wuhan - coronavirus

[Ausmumof3]

5 hours ago, Arcadia said:

@TravelingChris
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/05/220531143056.htm

“In a new study publishing May 31st in the open-access journal PLOS Biology, Ayesa Syenina of the Duke-NUS Medical School in Singapore and colleagues report that a new analysis of blood samples from people vaccinated for COVID-19 has identified distinct molecular characteristics linked to an increased likelihood of post-vaccination fatigue. Additionally, experiments in mice suggest that switching the vaccine injection strategy could potentially ease such adverse effects.
…

To improve understanding, Syenina and colleagues analyzed blood samples from 175 healthcare workers who received BNT162b2, the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine. Specifically, they used the blood samples to analyze a snapshot of each participant's gene expression, or which genes are turned on or off.

This analysis revealed that people who experienced moderately severe fatigue after vaccination were more likely to have higher baseline expression of genes related to the activity of T cells and natural killer cells -- two key cell types in the human immune system.

The researchers also tested two different vaccination injection strategies in mice. Some mice received BNT162b2 through intramuscular injection, the current method used for human patients, in which the vaccine is injected into the muscles. Other mice received a subcutaneous injection, in which the vaccine is injected into tissue just under the skin.

After vaccination, compared to mice that received intramuscular vaccination, mice that received subcutaneous vaccination showed immune-system responses that are in line with a lower likelihood of adverse effects such as fatigue. However, subcutaneous injection did not appear to compromise the protective effects of vaccination.

Further research will be needed to build on these findings and explore their clinical significance. Still, they boost understanding of post-vaccination fatigue and offer a potential strategy to reduce its likelihood.

Coauthor Eng Eong Ooi adds, "This study provides a first insight into the molecular basis of a side effect that many have experienced following mRNA vaccination. We hope that this finding would spur more studies to fully understand the underpinning mechanisms behind vaccine-associated side effects and collectively contribute to developing even more tolerable vaccines."”

Wow! I will be so happy if this turns out to be true and has real life implications.

[Arcadia]

15 minutes ago, Ausmumof3 said:

Wow! I will be so happy if this turns out to be true and has real life implications.

Me too. My side effects from Pfizer are longer than 3 weeks and actually worse than chemo side effects. My teens have side effects too from Pfizer 

I thought you were the one in Australia worried about side effects but I didn’t want to tag the wrong person. I should edit my post and tag Not a number.

[Ausmumof3]

3 minutes ago, Arcadia said:

Me too. My side effects from Pfizer are longer than 3 weeks and actually worse than chemo side effects. My teens have side effects too from Pfizer 

I thought you were the one in Australia worried about side effects but I didn’t want to tag the wrong person. I should edit my post and tag Not a number.

Yes that’s me. I do think it makes sense to be genetic because my sis and daughter had similar though thankfully not three weeks. A couple of days in bed and a weak of general tiredness.

[Ausmumof3]

https://www.miamiherald.com/news/coronavirus/article262212557.html
 

I know this is news to no one but in case you wanted more confirmation 

“Florida’s COVID-19 data was so inaccurate, incomplete and delayed during the first months of the pandemic that government officials and the public may not have had necessary information to determine the effectiveness of the state’s COVID-19 precautions and the best plan to fight the virus, according to a state report released Monday. Covering the state’s pandemic response from March to October 2020, the yearlong analysis by the Florida Auditor General found missing case and death data, unreported ethnic and racial details, and incomplete contact tracing as the coronavirus spread across the state. In addition, the report concluded that state health officials did not perform routine checks on the data to ensure accuracy and did not follow up on discrepancies.

Read more at: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/coronavirus/article262212557.html#storylink=cpy”

[bookbard]

Got my 4th shot today - just told the nurse I have asthma (which I do) - and that was that. My arm feels a bit funny - not sore like flu shot, just weird.

 

[Corraleno]

FDA vaccine advisory panel recommends approval of Novavax. (Note: this is just the advisory panel, the FDA still needs to make a decision, and then it would go to the CDC).

https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/06/07/novavax-coronavirus-vaccine-fda/

[Ausmumof3]

ATAGI has finally recommended boosters for kids at risk of severe covid in the 12-15 age group. I doubt my kid will qualify with mild asthma but glad at least some will have access now.

