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OT: USA COVID-19 Vaccination Updates

So the BA4 and BA5 variant are taking over, it appears that BA5 will end up completely taking over as the dominant strain in the next couple of weeks. Bad news is that the BA5 variant can evade previous immunity due to natural infection. So if you had Alpha or Delta or even Omicron BA1, it doesn't appear to care and you still get infected again. And for the double whammy, BA5 appears to be MORE VIRULENT then the other omicron variants as unlike previous omicrons which really just were upper respiratory (nose and throat mainly) the BA5 variant appears to be attacking back down in the chest again like the original strains. When you look at some numbers in Europe, it looks like BA5 is going to match the infection peaks of BA1 which is just crazy and amazing and bad at the same time.

In other bad news, P/M are working on the next generation of vaccine which they were synthesizing from the BA1 omicron variant, basically an Omicron vaccine. But now that BA5 is already evading natural infection from BA1, that vaccine appears to be going to have very little benefit.

This all is a bad thing. I know most of us have moved on and are just living with Covid. But there is a virus out there that is mutating so fast that literally it can evade the body's own immune system from an infection from less than 6 months ago, that is just insane. And as the experts (real experts, not CDC) have discussed, almost the entire time through history virus become less and less virulent over time and more infectious hence eventually just winding themselves out. This Covid virus though is somehow becoming more invasive and infectious at faster rates then ever seen and now seems to have become more virulent at the same time.

If you listen to the Youtube vidoes of Dr. John from the UK, you could tell in his last video that he was a little bit shaken by this new BA5 data coming out. He admitted that he thought that with Omicron that between the vaccine and natural infection that herd immunity was going to be reached after BA1. But in now seeing more infectious and virulent strains coming out, he doesn't know what to think much anymore. Not good.
 
So the BA4 and BA5 variant are taking over, it appears that BA5 will end up completely taking over as the dominant strain in the next couple of weeks. Bad news is that the BA5 variant can evade previous immunity due to natural infection. So if you had Alpha or Delta or even Omicron BA1, it doesn't appear to care and you still get infected again. And for the double whammy, BA5 appears to be MORE VIRULENT then the other omicron variants as unlike previous omicrons which really just were upper respiratory (nose and throat mainly) the BA5 variant appears to be attacking back down in the chest again like the original strains. When you look at some numbers in Europe, it looks like BA5 is going to match the infection peaks of BA1 which is just crazy and amazing and bad at the same time.

In other bad news, P/M are working on the next generation of vaccine which they were synthesizing from the BA1 omicron variant, basically an Omicron vaccine. But now that BA5 is already evading natural infection from BA1, that vaccine appears to be going to have very little benefit.

This all is a bad thing. I know most of us have moved on and are just living with Covid. But there is a virus out there that is mutating so fast that literally it can evade the body's own immune system from an infection from less than 6 months ago, that is just insane. And as the experts (real experts, not CDC) have discussed, almost the entire time through history virus become less and less virulent over time and more infectious hence eventually just winding themselves out. This Covid virus though is somehow becoming more invasive and infectious at faster rates then ever seen and now seems to have become more virulent at the same time.

If you listen to the Youtube vidoes of Dr. John from the UK, you could tell in his last video that he was a little bit shaken by this new BA5 data coming out. He admitted that he thought that with Omicron that between the vaccine and natural infection that herd immunity was going to be reached after BA1. But in now seeing more infectious and virulent strains coming out, he doesn't know what to think much anymore. Not good.
I'd be curious how they know its evading BA1 not Delta since they were both here at the same time. The other question is---are the vaccinated be harmed more then the unvaxxed from BA5?
 
So the BA4 and BA5 variant are taking over, it appears that BA5 will end up completely taking over as the dominant strain in the next couple of weeks. Bad news is that the BA5 variant can evade previous immunity due to natural infection. So if you had Alpha or Delta or even Omicron BA1, it doesn't appear to care and you still get infected again. And for the double whammy, BA5 appears to be MORE VIRULENT then the other omicron variants as unlike previous omicrons which really just were upper respiratory (nose and throat mainly) the BA5 variant appears to be attacking back down in the chest again like the original strains. When you look at some numbers in Europe, it looks like BA5 is going to match the infection peaks of BA1 which is just crazy and amazing and bad at the same time.

