Welcome news

[Vort]

https://www.deseret.com/faith/2022/2/18/22940239/local-latter-day-saint-leaders-to-make-decisions-on-masks-in-church-first-presidency-says-mormon-lds

[Vort]

Worldwide, more than 5.84 million people have died because of COVID-19, reports the World Health Organization.

If this figure is true, assuming a world population of about 8 billion and also assuming that, at this point, everyone has been exposed, the death rate for this horrific pandemic is 0.00073, or 0.073%.

[Grunt]

We have families in the ward who will wear masks regardless, those who don't wear masks regardless, and those who only wear masks because it was asked.   It's interesting to watch on Sundays.  Nobody really seems to be put off by either group.   I know we have some who refuse to wear masks and don't come to Church.   I don't particularly understand that group because lots of people don't wear masks in Church.   We also have people that won't come to Church until the pandemic is over.

It will be interesting to see how this affects my ward.   My guess is not much at all, just as the request to wear masks didn't affect it much.

[Traveler]

5 hours ago, Vort said:

Worldwide, more than 5.84 million people have died because of COVID-19, reports the World Health Organization.

If this figure is true, assuming a world population of about 8 billion and also assuming that, at this point, everyone has been exposed, the death rate for this horrific pandemic is 0.00073, or 0.073%.

I am not sure if this is accurate reporting stats, a possible interpretation or misinformation.   My brother heard a debate between two doctors concerning a patient that had just died.  One doctors claimed the patient would not have died from a heart attack if he did not have COVID so we cannot say with clarity that he died of a heart attack.  The other argued that he would not have died of COVID if he did not have severer heart problems leading to a heart attack; so we cannot say with clarity that he died of COVID.

My personal research into COVID indicates that COVID kills through cytokine storm.  In short a cytokine storm is a failure of the immune system through over reaction.  In all the deaths interpreted to be from COVID I have never heard that the cause was a cytokine storm.  Not being an expert, I am left to wonder if COVID by itself is the only cause or if COVID was one of bricks in the wall that was the complete cause of death.

Because I am skeptical of research funded for the most part by government funding - I tend to speculate that throughout this pandemic that the information coming from government funded resources are more propaganda than pure science.

 

The Traveler

[NeuroTypical]

15 hours ago, Vort said:

assuming that, at this point, everyone has been exposed, 

What’s the difference between exposed and infected? Because the CDC estimates less than half of the US has been infected.

Another complicating factor:  Although both vaccines and infection give you immunity, that immunity seems to drop off after around 4-6 months.  This, along with the regular flow of new mutations, are two big reasons we keep having wave after wave.

I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m thrilled to watch the church (and the rest of the humans) slowly climb out of “drop everything and focus solely on c19” mode.  We’ve got a lot of complex and horrible problems that have been metastasizing during our various lockdowns and social distancings.  My point is just that COVID will remain one of the risks we humans face and deal with, for a long time.

Edited February 19, 2022 by NeuroTypical

[JohnsonJones]

On 2/18/2022 at 8:49 PM, Traveler said:

I am not sure if this is accurate reporting stats, a possible interpretation or misinformation.   My brother heard a debate between two doctors concerning a patient that had just died.  One doctors claimed the patient would not have died from a heart attack if he did not have COVID so we cannot say with clarity that he died of a heart attack.  The other argued that he would not have died of COVID if he did not have severer heart problems leading to a heart attack; so we cannot say with clarity that he died of COVID.

My personal research into COVID indicates that COVID kills through cytokine storm.  In short a cytokine storm is a failure of the immune system through over reaction.  In all the deaths interpreted to be from COVID I have never heard that the cause was a cytokine storm.  Not being an expert, I am left to wonder if COVID by itself is the only cause or if COVID was one of bricks in the wall that was the complete cause of death.

Because I am skeptical of research funded for the most part by government funding - I tend to speculate that throughout this pandemic that the information coming from government funded resources are more propaganda than pure science.

 

The Traveler

 

They have new research out recently that indicates that Cells damaged by Covid-19 (Specifically Red Blood Cells I believe) are then damaging the blood vessels they pass through.  This in turn causes the injured veins to act as being injured and it is this which causes the various difficulties regarding inflamation.  The injured veins are one of reasons that lead to the increased cardiac problems.