[Ausmumof3]

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-61741139
 

“I mean, we cannot run this business when every fifth person of a base reports sickness because the person is fatigued. We are all fatigued but sometimes it is required to take the extra mile”

 

Whizz Air CEO

long Covid rates around in the 20pc range and fatigue is the most common reported symptom. Almost like infecting the whole workforce with covid and hoping for the best was a bad idea! Personally not keen to fly with a pilot suffering fatigue/long covid symptoms but hey…

 

[bookbard]

So, contractor has been a bit unwell with cold-like symptoms, but neg on RATs. Has been wearing a mask (he just pops in and out of the office, and I have an air purifier). Today said he's still not feeling well and he's having breathing issues. He's young, in his 30s. Do you reckon he might have/have had covid after all? He's had 3 vax so maybe it hasn't shown up on RATs?

Numbers creeping up here in NSW, over 9000 again after lows of 4,000. 

 

[Arcadia]

25 minutes ago, bookbard said:

So, contractor has been a bit unwell with cold-like symptoms, but neg on RATs. Has been wearing a mask (he just pops in and out of the office, and I have an air purifier). Today said he's still not feeling well and he's having breathing issues. He's young, in his 30s. Do you reckon he might have/have had covid after all? He's had 3 vax so maybe it hasn't shown up on RATs?

I would suggest he do a PCR and if that’s negative, get his lungs thoroughly  checked. Bronchitis or any other pulmonary issue is not a small matter either.  My mom’s bronchitis was diagnosed late, after lung damage was already done because she didn’t have any preexisting pulmonary condition. I had asthma in childhood and in college so my lungs are always checked if I have breathing issues. 

[Acadie]

8 hours ago, bookbard said:

So, contractor has been a bit unwell with cold-like symptoms, but neg on RATs. Has been wearing a mask (he just pops in and out of the office, and I have an air purifier). Today said he's still not feeling well and he's having breathing issues. He's young, in his 30s. Do you reckon he might have/have had covid after all? He's had 3 vax so maybe it hasn't shown up on RATs?

Numbers creeping up here in NSW, over 9000 again after lows of 4,000. 

 

I agree with Arcadia. The experience of my daughter and her college roommate was eye opening for me about testing. They developed similar symptoms at the same time, and dd tested positive quickly. Her roommate tested negative for 5 days, including a PCR, before testing positive! Roommate stayed elsewhere after dd tested positive, but they think it was Covid all along based on similar timing and symptoms. 

[Arcadia]

Are these Cocoa Krispies-loving hamsters a key to cracking long Covid?
https://www.statnews.com/2022/06/10/hamsters-as-animal-model-for-long-covid/
“NEW YORK — In late 2020, Justin Frere, a wiry M.D./Ph.D. student dressed in head-to-toe white Tyvek, picked up a clear pipette, methodically reached into the cages of 30 unsuspecting, sedated hamsters and drip-dropped 1,000 infectious coronavirus particles down each of their nostrils.

Then, he waited. Days for some. A whole month for others.

The waiting was essential. His goal was to make a tool experts say will be critical to understanding and perhaps one day effectively treating long Covid, the debilitating and still scarcely understood constellation of symptoms that afflict many Covid-19 patients long after their initial infection has passed. 

Frere and his adviser, NYU Grossman School of Medicine virologist Benjamin tenOever, were trying to make one of the first animal models for long Covid. They reported the first results from the experiment this week in Science Translational Medicine, showing the hamsters mimic some symptoms and molecular changes observed in humans and pointing to several plausible explanations for the disease.

If further research bears out the results, these hamsters and several other groups of animals at other labs could allow scientists to probe the basic biology of the mysterious disease, performing the kinds of analyses that you could never do in humans. They may even allow academics and companies to screen therapies before testing them on humans, a crucial step in building up what remains a barren therapeutic armamentarium.

“We are in dire need of new pathways to knowledge that can support diagnostics and therapeutics for this condition,” Harlan Krumholz, a Yale cardiologist who has been working with long Covid patients and was not involved with the work, said in an email.  “Any potential advance, especially the development of an animal model, is very welcome.”

TenOever isn’t alone. In December, a Yale lab reported testing two possible therapies on one mouse model. The next month, scientists at Stanford and Yale displayed a mouse model that shows the brain fog both long Covid and cancer patients on chemotherapy experience. Stanley Perlman, a coronavirus expert at the University of Iowa, told STAT he is working on his own model, using a version of the coronavirus adapted to infect mice. 

Each of these models has different pros and cons — the Yale mice, for example, first had to be given a kind of gene therapy before they were infected with SARS-CoV-2, which could skew results — but experts say the world will ultimately need multiple animal models for long Covid. 

That’s because long Covid is likely not one condition, but an umbrella term for multiple distinct ones.

