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.   

A Zound of Zombies

A Headless Body Production

Venue: An Undisclosed Living room
Event: Solitaire with a new game
Players: Phil Gardocki running the survivors, Doug, Wanda, Phil and Amy
Game System: Zombicide

The Forces:
Survivors: Doug, Wanda, Phil and Amy. Each with a unique skill.

Zombies: Walkers, Fatties and Runners.

"XX" marks a zombie killed in that location on that turn.

I was looking for a new game to spice up the Wednesday night line up, and Zombicide seemed to fit the bill. It is aesthetically interesting, and will improve with a bit of paint, easy to explain to a group of people, and can be played in under 3 hours. Guillotine Games's Zombicide seemed to fit the bill.

Each player runs from 1-4 "survivors" in one of 10 scenarios. Each Scenario will have a specific objective to win.

The game is co-operative and are playing against the game, not each other.

The Board

The board represents downtown Suburbia. Created out of 8 geomorphic panels. As a solitaire game, I run 4 characters of the 6 available.

This scenario is a bit complected. The arrows represent the overall tract our heroes must traverse to win this game. XX's represent doors that must be jimmied/destroyed/unlocked to succeed. Zombies will be spawning in every red zone, and sometimes from the sewers.

Since I have the PDF of the rules, here is the scenario description:

We killed a zombie that had been the mayor of this town. It was carrying a fax from the chief of police explaining how to reach a safe hideout, an old, underground facility that had been turned into a bunker, close to the police station. Apparently it contains an armory, food supplies, and even a shower. This bunker would be the perfect shelter for us. Its entrance, however, is controlled from a distance, and the district is swarming with zombies. This is a dangerous mission but well worth it.

What doesn’t kill you today just might tomorrow.

The crew is performing a number of tasks. Moving, door jimmying, searching for weapons.

Only Phil starts with an established weapon, a pistol. The others have distributed among themselves, another pistol, an ax, and a crowbar. Everything else must be searched for, and that takes action points. Each character gets 3 action points a turn.

 Zombies then attack, move then spawn, in that order.

The Zombies only lightly spawning. On one turn, only 1 showed up, and Phil, with his newly looted shot gun, and Doug with two pistols, were able to keep the zombie herd to a manageable size.

This was about to change, very fast.

As a characters kill count goes up, they "level up", acquiring more skills. But it comes at a price. The zombie spawn in higher numbers, and with more dangerous types. Fatty's, Runners and Abominations!

The second objective is achieved, and the bunker door's locked is picked. But with no less than 8 zombies are on the street in front of her, Wanda (green, upper left) dare not leave the building.

Doug is clearing the street in front of the bunker door. Phil is shooting into the zound of zombies climbing over the pimp mobile. Amy is pondering her life choices. She has zombies north, west and south, but the keys to the police car are in the ignition.

With sirens blazing, she drives south, missing 3 of 4 zombies in her path.

Now, surrounded by zombies, she pulls a desperate doughnut, smoking tires and heads back towards the bunker.

Surrounded by zombies, Amy's Drivers Ed training kicks in. Instinctively missing every pedestrian on the road.

Noise management is important in the game. Zombies that cannot see humans, will guide in on the loudest noise. And a rampaging police car generates a lot of noise.

All the zombies in front of Wanda's building head for the noise. Except for Fatty and friends, their priority is they can see their next meal.

With Doug in the building, the game is technically won. I am playing further to see how many of the crew I can save.

Amy has leveled up, and gets a free action. The first is putting the cop car into first gear...

With driving instinct borne out of absolute terror, Amy does another doughnut, splattering two zombies against the brown stone.

Amy shuts her eyes and accelerates to 30 miles per hour in 150 feet, she shudders at the sounds of three horrific bumps. First action, part 1.

Half opening on eye, and seeing the slack jawed Phil still standing, with three zombies behind him, she pulls what is now a well practiced maneuver, another doughnut, the noise of the siren covering up the disgusting squishings in her path.  First Action part 2.

Note, a car runs over everything in the zone on a 4+. To pull this off, Amy had to miss Phil twice.

With that handful of kills, Amy hit the 3rd level in the game. Taking the Zombie spawn level to "Ut Oh"

Amy departs the car, fires once at walker crawling out of a man hole, then races for the bunker.

