COVID-19 Outbreak Information Updates (Reboot) [over 150.000,000 US cases (est.), 6,422,520 US hospitilizations, 1,148,691 US deaths.] (3 Viewers)

[Optimus Prime]

https://www.usnews.com/news/health-news/articles/2024-07-29/covid-19-virus-is-widespread-in-u-s-wildlife

 

[Eeyore]

Tested positive with a home test this morning. I'll go to a clinic later.

Edit: clinic says no covid, no flu. Just ded inside.
Ded

 

[Optimus Prime]

WASHINGTON (AP) —

On the heels of a summer wave of COVID-19 cases, Americans will be able to get free virus test kits mailed to their homes, starting in late September.

U.S. households will be able to order up to four COVID-19 nasal swab tests when the federal program reopens, according to the website, COVIDtests.gov. The U.S. Health and Human Services agency that oversees the testing has not announced an exact date for ordering to begin.

The tests will detect current virus strains and can be ordered ahead of the holiday season when family and friends gather for celebrations, an HHS spokesperson said in an emailed statement. Over-the-counter COVID-19 at-home tests typically cost around $11, as of last year.

The announcement also comes as the government is once again urging people to get an updated COVID-19 booster, ahead of the fall and winter respiratory virus season. Earlier this week, U.S. regulators approved an updated COVID-19 vaccine that is designed to combat the recent virus strains and, hopefully, forthcoming winter ones, too.

Vaccine uptake is waning, however. Most Americans have some immunity from prior infections or vaccinations, but data shows under a quarter of U.S. adults took last fall’s COVID-19 shot……

Government announces more COVID-19 tests can be ordered through mail for no cost

Americans will be able to order up to four COVID-19 nasal swab tests delivered to their home free of charge starting in late September. The U.S.

apnews.com

 

[Eeyore]

Shingles shot II. I'll find out if this is worse than the first.

 

[DavidM]

Shingles shot II. I'll find out if this is worse than the first.

It was for me. I felt pretty bad for a few hours. First one didn’t really bother me. I generally haven’t had reactions to vaccines.

 

[Nisey55]

It was for me. I felt pretty bad for a few hours. First one didn’t really bother me. I generally haven’t had reactions to vaccines.

I was the other way around, except the arm pain lingered longer on the 2nd.
My first covid vaccine left my husband and I half dead for 2 days while my then 91 year old Mom didn't feel a thing. But I guess by the time you're that age feeling crappy is a way of life.

 

[Eeyore]

It was for me. I felt pretty bad for a few hours. First one didn’t really bother me. I generally haven’t had reactions to vaccines.

The arm pain isn't as bad for me as #1 was but both times I was so wired that I couldn't sleep.

 

[Nisey55]

The arm pain isn't as bad for me as #1 was but both times I was so wired that I couldn't sleep.

It definitely had some weird effects

 

[Optimus Prime]

Infectious disease experts say many people are not taking the latest Covid-19 wave in the US seriously enough and are not getting vaccinated or using antiviral drugs when sick, despite a summer wave that was larger and came earlier than anticipated.

Epidemiologists are saying that while symptoms of this wave are more mild than earlier strains, the virus remains a threat – particularly for older adults and people with underlying health conditions.

In response, public health officials are urging people to get a booster now – unless they recently had Covid, in which case they should wait three to four months – and to take a rapid test when sick. And if they have Covid, they should ask their doctors about antiviral treatments.

“There is a ton of Covid out there,” said Jennifer Nuzzo, an epidemiologist and director of the Pandemic Center at the Brown University School of Public Health.

“If you’re experiencing any kind of symptoms, test yourself because you might benefit from getting medicine. At the very least, you can learn that you’re infected and stay home so you don’t give it to other people.”

Notably, the Covid viral activity in wastewater in August in the United States was almost twice as high as the same time last year and about the same as the peak of summer 2023, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data. Still, hospitalizations and deaths are a fraction of what they were in 2022………

‘A ton of Covid out there’: US summer wave not taken seriously enough – experts

Epidemiologists push newly approved booster vaccines as current virus strain threatens at-risk groups

www.theguardian.com

 

[Sailorsaint]

I’m on the list for the updated vaccine. I’ll feel much better after the jab.

 

[faceman]

I’m on the list for the updated vaccine. I’ll feel much better after the jab.

I remember when it first came out. Some medical experts were saying Covid will become something
which may require yearly boosters like the flu. It looks like they were right.