“We believe that our model recapitulates some aspects of human long Covid, but I would not say it models long Covid perfectly,” Akiko Iwasaki, a Yale immunologist who helped create the Stanford-Yale model, said in an email. “Long Covid is a very heterogeneous disease. There are likely four or five distinct drivers.” And, she said, “We need multiple models that reflect each.”

…

Early in the pandemic, tenOever used the hamsters in his Biosafety Level-3 lab — originally built for flu research — to understand the course of the then-novel infection and eventually screen drugs, at the behest of the U.S. government. But in late 2020, the advent of mRNA vaccines made those studies less urgent, at the same time that patient advocacy around long Covid was bubbling up and capturing researchers’ attention.  

TenOever decided his hamsters could provide a good model for the long-term condition as well. They had already closely mimicked acute infection in humans, probably because they have similar type and levels of ACE2, the protein that the coronavirus uses to vault itself into cells. 

“Wherever we looked, whatever we did with our hamsters, it always got phenocopied in humans,” he said. “You could find something interesting in hamsters, and then obtain a human biopsy sample that matched those and it always carried over.”

That meant his team didn’t have to do what Perlman and Iwasaki did and modify the virus or modify the mouse for the model. They could just infect the hamsters and see what happens. 

In addition to infecting 30 hamsters with Covid, Frere gave another 30 hamsters nothing and infected still another 30 hamsters with virus from the 2009 swine flu pandemic. In theory, the twin controls would allow researchers to determine which changes were the result of any infection and which changes were unique to coronavirus.

Early on, some differences were clear: The Covid hamsters that were examined after three days lost their smell, unlike the flu-infected or uninfected ones. 
…

And as time went on, the differences narrowed. The coronavirus hamsters that were examined at day 31 — the point at which symptoms can begin to be described as long Covid — could smell about as easily as the other two groups. None of the hamsters had any virus. Inflammation in much of the body had also gone away, although there was some scarring.

Except for one thing: The olfactory bulb, a fingerling-potato-looking mass of cells behind the nose that relays smell signals to the brain, remained inflamed even a month later. 

“It is the one place where SARS-CoV-2 differentiates itself from your average response to infection,” said tenOever.

Although the olfactory bulb isn’t involved in cognitive functions, tenOever said, inflammation there can radiate deeper into the brain. His group teamed with a neurology lab and showed that many of these hamsters’ neurons were still expressing genes associated with the body’s antiviral response. 

They then examined cadavers of patients who had gotten Covid-19 and died much later of unrelated causes, such as a car accident. Their brains showed a similar expression profile.

“They also had all of their antiviral defenses still on even though there’s no virus there,” tenOever said. 

…

There are, however, significant limitations. For one, the researchers used only the original coronavirus strain and not the variants now circulating, although tenOever points out the experiments were begun over a year ago, and many long Covid patients were infected with the original virus. They also weren’t really able to mimic most symptoms seen in patients. 

The closest they got was a test where you put marbles in the cages. Hamsters that are stressed or anxious will immediately bury the marbles. Indeed, the long Covid ones did so, but not at a dramatically higher rate than the flu or uninfected ones.

….

All that, though, will require funding. And hamsters in a high-level containment facility aren’t cheap. 

“These experiments a pop are like 50 grand,” tenOever said, referring to treatment studies. “That’s not an insignificant amount of money.”“

[Arcadia]

@Ausmumof3@Laura Corin@ieta_cassiopeia

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(22)00941-2/fulltext
“In this case-control observational study, we set out to identify the relative odds of long-COVID (defined following the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence guidelines as having new or ongoing symptoms 4 weeks or more after the start of acute COVID-19) in the UK during the omicron period compared with the delta period. We used self-reported data from the COVID Symptom Study app1 (King's College London Research Ethics Management Application System number 18210, reference LRS-19/20-18210). Data were extracted and pre-processed using ExeTera13 (version 0.5.5).

….

… Overall, we found a reduction in odds of long COVID with the omicron variant versus the delta variant of 0·24–0·50 depending on age and time since vaccination. However, the absolute number of people experiencing long COVID at a given time depends on the shape and amplitude of the pandemic curve. For example, given the high numbers of people infected with omicron in the UK from December, 2021, to February, 2022, our data are consistent with the UK Office for National Statistics, who estimated that the numbers of people experiencing long COVID actually increased from 1·3 million in January, 2022, to 1·7 million in March, 2022.4 Considering the UK omicron peak of more than 350 000 new symptomatic COVID-19 cases per day estimated on March 26, 2022, by the ZOE app model and 4% of cases being long COVID, future numbers with long COVID will inevitably rise

References

1. Varsavsky T Graham MS Canas LS et al.

Detecting COVID-19 infection hotspots in England using large-scale self-reported data from a mobile application: a prospective, observational study.

