This is the beginning of the new tide, everyone is getting the “Rona” as our booster vaccines have worn off and no longer protecting us. Get another booster now if you can.

This is not unexpected. Between the past government acting slowly and not standing up for science, the current government caving to political pressure to move-on, Covid-19 denialism, antivaxxing paranoia and disinformation, and global inequities in vaccination and health infrastructure... Vaccination, boosting, and appropriate masking and distancing will remain critical for the foreseeable future.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/01/2023 04:42AM by Rousseau.

How believable is this new member?

His first post was misinformation about Marketforce.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/01/2023 04:27AM by wrosie.

@wrosie wrote:

How believable is this new member?

His first post was misinformation about Marketforce.

Covid-19 is spiking across the country.
[www.latimes.com]
[www.npr.org]
[www.vox.com]
[fortune.com]

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/01/2023 04:41AM by Rousseau.

Covid is and has been everywhere. Nothing new.

Where is ground zero for this new strain?

I’m going back into the classroom to teach science in 3 weeks. Getting my Novovax booster on Friday so I have sufficient time to build immunity. I frequently read the scientific literature (Nature, Science, Cell) and truly want to avoid Long Covid at all costs.

Edited to add:

My stepbrother died in 1991 of HIV/AIDS. He most likely contracted HIV in 1985-86, when he worked at a dance club in CA. It first presented as a mild flu-like illness, then went dormant for six years in his body, re-emerging to destroy his immune system and cause his death. From what I have read, SARS-2 has the capability to behave in the same manner, evading the immune system in small reservoirs in the cerebrospinal fluid system and other areas. Like HIV, SARS-2 is a single stranded RNA virus capable of rapidly mutating.

TL;DR - I ain’t messing around with Covid.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/01/2023 12:18PM by ColoKate63.

The KBB strain has already hit Ca. Now there’s news articles about NYC spiking now. The new vaccine that addresses the KBB variant won’t be released until Sept. Where is your location? This is news about Texas:
[www.ketk.com]

Good reminder to take sensible precautions.

@prince wrote:

Good reminder to take sensible precautions.

The same precautions to take for all germs and viruses. Wash your hands, don't touch your face, keep hydrated, eat healthy, get plenty of sleep and rest.

And don't hug everyone/shake hands. Stay home when you're sick.

I avoid crowds and still work to keep my distance.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/04/2023 03:00PM by prince.

I’m going to be in enclosed spaces with 300 students daily (130 in my classroom + cafeteria duty.) With an 83 yo dad living in my home and a husband who is currently recovering from cancer treatments, I’ll probably be masking with a N95 this year. Again. Ugh.

I'm a substitute teacher so I'm around a big number of students too. I haven't been wearing a mask but I'm willing to.

Most of us got the last booster shot about a year ago. They only last for about 8 months and do not protect against the new variants.

@prince wrote:

I'm a substitute teacher so I'm around a big number of students too. I haven't been wearing a mask but I'm willing to.

Do you use Airbourne? I do every day for immune support.

Airborne is just Vit C.

O-M-G. Didn't we already harm enough of the population with the shenanigans? Ruined economies worldwide. Can we stop with the COVID mask theater, the mandates, the control, the manipulation of science? Think rationally!

The late astronomer Carl Sagan (who is one of the supporters of man-made climate change and I disagree with), who perhaps understood the unique threat of technocracy as well as anyone ever has, has emerged from the grave with a prescient warning on the dangers we are wading into unchecked.

“We’ve arranged a society based on science and technology in which nobody understands anything about science and technology,” Sagan says. “And this combustible mixture of ignorance and power, sooner or later, is going to blow up in our faces.”

“I mean, who is running the science and technology in a democracy if the people don’t know anything about it?” he asks rhetorically.

“Science is more than a body of knowledge. It’s a way of thinking, a way of skeptically interrogating the universe with a fine understanding of human fallibility,” he adds.

Amen.

