Wonder if any of the advocates of China-style lockdowns in the West will ever admit they were wrong, now that even Beijing has? https://t.co/PiKIJxBIeA— Anya Parampil (@anyaparampil) May 28, 2023
It also poorly interacts with a bunch of other drugs. I know an older person who couldn't take it because it would have messed with their heart medication, and a younger one who couldn't take it because it would have messed with their asthma medication.
Most places reserve it for only the most seriously vulnerable
This. I have two friends that got COVID from the same event at the same time. They both tested positive and one of them got Paxlovid because they had instances of pneumothorax as a child. The other got orders to take tylenol and god bless.
The new variants are much more infectious, as you mentioned. So maybe it's safer if you get it, you're more likely to get it, so arguably it's just as dangerous.
Since everywhere has stopped testing for COVID, recorded deaths are down. Many COVID deaths are now recorded as heart or stroke related. If you look at general excess deaths, everywhere is way up.
There's also evidence that it attacks your immune system, making you more susceptible to subsequent covid infections as well as everything else. Idk if they've determined whether the damage is permanent or not but with people catching covid 3+ times a year it seems bad.
Plus all the other damage it does to every organ system.
My thinking is that those with long SARS 1 still have long SARS, even twenty years later. My partner has had long COVID for over a year and shows no signs of getting better.
I'm fucking N95ing like a crazy person. I hear about all the serious problems, and it's not worth risking it, especially if losing my job is likely going to drive me into extreme poverty.
It's not true. Circulating variants are more effective and theoretically more deadly than the wild type.
However in reality, it will look like it's becoming less deadly because less people are dying. That is because prior waves of the virus have already killed the population most vulnerable to dying.
Yes that's correct. Some of the recent-ish variants are associated with fewer hospital deaths and hospitalization in general, but teasing this apart from general degradation of reporting capacity and better medical treatmemt is difficult. And there's no reason this won't reverse in some way. The idea that viruses have a strong tendency to become less virulent is a myth. It only happens under specific conditions and for the most part SARS-CoV-2 probably doesn't meet them. One of the worst things about it is how long you can be infectious prior to disease and how infectious it is full stop. Its spread is not currently limited by killing off hosts, in contrast to something like ebola (which is still kicking, but is more prone to being self-limiting due to killing a person before they can spread it).
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There's a couple of things. Yes, most variants of covid are less deadly (but often more infectious.) Not all though.
Covid deaths dropped off mostly because people got vaccinated and the very vulnerable all died.
There's also effective antivirals now. Paxlovid and such are vastly better than leaving someone on a ventilator for months and hoping for a miracle.
Not to disagree with you, but good luck getting Paxlovid. Most places reserve it for only the most seriously vulnerable, like those older than 68.
Thanks capitalism, making the drug super expensive, despite the massive amount of public money that went into it's development.
It also poorly interacts with a bunch of other drugs. I know an older person who couldn't take it because it would have messed with their heart medication, and a younger one who couldn't take it because it would have messed with their asthma medication.
This. I have two friends that got COVID from the same event at the same time. They both tested positive and one of them got Paxlovid because they had instances of pneumothorax as a child. The other got orders to take tylenol and god bless.
Paxlovid is supposed to be taken within 5 days of onset and with the state of COVID testing in the west, we effectively have no antivirals.
Partially true. You are less likely to die to current strains of covid than earlier strains.
You can still get long covid though. And vulnerable people are still just as at-risk as they were before.
The new variants are much more infectious, as you mentioned. So maybe it's safer if you get it, you're more likely to get it, so arguably it's just as dangerous.
Since everywhere has stopped testing for COVID, recorded deaths are down. Many COVID deaths are now recorded as heart or stroke related. If you look at general excess deaths, everywhere is way up.
There's also evidence that it attacks your immune system, making you more susceptible to subsequent covid infections as well as everything else. Idk if they've determined whether the damage is permanent or not but with people catching covid 3+ times a year it seems bad.
Plus all the other damage it does to every organ system.
My thinking is that those with long SARS 1 still have long SARS, even twenty years later. My partner has had long COVID for over a year and shows no signs of getting better.
I'm fucking N95ing like a crazy person. I hear about all the serious problems, and it's not worth risking it, especially if losing my job is likely going to drive me into extreme poverty.
It's not true. Circulating variants are more effective and theoretically more deadly than the wild type.
However in reality, it will look like it's becoming less deadly because less people are dying. That is because prior waves of the virus have already killed the population most vulnerable to dying.
I wouldn't trust any recent info on covid deaths considering they aren't being tracked properly.
Yes that's correct. Some of the recent-ish variants are associated with fewer hospital deaths and hospitalization in general, but teasing this apart from general degradation of reporting capacity and better medical treatmemt is difficult. And there's no reason this won't reverse in some way. The idea that viruses have a strong tendency to become less virulent is a myth. It only happens under specific conditions and for the most part SARS-CoV-2 probably doesn't meet them. One of the worst things about it is how long you can be infectious prior to disease and how infectious it is full stop. Its spread is not currently limited by killing off hosts, in contrast to something like ebola (which is still kicking, but is more prone to being self-limiting due to killing a person before they can spread it).