Lancet Public Health. 2021; 6: e21-e292.

2. Sudre CH Murray B Varsavsky T et al.

Attributes and predictors of long COVID.

Nat Med. 2021; 27: 626-6313.

3. Antonelli M Penfold RS Merino J et al.

Risk factors and disease profile of post-vaccination SARS-CoV-2 infection in UK users of the COVID Symptom Study app: a prospective, community-based, nested, case-control study.

Lancet Infect Dis. 2022; 22: 43-554.

4. Office for National Statistics

Prevalence of ongoing symptoms following coronavirus (COVID-19) infection in the UK.

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/conditionsanddiseases/bulletins/prevalenceofongoingsymptomsfollowingcoronaviruscovid19infectionintheuk/3march2022

Date: 3 March 2022

Date accessed: March 15, 2022“

[Laura Corin]

1 hour ago, Arcadia said:

@Ausmumof3@Laura Corin@ieta_cassiopeia

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(22)00941-2/fulltext
“In this case-control observational study, we set out to identify the relative odds of long-COVID (defined following the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence guidelines as having new or ongoing symptoms 4 weeks or more after the start of acute COVID-19) in the UK during the omicron period compared with the delta period. We used self-reported data from the COVID Symptom Study app1 (King's College London Research Ethics Management Application System number 18210, reference LRS-19/20-18210). Data were extracted and pre-processed using ExeTera13 (version 0.5.5).

….

… Overall, we found a reduction in odds of long COVID with the omicron variant versus the delta variant of 0·24–0·50 depending on age and time since vaccination. However, the absolute number of people experiencing long COVID at a given time depends on the shape and amplitude of the pandemic curve. For example, given the high numbers of people infected with omicron in the UK from December, 2021, to February, 2022, our data are consistent with the UK Office for National Statistics, who estimated that the numbers of people experiencing long COVID actually increased from 1·3 million in January, 2022, to 1·7 million in March, 2022.4 Considering the UK omicron peak of more than 350 000 new symptomatic COVID-19 cases per day estimated on March 26, 2022, by the ZOE app model and 4% of cases being long COVID, future numbers with long COVID will inevitably rise

References

1. Varsavsky T Graham MS Canas LS et al.

Detecting COVID-19 infection hotspots in England using large-scale self-reported data from a mobile application: a prospective, observational study.

Lancet Public Health. 2021; 6: e21-e292.

2. Sudre CH Murray B Varsavsky T et al.

Attributes and predictors of long COVID.

Nat Med. 2021; 27: 626-6313.

3. Antonelli M Penfold RS Merino J et al.

Risk factors and disease profile of post-vaccination SARS-CoV-2 infection in UK users of the COVID Symptom Study app: a prospective, community-based, nested, case-control study.

Lancet Infect Dis. 2022; 22: 43-554.

4. Office for National Statistics

Prevalence of ongoing symptoms following coronavirus (COVID-19) infection in the UK.

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/conditionsanddiseases/bulletins/prevalenceofongoingsymptomsfollowingcoronaviruscovid19infectionintheuk/3march2022

Date: 3 March 2022

Date accessed: March 15, 2022“

Thanks for this. No one is masking around here even in situations where it's hard to see why you wouldn't bother. My son is now working in retail for the summer and living with us, so Covid infection seems inevitable. He's already had Omicron once but he could well get it again.

Comically, in addition to requiring a negative test for visiting, my mum's care home still screens me by asking if I've been overseas recently. 

[Ausmumof3]

BA 4/5 set to take over in NSW

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-06-17/new-covid-omicron-variants-become-dominant-in-nsw/101162684

The article says there should be no difference in severity but I have seen some speculation that a couple of the parts that are back with ba4 and ba5 were bits associated with increase severity. There seems to be such a range of opinion on whether omicron actually even was less severe or prior immunity helped that it’s really hard to know how much credence to give to any of it. 

[bookbard]

1 hour ago, Ausmumof3 said:

The article says there should be no difference in severity but I have seen some speculation that a couple of the parts that are back with ba4 and ba5 were bits associated with increase severity. There seems to be such a range of opinion on whether omicron actually even was less severe or prior immunity helped that it’s really hard to know how much credence to give to any of it. 

I thought that the problem with 4 and 5 is that they're even more vaccine-evasive, so the boosters again will be less useful once again. Really don't want it.

I've heard about more little ones who have died of either flu or covid in the last few weeks, kids under 5 basically. Very sad. There was also the case of a well-known school principal who caught covid (probably at school), recovered, tweeted that he was still not feeling well esp breathing/heart, and then passed away this week. 

