BA2.12.1 Over NYC

Posted on by Thor

The north east is being attacked by a new and more contagious variant of Omicron.  Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) data released today shows BA.2.12.1, thought to be 30% more infectious than BA.2

Omicron Subvariant BA.2.12.1 will become the dominant variant in the country in the next 7-10 days. It is already driving Covid hospitalizations. New York  Governor Kathy Hochul tested positive for Covid-19 on May 9, 2022. Late night hosts Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel as well as Vice President Kamala Harris have all tested positive for COVID-19. Others include,  Broadway, the actors Matthew Broderick and Daniel Craig, New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy and at least three members of the New York City Council.

New York City lifted many of its mask and vaccine requirements. It looks like they plan to face this new wave without basic mitigation measures. The prevalence of fevers across the city, which can offer a forewarning of Covid trends, has reached levels last seen at some of the worst points of the pandemic, according to data from internet-connected thermometers.

In the region comprised of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, where the sub-variant was first identified, the variant is already tied to 66% of new cases sequenced. As of the past weekend, hospitalizations and deaths in New York were up 38% and 24%, respectively.

If there is good news in the new data, it’s that the next wave of Omicron variants, called BA.4 and BA.5 which are believed  to be even more transmissible than BA.2.12.1, have not seen the same rate of spread in the U.S. since their arrival here about March 19, 2022.

Stealth Omicron Special Operation

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COVID-19 is re-grouping in the North East for a renewed campaign of it’s “Special Operation.” The so-called Stealth Omicron (BA.2) variant is now the dominant COVID-19 strain in the United States, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

American however have let their guard down and turned their back on the enemy allowing for a full unchecked frontal attack.

A Trump appointed Federal Judge in Florida blocked the CDC’s masking guidelines on airlines. The CDC itself re-evaluated it’s guidance for the maps that shows where outbreaks are occurring. On top of that people are no longer using COVID testing sites instead relying on less accurate at home tests. Americans will simply not see this next wave coming. America has again decided to remain blind in fighting an enemy that can not be seen.

The Biden White House requested 22.5 Billion dollars to fight COVID-19 but that was cut down to 10 Billion allowing for no intentional aid. As long as the virus is anywhere in the world, it is everywhere in the world. This is a simple idea that legislators do not seem to understand. Of course all this aid will come too   late as the BA.2 variant begins it’s exponential growth in America in the coming weeks.

Green Washing the Pandemic

Posted on by Thor

The CDC changed the metrics it uses to judge risk assessment for COVID-19. I have posted a map daily on this site created by COVID Act Now and follow each states progress as it ticks up from yellow, which is a low risk, up to orange, and then red, which is very high risk.

In January of this year every state was a deep blood red. Slowly cases dropped and states switched back to orange then yellow, but none ever returned to the lowest state which is green. Overnight the map switched from a collection of yellow states and states that had ticked up to higher levels of risk in the North East to a map of overall green with a few counties marked yellow. The visual assessment is that overnight the pandemic ended.

COVID Act Now is the site I have followed for this daily risk assessment. They launched the site when there was no standardized government COVID risk framework, no broadly accessible testing or vaccines, and before there were incredibly transmissible variants like Stealth Omicron.

The CDC updated their COVID framework to capture what they call “COVID-19 Community Levels.” These changes reflect the decreased risk of severe illness and death due to vaccines. COVID Act Now worked towards integrating these CDC metrics into their map. Their former “U.S. COVID Risk Level” was replaced with a “COVID Community Level” that aligns with the CDC’s Community Levels. It takes into account the same three metrics that are part of the CDC’s framework, and grades them on a three-color scale to classify COVID Community Level as low, medium, or high for every state, county, and metro in the U.S. The end result was a sudden vast swath of green washing over the map overnight. It seems like the CDC by changing the metrics is green washing the pandemic.

