Sunday, August 13, 2023

WAGD Covid Redux

 Covid emergency is over, says BongBong (Marcos). 

Uh oh: 

article about the new varient says the same thing. LINK.

But notice: These reports don't really say anything. Is it as bad as the original covid, or as bad as ordinary influenza, or as bad as a bad cold? Will it kill young and middle age people like the original covid strain, or just we elders who are in bad health and just need a small push to send us to the happy haven in the sky?

here the statistics for covid are still low: 132 new cases and 3 new deaths in the Philippines.

 But the acceptance of the vaccine is low: The new bivalent vaccine might go to waste because not enough people have bothered to get it. Indeed, originally it was reserved for high risk folk but now they might let others get the bivalent vaccine:

noting their decision stemmed from the slow consumption of the updated jab among the A1 (health care workers) and A2 (senior citizen) subgroups. He said only 38 percent of the 391,000 donated doses allotted for these groups were used.

From the ManilaTimes

So get the bivalent vaccine, or wait a few months until the new vaccine against this varient is available? And also what about the flu shot? The flu shot is always an iffy thing: they have to guess which varient of flu will hit, and sometimes they get it wrong, and of course, the shot wears off after a few months so if you give it early it might not protect you by springtime.

this article suggests the hysteria will be not just about the new covid but about flu and RSV (there is a new RSV vaccine they want adults to get). 

One of the side effects of the covid coverup (and pushing the vaccine to low risk people who are getting major side effects) is a loss of trust in the system, alas.

 So should one get the vaccine or not?

and alas although there are a lot of "WAGD" articles out there about this new covid varient, there is not a lot of hard information out there to make a logical decision.

I am high risk, but at the start of covid epidemic I wrote my will. I had three episodes of bronchitis (one severe) but not bad enough to get a covid test (the employees got the covid test regularly (required for delivering rice in Manila and were all tested negative) but then I got complicated dengue and ended up in the hospital: heh. 

So I should get the shot or just hunker down at home. again?

Even an ordinary chest cold could kill me, so should I worry more about this new varient or just worry about the old fashioned colds and flu? What is missing from all these reports is the lethality rate of the new varient: I suspect it is low and that is why the reports are stressing it could cause long covid, not that it will kill you.

in the meanwhile, covid is not a major worry: there is a need for the economy to get running again and to try to get enough cheap rice for the poor people in Manila.

The problem? the typhoon went north of here, but resulted in flooding of much of central Luzon... 

that typhoon has passed for now, and the rice fields are gradually drying out so we can replant the summer crop...if we don't get any more heavy rain.

But the typhoon didn't just hit the Philippines: As I reported in a previous post, it caused flooding in the north of China, an area that usually doesn't have floods. But there are reports the dual typhoon hits also affected other countries: Okinawa, Taiwan, South Korea, Japan and even  eastern Russia.

And in the meanwhile: Another day, another volcanic eruption?


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update: LINK says 

“Its disease potential appears to be exactly the same as other variants’ as well. The antivirals currently available should work against it,”

LINK

yup. wear masks, keep distance, get vaccines and get tested.

OK Karen. So what is the risk? Anyone? Anyone?

the dirty little secret is that there was a huge increase in deaths after the initial covid, but then the numbers went down. 

so was it due to vaccines, or the fancy new treatments, or just because the strain evolved?

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