WTF, you think there are almost 800k deaths being missed somehow? That’s ridiculous. US excess mortality is pretty much in line with reported COVID deaths:
Also, the US share of population over 65 is 3x that of South Africa, which means we’d expect close to 3x as many COVID deaths per infection, ceteris parabus, as them.
This thread was interesting. Anybody with background knowledge want to weigh in?
https://twitter.com/CT_Bergstrom/status/1467611446053851145?t=ddsQ-vWgZe4XKf5nApHVYw&s=19
It’s like it’s giving the virus cancer.
Yeah - although we saw from the Conn College outbreak that a situation with fully-vaxxed people in an enclosed space yelling at each other can equal a super-spreader event even with Delta. One of the things we’ve all learnt this pandemic is that initial viral dose can make a big difference in severity of illness. This is just speculation, but I would presume that viral dose is a big factor in whether you get breakthrough infections or not as well, and that the reason would be the same - it’s a blitzkrieg where the virus is already well-established before the immune system can mount a response.
Yeah this story is making me feel a lot better about my decision to not go to my company Christmas party on the 18th since I know there are a few unvaxxed people and we’ve had 3 people test positive at work in the last couple of months.
More like making it into Super-AIDS, as in even more mutation-prone than HIV. My first impression of the drug was that it would terminate replication, not that it would induce a bunch of mutations. Inducing a LOT of mutations is ~always lethal, but the fewer you make, the higher your chances of arriving at something with a bunch of beneficial mutations that escape everything. Part of our success with this virus so far is due to its low rate of mutation naturally. Increasing that can be doing it a favor.
I thought about that. I guess the theory is that the drug wipes out most of the viruses and the few ones that have some beneficial drug-resistant mutation get swept up by your immune system.
Well, or that the next round of the drug wipes out the beneficial mutations via further mutagenesis. The greatest risk would be in people who don’t finish the course of the drugs (or if the current course isn’t quite sufficient).
Looks like everybody flying to America, regardless of vaccination status or citizenship, has to get a negative PCR test within 24 hours of flying. Now another fee has been added to my holiday plans.
Another problem is that there’s a 6 hour gap between my departure from Prague and my departing flight from Munich to America. And Lufthansa checks the vaccine and PCR test for the first leg of the flight. This means that if I get a PCR test at 7 AM, it’ll be good for flying from Prague to Munich but become invalid while I’m waiting for my flight to America which is at 1 PM. This means either I get the test where I get the results within 24 hours and hope it arrives way earlier than that or I pay four times the amount for the ultra-expedited test to see my family.
Fuck.
I’d by lying if I said it didn’t cross my mind.
Fwiw when I flew Barcelona → Frankfurt → USA in August I was told that a test prior to departure was good enough (though the requirement was 3 days back then). We ended up getting ours done in the airport literally minutes before the flight and I think it was ~$40/person. I imagine these airports labs churn out a tonnnn of quick tests and are pretty reliable. See if you can book an appt at the airport before you check in.
If you’re getting your test somewhere else, make sure it’s a lab and not a pharmacy. Lufthansa wouldn’t take our pharmacy test results (which is how we ended up getting tested at the airport minutes before departure…)
Traveling in a fried-out Kombi
On a hippie trail, head full of zombie
It’s one day before. Not a strict 24 hours.
Flight is Thursday night, you test can be Wednesday morning.
Rapid test here in Frankfurt. Getting it at 8:00 before 11:30 flight this Thursday. Colleagues say they get the result pretty quick.
Pharmacies don’t give tests here.
Apparently, the restriction is the day before not 24 hours before. Problem is that my departure time is at 6:50 AM. Even if I got the earliest 24 hour test the day before, it’d be at 7 AM. So there’s no guarantee that I’d get my results on time.
Expedited tests at the airport are super expensive in Prague. Talking close to $300. Could get the same test for about half the price outside of the airport. No idea how you got a rapid test for such a cheap price at an airport. Consider me a bit envious.
Of course I could get covid for real and the whole holiday would be fucked for me 
. Being extra cautious for the next 2 weeks or so.
I don’t think you need a PCR test, and it looks like rapid antigen tests are available at your airport for 32 euro.
This is what the CDC has
Not sure what some of those initialisms are. Are they types of antigen tests that are acceptable?