 

[Optimus Prime]

As updated coronavirus vaccines hit U.S. pharmacy shelves, adults without health insurance are discovering the shots are no longer free, instead costing up to $200.


The federal Bridge Access Program covering the cost of coronavirus vaccines for uninsured and underinsured people ran out of funding.

Now, Americans with low incomes are weighing whether they can afford to shore up immunity against an unpredictable virus that is no longer a public health emergency but continues to cause long-term complications and hospitalizations and kill tens of thousands of people a year.


The program’s elimination marks the latest tear in a safety net that once ensured people could protect themselves against the coronavirus regardless of their financial situation.

Health experts worry that the paltry 22 percent rate of adults staying up-to-date on vaccines will erode further. And they fear that the roughly 25 million people without health insurance in the nation will be especially vulnerable to covid because they tend to be in poorer health and avoid medical care when sick……..

https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2024/09/03/covid-vaccine-bridge-access-program-expires-cdc/

 

[Optimus Prime]

This is interesting
=============
Adolescent girls who lived through Covid lockdowns experienced more rapid brain ageing than boys, according to data that suggests the social restrictions had a disproportionate impact on them.

MRI scans found evidence of premature brain ageing in both boys and girls, but girls’ brains appeared on average 4.2 years older than expected after lockdowns, compared with 1.4 years older for boys.

It is unclear whether the changes have negative consequences, but the findings have raised concerns that they might affect adolescents’ mental health and potential to learn.

“We were shocked by these data, that the difference is so dramatic,” said Prof Patricia Kuhl, co-director of the Institute for Learning and Brain Sciences at the University of Washington, in Seattle.

The researchers gathered MRI scans from 160 nine- to 17-year-olds in 2018 and used them to build a model of how the brain’s cortex normally thins during school years. Some cortical thinning is natural and an important part of brain maturation and specialisation in adolescence.

The team revisited the same cohort in 2021 and 2022, after lockdowns, and collected further MRI scans from those aged 12 to 16. Compared with pre-pandemic brain development, these showed signs of accelerated cortical thinning in one area of the boys’ brains, and in 30 of the girls’ brains, across both hemispheres and all lobes.

Other researchers have linked premature brain ageing to the pandemic, but the latest study, in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is the first to reveal stark differences between boys and girls.

Both sexes showed signs of accelerated ageing in a brain region linked to vision, potentially affecting the processing of faces. But in females, brain changes were widespread. Many affected areas underpinning social cognition with roles in processing emotions, interpreting facial expressions and language comprehension, which the researchers say are critical for communication.


Kuhl believes the difference reflects girls’ greater dependence on social groups and interactions. “Girls chat endlessly and share their emotions,” she said. “They are much more dependent [than boys] on the social scene for their wellbeing and for their healthy neural, physical and emotional development.”……..

Covid lockdowns prematurely aged girls’ brains more than boys’, study suggests

MRI scans found girls’ brains appeared 4.2 years older than expected, compared with 1.4 years for boys

www.theguardian.com

 

[Arathrael]

This is interesting
=============
Adolescent girls who lived through Covid lockdowns experienced more rapid brain ageing than boys, according to data that suggests the social restrictions had a disproportionate impact on them.

MRI scans found evidence of premature brain ageing in both boys and girls, but girls’ brains appeared on average 4.2 years older than expected after lockdowns, compared with 1.4 years older for boys.

It is unclear whether the changes have negative consequences, but the findings have raised concerns that they might affect adolescents’ mental health and potential to learn.

“We were shocked by these data, that the difference is so dramatic,” said Prof Patricia Kuhl, co-director of the Institute for Learning and Brain Sciences at the University of Washington, in Seattle.

The researchers gathered MRI scans from 160 nine- to 17-year-olds in 2018 and used them to build a model of how the brain’s cortex normally thins during school years. Some cortical thinning is natural and an important part of brain maturation and specialisation in adolescence.

The team revisited the same cohort in 2021 and 2022, after lockdowns, and collected further MRI scans from those aged 12 to 16. Compared with pre-pandemic brain development, these showed signs of accelerated cortical thinning in one area of the boys’ brains, and in 30 of the girls’ brains, across both hemispheres and all lobes.

Other researchers have linked premature brain ageing to the pandemic, but the latest study, in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is the first to reveal stark differences between boys and girls.

