Covid 19 CRISIS

Good frickin' grief, no crap, it's a needle. I'm (allegedly) a grownup and still took a Puffalump along to the first couple jabs to distract me from "oh no oh no oh no, needle." That's *any* needle for me, though. That's not special to the COVID vax and it's stupid that folks are presenting it as such.


Where were your big balls?
 
Follow-up to this: Since ze Ekonomie is the most important thing to German politics, one by one they are falling in line behind a vaccine mandate.
I mean, it's about time? There's no reasoning with these dinguses.

I keep saying "don't be Texas" and I stand by that advice.
 
Where were your big balls?
My balls are large and incredible, but they also hate needles. Like, no judgement if that's anyone here, but that's not my fetish, man.
 
Follow-up to this: Since ze Ekonomie is the most important thing to German politics, one by one they are falling in line behind a vaccine mandate.
On the other hand, several media (small sample from this morning: WDR and Tagesspiegel) are by now practically begging the government to impose another lockdown, and/or keep writing that another Christmas lockdown is unavoidable.
Fuck them. Hard. With a cactus. In the ass.
 
On the other hand, several media (small sample from this morning: WDR and Tagesspiegel) are by now practically begging the government to impose another lockdown, and/or keep writing that another Christmas lockdown is unavoidable.
Fuck them. Hard. With a cactus. In the ass.
I think it'a point of "both" - have a lockdown NOW so stuff gets manageable again (the boat of "smaller scale restrictions" has sailed weeks ago), AND impose a vaccine mandate to make sure it's the last one.
 
Fuck them. Hard. With red-hot iron poker. In the ass.
FTFY

Is anyone else getting the feeling that the German caretaker government has gone fully “fuck that, we’ll leave this mess for the incoming people”? AFAIK, Merkel made one of her stupid appearances and acted like she was putting her foot down, but apart from that?

:tumbleweed:
 
had my seasonal flu shot monday yesterday... honestly didn't even feel the needle at all. same with the earlier vaxinsssss :dunno: just don't look and don't let the doc tell you when they're going for it - i feel most of it is just the anticipation (i.e. thinking "this must hurt", so it will), making that article and corresponding radio piece dumb all over again.
Flu shot buddies? ? I had mine Monday too.

On the vax mandate vs harsh lockdown-esque measures... Yes, it's "both". Vax mandate to avoid wave 5, lockdown-eqsue measures to slow down wave 4.
.de is several months too late to vax away wave 4.

As for Merkel, she keeps saying the right things all the time, but - as has been the case throughout most of the pandemic - the chancellor has zero power to do anything, it's Ländersache with a dose of Bundestag mixed in.
 
Flu shot buddies? ? I had mine Monday too.

On the vax mandate vs harsh lockdown-esque measures... Yes, it's "both". Vax mandate to avoid wave 5, lockdown-eqsue measures to slow down wave 4.
.de is several months too late to vax away wave 4.

As for Merkel, she keeps saying the right things all the time, but - as has been the case throughout most of the pandemic - the chancellor has zero power to do anything, it's Ländersache with a dose of Bundestag mixed in.

She's the German version of the Queen! :D
 

Seems like people in Europe are fighting back against the lockdowns.
 

Seems like people in Europe are fighting back against the lockdowns.

It's justified.
 

Seems like people in Europe are fighting back against the lockdowns.
Did I miss a huge increase in vaccine uptake?
 
Did I miss a huge increase in vaccine uptake?
There is a small uptake in first shots, but at a level that won't make a difference :(

1637866815919.png

Green line is a moving 7-day count of first shots reported for .de, orange is second (or JJ) shots, blue is third shots.
The third shot line looks very good at first glance, butt: we're lagging behind the 6-month-window of second shots:
1637866930301.png

blue: number of people who had their 2nd shot 5 months ago (probably best) that day but didn't get a third shot then, green: same for 6 months (current recommendation), orange: 7 months (what we seem to manage).
 
Just to be clear: the lockdown or the fighting back? :|
Fighting back. We’ve got solutions this time around. Going through these waves of lockdown, then open, then lockdown is irritating as fuck.
 
