Big Blue Huddle

Quote from: GordonGekko80 on January 13, 2022, 08:47:42 AM
I don't want to know... I really don't. And I am happy I actually was vaccinated.

I think my illness was moderate, but not more than that. My wife and my big daughter recovered quite quickly, while the little one and myself still struggled with excessive tiredness until after Christmas.

The impact of the COVID infection is really boils down to the individual immune system and health condition. Vaccine do help to boost their immune system, but it's not the panacea for everyone. Fully vaccinated people do get infected and while in most cases the symptoms are mild, there are exceptions as well. This is similar with unvaccinated people as well, some of them have mild symptoms and their immune system developed the "organic vaccine" against the COVID virus.

Being fully vaccinated can be hospitalized and die from COVID infection. Yes, their risk is lower than for unvaccinated people, but it's there. Again, within Connecticut, 1/3 of the hospitalized  with COVID infection are fully vaccinated. So far, there had been 311 death with COVID infection due to break through infection since February 2021. Interestingly, up until 12.09.21, there had been "only" 213, resulting in close to 50% increase just in a month. So much for lower impact for  Omicron variant...

Quote from: brownelvis54 on January 12, 2022, 04:50:17 PM
No surprise here. Just hearing it said out loud is a kick in the gut.


The omicron coronavirus variant will infect

I only remember the American Pie song from those times for good reason, grew up in Hungary. Back in those days, we used to protest against the Vietnam war, calling it unjustified, imperialistic war, prayed the Vietcong will kick their tush, that with the help CCCP they eventually did.

Was I against war at that time? Well, yeah, I am against any war. In addition, that's where most of the chicks were on the day of the protest. We had bonfire afterward, playing guitar, singing along... oh man, good ol'times... 

Quote from: LennG on January 11, 2022, 12:05:24 PM
How much do we know about Omicron as far as it relates to the original virus as to how to protect oneself like towards shopping. We learned that we should wash our veggies, wipe down our packages, even change clothes if we went out to the store. We learned how long the virus lived on certain materials, like plastics and cardboard among other things and we adjusted our lives accordingly.
With Omicron, are these same procedures necessary? Do we know if this variant lives on a cardboard box, on the mail, on our daily paper? Are we still washing our food brought into the house, wiping down the milk cartons?
My darling wife still does it all and I chide her a bit for it, but is she being overly cautious or doing the right thing?

Lenny, we did the same things and then some for over a year too. Didn't wipe down perishable items, instead used UVC light to disinfect the surfaces, including the counter afterward. While we don't really use this light much anymore, we still do wash fruit/vegetables and other perishable items. And of course, our hands...

The constant changes in the virus discouraging, especially the highly politicized changes in the protection against them. Initially, our only option had been masks and washing hands frequently. Then came the vaccines and everybody swore, that once we reach "heard immunity", this pandemic will be over. Well, that did not happen and we have a new variant that requires booster shot. When the third variant had showed up and spreads like wildfire, we are back to masks, wash hands and maybe yet another booster shot, or a new vaccine. It's almost like "rinse and repeat", or like yoyo, depending on your preference...

Since the Omicron showed up, the infection rates are through the roof in the tri-state area:

https://aatishb.com/covidtrends/?region=US&trendline=false&location=Connecticut&location=New+Jersey&location=New+York

For my state, CT, the infection rate is at the unheard rate of close to 24%:

https://portal.ct.gov/Coronavirus/COVID-19-Data-Tracker

In my town, Stamford, the latest infection rate is 45%:

https://public.tableau.com/app/profile/cityofstamford/viz/StamfordCOVID-19Dashboard/StamfordCOVID-19Dash

Please note the chart in the top, right corner, where the vaccination coverage percentage summarized by age groups. The most interesting stat is vaccination rate for all eligible residents showing, that 94% of the eligible residents had been vaccinated. 80% of them fully vaccinated, while 14% received the first shot. Whatever happened to the "herd immunity", do we need to have 100% vaccination? it does not seem like that we would have that even then.