In other bad news, P/M are working on the next generation of vaccine which they were synthesizing from the BA1 omicron variant, basically an Omicron vaccine. But now that BA5 is already evading natural infection from BA1, that vaccine appears to be going to have very little benefit.

This all is a bad thing. I know most of us have moved on and are just living with Covid. But there is a virus out there that is mutating so fast that literally it can evade the body's own immune system from an infection from less than 6 months ago, that is just insane. And as the experts (real experts, not CDC) have discussed, almost the entire time through history virus become less and less virulent over time and more infectious hence eventually just winding themselves out. This Covid virus though is somehow becoming more invasive and infectious at faster rates then ever seen and now seems to have become more virulent at the same time.

If you listen to the Youtube vidoes of Dr. John from the UK, you could tell in his last video that he was a little bit shaken by this new BA5 data coming out. He admitted that he thought that with Omicron that between the vaccine and natural infection that herd immunity was going to be reached after BA1. But in now seeing more infectious and virulent strains coming out, he doesn't know what to think much anymore. Not good.
scary stuff. my only comment is that this is the kind of stuff that has me convinced this virus came from a lab after being engineered for gain of function. I read, early on, that this virus was so far outside of anything seen before in terms of how quickly it adapts and mutates. It is off-the-charts. That is why it couldn't be contained from discovery to pandemic. Despite experiences with previous viruses, this one outperformed them by a WIDE margin. That kind of leap in capability defies laws of evolution and almost surely was the result of gain of strength engineering, IMHO>
 
scary stuff. my only comment is that this is the kind of stuff that has me convinced this virus came from a lab after being engineered for gain of function. I read, early on, that this virus was so far outside of anything seen before in terms of how quickly it adapts and mutates. It is off-the-charts. That is why it couldn't be contained from discovery to pandemic. Despite experiences with previous viruses, this one outperformed them by a WIDE margin. That kind of leap in capability defies laws of evolution and almost surely was the result of gain of strength engineering, IMHO>
It would be nice if the FDA would stop bending over for Pfizer and approve Novavax as a vaccine and booster. All indications are as a vaccine its 80% effective on BA4.(it will also be very good for my portfolio!)
 
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I'd be curious how they know its evading BA1 not Delta since they were both here at the same time. The other question is---are the vaccinated be harmed more then the unvaxxed from BA5?
In the UK, which has the best data, the delta spike and BA1 spike were more distinct.

I have not heard or read anything about vaxxed vs. unvaxxed and BA5. It still appears to be affecting only the most vulnerable like previous variants.
 
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In the UK, which has the best data, the delta spike and BA1 spike were more distinct.

I have not heard or read anything about vaxxed vs. unvaxxed and BA5. It still appears to be affecting only the most vulnerable like previous variants.
Which by default would mean the vaccinated and boosted and probably boosted again.
 
scary stuff. my only comment is that this is the kind of stuff that has me convinced this virus came from a lab after being engineered for gain of function. I read, early on, that this virus was so far outside of anything seen before in terms of how quickly it adapts and mutates. It is off-the-charts. That is why it couldn't be contained from discovery to pandemic. Despite experiences with previous viruses, this one outperformed them by a WIDE margin. That kind of leap in capability defies laws of evolution and almost surely was the result of gain of strength engineering, IMHO>

Anecdotally, two guys in the office got Covid a few weeks ago. One early 30's and the other late 30's, both healthy, on the skinny side with no co-morbidities, both vaccinated and boosted. Both of them have really suffered. Both of them felt relatively poor for a good 4-5 days. One of them 3 weeks out still has a very scratchy throat when he talks and is coughing a lot. The other guy two weeks out still has legit fatigue to the point he was out on a jobsite and had to go back to the hotel twice during the week in the afternoon as he said he felt like a truck ran over him (and this is a guy that is used to working 10-12 hours days on site). He also mentioned that he constantly feels thirsty even though he is drinking huge amounts of water and is not dehydrated.

I agree that this virus to me appears to not be natural. I mean we are talking virus that is evading natural immunity of a previous variant in less than 6 months, that is a crazy mutation speed. And not only mutating that fast, but becoming slightly more virulent in the process.
 
