New coronavirus in/from China

[kenneal - lagger]

I've had an annoying cough for a few days and felt really knackered after a few hours in the garden so I've just taken a covid test. Positive for the second time. Last time was in March.

[clv101]

The reinfection rate with BA.5 is crazy, past infection/vaccination is offering little to no protection from infection.

Daily hospital administration rate (lagging infection obviously) is climbing fast again now with Covid hospital population expected to exceed the last two waves this time.

[PS_RalphW]

The last few days my night time blood sugar levels have been all over the place, judging by my insomnia, increased thirst and midnight munchies. Worse than when I was on hormone treatment. Diabetes has always been the most dangerous co-morbidity for covid. I don't know what the virus is doing to my metabolism, but really hope the effects are not permanent.

[PS_RalphW]

I am more or less recovered. I remained positive for at least 7 days after first symptoms, government guidelines are to stop isolating after 5.

A new subvaruant called ba. 2.75. (iirc) is spreading in India and being monitored here. It has a large number of mutations relative to ba. 2 and shows that the virus is going to evolve faster than it will be possible to develop new vaccines, like the common cold.

UK antibody levels are above 99%, almost everybody is either vaccinated or has been infected. Yet there are 3 million active cases and this is the middle of summer.. The virus is going to be a permanent drag on the economy with repeated infections for almost eberyone every few months, with a growing impact on long term health as more damage is done to the body's tissues.

[Vortex2]

UK antibody levels are above 99%, almost everybody is either vaccinated or has been infected. Yet there are 3 million active cases and this is the middle of summer.. The virus is going to be a permanent drag on the economy with repeated infections for almost eberyone every few months, with a growing impact on long term health as more damage is done to the body's tissues.

Evolution wise, those who shun society will suffer less damage, so perhaps 'loners' will be the new successes of the future?

(Neither my wife nor I have had it yet .. we generally stay on our smallholding)

[PS_RalphW]

Reports that, as I suspected, catching covid increases your chance of developing diabetes, but the effect wears off after 2 months. There is also a higher risk of heart disease for 6 months after covid.

[Potemkin Villager]

Reports that, as I suspected, catching covid increases your chance of developing diabetes, but the effect wears off after 2 months. There is also a higher risk of heart disease for 6 months after covid.

I would love to know the steps in the reasoning and the provenance of the data that led to these conclusions! Also "increases your chances"
and "higher risk" are delightfully imprecise non quantitative terms. If no antidote is suggested is it worth worrying about?

[PS_RalphW]

The paper is on journals.plus.org

Records of 400,000 covid cases followed up.

80% increased risk of diabetes diagnosis over background levels in the month after covid

Six fold increased risk of heart disease diagnosis

The results do not say if covid caused the conditions or brought underlying conditionS to medical attention. Probably a bit of both.

Covid has been shown to cause micro blood clots which can cause many types of disease in different organs of the body.

The recommendation is to follow healthy living advice after covid, for exercise, diet etc., but that is the recommendation for everybody most of the time.

[PS_RalphW]

I watched (part of) a documentary called unvaccinated in which Hanna Fry tries to understand and reason with 7 anti vaxers about getting the covid vaccination. They varied from the rationally worried and ill informed, to the willfully ignorant and beligerant, with 5G and microchips in the middle.

Not one was convinced to have the jab.

Over 4 million adults have not been vaccinated.
You can lead a horse to water

[kenneal - lagger]

I watched (part of) a documentary called unvaccinated in which Hanna Fry tries to understand and reason with 7 anti vaxers about getting the covid vaccination. They varied from the rationally worried and ill informed, to the willfully ignorant and beligerant, with 5G and microchips in the middle.

Not one was convinced to have the jab.

Over 4 million adults have not been vaccinated.
You can lead a horse to water

They will be a statistically dying breed. If anyone has to die it might as well be the irrational.

[Mark]

Mystery over spike in Covid deaths on hottest day ever: Virus fatalities jumped 70% in England when temperature soared to 40C:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/arti ... -heat.html

More than 250 Covid deaths logged in England on hottest day of day of the year
Sudden surge marks a 68% week-on-week rise and highest toll in three months
Experts say the heat could have triggered more Covid deaths than expected

[PS_RalphW]

Moderna get uk approval for two variant vaccine, original strain and omicron ba1. Not sure if it is one or two dose vaccine.

Not at all clear how much extra protection a ba1 vaccine will give over future variants. Ba5 is now in rapid decline having probably infected the majority of the uk population, including many who had previously caught ba1.

Probably of marginal benefit for the more vulnerable whose antibodies to ba1 are fading, as they seem to do quite quickly after infection.

Still not clear how severe long covid is after infection or reinfection with omicron sub variants, or how much extra vaccination will help

[PS_RalphW]

China has gone full circle on covid. In a space of a month it has gone from zero tolerance mass testing, mass surveillance and mass lockdowns, it has succumbed to mass protests and declared the pandemic over, covid is a mild disease, get back to work.

As they had very low take up of their relatively ineffective vaccine, especially among their older population, and due to the extreme lockdowns, a high percentage of the population will have zero antibodies to any of covids many varients. I have no idea which varients are now circulating in China, as the rest of the world has moved on and stopped reporting, or how deadly they are to unprotected.

China is now going through its exit wave and it is massive. The health services are under high strain, the streets are nearly deserted as people either fall ill or go into voluntary isolation. Industry is suffering from high absenteeism. The government is back into full denial and cover-up mode, with censorship and police guards at crematoria to hide the number of fatalities. The official death toll from this wave is 5. Independent estimates are that a million people could die.

[kenneal - lagger]

........... Independent estimates are that a million people could die.

Hopefully it will be enough to reduce any excess population pressure for migration.

There's only India left to really worry about from that point of view then.

[BritDownUnder]

There's only India left to really worry about from that point of view then.

Indo-Pak nuclear exchange perhaps.

I think since we are at 'Peak Child', the effect of lots of deaths of elderly Chinese is probably not going to have a serious effect on migration from there except the downright bonkers policy that New Zealand had to allow Chinese migrants to bring their parents to NZ which resulted in lots of confused looking Chinese OAPs roaming the streets.

Covid is an opportunity lost by many countries. Firstly China for failing to stop it taking hold, then the West and US for failing to lock down quickly enough.
I am still not sure how the virus originated but I would not rule out some wicked calculus by the CCP to use it to cause devastation on the West and take advantage. We'll see how effective that plan was in the next few months in China.