Big picture on state of covid HK (2021, 2022)

[jimbo_jones]

I've always learnt the accept the worst case scenario as being most likely.

I guess the longer the world dithers and waits, the more variants of the virus can spin around.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/covid-1...d=hp_lead_pos3

Some alarming noise about a new P1 Variant out of Brazil and the death rate of 'younger' people is creeping up. No strong numbers, but 'more serious ilnesses'. Been floating around for a few weeks. https://theconversation.com/brazil-c...xplains-156234

"The so-called P.1 strain, present in more than 20 countries and identified in New York last week, is up to 2.2 times more contagious and as much as 61% more able to reinfect people than previous versions of the coronavirus, according to a recent study."

The numbers are off a low base, so 2.2x sounds big. An reinfection doesn't sound great.... Plus 10x more viral load and 10-80% more lethal isn't great either... Provided we get the immunised rate up (all around the world), then reinfection will be a non-issue. If we don't get immunisation rates up, then reinfected are yet another headach to deal with and non-immunised people...

Some of us are willing to get vaccinated to protect ourselves and the others that won't get vaccinated.

[East_coast]

I guess the longer the world dithers and waits, the more variants of the virus can spin around.

Covid-19 will probably be here for the longhaul with waves of serious and less serious variants with Big Pharma pumping out vaccines each year to hope to contain it as much as possible.

[cblurton]

Agree and disagree, your facts aren't wrong, but they're presented like they're indicative of inequality.

This illustrates the inequality I believe exists in how Covid 19 affects different populations in the United States.

[Sage]

This illustrates the inequality I believe exists in how Covid 19 affects different populations in the United States.

Indeed, which correlates perfectly with rates of Vitamin D deficiency in those very same populations. And vit. D deficiency is an already well known factor in increasing both the severity and likelihood of respiratory infections.

Odd then that it's not mentioned in your table.

[cblurton]

Not my table.

Content source: National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases (NCIRD), Division of Viral Diseases

I would be interested in seeing your source. Perfect correlations are hard to find.

I have looked into the question of vitamin D insufficiency and Covid 19 myself and found some support for the idea (See below) but even if it were a perfect correlation and old people in nursing homes who could not get enough sunshine were in fact getting affected and dying at greater rates than younger people who play outside daily, would that change my conclusion that we should be vaccinated even if we are at lower risk than the weak, poor, or people of color? No. By all means let's provide Vitamin D supplements to everyone who needs them while we continue our program of vaccinations and masks.

I am weary of the pandemic as I am sure you are. Inoculations do not make you sick with the virus and the probability if you are in good health that is being vaccinated will make you ill with some other disease exceedingly small. True, it is not zero but walking across the street is not safe, either.

Sorting Out Whether Vitamin D Deficiency Raises COVID-19 Risk
(jamanet work.com/ journals/ jama/fullarticle/2775003)

[East_coast]

Original Post Deleted

You read it as dismissive as I would guess you see big pharma as a negative thing. The scale and heft to commercialize solutions will need big pharma. Small pharma tends to get consolidated into big pharma. I do believe Big Pharma will be crucial in pumping out vaccines and that is what I stated.

[HK_Katherine]

Original Post Deleted

The UK analysis seemed to suggest that longer periods between shots were better. So it doesn't worry me. As long as I get my second shot at least 2 weeks before travel.

Someone earlier made the point that if the Government fails (again), people will just leave the city. That's were we are. Waiting for the rest of the world (or at minimum the UK) to get to herd immunity, open up and stop farting around. Then we will move there. For a period of time. How long? I don't know. Perhaps foreever. I already have a couple of friends who got stuck in the UK over Xmas and as a result have decided just to stay there. Packed up and move their stuff remotely (and with friends).