[Ausmumof3]

2 hours ago, bookbard said:

I thought that the problem with 4 and 5 is that they're even more vaccine-evasive, so the boosters again will be less useful once again. Really don't want it.

I've heard about more little ones who have died of either flu or covid in the last few weeks, kids under 5 basically. Very sad. There was also the case of a well-known school principal who caught covid (probably at school), recovered, tweeted that he was still not feeling well esp breathing/heart, and then passed away this week. 

There was one here yesterday. I didn’t post about it because it’s still with the coroner but apparently the kid was previously healthy. 
 

My tutor kids that had covid last term are getting flu this term. Two out sick. One back but not really well. And the last families with young kids aside from us that we know that didn’t have covid  have tested positive this week. 
 

Found out at the end of footy tonight that the kid Ds was sitting next to in the shelter’s Dad was out with covid. His mum was working on the canteen. Hoping we escape as it’s semi outdoors but they were sitting together for close to an hour and wrestling each other

Edited June 17, 2022 by Ausmumof3

[Elfknitter.#]

Florida's decision not to preorder vaccines for young kids will create access issues: White House

[KSera]

15 minutes ago, Elfknitter.# said:

Florida's decision not to preorder vaccines for young kids will create access issues: White House

That’s horrible. I feel for all parents of young kids there, but especially so for those with particularly at risk kids who been waiting so long for this vaccine and now might have a really difficult time finding it. That really sucks. Once again, putting politics before people 😢. 

[bookbard]

I haven't heard when Australia will get onto the 0-5 vaccines, or the over 5 boosters. They've finally allowed a 4th dose if you're immunocompromised, or a 3rd dose for immunocompromised 12-15yr olds. 

So this paper kind of suggests that long covid really is long covid . . . ie they have the virus still circulating, months later?

 

[Ausmumof3]

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-06-18/foetal-calf-blood-bovine-serum-record-value-australia/101159254
 

Not strictly covid related but it kind of is. Foetal calf blood has hit record prices. It is used in manufacturing of vaccines I think. 

[Katy]

17 hours ago, bookbard said:

I haven't heard when Australia will get onto the 0-5 vaccines, or the over 5 boosters. They've finally allowed a 4th dose if you're immunocompromised, or a 3rd dose for immunocompromised 12-15yr olds. 

So this paper kind of suggests that long covid really is long covid . . . ie they have the virus still circulating, months later?

 

And it isn't the first or even second study to suggest this.

[ktgrok]

This isn't brand new, but this year, and I just found it. Looks like if you have Covid in the house, it makes sense to use a humidifier of some sort. 

Maybe in addition to increasing air turnover and filtration, businesses and event spaces need to consider the humidity as well. The simulations showed that in poorly ventilated spaces and encounters lasting four hours, lowering the relative humidity from 65% to 40% led to a 20% increase in the median exposure to active virus particles when the susceptible individual is two meters (or more) from the infectious individual. At closer distances, exposure to active virus particles was not affected by differences in humidity.

[bookbard]

3 hours ago, ktgrok said:

Maybe in addition to increasing air turnover and filtration, businesses and event spaces need to consider the humidity as well. The simulations showed that in poorly ventilated spaces and encounters lasting four hours, lowering the relative humidity from 65% to 40% led to a 20% increase in the median exposure to active virus particles when the susceptible individual is two meters (or more) from the infectious individual. At closer distances, exposure to active virus particles was not affected by differences in humidity.

That's interesting, because we've had one of the wettest starts to the year in Eastern Australia, with mould growing everywhere, and we've also had a consistently high covid spread. 

So BA5 variant doesn't sound good. I am noticing more and more people catching Covid for the first time. 

The funny thing is if I search "Sydney Covid rise", I get newspaper reports from a year ago, reporting with shock horror than now 110 people have Covid. Currently, we're between 6 and 8 thousand new cases each day, with 100 deaths just over the weekend.

[ktgrok]

6 minutes ago, bookbard said:

That's interesting, because we've had one of the wettest starts to the year in Eastern Australia, with mould growing everywhere, and we've also had a consistently high covid spread. 

So BA5 variant doesn't sound good. I am noticing more and more people catching Covid for the first time. 

The funny thing is if I search "Sydney Covid rise", I get newspaper reports from a year ago, reporting with shock horror than now 110 people have Covid. Currently, we're between 6 and 8 thousand new cases each day, with 100 deaths just over the weekend.

Is it like here, where people are mostly indoors with heated/dry air?

[Melissa Louise]

Looks like dd is in for round 2.

Girlfriend is positive again ( 5 months after first infection). Asymptomatic ATM. 