So the BA4 and BA5 variant are taking over, it appears that BA5 will end up completely taking over as the dominant strain in the next couple of weeks. Bad news is that the BA5 variant can evade previous immunity due to natural infection. So if you had Alpha or Delta or even Omicron BA1, it doesn't appear to care and you still get infected again. And for the double whammy, BA5 appears to be MORE VIRULENT then the other omicron variants as unlike previous omicrons which really just were upper respiratory (nose and throat mainly) the BA5 variant appears to be attacking back down in the chest again like the original strains. When you look at some numbers in Europe, it looks like BA5 is going to match the infection peaks of BA1 which is just crazy and amazing and bad at the same time.

In other bad news, P/M are working on the next generation of vaccine which they were synthesizing from the BA1 omicron variant, basically an Omicron vaccine. But now that BA5 is already evading natural infection from BA1, that vaccine appears to be going to have very little benefit.

This all is a bad thing. I know most of us have moved on and are just living with Covid. But there is a virus out there that is mutating so fast that literally it can evade the body's own immune system from an infection from less than 6 months ago, that is just insane. And as the experts (real experts, not CDC) have discussed, almost the entire time through history virus become less and less virulent over time and more infectious hence eventually just winding themselves out. This Covid virus though is somehow becoming more invasive and infectious at faster rates then ever seen and now seems to have become more virulent at the same time.

If you listen to the Youtube vidoes of Dr. John from the UK, you could tell in his last video that he was a little bit shaken by this new BA5 data coming out. He admitted that he thought that with Omicron that between the vaccine and natural infection that herd immunity was going to be reached after BA1. But in now seeing more infectious and virulent strains coming out, he doesn't know what to think much anymore. Not good.
Well, they had Bill Gates, Dr Fauci, and the best Chinese experts all working on its design..........
 
So the BA4 and BA5 variant are taking over, it appears that BA5 will end up completely taking over as the dominant strain in the next couple of weeks. Bad news is that the BA5 variant can evade previous immunity due to natural infection. So if you had Alpha or Delta or even Omicron BA1, it doesn't appear to care and you still get infected again. And for the double whammy, BA5 appears to be MORE VIRULENT then the other omicron variants as unlike previous omicrons which really just were upper respiratory (nose and throat mainly) the BA5 variant appears to be attacking back down in the chest again like the original strains. When you look at some numbers in Europe, it looks like BA5 is going to match the infection peaks of BA1 which is just crazy and amazing and bad at the same time.

In other bad news, P/M are working on the next generation of vaccine which they were synthesizing from the BA1 omicron variant, basically an Omicron vaccine. But now that BA5 is already evading natural infection from BA1, that vaccine appears to be going to have very little benefit.

This all is a bad thing. I know most of us have moved on and are just living with Covid. But there is a virus out there that is mutating so fast that literally it can evade the body's own immune system from an infection from less than 6 months ago, that is just insane. And as the experts (real experts, not CDC) have discussed, almost the entire time through history virus become less and less virulent over time and more infectious hence eventually just winding themselves out. This Covid virus though is somehow becoming more invasive and infectious at faster rates then ever seen and now seems to have become more virulent at the same time.

If you listen to the Youtube vidoes of Dr. John from the UK, you could tell in his last video that he was a little bit shaken by this new BA5 data coming out. He admitted that he thought that with Omicron that between the vaccine and natural infection that herd immunity was going to be reached after BA1. But in now seeing more infectious and virulent strains coming out, he doesn't know what to think much anymore. Not good.
If true this is why the Chinese need to provide answers. My theory has always been they know more than what they tell us. Perhaps they don’t tell us because we’re screwed.
 
Anecdotally, two guys in the office got Covid a few weeks ago. One early 30's and the other late 30's, both healthy, on the skinny side with no co-morbidities, both vaccinated and boosted. Both of them have really suffered. Both of them felt relatively poor for a good 4-5 days. One of them 3 weeks out still has a very scratchy throat when he talks and is coughing a lot. The other guy two weeks out still has legit fatigue to the point he was out on a jobsite and had to go back to the hotel twice during the week in the afternoon as he said he felt like a truck ran over him (and this is a guy that is used to working 10-12 hours days on site). He also mentioned that he constantly feels thirsty even though he is drinking huge amounts of water and is not dehydrated.