COVID Memorial

Posted on by Thor

Wars Ranked by American Combat Deaths…

  • World War II 291,557
  • American Civil War 214, 938
  • World War I 53,402
  • Vietnam War 47, 434
  • Korean War 33, 686
  • American Revolutionary War 8,000
  • Iraq War 4,424
  • War of 1812 2,260
  • War in Afghanistan 1833
  • Mexican-American War 1,733

That is a total of 659,267 American combat deaths.

Over 953,000 Americans have died from COVID-19 and that number  continues to climb. The nation is mindlessly hurling itself towards over 1 million deaths. The true toll is likely far higher since many deaths due to COVID-19 were not counted. The American death rate has surpassed that of any other large, wealthy nation, especially during the recent Omicron surge. No one can accurately predict what the new BA.2 variant of Omicron will bring but it is not likely to be sunshine and daises.

Why were so many politicians focused on re-openings in January and February of 2022, the fourth and fifth deadliest months of the pandemic? Why did the CDC issue new guidelines that allowed most Americans to dispense with indoor masking when at least 1,000 people had been dying of COVID every day for almost six straight months? Quite simply people can not comprehend what they can not see. The virus is too small to be seen, and people die in isolation in hospitals with the burials happening quietly out of public view.

About 9 million Americans are grieving the loss of loved ones. An estimated 149,000 children have lost a parent or caregiver. Healing can only come when the tragedy has ended. The pandemic rages on with no end in sight. Americans have become numb and and seem to have learned to accept the inevitability of the virus death toll as it continues. Now the United States government has cut off funding for testing and treatment for COVID. Once the rich have their shots the funding stops. That leaves the country very vulnerable as BA.2 begins its inevitable march through the American population in the coming weeks.

Richard Keller wrote, “Like gun violence, overdose, extreme heat death, heart disease, and smoking, [COVID] becomes increasingly associated with behavioral choice and individual responsibility, and therefore increasingly invisible.” We don’t honor deaths that we ascribe to individual failings.”

As America nears 1 Million deaths due to COVID, there’s an effort led by a group called Marked By COVID to establish an enduring memorial to the pandemic. They are lobbying for a national COVID memorial day on the first Monday of March each year, as well as trying to build physical memorials in cities all over the country. Kristin Urquiza, the group’s co-founder, said “We will be able to teach our children, our grandchildren and future generations about this moment in time, about our pain, about what happens in a public health crisis, about what is lost and who is lost.”

White House press secretary Jen Psaki, who recently tested positive for COVID-19, said the president supports memorializing lives lost to COVID, but right now the focus remains on fighting the pandemic and securing funding from Congress to be prepared for whatever comes next.

Hanzel and COVID

Posted on by Thor

On March 7, 2022, Florida Governor Ron DeathSantis‘s mouthpiece, Surgeon general Joseph Lapado recommended against children being vaccinated for COVID-19. As he put it, “the Florida Department of Health is going to be the first state to officially recommend against the Covid-19 vaccines for healthy children.” He justified this insane stance with concerns about possible side  affects that are pushed by anti-vax groups.

Ladapo’s announcement contradicted guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, (CDC) which says all people over age 5 should get vaccinated.

Dr. Tina Carroll-Scott, medical director at South Miami Children’s Clinic, blasted Ladapo’s verbal directive on Monday, calling it “irresponsible and incorrect.”

This goes against the Florida’s Department of Health’s new guidance issued on March 8. 2022 which does not recommend against the shots for kids.

“The known risks of Covid-19 illness and its related, possibly severe complications, such as long-term health problems, hospitalization, and even death, far outweigh the potential risks of having a rare adverse reaction to vaccination, including the possible risk of myocarditis or pericarditis,” the CDC’s website says. The CDC has been monitoring reports of myocarditis, and found that cases of the condition “have rarely been reported, especially in adolescents and young adult males within several days after” vaccination.