I'm pretty worried - dd was very unwell with Covid. 

[bookbard]

9 minutes ago, ktgrok said:

Is it like here, where people are mostly indoors with heated/dry air?

Inside a lot, prob not with the heated air till recently. But so much rain meaning so much indoors isn't good. And I realised I misread what you wrote - you were saying that it's better if it's more humid, than the opposite. 

[bookbard]

1 minute ago, Melissa Louise said:

Looks like dd is in for round 2.

Girlfriend is positive again ( 5 months after first infection). Asymptomatic ATM. 

I'm pretty worried - dd was very unwell with Covid. 

Oh no! Sorry to hear that. My other sister has Covid now and I'm worried as she has a lot of not good health conditions. 

[Melissa Louise]

8 minutes ago, bookbard said:

Oh no! Sorry to hear that. My other sister has Covid now and I'm worried as she has a lot of not good health conditions. 

I hope your sis is ok. 

Yeah, dd's lungs are not fully recovered yet at all. She's beside herself. 

G/friend works in education and care. She's going to be exposed over and over and over again. 

This is crazy. 

[Ausmumof3]

1 hour ago, bookbard said:

Oh no! Sorry to hear that. My other sister has Covid now and I'm worried as she has a lot of not good health conditions. 

I hope she pulls through ok. 

[Ausmumof3]

1 hour ago, Melissa Louise said:

I hope your sis is ok. 

Yeah, dd's lungs are not fully recovered yet at all. She's beside herself. 

G/friend works in education and care. She's going to be exposed over and over and over again. 

This is crazy. 

Sorry your Dd is exposed again. Flu seems to be doing the rounds in school here instead.

[Laura Corin]

10 hours ago, ktgrok said:

This isn't brand new, but this year, and I just found it. Looks like if you have Covid in the house, it makes sense to use a humidifier of some sort. 

Maybe in addition to increasing air turnover and filtration, businesses and event spaces need to consider the humidity as well. The simulations showed that in poorly ventilated spaces and encounters lasting four hours, lowering the relative humidity from 65% to 40% led to a 20% increase in the median exposure to active virus particles when the susceptible individual is two meters (or more) from the infectious individual. At closer distances, exposure to active virus particles was not affected by differences in humidity.

Thanks for the reminder. I'll pull out the humidifier if we end up with someone having to isolate. I ran it in the house before there were vaccines.

As we don't have air conditioning, the humidity is not usually low, but it is unusually so at present.

[ktgrok]

About a month old, this article, but again, just came across it when arguing with an idiot. I know...shouldn't bother, no one who calls it a "psuedo vaccine" that has no effect isn't going to care, but others might see it. 

https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/breakthrough-infections-may-be-less-contagious-vaccine-protection-wanes-faster-2022-05-26/

[SHP]

A small bit of information for those who can use it. You can buy a humidifier for your furnace and set it to monitor and maintain a specific humidity level. I know things are insanely priced right now but check Restore and online listing for used when people upgrade to a not so "smart" device. Ours looks like something from the 80's or 90's but was free when someone else updated to a newer one. If other fugly appliances from that era are any indication the thing will outlive me. 

 

[KSera]

3 minutes ago, SHP said:

A small bit of information for those who can use it. You can buy a humidifier for your furnace and set it to monitor and maintain a specific humidity level. I know things are insanely priced right now but check Restore and online listing for used when people upgrade to a not so "smart" device. Ours looks like something from the 80's or 90's but was free when someone else updated to a newer one. If other fugly appliances from that era are any indication the thing will outlive me. 

 

Are they something you can self install if you aren’t familiar with working on furnaces? (We have handled other appliance repairs before thanks to you tube, so if it’s pretty simple, it might be doable for us.)

[SHP]

7 minutes ago, KSera said:

Are they something you can self install if you aren’t familiar with working on furnaces? (We have handled other appliance repairs before thanks to you tube, so if it’s pretty simple, it might be doable for us.)

Ours had an installation book that was very straightforward and easy to follow. If you can change a toilet flange and install a heated bidet toilet seat you should be fine.

If you can clean your furnace A coil and can remove the blower motor housing to clean it isn't any harder.

[SHP]

*I really suggets learning how to safely clean the A coil and the blower motor housing. Knowing how to do that has saved us a not small amount of money. Winter before last, on the coldest day of course, the furnace had a fit. We cleaned the A coil and blower motor housing and it hasn't had a problem since.

[KSera]

17 minutes ago, SHP said:

Ours had an installation book that was very straightforward and easy to follow. If you can change a toilet flange and install a heated bidet toilet seat you should be fine.

