COVID-19 - social and political fallout (9)

Florida undercounted COVID cases and deaths, failed to get test results, state audit says
Ian Hodgson | June 06, 2022

Florida’s COVID-19 data was so inaccurate, incomplete and delayed during the first months of the pandemic that government officials and the public may not have had necessary information to determine the effectiveness of the state’s COVID-19 precautions and the best plan to fight the virus, according to a state report released Monday.

Covering the state’s pandemic response from March to October 2020, the yearlong analysis by the Florida Auditor General found missing case and death data, unreported ethnic and racial details, and incomplete contact tracing as the coronavirus spread across the state. In addition, the report concluded that state health officials did not perform routine checks on the data to ensure accuracy and did not follow up on discrepancies...

COVID test results not returned to state
Ethnic, racial data missing
Poor contact tracing
COVID deaths not showing up

https://www.miamiherald.com/news/coronavirus/article262212557.html

I don’t think DeSantis has ever seen the Covid pandemic as anything other than a tool to further his own political ambitions. He plays to business interests, Covid and vaccine deniers, whatever hard right bullshit is in season and yeah there is good reason to believe that Florida’s numbers are all skewed that goes back way into 2020 when he fired the lady whose job it was to track them and he hired a puppet in Ladapo to be his chief health officer who like him is more interested in furthering his career than any lives lost.

Florida also didn't include visitors in their count?

Jonathan Mesiano-Crookston @jmcrookston | 6:40 AM · Jun 24, 2022:
Lawyer, litigator, patent/TM agent.

If you've caught COVID-19 in the past you better not mention it in any job interviews.
Just telling you what's coming.

There's probably a more accurate way to express that. It's not so much caught, but more to do with Long COVID. And there will be dancing around language.
But for now this is fine.

Oh and I should have posted this long ago but apply for insurance now.
People still being surprised their mild Covid is now a pre-existing condition. Welcome.

HadEnough @wtfalready2022
And if you want life Ins(urance)…they’re already denying ppl for previous Covid infections.

Jonathan Mesiano-Crookston
figured

Janice .. hopeful again! @janice_diehl
And also, be able to show that you had a positive PCR test. (to "prove" any Long COVID)

>4 margd: Easy to imagine the mess that’s coming. Loads of people are going to need rehab and a lot of it. For some people they’re not going to be able to hold a job or regular job with the health conditions they have. As far as vaccines and other treatments they are going to be tweaked and tweaked for years to come as scientists, researchers and doctors get a better understanding of the virus. We are still probably in the early days of this. The thing as well is a virus, a disease doesn’t hit everyone the same. There certainly will be commonalities to be found in other cases when treating an individual but the virus will also leave it’s own imprint on an individual which will be personal to that person so that not all people will get the same degree of benefit from treatment…..and age, and health previous and habits, the determination to get better of the individual also factor into outcomes.

I’ve been lucky so far but I’ve not put myself into situations. I understand my immunity has been weakened and I also have a clinical trial that I’m working my way through and it’s important for me that from month to month I’m able to do my part. If I got Covid that might derail all that….if it didn’t put me in the hospital and/or kill me. I’ve had enough of hospital stays by the way.

We all need to stay safe...glad you're doing so!

I wonder if the staffing issues with airlines are a taste of what's coming. Apparently, it's also become difficult to find licensed mariners. On island where we have summer place, a seasonal ferry has yet to resume service and the main ferry has had sudden interruptions in service due to "staffing issues"--once with a one-hour notice that threatened to leave people stranded for the night! We never hear details, I assume protecting staff privacy.

On the upside--apologies if I've posted this already--but two libraries in Ontario are lending CO2 monitors to help people gauge risk of COVID in indoor spaces in order to take appropriate action: Peterborough (April) and Toronto (mid-July). On its website, I've requested that our local library do likewise.

US: accommodating workers w Long Covid.

Long Covid Is Showing Up In The Employment Data
Justin Fox | June 15, 2022

...In a January Brookings Institution report, jobs expert (and pizza-company executive) Katie Bach estimated on the basis of several studies that (Long COVID) was costing the U.S. labor market about 1.6 million full-time equivalent workers, which seems to be in the same ballpark as what I found. That’s still enough to have an impact, especially at a time when available jobs are more plentiful than people looking for them — as Bach put, it’s equivalent to about 15% of all unfilled U.S. jobs....

https://www.fa-mag.com/news/long-covid-is-showing-up-in-the-employment-data-6833...
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Long COVID is a new disability affecting millions of workers—and a ‘moment of essential innovation’ for employers, one lawyer contends
Erin Prater | June 5, 2022

...it may already affect between 7 million and 23 million Americans who previously had the virus—up to 7% of the U.S. population, according to the U.S. Government Accountability Office...

...The silver lining, says University of Pennsylvania law professor Jasmine Harris, is that the nascent condition presents employers with a “moment of essential innovation—rethinking the workplace, both in terms of how we do business and how we come together in a work environment.”

...Americans With Disabilities Act of 1990...

https://fortune.com/2022/06/05/long-covid-new-disability-moment-essential-innova...
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UK:
(Paywall-$1 for 12 months)
Is Long Covid to blame for our army of absent workers?
Anna Menin | June 25 2022

...Since the pandemic, the number of ‘economically inactive’ workers has risen by 450,000. Baffled economists fear a legacy of the virus is behind the sharp fall in available staff...

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/is-long-covid-to-blame-for-our-army-of-absent...
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Although the handshake and other types of physical contact are gradually returning, they have been on hiatus due to #COVID19. Such changes have already altered the epidemiology of a range of infectious diseases.

Kristin Nelson and Ben Lopman. 2022. The hiatus of the handshake. Human contact has been altered in ways that may affect endemic infections for years to come. Science 30 Jun 2022 Vol 377, Issue 6601 pp. 33-34 DOI: 10.1126/science.abp9316

...Reductions in human contact that occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic have substantially affected patterns of circulation of other pathogens (see the figure). Reported incidence of most directly transmitted infections fell to virtually zero in early 2020 amid initial lockdown measures. Although these declines may have partially been due to gaps in reporting, they mostly reflect true reductions in disease incidence. As restrictions were relaxed, circulation of certain infections resumed—in some cases, with shifted seasonal patterns—but they have yet to return to their pre-pandemic levels.

Despite the widespread relaxation of nonpharmaceutical interventions, a return to pre-pandemic “normal” has yet to fully materialize. Studies of specific populations in the US are consistent with those from general European populations, which report contacts averaging less than five per day in early 2022—less than half of pre-pandemic levels... This reduction so far seems sustained, despite a return to workplaces and the resumption of in-person schooling, social activities, and large gatherings...

>8 margd: Maybe the fear of monkey pox will return the handshake back to the civility cupboard.

Covid learning loss has been a global disaster
Millions of children are still out of school. The costs are stacking up
Manila, Mumbai and Tuxtla | Jul 7th 2022

New data suggest that the damage from shutting down schools has been worse than almost anyone expected (paywall)

https://www.economist.com/international/2022/07/07/covid-learning-loss-has-been-...

Walensky, Citing Botched Pandemic Response, Calls for C.D.C. Reorganization
Sharon LaFraniere | Aug. 17, 2022

Among other flaws, the public guidance during the coronavirus pandemic was “confusing and overwhelming,” the agency said.

...The changes Dr. Walensky described include the appointment of a former Obama administration health official, Mary K. Wakefield, to lead the C.D.C.’s shift to a stronger public health focus. Two scientific divisions will now report directly to Dr. Walensky’s office, and the agency will cut down review time for urgently needed studies. The agency is also altering its promotion system so that it rewards efforts to make an impact on public health and is less heavily based on the number of scientific papers published.

The briefing document said that Dr. Walensky wanted staff members to “produce data for action” as opposed to “data for publication.”

Importantly, the agency will beef up the team that responds to public health emergencies and require those officials to remain in their positions for at least six months, aides said. Previously, they were allowed to rotate out after only a few months, a system that senior federal officials said sowed confusion and took up valuable time during the pandemic.

A new executive team will be created to set priorities and make decisions about how to spend the agency’s annual budget of about $12 billion, “with a bias toward public health impact,” the briefing document said.

And the C.D.C. is working on improving its public messaging. Dr. Walensky, who has already shaken up the agency’s communications division, wants to make sure guidance is issued in “plain language, easy to understand,” the document said.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/17/us/politics/cdc-rochelle-walensky-covid.html

Molly M. Gill @mmgillwriter | 1:39 PM · Aug 25, 2022:
VP of Policy @FAMMFoundation (Helping transform America’s criminal justice system by uplifting the voices of impacted families & individuals), sentencing nerd, former prosecutor...