Or how about this...
“The work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus. There is no such thing as consensus science. If it’s consensus, it isn’t science. If it’s science, it isn’t consensus. Period.”

~ Michael Crichton

Do you think that Pfizer created Covid so they could sell their vaccine?

Maverick1,

What’s the highest level of scientific education you possess? You don’t sound very informed about the effects of the SARS-2 virus, which include blood clotting disorders, adverse neurological function, and Long Covid for 1/10 of virus carriers.

I have a Master’s in Biochemistry and a very healthy respect for novel RNA viruses. Yes, adverse economic effects occurred. That tends to happen in a pandemic.

Many mystery shoppers are 65+, the age where Covid-19 hit the hardest. They have every right to be concerned about this virus.

Also: Michael Crichton was a bit of a crank who got a lot of things wrong in his pop fiction. Not a serious scientist by any means.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/05/2023 03:05AM by ColoKate63.

@maverick1: Keep on questioning. In the popular culture, we need look no farther than Gene Roddenberry and Star Trek to get a taste of the possible. How much of techie world is similar to the fantastical world of the 1960's Star Trek show? So what if we need to reach a bit, or a lot, to create new boxes to think outside of and eventually achieve a closure to the Covid issue? I concur that the draconian measures taken with the first wave of Covid infections did much harm to the world at large and feel compelled to mention the notion of first doing no harm. Who thought that it was okay to damage lives and livelihoods while attempting to save some lives? Was some other approach possible? Is some other approach possible now?

prince is on the right track: we can choose to practice sensible measures and have a good chance of living our lives and preventing illness. This we do by ourselves, for ourselves, and for others. No government needs to force us to make practical choices.

@Tonytj wrote:

Do you think that Pfizer created Covid so they could sell their vaccine?

No. But I can see how some people might think some things about Pfizer. Cynically, let's follow the money trail. Historically, there was recent storm damage to Pfizer facilities which affected products which as far as I know are unrelated to Covid vaccines and to the recent spike in Covid. Your question made me laugh and also prompts me to re-read the information regarding which Pfizer products were affected by the storm damage.

Also, Michael Crichton is spot on about reproducible results.


If anyone knows: are any vaccines in development that will be long-lasting (years) and address multiple variants of Covid?

@Shop-et-al wrote:

If anyone knows: are any vaccines in development that will be long-lasting (years) and address multiple variants of Covid?

Yes, that is what we have now, but not for long. The bivalent booster targets Omicron subvariants BA.4 and BA.5 and the original SARS-CoV-2 virus.

Unfortunately, the soon to be released booster is reported to only target Omnicron XBB.1.5. Not sure why they aren't bundling XBB.1.16 and XBB.2.3 with it along with the the earlier main variants.

I would hope that the existing bivalent vaccine will remain available alongside the new vaccines. Too many people are foolishly not current with their vaccinations and shouldn't end up only vaccinated against XBB1.5 while others will likely want to receive an additional dose of the bivalent either along side the XBB vaccine or just prior to it.

@ColoKate63,

I agree w/ Dr. Paul Offit (https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwjIj-GeqMWAAxVDg4kEHb6PDOUQFnoECA4QAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FPaul_Offit&usg=AOvVaw0T5Bgwg5Vn6CnxtyqWwe8e&opi=89978449) who I'm sure you'll agree has a "scientific education" and questioned much of the authoritarian policy invoked by leaders with agendas. [I don't agree with his Hospital's stance on allowing doctors to sexually mutilate children in the name of gender reassignment...but that's another subject which I believe came forefront after the pandemic induced mental health crisis from lock-downs.]

While I rec'd the 1st and 2nd COVID shots, followed guidelines, didn't go anywhere in public w/o a mask, I still tested positive using an at home test earlier this year (I'm quite certain I got it from my spouse who got it from a friend who didn't refrain enough from public interaction). I'm not planning on receiving a follow-up shot anytime soon and this agrees with Dr. Offit's commentary on the subject. Everyone should be permitted to make their own assessment based upon the facts. I may change my view based upon further factual information.

