COVID-19 News and Discussions

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raklian
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To know is essentially the same as not knowing. The only thing that occurs is the rearrangement of atoms in your brain.
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wjfox
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Why So Many Long COVID Patients Are Reporting Suicidal Thoughts

JUNE 13, 2022 10:44 AM EDT

Last year, Diana Berrent—the founder of Survivor Corps, a Long COVID support group—asked the group’s members if they’d ever had thoughts of suicide since developing Long COVID. About 18% of people who responded said they had, a number much higher than the 4% of the general U.S. adult population that has experienced recent suicidal thoughts.

A few weeks ago, Berrent posed the same question to current members of her group. This time, of the nearly 200 people who responded, 45% said they’d contemplated suicide.

While her poll was small and informal, the results point to a serious problem. “People are suffering in a way that I don’t think the general public understands,” Berrent says. “Not only are people mourning the life that they thought they were going to have, they are in excruciating pain with no answers.”

Long COVID, a chronic condition that affects millions of Americans who’ve had COVID-19, often looks nothing like acute COVID-19. Sufferers report more than 200 symptoms affecting nearly every part of the body, including the neurologic, cardiovascular, respiratory, and gastrointestinal systems. The condition ranges in severity, but many so-called “long-haulers” are unable to work, go to school, or leave their homes with any sort of consistency.

The statistics around Long COVID and mental health are striking. A report published in eClinical Medicine last year found that about 88% of Long COVID patients experienced some form of mood or emotional issue during the first seven months of their illnesses. Another study, published in BMC Psychiatry in April, found that people with post-COVID conditions were about twice as likely to develop mental health issues including depression, anxiety, or post-traumatic stress disorder as people without them. COVID-19 survivors were also almost 50% more likely to experience suicidal ideation than people who hadn’t had the virus, according to a study published in February in the BMJ.

https://time.com/6186429/suicide-long-covid/
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I swear, it feels like this country has lost its mind sometimes.


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Re: COVID-19 News and Discussions

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Is UK at start of new Covid wave driven by BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants?

Wed 15 Jun 2022 12.39 BST

If you thought Covid-19 was dead and gone, think again. Early signs indicate that the UK may be at the start of a new wave of Covid infections driven by BA.4 and BA.5 – while new data suggests these variants may have evolved to refavour infecting lung tissue, which could make them more dangerous.

So what can we expect in the coming weeks and months?

Although BA.2 continues to account for the bulk of UK infections, data from the Office for National Statistics up to 2 June suggests that Covid cases may be starting to rise again in England and Northern Ireland, driven by an increase in BA.4 and BA.5 infections. The trends were uncertain in Wales and Scotland.

[...]

According to preliminary data from Kei Sato at the University of Tokyo and colleagues, BA.4, BA.5 and BA.2.12.1 may have evolved to refavour infection of lung cells, rather than upper respiratory tract tissue – making them more similar to earlier variants, such as Alpha or Delta. The propensity of earlier Omicron variants to prefer infecting non-lung tissue may be one reason why infections tend to be milder in most people.

[...] Experiments indicate that BA.4, BA.5 and BA.2.12.1 replicate more efficiently in human lung cells than BA.2, while further experiments in hamsters suggest that BA.4 and BA.5 may cause more severe disease.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/ ... a-suggests

:roll: :cry:
weatheriscool
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FDA authorizes coronavirus vaccine for young kids with shots likely next week
Source: Washington Post
More than a year and a half after the oldest Americans gained access to coronavirus vaccines, the nation’s youngest citizens are poised to start getting shots next week, a move made possible when federal regulators Friday authorized vaccines for children as young as 6 months. For many parents and pediatricians, the Food and Drug Administration clearing of two vaccines — one by Moderna and the other by Pfizer and its German partner, BioNTech — comes as a huge relief.