Fighting back. We’ve got solutions this time around. Going through these waves of lockdown, then open, then lockdown is irritating as fuck.
We have the solution ? but too many people aren't using it and politicians don't dare forcing them to.

The closing down only happens because we've already started shifting intensive care patients around, including moving some to Italy. All indicators have been dark red to dark purple to dark brown for months... they keep running out of colours.

1637885319335.png

"above 50" used to be bad (new infections per 100k people per 7 days).

As for "we have the solutions", yeah about that... can you spot a correlation between purple and low vax uptake (first shot rate, full population)?
1637885452362.png
 
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We have the solution ? but too many people aren't using it and politicians don't dare forcing them to.

The closing down only happens because we've already started shifting intensive care patients around, including moving some to Italy. All indicators have been dark red to dark purple to dark brown for months... they keep running out of colours.

"above 50" used to be bad (new infections per 100k people per 7 days).

As for "we have the solutions", yeah about that... can you spot a correlation between purple and low vax uptake (first shot rate, full population)?

Yes, there is a solution, not enough Germans are seeing people they know suffer, so just like the US, it's "not that bad." Increasing restrictions I guess is the best we can do for the unvaccinated. Problem is, any rural store/restaurant/hotel/bar won't enforce it, like here. Until functioning is so affected that they finally see the difference, I don't know what else to do. Constant lock down waves is shitty.

Fuck it, I guess.
 
In the case of Germany, we will have to see if the next government will do a better job than the outgoing one. At the moment, it’s almost like the CDU are deliberately making the situation worse so they can blame the next health minister for failing at an impossible task.

No, but there are increasing protests in multiple European countries against the new lockdowns.
I know about the protests and I also know that a) rioters gonna riot and b) the people protesting tend to be the unvaccinated and careless idiots whom we have to thank for the lockdowns in the first place.

Problem is, any rural store/restaurant/hotel/bar won't enforce it, like here.
Nope. I have just been to rural Thuringia (one of the hot spots) and visited two restaurants. The rule is “2G”, i.e. only vaccinated or recovered customers. In one place, they trusted our word because two of the people in our group of seven were regulars (and run a care home). In the other, the staff checked the certificates of every single person who walked through the door. In that care home, it’s “2G+”, which means that in addition, they test you on the spot if you want to come in.

Long story short: lots of people do care, even in the worst affected regions. The others are making it worse for everyone.
 
Welcome to "on the one hand, on the other hand" with covid!

On the one hand, the emergence of a highly-mutated super covid from South Africa (which seems to be named "Nu") is something we don't need. At all. A "greatest hits" album of enhanced immune escape and slightly higher transmissibility, this may be the first variant selected for immune escape properties, while with Alpha and Delta it was all about the transmission speed.

On the other hand, even this will not be enough to fully escape antibodies and vaccines.
Importantly, this does *not* mean Nu variant will fully escape vaccine- or infection-elicited antibodies.

In fact, this hurdle is so high that covid will have a hard time taking it, especially after natural infection plus vaccination - and even with (current) vaccines this seems to be only halfway to full escape: 20 distinct escape-related mutations in the right combination are needed for that, of which Nu has 10.
Plasma from individuals who had been infected and subsequently received mRNA vaccination neutralized pseudotypes bearing this highly resistant SARS-CoV-2 polymutant spike, or diverse sarbecovirus spike proteins.

What does "not fully escape" mean in practice? You get infected, but your immune system kicks the thing out. Which is good for the virus since it can spread, good for you, since you don't die, and good for society since you don't occupy a hospital bed.

All this confirms Christian Drosten's point of four to five contacts with the virus - ideally vaccination first, breakthrough infection later - being needed to fully prime the immune system and protect us against exactly this kind of variant.

Cynically speaking, if this burns through the unvaccinated even faster, it means vaccine mandates, antibodies (or death) for refusers, and an end to this mess may coming quicker, albeit at a higher price of human life.

EDIT: I link to virology twitter, not actual news, because I did not find any reasonable article focusing on facts, not what-ifs.
 
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