Both sexes showed signs of accelerated ageing in a brain region linked to vision, potentially affecting the processing of faces. But in females, brain changes were widespread. Many affected areas underpinning social cognition with roles in processing emotions, interpreting facial expressions and language comprehension, which the researchers say are critical for communication.


Kuhl believes the difference reflects girls’ greater dependence on social groups and interactions. “Girls chat endlessly and share their emotions,” she said. “They are much more dependent [than boys] on the social scene for their wellbeing and for their healthy neural, physical and emotional development.”……..

Covid lockdowns prematurely aged girls’ brains more than boys’, study suggests

MRI scans found girls’ brains appeared 4.2 years older than expected, compared with 1.4 years for boys

www.theguardian.com

It's an interesting study, but weirdly framed IMO.

For some reason, throughout the study itself and in the article, the effects they've observed are attributed entirely to 'Covid lockdowns'. But there doesn't appear to actually be any of the necessary work there (e.g. maybe a comparison to a similar demographic in a region that had significantly weaker or shorter lockdown measures showing a diminished effect?) to establish or support that. On the contrary, the group isn't diverse at all in that regard ("All study participants were selected from adolescents living in the same community, using identical exclusion criteria; all study participants experienced similar pandemic lockdown timelines").

And in the discussion section, they do actually partially acknowledge that limitation, and a bunch of others:

"First, the size of the sample measured here is small relative to several ongoing large-scale multisite studies of adolescent brain development, some of which collected data both before and after the pandemic. Future work should focus on replicating the effects of sex reported here on these larger cohorts using data collected before and after the pandemic. Second, it would be beneficial to have behavioral data that would allow characterization of specific lockdown-related stressors that might be correlated with brain structural findings. The current study did not collect such behavioral measures, nor did we collect data on families’ job security, financial insecurity, and/or food insecurity, which might also be associated with structural brain changes. Data on exercise, sleep, or diet, which have been reported to have been greatly affected by the pandemic lockdowns, would also be valuable. Third, it is not clear whether the effects observed in this study are specific to the age range of our sample. Our post-COVID-19 lockdown test sample consisted of children ranging from 12 to 16 y of age. It is unclear whether our findings extend to younger children or to young adults. And finally, we do not know whether contraction of the COVID-19 virus itself may have contributed to these findings, though in the community from which our study sample was derived, COVID-19 prevalence was widespread, and we have found no reports of a sex disparity in contraction of the virus."​

So, basically, they have an entire study that asserts the cause of their measured effects to "Covid lockdowns", and then, in the limitations section, they essentially say, "Although we didn't look at that many people, and we didn't look at their actual behaviour changes during the pandemic. And you know, it might have been down to family circumstances like financial insecurity, or disruption to exercise, sleep, or diet, which we also didn't look at. And there was also the whole virus thing itself, since contracting that might have contributed but we also don't know about that." There's also a flaw there; they assert that there's no "reports of a sex disparity in contraction of the virus", but that disregards the possibility of a sex disparity in the effects of contracting the virus.

And they also don't seem to consider at all the general effects in terms of stress of just living through a pandemic in itself. Like, millions of people dying, including quite possibly family members, it was a pretty stressful time. Could be a factor? Seems to be a glaring omission.

So the conclusion, that "lockdowns did it", seems flawed to me. The implication is that if they'd lived through a pandemic, but no measures had been taken whatsoever, there'd have been fine in this regard, even with the significantly greater sickness and death that would have come from that. Which, to me, seems like a bit of a stretch.

 

[Eeyore]

As updated coronavirus vaccines hit U.S. pharmacy shelves, adults without health insurance are discovering the shots are no longer free, instead costing up to $200.


The federal Bridge Access Program covering the cost of coronavirus vaccines for uninsured and underinsured people ran out of funding.

Now, Americans with low incomes are weighing whether they can afford to shore up immunity against an unpredictable virus that is no longer a public health emergency but continues to cause long-term complications and hospitalizations and kill tens of thousands of people a year.


The program’s elimination marks the latest tear in a safety net that once ensured people could protect themselves against the coronavirus regardless of their financial situation.

Health experts worry that the paltry 22 percent rate of adults staying up-to-date on vaccines will erode further. And they fear that the roughly 25 million people without health insurance in the nation will be especially vulnerable to covid because they tend to be in poorer health and avoid medical care when sick……..

https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2024/09/03/covid-vaccine-bridge-access-program-expires-cdc/

What could possibly go wrong?

If a person can't afford the vaccine, I'm sure that they can't afford to miss work when they get sick. It'll spread.