That leaves 6% unvaccinated, eligible residents for vaccine. Are those 8,100 residents are responsible spreading the virus? The chances are the answer to that question is no. Especially since in my earlier post detailed how some of the fully vaccinated residents with booster shot getting infected and spreading the virus. And as stated earlier, COVID is going to stay with us, until a vaccine that can prevent getting infected on the first place is developed.

Until then, cut back on socializing, wear mask, wash your hands, get the next booster, if you can. Stay safe Lenny, stay safe...

Quote from: ps11yat14 on January 07, 2022, 05:30:13 PM
Part of the country's problems today is we have forgotten how to laugh at each other without someone being offended.

Bill

It made me realize that laughing at these jokes and having conflicted feeling at the same time is just wrong. Thank for this....

Quote from: DaveBrown74 on January 04, 2022, 09:45:04 PM
Our football team?

What, no sarcasm emoticon? 

If you've stated our hockey team, that would be understandable...

Quote from: Ed Vette on January 08, 2022, 11:08:37 AM
Vaccinated/Boosted may take greater precautions overall with mask wearing and social distancing. Being more cautious personalities. Just a thought. Or, this may be evidence that they are just less likely to contract it due to immunity to viral load.

Actually, the fully vaccinated/boosted tend to be less cautious overall, trusting that the vaccine will protect them. Even, if one of these people are cautious, it's not a guarantee that they cannot get infected. Anecdotally...

We had my daughter (Perimedic, ALS) and my grandkids over for dinner on Xmas-eve. Next day, she called us to tell that she has a positive COVID test; after five days she was back at work. Neither my grandkids, single vaccine shot, nor us with boosters had became infected. They were just over for dinner last night. The family, that lives across from my house one by one had became infected around Xmas, one of their young kids brought it home from school, all of them are vaccinated. One the other hand, friend of mine opted out from vaccination and he's just fine. Albeit due to the 33% infection rate in our town, he'll probably get vaccinated now. Again, this is just my personal experience with infections around me...

As stated earlier, there will be a point in the future, where the number of breakthrough infection will be grater than the number of unvaccinated infection, both percentage and actual number wise. This is due to that there will be less and less people will be unvaccinated, like my friend in couple of days.

Quote from: Bob In PA on January 08, 2022, 12:13:20 PM
Ed: The mask question is super-complicated.  But there's no doubt masks help avoid transmitting the disease to others.  That's their strong point in my opinion, and it's simple and easy-to-understand.

That's why (1) I don't mind wearing a mask if required (or requested politely) to do so; and (2) IMO this point should be emphasized by anyone who wishes to support and promote mask-wearing.

Does a mask protect you? Depends on the mask. Even with the "right" mask, you still must wear it correctly, replace it with a new one fairly often, don't touch anything but the line that goes around your ear, etc.

Bob

At the beginning of the pandemic, the advicse had been that "My mask protects you, Your mask protects me" is still holds true...

Quote from: MightyGiants on January 07, 2022, 10:09:22 AM
Here is another excellent article that is worth reading


What we know about the symptoms

Interesting maps and #4 map could've been made more interesting, like this one in the link below:

https://www.aclu.org/other/constitution-100-mile-border-zone

Two out of three people live within the 100 miles border zone, under the jurisdiction of Custom and Border Patrol (CBP) . So, why is that interesting, when most other countries around the borders probably have similar population statistics? Well, the major difference is the depth of the border zone and how the Constitution protection apply in this zone. For example the Fourth Amendment, among others, is not applicable in the US border zone. That's quite evident at border entry points, where border patrol can ask foreigners and Americans to unlock their electronic devices.

Quote from: Sem on September 23, 2021, 03:42:12 PM
Hey hey easy there. I come here during work to get away from the I/T issues I deal with all day. Now I almost feel as if I should be getting paid to read this. 

Presumably, you were getting paid for reading this... 

Quote from: LennG on September 22, 2021, 05:21:29 PM
I understand the theory of it, but really, why would you (or anyone) call them?

