Shall we talk about that other variant?

[lewelma]

28 minutes ago, Corraleno said:

I think BA.2.12.2 is the one that is increasing most rapidly in the US, it is outcompeting BA.2.

I've gone looking, and it appears that it came into NZ in mid April (they are still gene sequencing all positive cases coming into the country), but that it is not outcompeting BA2, at least not yet.  BA2 was at 92% of cases on the 12th of May. 

[She Travels]

So happy to see Quill that you are finally coming to your senses.

Edited May 20, 2022 by desertflower
Be civil

[happi duck]

Didn't the fact that a lot of people didn't get vaccinated contribute to the spread?  I think the vaccine would've done better if the uptake was much higher, much quicker.  

[Jean in Newcastle]

1 hour ago, Corraleno said:

I understand people feeling disappointed that vaccines didn't have the effect they hoped they would have, but I don't understand why someone would feel like they'd been conned or cheated or lied to. To me that's like booking a beach vacation in a spot that's normally nice and sunny and then a storm comes in and it rains the whole time and they claim they were cheated and conned because no one told them in advance that an unpredictable, unanticipated storm was going to ruin their vacation. Nature is unpredictable, viruses mutate, storms happen. Disappointment is understandable, but feeling cheated or conned because no one accurately predicted the unpredictable seems like misplaced blame.

Exactly.  This is still a new virus  that is still actively mutating.  Scientists make educated guesses and use that to manufacture vaccines, treatments and to advise mitigation procedures.  Many people thumbed their noses at the vaccines, the treatments (and came up with alternative dangerous ones) and thumbed their noses at the mitigation procedures.  Enough so that it affected the efficacy of what those who were listening to the science were doing.  They are still trying to figure out what works with the newest variants and of course no one has a crystal ball to know what new variant might come up.  To suggest that they should have been able to come up with one fix that fixed it months ago once and for all is terribly naive and shows a lack of basic scientific understanding. 

[BeachGal]

Vaccines work best if the disease has a long incubation period. For example for measles, it is about 10-12 days. A longer incubation time allows the immune system to recognize that the virus is present and then make what is necessary to fight it off before any symptoms appear.

Original Covid, however, had an incubation period of about 5 days whereas Omicron has about 2-3 days. Very short. This is why vaxed people are developing symptoms — but not dying. Covid is just able to replicate quickly. The immune system needs a bit more time to ramp up to fight it off. The immune system does eventually make what is necessary. The vaccine is not failing. It’s just that the darned incubation period is short.

Mucosal vaccines are what we need to stomp out the Covid virus because the mucosal membranes are where it takes hold. There are about 17 in clinical trials with a few showing good signs and about 50 or so in preclinical trials. We can only wait at this point because these take time.

[sassenach]

I'm currently working for our public health department in the Covid division. I'm sitting in on the statewide updates, etc. A few things- counties with higher vaccine coverage are currently experiencing MORE cases. No clear answer as to why but the frontrunner is that counties with more natural infection of omicron in Jan have more immune coverage than those who vaccinated/mitigated their way through the winter surge. With these variants, the vaccines are not preventing infection. (ETA: my area's current surge is ba.2)

There are multiple other new sub-variants (shorthand for the ones most discussed are 12, 4, and 5). 12 is all over the east coast, 4 and 5 are in South America and Portugal. No remarkable increase in hospitalization or death with any of them but significantly increased transmissibility. 

A very large portion of the new infections I'm seeing are boosted individuals. In the age of Omicron, boosting is not doing much (to prevent infection). We're pushing Paxlovid availability hard. The best combo seems to be vaccinated and Paxlovid. 

 

Edited May 19, 2022 by sassenach

[sassenach]

Also, just an FYI, we're having a very late flu surge and the flu vax is not super effective this year. Also, norovirus is everywhere, which is actually typical for spring.

I'm buried in paperwork right now.

[KSera]

43 minutes ago, sassenach said:

No clear answer as to why but the frontrunner is that counties with more natural infection of omicron in Jan have more immune coverage than those who vaccinated/mitigated their way through the winter surge. With these variants, the vaccines are not preventing infection. 

 

I'm reading that recovering from infection with one omicron variant is not providing much (or at least not lasting) protection from subsequent variants. Less so than with previous variants.

41 minutes ago, sassenach said:

Also, norovirus is everywhere, which is actually typical for spring.

Yes, and I'm also hearing nurses saying that a lot of the covid they are seeing in the hospital is presenting as GI. Lots of people with covid coming in due to dehydration.

[KSera]

Uh oh. Yankee Candle reviews seem to be indicating another wave:

 

[rebcoola]

We are having a lot of mystery virus supposedly going around. I think it's probably covid.  ODD was sick for 2+ weeks and the symptoms really seemed like covid.  When we went to the walk in place she was tested for flu, mono, strep and covid but they only used a rapid test for the covid.   

[mathnerd]

12 hours ago, Quill said:

and despite having been fully vaxed and boosted…I feel like I got punked.

The vaccine has not lived up to its promise and I feel quite jaded about that.

“Covid - whatever; I’m over it”. I feel similarly now. 
 

There were no guarantees provided by the manufacturers that the vaccine would forever protect people from an unlimited number of variants of Covid. What we lack in this country is exposure to science in very large swathes of our population and it affects their attitudes towards vaccines. If the uptake of the original vaccine had been 100%, then perhaps things would have turned out differently. Covid is a novel virus to the human immune system. It will mutate and change until such a time when it becomes impossible for it do so.