If you can clean your furnace A coil and can remove the blower motor housing to clean it isn't any harder.

Helpful advice. We can do the former things but have never done the latter. I don’t know what my furnace A coil even is 😳. 
 

eta: well that didn’t take long. I now know how to clean the blower and coil (if I have one, lol, that will be the next thing to learn I guess). 
 

I have a hard time with dry winter air and with Covid have wondered about getting a humidifier, so if it’s something we can do without big expense, it seems worthwhile. 

Edited June 21, 2022 by KSera

[Jean in Newcastle]

3 minutes ago, KSera said:

Helpful advice. We can do the former things but have never done the latter. I don’t know what my furnace A coil even is 😳. 

Not all furnaces have coils. 

[Arcadia]

21 hours ago, ktgrok said:

This isn't brand new, but this year, and I just found it. Looks like if you have Covid in the house, it makes sense to use a humidifier of some sort. 

Maybe in addition to increasing air turnover and filtration, businesses and event spaces need to consider the humidity as well. The simulations showed that in poorly ventilated spaces and encounters lasting four hours, lowering the relative humidity from 65% to 40% led to a 20% increase in the median exposure to active virus particles when the susceptible individual is two meters (or more) from the infectious individual. At closer distances, exposure to active virus particles was not affected by differences in humidity.

 

17 hours ago, bookbard said:

That's interesting, because we've had one of the wettest starts to the year in Eastern Australia, with mould growing everywhere, and we've also had a consistently high covid spread. 

 

10 hours ago, Laura Corin said:

 

As we don't have air conditioning, the humidity is not usually low, but it is unusually so at present.

Study link https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0735193321006400

pdf version https://reader.elsevier.com/reader/sd/pii/S0735193321006400?token=F15A0BDA64E7E96683633AAD8EE5F9F92EB4E57681944A300348B044E90965CD11DE44F2AD71E817E8E82FECEABEF8E0&originRegion=us-east-1&originCreation=20220621160112

10 degC is approx 50 degF

22 degC is approx 72 degF

28 degC is approx 82 degF

”As with influenza [4], [34] and other coronaviruses [35], [36], SARS-CoV-2 decays more rapidly at high temperatures than low temperatures and shows a U-shaped dependence on RH, as seen in Fig. 2. At room temperature, for example, virion half-lives are longer than 6 hours for RH < 45% or RH > 85% but are around 2.5 h for RH ~ 65%  [32].

“

[whitestavern]

27 minutes ago, Jean in Newcastle said:

Not all furnaces have coils. 

We don’t even have a furnace!

[Arcadia]

5 minutes ago, whitestavern said:

We don’t even have a furnace!

We have one but it doesn’t give much warmth so its more of a decor. We turned it on a few times in the past decade. 
ETA: It is going to reach 38degC today and we do have a humidifier. The study didn’t simulate at heatwave temperatures. 

Edited June 21, 2022 by Arcadia

[ieta_cassiopeia]

My local hospital no longer requires masks in non-clinical areas, although some locations that technically don't require it of everyone are still mandating it for anyone who is not a patient or a visitor who would visibly have been exempt under the original community masking rules. This has resulted in a wide variety of attitudes to masking among visitors. My office is on the extreme low-mask end, in that most people are happy about no longer needing masks according to the rules. I am the only person masking in my office, although everyone else is supportive of my choice. Surgical masks remain available to everyone at every entrance.

Routine testing is supposed to still be required but I haven't seen much of it happening (although some people are doing it on Fridays or the day before doing something they consider risky, and I'm still doing it every week as per current recommendations for non-clinical staff). Care home staff continue to be on a much stricter policy (for some reason the one some of my relatives work at went up to 4 times a week for staff recently...)

Social distancing is still required (except there is now an exemption for relatives), although in practice nobody is enforcing it in corridors. It is enforced in places like lunch queues and waiting areas.

Handwashing is enforced rigourously among staff and inpatients, and it's hard to tell the extent to which visitors/outpatients do it.

Fresh air is being widely encouraged. Due to the beautiful weather, most people are happily partaking of that piece of advice by being outdoors and opening windows wide.
 

No vaccines are being offered in the UK to under-5s, nor are they seriously expected to be made available on the NHS. This is because under-5s are having so few hospitalisations that they're tending not to happen in trials, which will make it difficult to pass NICE requirements for funding (Pfizer and Moderna, undeterred, have vaccines about to start Phase III anyway, and this may be available privately if Phase III is passed). People over 75 or in care homes can now get a 4th dose of vaccine, which means there's a good chance everyone will be able to get one at some point in the autumn. My hometown now has a walk-in clinic which will serve everyone eligible with whichever dose they are eligible to have, so the booking barrier has been lifted (though it's still an option for people who would prefer that method).