Before the zound of zombies arrive at that cross road on the left, Wanda, who is on roller skates, was able leave her hiding spot, race down the now cleared streets, and jump through the closing bunker door. Just ahead of the next spawn event.

Coronavirus, Late July Edition, 2022

Coronavirus, Late July Edition, 2022

By the Numbers

The Numbers: 

Nationwide, the estimated number of cases, using official numbers, have been creeping upward to around  1,100,000.  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 38,000 for this week, up from 27,000 last report, 10,000 in April. The peak was 150,000 in January.

Vaccines weaken, but still do very well:

In Pennsylvania, over the first 5 months of this year, the ratio of hospitalized patients with COVID, vaccinated to unvaccinated was 19 to 81.  The overall population ratio is 84% vaccinated with at least one shot, to 16% unvaccinated.

Multiply that out, if you are vaccinated, even minimally so, you are 24 times less likely to be hospitalized with COVID, as the unvaccinated.

It has been noted that among the vaccinated and hospitalized group, that most of them have not had a recent booster.  See PA Gov PostVaccination Data for this year.

This is reinforced by a recent report from the CDC which states in this year, for those over 50, 94% of the deaths with Covid are unvaccinated.   See Here...

Ninja Sub Variant:

The press needs descriptive keywords, but haven't settled on one for Covid-19 Variant BA.5.  Ninja and Deltacron are battling it out for market share.  Apparently BA.5 is even more able to dodge antibodies, and more infectious still, to the point where the R number seems no longer relevant to report.  Unlike other Omicron's, BA.5's symptoms are more like Delta, in that it settles deeper in the lungs.  Making it more dangerous than Omicron.  

Similar to the common cold, the Omicron's do not provoke a long term immune response from the body, so reinfection rate with the Omicrons is higher than previous variants.

BA.5 is now the dominant variant in the US. Possibly the world.  Japan has hit their peak, ever, number of Covid cases this week with this variant.

Long Covid

A study of Long Covid cases shows that the odds of getting Long Covid double with each reinfection.  There are already many cases of reinfections of BA5 alone. 

Reinfection Causing More Long Covid:

There was a very large study was done comparing a pool of 5.7 million US veterans and against a control group of 5.4 million civilians that had not had COVID yet. 

To quote the study, "The exact increase in risk from reinfection depends on the particular disorder in question—and whether you’ve been vaccinated and boosted. Broadly speaking, however, the likelihood of heart and clotting problems, fatigue and lung damage roughly doubles each time you catch COVID".

See Here...

Update, Expiration date, Government Issued Tests:

In my last posting I mentioned that the newest set of tests I received from the government had an expiration date of Aug, 2022.  It turns out this was just a labeling problem on the box.  The box said 8/22, but the packaging in the box were labeled April, 2024. 

New Vaccination Tech on the Horizon.

I heard this on a podcast put out by Skeptics Guide to the Universe*, aka "SGU", episode 887, and verified by an article by the Lancet.  Nano particles have been developed to deliver up to 60 different vaccines at one time.  It is described as a "cage" that the active ingredients are attached to.  I am envisioning a styrofoam block that a florist uses for displays.  

The idea is to supply a range of vaccines vice just 1 to 3, like is done with the flu, in order to cover all the bases for a rapidly evolving virus, or one, like the flu, we don't know which one will come to dominate this season.

Tested in mice, where the control group had 100% fatality to exposure to a version of C-19.  Another group was inoculated with this nano particle with 5 different variants, one of the variants was the variant the mice were infected with.  The mice all lived.  

Most significantly, a third group was inoculated a cage with 5 different variants, and then infected with 2 different variants.  None of the variants or infections were exact matches,  IE, it was a scattershot approach, but this group had a high survival rate.

Tests have since been performed on primates to good effect.    Human trials have been started.

Omicron Specific Vaccine Update.

Up to now the only vaccine available has been created on the original C-19, the boosters are just a half power version of the same vaccine.  Since then C-19 has evolved to a number of iterations, much faster than our process to update the vaccines.  

Everyone is working on a Omicron specific vaccine, and both Phizer an Moderna are in Phase 2 out of 3 trials.  The Pfizer site is stating that the vaccine effectiveness is good against the current BA3/5 versions of Omicron, with more data forthcoming.

The hope is these will be available this fall.

