Coronavirus 2019-nCoV

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https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/13/europ...ntl/index.html

Italy prepares for an Easter lockdown as Covid-19 cases grow exponentially

Rome (CNN)Italy is facing another lockdown, as the government attempts to contain a recent surge of coronavirus cases, marred by the presence of new variants.

Half of Italy's 20 regions, which include the cities Rome, Milan and Venice, will be entering new coronavirus restrictions from Monday, March 15. The measures will be effective through April 6, according to a decree passed by Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi's cabinet on Friday.

In regions demarcated as "red zones" people will be unable to leave their houses except for work or health reasons, with all non-essential shops closed. In "orange zones," people will also be banned from leaving their town and their region -- except for work or health reasons -- and bars and restaurants will only be able to do delivery and take-away service.

Affected regions will be labelled red or orange, depending on the level of contagion. Regions that report weekly Covid-19 cases of more than 250 per 100,000 residents will also automatically go into lockdown, meaning that other regions could also be affected during this time period.

Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi said new coronavirus measures are "necessary" because "we are unfortunately facing a new wave of infections" one year after the start of the pandemic.The country's R rate is now at 1.6 with coronavirus variants increasing the spread of the virus, according to the health ministry.

The variant B.1.1.7, which was first identified in the United Kingdom, is also now prevalent in the country, according to the health ministry, who also said that they are worried about the presence of small clusters of the Brazilian variant.

The UK variant was originally found to be more easily transmissible -- and new data published in the medical journal, the BMJ, supports claims from UK officials, based on preliminary data, that the variant may be more deadly, as well.

Meanwhile, the variant first reported in Brazil, known as P.1, may be up to 2.2 times more transmissible and could evade immunity from previous Covid-19 infection by up to 61%, according to a modeling study, released earlier this month by researchers in Brazil and the UK.

Speaking at a vaccination center at Rome's Fiumicino airport on Friday, the PM said he understands the toll that lockdowns take on society, but the upcoming measures were a necessary step to ensure the situation didn't further deteriorate.

Oh Goddammit. Please just no...

[Ted Lasso's Neighbor]

I've been watching the TPC golf tourney on NBC today and it's interesting to see the crowds around the tee boxes and greens. Not much social distancing going on when the camera shows them. It'll be interesting to see if people in the media complain about it.

[Kung Wu]

Ooof, Marvin Hagler passed away after having complications from the vaccination.

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https://thehill.com/homenews/sunday-talk-shows/543117-fauci-us-could-face-another-covid-19-surge

The nation's top infectious disease expert warned Sunday that a new wave of COVID-19 infections could be on the way while urging former President Trump to tell his supporters to be vaccinated.

Speaking with Chris Wallace on "Fox News Sunday," Anthony Fauci pointed to surges across the European Union and warned that Europe's case trends tend to be a few weeks ahead of similar trends in the U.S.

Europe "always seem to be a few weeks ahead of us," Fauci said, adding that it was "absolutely no time to declare victory" over the virus.

"They thought they were home free, and they weren’t, and now they are seeing cases going up," he said of European health officials.

Asked by Wallace what could be done to combat vaccine skepticism in the U.S., particularly among Republicans, Fauci urged Trump to tell his supporters to get vaccinated.

"It would be very helpful for the effort for that to happen. I’m very surprised by the number of Republicans who say they won’t get vaccinated," he said.

"I think it would make all the difference in the world" if Trump were to express support for vaccines, Fauci said. "He’s a widely popular person among Republicans."

"I just don’t get it, Chris, why they don’t want to get vaccinated," he added.

During a separate appearance on NBC's "Meet the Press," Fauci said it's "disturbing" that Trump voters are choosing to not get vaccinated.

"We've got to dissociate political persuasion from commonsense, no-brainer public health things," he said.

"[Vaccines have] rescued us from smallpox, from polio, from measles," he added. "What is the problem here?"

As as if on cue... 100% correct Dr. Fauci. If I had a nickel for every time I made a recommendation on here and an article from a top doc came out a few days later parroting my comments... I'd have a lot of nickels. A little self-promotion on a chilly Monday afternoon. :)

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https://www.npr.org/2021/03/14/97282...ry-of-covid-19

A Story Of Youth, Hope And Loss — And The Mystery Of COVID-19

The doctors didn't know what to do.

Audrey, the incapacitated young woman in the ICU, had just celebrated her 29th birthday. She was physically fit and had been in perfect health. Just six months earlier, she had run a marathon with her twin sister, Kelsey. And Audrey had always been health conscious; she worked as a transplant nurse in Denver.

The medical team — nine doctors working in unison with X-ray technicians, phlebotomists and nurses — could not explain why Audrey's heart was failing.

"Back in March, we thought that COVID-19 was just a short-term acute illness without the chronic effects," Choo said. "And now we're learning that people are living with brain effects, heart effects, lung effects, lasting months and even now up to almost a year."

"When the German study came out in July, we discussed [Audrey's] case with the cardiology team and came to the conclusion that she had also had heart failure as a sequela of COVID-19 infection," Choo said. "Her death certificate does not state COVID disease, so she is not included in the datasets."

Dr. Clyde Yancy, a professor of medicine and the chief of cardiology at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine, published an editorial in the Journal of the American Medical Association after reviewing the Frankfurt study. More research would be needed to confirm the findings, he wrote, but the results were worrisome.

"These data suggest, preliminarily so, that in people who have been infected in COVID-19, even when cardiac involvement isn't clear at the outset, there is a relatively high likelihood that there may be cardiac involvement weeks to months afterwards," Yancy said. "If so, that means we have to deal with that whole scenario very carefully, because if it's true myocarditis, that exposes a risk — short term for irregular heart rhythms and long term for heart weakening."