11,000 people were released from federal prison during the pandemic and put on home confinement. 17 reoffended. That's a 0.15 percent recidivism rate. No typo. Now guess: How many of these folks didn't need to be in prison so long in the first place?
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Keri Blakinger @keribla | 1:27 PM · Aug 25, 2022:
Reporter: @MarshallProj . Priors: @HoustonChron @NYDailyNews . Author: Corrections in Ink. Journalist, felon. (I promise I don't bite)

A few days ago, NPR reported that only 17 out of the 11,000 federal prisoners released on home confinement under CARES were arrested for new crimes.

Today I asked BOP what those crimes were and here's a breakdown -- and the majority* were drug related. Here's the breakdown:
Text ( https://twitter.com/keribla/status/1562854064525692928/photo/1 )

* 10
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Released during COVID, some people are sent back to prison with little or no warning
Carrie Johnson | August 22, 20225
Heard on Morning Edition (4 min). Text

https://www.npr.org/2022/08/22/1118132380/released-during-covid-some-people-are-...

Long Covid is responsible for about a third of unfilled jobs in the U.S., new research suggests
Annika Kim Constantino | Aug 26 2022

...A Brookings Institution report published Wednesday says an estimated 16 million Americans between ages 18 to 65 are experiencing Covid symptoms long after infection. The condition, dubbed long Covid, can include brain fog, fatigue, breathing problems, muscle pain, headache, chest pain and even anxiety or depression — all symptoms that can make it challenging for people to work.

The report estimates that 2 million to 4 million of those people are currently out of work due to long Covid. That’s almost as high as the number of Americans who quit their jobs each month amid the Great Resignation: About 4.2 million quit their jobs in June and nearly 4.3 million quit in May and April, respectively, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

In other words, the jobs lost to long Covid could make up about a third of the country’s current labor shortage. And the Brookings report says it’s costing the U.S. economy in a significant way...

Billions of lost earnings due to long Covid
Long Covid is more common than you may think

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/08/26/brookings-long-covid-keeps-millions-of-americans...

Installing air filters in classrooms has surprisingly large educational benefits
$1,000 can raise a class’s test scores by as much as cutting class size by a third.
Matthew Yglesias | Jan 8, 2020

...math scores went up by 0.20 standard deviations and English scores by 0.18 standard deviations, and the results hold up even when you control for “detailed student demographics, including residential ZIP Code fixed effects that help control for a student’s exposure to pollution at home.”

For context, this is comparable in scale to some of the most optimistic studies on the potential benefits of smaller class sizes, with Alan Krueger finding that cutting class size by a third leads to a 0.22 standard deviation improvement in academic performance...it costs much more than $700 per classroom to achieve class size reductions of that scale...

https://www.vox.com/2020/1/8/21051869/indoor-air-pollution-student-achievement
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Gilraine, Michael. (2020). Air Filters, Pollution and Student Achievement. (EdWorkingPaper: 19-188). Retrieved from Annenberg Institute at Brown University: 8/28/2022. https://doi.org/10.26300/7mcr-8a10 https://www.edworkingpapers.com/ai20-188

This paper identifies the achievement impact of installing air filters in classrooms for the first time. To do so, I leverage a unique setting arising from the largest gas leak in United States history, whereby the offending gas company installed air filters in every classroom, office and common area for all schools within five miles of the leak (but not beyond). This variation allows me to compare student achievement in schools receiving air filters relative to those that did not using a spatial regression discontinuity design. I find substantial improvements in student achievement: air filter exposure led to a 0.20 standard deviation increase in mathematics and English scores, with test score improvements persisting into the following year. Air testing conducted inside schools during the leak (but before air filters were installed) showed no presence of natural gas pollutants, implying that the effectiveness of air filters came from removing common air pollutants and so these results should extend to other settings. The results indicate that air filter installation is a highly cost-effective policy to raise student achievement and, given that underprivileged students attend schools in highly polluted areas, one that can reduce the pervasive test score gaps that plague public education.

U.S. Life Expectancy Falls Again in ‘Historic’ Setback
Roni Caryn Rabin | Aug. 31, 2022

The average life expectancy of Americans fell precipitously in 2020 and 2021, the sharpest two-year decline in nearly 100 years and a stark reminder of the toll exacted on the nation by the continuing coronavirus pandemic.

In 2021, the average American could expect to live until the age of 76, federal health researchers reported on Wednesday. The figure represents a loss of almost three years since 2019, when Americans could expect to live, on average, nearly 79 years.

The reduction has been particularly steep among Native Americans and Alaska Natives, the National Center for Health Statistics* reported. Average life expectancy in those groups was shortened by four years in 2020 alone...life expectancy to 65 among Native Americans and Alaska Natives — on par with the figure for all Americans in 1944...

In 2021, the shortening of life span was more pronounced among white Americans than among Black Americans, who saw greater reductions in the first year of the pandemic...

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/31/health/life-expectancy-covid-pandemic.html

* https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/index.htm

The Pandemic Erased Two Decades of Progress in Math and Reading
Sarah Mervosh | Sept. 1, 2022

...fell by the largest margin in more than 30 years.

The declines spanned almost all races and income levels and were markedly worse for the lowest-performing students...

High and low performers had been diverging even before the pandemic, but...the profound effect school closures had on low-income students and on Black and Hispanic students, in part because their schools were more likely to continue remote learning for longer periods of time.

...The setbacks could have powerful consequences for a generation of children who must move beyond basics in elementary school to thrive later on.

...(Andrew Ho, a professor of education at Harvard and an expert on education testing who previously served on the board that oversees the National Assessment of Educational Progress exam) estimated that losing one point on the national exam roughly translated to about three weeks of learning. That means a top-performing student who lost three points in math could catch up in as little as nine weeks, while a low-performing student who lost 12 points would need 36 weeks, or almost nine months, to make up ground — and would still be significantly behind more advanced peers...

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/01/us/national-test-scores-math-reading-pandemic...

Infant Head Trauma Surged in Paris During Pandemic
— Researchers hypothesize isolation and financial stress had cumulative effect on parents
Ingrid Hein | August 31, 2022

...Abusive head trauma in infants nearly doubled in the Paris metropolitan area during the second year of the COVID-19 pandemic, researchers reported.

While cases of abusive head trauma were stable in 2020 compared with years before the pandemic, averaging 1.4 cases per month, that number jumped to 2.7 cases per month in 2021 ...

https://www.medpagetoday.com/pediatrics/domesticviolence/100490
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Alina-Marilena Lãzãrescu et al. 2022. Abusive Head Trauma in Infants During the COVID-19 Pandemic in the Paris Metropolitan Area. JAMA Netw Open. 30 Aug 2022;5(8):e2226182. doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2022.26182 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2795760

Invited Commentary:
Emily C. B. Brown. 2022. Delayed Increase in Abusive Head Trauma {AHT} in Paris During COVID-19 Pandemic. JAMA Netw Open. 30 Aug 2022;5(8):e2226188. doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2022.26188
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2795763

...In an effort to mitigate the impacts of the pandemic, many countries rolled out financial relief packages, including increased unemployment benefits and rental assistance... Some of these have had direct positive impacts on families’ finances and stress... Since AHT and other forms of maltreatment are associated with increased family stress, it follows that the relief measures might be associated with these outcomes.

...Programs targeting caregiver education on the harms of shaking an infant seem to impact knowledge but not AHT itself...the 2004 California paid parental leave policy showed that paid leave was associated with lower rates of AHT hospital admissions in California compared with several other states without such policies.

...If...the AHT experience in Paris is an indicator for what may already be occurring or coming in other communities, there is still an opportunity to learn and act. The most important questions Lãzãrescu et al...raise are
(1) why did the expected increase in AHT not occur in Paris in 2020, and
(2) why did the factors that worked in 2020 start to fail?
By determining which policies or factors may have helped delay the expected child maltreatment surge, we might prevent future harm to children. Even after this pandemic concludes, some families will continue to experience its economic ramifications for years to come. In addition, because families’ lives are often stressful even outside of a pandemic, once we determine which preventive measures were the most effective at reducing AHT and other forms of maltreatment during the last couple years, we may want to advocate to keep them permanently.

Susan Hillis et al. 2022. Orphanhood and Caregiver Loss Among Children Based on New Global Excess COVID-19 Death Estimates (Research Letter). JAMA Pediatr. Published online September 6, 2022. doi:10.1001/jamapediatrics.2022.3157 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/fullarticle/2795650

...global minimum estimates of COVID-19 orphanhood and caregiver death among children...Consequences for children can be devastating, including institutionalization, abuse, traumatic grief, mental health problems, adolescent pregnancy, poor educational outcomes, and chronic and infectious diseases....We estimate that 10,500,000 children lost parents or caregivers … and 7,500,000 children experienced COVID-19–associated orphanhood through May 1, 2022...Only 2 countries, Peru and the US, have made national commitments to address COVID-19–associated orphanhood...