[Sage]

It's obvious that many of you consider yourselves of superior intelligence and that you should be managing this crisis. The reality of the average men and women in the street is that your Lancet studies don't matter much and the majority will never even glance at one. The headlines that says Astra Zeneca might cause blood clotting or that vaccinated people have died or that Biontech was halted. That's what catches the eye and not the fact that millions have been vaccinated successfully. That's human nature... Any amount of ranting, insults or grandiose claims of knowledge won't change a thing. In good time, people will personally know others that have been vaccinated successfully and that are enjoying some of the benefits(once there are tangible ones) and it will eventually get it done. The only problem is those impatient people that want everyone to follow their timetable because obviously they know better. Sorry but not happening unless you supreme beings can get the media to change their ways. Good luck with that...

Well done on confirming the central point that most people ARE ignorant of the facts and that your oh so precious govt panders to the lowest common denominator with dumbed down policy that you then defend.

Ignorance is a fact of life, but your wilful defence of it, as though it’s the best way, betrays you.

[Sage]

Not my table.

Content source: National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases (NCIRD), Division of Viral Diseases

I would be interested in seeing your source. Perfect correlations are hard to find.

I have looked into the question of vitamin D insufficiency and Covid 19 myself and found some support for the idea (See below) but even if it were a perfect correlation and old people in nursing homes who could not get enough sunshine were in fact getting affected and dying at greater rates than younger people who play outside daily, would that change my conclusion that we should be vaccinated even if we are at lower risk than the weak, poor, or people of color? No. By all means let's provide Vitamin D supplements to everyone who needs them while we continue our program of vaccinations and masks.

I am weary of the pandemic as I am sure you are. Inoculations do not make you sick with the virus and the probability if you are in good health that is being vaccinated will make you ill with some other disease exceedingly small. True, it is not zero but walking across the street is not safe, either.

Sorting Out Whether Vitamin D Deficiency Raises COVID-19 Risk
(jamanet work.com/ journals/ jama/fullarticle/2775003)

There's lot's and lots of evidence that levels of Vit D deficiency correlate with covid and that Black and hispanic populations in the US have lower D levels than white's; blacks the lowest, then hispanics. In the same ratio's as how those races appear in the covid stats.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25112179/



Of course they also have higher levels of obesity and all the other lifestyle related problems. Just so happens that reduced vitamin D correlates extremely well with increasing levels of lifestyle related disease in whites too. Teasing out all of the relationships between, lifestyle choice, health, race, latitude, education and socio economic factors is naturally very complex.

This video that examines the medical correlations, without even touching on Socio-economic factors is already an hour long:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ha2mLz-Xdpg

What I seek to rectify are the stereotypes that race is regularly used as a justifier for socio economic disparity and yet too frequently ignored when its comes to genetic differences. One of the worst (THE worst?) covid affected sub-groups in the world appears to be Somalia migrants in Scandinavia with case rates way higher than their socio-economic status suggest.

In Norway, where 15% of residents were born abroad, 25% who had tested positive for COVID-19 by April 19 (2020) were foreign-born. Somalis, with 425 confirmed cases, are the largest immigrant group testing positive, accounting for 6% of all confirmed cases -- more than 10 times their share of the population.

In Finland’s capital city of Helsinki, the mayor said it was “worrying” that almost 200 Somalis had tested positive by mid-April (2020). They accounted for about 17% of positive cases -- 10 times their share of the city’s population.

.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/...1111/cen.13097


Genetics play a role in many aspects of medical practice, so both you (and the NCIRD) do a great disservice to the world by glossing over it.

For example black people suffer very high rates of sickle cell disease (ALSO correlated with very low vitamin D) and yet the sickle shaped trait gives higher levels of malaria resistance and is a result of natural selection.

https://www.nature.com/scitable/topi...ptation-34539/

But ultimately race and social status of the worst affected populations should have little to do with the decision of Geoexpaters or HK Chinese about whether they get vaccinated or not. If you were to ask the average local Chinese population, I'm pretty sure the covid susceptiblity of African immigrants in Northern latitudes doesn't register at all, and if it does, doesn't illicit any fucks given. Defensible? Not really, but certainly not surprising.

