COVID-19: OhMyCronus!

Taking my reply here instead of the political cartoon thread:


While we did horribly with Covid infections and deaths, there is zero chance that we had more infections and more deaths than India and China.

We are much better at collecting and reporting data, and it is absolutely true that many countries had huge death numbers that they never attributed to Covid.

Granted, countries that had less international travel and exposure probably did better with deaths, as they missed the first waves and therefore less got infected before we had figured out the vaccine or effective care, but those nations also got vaccines and medicines delayed as they tend not to be wealthy or as populated.

New Zealand did pretty great. Vietnam too. There were several govt.s that took good and effective action to reduce death and delay spread, but almost everyone sucked at this worldwide. Covid culled around 0.5% of the human population and continues to wreak havoc, much like the flu.

I generally stick to outdoors if I must be in a crowd, but not always.

I mask up at the airport if I fly, especially on my way to a destination as I really don’t want to get sick while I’m out there. I figure the airport is the most likely place for that to happen.

Other than that, I wear them when doing some DIY, but that has nothing to do with getting a virus.

Edit: I wonder if @American Brummie or @ElNaranja have objections or other ideas about how the US numbers seem relative to other nations?

 

A couple of months ago we got a new store manager and he raised the store temperature from freezing to very slightly above comfortable for someone that does a lot of work. Until then I had still been wearing my mask - more for colds than for the corona-v - but it got to be a little bothersome so I stopped. A week and a half later I got a bad cold and was miserable for well over a week. I'm back on the mask.

 

The most recent Veritasium video was about rubber, and there was an interesting factoid near the end. Rubber is currently mostly grown in Southeast Asia, all grown from a few seeds taken from the native South America via England. That makes it a monoculture, and very susceptible to disease. A few years ago a disease from palm trees had jumped over to spreading among rubber trees in these plantations. Then COVID hit, and the travel restrictions meant that people stopped spreading the disease around and it went away. We kind of dodged a bullet there.

 

If you're asking how the US did through Omicron (the last truly bad variant), based on resource availability I'd say we did a poor job (C-). The plans to respond to such a situation already existed. We had the infrastructure and supplies to give us a head start, but we botched it every step of the way. From refusing testing kits from WHO, using faulty, rushed, ones, denying the virus existed, interference from government leaders....

It was pretty bad.

Considering what we know now, the acute illness could have been much worse. The halfhearted lockdown in 2020 blunted things and gave the vaccine time to develop and that truly is an under talked part of the response. I've done a lot of reading on the history of MRNA and it's something else.

I do agree that many hundreds of thousands of people are dead because of Trump and his sycophants. The chronic problems were going to have to learn the hard way and there's no way to put a cost (in blood) on that. Not for another century or so.

Let me know if you want me to expand on parts of this but that's my tldr thoughts.

 

There’s a new boy in town: The Stratus-covid variant!
I’ve been trying to shake it off for almost two weeks now but its a persistent bugger.
Here is the info on it.


“What Is the XFG "Stratus" Variant?
XFG was first detected in January in Southeast Asia. By June, the World Health Organization had classified XFG as a “variant under monitoring” due to its rapid global spread.

“(XFG) is part of the very large omicron family of variants,” Dr. William Schaffner, professor of infectious diseases at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, tells TODAY.com.”

More in the link

https://www.today.com/health/coronavirus/stratus-covid-variant-symptoms-rcna224723

 

And considering there's a good chunk of the U.S. population that still thinks it was a hoax means it'll never go away.

 

I thought I had a rotten cold. No flu aches. Mrs Scouse suggested the test after 2 days when she came down. Both tested positive

 

I warned you not to put pineapple on it!

 

FREE AT LAST. From the Covid that is.

We both are even though I contracted it 3 days earlier.
Still feel like I have the remains of a head cold. But relieved.

 

GREAT NEWS!!!

 

For a bit of prevention...in the future do what I do. Both of you should wear a necklace of peeled garlic to keep others at a proper distance.

 

I fart a lot.

 

I’ve been seeing some stuff in Bluesky that is warning that the COVID vaccine will be restricted to high risk populations. I won’t bother to link because none of it is official.

My god.

EDIT:

It’s official. I guess I just missed it.
https://www.cnn.com/2025/08/27/health/covid-vaccines-fda

 

You essay have been pissing off the Danes, who are the prime developers/producers of it iirc?

 

I don’t think that has anything to do with it.

 

Might be the trvmp gang sabotaging everything Danish, like with the windmills is the case.

 

This is Trump. If they wanted to sabotage everything Danish they'd put an excise tax on pastries.

 

Guess we're going to do herd immunity the old fashioned way, again.

 

I knew it!!!!

 

Got my COVID and Flu shots today....no side effects.

 

The CDC says people must consult a health professional before COVID shot
Updated October 6, 20253:44 PM ET

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Monday accepted controversial new guidelines for the updated COVID-19 vaccines that could make it harder for many people to protect themselves this winter compared with previous years.

 

It's possible (not likely) that this is totally appropriate guidance but what the current administration has done is totally destroyed trust in the CDC. And I'm positive that was the goal.

 

Mate. How would we know?

 

Unlike my normal posts they would seem to be inane kinda like naughty's!