Here's a less technical news article on that.

"Nearly 8 million kids lost a parent or primary caregiver to the pandemic" | NPR
https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2022/09/06/1121254016/nearly-8-million...

A new international study estimates that from January 1, 2020, to May, 1, 2022, nearly 8 million kids age 18 and under lost a parent or primary caregiver to a pandemic-related cause. When the researchers included the deaths of secondary caregivers like grandparents or other older relatives, the number of kids affected rose to 10.5 million.{...}

The study, published in JAMA Pediatrics, also found that the greatest numbers of kids affected by these losses were in Africa and Southeast Asia. India has seen the most suffering, with 3.5 million children grieving the loss of a parent or primary/secondary caregiver. However, Bolivia and Peru have the highest rates of kids affected, with 1 out of every 50 children in both countries losing caregivers during the pandemic.

These children face potentially devastating consequences. The emotional toll may be what people think of first but the impact hits many areas of a child's life.

Statements that school closures were devastating look wrong. The pandemic was devastating.

How do the areas where school closures were one of the measures used to reduce or stop viral spread compare to the areas where the virus spread continuously through high case numbers while schools remained open?

Many of these areas where closures were rare didn't follow the full safety measures to prevent viral spread within schools or elsewhere in the service area, so students have been sick, school workers have been sick, and caregivers at home have been sick. Some of these students, teachers, coaches, bus drivers, parents, grandparents, legal guardians, and others close to the surviving students have died.

Learning while sick and grieving is extremely difficult.

In addition, the schools failed to provide caregivers the training needed to oversee student progress. Schools were disorganized, as if they hadn't planned for similar events despite decades of warnings. The standards were ridiculously outdated.

An article linked earlier opened with a parent bemoaning how her son would be on the school-provided computers for a few hours and spend the rest of his time resting and playing. So? He seems like a smart kid! Parents could have been told that during times of extreme stress like this pandemic, his is an ideal routine. A few hours of targeted education has also been shown to be more effective as a whole than the full day of sloppy education that is common in schools in many countries, and dealing with the grief and social stress typically requires long rest periods.

Schools need to improve, not only force students back into the systems that were already failing before the pandemic, which is what I see happening.

Fact Check: Has China Overtaken U.S. in Life Expectancy for First Time?
John Feng | 9/8/22

...Needs Context.

Some data suggests that China has indeed overtaken the U.S. in life expectancy, though there's some debate about what the current gap is.

Depending on the definition and data sets used, the point of convergence could've happened some time ago, in 2020 instead of 2021—and possibly not for the first time.

The CDC's latest U.S. life expectancy statistic—76.1 years in 2021—is lower than China's own life expectancy estimate of 78.2 years in 2021. However, the U.S. figure is provisional, and caution is advised when comparing multiple data sets.

The graph in (Ian Bremmer, president of the Eurasia Group think tank)'s tweet includes provisional CDC data for life expectancy in the U.S. in 2021, and OECD data for life expectancy in China in 2020. His claim can be considered true, but should be understood in the right context that different data sets are used in the comparison.

https://www.newsweek.com/china-us-life-expectancy-birth-2021-fact-check-1740991

Pretender to the Throne of England (official) @peakcapitolism | 11:16 AM · Sep 11, 2022:
💙☭ Jean Allen, member of rocdsa , writes at Cosmonaut & Left Wind. they/them. Black Lives Matter, defund the police ☭💙

Every time I go to an airport I think about how 9/11, an event where 3000 people died, has justified perpetual security theater, a perpetual war. The last two years however, where more than a million have died, is just viewed as something to get over
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Like a plane crash, 9/11 was catastrophic and out of our control. Like the drive to the airport, COVID is ongoing and within our control.... More likely to die driving to airport than in a plane crash, but we fear the latter more.

Paul Slovic 1987. Perception of Risk. Science 17 Apr 1987. Vol 236, Issue 4799 pp. 280-285
DOI: 10.1126/science.3563507 https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.3563507

Abstract
Studies of risk perception examine the judgments people make when they are asked to characterize and evaluate hazardous activities and technologies. This research aims to aid risk analysis and policy-making by (i) providing a basis for understanding and anticipating public responses to hazards and (ii) improving the communication of risk information among lay people, technical experts, and decision-makers. This work assumes that those who promote and regulate health and safety need to understand how people think about and respond to risk. Without such understanding, well-intended policies may be ineffective.

Kari Raymer Bishop @KRaymerBishop | 1:02 PM · Sep 17, 2022:

I still can't get over the Toronto Zoo requiring masks in the Africa pavilion to protect the gorillas from Covid-19 but we are cool with sending kids to school with no Covid protections.

Linsey Marr @linseymarr |

Engineering professor @virginia_tech with expertise in airborne transmission of viruses, air quality, nanotechnology.

Thorough article about indoor air quality, and it's not just about virus. A review found "student cognitive performance falls by up to 13% when carbon dioxide concentrations rise from 600 to 1000ppm, and by 24% at 1800ppm." So I can blame the CO2 rather than my teaching?

Can we clean Covid from the air around us?
Nina Notman | 26 September 2022

...Clean indoor air is vital for a number of reasons. Firstly, it is where we do most of our breathing – people in the global north spend, on average, 90% of their time inside buildings or vehicles.

...Disease transmission is another reason, with airborne viruses spreading much better indoors than out. Robust evidence shows that many respiratory viruses, including those responsible for Covid-19, flu and the common cold, are airborne.

...The indoor air is filled with a soup of potentially harmful gases and particles, some of which float in from the outside, but many of which originate inside. Contaminant concentrations in indoor air are typically much higher than those in outdoor air, and indoor air pollution has increasingly been linked with cancer, cardiovascular disease and respiratory disease.

...Poor indoor air quality also negatively affects cognitive performance, especially in crowded environments... According to a 2020 review by Marcel Loomans, an indoor environment engineer at Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands, student cognitive performance falls by up to 13% when carbon dioxide concentrations rise from 600 to 1000ppm, and by 24% at 1800ppm. ‘Past studies also indicate that student absences increase with similar increases in carbon dioxide levels in classrooms,’ adds Corsi.

...Eliminating the sources of indoor air pollutants is the highest priority when looking to improve indoor air quality.

...Ventilation – replacing indoor air with outside air – is the next most effective way to improve indoor air quality...A study from September 2021 to January 2022 of over 10,000 classrooms in the Marche region of Italy found dramatically fewer Covid-19 cases in the 316 classrooms with mechanical ventilation. By replacing the indoor air with outdoor air 2.4 times an hour, infections dropped by 40%; four times an hour, by 66.8%; and six times an hour, by 82.5%.

...Filtering the Air. Portable air cleaners were becoming increasingly popular for home use even before the Covid-19 pandemic, especially during the allergy and wildfire seasons in the US. ...According to {Richard Corsi, an indoor air engineer at University of California Davis}, the only particle removing devices on the market rigorously proven to be effective are those with high efficiency particulate air (HEPA) air filters and high air flow rates.

...Sterilisation...ultraviolet (UV) sterilisation devices that zap air as it passes through enclosed boxes...{Cath Noakes, an engineer focused on ventilation and infection control at University of Leeds} and her colleagues are currently testing far-UVC devices, which use a narrow band of the UVC spectrum that inactivates bugs but cannot penetrate skin or eyes. ‘Without those safety concerns, it’s a much easier system to put in,’ she says. It is hoped that easier installation will expedite the large-scale use of UV sterilisation for shared indoor air.

...Is change in the air?...{Robert West (a behaviour scientist at University College London)} uses the slow turning tide of public opinion against smoking as his analogy: ‘With smoking, we started to get little islands of good practice and then those grew and they coalesced and eventually we ended up islands of bad practice within continents of good practice.’...

Monitoring the indoor air {for CO2}

https://chemistryworld.com/features/can-we-clean-covid-from-the-air-around-us/40...

>23 margd: "So I can blame the CO2 rather than my teaching?"

Yes! I bought a cheap CO2 meter and I'm quite surprised at how quickly the air inside my house goes bad (i.e. over 1000 ppm) when we have a couple of guests. The meter is a very good reminder to open a door or window for a few minutes until the air feels fresh again.

>24 bnielsen: That's been our experience, too!

I once organized conferences usually in various hotels. Every break I would attempt to refresh the air in our meeting rooms, usually to no avail. Late afternoons felt the worst! So many poor air-handling systems that I remember only one, amphitheater style with doors to the outside next to the speaker ( in Niagara Falls, Ontario), that, opened, actually replaced the stale air during breaks... Conditions are probably worse these days as buildings attempt to conserve heat...

Physician Burnout Has Reached Distressing Levels, New Research Finds
Oliver Whang | Sept. 29, 2022

Nearly two-thirds of doctors are experiencing at least one symptom of burnout, a huge increase from before the pandemic. ...Burnout, in medical literature, is defined by increased emotional exhaustion, a more distant approach to the job and a declining sense of personal accomplishment...