Although new coronavirus cases are declining and millions of doses of vaccine are being administered every week, people need to remain vigilant, Yancy said. It's important for individuals to listen to their body and realize some symptoms might not be benign. "Don't panic, but stay engaged with your health care provider," Yancy said.

I made the mistake of reading this lovely, well-written story of tragedy. But I'm glad I did as it leads me to reiterate the point I began making last spring: Covid Syndrome is a reality and it will affect our nation for a long time to come. Death is not the only bad outcome with this insidious alien disease.

We need to lower the community infection rate down below 10k daily before we even think of letting up on our mitigation efforts.

[Kung Wu]

Some serious awesomeness going on in Sedgwick County:

1) The trend that started in mid-October and peaked pre-Thanksgiving has now tapered off ever since the peak and is now down to very low summer levels.
2) Lots of excess Covid (and non-covid) beds.
3) Only 13 Covid patients in ICU.
4) The health community is vaxed.
5) All elderly that want to be have at least the first vax.

[ShockerFever]

Some serious awesomeness going on in Sedgwick County:

1) The trend that started in mid-October and peaked pre-Thanksgiving has now tapered off ever since the peak and is now down to very low summer levels.
2) Lots of excess Covid (and non-covid) beds.
3) Only 13 Covid patients in ICU.
4) The health community is vaxed.
5) All elderly that want to be have at least the first vax.

There’s gotta be bad news in there somewhere and someone will point it out.

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https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2021/03/michigan-covid-19-coronavirus-outbreak/618332

The Clearest Sign the Pandemic Could Get Worse


Another coronavirus outbreak is unfolding in Michigan.

The number of people hospitalized with a confirmed case of COVID-19 in the United States has been plummeting since early January. Until about three weeks ago, hospitalizations in Michigan were following the same pattern: More people with COVID-19 were leaving the hospital than were being admitted. But in the past few weeks, data from the CDC and the Department of Health and Human Services have shown that hospitalizations have risen by 45 percent from the state’s recent low on February 25. According to federal data, among U.S. metropolitan areas with more than 1 million people, the Detroit area now ranks fourth in hospital admissions—and first in a metric that combines increases in test positivity and cases.

Throughout the fall and winter, we saw a clear pattern—cases would rise, then hospitalizations about a week later, and finally, two weeks after that, deaths would follow. Nursing homes and other long-term-care facilities reported particularly heavy death tolls. If Michigan were to continue that pattern, we would expect hospitalizations to keep rising, and then more deaths.

But as a spring surge takes hold in Michigan, two new factors—variants of concern and rising vaccination levels—mean that we don’t yet know how this new rise in cases and hospitalizations will play out.

The vaccination of people 65 and older and of nursing-home residents should blunt the death toll of a rise in cases. But according to state data, Michigan has administered first doses to 61 percent of its residents aged 65–74, and 62 percent of residents 75 and older. Detroit’s figures are much lower: The city has given first doses to only 43 percent of those aged 65–74 and 39 percent of people 75 and older. For comparison, the CDC reports that 66 percent of the U.S. population aged 65 and up has received at least one dose of vaccine. The numbers are even worse for Black people in Michigan: Statewide, just 28 percent of Black residents 65 and older are known to have received at least one dose of vaccine. Overall, Michigan has administered first doses to only about a quarter of its total population, and that number falls to 15 percent in Detroit.

We've got to get the word out on vaccination.

I spoke with a "new friend" of mine (very attractive btw) and she asked me bluntly: "Does the vaccine change your DNA?" I of course educated her on the issue and she is now on the righteous path. This is a person working in academia btw. Misinformation like that has got to be stopped.

[ShockerFever]

And there it is.

They need to stop denying vaccines to black people. It's racist and pathetic.

[shoxlax]

Some serious awesomeness going on in Sedgwick County:

1) The trend that started in mid-October and peaked pre-Thanksgiving has now tapered off ever since the peak and is now down to very low summer levels.
2) Lots of excess Covid (and non-covid) beds.
3) Only 13 Covid patients in ICU.
4) The health community is vaxed.
5) All elderly that want to be have at least the first vax.

....and I haven’t grown a tail after my first shot.

[MikeKennedyRulZ]

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/a...utbreak/618332

The Clearest Sign the Pandemic Could Get Worse


Another coronavirus outbreak is unfolding in Michigan.








We've got to get the word out on vaccination.

I spoke with a "new friend" of mine (very attractive btw) and she asked me bluntly: "Does the vaccine change your DNA?" I of course educated her on the issue and she is now on the righteous path. This is a person working in academia btw. Misinformation like that has got to be stopped.

I guess they can do wonders with blow up dolls these days. They can talk now?

[shoxlax]

I guess they can do wonders with blow up dolls these days. They can talk now?

[JVShocker]

I guess they can do wonders with blow up dolls these days. They can talk now?

Lars and the Real Girl. Amazing movie.

edit: added a line from the movie, from the brother in law's co worker...."Wish I had a woman who couldn't talk."

[ShockerFever]

I guess they can do wonders with blow up dolls these days. They can talk now?

LMAO.

How is Cold meeting these people anyways with masks on and socially distant? How does he know she's attractive? Is he just plugging in what might be behind that mask? Is he tendering it? Is he plenty o fishing it? '

How can anyone acquire "new friends" in the middle of a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic?

[ShockTalk]

LMAO.

How is Cold meeting these people anyways with masks on and socially distant? How does he know she's attractive? Is he just plugging in what might be behind that mask? Is he tendering it? Is he plenty o fishing it? '

How can anyone acquire "new friends" in the middle of a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic?

Binoculars and windows, binoculars and windows.