Coronavirus Sars-CoV-2/Covid-19 Megathread

[Barrister]

BC is apparently introducing vaccine passports, with an announcement today.

Quebec was the outlier, once.  No one thought of bringing this forward.  Now, only Ontario is standing still?  Or maybe Alberta too?

BC is apparently introducing vaccine passports, with an announcement today.

Quebec was the outlier, once.  No one thought of bringing this forward.  Now, only Ontario is standing still?  Or maybe Alberta too?

You forgot Saskatchewan.

So, Ontario is apparently going to announce a vaccine passport by next week.

We'll see how long the Prairies last, alone and isolated on this front.

Manitoba has announced vaccine passports.

[Jacob]

Do you expect Kenney to follow suit?

[Barrister]

Do you expect Kenney to follow suit?

50/50.  He has said he will not, but nobody's heard from him for weeks (probably because of the federal election).  Cases are spiking hard in Alberta, although hospitalizations are increasing but not nearly so bad (but - lagging indicator?).

I did see Edmonton is bringing back the mask bylaw, which had lapsed July 1.  Sigh.  After a real low mid-summer I will admit I see many more people wearing masks in stores, etc.

[Valmy]

Even official numbers show Russians dying at the greatest rate since the start of the pandemic, at almost a 1000 a day.  All that anti-vaccine propaganda came back at them with dividends.

Didn't they make a vaccine? Why would they spread anti-vaccine propaganda?

[Tamas]

Even official numbers show Russians dying at the greatest rate since the start of the pandemic, at almost a 1000 a day.  All that anti-vaccine propaganda came back at them with dividends.

Didn't they make a vaccine? Why would they spread anti-vaccine propaganda?

Yeah to be fair they have been spreading anti-Western vaccine propaganda only.

[Jacob]

Yeah to be fair they have been spreading anti-Western vaccine propaganda only.

I think part of the problem is that their populations potentially still consider Western products as more trustworthy than local ones, so if the Western vaccines are untrustworthy that doesn't leave the homemade product in a well trusted position.

[Sheilbh]

Yeah to be fair they have been spreading anti-Western vaccine propaganda only.

I think part of the problem is that their populations potentially still consider Western products as more trustworthy than local ones, so if the Western vaccines are untrustworthy that doesn't leave the homemade product in a well trusted position.

I think there's also a wider distrust of the state saying what's good for you that you should trust in former Communist countries. Up-take of vaccines in CEE in the EU is markedly lower than in Western Europe:
https://qap.ecdc.europa.eu/public/extensions/COVID-19/vaccine-tracker.html#uptake-tab

[DGuller]

Even official numbers show Russians dying at the greatest rate since the start of the pandemic, at almost a 1000 a day.  All that anti-vaccine propaganda came back at them with dividends.

Didn't they make a vaccine? Why would they spread anti-vaccine propaganda?

They would spread anti-vaccine propaganda in the US, via the usual channels, because that's an effective divisive issue.  I think Russia is also a sociopathic enough state that they would actively promote measures that would reduce the effectiveness of US measures to combat Covid.  Everything is a zero-sum game for them; they'd sabotage a response to an asteroid on collision course with the earth if they figure it would benefit them, relatively speaking.

[Caliga]

I mentioned in the other thread that I was in Mexico last week.  One day I rented a yacht and I was talking to the yacht guy about the pandemic.  I asked him how many people in Mexico are vaxxed and he said about 50%.  I was like "is that because it's hard to get the vaccine here?" He said no, it's easy to get it and anyone that wants it can.... the other 50% don't trust the government/believe in conspiracies.

I will say people were really good about wearing masks, even outside of tourist areas like in Cancun proper and its suburbs.  Almost everyone was masked even if they were just walking down the street or waiting for the bus or whatever.

I also asked him what the government did when the pandemic shut down the tourist industry in Quintana Roo last year.  He said basically they handed out boxes of canned goods and said "Here's the best we can do.  Vaya con dios"

[Barrister]

So Alberta has announced third vaccine shots for the elderly and the immunocompromised.

I did qualify to get my first shot somewhat earlier as I was on the list of people with specified conditions.  If you'll recall I was somewhat surprised at the time as I hadn't considered myself necessarily at risk.

Checking now, my condition (not having a spleen) is not on the list.  But frustratingly, the list says that "it includes" the following conditions - not that it's an exhaustive list.  So can I get the third shot or not?



Oh wait - I probably couldn't take it right away anyways.  Just last week I went out and got a different vaccine (Prevnar, for pneumococcal disease) that my doctor had recommended for me.  So I think I need to wait 7 weeks anyways before any other vaccines.

[Neil]

Are they going to be rolling the third dose out in general at some point, or have they not decided?

[Barrister]

Are they going to be rolling the third dose out in general at some point, or have they not decided?

No idea.

[viper37]

I think I'd rather have covid than that 3rd shot... fuck, the second one hit me really hard.

[Legbiter]

We will all get covid in the next couple of years.

[Sheilbh]

This strikes me as important:
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.05.06.21256755v2

Pre-print analysing NHS patient records (58 million) - it finds recording of long covid is very low and between 0.02% in the East of England 0.055% in London. In total just under 25,000 people. It's probably being under-diagnosed/coded at the minute, but I think it's also probably likely that the actual prevalence of long covid is lower than the initial reports/estimates. Although that does sort of gel with what I'd read that long covid was primarily a thing in bad cases - so it might be a higher proportion of severe cases but low overall?

Also whenever I hear about long covid I think about the English CMO when he was asked about who said it's probably more of a syndrome that covers a range of different "conditions" so it'd be interesting to see if there are any other conditions that are raised after covid.