I agree that this virus to me appears to not be natural. I mean we are talking virus that is evading natural immunity of a previous variant in less than 6 months, that is a crazy mutation speed. And not only mutating that fast, but becoming slightly more virulent in the process.
Similarly to my office---I had it 4 weeks ago---just thought it was a sinus infection, Kids 20 and 22 one day at home of not feeling well. Wife-who I work with A day of fatigue and a cough for a few days(she gets bad coughs from the common cold) None of us vaxxed. Now in the office---only one vaxxed and boosted 30 yr female---wiped out for 5 days and still fatigued 3 weeks after she got it.
 
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scary stuff. my only comment is that this is the kind of stuff that has me convinced this virus came from a lab after being engineered for gain of function. I read, early on, that this virus was so far outside of anything seen before in terms of how quickly it adapts and mutates. It is off-the-charts. That is why it couldn't be contained from discovery to pandemic. Despite experiences with previous viruses, this one outperformed them by a WIDE margin. That kind of leap in capability defies laws of evolution and almost surely was the result of gain of strength engineering, IMHO>
yes, and is arguably the worst development in this entire pandemic. The fact that the WHO protected China, an entire political party in the USA protected China, the largest social media companies in the world protected China, is just shocking. I mean 6M+ confirmed deaths and probably millions more in poor countries that just don't report so I would not be surprised if the total death toll is in the 8-10M range.

And yet no investigation at all into where this virus originated from.
 
yes, and is arguably the worst development in this entire pandemic. The fact that the WHO protected China, an entire political party in the USA protected China, the largest social media companies in the world protected China, is just shocking. I mean 6M+ confirmed deaths and probably millions more in poor countries that just don't report so I would not be surprised if the total death toll is in the 8-10M range.

And yet no investigation at all into where this virus originated from.
Agreed. The reason why it was protected it is because we funded it (partially if not in totality). Why? That research was outlawed in the USA and most western nations. So we could fund it and call it a "rogue nation".

This isn't speculation...it is fact. Was it from that lab? Was it leaked on purpose? I have no idea. But I do know we funded gain of strength in China so our laws couldn't reach us (Canada participated too).
 
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Agreed. The reason why it was protected it is because we funded it (partially if not in totality). Why? That research was outlawed in the USA and most western nations. So we could fund it and call it a "rogue nation".

This isn't speculation...it is fact. Was it from that lab? Was it leaked on purpose? I have no idea. But I do know we funded gain of strength in China so our laws couldn't reach us (Canada participated too).
which is why Fauci and Collins went on the smear campaign literally the night they found out. And why so many in the US government didn't want to look under the hood as they know it would lead back to them. And the WHO is owned by China. And social media by the democrats who were using Covid as a way to defeat Trump.

All the while millions are dying and none of the above cared. it reminds me a lot of the Jerry Sandusky scandal where there were four or five groups who all had differing reasons to propagate that Joe/C/S/S were the bad guys to protect themselves and/or gain from it.
 
Searching for a little good news here. If you had BA4 does that help at all with BA5? My wife, son and i all had it 3 weeks ago. My wife had a nasty cough, my son was and is still a little fatigued, and i fortunately with the worst co morbidities was virtually asymptomatic. who knows what strain we had, but I was hoping for at least 6 months "relief". FWIW. J&J jab March 2021 and Dec 2021
 
Searching for a little good news here. If you had BA4 does that help at all with BA5? My wife, son and i all had it 3 weeks ago. My wife had a nasty cough, my son was and is still a little fatigued, and i fortunately with the worst co morbidities was virtually asymptomatic. who knows what strain we had, but I was hoping for at least 6 months "relief". FWIW. J&J jab March 2021 and Dec 2021
it was noted that re-infection within 3 months was rare. so if you had ba4 you should be fine
 
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scary stuff. my only comment is that this is the kind of stuff that has me convinced this virus came from a lab after being engineered for gain of function. I read, early on, that this virus was so far outside of anything seen before in terms of how quickly it adapts and mutates. It is off-the-charts. That is why it couldn't be contained from discovery to pandemic. Despite experiences with previous viruses, this one outperformed them by a WIDE margin. That kind of leap in capability defies laws of evolution and almost surely was the result of gain of strength engineering, IMHO>
Definitely came from Chinese lab…laughable to think otherwise.
 