...burnout is often a local phenomenon. “A lot of a person’s exhaustion score is connected to who they work with,” he said. “There’s a social contagion in burnout. If your colleagues are fried and you’re not, give it six months and you’ll look just like them.”

...Doctors were unevenly affected by the early stages of the pandemic. While emergency physicians and family physicians worked around the clock, constantly exposed to Covid-19, many physicians in other specialties were able to reach their patients through telehealth appointments and spend more time with their families.

...some physicians were at higher risk of burnout, including those practicing emergency medicine, family medicine and pediatrics, as well as women physicians in general...

...the high number of messages doctors received about patients’ electronic health records was closely linked to increased burnout

...politicization of science, labor shortages and the vilification of health care workers as significant issues.

...simple interventions that can have as much a positive effect on well-being...all the solutions...connect people with their most meaningful activities...

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/29/health/doctor-burnout-pandemic.html
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Tait D. Shanafelt et al. 2022. Changes in Burnout and Satisfaction With Work-Life Integration in Physicians Over the First 2 Years of the COVID-19 Pandemic. Mayo Clinic Proceedings. September 13, 2022 DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mayocp.2022.09.002 https://www.mayoclinicproceedings.org/article/S0025-6196(22)00515-8/fulltext

Very important interview with Jeffrey Sachs, head of the Lancet Commission on COVID-19
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=morj-3rdWwM

As Covid Hit, Washington Officials Traded Stocks With Exquisite Timing
Rebecca Ballhaus, Joe Palazzolo, Brody Mullins, Chad Day and John West | Oct. 19, 2022

Some sold in January 2020 when the government began mobilizing against the threat. Others bought shares as a market-rescue plan was taking shape...

https://www.wsj.com/articles/covid-washington-officials-stocks-trading-markets-s...

Serious COVID control is not inconsistent with economic growth.

China GDP beats with a bounce in the third quarter, delayed data shows
Evelyn Cheng | Oct 23 2022

Key Point
China reported Monday that third-quarter gross domestic product grew by 3.9% from a year ago, beating expectations.

...The officially released 3.9% year-on-year growth for the third quarter marked a pickup from 0.4% in the second quarter, bringing year-to-date growth to 3%....

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/10/24/china-third-quarter-gdp.html

Nationwide, 38% of 8th graders tested below basic achievement levels in math. The pandemic's effects ripple on.

- Scott Galloway @profgalloway | 11:59 AM · Oct 24, 2022:
Product of big government @ucla @ucberkeley | Prof Marketing @NYUStern | Right of Center-Left | #ProfGPod @PivotPod | Strategy Sprint http://section4.com
__________________________________________
ETA:

Alyssa Harad @alyssaharad | 1:50 PM · Oct 24, 2022:

Keep thinking about the absence of grief and death from the policy discussions around learning loss. This rhetoric about how the US is going to fall behind rather than talking about why more US kids lost their beloved parents, aunts, grandparents, caregivers, teachers.

Like, if you're really so worried about kids falling behind maybe make some policy decisions that help keep the people they love alive and allow them to stay fed and secure?

(Didn't mean to leave uncles, cousins, all manner of other unofficial caregivers out of that list. I was just thinking out loud. I know yr out there!)

I dunno, man. I just don't think pushing kids to study harder and take more measurement tests is going to help them get over the people they lost.

Bob Woodward Was Stunned By What Trump Told Young Son Barron About Coronavirus
Lee Moran | October 25, 2022

...Trump, talking to Woodward on March 19, 2020, said Barron, then 13, asked what was going on and he answered:

“I said, it came out of China, Barron. Pure and simple. It came out of China. And it should’ve been stopped. And to be honest with you, Barron, they should’ve let it be known it was a problem two months earlier … the world wouldn’t have a problem. We could have stopped it easily.”

... “My God, Trump is conning not just me but his son and he is laying out, ‘Oh this could have been fixed, the Chinese could have done something about it.’ Donald Trump could have done something about it by being honest and warning the public that he as president has constitutional and moral responsibility to do.”...

https://news.yahoo.com/bob-woodward-stunned-trump-told-091902598.html

The notion that COVID-19 has been vanquished is not supported by the facts
David Berger, Emergency | November 2, 2022

...New variants continue to arrive, irrespective of season, and the world is now on its eighth. Actuarial analysis from around the world, including in Australia, shows an ongoing 10 to 15 per cent excess death rate, as compared with before the pandemic.

...High rates of long COVID, consisting of a smorgasbord of chronic conditions, are already being felt in terms of labour shortages and seem set to be accumulating both human and economic effects over time.

...The ultra-long-term effects of COVID on the immune, neurological and other systems are unknown, but there is mounting evidence these could be very considerable.

...Finally, rampant transmission leads to rampant mutation of this virus, with no guarantee that mutation is towards “mildness”.

...With no consent, no mandate, no public discussion, the “dry tinder” (the elderly, those with chronic disease, those most at risk of “reaping”...) is being burnt off. Deaths and infirmity in these individuals can easily be explained away and so easily discounted.

...In the same way, horror stories from a healthcare system burdened by abnormally high rates of illness can conveniently be explained away by citing “decades of underfunding”, creating “a dam that has finally burst”....

https://www.smh.com.au/national/the-notion-that-covid-19-has-been-vanquished-is-...

Will Long COVID Research Provide Answers for Poorly Understood Diseases Like ME/CFS?
Isabella Backman | November 01, 2022

...Myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS) is a highly disabling, severe condition that has been largely overlooked and even questioned as an illness by medicine and researchers for decades. But now, following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, as many as one in eight infected people, according to Akiko Iwasaki, PhD, Sterling Professor of Immunobiology, are developing “long COVID,” in which symptoms persist for weeks, months, or years post-infection and some are developing symptoms indistinguishable from ME/CFS. As an increasing number of people become debilitated by the post-viral syndrome, researchers such as Iwasaki and Harlan Krumholz, MD, Harold H. Hines, Jr. Professor of Medicine (Cardiology) are striving to uncover the mysteries behind the unrelenting fatigue and numerous other symptoms that seem to linger after COVID infection. They hope to provide answers to not only COVID “long haulers,” but also patients suffering from other poorly understood chronic conditions, including ME/CFS, that have been left unresolved for too long...

https://medicine.yale.edu/news-article/will-long-covid-research-provide-answers-...

Jonas R. Kunst (Prof Psychology, U Oslo) @KunstJonas | 3:00 AM · Nov 19, 2022:

🚨Why getting Covid-19 means gambling with your financial stability: #LongCovid is associated with a 40% higher likelihood to be unemployed and a 30% lower likelihood to work full time, according to a new study.

Kristin Lunz Trujillo et al. 2022. Association between long COVID symptoms and employment status. MedRxiv 18 Nv 2022. doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2022.11.17.22282452

This article is a preprint and has not been certified by peer review

Abstract
...Results: The cohort included 15,307 survey respondents ages 18-69 with test-confirmed COVID-19 at least 2 months prior, of whom 2,236 (14.6%) reported long COVID symptoms, including 1,027/2,236 (45.9%) reporting either 'brain fog' or impaired memory. Overall, 1,418/15,307 (9.3%) reported being unemployed, including 276/2,236 (12.3%) of those with long COVID and 1,142/13,071 (8.7%) of those without; 8,228 (53.8%) worked full-time, including 1,017 (45.5%) of those with long COVID and 7,211 (55.2%) without.

In survey-weighted regression models, presence of long COVID was associated with being unemployed (crude OR (odds ratio) 1.44...; adjusted OR 1.23...), and with lower likelihood of working full-time (crude OR 0.73...; adjusted OR 0.79...). Among individuals with long COVID, the presence of cognitive symptoms -- either brain fog or impaired memory -- was associated with lower likelihood of working full time (crude OR 0.71..., adjusted OR 0.77...).

Conclusion: Long COVID was associated with a greater likelihood of unemployment and lesser likelihood of working full time in adjusted models. Presence of cognitive symptoms was associated with diminished likelihood of working full time. These results underscore the importance of developing strategies to respond to long COVID, and particularly the associated neurocognitive symptoms.

Dr. @lisa_iannattone@med-mastodon.com @lisa_iannattone | 7:43 AM · Nov 20, 2022:
Assistant Professor of Dermatology @med_umontreal . Adjunct Clinical Professor @McGillMed . Former Harvard derm fellow. Focus: complex medical dermatology.

Replying to @SteveLome {cardiologist who revived TWO runners in cardiac arrest in his marathon}

Cardiac arrest during marathons were historically a 0.54 in 100,000 event. Since SARS2 infections became rampant (a virus that raises the risk clotting/cardiac arrest for months post infection), the “marathoner drops dead” theme is a regular in the news. SARS2 is bad for your ♥️.

