Coronavirus, Mid December Edition, 2022

 Coronavirus, Mid December Edition, 2022

By the Numbers

The Numbers: 

Nationwide, the estimated number of cases, using official numbers, has risen.   From 256,000 on Nov 14.  to 350,000 on Dec 7.  The official numbers continue be under-counted by a factor of 3-10, depending on the source of the estimate.

More in keeping with reality, the number of people hospitalized with Covid for this wave has increased from around 22,200 to 30,000 for around the same time period.

The New York Times Interactive graph ( It can be found here...)  has slightly different numbers and is reporting a slight rise in the number of cases.  My source may not be as accurate as theirs, but I'll stick with it because it is an easy scrape, and is good enough.  This is more about trends than anything else. 

Dominant Variants in the US: 

  BQ's 63% up from 44% in mid November.

   BA.5 15.2%   This was the main variant in October, now down from 79%.

    BF.7's  6.3%   Up from under 7.3% mid November

    XBB  5.5%    Up from nearly naught in November

    BN.1  4.6%  Up from  nearly naught in November

    BA.4's 2.3% Down from  5.7% since mid November.

All of these are Omicron (BA5) descendants.  All have minor refinements that will make the them more infectious, and nullify some treatments, see below.  The latest booster, which was designed with BA4 and BA5 in mind.  Early studies show that it is effective against these variants.

Per CDC tracker...

The major effect of the rise of the BQ variants is that monoclonal antibodies, which once were THE major treatment for Covid, even before the vaccinations were available, are ineffective against the BQ's.  One article on this is here...

Paxlovid continues to be an effective treatment, but needs to be taken early on for best effects.  And Paxlovid is reported as "Under prescribed".  So you may have to push for it.

Hospitalized, Vaccinated v. Unvaccinated.

I know I have written about this before, but it bears repeating.  Of the hospitalized with Covid, 80% continue to be  from the unvaccinated population.  The unvaccinated represent about 21% of the population overall.  

Which works out to be that the unvaccinated are 16 times more likely to be hospitalized from Covid than vaccinated.

A recent article on UC Davis for October 27, has 27 hospitalizations from Covid, 6 are vaccinated.  

The unvaccinated also have worse outcomes, or require more extensive treatment.  In the UC Davis article, of the 27 unvaccinated hospitalized, 5 required ICU care.  None of the vaccinated did.

What is not mentioned in the statistics is if the "unvaccinated" include previously infected Covid.  Which should beget some additional protection.  Though studies have shown not as much as the vaccines.

Free Tests

Free test kits are no longer available via government sources, but are available, free to the user, if you are willing to jump through the hoops, from various stores, paid for my your health insurance.

For example.   Google Blue Cross free covid tests.  you will get a CVS advertisement for 8 free tests, per month.  See Here...  Also available via Medicare, and probably many other insurance plans and outlets like WalMart, Rite Aid, etc...

Coronavirus, Mid November Edition, 2022

Coronavirus, Mid November Edition, 2022

By the Numbers

The Numbers: 

Nationwide, the estimated number of cases, using official numbers, has continued to drop.  From 348,000 on Oct 12 to 256,000 on Nov 14.  The official numbers continue be under-counted by a factor of 3-10, depending on the source of the estimate.

More in keeping with reality, the number of people hospitalized with Covid for this wave has stabilized at around 22,200 for around the same time period.

The New York Times Interactive graph ( It can be found here...)  has slightly different numbers and is reporting a slight rise in the number of cases.  My source may not be as accurate as theirs, but I'll stick with it because it is an easy scrape, and is good enough.  This is more about trends than anything else. 

Dominant Variant in the US:

The number of significant variants (more than 1% of the total) has exploded since last month.  

  BQ's 44.2%, up from nearly naught in mid October.

   BA.5 32.5%   This was the main variant in October, now down from 79%.

    BA.4's 5.7% Down from  14.4% since mid Oct.

    BF.7's  7.8%   Up from under 4.6% mid Oct

All of these are Omicron (BA5) descendants.   The latest booster, which was designed with BA4 and BA5 in mind, and should work very well against all of these. 

Per CDC tracker...

Personal experience

We managed to avoid the plague in our house till last week, when my son came down with it.  He was fully vaccinated and double boosted.  So now I have a personal time line.

Saturday Night: experienced sore throat.

Sunday Morning: tested Negative.

Monday Morning: Fever, tested Positive, went into quarantine.  Official start of covid time off with his company.  

His doctor NEVER got back to him over the possibility of an antiviral prescription.  He may not have been eligible.  But the lack of response was aggravating.  Contrary to what I reported earlier, none of the pharmacies I called had a streamed line system in place for one stop shopping in this regard.

Late Tuesday: Fever breaks, quarantine continues.

