In fact, these health measures are also applicable for air-transmissable concerns such as the flu.  Too bad people are too afraid to smell their own bad breath (or other similarly juvenile reason) to mask up and protect others.  

[ronthecivil]

On 11/12/2022 at 10:44 AM, 6of1_halfdozenofother said:

https://globalnews.ca/news/9272293/immunity-debt-covid-19-misinformation/

 

Watch people try to conflate this:

with "[insert public health measure here] is harming the immune system" or some other conspiracy theory.  

 

And just to re-iterate another excerpt within the article:

 

In fact, these health measures are also applicable for air-transmissable concerns such as the flu.  Too bad people are too afraid to smell their own bad breath (or other similarly juvenile reason) to mask up and protect others.  

LOL I don't like it because it fogs up my glasses. When I was forced to wear a mask to go places, I had many incidents, including getting a tray of hot soup all over me, due to not being able to see.

 

I have no issue with wearing one in the hospital or an old folks home for example, but being vaccinated with everything, I feel I have done my part. The bigger issue I see coming, is team scaredy cat wants us to go to full time masking all winter, every year, for ever! 

 

Right now in Ontario the head doctor is recommending a return to mask mandates, not for COVID, but for "respitory viruses". 

 

If nature wants to get you sick, it's going to get you sick. The zero COVID policies in China, which we can look at as an example of extreme masking ideas gone mad, has not stopped COVID from spreading!

 

People should just get vaccinated, and thus minimise the impact for when they inevitably get these viruses. If they don't, that's their problem.

 

I promise you that outside a hospital or old folks home, mask mandate or not, if they come back here, it's going to be a challenge to get me to wear one. From I don't have one, to lowering or removing when I can, to checking on enforcement, to exploiting loopholes, I promise I will full on mock the system. The only people that have something to fear are the unvaccinated, and if they are that scared, stay home. I don't need any more lockdowns thanks, I would rather be sick.

[thedestroyerofworlds]

34 minutes ago, ronthecivil said:

LOL I don't like it because it fogs up my glasses. When I was forced to wear a mask to go places, I had many incidents, including getting a tray of hot soup all over me, due to not being able to see.

 

I have no issue with wearing one in the hospital or an old folks home for example, but being vaccinated with everything, I feel I have done my part. The bigger issue I see coming, is team scaredy cat wants us to go to full time masking all winter, every year, for ever! 

 

Right now in Ontario the head doctor is recommending a return to mask mandates, not for COVID, but for "respitory viruses". 

 

If nature wants to get you sick, it's going to get you sick. The zero COVID policies in China, which we can look at as an example of extreme masking ideas gone mad, has not stopped COVID from spreading!

 

People should just get vaccinated, and thus minimise the impact for when they inevitably get these viruses. If they don't, that's their problem.

 

I promise you that outside a hospital or old folks home, mask mandate or not, if they come back here, it's going to be a challenge to get me to wear one. From I don't have one, to lowering or removing when I can, to checking on enforcement, to exploiting loopholes, I promise I will full on mock the system. The only people that have something to fear are the unvaccinated, and if they are that scared, stay home. I don't need any more lockdowns thanks, I would rather be sick.

It's probably a function of the issues that Ontario was having with its emergency rooms and that there has been an uptick in hospitalizations of young people with respiratory issues.  They don't really have a problem now, but they don't want to have an issue like Alberta did during the Delta wave.