{News reports}
https://twitter.com/lisa_iannattone/status/1594310369375178753/photo/1
https://twitter.com/lisa_iannattone/status/1594310369375178753/photo/2

People remarked that the Chinese president was mingling this past week with other world leaders without benefit of mask--unusual. Speculated that China's nasal vaxx must be working out. However, outbreaks now noted among general public in China...

Kashif Pirzada, MD (emergency, Toronto) @KashPrime | 8:21 AM · Nov 20, 2022

It might be a good time for individuals and businesses to stockpile any critical goods imported from China.

Quote Tweet
BNO News @BNOFeed · 8h
Beijing urging millions of people to stay home on Monday, says COVID cases are "increasing rapidly"

{Also, https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/china-revises-covid-... }

We’re already in the middle of a shortage of critical drugs in Canada. We need to identify which drug APIs (active pharmaceutical ingredients - the building blocks of drugs) come from China and quickly source local suppliers before more shortages occur.
-----------------------------------------

List includes acetaminophen (paracetamol in Europe), ibuprofen, etc... Children's liquid formula of those two OTC meds are already in short supply in Canada. Maybe adults' soon?

Ekinnajay 🇧🇻🇺🇲 @ekinnajay | 1:24 PM · Nov 20, 2022
Replying to @KashPrime

Sexy cyborg* had shared this list of drugs to have on hand. Not sure whether it's because of future shortages, break in a supply chain elsewhere, or they are made in China. I think it's good to have many of these on hand anyway. Antibiotics in some countries are over the counter.

Text ( https://twitter.com/ekinnajay/status/1594396370542432257/photo/1 )

* Naomi Wu 机械妖姬 @RealSexyCyborg
China's #1 Tech & DIY YouTuber. Open Source, 3D Printing & Digital Fabrication, Automation, Infosec. 1/18th synthetic
'It's all about merit until merit has tits'

The End of Vaccines at ‘Warp Speed’
Financial and bureaucratic barriers in the United States mean that the next generation of Covid vaccines may well be designed here, but used elsewhere.
Benjamin Mueller | Nov. 18, 2022

While government funding helped to protect pharmaceutical companies in 2020 from the downsides of spending heavily on tricky vaccine research, there are no such assurances in 2022...

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/18/health/covid-nasal-vaccines-warp-speed.html

T. Ryan Gregory @TRyanGregory | 10:15 AM · Nov 20, 2022:
Professor of evolutionary biology. {U Guelph, Ontario}

Someone asked for a collection of my COVID threads in advance of (US) Thanksgiving in case they want to share some info with family members. Here you go (links to Twitter thread and Threadreader). 🧵
https://twitter.com/TRyanGregory/status/1594348767112830977
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1594348767112830977.html

On
...immunity debt
...premature predictions that the pandemic is over
...whether any major new variant that would get a new Greek letter name can evolve
...variant names
...why recent variant evolution in SARS-CoV-2 is something new
...Omicron not being mild, with Canada as an example
...phylogenetics, monophyly, clades, paraphyly, and taxonomy
...Evolution 101

Edward Wong @ewong | 4:52 PM · Nov 26, 2022:
Diplomatic Correspondent @nytimes. Fellow @ Harvard Nieman, Belfer Center & Wilson Center. Visiting professor @ Princeton & Berkeley. 13 years in China & Iraq.

This reporter’s thread has incredible video & photos of a protest in Shanghai against covid-19 lockdowns. The rally was ignited by the deaths of 10 people in a fire in Urumqi. These scenes have echoes of Hong Kong in 2019 & 2014. In this video, the crowd denounces the CCP and Xi.
0:45 ( https://twitter.com/ewong/status/1596623072479817728 )

Quote Tweet
Eva Rammeloo @eefjerammeloo | 2:14 PM · Nov 26, 2022:
China correspondent for Dutch daily @trouw
and others since 2014 | author of Het geluk van de Chinezen | Eva is the name in my passport

‘Down with the party! Down with Xi Jinping!’ Free Xinjiang!’
Show this thread ( https://twitter.com/eefjerammeloo/status/1596583242555355137 )
______________________________________

Isaac Bogoch (Infectious Disease, U Toronto) @BogochIsaac | 9:07 AM · Nov 27, 2022

1/ There is potential for a large & nasty COVID wave in China if their ZeroCovid policy comes to an abrupt end, and in the context of lower vaccine uptake, especially among older populations.

A similar event occurred in Hong Kong in March, 2022
(graph below).

Awful.
Graph-deathes per million Hong Kong March 2022 ( https://twitter.com/BogochIsaac/status/1596868274704486401 )

2/ COVID elimination was never a tenable strategy in most regions for a variety of reasons (see below from July 2020).

That doesn't mean "let 'er rip" is the right approach.

Human suffering is heartbreaking anywhere.

Opinion: We're infectious disease experts, and 'eliminating' COVID won't happen any time soon

'Elimination' refers to zero cases of COVID-19 in a particular geographic area, while eradication refers to bringing the global burden of cases to zero
Author of the article: Dr. Zain Chagla, Dr. Isaac Bogoch and Dr. Sumon Chakrabarti, Special to National Post
Publishing date: Jul 16, 2020
https://nationalpost.com/opinion/opinion-were-infectious-disease-experts-and-eli...

>39 margd:, contd.

Infectious Diseases @InfectiousDz | 6:57 AM · Nov 27, 2022:
https://twitter.com/InfectiousDz/status/1596835698967207936

As COVID cases rise in China and protestors challenge policies, note:
the country does not have the immunity the rest of the world does - no mRNA vaccines, little infection-derived immunity.

Of those most vulnerable, over 80, only 40% have had the 3 vaccine doses needed
1/n...

China, after decades of 1 child policies - is older {than India, and esp Africa}

...Older populations need vaccines the most

Initially vaccination was limited to those adults under 60 in China, unlike elsewhere

...Globally the world over, but particularly in China, policies stressing to wait to get vaccinated when feeling well, mean those who are the oldest may have the hardest time finding an appointment on a day when they feel well.
https://washingtonpost.com/world/2022/11/

Vaccination needs to be with 3 vaccines to be more effective, as the main 2 vaccines used in China - Sinovac and Sinopharm, both inactivated vaccines, are not as protective and even less so against Omicron-derived variants.

The 9 vaccines used in China are locally made, 3 WHO approved - Sinopharm and Sinovac - and the viral vector vaccine, Convidencia, made by CanSino more recently. Plans to distribute locally produced Pfizer vaccines have not been completed

As such, although China has good rates of overall 2 dose vaccination, this is not quite as comforting as it looks. Without 3 doses of the vaccines used and higher rates among the elderly, a population without a history of widespread infection will experience COVID differently

Here, back in March 2022, the most elderly of the elderly were the least vaccinated

Despite campaigns and incentives, vaccination lags for the oldest

Add to this, the safety net to treat those who are more vulnerable and not vaccinated is not as strong. ICU bed rates are lower in China.

Successful public health is always multilayered. Relying on just one approach, particularly one as fraught as Zero COVID enforcement, always creates a viral vulnerability. The harshest policies may be challenged the most when functioning policies are needed the most.

Uncontrolled spread of COVID leads to the potential for more COVID variants, which could have a wider impact. COVID tends not to self contain, though selection pressure in a population with less immunity may be different than where immune evasiveness is central to spread.

Long Covid may be ‘the next public health disaster’ — with a $3.7 trillion economic impact rivaling the Great Recession
Greg Iacurci | Nov 30 20228

...Long Covid has affected as many as 23 million Americans. It may cost the U.S. economy $3.7 trillion, roughly that of the Great Recession, according to one estimate...

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/11/30/why-long-covid-could-be-the-next-public-health-d...
-----------------------------------------------

The Economic Cost of Long COVID: An Update* (4 p)
David M. Cutler, Harvard University
https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/cutler/files/long_covid_update_7-22.pdf

* Update to
Cutler DM, Summers LH. The COVID-19 Pandemic and the $16 Trillion Virus. JAMA. 2020;324(15):1495–1496. doi:10.1001/jama.2020.19759 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2771764

Covid outbreak throws Chinese factories and supply chains into chaos
‘Closed loop’ system* to protect employees and production likely to be overwhelmed
Eleanor Olcott in Tokyo, Qianer Liu, Gloria Li and Cheng Leng in Hong Kong and Joe Leahy in Beijing | 18 Dec 2022
https://www.ft.com/content/598c81b7-bbc7-40f2-ba04-eed0dddfb989

* the “closed loop” system, whereby staff live and work on-site during Covid outbreaks, in order to keep production going while avoiding catching the virus.