Friday’s authorizations arrived two days after a panel of external advisers unanimously recommended that the agency greenlight vaccines for the last age group eligible for a shot of protection against the virus. “Many parents, caregivers and clinicians have been waiting for a vaccine for younger children and this action will help protect those down to 6 months of age,” FDA Commissioner Robert M. Califf said in a statement. “As we have seen with older age groups, we expect that the vaccines for younger children will provide protection from the most severe outcomes of COVID-19, such as hospitalization and death.”

The vaccines for young children arrive at a critical moment in the nation’s quest to vanquish the virus, with vaccination levels overall flagging even as covid-19 hospitalizations reach their highest average level in more than three months. And they come a few months before the fall which, along with the winter, could feature another deadly surge of covid cases. Many parents with babies and young children see the shots as critical to resuming their pre-pandemic lives, without frequent disruptions to day-care schedules or family celebrations. Several parents said they intend to get their children vaccinated as soon as possible.

Their first opportunity, if all goes as expected, will be early next week, following what are expected to be favorable recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Saturday. “This is a very important moment,” Sallie Permar, an expert in pediatric vaccines at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York, said. “Children and their parents have been waiting since the pandemic began to have a tool to prevent disease.” Yet indications are that initial uptake of the vaccines will be low. In a recent Kaiser Family Foundation survey, only 18 percent said they plan to get their children vaccinated right away, while 27 percent said they will “definitely not” get their child vaccinated.
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2 ... ce=twitter
Nanotechandmorefuture
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CDC advisers vote to recommend Covid-19 vaccines for children as young as 6 months
By Jacqueline Howard, CNN
Updated 3:08 PM ET, Sat June 18, 2022

https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/18/health/c ... index.html
Vaccine advisers to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention voted unanimously on Saturday in support of recommending the Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech Covid-19 vaccines to children as young as 6 months.

CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky will have to sign off before vaccines can be administered, which could happen as early as next week.
My thought on this: None of it is glamorous. It is a job that apparently needs to be done and one that I do my part at the local level by getting the vaccine and getting out to do other things afterwards. As to whether there is a benefit throughout or after the climate crisis and COVID is over so be it. I'm not expecting one but if there is that is great too.
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BA.2.12.1, BA.4 and BA.5 escape antibodies elicited by Omicron infection

Published: 17 June 2022

SARS-CoV-2 Omicron sublineages BA.2.12.1, BA.4 and BA.5 exhibit higher transmissibility over BA.2. The new variants’ receptor binding and immune evasion capability require immediate investigation. Here, coupled with Spike structural comparisons, we show that BA.2.12.1 and BA.4/BA.5 exhibit comparable ACE2-binding affinities to BA.2. Importantly, BA.2.12.1 and BA.4/BA.5 display stronger neutralization evasion than BA.2 against the plasma from 3-dose vaccination and, most strikingly, from post-vaccination BA.1 infections.

[...]

Together, our results indicate that Omicron may evolve mutations to evade the humoral immunity elicited by BA.1 infection, suggesting that BA.1-derived vaccine boosters may not achieve broad-spectrum protection against new Omicron variants.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-04980-y
Nanotechandmorefuture
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CDC endorses coronavirus vaccines for children under 5
By Lena H. Sun and Joel Achenbach
Updated June 18, 2022 at 3:17 p.m. EDT|Published June 18, 2022 at 1:26 p.m. EDT

https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2 ... -children/
Pediatricians are preparing to administer the nation’s first coronavirus vaccines for children under 5 in coming days after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention signed off Saturday on giving the shots to as many as 19 million children across the United States.

The endorsement from CDC Director Rochelle Walensky to vaccinate all children as young as 6 months old against the virus came less than two hours after the agency’s vaccine advisory panel unanimously recommended two vaccines — one by Moderna and the other by Pfizer and its German partner, BioNTech.

“Together, with science leading the charge, we have taken another important step forward in our nations fight against COVID-19,” Walensky said in a statement. “We know millions of parents and caregivers are eager to get their young children vaccinated, and with today’s decision, they can."
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andmar74
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Re: COVID-19 News and Discussions

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So here in Denmark they will offer a 4. vaccine shot after summer, to people aged 50 and older. I'm 47.. The very weak will get one sooner.
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