Wednesday: Feeling much better.  Allowed to roam the house with a mask.  But mostly he just kept to his room.

Thursday: Allowed to roam the house with a mask.  But mostly he just kept to his room.

Friday:  Free to roam the house maskless, per CDC guidelines.  This may have been a mistake, but Joanne and I seem free of any effects.

Sunday:  Still feeling fine, but tested POSITIVE, though lightly so.  From estimated time of infection, either Wednesday or Thursday 2 weeks previous till now, 10 days.  This is also 4 days after the first "feel fine". 

Free Tests

Free test kits are no longer available via government sources, but are available, free to the user, if you are willing to jump through the hoops, from various stores, paid for my your health insurance.

For example.   Google Blue Cross free covid tests.  you will get a CVS advertisement for 8 free tests, per month.  See Here...  Also available via Medicare, and probably many other insurance plans and outlets like WalMart, Rite Aid, etc...

Coronavirus, Mid October Edition, 2022

 Coronavirus, Mid October Edition, 2022

By the Numbers

Forgive me father, for I have sinned:

My latest missive is a couple weeks late due to a lack of new things to put into it.

And that is a good thing.

The Numbers: 

Nationwide, the estimated number of cases, using official numbers, has continued to drop dramatically.  From 528,000 on Sept 12 to 348,000 on Oct 12.  The official numbers continue be under-counted by a factor of 3-10, depending on the source of the estimate.

More in keeping with reality, the number of people hospitalized with Covid for this wave has also dropped from 29,000 to 22,300 in the same time period.

To give an idea of the extremes of of the under-count, a recent survey of 3,700 New Yorkers, if extrapolated to the entirety of the US, would have the number of currently active cases at 42 million.  A patently absurd number setting the undercount at times 90. 

Dominant Variant in the US:

    BA.5 79.2%  Declined 4% since mid Sept.

    BA.4's  14.4% Up 3% since mid Sept.

    BF.7's  4.6%   Up from under 1% mid Sept

Per CDC tracker...

BF.7?

The latest variant of Covid gaining some traction is BF.7.  From under 1% to 4.6 in a month.  It is still an Omicron variant, but has a spike protein that evades  an antibody drug given to immunocompromised people.

New York Times Interactive Map

This may be behind a pay wall, but worth noting.  The New York Times has an interactive web page that has all kinds of good information on the current state of Covid.  One is a map of the US, with granularity down to every county in the country.  You can select "Hot Spots", Hospitalized, Vaccination Rates, Cases per capita and deaths per capita.  It can be found here...

 

Coronavirus, Mid September Edition, 2022

 

Coronavirus, Mid September Edition, 2022

By the Numbers

The Numbers: 

Nationwide, the estimated number of cases, using official numbers, has continued to drop dramatically.  About 30% in the last 2 weeks to 568,000.  The official numbers continue be under-counted by a factor of 3-10, depending on the source of the estimate.

More in keeping with reality, the number of people hospitalized with Covid for this wave is also dropping at a more modest rate of 14%, from 34,500 to 30,018.

Dominant Variant in the US:

    BA.5 87.5%

    BA.4's 11.4%

Per CDC tracker...

New Vaccines Available Now:

The new bivariant vaccines are available now.  Basically they are 1/2 original Covid, 1/2 variant BA5, the dominant variant at this time.  When to get yours is subject to priorities, but I expect anyone can get it if they ask.  But should you?

In my humble opinion, the short answer is yes, but as a double boosted, I am going to wait a couple of months and top it off at the end of October.  There is advertising to get it when you get your flu shot, but flu shots also lose effectiveness over time, about 6 months, so that too can wait.

Long Covid

The current, Oct 22, Consumer Reports has an article on Long Covid.  I peruse articles like this in an effort to divine something new and interesting, and am often disappointed. 

Long Covid is the name given to a variety of symptoms that people experience long after the initial Covid has cleared out of the system.  They include in descending order of probability:

    Fatigue  (34%)
    Change/loss Smell or taste
    Shortness Breath(24%)
    Cough
    Headache(21%)
    Sleep Disorders
    Muscle Pain (17%)
    Cognitive Dysfunction
    Chest Pain (11%)
    Mood Change
    Stomach pain (9%)

While the overall cause of Long Covid is considered a mystery, to me, the answer is obvious.  Covid attacks vascular systems.  When it settled in the kidneys or heart, it killed people.  If it settles in the lungs, it tears up the lung capillaries.  If the brain, then Cognitive Dysfunction. This is long term structural damage that takes time to heal. 

Long Covid symptoms can persist on  average, up to 6 months.  About 2% last a year.  Some last two years so far.