----------------------------------------------------

* I heartily recommend putting the SGU on your pod cast list.  They do a great job of providing up to date information on current science related news, and debunking current crap about UFO's, Covid/Vaccine deniers etc...

Coronavirus, Late June Edition, 2022

Coronavirus, Late June Edition, 2022

By the Numbers

The Numbers: 

Nationwide, the estimated number of cases, using official numbers, have been oscillating, between 900,000 and 1,000,000.  The estimated under count ranges from 3 to 20 times that number currently infected with the more benign Omicron sub variants.

More in keeping with reality, the number of people hospitalized with Covid is climbing.  27,000 for this week, up from 24,000 the week of memorial day, and a low point of 10,200 on Mar 23.

Government Issued Tests:

I ordered the next set of tests from the US Government and found their expiration dates to be August of 2022.  Thinking that was odd, I looked up the original set I ordered and they were dated April, 2023.  My wife is traveling, and the required tests for that are specifically listed, and she had to order them special, and they're expiration dates are 2023.  

What are the current numbers really?

To compare to seasonal flu, 2010-2011.  21 million cases, 32,000 deaths, 1 person in 650 died that had symptomatic symptoms of flu.

Covid, from day one, almost 2.5 years now, 89 million cases, 1,040,000 deaths.  1 person in 85 died that had symptoms.  

From Mar-June 2022, 1 person died in 356 that  reported symptoms.  It is considered that the number of cases is under-counted by 2/3rds or more, putting Covid deaths per cases around the level of season flu.

Comparing unvaccinated vice vaccinated.  In Mar, 2022 when Omicron was approaching 100% the number of cases.  For Pennsylvania, the number hospitalized Covid patients are 33 unvaccinated to 11 vaccinated.   Death rates in the same time period is 2.3 unvaccinated  to 1 vaccinated.  

Since the flu numbers include vaccinated and unvaccinated as well,  we can assume that the 1 in 650 deaths of flu also would be much lower for the vaccinated in that group as well.  

More on the current numbers:

In the UK, a group of people were tested, none of which had a positive covid test, were tested, and 95% had the Covid antibodies.  Meaning they had it, but it wasn't serious enough to warrant any attention.  To some, that means fatalism has set in, "its only a matter of time".  But so is death.  And we avoid that whenever possible.  

Repeat Omicrons:

Omicron has only been around for 8 months, and already some have caught it 3 times.  It seems an infection with Omicron produces a far weaker immune response, which seems to wane quickly, compared with infections with previous variants.   See here...

It has been noted that vaccinated people do not reinfect as easily as unvaccinated.  And recently boosted people less likely as well.  but there are no hard numbers to support this.

Heavy reading on the subject by the Lancet.

 

 

Coronavirus, Mid June Edition, 2022

 Coronavirus, Mid June Edition, 2022

By the Numbers

The Numbers: 

Nationwide, the estimated number of cases dropped during the Memorial day holiday weekend, and the week following, probably due to accounting rather than reality, then started climbing about 5% per day the week following.  The current estimate is around 900,000.

More in keeping with reality, the number of people hospitalized with Covid is climbing as well.  24,000 for this week, up from 21,000 the week before, and 17,000 mid May.

Moderna Omicron Vaccine:

Moderna is seeking approval for it's Omicron specific booster.  Preliminary data released by the company showed that its omicron-targeting coronavirus booster candidate produced 1.75 times as many neutralizing antibodies against the version of omicron that circulated over the winter, known as BA.1, compared with its existing vaccine.

However, Omicron is up to version BA.4 and BA.5, representing 13% of all cases currently.  We don't have numbers on how effective the new booster will act against those versions.   

The updated booster should be available in the fall.

Paxlovid Rebound:

Paxlovid is an anti viral drug that has become one of the dominant weapons for fighting a covid infection.  Taken immediately after a positive test, it greatly reduces hospitalizations and deaths from covid.

In 1-2% of the cases, patients that finish the course, and sometimes even test negative for covid, suddenly get ill from covid, with high viral loads in evidence.

But this phenomenon has been noted in the last 6 months, even before Paxlovid became available in quantity.   

A study comparing Paxlovid against non Paxlovid patients has shown nearly the same percentage chance of a rebound.  At this time the cause of the rebound, in either Paxlovid or not, is not known.

It was also noted however, that the rebound cases do not reach the level regarded as a "severe" illness.