A good example for a layman is that if a Tiger in the jungle mutates and changes to a Cheetah or a Panther, the trap that you set up to catch the Tiger may or may not work for catching the Panther on the loose. If it works, it is great news! If not, you need to come up with a better trap for a Panther now as you are dealing with a new animal. This is exactly what the scientists are doing right now. Sorry about the weird example, I have too many things going on to come up with a smarter example at this time. So, these scientists have come up with miracles in the face of tremendous pressure, many unknowns, and working against a Goalpost that is constantly moving. I am always taken aback when I see remarks that the vaccine has not lived up to its promise. I think that we would have had more than 1 million deaths in this country if not for the vaccines by this time.

Even if we are "over" Covid, the sad truth is that Covid is not "over us".

Edited May 19, 2022 by mathnerd

[Guest]

I think that we would have had more than 1 million deaths in this country if not for the vaccines by this time.

 

We are officially at one million deaths from Covid and I believe we passed that milestone months ago. In 2020, when a certain person did not want more testing because he didn’t want us to “find cases”, I don’t doubt that some people died from Covid or indirectly due to Covid but their deaths were not recorded that way. 

[Ausmumof3]

14 minutes ago, Quill said:

I think that we would have had more than 1 million deaths in this country if not for the vaccines by this time.

 

We are officially at one million deaths from Covid and I believe we passed that milestone months ago. In 2020, when a certain person did not want more testing because he didn’t want us to “find cases”, I don’t doubt that some people died from Covid or indirectly due to Covid but their deaths were not recorded that way. 

I’m not sure - are you thinking the vaccines didn’t prevent deaths? If you look at the worldometer data and compare death rates pre and post vaccine there’s a big difference. That’s not to say the vaccines aren’t losing efficacy. They’re about 80pc now.

[Guest]

19 minutes ago, Ausmumof3 said:

I’m not sure - are you thinking the vaccines didn’t prevent deaths? If you look at the worldometer data and compare death rates pre and post vaccine there’s a big difference. That’s not to say the vaccines aren’t losing efficacy. They’re about 80pc now.

I’m not saying they didn’t prevent deaths and it would have been my hope that every eligible person got vaxed. It just annoys me that the official communications to the public shifted and “they” pretend that was the goal all along. Like, TPTB said, “If everyone gets vaccinated, we can protect our vulnerable population, ditch the masks, and move into something more like normal life.” But, when that didn’t happen, TPTB changed their tune (multiple times, actually) and then pretended that, all along, the goal was reducing hospitalizations and deaths. Even when fully vaxed people first started getting Covid anyway, which in my non-scientific observation was summer, 2021 and was months and months before Omicron rose, they were first called “breakthrough” cases. Remember that? And of course, there are breakthrough cases, we know that, no vax is 100%. But in the months following, they *stopped* saying “breakthrough cases”; that term is never used anymore. If a person who tests positive is also vaxed and boosted, it is a footnote in the conversation. It’s like, “Yeah, Aunt Mable just tested positive for COVID….yeah, she is fully vaxed and boosted.” 
 

Anyway…I feel how I feel. I’m not saying it’s 100% logical. It’s just how I feel. I thought I was getting the vax and encouraging others to get the vax and arguing wi the my husband about getting the vax and persuading my mom to get the vax because we would all be much better off by now. But that did not happen, the anti-vax people mostly feel vindicated and I’m *still* having to worry about riding a bus to New York for five hours, sitting in a movie theater to watch Secrets of Dumbledore, and hoping my son’s graduation doesn’t suddenly go virtual. So, I am bitterly disappointed. It’s not necessarily logical, it just *is*. 

[Ausmumof3]

11 minutes ago, Quill said:

I’m not saying they didn’t prevent deaths and it would have been my hope that every eligible person got vaxed. It just annoys me that the official communications to the public shifted and “they” pretend that was the goal all along. Like, TPTB said, “If everyone gets vaccinated, we can protect our vulnerable population, ditch the masks, and move into something more like normal life.” But, when that didn’t happen, TPTB changed their tune (multiple times, actually) and then pretended that, all along, the goal was reducing hospitalizations and deaths. Even when fully vaxed people first started getting Covid anyway, which in my non-scientific observation was summer, 2021 and was months and months before Omicron rose, they were first called “breakthrough” cases. Remember that? And of course, there are breakthrough cases, we know that, no vax is 100%. But in the months following, they *stopped* saying “breakthrough cases”; that term is never used anymore. If a person who tests positive is also vaxed and boosted, it is a footnote in the conversation. It’s like, “Yeah, Aunt Mable just tested positive for COVID….yeah, she is fully vaxed and boosted.” 
 

Anyway…I feel how I feel. I’m not saying it’s 100% logical. It’s just how I feel. I thought I was getting the vax and encouraging others to get the vax and arguing wi the my husband about getting the vax and persuading my mom to get the vax because we would all be much better off by now. But that did not happen, the anti-vax people mostly feel vindicated and I’m *still* having to worry about riding a bus to New York for five hours, sitting in a movie theater to watch Secrets of Dumbledore, and hoping my son’s graduation doesn’t suddenly go virtual. So, I am bitterly disappointed. It’s not necessarily logical, it just *is*. 