WebMD evidence shows that covid-19 attacks blood vessels

science.org blood vessel attack could trigger coronavirus fatal second phase

NIH possible connection between Covid-19 and inflamation and brain problems

With this thought in mind, one of the things they are examining are ways that they might be able to treat this interaction.  If they can find ways to treat the virus and keep it from damaging the blood vessels, or repair the damage, it may be that their treatment could create a new way to treat the virus.

 

On 2/18/2022 at 3:40 PM, Grunt said:

We have families in the ward who will wear masks regardless, those who don't wear masks regardless, and those who only wear masks because it was asked.   It's interesting to watch on Sundays.  Nobody really seems to be put off by either group.   I know we have some who refuse to wear masks and don't come to Church.   I don't particularly understand that group because lots of people don't wear masks in Church.   We also have people that won't come to Church until the pandemic is over.

It will be interesting to see how this affects my ward.   My guess is not much at all, just as the request to wear masks didn't affect it much.

It was an odd situation where I was at.  Half of them (or it seemed that way) proclaimed things against the Church leadership, and then went up and bore their testimonies shortly thereafter.  We've had around 1/5 of the Covid fatalities in the past month, and probably 1/3 in the past 6.  When I was reflecting upon this, I realized if this was reflected througout the rest of the church, it would seem the prophet was...prophetic.  I wonder how many of the deaths could have been avoided if they had only listened to the prophet and adhered to his words better.

Nevertheless, hopefully this means that we will soon be out of this thing and life will return to a better normality (or so I would hope).  It seems that though they will allow people to do whatever at the church meetings, they still want to enforce it at the temples though.  The same older individuals probably are going to Church meetings weekly who also attend the temple, so that's an interesting situation.  I hope that eventually temples will move to a later phase as well.  I will be happy when things return to a later phase with the temples so I do not have to worry about making reservations online anymore and can instead just go and attend when time indicates I am able, even on short notice.

[Grunt]

6 minutes ago, JohnsonJones said:

  I will be happy when things return to a later phase with the temples so I do not have to worry about making reservations online anymore and can instead just go and attend when time indicates I am able, even on short notice.

That's my biggest issue.  I work close to the Temple and depending on how my day is going can slide out to the Temple.   The registration has stopped this.

[Traveler]

54 minutes ago, JohnsonJones said:

 

They have new research out recently that indicates that Cells damaged by Covid-19 (Specifically Red Blood Cells I believe) are then damaging the blood vessels they pass through.  This in turn causes the injured veins to act as being injured and it is this which causes the various difficulties regarding inflamation.  The injured veins are one of reasons that lead to the increased cardiac problems.

WebMD evidence shows that covid-19 attacks blood vessels

science.org blood vessel attack could trigger coronavirus fatal second phase

NIH possible connection between Covid-19 and inflamation and brain problems

With this thought in mind, one of the things they are examining are ways that they might be able to treat this interaction.  If they can find ways to treat the virus and keep it from damaging the blood vessels, or repair the damage, it may be that their treatment could create a new way to treat the virus.

 

Thank you for your input.  However, the articles that you have included trouble me somewhat.  All three articles were written in early 2020 (not really that new) that was about a year before there were any access to the vaccines.   The reason that I am trouble by the articles presented is that they all in essence indicate that treatments would be better than the vaccine.  Especially concerning blood clotting from the damage of vessels.  Note that cytokine are the message cells and that COVID vaccine gives the immune system a jump start to produce cytokine cells.  Since COVID kills by cytokine storm those most at risk, especially for blood clotting should not receive the vaccine. This would also explain why individual that have previously or currently have COVID should not be vaccinated.  

What these articles really tells me is that either these articles are inaccurate or that Dr. Fauci, the CDC and NIH have been feeding us inaccurate information over the last two years concerning the need to use the vaccine as the singular primary means to fight COVID through out the entire population.  In other words, not everybody should be vaccinated.  A vaccine mandate (treatment without exception) would be a death sentence for some.

 

The Traveler

Edited February 21, 2022 by Traveler

[MarginOfError]

On 2/18/2022 at 5:01 PM, Vort said:

Worldwide, more than 5.84 million people have died because of COVID-19, reports the World Health Organization.