Consumer Reports notes that women experience Long Covid 20-50% more often than men.  I think what they are seeing is that Women are just more in tune with their bodies then men, and men are just ignoring the symptoms.

Long Covid affects ages 45-69 more than other age groups, about 70% of the total cases.  I'm guessing here that under 45 do not get Long Covid as long and heal faster, and over 70 is just lumping the symptoms in with whatever else is bothering them.  

Not mentioned in this article is that the odds of Long Covid go up with each reinfection.  And with the severity of those infections.  

And the vaccinated experience Long Covid far less than the unvaccinated.

The recommendations in the article on what to do if you are experiencing Long Covid is boiler plate diatribe.  See your doctor.  Join a support group.  But somehow they slipped in "do-gooder" advice to change your diet.  And had a singular account of someone that changed their eating habits to the Mediterranean diet.  (Seriously, did anyone review this article?)

On Flying.

The skies are a mess, and in the last 6 weeks, four people I actually know, caught Covid while they were on a plane.  In two cases, on long flights, they tested negative when they left the US, and positive when they got to their destination.  And two people that flew, but didn't catch Covid.  I know that 5 of the 6 were fully vaxed and boosted.  All have since recovered, but one may be experiencing Long Covid now.    This is a small set of numbers, and not statistical at all.  And probably I'm just a little bit biased. 

Boeing commissioned a study on catching Covid while flying and their result was 1 in 1,700,000.  This study may be considered extremely biased. And about 6 orders of magnitude off from my personal observations.

MIT did a study from 6/2020 to 2/2021 and had the odds at 1 in 1,000 for a trip, but considered it a round trip, and with a transfer and layover, so 4 flights really, and calculated the odds are to be 1 in 250.  This was during the time period when masks were still required on flights, and preceded the current Omicron variant, which proved to be the most infectious of the variants.

So now, we are flying sans-masks, with the most infectious, but benign variant running around.  So my 4 in 6 observation is only between 1 and 2 orders of magnitude with the MIT study.

What to do if you think you have Covid:

I wrote this before, but it bears repeating.  If you have a home test, take it.  If positive, call your doctor for a Paxlovid prescription.  You probably will not need to go to his office.  He really doesn't want you there anyway.  This can reduce your symptomatic phase by days.  And the chances of Long Covid.

If you don't have a home test, call the pharmacy.  In some of them, they will test you, then call the doctor for the prescription, just one car trip for you.

 

 

Coronavirus, Late August Edition, 2022

 Coronavirus, Late August Edition, 2022

By the Numbers

The Numbers: 

Nationwide, the estimated number of cases, using official numbers, has dropped about 25% in the last 2 weeks.  The official numbers continue be under-counted by a factor of 3-10, depending on the source of the estimate.  One caveat, there seems to be a rising trend of 2% (averaged) for each of the last 5 days I cannot account for.  It could be accounted for by vacation mixing of the population, or a rise in reinfections, or an aging of older vaccines?  I don't know. 

More in keeping with reality, the number of people hospitalized with Covid for this wave is also dropping, from a peak of 39,400 on July 31 to 36,000 this yesterday.

I did publish a report earlier in August, but as it had little relevant content, I did not promote it.  If you are interested, it is here...

New Vaccines Available Soon:

A vaccine tuned for both the original variant of Covid, "Alpha", and for the baseline Omicron, is now available in the UK.  They claim it provides good immune response for the BA4 and BA5 variants as well. 

Being tuned for two variants is referred to as "bivalent".   Its a common practice to have multiple strains in a single shot when there is uncertainty as to what the population will encounter.  Most often you will see this with flu shots.

It is expected in the US to have a release of a booster tuned specifically for BA4 and BA5 will be released in September.

There is a bit of controversy over these new vaccines.  Allow me to summarize it.  

The BA4/5 vaccine has only been tested in mice and not humans.   The counterpoint is if we wait for human trials, the need for BA4/5 will dwindle by the time those trials are completed.  See "The Numbers", above.

The overall vaccine being produced by Moderna and Pfiser has proven safe and has efficacy.  The new vaccine in mice trials have shown efficacy against the latest Omicron variants.  

My opinion is that a booster was already inevitable for the fall, so why not the get one tuned for what is out there?  The previous boosters were all set to the first variant, "Alpha".   

To be clear though.  This release of the the BA4/5 booster is a political decision.  They are following a pattern of "Least Harm".  Normally with vaccines, the doctrine is to take the totally safe path by performing a couple levels of human trials.  But meanwhile, 200-300 people are dying of Covid per day.  Hence the argument on what the actual, safest, course is. But then, most of the deaths with Covid are still among the unvaccinated.