Oh yeah I see what you’re saying. They definitely oversold the protection against infection. I was quite stressed for a while because my parents got the three month delay vax and I was worried I would get infected without knowing and pass it along because I was fully vaxed. There were always a few voices warning that vaccinating against coronavirus is hard but definitely drowned out by the vaccine is a miracle crowd.

I do see that down here a lot of people feel justified in thinking it was all overblown because we didn’t have it before widespread vaccination so they assume it was never that bad instead of realising that it’s not that bad because most people have some level of protection. 

[Garga]

24 minutes ago, Quill said:

I’m not saying they didn’t prevent deaths and it would have been my hope that every eligible person got vaxed. It just annoys me that the official communications to the public shifted and “they” pretend that was the goal all along. Like, TPTB said, “If everyone gets vaccinated, we can protect our vulnerable population, ditch the masks, and move into something more like normal life.” But, when that didn’t happen, TPTB changed their tune (multiple times, actually) and then pretended that, all along, the goal was reducing hospitalizations and deaths. Even when fully vaxed people first started getting Covid anyway, which in my non-scientific observation was summer, 2021 and was months and months before Omicron rose, they were first called “breakthrough” cases. Remember that? And of course, there are breakthrough cases, we know that, no vax is 100%. But in the months following, they *stopped* saying “breakthrough cases”; that term is never used anymore. If a person who tests positive is also vaxed and boosted, it is a footnote in the conversation. It’s like, “Yeah, Aunt Mable just tested positive for COVID….yeah, she is fully vaxed and boosted.” 
 

Anyway…I feel how I feel. I’m not saying it’s 100% logical. It’s just how I feel. I thought I was getting the vax and encouraging others to get the vax and arguing wi the my husband about getting the vax and persuading my mom to get the vax because we would all be much better off by now. But that did not happen, the anti-vax people mostly feel vindicated and I’m *still* having to worry about riding a bus to New York for five hours, sitting in a movie theater to watch Secrets of Dumbledore, and hoping my son’s graduation doesn’t suddenly go virtual. So, I am bitterly disappointed. It’s not necessarily logical, it just *is*. 

I hear you. But I also think it’s easy to conflate TPTB into one group. 

In this country we have a problem with our media. Some media is very shock and awe and some is more sensible and investigative.

The shock and awe ones were promising you the moon. The more sensible media was holding back and giving a more reasonable assessment of the outcome of vaccines.
 

So, yes, be seriously annoyed at the shock and awe types, but there has always been the truth out there. But it gets drowned out by all the noise. 

Anyway, the shock and awe types certainly changed their story, but not everyone was changing their story. 

 

It’s sort of like people would say, “The CDC says we can all take off our masks in restaurants!” But if you actually read the CDC page, they said to leave them on, except for while you were actually putting the food in your mouth, and then to put them back on when you weren’t actively eating. But people didn’t read the actual recommendation. They just heard that they could take off their masks in restaurants and then felt justified in saying that the CDC was hypocritical blah blah. They’d wear their masks while walking to the table and then whip them off the entire hour they were there, talking at each other and billowing germs into the air.

 

But, now I feel like I’m just berating you when you are saying you know your reaction isn’t logical, but it’s still a reaction you’re feeling. And I get that. And I also can only imagine the frustration listening to anti-vaxxers dig in even deeper. I just don’t know where to lay the blame. I suppose on just certain PTB and not all of them.

 

Edited May 19, 2022 by Garga

[She Travels]

So happy to see Quill that you are finally coming to your senses.

Edited May 20, 2022 by desertflower
No need to repeat.

[Catwoman]

1 hour ago, Quill said:

I’m not saying they didn’t prevent deaths and it would have been my hope that every eligible person got vaxed. It just annoys me that the official communications to the public shifted and “they” pretend that was the goal all along. Like, TPTB said, “If everyone gets vaccinated, we can protect our vulnerable population, ditch the masks, and move into something more like normal life.” But, when that didn’t happen, TPTB changed their tune (multiple times, actually) and then pretended that, all along, the goal was reducing hospitalizations and deaths. Even when fully vaxed people first started getting Covid anyway, which in my non-scientific observation was summer, 2021 and was months and months before Omicron rose, they were first called “breakthrough” cases. Remember that? And of course, there are breakthrough cases, we know that, no vax is 100%. But in the months following, they *stopped* saying “breakthrough cases”; that term is never used anymore. If a person who tests positive is also vaxed and boosted, it is a footnote in the conversation. It’s like, “Yeah, Aunt Mable just tested positive for COVID….yeah, she is fully vaxed and boosted.” 
 

Anyway…I feel how I feel. I’m not saying it’s 100% logical. It’s just how I feel. I thought I was getting the vax and encouraging others to get the vax and arguing wi the my husband about getting the vax and persuading my mom to get the vax because we would all be much better off by now. But that did not happen, the anti-vax people mostly feel vindicated and I’m *still* having to worry about riding a bus to New York for five hours, sitting in a movie theater to watch Secrets of Dumbledore, and hoping my son’s graduation doesn’t suddenly go virtual. So, I am bitterly disappointed. It’s not necessarily logical, it just *is*. 