If this figure is true, assuming a world population of about 8 billion and also assuming that, at this point, everyone has been exposed, the death rate for this horrific pandemic is 0.00073, or 0.073%.

I understand the allure of citing these small numbers when we're fatigued with the restrictions we've faced in the past couple of years, but I think these numbers need some context. Approximately annualized, this represents a total population mortality rate of 0.0365% of the world's population each year.

The WHO reports that the typical number of deaths caused by the flu each year is between 290,000 and 650,000, or somewhere between 0.003625% and 0.008125%.  

This suggests that the annual total population mortality of COVID-19 has been between 4.5 and 10 times higher than than of our typical influenza seasons, even with rather extreme measures taken around the world to limit its spread. 

In the U.S., we lost about 2.8 people per 1000 of our population. Flu deaths in 2018 were about 0.08 per 1000 of our population. Annualized, our population mortality rate was 16 times higher than it has been for flu. 

And that's just the deaths.  There's still plenty of complications and suffering going on.  For my own part, I had a mild case of COVID around the week of January 17th consisting of a headache and some congestion. I'm an active, healthy adult that can comfortably walk 20 miles in about 8 hours on rugged terrain.  Since my mild COVID bout, I've struggled to get a full breath of air when walking up a hill. 

This has been, without question, the worst communicable disease outbreak we've seen in decades.  And as small as the numbers seem, it could have been a lot worse.

[Just_A_Guy]

2 hours ago, MarginOfError said:

I understand the allure of citing these small numbers when we're fatigued with the restrictions we've faced in the past couple of years, but I think these numbers need some context. Approximately annualized, this represents a total population mortality rate of 0.0365% of the world's population each year.

The WHO reports that the typical number of deaths caused by the flu each year is between 290,000 and 650,000, or somewhere between 0.003625% and 0.008125%.  

This suggests that the annual total population mortality of COVID-19 has been between 4.5 and 10 times higher than than of our typical influenza seasons, even with rather extreme measures taken around the world to limit its spread. 

In the U.S., we lost about 2.8 people per 1000 of our population. Flu deaths in 2018 were about 0.08 per 1000 of our population. Annualized, our population mortality rate was 16 times higher than it has been for flu. 

And that's just the deaths.  There's still plenty of complications and suffering going on.  For my own part, I had a mild case of COVID around the week of January 17th consisting of a headache and some congestion. I'm an active, healthy adult that can comfortably walk 20 miles in about 8 hours on rugged terrain.  Since my mild COVID bout, I've struggled to get a full breath of air when walking up a hill. 

This has been, without question, the worst communicable disease outbreak we've seen in decades.  And as small as the numbers seem, it could have been a lot worse.

MoE, if you’re willing to share your thoughts as a medical statistician (am I remembering that right?) on the efficacy of both masks and the mRNA vaccine (both efficacy and risk factors), I’d really love to read them.  I see so many studies suggesting so many different things, that it’s frankly hard for me to make heads or tails of it all.

Edited February 22, 2022 by Just_A_Guy

[mirkwood]

4 hours ago, MarginOfError said:

 Since my mild COVID bout, I've struggled to get a full breath of air when walking up a hill. 

It took me about 5-6 weeks for the gym to feel normal again.  Keep at it!

[MarginOfError]

1 hour ago, Just_A_Guy said:

MoE, if you’re willing to share your thoughts as a medical statistician (am I remembering that right?) on the efficacy of both masks and the mRNA vaccine (both efficacy and risk factors), I’d really love to read them.  I see so many studies suggesting so many different things, that it’s frankly hard for me to make heads or tails of it all.

I'm not working in medicine at the moment, but the first decade of my career was in medicine.  

Regarding the efficacy of masks: it gets murky.  The studies I would consider reliable and that had reproducible methodologies indicate a reduction of transmission between 35% and 65%. So, on average, masks may reduce transmission by about 50%. For a disease as communicable as COVID-19, that's significant. On the other hand, that's a huge variation and I don't think it really accounts for the effect of proper hand hygiene. I couldn't cite any studies, but I would suspect a large portion of any masking effect could be decimated by improper hand hygiene. 

