More on covid: it's a cold

 The good news from London by Dr. C is that he continues to cite the statistics and says the new omnicron variant has taken over the UK and is mild, and a lot of folks just think it is a cold. 75 percent of colds in the UK now are omnicrom covid. 

Heh. 

And he again predicts it is so infectious that everyone will get it, and lock downs don't work, but that it will give you immunity.

I have a cold now, so will self isolate, but am too lazy to get tested, so remember I'm not the only one doing this in poorer countries, because we have a life. The photos of long lines of mildly sick people waiting to get a test in rich countries against a strain of covid that rarely kills is really ironic.

He analyzes the data.

The bad news: of course, for us old geezers a cold can be serious.

And the other bad news is that he notes a lot of minorities in the London area did not get the vaccine.

Behold the power of anti vax propaganda, or is it BLM/racism propaganda that says doctors etc are racist so don't trust them? That might be the reason in the US, where blacks remember the Tuskegee experiment, of course, or more recent stuff like the Oklahoma city meningomyelocoel non treatment protocol that showed most non treated kids died, and only years later did a black doctor note that poverty and education were part of the criteria, so most of the non treatment cases were minorities. And when I worked in Minnesota, the tribe remembered the Red Lake Streptococcus study, where non aggressive protocol showed mild ecsema not bad enough to see a doc could also cause renal disease. (long story: one of these days I'll try to down load that study that I got sort of illegally on the internet).

I hate the anti vax stuff and post against it on the internet, but I keep running into more and more information suggesting that the mRNA vaccine has problems, and if you whisper it you are canceled.

No problem: I got the AZ vaccine, based on adenovirus template. If I understand from Dr. C, that gives me lower complications but not complete protection.

But for the paranoid, just get the Chinese vaccine: That has 50 percent protection againts covid, and now in the Philippines, they are deciding to use the mRNA vaccine as a booster shot for those who got Sinovax, since it doesn't work at all against the new omnicron variant (but with the pfizer booster, it still only protects 70 percent).

Here in the Philippines, they are again locking down, and there is a huge increase in positive testing, something expected after the Christmas holidays and lower isolation levels, and also a mild increase in hospital and ICU usage (that they expect to go up as covid usually only puts you in ICU after 7 to ten days when the immune overresponse kicks in).

but is it the ordinary covid or is it omnicron?

from the Inquirer:

The country now had 14 cases of the Omicron variant, three of which were local cases and 11 from abroad. Of the 11, nine were returning Filipinos and two were foreigners. Vergeire said all were either asymptomatic or had experienced mild symptoms, adding that two cases remained active.

in other words, too early to trust the data due to the holiday where everything is shut down, people don't want to waste time getting tested, and everyone parties with their families (so more spread)

but since the omnicron is so infectious, I suspect this will only mean that the virus will spread like wild fire in the crowded barangays of Manila and other towns (less so in rural areas, where houses are small and crowded, but folks go outside a lot more).

and I suspect the actual numbers of omnicron infections are high but the official count is low because people can't be bothered to get checked for a snifflle

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update: BBC onUKHeadlines:

The Daily Telegraph has an interview with the chairman of the government's vaccine advisory group, who says fourth Covid jabs should not be offered until there is more evidence they are effective. Prof Sir Andrew Pollard, from the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation, tells the paper it is "not sustainable" to give boosters to the whole population every six months and in the future "we need to target the vulnerable".

 and several headline lament the NHS staff shortages, but without saying what is causing the problem: This UKGuardian article from July says it's because workers self-isolating en masse after being "pinged" by NHS test and trace.

the tabloid UKSUN says the NHS is now hoping to cut self isolation after being in contact with a case of covid down to 5 days from 7 due because the danger of lack of staff outweighs the small danger of spreading the disease.

This actually makes sense, since the incubation period of the Omnicron varient is a lot shorter than the delta variant. (an average of 3 days until you come down with it,

the delta variant incubation period is 5.6 days, and up to 12 days in the original variants.

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Finally, I often post against the anti vax hysteria on the internet discussions, but I am a physician and although I recognize how reports of vaccine side effects get twisted and exaggerated and not put into context by the anti vax Karen (e.g. OPV polio cases, a complicated problem).

So there seems to be an active campaign to censor/punish doctors who don't parrot the party line, which means we can't discuss these thing without fear of punishment. 

And that disturbs me: Because if you remember, in China, it was known there was a virus, and that it passed person to person, but both China (and the W.H.O.) tried to censor that information: And the Chinese doctor who actually posted this information at the end of December got punished by their government.

Yes, a problem: But censorship only makes people more suspicious, and a lot of the MSM pretend it's just Deplorables, even though Trumpie boy recommended the vaccine last week (For high risk folks not forced on everyone). But the dirty little secret is that a lot of minorities distrust the vaccine too. Sigh.

But censorship of people who actually do have credentials annoys me,

which brings me to the latest attempt by the internet lords to censor an important story (maybe):  and I have been trying to track down the Joe Rogan interview with Dr. Malone which was censored off of you tube.

Kuya found it last night on Spotify (which he has because Ruby has a subscription), but when I tried to find it today, Spotify says it's not there. Huh? Is it because I didn't sign in?

I prefer transcripts, however, and the Conservative Treehouse did post a copy of the transcript on Scribd (which I do have an app for),

and he also links to other sites, including information that a crazy Texan in Congress posted it in the Congressional record, which is a a place hard for the internet masters of the universe to censor.

I have a life, so will only get around to reading it and analyzing it later, as I do the CDC/MMR reports (skim the headines and analyze if I am interested and have time and energy to do so)

The only other medical stuff I have been doing is checking up for Daniel's Maxillary tumor: Because the surgery would be so mutilating and dangerous, they are recommending chemo: I am hoping they mean the cutting edge local high dose interarterial (local artery) injection of cisplatnin, with a second shot to block toxicity to the rest of the body... but since he had radio therapy in the past, I don't know if they will repeat this later or maybe try to resect the smaller remaining tumor.

This is a superspecialized area, and all the similar case I cared for were over 40 years ago, when you either ended up dead or with a huge hole in your face. So one is happy that medicine has progressed in some things.

Keep him in your prayers.