I can understand how you feel. I have always believed that if more people had worn masks and gotten vaccinated as soon as possible, we might not have been in this mess right now. I'm not saying that Covid wouldn't still exist, but I think there would have been far fewer deaths and possibly fewer variants.

The messaging at the beginning of the pandemic was ridiculous. First, there was no problem and it would just "go away," And the idea that we shouldn't wear masks to avoid catching a respiratory virus was just plain stupid. I understand that they didn't want people hoarding masks so healthcare workers could get them, but as we learned later, there were plenty of other face-covering options that still work quite well, so those should have been strongly recommended right from the start.

Also, without getting too political here, I think if a certain leader would have quickly and enthusiastically encouraged his supporters to take precautions against the virus, instead of acting like it was no big deal, things would have been markedly different from very early on. To this day, many of those people still believe that Covid is nothing serious, and they refuse to take any precautions unless there is a mandate. It makes me so sad, because a lot of those people would give you the shirt off their backs if they thought you were in trouble, so it's not that they aren't nice people; they are just completely misinformed and they don't look at the science. But it has turned into an ugly us-versus-them mentality that isn't helping anyone.

I am disappointed, too. I am disappointed that my family can't live even a slight semblance of a normal life because my dh is so high risk. I'm disappointed that people refuse to do something as simple as wearing a mask inside stores when the Covid numbers are surging. I'm disappointed that we even have to worry when we are inside a doctor's office because even there, people keep slipping their masks down to their chins instead of wearing them properly. 

We had planned an extended European trip quite a while back, but we are still at home, waiting for it to be safe. And waiting. And waiting. And waiting. Ugh.

[scholastica]

32 minutes ago, She Travels said:

So happy to see Quill that you are finally coming to your senses. Yes, you were duped by big Pharma and big media.Yes, your unvaccinated friends feel vindicated, but they never stopped supporting you even when you chose your own medical decisions because they realized that was your right!  Keep observing.  Read the Pfizer documents that are slowly being released. Maybe think about unblocking friends of many decades that you abandoned because they had a different opinion than you. Go back through you these chat threads and read where you referred to unvaccinated  people as douchebags and ask yourself how you came to view people in such derogatory terms simply because they chose to make a different medical decision than yourself. Start working on enjoying life without the fear that the media wants you to feel. 

You are totally twisting Quill’s words and are obviously hiding behind a new username, which is against board rules. Just stop. 

[Catwoman]

35 minutes ago, She Travels said:

So happy to see Quill that you are finally coming to your senses. Yes, you were duped by big Pharma and big media.Yes, your unvaccinated friends feel vindicated, but they never stopped supporting you even when you chose your own medical decisions because they realized that was your right!  Keep observing.  Read the Pfizer documents that are slowly being released. Maybe think about unblocking friends of many decades that you abandoned because they had a different opinion than you. Go back through you these chat threads and read where you referred to unvaccinated  people as douchebags and ask yourself how you came to view people in such derogatory terms simply because they chose to make a different medical decision than yourself. Start working on enjoying life without the fear that the media wants you to feel. 

Who did you used to be before you changed to this new username?

If you're going to make accusations against @Quill, at least have the guts to do it using your real username.

[sassenach]

2 hours ago, Quill said:

I’m not saying they didn’t prevent deaths and it would have been my hope that every eligible person got vaxed. It just annoys me that the official communications to the public shifted and “they” pretend that was the goal all along. Like, TPTB said, “If everyone gets vaccinated, we can protect our vulnerable population, ditch the masks, and move into something more like normal life.” But, when that didn’t happen, TPTB changed their tune (multiple times, actually) and then pretended that, all along, the goal was reducing hospitalizations and deaths. Even when fully vaxed people first started getting Covid anyway, which in my non-scientific observation was summer, 2021 and was months and months before Omicron rose, they were first called “breakthrough” cases. Remember that? And of course, there are breakthrough cases, we know that, no vax is 100%. But in the months following, they *stopped* saying “breakthrough cases”; that term is never used anymore. If a person who tests positive is also vaxed and boosted, it is a footnote in the conversation. It’s like, “Yeah, Aunt Mable just tested positive for COVID….yeah, she is fully vaxed and boosted.” 
 

Anyway…I feel how I feel. I’m not saying it’s 100% logical. It’s just how I feel. I thought I was getting the vax and encouraging others to get the vax and arguing wi the my husband about getting the vax and persuading my mom to get the vax because we would all be much better off by now. But that did not happen, the anti-vax people mostly feel vindicated and I’m *still* having to worry about riding a bus to New York for five hours, sitting in a movie theater to watch Secrets of Dumbledore, and hoping my son’s graduation doesn’t suddenly go virtual. So, I am bitterly disappointed. It’s not necessarily logical, it just *is*. 

I think you're saying some important things about messaging and the general cluster f* of public communication that has happened all throughout the pandemic. Though interestingly, the bolded above is always always what I understood the goal of vaccination to be, so I'm I guess a little surprised that you understood differently.

I heard a doctor say the other day that he almost wished we could change the name from Covid to something else. Omicron is not Alpha/Delta. The vaccine amazingly protected us from the original Covid strains. Omicron is very different and that's a hard pill to swallow but also not as scary as it used to be. So now we have all of these systems of thought based on the original strains and they just don't apply in the same way to these omicron strains. I will tell you that at this point, public health is mostly focused on schools and facilities outbreaks. We are still paying attention to overall numbers, but Covid is beginning to be treated just like the flu- vaccinate, access to early therapeutics, stop the spread in places with vulnerable people. That combo has kept our hospitals in great shape through the omicron surges.