So the BA4 and BA5 variant are taking over, it appears that BA5 will end up completely taking over as the dominant strain in the next couple of weeks. Bad news is that the BA5 variant can evade previous immunity due to natural infection. So if you had Alpha or Delta or even Omicron BA1, it doesn't appear to care and you still get infected again. And for the double whammy, BA5 appears to be MORE VIRULENT then the other omicron variants as unlike previous omicrons which really just were upper respiratory (nose and throat mainly) the BA5 variant appears to be attacking back down in the chest again like the original strains. When you look at some numbers in Europe, it looks like BA5 is going to match the infection peaks of BA1 which is just crazy and amazing and bad at the same time.

In other bad news, P/M are working on the next generation of vaccine which they were synthesizing from the BA1 omicron variant, basically an Omicron vaccine. But now that BA5 is already evading natural infection from BA1, that vaccine appears to be going to have very little benefit.

This all is a bad thing. I know most of us have moved on and are just living with Covid. But there is a virus out there that is mutating so fast that literally it can evade the body's own immune system from an infection from less than 6 months ago, that is just insane. And as the experts (real experts, not CDC) have discussed, almost the entire time through history virus become less and less virulent over time and more infectious hence eventually just winding themselves out. This Covid virus though is somehow becoming more invasive and infectious at faster rates then ever seen and now seems to have become more virulent at the same time.

If you listen to the Youtube vidoes of Dr. John from the UK, you could tell in his last video that he was a little bit shaken by this new BA5 data coming out. He admitted that he thought that with Omicron that between the vaccine and natural infection that herd immunity was going to be reached after BA1. But in now seeing more infectious and virulent strains coming out, he doesn't know what to think much anymore. Not good.
Globally, while some growth in cases, no major countries anywhere near previous spikes and the death rates remain many orders of magnitude below previous highs.

Wake up call to get in better shape..going to have live with it until medical community develops a REAL solution.
 
Globally, while some growth in cases, no major countries anywhere near previous spikes and the death rates remain many orders of magnitude below previous highs.

Wake up call to get in better shape..going to have live with it until medical community develops a REAL solution.
Or until virulence declines further. It already has significantly. But you hit the nail on the head with the wake up call on personal health. It's not in a pill or a shot. It's living a healthy lifestyle and that's a personal responsibility. No short cuts. Daily investment.
 
Or until virulence declines further. It already has significantly. But you hit the nail on the head with the wake up call on personal health. It's not in a pill or a shot. It's living a healthy lifestyle and that's a personal responsibility. No short cuts. Daily investment.
Agreed but you will get old. Father Time is undefeated. You will only be healthy for so long
 
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Globally, while some growth in cases, no major countries anywhere near previous spikes and the death rates remain many orders of magnitude below previous highs.

Wake up call to get in better shape..going to have live with it until medical community develops a REAL solution.

From a case standpoint, some countries are approaching previous high. Recognize that the USA data for instance is grossly underestimated on cases as most people now do home tests which are not reported. But UK has some more advanced data with random testing and self reporting via an app that has them approaching previous high in case counts. I doubt the UK is much different than most other countries, they just track better.

Hospitalizations are definitely NOT nearing previous spikes. For instance right now the current 7 day average for new hospital admissions (best data point in the USA to track a trend right now) is 5,118 per day. Previous spikes for Alpha, Delta, and Omicron are 16k, 13K, and 22K respectively. So we are well below those numbers. But as we are talking about cases and increased virulence, the new hospital admission was at 1,400 per day in early April, so you can see that since that time the curve has just gone up. When you look at the slope of the curve, it is about a 45 degree angle up that is not looking like a plateau has been reached. So more virulent is BA4/5 but all relative speaking we are nowhere near the Alpha and Delta wave or even the original Omicron spike.