In addition to that, masks are really only effective when combined with distancing.  If you wear a mask and then go sit shoulder to shoulder with people for long periods of time, you won't see much benefit (in this discussion, I refer primarily to cloth masks. N95's and the like will do better because they form a better seal). 

My favorite anti-mask video that I've seen was from a doctor who took a breath from a vape pen, donned his mask, then exhaled.  He went on a big rant about how his cloth mask did nothing to contain the cloud of vapor hanging around his head.  The entire cloud was contained, literally, within six inches of his head.  Which was exactly the point of the mask -- to prevent large droplets from traveling very past that six foot threshold.

Unfortunately, for whatever reason, masks became the emphasis, when the messaging should have emphasized hand hygiene, distancing, and masking as a broad strategy.  You need all three to effectively reduce transmission.  I think the messaging was poor on that front*.

 

For the mRNA vaccine, this is utterly fascinating. It, unfortunately, doesn't seem to prevent infection as well as we had hoped, but it does seem to do a fairly good job of preventing serious illness. Whether or not it can slow transmission is an open question. 

The first major point I tell people are that it isn't as new as COVID-19.  It's been researched and under development since the SARS outbreak in 2002. 18 years for its development is quick, but not abnormal in the development of drugs and treatments. So it's behavior in the typical laboratory studies that would precede any new vaccine is pretty well understood.

The other major point I share is that, even though it seems like this happened quickly compared to other drugs and vaccines, the process was exactly the same. The difference is that we had a study population of millions of people. Most vaccines that we develop these days are developed for relatively rare diseases. This means the trials require vaccinating, and then following for a very long time to see if they acquire the disease. With COVID-19, the disease was so prevalent you didn't have to wait as long to get reliable picture from the data. Plus, you had an enormous population willing to volunteer for the study (recruitment is a big challenge in drug trials). None of the safety protocols were skipped, none of the normal procedures were skipped (with the caveat of the one year follow up, which didn't occur until after the Emergency Use Authorization. Given the circumstances, I don't think that was inappropriate). And now that we're a year out, those EUAs are being replaced with standard authorizations. 

As for risk factors, I would say we know as much about those for the mRNA vaccine as we do for the HPV vaccine. That is to say, not a heck of a lot. The problem we have here is a numbers problem. In order to identify the risk factors, you need to find enough of the population that had the adverse reactions in order to identify what they all share in common.  So we come to a chicken-egg scenario. We expect there to be some small population that is adversely affected. But how long do we search for that population at the expense of the larger population that isn't at risk?  And what's the risk tolerance we are willing to accept?  How many adverse effects are too many to justify the benefit to the larger population? These are hard questions to answer, even without the pressure of a pandemic.** 

 

And this is where I start to look hypocritical, because I'm perfectly willing to ask the majority of the population to do masking and distancing measures in the interests of the smaller at-risk population.  But I'm also willing to expose a smaller at-risk population to vaccination to benefit the larger population.  the only way I can reconcile that is I think it is worthwhile to take measures that encourage and promote higher social participation across the various groups. It may not make a lot of sense, but public health decisions often require odd trades.

 

 

* in fairness, I'm not sure how much better messaging would have improved the situation. There were plenty of people in my ward and community that were just adamantly against any personal inconvenience. Which I found alarming, in contrast with my scout troop. A number of the families in my scout troop were adamantly opposed to masking and distancing and virtual meetings. But when we sent out our letter explaining that we had kids that lived with susceptible people, and our top priority was not sending this home to anyone, some of our strongest anti-mask people were the first to mask up. Anyhow, this is turning into a rant that probably deserves its own thread.

 

** Some opposed to the HPV vaccine will cite that there appear to be two young women who died shortly after receiving the vaccine, and that two young girls' deaths is too much for a vaccine.  At the same time, it is estimated that HPV vaccines may prevent 2,000 cervical cancer deaths per year. In the 20 years we've been using the vaccine, that could amount to 40,000 lives saved. Is 40,000 lives saved enough to justify two lives lost in vaccination?  It's a cold hearted decision to have to make, whichever way you lean.

[MarginOfError]

52 minutes ago, mirkwood said:

It took me about 5-6 weeks for the gym to feel normal again.  Keep at it!