Then go and measure levels of vaccine hesitancy amongst people in the UK and guess which group consistently exhibit the highest levels - yup BAME

https://www.bmj.com/content/372/bmj.n513

Even more worryingly, data up to 15 January 2021 show substantially lower rates of covid-19 vaccinations among over 80s in ethnic minority (white people 42.5%, black people 20.5%) and deprived communities (least deprived 44.7%, most deprived 37.9%) in England.6 Similarly, data from an NHS trust show lower covid-19 vaccination rates among ethnic minority healthcare workers (70.9% in white workers v 58.5% in South Asian and 36.8% in black workers; P<0.001 for both).

You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink.

And to re-iterate my original point you shouldn't be expecting them to drink either. There's a good reason why no country has yet made vaccines mandatory. It's a personal choice.

Anyone who wants to be sure of protection from covid, get vaxxed, the risk not to is theirs and their's alone.

Herd immunity can be a long term goal for governments, fine, but it's FF'ing criminal to expect it to be achieved before the restrictions are lifted on the rest of society. That would be putting far too much power in the hands of the least well informed.

Natural selection, much like personal lifestyle choices have an important role to play here too.

[HK_Katherine]

There's lot's and lots of evidence that levels of Vit D deficiency correlate with covid and that Black and hispanic populations in the US have lower D levels than white's; blacks the lowest, then hispanics. In the same ratio's as how those races appear in the covid stats.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25112179/



Of course they also have higher levels of obesity and all the other lifestyle related problems. Just so happens that reduced vitamin D correlates extremely well with increasing levels of lifestyle related disease in whites too. Teasing out all of the relationships between, lifestyle choice, health, race, latitude, education and socio economic factors is naturally very complex.

This video that examines the medical correlations, without even touching on Socio-economic factors is already an hour long:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ha2mLz-Xdpg

What I seek to rectify are the stereotypes that race is regularly used as a justifier for socio economic disparity and yet too frequently ignored when its comes to genetic differences. One of the worst (THE worst?) covid affected sub-groups in the world appears to be Somalia migrants in Scandinavia with case rates way higher than their socio-economic status suggest.

.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/...1111/cen.13097


Genetics play a role in many aspects of medical practice, so both you (and the NCIRD) do a great disservice to the world by glossing over it.

For example black people suffer very high rates of sickle cell disease (ALSO correlated with very low vitamin D) and yet the sickle shaped trait gives higher levels of malaria resistance and is a result of natural selection.

https://www.nature.com/scitable/topi...ptation-34539/

But ultimately race and social status of the worst affected populations should have little to do with the decision of Geoexpaters or HK Chinese about whether they get vaccinated or not. If you were to ask the average local Chinese population, I'm pretty sure the covid susceptiblity of African immigrants in Northern latitudes doesn't register at all, and if it does, doesn't illicit any fucks given. Defensible? Not really, but certainly not surprising.

Then go and measure levels of vaccine hesitancy amongst people in the UK and guess which group consistently exhibit the highest levels - yup BAME

https://www.bmj.com/content/372/bmj.n513



You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink.

And to re-iterate my original point you shouldn't be expecting them to drink either. There's a good reason why no country has yet made vaccines mandatory. It's a personal choice.

Anyone who wants to be sure of protection from covid, get vaxxed, the risk not to is theirs and their's alone.

Herd immunity can be a long term goal for governments, fine, but it's FF'ing criminal to expect it to be achieved before the restrictions are lifted on the rest of society. That would be putting far too much power in the hands of the least well informed.

Natural selection, much like personal lifestyle choices have an important role to play here too.

However, there is also evidence that prior infections with Coronaviruses (ie a common cold) can confer some level of immunity. If there are fewer of these colds in Somalia, that would also explain the findings. But on balance, I'm happy to eat more vitamin D just in case!