I think the most damaging messaging of all was anyone who pushed the idea that we would ever be rid of covid. When the vaccines came out, the message that I heard from a specific doctor that I've been listening to was everyone will catch covid at some point, vaccination will protect you from the most severe consequences. I still think that's true. 

 

[Catwoman]

11 hours ago, She Travels said:

So happy to see Quill that you are finally coming to your senses. Yes, you were duped by big Pharma and big media.Yes, your unvaccinated friends feel vindicated, but they never stopped supporting you even when you chose your own medical decisions because they realized that was your right!  Keep observing.  Read the Pfizer documents that are slowly being released. Maybe think about unblocking friends of many decades that you abandoned because they had a different opinion than you. Go back through you these chat threads and read where you referred to unvaccinated  people as douchebags and ask yourself how you came to view people in such derogatory terms simply because they chose to make a different medical decision than yourself. 

 

1 hour ago, She Travels said:

So happy to see Quill that you are finally coming to your senses. Yes, you were duped by big Pharma and big media.Yes, your unvaccinated friends feel vindicated, but they never stopped supporting you even when you chose your own medical decisions because they realized that was your right!  Keep observing.  Read the Pfizer documents that are slowly being released. Maybe think about unblocking friends of many decades that you abandoned because they had a different opinion than you. Go back through you these chat threads and read where you referred to unvaccinated  people as douchebags and ask yourself how you came to view people in such derogatory terms simply because they chose to make a different medical decision than yourself. Start working on enjoying life without the fear that the media wants you to feel. 

I'm wondering why you posted the exact same post eleven hours ago and then again just a little while ago. I guess you figured you needed to use a much larger font to make sure your post got more attention this time.

I think I might know who you are, and if you're who I think you are, you are usually a nice person, so I'm not sure what's going on here. If you have a problem with Quill, why not just send her a PM or post here with your regular name? I don't really think there is any way you are going to get a positive response to your post, even from people who might agree with you, because it seems sneaky to have used a new name, and kind of cowardly to insult someone without letting her know who you are.

[Corraleno]

2 hours ago, Quill said:

I’m not saying they didn’t prevent deaths and it would have been my hope that every eligible person got vaxed. It just annoys me that the official communications to the public shifted and “they” pretend that was the goal all along. Like, TPTB said, “If everyone gets vaccinated, we can protect our vulnerable population, ditch the masks, and move into something more like normal life.” But, when that didn’t happen, TPTB changed their tune (multiple times, actually) and then pretended that, all along, the goal was reducing hospitalizations and deaths. Even when fully vaxed people first started getting Covid anyway, which in my non-scientific observation was summer, 2021 and was months and months before Omicron rose, they were first called “breakthrough” cases. Remember that? And of course, there are breakthrough cases, we know that, no vax is 100%. But in the months following, they *stopped* saying “breakthrough cases”; that term is never used anymore. If a person who tests positive is also vaxed and boosted, it is a footnote in the conversation. It’s like, “Yeah, Aunt Mable just tested positive for COVID….yeah, she is fully vaxed and boosted.” 

The minimum threshold for vaccine approval is like 50% efficacy against infection. J&J was approved with efficacy of around 68% if I remember correctly. But J&J did protect really well against hospitalization and death and was therefore approved on that basis. Protection against hospitalization and death was always the primary target; the fact that the mRNA vaccines seemed to also provide unusually high efficacy against infection was an amazing and unexpected bonus, not a requirement for approval.

 

 

[Guest]

4 hours ago, She Travels said:

So happy to see Quill that you are finally coming to your senses. Yes, you were duped by big Pharma and big media.Yes, your unvaccinated friends feel vindicated, but they never stopped supporting you even when you chose your own medical decisions because they realized that was your right!  Keep observing.  Read the Pfizer documents that are slowly being released. Maybe think about unblocking friends of many decades that you abandoned because they had a different opinion than you. Go back through you these chat threads and read where you referred to unvaccinated  people as douchebags and ask yourself how you came to view people in such derogatory terms simply because they chose to make a different medical decision than yourself. Start working on enjoying life without the fear that the media wants you to feel. 

Go away. You’re brainwashed. 

Edited May 19, 2022 by Quill
Remove name

[Guest]

39 minutes ago, Catwoman said:

Who did you used to be before you changed to this new username?

If you're going to make accusations against @Quill, at least have the guts to do it using your real username.

Don’t worry about it; I know who it is.

[Guest]

And BTW,  I blocked you because you chose a post I made about my friend who DIED to babble on about your oh-so-enlightened brand-new belief in Big Pharma. You were using my wall as a platform to spout nonsense. My friends don’t do that. 

Edited May 19, 2022 by Quill
Removed name

[Catwoman]

2 minutes ago, Quill said:

And BTW, Dianne, I blocked you because you chose a post I made about my friend who DIED to babble on about your oh-so-enlightened brand-new belief in Big Pharma. You were using my wall as a platform to spout nonsense. My friends don’t do that. 

Ok, I thought I might have known who it was, but now I'm pretty sure I have absolutely no idea! 