The COVID ward at my hospital has no patients, but it is still on the cleaning rota in case it needs to go into action in a hurry. Nobody is seriously expecting "in case" to happen over the summer.

Edited June 21, 2022 by ieta_cassiopeia

[BeachGal]

6 hours ago, KSera said:

Are they something you can self install if you aren’t familiar with working on furnaces? (We have handled other appliance repairs before thanks to you tube, so if it’s pretty simple, it might be doable for us.)

I believe you are referring to a whole-house humidifier that is part of a central air system. Aprilaire is the brand we had installed in a former house. I think an hvac technician installed it but can’t remember. Was $500-ish to buy and install, iirc. Did a good job and was easy to use.

[KSera]

Someone came to give us a quote on some thing at the house today and shook our hands. I think it’s the second time I’ve shaken someone’s hand since February 2020 😳. I had kind of gotten the idea that shaking hands had kind of gone the way of the dodo and might not come back.

[kbutton]

11 hours ago, ktgrok said:

About a month old, this article, but again, just came across it when arguing with an idiot. I know...shouldn't bother, no one who calls it a "psuedo vaccine" that has no effect isn't going to care, but others might see it. 

https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/breakthrough-infections-may-be-less-contagious-vaccine-protection-wanes-faster-2022-05-26/

Is that how flu tends to be as well when the vaccine is a good match for the circulating strain?

[Ausmumof3]

Not Covid, but polio has been detected in sewage in the UK. 

,

[Ausmumof3]

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/poliovirus-detected-in-sewage-from-north-and-east-london
 

“As part of routine surveillance, it is normal for 1 to 3 ‘vaccine-like’ polioviruses to be detected each year in UK sewage samples but these have always been one-off findings that were not detected again. These previous detections occurred when an individual vaccinated overseas with the live oral polio vaccine (OPV) returned or travelled to the UK and briefly ‘shed’ traces of the vaccine-like poliovirus in their faeces.

Investigations are underway after several closely-related viruses were found in sewage samples taken between February and May. The virus has continued to evolve and is now classified as a ‘vaccine-derived’ poliovirus type 2 (VDPV2), which on rare occasions can cause serious illness, such as paralysis, in people who are not fully vaccinated.

The detection of a VDPV2 suggests it is likely there has been some spread between closely-linked individuals in North and East London and that they are now shedding the type 2 poliovirus strain in their faeces. The virus has only been detected in sewage samples and no associated cases of paralysis have been reported – but investigations will aim to establish if any community transmission is occurring.

The last case of wild polio contracted in the UK was confirmed in 1984. The UK was declared polio-free in 2003.“

 

[Ausmumof3]

I have been meaning to update for a couple of days on the local situation but it’s been hectic. There was a press conference for the first time in a good while. The hospital system has been struggling for a bit. I’ve posted the ED data once before. The night before the press conference every ED had hit the white (top level over capacity) much earlier than in the day than usual. 
 

So apparently hospital system is completely full. Patients have been getting moved to private hospitals for a while. They are now transferring city patients to rural hospitals (not ideal as those hospitals are already under resourced). They have started cancelling tier 3 non-elective surgery. 
 

actual covid hospitalisation are pretty steady so I’m not sure what the issue is entirely. I’m not sure that covid hospitalisations is counting people still in but no longer positive and flu is surging. 
 

Apparently BA4 and 5 have just started to increase here and hit about 10%. Modelling forecasts an increase from next week and a mid-July peak of possibly 5000 though that is uncertain.

More anecdotally, I seem to have a ton of kids out sick and kids coming back who aren’t really well still. I’m not sure if it’s just that I’ve forgotten what winter is like with flu or if they are getting sicker due to either covid immunity issues or immunity debt or what. 

[bookbard]

50 minutes ago, Ausmumof3 said:

More anecdotally, I seem to have a ton of kids out sick and kids coming back who aren’t really well still. I’m not sure if it’s just that I’ve forgotten what winter is like with flu or if they are getting sicker due to either covid immunity issues or immunity debt or what. 

I hear coughing everywhere. 

I think the problem is covid plus flu plus random winter viruses all hitting at once. We've had bad flu seasons plus winter viruses, but now we've got all that PLUS covid. 1,500 in hospital in NSW plus flu cases etc? That's going to hit hard. NSW Health has put out a thing saying 'expect a surge'; meanwhile the only govt advice is 'get vaxxed'. Nothing about masks.