Now, maybe we should talk about the facts. The fact is, many leaders lied. (Some leaders pushed elderly from hospitals back into nursing homes and increased the spread.) The fact is, the main stream media is biased. The fact is, many so called, "experts" are blindsided by conflicts of interest with research monies coming from countries/governments/healthcare firms.

"...it may be time to consider whether the bivalent booster is necessary, or if continuing to boost with the original vaccine would be sufficient. “I think the [U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] needs to answer that question,” says Offit. And to do that, Offit is calling on the CDC to provide more detailed data on who is being hospitalized for COVID-19 (not just people who are hospitalized and incidentally test positive for the infection), their age, whether they have immune-compromising conditions, whether they have other health issues, and their vaccination and booster status. “Give us those data, and we can then figure out who really needs to be boosted,” says Offit. “Initially, everybody benefited from getting vaccinated and boosted. But we need to learn who benefits now.”

Meanwhile, let's keep some perspective...
[www.calculatedriskblog.com]

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 08/05/2023 11:28AM by maverick1.

Thank you. Would more people get the vax if they were assured that vaccination need not be forever? What if the brainy souls in the world could reach a one and done Covid vaccine, or at least a limited number of iterations? For example, polio vaccination involves four doses at intervals for children and three for adults who have not been vaccinated for polio. Just a thought.

@Rousseau wrote:

@Shop-et-al wrote:

If anyone knows: are any vaccines in development that will be long-lasting (years) and address multiple variants of Covid?

Yes, that is what we have now, but not for long. The bivalent booster targets Omicron subvariants BA.4 and BA.5 and the original SARS-CoV-2 virus.

Unfortunately, the soon to be released booster is reported to only target Omnicron XBB.1.5. Not sure why they aren't bundling XBB.1.16 and XBB.2.3 with it along with the the earlier main variants.

I would hope that the existing bivalent vaccine will remain available alongside the new vaccines. Too many people are foolishly not current with their vaccinations and shouldn't end up only vaccinated against XBB1.5 while others will likely want to receive an additional dose of the bivalent either along side the XBB vaccine or just prior to it.

@Shop-et-al wrote:

Thank you. Would more people get the vax if they were assured that vaccination need not be forever? What if the brainy souls in the world could reach a one and done Covid vaccine, or at least a limited number of iterations? For example, polio vaccination involves four doses at intervals for children and three for adults who have not been vaccinated for polio. Just a thought.

@Rousseau wrote:

@Shop-et-al wrote:

If anyone knows: are any vaccines in development that will be long-lasting (years) and address multiple variants of Covid?

Yes, that is what we have now, but not for long. The bivalent booster targets Omicron subvariants BA.4 and BA.5 and the original SARS-CoV-2 virus.

Unfortunately, the soon to be released booster is reported to only target Omnicron XBB.1.5. Not sure why they aren't bundling XBB.1.16 and XBB.2.3 with it along with the the earlier main variants.

I would hope that the existing bivalent vaccine will remain available alongside the new vaccines. Too many people are foolishly not current with their vaccinations and shouldn't end up only vaccinated against XBB1.5 while others will likely want to receive an additional dose of the bivalent either along side the XBB vaccine or just prior to it.

SARS-2 mutates rapidly, too rapidly for production (as it stands now with current cutting-edge technology) to keep up. Polio doesn’t mutate like that. HIV (the virus that causes AIDS) mutates very similarly- and after 40 years we still don’t have a HIV vaccine. Something to consider.

I’ve been vaccinated x5. Tested weekly with home tests, PCR tests when I felt sick. Have not contracted Covid as far as I know, because I masked properly with a fitted N95 and had a powerful HEPA filter going in my classroom. Waiting for the new vaccine in Sep-October and will jump on it, together with the flu vaccine.