I'm glad you know who it was, though -- it would be creepy if you didn't!

[Guest]

3 minutes ago, Catwoman said:

Ok, I thought I might have known who it was, but now I'm pretty sure I have absolutely no idea! 

I'm glad you know who it was, though -- it would be creepy if you didn't!

Well, fortunately I don’t block many people, so unless it’s a creepy ex-boyfriend, it could only be the person I’m thinking of, who was not a frequent poster here in the past 8-10 years. 

[Mrs Tiggywinkle]

Honestly, I was super pro vaccine. I still am.  But I feel sad remembering how thrilled I was to vaccinate my grandmother and get my kids vaccinated.  Three weeks after their second vaccine, two of my kids caught Covid and one has long Covid symptoms now.  I caught Covid a second time after being triple vaxxed.  My grandmother has been boostered, but I’m not really that excited about it considering the last four people in my county that died of Covid were triple vaccinated.  

The messaging was horrible. It would have been so much better to be clear that vaccines weren’t going to stop transmission instead of the billboard signs around here telling people to vaccinate so they wouldn’t give it to their grandmas.  it would have been better to recognize that in the public’s mind vaccines = eradication because we’ve all but eradicated diphtheria and mumps and rubella through vaccines, and that’s what people think when they hear vaccine.  It would be better to call these new variants something other than Covid-19 because they are so different as to essentially be a new virus.

A lot of people do feel like they were sold a bridge in Arizona, because the media messaging led them to believe something that was inaccurate.  Your general public is not reading or comprehending scientific studies.  Sure, most of us on this board do, but we are not a fair representation of the population.  
I think it’s perfectly reasonable to be sad.  I hope that eventually better vaccines, especially mucousal vaccines, will be produced.  But we aren’t there yet and Covid isn’t going away.  Neither is the flu or norovirus, both of which are rampant here.  And I freely admit that it’s frustrating to me that I still have to worry about seeing my grandmother and accidentally bringing her Covid, because I’m sure I can catch it again now.  And it’s frustrating that my cousin is dying of pancreatic cancer and we all lost two years being apart because we were trying not to give each other Covid, and now it feels like that was completely pointless.

Edited May 19, 2022 by Mrs Tiggywinkle

[Guest]

@Mrs Tiggywinkle yes, your post, 100%. 
 

And I am so sorry about your cousin. 

[Mrs Tiggywinkle]

Just now, Quill said:

@Mrs Tiggywinkle yes, your post, 100%. 
 

And I am so sorry about your cousin. 

Thank you. She’s 44. It’s an absolute shock. Heartbreakingly, prior to the diagnosis two months ago, she had not seen her high risk mother in person since early March 2020 because they were trying to keep her safe.  They kept hoping a better vaccine would come out, or that a booster would work great, or Covid would go away.

My great aunt is really, really struggling with that decision now.

[historically accurate]

And...

the Covid test turned positive for me today. Pretty sure I have already shared it with DH and one DD.

Other two kiddos seem fine so far, but they were very recently boosted, so maybe they'll come through unscathed.

[mommyoffive]

6 minutes ago, historically accurate said:

And...

the Covid test turned positive for me today. Pretty sure I have already shared it with DH and one DD.

Other two kiddos seem fine so far, but they were very recently boosted, so maybe they'll come through unscathed.

Oh no.  I am sorry.  I hope you, dd, and dh have a mild illness 

[KSera]

36 minutes ago, Mrs Tiggywinkle said:

The messaging was horrible. It would have been so much better to be clear that vaccines weren’t going to stop transmission instead of the billboard signs around here telling people to vaccinate so they wouldn’t give it to their grandmas.

While I definitely agree the messaging has been (and continues to be) bad in many different ways, I also feel like a broken record trying to reiterate that they initially started messaging that the vaccines were stopping transmission because they were! When the vaccines first came out, they were actively cautioning people that while they would protect them from contracting Covid, it wasn’t yet known if the vaccines would actually prevent transmission. Then the first big studies came through from vaccinated healthcare workers in early Spring 2021 and it showed that they really were stopping transmission very well, so then that was publicized and part of the messaging. That didn’t start decreasing as a benefit until summer of 2021. They still greatly reduced transmission, but with each variant that has become less and less so to the point that it’s a small effect with the current variant. So it doesn’t make sense when people say “they shouldn’t have said the vaccines did xyz” when it was the case that they really did do xyz when they were saying that. 

[Mrs Tiggywinkle]

14 minutes ago, KSera said:

While I definitely agree the messaging has been (and continues to be) bad in many different ways, I also feel like a broken record trying to reiterate that they initially started messaging that the vaccines were stopping transmission because they were! When the vaccines first came out, they were actively cautioning people that while they would protect them from contracting Covid, it wasn’t yet known if the vaccines would actually prevent transmission. Then the first big studies came through from vaccinated healthcare workers in early Spring 2021 and it showed that they really were stopping transmission very well, so then that was publicized and part of the messaging. That didn’t start decreasing as a benefit until summer of 2021. They still greatly reduced transmission, but with each variant that has become less and less so to the point that it’s a small effect with the current variant. So it doesn’t make sense when people say “they shouldn’t have said the vaccines did xyz” when it was the case that they really did do xyz when they were saying that. 

