1972

This ought to work:

https://www.printfriendly.com/p/g/RxeFLS

1973

Thanks for that!

Having read it, none of those countries are remotely close to fully vaccinated. I don’t really understand where they’re getting their expectations from. They’re talking about countries with fully vaccinated rates of 50-68% of the population and their expectation is that things in those countries should be back to pre-COVID normal??

Also, as noted, the Sinovac vaccine isn’t particularly effective at preventing transmission — only 51% as noted — but it does seem to be effective at preventing serious cases of the disease. As this fellow notes:

William Schaffner, medical director of the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases at Vanderbilt University, said the efficacy rates of Chinese shots could be low enough “to sustain some transmission, as well as create illness of a substantial amount in the highly vaccinated population, even though it keeps people largely out of the hospital.”

1974

The only telling thing that stood out to me was the quote from the head of medical services in Indonesia:

In Indonesia, where a new variant is spreading, more than 350 doctors and health care workers recently came down with Covid-19 despite being fully vaccinated with Sinovac, according to the risk mitigation team of the Indonesian Medical Association. Across the country, 61 doctors died between February and June 7. Ten of them had taken the Chinese-made vaccine, the association said.

The numbers were enough to make Kenneth Mak, Singapore’s director of medical services, question the use of Sinovac. “It’s not a problem associated with Pfizer,” Mr. Mak said at a news conference on Friday. “This is actually a problem associated with the Sinovac vaccine.”

While that still probably jives with expectations of allowing the virus but preventing major complications, it’s still … scary?

1975

Death is a pretty major complication, but 10 out of the entire country isn’t a huge number. Like I said earlier Sinovac sucks compared to the competition. But it isn’t a placebo, it’s vastly better than nothing.

1976

There is one for Chrome as well.

1977

Gracias!

1978

Thanks, that worked!

1979

Yeah, even the quote above doesn’t contradict that. Sure 10 doctors died, but the majority of deaths were not fully vaccinated either.

It’s like offering someone in the desert a twinkie and some Mountain Dew, instead of Gatorade and a Cliff Bar. Objectively the latter is better for someone in the situation, but the former is better than nothing.

1980

My wife and I got booster shots today. We’d been casually looking when we’d pop into pharmacies or Target stores to see if they were cool with walk-ins. Usually they were not cool and advised us that they were booked with appointments a couple of weeks out. Our life has been a little too hectic to plan that far ahead so we hadn’t been able to do that yet.

But we did drop in a supermarket today and went to their pharmacy. As luck would have it, they happened to have three no-shows today. A Moderna booster is now swimming around our Pfizer vaccine doses. My toddler son is getting just big enough to start comprehending proverbs and adages, and so I will be telling him that sometimes, it does hurt to ask, but the pain quickly goes away and it wasn’t that bad and we needed it anyway.

1981

In the Phillipines, Sinovac’s problems were known, and folks were refusing to get vaxxed unless it wasn’t Sinovac.

Duterte’s response was to try mandatory vaxx, but you don’t get to know what vaccine you got.
A good friend of mine had to move back to Phillipines as her student visa ran out in Japan. She made sure to get a Pfizer jab before leaving, so she could get her 2nd shot be something useful back home.

1982

You’re actually supposed to do that LOL. You get better overall coverage switching the booster from your initial shots.

1983

I don’t know that you are supposed to do that but I don’t think it is harmful in any way.

1984

I’d seen 1-4% better coverage 3 months ago from mixing mRNA boosters, but I can’t find the exact study. I figured 1% was worth it. Going from J&J it’s very important to get an mRNA booster as it’s a much bigger jump.

Interchanging vaccine types may have greater advantages in some people than in others, which will become clearer as more data is gathered. But the good news is that the immune response seems to get a solid boost from booster shots, regardless of which vaccine combination is used.

1985

I think mentally, I’ve done pretty well during this pandemic. I guess I’ve been fortunate employment-wise and health-wise. But I have to admit, news of this latest variant has really hit me harder than I would have thought and gives me a foreboding feeling for the future. And just a couple of days ago I was thinking how nice it would be to have a sort of normal Christmas this year…

1986

We’ll probably have a mostly normal Christmas. Thanksgiving was normal here.

The wave will probably start hitting big right around Christmas. I’m just going to enjoy the 2-3 more weeks of freedom.

But hey, another few months of masks gives me more time to work on myself!

1987

We know virtually nothing. There’s no point panicking, there’s no point losing hope. I’d highly recommend avoiding COVID “news” for the next couple of weeks until there’s actually enough data to be able to say something meaningful about this variant and how it’s spreading. Until then, the media is just going to be spinning out clickbait anxiety-porn headlines left and right.

This, for example, is a 100% baseless statement.

1988

Actually, no its not baseless. Its an opinion yes, but covid, especially this recent variant, is highly contagious. The holiday season is when people are most likely to get together and that makes the potential for the virus to spread more likely. The CDC reports that the flu virus peaks during the months of December, January and February. They expect that covid will follow the same pattern. Of course, holiday get togethers are not the sole reason for this. Cold weather tends to lower the immune systems efficacy, as well, but large gatherings of friends and family do help spread viruses.

1989

What we know so far is that it does seem to compete with delta and may evade immunity including vaccines. That second part is key. If it does we’ll need a new booster which Pfizer/Moderna say they can have ready for arms in 100 days, and which will be quickly approved.

My guess is it will indeed partially evade immunity, such that it’s a non-zero risk even for those fully vaccinated against the OG virus, but much less of a threat than back in 2020 when it was completely new to our immune systems. And in April we’ll all be getting another shot.

The real question is whether even OG-vaccinated people have it in them to go back to being careful again, even if it’s only for 3 months. I think many won’t.

1990

I’m probably exactly the sort you’d be worried about, but if it’s a few months, and I know a vaccine is coming, which I do, it will be a lot easier.

I did do my first mass gathering today. Got to get a signed DVD for one of my best friend’s favorite pro wrestler, and got to see my own favorite, who is really adorable and awesome. Very few gave a shit about masks, those who did were pretty much leftists or immunocompromised. I did bring one myself, because I expected a very bad environment.

1991

Lots of heated discussion here in Europe about the Omicron variant. On a personal side, my brother just flew from Sydney to Cape Town on monday and is now scrambling to get out of South Africa again. Managed to get a flight via Germany and UK back to Oz leaving tomorrow night. Not sure if he can bypass the test and quarantine regulations both in Frankfurt and London, but since he’s just in transit we are hopeful… He’s got a negative test and has been boostered, so ideally he only has to go into quarantine once he reaches Sydney! If he gets held up in Germany we might consider the option he isolates at my place, but I’m not sure how feasible/wise that is.

For me, I got my third Biontech/Phizer shot today and so far only have a sore shoulder. Lets hope that’ll be it for side effects…