For fatalities, since May 11 the fatality line is basically a straight line that hovers around 300 cases per day. And looking at who is dying, if you look at the chart since March 1st of this year, it is 95%+ 65 and over and 80% 75 and over. So basically the people dying right now at the current 300 per day based on the data that I can read without going really crazy into the nitty gritty details is people that are old with a very short life expectancy.
 
And crazy enough, there are two people in our office who are now wearing masks when out in common areas. They are the two youngest people in our office, both late 20's/early 30's and both healthy. I want to ask them why they are wearing masks just to truly understand why but I know it will only somehow come back to bite me so it will remain in mystery.
 
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And crazy enough, there are two people in our office who are now wearing masks when out in common areas. They are the two youngest people in our office, both late 20's/early 30's and both healthy. I want to ask them why they are wearing masks just to truly understand why but I know it will only somehow come back to bite me so it will remain in mystery.
are they cloth masks? I still see cloth masks. In fact, saw a guy with a frog mask on the other day.
 
And crazy enough, there are two people in our office who are now wearing masks when out in common areas. They are the two youngest people in our office, both late 20's/early 30's and both healthy. I want to ask them why they are wearing masks just to truly understand why but I know it will only somehow come back to bite me so it will remain in mystery.
I believed most things on the news were true and it was just reporting it when I was that age also
 
are they cloth masks? I still see cloth masks. In fact, saw a guy with a frog mask on the other day.
I have a question on the blue paper masks. I thought their effectiveness had been pretty generally debunked. However my wife and I are the outliers in our family by being more conservative and more skeptical of the CDC. etc. So we have a niece's husband who is a n ER doctor and to his credit has dealt with a lot of Covid over the last 3 years. He wears a blue paper mask and a face shield while working but remains a strong advocate of the mask. So the entire family [save my wife and I] follows his advice and masks. Am I missing something. I guess i always felt the mask had to help a little [maybe 15-20%] but not much. BTW the ER doc has NOT had Covid while his wife and 2 young children have had it.
 
I have a question on the blue paper masks. I thought their effectiveness had been pretty generally debunked. However my wife and I are the outliers in our family by being more conservative and more skeptical of the CDC. etc. So we have a niece's husband who is a n ER doctor and to his credit has dealt with a lot of Covid over the last 3 years. He wears a blue paper mask and a face shield while working but remains a strong advocate of the mask. So the entire family [save my wife and I] follows his advice and masks. Am I missing something. I guess i always felt the mask had to help a little [maybe 15-20%] but not much. BTW the ER doc has NOT had Covid while his wife and 2 young children have had it.

Take a wire screen and lay it flat raised off the ground. Dump sand on it and see how much doesn't fall through. That is how effective a non-N95 mask is for stopping a virus from going through it. The virus particles are much smaller than the filtering that non-N95 masks provide.

If you want the short version, go to around 2:13 of the video below.




Result from Yale Economic Growth Center:

  • The team also found that surgical masks were more effective than cloth masks. In villages where surgical masks were distributed there was a 12% reduction in Covid-19 symptoms, as opposed to a 5% decline in villages using cloth masks.

Largest study on masks and Covid-19 demonstrates their effectiveness in the real world

 
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And crazy enough, there are two people in our office who are now wearing masks when out in common areas. They are the two youngest people in our office, both late 20's/early 30's and both healthy. I want to ask them why they are wearing masks just to truly understand why but I know it will only somehow come back to bite me so it will remain in mystery.
We visited State College Saturday. Was really surprised(well not really) at the number of masks outside around campus. At some point someone needs to tell these people they were lied to
 
I have a question on the blue paper masks. I thought their effectiveness had been pretty generally debunked. However my wife and I are the outliers in our family by being more conservative and more skeptical of the CDC. etc. So we have a niece's husband who is a n ER doctor and to his credit has dealt with a lot of Covid over the last 3 years. He wears a blue paper mask and a face shield while working but remains a strong advocate of the mask. So the entire family [save my wife and I] follows his advice and masks. Am I missing something. I guess i always felt the mask had to help a little [maybe 15-20%] but not much. BTW the ER doc has NOT had Covid while his wife and 2 young children have had it.
Similar situation. My brother is Dermatologist so with patients all day. Wears a surgical mask and face shield daily with his patients (which since he is in Florida are a lot of high risk old people). He and his family (wife and young child) were on complete lockdown during 2020 and into 2021 until he and his wife were vaccinated. I mean basically no contact with outside world other than him going to work. Kids pulled out of pre-school. And then last summer when they were both vaccinated, they stayed in a modified lockdown because their child was not vaccinated (healthy child). They finally lightened up some this past school year and put him back in school but still minimized any outside contact as reasonably possible. They wore masks whenever outside the house up until we saw them this past February. We saw them again recently at the beach up North and they were no longer wearing masks outside, but they still are 'concerned' with Covid and are still not living 'normal' due to fear or Covid and long term issues.
 