Mrs. Betty Bowers @BettyBowers | 2:22 PM · Dec 20, 2022:

A reminder that Matt Gaetz had $482,321 in PPP loans forgiven.
Matt Gaetz doesn't own a company.

>42 margd: In one No Eastern province in China the CCP has offered a 700 dollar reward for any one who rats on his neighbor if they know or suspect any religious services in their homes. Under the guise of covid control. I wonder what controls are put on the 800,000 Uyghurs held in concentration camps....JMJ....

>44 brone: I sadly suspect Uyghurs in concentration camps can't be protected from airborne COVID--like most prisoners here. I suspect prisoners here at least are vaxxed, though...

Three years on, the pandemic — and our response — have been jolting. Here’s what even the experts didn’t see coming
Helen Branswell | Dec. 27, 2022

...In the hope that important lessons for next time can be found in the things we didn’t anticipate this time, STAT asked 23 experts what had surprised them the most about the pandemic.

The TL;DR {too lazy didn't read} version: We have a lot of learning left to do.

Containment can buy time...
The quiet...
The baking bonanza...
How variable the illness was...
How quickly people could be reinfected...
The biggest surprise, hands down: How the virus has evolved...
The susceptibility of the public to charlatans...
Unhelpful public health approaches...
Covid vaccines — so many surprises...
Not all the vaccine surprises were positive...
Pricey mRNA vaccines became the jab of choice in countries ill-equipped to use them...
Covid cleared the decks...
The health care worker roller coaster...
Unsettled science, scientific hubris, and the attack on science...
So much for pulling together in a crisis...
The endless, tractionless fighting...
How long the damn thing has lasted...
The ripple effects...
The panic-neglect cycle persists...

https://www.statnews.com/2022/12/27/covid19-pandemic-what-most-surprised-experts...

>46 margd: at least for around here where I live for most people covid has been over. There are some still getting boosters but there are few masks and almost no precautions. In a county of around 85,000 though so far in December covid has claimed 8 lives and it's been on this track for at least the last couple months of a couple people a week. What lies behind that the hospitalized, the people who will have to rehab, the long covid cases is not getting any attention at all. If you happen to be one of those maybe some of your family, maybe some of your friends and that's it.

It doesn't seem that over to me. That said the numbers of sick seemingly are down. It's like embers that all of a sudden start up again here or there but also might one day again burn out of control again.

>46 margd: "How long the damn thing has lasted" I'll link in a bit but Eric Topol (Scripps) says there's a new more infectious strain in NY that's about to wash over the rest of the country...

Why even sequence the positive Chinese travelers?
We're not going to do anything different.
Anything we do will be dumb and useless.

- Alex Meshkin, GED @alexmeshkin | 1:03 PM · Dec 28, 2022
CEO of @FlowHealthHQ. Since you keep asking, yes, I am a high school dropout.

Elizaveta / エリザヴェータ @elizavetaka
Covering butts for when mortality goes sky high to point to “China”

New York State Insurance Fund Releases Novel Report on Long-Term Impacts of Covid-19
NYSIF | January 24, 2023

...You can read and download the NYSIF report* here. {margd: not working for me at the moment, but report is accessible through NYT article-- https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/24/health/long-covid-work.html }

...The study, which analyzed more than 3,000 Covid-19 workers' compensation claims initiated between January 2020 and March 2022, found that:

Almost one-third of all workers infected with Covid-19 suffered or are suffering from Long Covid, with the percentage peaking during the initial phase of the pandemic and falling over time.

Approximately 18 percent of workers with Long Covid—or about five percent of Covid-19 claimants—could not return to work for more than one year.

The percentage of female workers with Long Covid (37 percent) was 11 points higher than that of male workers (26 percent).

Forty percent of workers with Long Covid returned to work within 60 days of infection while still receiving medical treatment.

Adults over 60 with Long Covid experienced significant difficulty returning to regular work life, with their challenges intensifying with age.

Nearly all workers with comorbidities or those hospitalized for their initial infection experienced Long Covid.

The incidence of Long Covid in essential workers may be higher than the data suggests, creating a potential blind spot for policymakers...

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/york-state-insurance-fund-releases-133500815.html
----------------------------------------------------------------

*SHINING A LIGHT ON LONG COVID:
An Analysis of Workers’ Compensation Data (23 p)
NYSIF | Jan 2023

Family caregivers of people with long COVID bear an extra burden
Kat McGowan | February 6, 2023

...there is no solid estimate of how many need caregiving help. Stats from one clinic hint at the size of the problem: Out of the 1,782 patients seen at the Penn Medicine Post-COVID Assessment and Recovery Clinic between June 2020 and January 2023, about one-fifth said they felt uncomfortable dealing with daily activities like driving, shopping, or using public transit, suggesting the need for a caregiver...

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2023/02/06/1153800857/family-caregiver...

>51 margd: .....something that gets almost no attention from all the deniers.

>52 lriley: Let's hope we follow Australia's lead!

Long Covid causing job losses and homelessness in Australia, inquiry hears
Donna Lu | 17 Feb 2023

{Australia's} federal government is developing a national long Covid strategy, with a parliamentary inquiry hearing the condition has resulted in job losses and homelessness among some sufferers.

The chief medical officer, Professor Paul Kelly, said the federal health department had been tasked with developing a national long Covid strategy that would cover prevention, immunisation, treatment and research into the condition...

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/feb/17/long-covid-causing-job-lo...

>53 margd: Even if so many want to ignore it here having a country such as Australia set up programs and treatments is going to eventually come over here because deny it or not hospitals here are not going to ignore because people are going to need to rehab or some kind of help to ameliorate their issues as best they can. There are lots of younger people afflicted with Long Covid and there's no telling yet for so many of them whether these issues are going to go away or whether some of them are at the beginning of a long downward spiral health wise and in their home lives because these things will effect not just them but their families too and can in a multiplicity of ways.

More about the Covid-19 policy scandals:

Matt Hancock, still (at this writing) a serving and not-yet-sacked minister in the present U.K. government's cabinet, used lies and exaggerations regarding the actual circumstances of Covid-19's threat when, as the then Health Secretary, he was recorded in conversations with colleagues as intent on "scaring the pants off" members of the public in hopes of inducing their acceptance of the government's restrictions on movement and gatherings of groups of people.
(https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/03/04/project-fear-covid-lockdown-files-matt-hancock-whatsapp/)

Thus, with this revelation, coming three years late--though that doesn't stop the British press from congratulating itself on its professional skills-- shows us that Mr. Hancock had recognised certain of his defenders --that those who'd defended him as being only an incompetent fool rather than a lying incompetent fool -- as being _half_ correct.

A lot of you have been shamelessly suckered. And a lot of you don't even care.

Esther Hopkins @ELHopkins | 6:25 PM · Apr 1, 2023
This figure was never featured in the debate about lockdowns and children’s mental health. COVID left 10 million children worldwide orphans. Over 13,000 parents died due to transmission from schools in the UK
nature.com

COVID deaths: more than 10 million children lost a parent or carer
The consequences of losing a parent can be profound, but the right support can reduce the impact.
Jude Coleman | 16 September 2022

{Paywall}

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-02941-z

>56 margd: "COVID left 10 million children worldwide orphans." ?

In the article it says "more than 10 million children lost a parent or carer".

I'm not saying it's not a problem, but I hesitate to say that losing a single parent makes you an orphan.

Posted here to document the medical incidents among pilots, probably due to COVID in past though anti-vaxxers beg to differ...

Military Pilots Reported 1,700% More Medical Incidents During the Pandemic.
The Pentagon Says They Just Had COVID
Military.com | By Patricia Kime | 9 Feb 2023
https://www.military.com/daily-news/2023/02/09/military-pilots-reported-1700-mor...
__________________________________________

Young pilot’s sudden death marks 9th pilot casualty in 40 days
FAA refuses to heed pilots' warnings
Yudi Sherman | April 17, 2023
https://www.frontline.news/post/young-pilot-s-sudden-death-marks-9th-pilot-casua...

Covid-19 is no longer a global health emergency, says WHO (Guardian)

The Covid-19 pandemic, which has sickened or killed almost 800 million people over three years, no longer constitutes a global health emergency, the head of the World Health Organization has said. The WHO first gave Covid its highest level of alert on 30 January 2020, and its panel has continued to apply the label at meetings held every three months. While the WHO director general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, announced on Friday the UN health agency was downgrading Covid’s alert status, he also delivered a stark warning about its persistent threat. The disease still killed someone every three minutes, he said... He added: “It’s therefore with great hope that I declare Covid-19 over as a global health emergency. However, that does not mean Covid-19 is over as a global health threat. Last week, Covid-19 claimed a life every three minutes – and that’s just the deaths we know about.” The global health emergency status helped focus international attention on the Covid threat, as well as bolstering collaboration on vaccines and treatments. Lifting it is a sign of the progress the world has made in these areas, but Covid-19 is here to stay, health officials believe, even if it no longer represents an emergency... “The worst thing any country could do now is to use this news as a reason to let down its guard, to dismantle the systems it has built, or to send the message to its people that Covid-19 is nothing to worry about,” he said. Covid has officially claimed more than 6.9 million lives, and affected the health of more than 765 million others, according to the WHO. It said the true figures were likely to be much higher. Covid deaths globally have plunged by 95% since January, but the disease still killed 16,000 people worldwide last month alone...

