COVID-19: Chapter 10 - Mission Achomlished!

I learned the other day that Emily Oster argued against using antivirals to fight hiv in africa, arguing they needed to give out antibiotics to treat bacterial stds instead as a more “efficient” option (that fucks over every infected person)

This seems like the clearest “Why not both?” ever.

She must have done her dissertation on the wonders of chinas 1 child policy and the periodic need for war as a break on population growth.

1 Like

So I’m lazy, but my step sister’s husband wants to get his 4 yr old daughter vaxxed and my step sister only got vaxxed to avoid getting fired even though her mother died from covid while being unvaxxed. Anyway I mentioned how all the aneurysm deaths were almost assuredly from covid and not the vaccine and other pro vax stuff and he asked me for articles and other info he could share with her to try and convince her. Does anyone have links to articles and or articles summariing medical journals I can give him to share with her in order to hopefully convince an MBA person to get their daughter vaxxed?

This one is about safety and efficacy of the Moderna in kids under 5. Efficacy is not great compared to adults, but certainly better than no vax.

Safety stuff:

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2209367

1 Like

Welp, MrsWookie took my older girl into the ER last night on the advice of the pediatrician’s office that her fever and pains and general agitation were bad enough that there was a decent enough chance of meningitis. Thankfully, it’s not that, and it’s not covid, and while a full battery of tests wasn’t done (not like one would really change anything), it was ruled to be probably RSV. That shit sucks, yo, and it’s hit my girls harder than covid did. RSV seems to be pretty rampant now, and it’s a decent reason to mask up in public places.

23 Likes

Hope she feels better. Given what we know now about respiratory illnesses the default should be masking within indoor spaces permanently as a default unless good reason not to.

I hope your girl gets better soon and is able to stay home until the virus goes away. RSV is completely decimating capacity at Children’s hospitals right now, and from the latest data I’ve seen, the spread is not slowing down yet.

Even worse, the influenza rate is starting to tick up. The flu locally is showing an uptick in cases similar to RSV about 5 weeks ago. If flu cases keep increasing and RSV transmission doesn’t slow down then we’re in for some really tough times.

And that doesn’t even take into account COVID. No signs of an uptick in cases there, but let’s keep our collective fingers crossed for avoiding a Holiday surge this year.

2 Likes

Latest estimates Ive seen are that we are counting about 4-5% of COVID cases. Id check wastewater data, if available locally, over case numbers. MA just had a decent surge but are on the other side of it for now (with the caveat that our waste water troughs are pretty close to the pre-Omicron peaks, not sure how direct the link to cases are).

Anecdotally, most kids around here right now have/getting over SOME form of respiratory illness. Kids classes have been decimated with absences and both of my kids have lingering coughs from a (probable?) non COVID illness.

Feels like another tough tough winter coming for healthcare providers and I suspect the effect of four straight is cumulative at this point in terms of attrition and degradation of care capabilities.

It already blows right now.

Yep, and dont really see it getting much better. Guess the hope is this is the worst of the RSV wave now, that’s not impossible, but seems like just another high stress winter of triage ahead. I know in Canada theres a shortage of basic medicines now (amoxicilin and fever reducers) not sure if thats here yet or not.

Might be just the new normal going forward I guess, very depressing.

I assume flu vaccine uptake was correlated with booster uptake and with fewer adults getting boosters we’re simultaneously seeing fewer adults getting flu shots

1 Like

Yup the RSV was nasty this year. Took us about a full week for recovery

Got my bivalent booster and my flu shot today, I’m about 2.5 hours in and so far just a tiny bit of arm soreness. So far I’m at 116 oz of fluids and counting.

Can’t believe I beat CW to a booster.

SIL and granddaughter (19 months) pozzed. Little one had a cough last week and is likely the household vector. Daughter neg so far.

I got my last shot in mid-May and wanted to time this one for max protection for the holiday season, so it was planned out.

So what’s the latest on vaccine associated myocarditis being a bit more common in young men than COVID-associated myocarditis? Real or not real? Here’s one study I haven’t read yet.

https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/full/10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.122.059970?rfr_dat=cr_pub++0pubmed&url_ver=Z39.88-2003&rfr_id=ori%3Arid%3Acrossref.org

I’ve seen at least one other study mentioned. May get around to reading them at some point.

1 Like

Now compare sequential boosters to sequential covid infections, because the people living normal unboosted lives are going to catch COVID repeatedly.