From a case standpoint, some countries are approaching previous high. Recognize that the USA data for instance is grossly underestimated on cases as most people now do home tests which are not reported. But UK has some more advanced data with random testing and self reporting via an app that has them approaching previous high in case counts. I doubt the UK is much different than most other countries, they just track better.

Hospitalizations are definitely NOT nearing previous spikes. For instance right now the current 7 day average for new hospital admissions (best data point in the USA to track a trend right now) is 5,118 per day. Previous spikes for Alpha, Delta, and Omicron are 16k, 13K, and 22K respectively. So we are well below those numbers. But as we are talking about cases and increased virulence, the new hospital admission was at 1,400 per day in early April, so you can see that since that time the curve has just gone up. When you look at the slope of the curve, it is about a 45 degree angle up that is not looking like a plateau has been reached. So more virulent is BA4/5 but all relative speaking we are nowhere near the Alpha and Delta wave or even the original Omicron spike.

For fatalities, since May 11 the fatality line is basically a straight line that hovers around 300 cases per day. And looking at who is dying, if you look at the chart since March 1st of this year, it is 95%+ 65 and over and 80% 75 and over. So basically the people dying right now at the current 300 per day based on the data that I can read without going really crazy into the nitty gritty details is people that are old with a very short life expectancy.
Life will have risks (for me too…I have gotten closer to the COVID “danger age”)…but life will (and should IMO) go on with some sense of normalcy. And numbers clearly bear that out (again, IMO).
 
Similar situation. My brother is Dermatologist so with patients all day. Wears a surgical mask and face shield daily with his patients (which since he is in Florida are a lot of high risk old people). He and his family (wife and young child) were on complete lockdown during 2020 and into 2021 until he and his wife were vaccinated. I mean basically no contact with outside world other than him going to work. Kids pulled out of pre-school. And then last summer when they were both vaccinated, they stayed in a modified lockdown because their child was not vaccinated (healthy child). They finally lightened up some this past school year and put him back in school but still minimized any outside contact as reasonably possible. They wore masks whenever outside the house up until we saw them this past February. We saw them again recently at the beach up North and they were no longer wearing masks outside, but they still are 'concerned' with Covid and are still not living 'normal' due to fear or Covid and long term issues.
Not living life but to each her/his own…
 
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Similar situation. My brother is Dermatologist so with patients all day. Wears a surgical mask and face shield daily with his patients (which since he is in Florida are a lot of high risk old people). He and his family (wife and young child) were on complete lockdown during 2020 and into 2021 until he and his wife were vaccinated. I mean basically no contact with outside world other than him going to work. Kids pulled out of pre-school. And then last summer when they were both vaccinated, they stayed in a modified lockdown because their child was not vaccinated (healthy child). They finally lightened up some this past school year and put him back in school but still minimized any outside contact as reasonably possible. They wore masks whenever outside the house up until we saw them this past February. We saw them again recently at the beach up North and they were no longer wearing masks outside, but they still are 'concerned' with Covid and are still not living 'normal' due to fear or Covid and long term issues.
Is he concerned with monkey pox?
 
Not living life but to each her/his own…
It baffles me the lack of scientific knowledge and critical thought throughout the medical field. I think maybe most doctors are good memorizers and rule followers or maybe just very pigeon holed in their field.

It's like the virologists that want everything shut down to bring the covid risk to a minimum (it doesn't, people holed up in large apartment complexes are at considerably more risk staying at home 24/7) while simultaneously not understanding all of the risks that they are increasing in so many other areas with the covid-only focus. It's like their brains can only operate with one independent variable and all else must be held constant or they short circuit.
 
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