>59 John5918: Hopefully Nature will be compliant...

Prof Peter Hotez MD PhD @PeterHotez | 6:00 PM · May 5, 2023 from Houston, TX
Vaccine Scientist-Author-Combat Antiscience @bcmhouston. Professor Pediatrics Molecular Virology, @bcm_tropmed. Dean, TexasChildrens Chair in Tropical Pediatrics

No NIAID Director
No CDC Director
No Pandemic Center Director
And the Covid emergency declared over
….a good time to be a RNA virus

T. Ryan Gregory @TRyanGregory | 8:13 AM · May 20, 2023:
Professor of evolutionary biology. {U Guelph}

“the greatest intrusions on civil liberties in the peacetime history of this country.”

COVID-19 has killed more Americans than combat in every war since 1775.
------------------------------------------------

COVID emergency orders are among `greatest intrusions on civil liberties,′ Justice Gorsuch says
MARK SHERMAN | May 19, 2023

{ https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/22pdf/22-592_5hd5.pdf }

https://apnews.com/article/supreme-court-justice-covid-emergency-restrictions-85...

https://fortune.com/well/2023/05/23/covid-deaths-one-person-every-four-minutes-v...
COVID still kills 1 person every 4 minutes despite the global emergency being officially over

‘The public wants certainty’: why have Americans stopped trusting in science? (Guardian)

In a new book, Christopher Reddy tackles the problems faced by the scientific community during moments of major crisis... Too often, Reddy says, specialists are talking to each other but failing to help ordinary Americans understand the science, whether over oil spills, the climate crisis or a pandemic... Reddy said that part of the problem is a gap in perception about what research or tests can tell us. “The lay public doesn’t understand how science works. A scientist is more than willing to wait weeks, months, years, even decades to solve an outstanding research question. The public wants certainty, and they want it in four seconds. They want it to be like Wikipedia,” he said. But Reddy said that while the public might have unrealistic expectations, all too often scientists shy away from clear explanations because they are worried that their colleagues will think they are “reckless and unknowledgable” if they give definitive answers. So they respond to questions from the press and public by cloaking explanations with caveats about what they don’t know. “Most people want answers and not a laundry list of the gaps and challenges within a scientific issue,” he said...

>63 John5918: all the denial over covid and vaccines. So many resistant conservatives in '21 and '22 saying they needed to 'do research' never did anything like that at all because they don't read anything or listen to anyone that's not in their approved bubble. They're determinedly unreachable no matter the scientists or specialists. People like Carlson or Jones who really don't know shit and don't care anyway carry much more weight for them. Trump once told his rallygoers in Alabama to get vaccinated and got booed but generally the people so many conservatives look to for information are not scientists but people of bad faith. But they trusts over people with actual knowledge.

I have a sister who's refused vaccination for Covid. I know margd has someone very close to her. Arguing with them doesn't work. They only dig in deeper. It's like a significant % of the population has been brainwashed to believe only what their favorite demagogues tell them.

>64 lriley:

Yes, and sadly the demagogues give the public the "certainty" they crave, "answers and not a laundry list of the gaps and challenges within a scientific issue" as the author of that book puts it, even though it's fake certainty and wrong answers.

>65 John5918: at least for a while there have been a lot less of people dying. In coming years though will be those with long Covid issues many of whom might have avoided that if they had gotten the shots. So much of what’s happened seems self inflicted from believing in misinformation instead of from putting the effort into finding out what real researchers, scientists and doctors really said. That said even many of these sufferers are not going to change their minds…..or not easily anyway.

No direct proof Covid-19 stemmed from Wuhan lab leak, US intelligence says (Guardian)

US intelligence agencies found no direct evidence that the Covid-19 pandemic stemmed from an incident at China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology, a report declassified on Friday said...

Graph: excess death rates among registered Democrats (11%) and Republicans (34%) in Ohio and Florida after introduction of vaccines ( https://twitter.com/quervain_de/status/1687006932345733120/photo/1 )
Source: https://www.ft.com/content/d387d40a-4e8c-4502-8ae9-62d7f1426b93
---------------------------------------------

Jacob Wallace et al. 2023. Excess Death Rates for Republican and Democratic Registered Voters in Florida and Ohio During the COVID-19 Pandemic. JAMA Intern Med. Published online July 24, 2023. doi:10.1001/jamainternmed.2023.1154
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/2807617

Key Points
Question Was political party affiliation a risk factor associated with excess mortality during the COVID-19 pandemic in Florida and Ohio?

Findings In this cohort study evaluating 538 159 deaths in individuals aged 25 years and older in Florida and Ohio between March 2020 and December 2021, excess mortality was significantly higher for Republican voters than Democratic voters after COVID-19 vaccines were available to all adults, but not before. These differences were concentrated in counties with lower vaccination rates, and primarily noted in voters residing in Ohio.

Meaning The differences in excess mortality by political party affiliation after COVID-19 vaccines were available to all adults suggest that differences in vaccination attitudes and reported uptake between Republican and Democratic voters may have been a factor in the severity and trajectory of the pandemic in the US.

>68 margd: From March to March it was probably more age relative (as in older voters tendency to being republican).....as it moved into the summer of 2021 is when refusal to get vaccinated kicked in. Also there are those whose defiance and denial throughout put them in harms way more often as in I'm going to go to church whether or not that church was supposed to be open and sing at the top of my lungs. Florida's governor and would be President also certainly factors in for Florida and without doubt Florida throughout the pandemic has fudged the numbers. Keeping in mind as well that when there was a monoclonal antibody treatment for the Delta variant and Florida and other southern states became very dependent on that treatment almost encouraging residents to mix and mingle in all kinds of situations they should not have and that if they got covid that treatment would save them.....and it worked pretty well for a while and then another covid strain became dominant and the treatment didn't work anymore--(Biden's fault to them....at first they thought he was holding out....the new strain pretty much made that treatment ineffective). Still even when it did work it was kind of a game of Russian roulette as it was successful most of the time but never always and some people just waited too long and the virus just set in too hard. There's no doubt in my mind that DeSantis traded lives to build up his creds with conservatives so as to make a presidential run. He's a cold fish.

zeynep tufekci zeynep | 7:53 AM · Aug 9, 2023:
Complex systems, wicked problems. Society, technology, science and more. Princeton professor. @NYTimes
columnist...

Billions were allocated to schools, including to improve air quality — against viruses, allergens, fire smoke and high CO2.

Salespeople descended.

Many schools overpaid for inferior products.

Worse, many bought potentially harmful devices.

Gift link:
https://nytimes.com/2023/08/09/opinion/air-filter-covid-smoke-schools.html?unloc...

Text excerpt, highlighted ( https://twitter.com/zeynep/status/1689243383913463808/photo/1 )

Masks work.

Jeffrey V. Lazarus et al. 20223. A multinational Delphi consensus to end the COVID-19 public health threat. Nature volume 611, pages 332–345 (3 Nov 2022)

Abstract
Despite notable scientific and medical advances, broader political, socioeconomic and behavioural factors continue to undercut the response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Here we convened, as part of this Delphi study, a diverse, multidisciplinary panel of 386 academic, health, non-governmental organization, government and other experts in COVID-19 response from 112 countries and territories to recommend specific actions to end this persistent global threat to public health. The panel developed a set of 41 consensus statements and 57 recommendations to governments, health systems, industry and other key stakeholders across six domains: communication; health systems; vaccination; prevention; treatment and care; and inequities. In the wake of nearly three years of fragmented global and national responses, it is instructive to note that three of the highest-ranked recommendations call for the adoption of whole-of-society and whole-of-government approaches, while maintaining proven prevention measures using a vaccines-plus approach that employs a range of public health and financial support measures to complement vaccination. Other recommendations with at least 99% combined agreement advise governments and other stakeholders to improve communication, rebuild public trust and engage communities in the management of pandemic responses. The findings of the study, which have been further endorsed by 184 organizations globally, include points of unanimous agreement, as well as six recommendations with more than 5% disagreement, that provide health and social policy actions to address inadequacies in the pandemic response and help to bring this public health threat to an end.

...Key statements and recommendations
The following six domains summarize the main areas of agreement, with a particular focus on the recommendations...

Communicate effectively...
Strengthen health systems...
Emphasize vaccination, but not exclusively so...
Promote preventive behaviours...
Expand treatments...
Eliminate inequities...