I agree that they were fantastic at stopping the initial variant—but even in the fall and still now we’ve got a lot of local messaging about “get vaccinated to keep others safe!”  It may be our local public health departments, but it just seems kind of ridiculous.  It would be much better to push vaccinations to keep yourself out of the hospital, but I suspect people consider themselves invincible and were more willing to vaccinate to save Grandma.

I have no idea about other states, but New York at least never backtracked on the “if you’re fully vaccinated, you don’t need to quarantine if you’re exposed to Covid.”  That alone understandably led a lot of people to believe that the vaccines all but reduced infection and transmission.  That’s one message, in particular, that I really think should have changed once it was clear that the virus had changed. In January, my two oldest and I had Covid. My seven year old was still expected to go to school because he was fully vaccinated, despite living in a house with people who had Covid and were not isolating from each other or him.  If we’d kept him home, that would have been unexcused absences.  I thought that was incredibly dumb now that we know more about vaccines and transmission.

Edited May 19, 2022 by Mrs Tiggywinkle

[Jean in Newcastle]

I think that there is a difference between political persuasive messaging and actual scientific messaging. I personally have followed the scientific messaging by reputable scientists not weird alternative “experts” pushing woo, and I haven’t seen huge inconsistencies. I have seen some differing conclusions as the actual scientific data has come in, but this is an actively changing scenario. 
 

Surely we teach our teens especially to evaluate political persuasive messaging. It obviously has an agenda and equally obviously keeps things on the simplistic side for the undiscerning public. I don’t think with the objective of duping people exactly but so that they can change the behavior of the public. But the political persuasive messaging has been fractured by alternative political persuasive messaging which was dangerous in addition to being simplistic. And the public is simple enough to mistake this sort of messaging for something different. And thus there is a mess.
 

I am impressed with NZ which (as far as I can see from afar) had a much more unified political persuasive messaging platform and thus a better public response. They did great until the variants changed enough to allow for widespread infection but that’s not the fault of the government or the vaccines but is just because the rest of the world was allowing the virus to mutate freely and scientists couldn’t keep up. 

[She Travels]

Your friend who died was unvaccinated.

Edited May 19, 2022 by desertflower
Please stay on topic

[dirty ethel rackham]

I agree that the messaging on Covid prevention and vaccination has been a complete cluster F#@%.  I would read the headlines or hear a talking head spout on and I would just cringe.  When they kept on about how high rates of early vaccination would eliminate the disease, yet in the same breath, talk about the lack of vaccines in other countries, I knew that the virus would mutate and come to our shores.  I almost felt guilty about getting boosted because I knew that there were so many people in other countries literally dying to get their first dose.  Since we couldn't close our country like NZ, we were bound to get these mutated variants.  

I also was so frustrated with the "throw the masks away" message.  With asymptomatic spread and with people insisting "this is just a cold or allergies" while coughing in my face, I could not see how we WOULDN'T end up with new surges.  I'm glad that my job REQUIRES me to wear a mask all day.  Despite working with high risk populations, in areas with super high community spread, in hospitals that were overrun with Covid patients, I never got sick at work.  Masking worked.  I finally got it from my husband who got it from a co-worker who got it from an Easter family gathering.  It was likely a shared car ride to a business lunch.  

Even though our local area is moving into a "high" transmission level, our hospital census of covid patients is quite low.  

I am sad and disappointed that we were not able to stay ahead of this very foreseeable outcome of mutations that escape our current vaccines.  That said, I am extremely grateful that the vaccines worked as well as they did.  But, due to people leaving healthcare in droves due to burnout, I fear it will be a long time before working conditions improve for those who stayed.

I, too, am tired of this virus.  I am sad for all the people who have to live a hermit-like existence due to their health status or that of their loved ones.  I am sad for all the young people who dealing with huge impacts on their mental health.  Now that I am done with the marathon of school and clinicals, I am seeing how socially isolated I have become.  I have work where I have very superficial connections with my co-workers due to the busy schedule.  And superficial connections with my patients - I scan that patient for at most an hour with not a lot of room for chit-chat and then I move on to the next patient.  And I have my engineer husband who gets plenty of socialization at work, a mentally ill kid that taxes me to compassion fatigue, and a zoom relationship with my other adult children.  And a once every 2 months zoom call with a couple of people I used to call friends.  

BTW, I don't think the home tests are that good at picking up the dominant variant here in its early stages.  Dh isolated once he tested positive on a Friday.  I took care of him all weekend while doing all the mitigation I could think of (wearing an N95 mask, airing out the house, cleaning surfaces, etc.)  On Monday morning, I took a home rapid test that was negative.  So, I went to work.  By 1 pm, I had a tickle in my throat and was sent home.  I got a PCR test on the way home (ordered per work exposure protocol) and tested positive.  By the time I got home, I felt sick enough to crawl in bed and sleep for 5 hours.  

  

[KSera]

29 minutes ago, Mrs Tiggywinkle said:

I have no idea about other states, but New York at least never backtracked on the “if you’re fully vaccinated, you don’t need to quarantine if you’re exposed to Covid.”  That alone understandably led a lot of people to believe that the vaccines all but reduced infection and transmission.  That’s one message, in particular, that I really think should have changed once it was clear that the virus had changed.