Deaths With Covid, Ratios:

Per World Data, the Covid deaths by Vaccination status at the end of May for the US is:
Per 100,000
    Unvaccinated    5.5
    Primary Vaccination (2 shots)  .92
    PV + 1 booster    .72
    PV + 2 boosters  .23
This puts the ratio of dying of Covid, unvaccinated to vaccinated at 23.9 -1.

I have done the math on Pennsylvania specific hospitalizations and deaths and ratios are almost an exact match.

Google "covid deaths unvaccinated" and your state, and the numbers are probably there as well.

 

Coronavirus, Early August Edition, 2022

 Coronavirus, Early August Edition, 2022

By the Numbers

The Numbers: 

Nationwide, the estimated number of cases, using official numbers, continues to hover around million active cases.  The estimated under count is unknown.  But could still range from 3 to 10 times the number of officially infected. 

More in keeping with reality, the number of people hospitalized with Covid is also climbing.  To about 39,000 for this week, up from 27,000 last report, 10,000 in April. The peak was 150,000 in January.  The deaths per day average continues to climb to over 300.  As deaths are a lagging indicator, this kind of implies that this current "wave" of Covid BA4 and BA5 has peaked and is now in decline.

New Vaccines Available Soon:

Vaccines tuned specifically to the BA4 and BA5 variants of Omicron should be available next month. See WebMD.

Monkey Pox:

I am not going to provide any sort of regular updates on Monkey Pox.  But it is getting the press treatment to get you needlessly good and scared.  This is not anything like Coronavirus, which was a hill I was willing to die on.  Monkey Pox is not.  Everything about Monkey Pox is well known.  We have been living with it for 50+ years, and standard treatments are available.  

Of the 7,500 or so victims in the US so far, none have died from the disease.  It is not easily transmissible.  It is passed by skin to surface area contact, usually extensive contact, usually intimate contact, but also from contact with any surface area.  Sheets, table tops have been shown to carry the disease.  

Monkey Pox is endemic in Africa, as it exists in animals there, and occasionally makes the leap to a human.  The reason we need to quarantine and  eradicate it here is we don't want it leaping to our native animal population.

Biden's Covid Case:

Joe Biden caught Covid and it followed a predictable pattern for someone that was vaccinated and over 80 years old.  He quarantined and after testing negative, came back to work.  A day or two later, like so many others, he tested positive again.  I reported on this rebound effect, incorrectly named Paxolovid Rebound,  in an earlier edition.  His signing of the latest bills from congress was marred by frequent coughing. 

All the Covids save the early versions of Omicron settle deeply in the body, most notably, in the heart, kidneys and lungs.  Delta and the current versions BA4 and BA5 tended to settle deep in the lungs.  Omicron settled in the bronchial tubes.  There they damaged cell tissue for the effects referred to as "Long Covid". 

While I appreciate him going back to work, this is something you do not want to push.  Just testing negative does not mean you are well.  Even if you are younger, it may take months for full recovery.  You have to give your self time to recover from Covid.  But don't go back to work two days after your latest negative test.  

Alex Jones, My 2 Cents

I know very little about Alex Jones, and when the trial started, I had to google him.  "Oh, that guy". He is one of those serial liars feeding misinformation on any number of topics, and from a brief scan, profited nicely off of them.

I sat through his response to his verdict.  He admits to being wrong about Sandy Hook, but stops short of admitting he lied about it for nearly a decade.  He apologized to the parents he wronged, but with the caveat that there were aberrations in the initial reporting of the slaughter of their children that convinced him that ..., well I am not going into it.  

He fully reverts to type in his apology.  It wasn't that he was wrong and hurt a myriad of parents.  His apology focuses on him personally being attacked by the left wing media, the judge, his own lawyers, his own IT staff.  It's all their fault that a judgement in excess of 4 million dollars (now over 40 million) was put upon him.  

But he was wrong and he is sorry.  

His business of perpetrating lies was shut down around 2018, and with it, his income of millions a year shut down.  I'm sure he is sorry.  

When did he know he was wrong? When did he first apologize?  The rest of us knew he was wrong around 2012.  But he repeated his lies up to the time he was de-platformed, and beyond.  At that time, he couldn't admit to being wrong, because if he did, then the question immediately arises to what else is he wrong about?  Like WMD's in Iraq? Vaccines do not work? Democrats mailed explosives to themselves?  Obama's birth location.  

In his response he recounts his apology to the jury, and then mentions he was right about the WMD's in the same breath.  Dude, that was 20 years ago, and you were wrong then as well.

While he was making money on this, and other bald face lies, he was making millions per year, he was not going to admit he was wrong, even when he knew it.  

His response was not an act of contrition, but a reboot of his business.

Following the tactics of our lamentable last president, he is going to raise the money for the judgements from the same flock he has been fleecing for decades.  Then he won't pay it anyway.