How could they charge you?

I get emails all the time telling me I just bought $1200 worth of something from amazon, click on here if it wasn't me?

I go to my amazon account to check it out, not click on here.

Maybe Jolly had been curious as to what happens, if he calls. I actually curious what was the code, that they wanted him to run. The "Windows-Key + R" will run the command, scripts, etc., at the logged in user account's access level. Since most of the people log in as administrators at home, even if the actual name of the account is Jolly for example, it's rather easy to gain remote access to the system. This type of scam counts on the administrator account, without it, the script will fail.

Well, there are ways to gain administrator access from the standard user account, but that's too long of a script to type in. Albeit they could give you a link to the script to run...

I'll stop here, before start to list all of the possibilities.... 

FDA authorized booster shots for Pfizer:

• individuals 65 years of age and older;
• individuals 18 through 64 years of age at high risk of severe COVID-19; and
• individuals 18 through 64 years of age whose frequent institutional or occupational exposure to SARS-CoV-2 puts them at high risk of serious complications of COVID-19 including severe COVID-19.

Source

I've got my Pfizer second shot, back in March, and eligible for the booster.  At the advice of my better half, I'll schedule it when it becomes available. The first two shots didn't cause any issues for me, other than minor discomfort around the shot. I hope that the third one will be pretty much the same...

Edit: Added link to FDA...

@Lenny...

Weather or not you will get the booster shot, I hope you'll be doing just fine and wish you well either ways. You may want to discuss the booster shot with your doctor, prior to standing in line.

In my mind, studies had shown, that the efficacy of the Pfizer vaccine is reduced after five month to 47%, quote:

QuoteWhile Pfizer's own data shows a decrease from an initial 96% efficacy to 83.7% efficacy after four months, the company also cited data from a study by Kaiser Permanente Southern California, which found that efficacy against infections declined from 88% during the first month after full vaccination to 47% after five months.

Breakthrough infections may not result in serious issues, or none at all, but fully vaccinated people can spread the virus just as well as unvaccinated people. In CT, the breakthrough infection rate is around 38% of the new infections. Being able to reduce it by about 90% would also help controlling the spread of the virus. The Israeli study had not been small scale, quote:

QuoteThe research includes data from more than 1 million Israelis. Among those who hadn

Israel had been offering booster shots, five month after  the second shot, for fully vaccinated people since August 1st, this year. The roughly one month result of the booster shot seems very promising, quote:

QuoteA new study conducted in Israel shows that individuals given a third COVID-19 vaccine dose are nearly twenty times more protected against serious illness and more than ten times more protected against infection, compared with those who received their second dose at least five months previously.

Source

New England Journal of Medicine journal published the study, released yesterday:

Protection of BNT162b2 Vaccine Booster against Covid-19 in Israel

The booster shot increases the level of antibodies higher, than previously seen after the second COVID shot:

Source

This is great news for reducing breakthrough infection rates. The US still did not approve the booster shot, but the decision on the subject is due today.

Quote from: DaveBrown74 on August 23, 2021, 04:17:34 AM
When you say "everyone", who do you mean exactly? Do you mean everyone who is middle class and up?

If you actually mean everyone, I would like to know how poor or even paycheck-to-paycheck people are supposed to do the vast majority of these suggestions.

Admittedly, based on my financial status, I did not take the "poor or even paycheck-to-paycheck people" into account.

While the list of suggestions is long, some of these even the poor could actually do; the others would require help from the feds. If the feds can bailout corporations, the .1%, waste trillions on wars, then certainly should help these people. But that's another discussion...

The Delta variant isn't like we had previously and spreading along, regardless of the vaccination status. Not addressing 35M of "poor or even paycheck-to-paycheck people" will not help in controlling the spread of Delta variant anytime soon.

Feds and the states pretty much aren't doing much about this. Take for example NYC, that it is still on track to fully reopen despite the fast spreading Delta virus. As such corporations, small business, etc., took matters in their own hands and they are cancelling their reopening, trade shows, etc.:

New York