I definitely will, and 5-6 weeks in encouraging. I'm at four now, and it was a little better this past weekend.  I'm just moving a bit slower for now.

[mikbone]

We went to Sacrament meeting for the first time in 2 years last Sunday.  No masks.  We sat in the back and I instructed the children to stay seated, no getting up and mingling, hugging, etc.

We only stayed the hour.  

https://sites.krieger.jhu.edu/iae/files/2022/01/A-Literature-Review-and-Meta-Analysis-of-the-Effects-of-Lockdowns-on-COVID-19-Mortality.pdf

The above study is 60+ pages, 20 of which are tables and references but it is an excellent study.  It describes that all the government mandates likely only reduced mortality by 0.2% 

We goofed up this “Pandemic” again folks.

It drives me crazy when all the talking heads say we are following the science.  They absolutely are not.

“Science cannot tell us why.  It can only tell us why we were wrong after the fact”

What the government has been doing is looking at incomplete data, and making recommendations based upon judgement calls.  Likely based on the fear that doing nothing will have political consequences.

Edited February 22, 2022 by mikbone

[NeuroTypical]

1 hour ago, mikbone said:

We goofed up this “Pandemic” again folks.

Heh.  I've been enjoying my preparedness zeal for over 3 decades now.  I've run in circles of prepper-minded individuals since the dawn of the internet.  Participated in lots of forums, read lots of post-apocalyptic pandemic fiction, encountered a few experts and endless armchair experts, impressed my LDS folks with my enthusiasm for food storage and whatnot.  In December 2019, before we all got sent home, I literally dusted off my box of pandemic supplies and brought them up from the basement.  

Before COVID, I had a handful of beliefs about deadly global pandemics:
- A good vaccine'll reach maybe 70 or 80% of the population.  You reach a point where further efforts/mandates/laws/etc stop reaping gains, and only increases tyranny.  Black markets will pop up (for things like fake vaccine passports).
- A manageable pandemic leaves infrastructure and hospitals open for business, with treatment and medicines mostly available.  A serious one leaves bodies stacked like cordwood, and doctors totally overwhelmed or in hiding.  An end times one leaves hospitals deserted and bodies in the streets.  
- New things give people new things to fight about, social upheaval and radical cultural change can become a real concern.
- Politicians will push for greater and greater encroachments on civil liberties and rights, as long as there is power to be maintained by doing so.  The exact nanosecond a pandemic stops generating votes, the politicians will lose interest. 

 

So, from where I'm standing, it's not that we goofed anything up.  Humans acted like humans for this pandemic again folks.  And we'll act like humans for the next pandemic too.  I hear that one'll have zombies.

 

Edited February 22, 2022 by NeuroTypical

[Grunt]

3 hours ago, mirkwood said:

It took me about 5-6 weeks for the gym to feel normal again.  Keep at it!

Crazy how differently this affects people.  My wife ran a half marathon with COVID.  

[mirkwood]

26 minutes ago, Grunt said:

Crazy how differently this affects people.  My wife ran a half marathon with COVID.  

I likely had the first variant.  I was sick, along with both my partners, with most of the symptoms for several days, about a month before we started to do the testing.

I tested positive for delta.  That was the one that seemed to really affect me and the gym.

I probably had omni a month or two back.  My partner tested positive, I just didn't go get tested.  No big deal, though my partner was sick for several days.

Edited February 22, 2022 by mirkwood

[NeuroTypical]

At this point, Mirkwood's natural immunity antibodies all wear little black belts, and actually leave his body at night to do battle with the virus one house over.

[Still_Small_Voice]

6 hours ago, mirkwood said:

It took me about 5-6 weeks for the gym to feel normal again.  Keep at it!

I can walk up to 30 to 40 minutes without getting really tired again.  One of my goals for 2022 is this:  "Do not allow yourself to become weak." 

That goal is for physical, spiritual and financial.

[Grunt]

2 hours ago, mirkwood said:

I likely had the first variant.  I was sick, along with both my partners, with most of the symptoms for several days, about a month before we started to do the testing.

I tested positive for delta.  That was the one that seemed to really affect me and the gym.

I probably had omni a month or two back.  My partner tested positive, I just didn't go get tested.  No big deal, though my partner was sick for several days.

I don't get tested at all anymore.