Routine vaccinations linked with lower Alzheimer's risk
Paul Ian Cross | August 23, 2023

Recent research from UTHealth Houston suggests that the administration of some vaccinations, including those for tetanus, diphtheria, pertussis (whooping cough), shingles (herpes zoster), and pneumococcus, are associated with a reduced risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease.

Previous research revealed that individuals who had received at least one influenza vaccine had a 40% lower probability of developing Alzheimer’s disease...

Whooping cough vaccine tied to 30% lower Alzheimer’s risk...

https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/routine-vaccinations-linked-with-lower...
----------------------------------------------------

Kristofer Harris et al. 2023. The Impact of Routine Vaccinations on Alzheimer’s Disease Risk in Persons 65 Years and Older: A Claims-Based Cohort Study using Propensity Score Matching. Journal of Alzheimer's Disease, vol. Pre-press, no. Pre-press, pp. 1-16, 2023. Published: 07 August 2023 DOI: 10.3233/JAD-221231 https://content.iospress.com/articles/journal-of-alzheimers-disease/jad221231

Abstract
...Methods:
A retrospective cohort study was performed using Optum’s de-identified Clinformatics® Data Mart Database. Included patients were free of dementia during a 2-year look-back period and were 65 years or older by the start of the 8-year follow-up period. We compared two similar cohorts identified using propensity score matching (PSM), one vaccinated and another unvaccinated, with Tdap/Td {tetanus diptheria}, HZ {Herpes zoster shingles}, or pneumococcal vaccines. We calculated the relative risk (RR) and absolute risk reduction (ARR) for developing AD {Alzheimer's Disease}.

Results:
For the Tdap/Td vaccine, 7.2% (n = 8,370) vaccinated patients and 10.2% (n = 11,857) unvaccinated patients developed AD during follow-up; the RR was 0.70 ... and ARR was 0.03 ... For the HZ vaccine, 8.1% (n = 16,106) vaccinated patients and 10.7% (n = 21,273) unvaccinated patients developed AD during follow-up; the RR was 0.75 ... and ARR was 0.02 ... For the pneumococcal vaccine, 7.92% (n = 20,583) vaccinated patients and 10.9% (n = 28,558) unvaccinated patients developed AD during follow-up; the RR was 0.73 ... and ARR was 0.02 ...

Conclusion:
Several vaccinations, including Tdap/Td, HZ, and pneumococcal, are associated with a reduced risk for developing AD.

The Deadly Rise of Anti-science: a scientist's warning by Peter J Hotez

{Book Review}
Arthur Caplan et al. 2023. The legacy of Covid denial. A physician warns of the broader implications of pandemic backlash. Science 7 Sep 2023 Vol 381, Issue 6662 p. 1056. DOI: 10.1126/science.adi7631 https://www.science.org/doi/full/10.1126/science.adi7631

Conor Browne @brownecfm | 6:15 AM · Sep 16, 2023:
Biorisk consultant specialising in COVID-19 business continuity, forecasting / analysis.
https://twitter.com/brownecfm/status/1702989494142546394
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1702989494142546394.html

1. What concerns me the most, by far, about SARS-CoV-2, is that, in the absence of better vaccines and therapeutics, we are heading towards an inexorable reduction in global population health. Even if the virus maintains the same virulence, the data we now have on the average...

2... rate of re-infection, combined with the data we have on the likelihood of sequelae of infection and Long Covid with each infection, makes it a near-certainty that a growing percentage of the world will continue to become chronically ill and / or disabled. The pandemic is...

3.. often framed as a 'mass-disabling' event, but what I think most people don't understand is what that actually entails. It means pressure on global healthcare services that will be detrimental to everyone, not just those suffering from Covid-related illnesses. It means...

4... significant logistical and supply-chain problems. It means economic recessions. It could well mean an increase in civil disorder. Fundamentally, it means a drop in quality of life for all. Reducing the transmission of this virus should be the primary global priority...

5... right now. If we don't work this problem with the solutions we have (cleaning indoor air, fast-tracking better vaccines and therapeutics) everyone loses. Everyone. /end

Nobel Prize...

How mRNA went from a scientific backwater to a pandemic crusher
For decades, Katalin Karikó's work into mRNA therapeutics was overlooked by her colleagues. Now it's at the heart of the two leading coronavirus vaccines
David Cox | 02.12.2020
https://www.wired.co.uk/article/mrna-coronavirus-vaccine-pfizer-biontech

>75 margd: .....and despite all the dipshit right wing rhetoric saves millions of lives.

Didn't Trump suggest something like this??

Nicolas Loebel et al. 2023. Nasal photodisinfection in an industrial workplace for COVID-19 suppression. Photodiagnosis and Photodynamic Therapy, Volume 41, March 2023, 103451. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pdpdt.2023.103451 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1572100023001783

...From July 2020 to August 2021, {methylene blue-mediated} aPDT {antimicrobial photodynamic therapy, a preoperative intranasal bacterial suppression to reduce the prevalence rate of surgical site infections} was deployed at a large Canadian food processing plant.

Compliance levels of employees requesting aPDT were 85%.

Important outcomes from this quality improvement initiative included (a) aPDT proved to be a rapid, lightweight intervention that could be deployed at high compliance levels in a commercial high-throughput food processing operation, (b) significant impact (more than 3X reduction) on the COVID-19 rates was observed and (c) COVID-19-related comorbidities including acute and long-term illness, disability, and death were proportionately avoided.

Desantis Loses Lawsuit for Hiding COVID Data
The state will have to pay attorney's fees.
Ron Filipkowski | 9 Oct 2023

Two years ago, the State of Florida was sued after the Florida Department of Health refused to continue to post data on COVID to their public dashboard under orders from Governor Desantis. They just lost the case, will now begin to publish the data {including number of cases, vaccinations, and deaths} again to the public, and have to pay out $152,500 in legal fees to opposing attorneys.

Several different First Amendment advocacy groups and media outlets filed the suit, alleging that the act violated Florida's open government "Sunshine Laws."

...The data was withheld during the worst of the Delta variant outbreak, at the same time that schools were attempting to use the data to make reopening and mitigation determinations.

https://www.meidastouch.com/news/desantis-loses-lawsuit-for-hiding-covid-data

Wonder if this was before or after Boris Johnson himself nearly died of COVID?

PoliticsJOE @PoliticsJOE_UK | 1:25 PM · Oct 30, 2023:

"Why are we destroying everything for people who will die anyway soon?"
This was Boris Johnson's attitude towards the elderly during the pandemic, according to his former Private Secretary Imran Shafi.
Boris Johnson's former pvt sec reveals how ex-PM treated elderly

1:23 ( https://twitter.com/PoliticsJOE_UK/status/1719042891547300257 )

In This Wave of Respiratory Illness, Primary Care Is Drowning
— The spike in illness coupled with staff shortages is stretching us thin
Eric Last, DO January 10, 2024

https://www.medpagetoday.com/opinion/second-opinions/108199

Katri Korpela, Sadhbh Hurley et al. 2024. Association between gut microbiota development and allergy in infants born during pandemic-related social distancing restrictions. Allergy. First published: 29 February 2024. Open Access. https://doi.org/10.1111/all.16069. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/all.16069.

Abstract
Background
Several hypotheses link reduced microbial exposure to increased prevalence of allergies. Here we capitalize on the opportunity to study a cohort of infants (CORAL), raised during COVID-19 associated social distancing measures, to identify the environmental exposures and dietary factors that contribute to early life microbiota development and to examine their associations with allergic outcomes.

Methods
Fecal samples were sequenced from infants at 6 (n = 351) and repeated at 12 (n = 343) months, using 16S sequencing. Published 16S data from pre-pandemic cohorts were included for microbiota comparisons. Online questionnaires collected epidemiological information on home environment, healthcare utilization, infant health, allergic diseases, and diet. Skin prick testing (SPT) was performed at 12 (n = 343) and 24 (n = 320) months of age, accompanied by atopic dermatitis and food allergy assessments.

Results
The relative abundance of bifidobacteria was higher, while environmentally transmitted bacteria such as Clostridia was lower in CORAL infants compared to previous cohorts. The abundance of multiple Clostridia taxa correlated with a microbial exposure index. Plant based foods during weaning positively impacted microbiota development. Bifidobacteria levels at 6 months of age, and relative abundance of butyrate producers at 12 months of age, were negatively associated with AD and SPT positivity. The prevalence of allergen sensitization, food allergy, and AD did not increase over pre-pandemic levels.

Conclusions
Environmental exposures and dietary components significantly impact microbiota community assembly. Our results also suggest that vertically transmitted bacteria and appropriate dietary supports may be more important than exposure to environmental microbes alone for protection against allergic diseases in infancy.