Whole heartedly agree with this. That was always ridiculous, as all the scientists were saying clearly from the beginning. Just like the masks off, the pandemic is over messaging is beyond stupid right now. and the you can go back to school and work after five days thing. Totally unscientific. Honestly, the CDC has been super disappointing through most of this.

[Corraleno]

20 minutes ago, KSera said:

Whole heartedly agree with this. That was always ridiculous, as all the scientists were saying clearly from the beginning. Just like the masks off, the pandemic is over messaging is beyond stupid right now. and the you can go back to school and work after five days thing. Totally unscientific. Honestly, the CDC has been super disappointing through most of this.

Agree that the messaging on masking was a disaster from the beginning. I understand that public health officials must balance what is ideal based on science with what is realistic based on public behavior, but the fact that Walensky allowed Tucker Carlson to goad her into announcing that vaccinated people didn't need to wear masks, instead of saying "Vaccines DO work to reduce spread, but they aren't perfect, especially in the face of new variants, so we recommend that everyone continue to mask regardless of vaccine status" was absolutely pathetic. 

[kokotg]

15 minutes ago, KSera said:

Whole heartedly agree with this. That was always ridiculous, as all the scientists were saying clearly from the beginning. Just like the masks off, the pandemic is over messaging is beyond stupid right now. and the you can go back to school and work after five days thing. Totally unscientific. Honestly, the CDC has been super disappointing through most of this.

It's been maddening nearly from the beginning. CDC advisor Matthew Daley quoted in the NYT as saying we should be careful about pushing another vaccine this fall because it might make people distrust existing vaccines. Umm. So a fun repeat from LAST fall when they kept insisting most people didn't need boosters long after it was clear that boosters would, in fact, be incredibly helpful. 

[Guest]

29 minutes ago, She Travels said:

Your friend who died was unvaccinated. She would have hated that you used her death to get on a soapbox. I didn’t call people like your friend douchebags. You did. Think about that. 

 I did not use her death to get on a soapbox. I did not say anything about vaccines in that post. I said “Please, everybody, do all you can not to get this disease.” *You* are the one who made it about vaccines *on my wall*, where I was commemorating a friend I have know since I was 8 years old. So how about you think about *that*.

[Guest]

And you have numerous ways you could have spoken to me privately. You don’t do that though; you just follow my online presence into sites you don’t communicate on anymore, so you can prattle on about whatever it is you believe *now*. 

Edited May 19, 2022 by Quill
Remove name

[She Travels]

Stick to the topic

Desertflower, Moderator

Edited May 19, 2022 by desertflower
Stick to the topic

[She Travels]

7 minutes ago, Quill said:

And Dianne, you have numerous ways you could have spoken to me privately. You don’t do that though; you just follow my online presence into sites you don’t communicate on anymore, so you can prattle on about whatever it is you believe *now*. 

This is funny. Couldn’t you have spoken to me privately? 

[Guest]

Just now, She Travels said:

This is funny. Couldn’t you have spoken to me privately? 

I could have, but I didn’t. I guess that means I don’t want to talk to you. It’s why I’m not chasing you around online to preach at you. 

[WildflowerMom]

Seriously, you need to take this to PM, she travels.   The immaturity you’re showing is beyond the pale, really embarrassing bx, tbh.  

[Guest]

3 minutes ago, She Travels said:

Do you really mean to suggest you weren’t trying to suggest that you thought her status as unvaccinated was a contributing factor to her death? I can’t say exactly what I posted because I can’t see it. But if memory serves me, I said something about being sorry for her death and then I said something about also dealing with issues pertaining to the boosters. The same week you had two unvaccinated friends die, I had two recently boosted friends die. 🤷🏼‍♀️ I had no idea I couldn’t honestly say that on your page. If my post offended you, I would have removed it, but I didn’t get that chance. We used to could spend hours hashing things out. I guess I didn’t see the point where you changed to only having those in lockstep with your beliefs as friends. 

You actually did get that chance, because I first responded to you saying you offended me tremendously on my own wall. But after a few hours, I realized that you never do have anything nice to say on my wall, you just come on there to disagree wihh to me about *whatever.* 

[WildflowerMom]

Fwiw, quill, we’ve always been on the same path wrt Covid, and I’m agreeing with you.  I begged dh for so long to get vaxxed, I got vaxxed and boostered, it’s all become ‘yada, yada, yada’ in my head now.   I am glad I didn’t get that first wave, but that was luck, because there weren’t vaccines then.  So idk.  I’m irritated at multiple groups, done with the whole thing, and then worried about it at the same time.   It’s like you can’t win for losing when it comes to this crap.  

[KSera]

36 minutes ago, Corraleno said:

Agree that the messaging on masking was a disaster from the beginning. I understand that public health officials must balance what is ideal based on science with what is realistic based on public behavior, but the fact that Walensky allowed Tucker Carlson to goad her into announcing that vaccinated people didn't need to wear masks, instead of saying "Vaccines DO work to reduce spread, but they aren't perfect, especially in the face of new variants, so we recommend that everyone continue to mask regardless of vaccine status" was absolutely pathetic. 

I don’t know why Walensky has been kept on for so long. I understand not wanting to have a revolving door of people in various positions, but this hasn’t been that and she’s really messed it up and put her foot in her mouth so many times such that I think it’s really done a grave disservice, even to those who are really trying hard to do the right things. I hate to have to say that, I’m sure it’s not her intention, but I really do think it’s true.