My advice: if you qualify, get the Novavax vaccine. I’m unqualified (too young) for it now, but damn I wish I could. It’s better than the mRNA vaccines because it targets an area of the SARS-2 virus capsid that isn’t heavily mutated. Novavax availability varies by state, so look online for your particular state’s health department and see what they’re allowing.

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 08/05/2023 01:47PM by ColoKate63.

@ColoKate63 wrote:

SARS-2 mutates rapidly, too rapidly for production (as it stands now with current technology) to keep up. Polio doesn’t mutate like that. HIV (the virus that causes AIDS) mutates very similarly- and after 40 years we still don’t have a HIV vaccine. Something to consider.

I’ve been vaccinated x5. Tested weekly with home tests, PCR tests when I felt sick. Have not contracted Covid as far as I know, because I masked properly with a fitted N95 and had a powerful HEPA filter going in my classroom. Waiting for the new vaccine in Sep-October and will jump on it.

My advice: if you qualify, get the Novavax vaccine. I’m unqualified (too young) for it now, but damn I wish I could. It’s better than the mRNA vaccines.

The rate of mutation is in part, but not entirely, a result of a wide reservoir of virus which has a sadly large number of unvaccinated hosts allowing it to grow without hindrance. Those who are vaccinated fight off the infection quicker giving the virus less time to mutate. Like other viruses, it has a rather short life time when not in a host.

I wouldn't say that the new Novovax vaccine is better, but rather is differently better. It might be best to be protected with both mRNA vaccines onboard as well the Novovax vaccine. Of course, our knowledge is growing. One positive thing which the SARS-Covid-2 pandemic has yielded is rapid advances in vaccine development against other viruses.

@Rousseau wrote:

The rate of mutation is in part, but not entirely, a result of a wide reservoir of virus which has a sadly large number of unvaccinated hosts allowing it to grow without hindrance. Those who are vaccinated fight off the infection quicker giving the virus less time to mutate. Like other viruses, it has a rather short life time when not in a host.

I wouldn't say that the new Novovax vaccine is better, but rather is differently better. It might be best to be protected with both mRNA vaccines onboard as well the Novovax vaccine. Of course, our knowledge is growing. One positive thing which the SARS-Covid-2 pandemic has yielded is rapid advances in vaccine development against other viruses.

Novavax has a 100% efficacy against severe Covid, and 95% against symptomatic cases. It’s the best by far.

Citation 1:

[www.nejm.org]

Citation 2:

[www.yalemedicine.org]

As far as mutations in the viral capsid, there’s a lot of technical stuff that I’m not going to get into, like a comparison of proofreading enzymes, the effect on KI and Kd on active site substitutions, and other biochemistry. Suffice it to say that SARS-2 is a mutational prodigy and, when combined with its high transmissibility (R0) it’s not anything I want to play with or take lightly.

@tstewart3 wrote:

@prince wrote:

Good reminder to take sensible precautions.

The same precautions to take for all germs and viruses. Wash your hands, don't touch your face, keep hydrated, eat healthy, get plenty of sleep and rest.

Those are some of the precautions. Others including being up-to-date on vaccination, distancing, masking, staying home when ill, staying aware of hotspots and avoiding them, rejecting disinformation, and more.

It looks like all the anti-vaxxers have come out of the woodwork. Maybe you should vote for Dr. Shiva (Mr. Fran Drescher) for president. He exposes how our food supply is tainted and how Republicans & Democrats are actually working together to control the uneducated masses.

Here’s his link
[www.youtube.com]



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/06/2023 04:59PM by Tonytj.

So is Novavax creating an updated vac specifically for the KBB family variant? Pfizer just got theirs approved 3 days ago and will be on the shelves in late September.

While my family is way affectionate, I have tried my best to avoid shaking anyone's hand, hugging or kissing them since I was a young adult. It's so not avoidable in so many situations. People just extend and you have no choice. Now, my body language is to step back when I concentrate.

@prince wrote:

And don't hug everyone/shake hands. Stay home when you're sick.

I avoid crowds and still work to keep my distance.