Coronavirus Sars-CoV-2/Covid-19 Megathread

[Tamas]

It never seemed like the Republican leadership was anti-Vaccine. Heck Trump is still trying to get some of his supporters to give him credit for his operation warp speed thing.

It is the propaganda machine that goes in on these things. It almost has a will of its own and the tail seems to wag the dog constantly.

Same thing with Orban's pro-Russia stance, in fairly short order their media became more rabidly pro-Putin than they have ever been publicly.  I think it's the lackies over-bidding each other in an attempt to conform with the message - you have to say something more radical than the last guy otherwise you might slide into irrelevance or worse be taken for a non-believer in the cause.

[mongers]

It never seemed like the Republican leadership was anti-Vaccine. Heck Trump is still trying to get some of his supporters to give him credit for his operation warp speed thing.

It is the propaganda machine that goes in on these things. It almost has a will of its own and the tail seems to wag the dog constantly.

Same thing with Orban's pro-Russia stance, in fairly short order their media became more rabidly pro-Putin than they have ever been publicly.  I think it's the lackies over-bidding each other in an attempt to conform with the message - you have to say something more radical than the last guy otherwise you might slide into irrelevance or worse be taken for a non-believer in the cause.

A newish sub-variant is on the rise across the globe, just in time to take advantage of the UK government's recent decision to not offer a Covid vaccination to healthy under-65s this winter. 

[Duque de Bragança]

It's still free over here, so I got a fourth shot, a bivalent one. Last one was 18 months or so.

Heard there were some cases in Portugal from family and acquaintances and since I plan to go there in a few weeks, it seemed like a good idea.

[Iormlund]

There are cases everywhere. Covid is the leading cause of death in Spain, for example.

It's just that it's not news anymore. I got it again in April and the general reaction was "wait, does this thing still exist?".

[Josquius]

There are cases everywhere. Covid is the leading cause of death in Spain, for example

Thats bizzare and worrying.

[Iormlund]

It's only natural. The thing is endemic now. And it's caused by the most transmissible virus in human history.

I got in again back in April. Despite 3 shots and having been infected at least once before, the suddenness of it gave me a bit of a scare.
I had a very slight headache when I got to work. Less than an two hours later I had trouble breathing, my legs were trembling, etc.
Viral load must have been quite high. The two lines appeared in the test kit almost immediately.

[Josquius]

That its everywhere now I know and makes sense. That some are dying from it still too. But leading cause of death... wow.

[HVC]

Before Covid normal flu killed a lot of people annually, not really surprised to see new and improved flu doing the same.

[mongers]

It's only natural. The thing is endemic now. And it's caused by the most transmissible virus in human history.

I got in again back in April. Despite 3 shots and having been infected at least once before, the suddenness of it gave me a bit of a scare.
I had a very slight headache when I got to work. Less than an two hours later I had trouble breathing, my legs were trembling, etc.
Viral load must have been quite high. The two lines appeared in the test kit almost immediately.

Damn, that's a bummer, hope it didn't knock you out for too long.

I guess most of the rest of us have a version of it to look forward to,  again.

[Iormlund]

After the first 24 hours it wasn't that bad. Honestly I'm more concerned by the weird migraines I started suffering a few weeks after (which might or might not be coincidental).

[DGuller]

There are cases everywhere. Covid is the leading cause of death in Spain, for example.

It's just that it's not news anymore. I got it again in April and the general reaction was "wait, does this thing still exist?".

Covid being a leading cause of death sounds very off to me.  No stats that I can find anywhere on the Internet seem to indicate that it's a major cause of death anywhere anymore, although it's hard to tell who's still collecting new stats, and what the coverage of those new stats is.  Do you have a source for Covid being the leading cause of death in Spain?

[Iormlund]

There are cases everywhere. Covid is the leading cause of death in Spain, for example.

It's just that it's not news anymore. I got it again in April and the general reaction was "wait, does this thing still exist?".

Covid being a leading cause of death sounds very off to me.  No stats that I can find anywhere on the Internet seem to indicate that it's a major cause of death anywhere anymore, although it's hard to tell who's still collecting new stats, and what the coverage of those new stats is.  Do you have a source for Covid being the leading cause of death in Spain?

Spanish Statistics Institute: INE.es

Top 5 being Covid, followed by ischemic heart disease, cardiovascular disease, lung + bronchial cancer and dementia.

The page says the breakdown is done according to WHO classification. If you group all categories (eg. all cancers and heart/cardiovascular problems with each other) Covid would obviously rank lower.
Though only "identified" Covid deaths are counted, so I'm guessing secondary issues triggered by the infection are out.

[Admiral Yi]

Dementia causes death? 

[Sheilbh]

Dementia causes death? 

It's the leading cause in the UK - dementia and Alzheimer's disease.

I'm a little surprised how different that is to the UK, I'd have guessed dementia was the major killer in Europe generally given ageing populations. The ONS also uses the WHO categories, covid is the sixth biggest cause of death (I think it still counts either what's on the death certificate or related deaths within 4 week of a covid diagnosis/positive test). The top five killers here are dementia and Alzheimer's, ischaemic heart diseases, cerebrovascular diseases, chronic lower respiratory diseases and lung cancer.

[DGuller]

Dementia causes death? 

Complications from it do, just like it works with many other illnesses.  Someone dying from Kaposi sarcoma would still be counted as dying from AIDS.