DeathSantis himself went on to scold children for wearing masks at one of his press briefings, making it clear he doesn’t feel it is a parent’s right to decide if their child wears a mask, it is his choice that they not be protected. DeathSantis knows best.

Surface

Posted on by Thor

As hospitalizations decline across America, politicians are once again in a rush to declare victory and lift all safety measures. It seems there is always a knee jerk reaction to the changing landscape of the pandemic and a high degree of acceptance of easily avoidable death.

Is it too early to lift all safety measures? Only about 27% of the US population has received a coronavirus vaccine booster shot, according to CDC data. The moves to phase out state mask mandates conflict with the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention‘s guidance to continue wearing masks in areas with “high” or “substantial” Covid-19 transmission, which includes about 99% of U.S. counties.

States lifting mask mandates include, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Oregon and Rhode Island. The percentages of people vaccinated in these states are…

  • 66.8% in Delaware and Illinois
  • 68.2% in Oregon
  • 69.6% in California
  • 73.5% in New Jersey
  • 74.8% in New York
  • 77% in Massachusetts
  • 77.2% in Connecticut
  • 79.7% in Rhode Island
  • 59%. in Nevada

That means on average, over 25% of the people in those states are unvaccinated and therefor highly vulnerable to possible hospitalization and death. There are well over 100,000 new cases of Omicron a day. So why are states declaring victory over COVID? There is a new variant on the rise named Stealth BA.2 which spreads even move effectively than Omicron. This variant may create a new wave and stall the drop in hospitalizations as it has in the United Kingdom. In the next two weeks we should see just how bad BA.2 will become. It would make more sense to jump into the freezing water moments before a rescue is on the horizon.

Of 5 to 11 years olds, only 23% are vaccinated and they will be the first to be thrown under the bus. Omicron is more severe in children than adults. 1 in 7 kids can develop long COVID. Children infected then bring the virus home to their parents and grand parents.  There is likely to be another surge in the summer just as there was in 2020 and 2021.

Chris Hayes put out a Tweet saying, ” A big part of American Exceptionalism is just generally tolerating a lot more death and illness and violence and shorter life spans than other peer countries.” Over 900,000 deaths means less in America than it does for other nations. Politicians are fine with justifying the deaths of children, saying the children are dying with COVID rather than from COVID. That is a morally warped semantic perspective that seems to imply that children are expendable. Since the advent of a vaccine to combat COVID over 200,000 unvaccinated Americans have died needlessly due to an aggressive anti science sentiment.

History is once again repeating itself, we have been to this rodeo multiple times during this pandemic. America is unsinkable. This too shall pass, but stay safe in the mean time folks.

 

C Section 27

Posted on by Thor

Newsweek reported that an unvaccinated 27 year old mother of 6 from Texas, died of COVID-19 after giving birth. Her husband had tested positive for COVID shortly after New Year’s Day 2022. She was pregnant with the couple’s sixth child at the time.

Soon she began to feel unwell and experienced shortness of breath and chest tightness, her husband told news outlet ABC 13.

After a visit to the hospital on January 4, 2022 the mom was immediately admitted because her oxygen levels were low. She was then diagnosed with pneumonia due to COVID-19.

Within days, doctors performed an emergency C-section to deliver the couple’s baby, a boy called Koda born at 25 weeks, according to a GoFundMe donation page set up for the family. This story caught my eye since Koda was the name of the bear Cub I worked on at Disney Feature Animation for the film, Brother Bear.

The mother’s condition began to improve over the following weeks, but then suddenly deteriorated. She died shortly afterwards, in mid-January 2022.

The father told ABC 13 that both he and his wife had not been vaccinated against COVID as “it all happened so fast and it was being pushed on us very fast,” saying: “She was pregnant and so she had some concerns.”

Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), said in August 2021 that the COVID vaccines were “safe and effective,” including for those who are pregnant and breastfeeding. CDC analysis at the time did not find an increased risk of miscarriage among nearly 2,500 pregnant women who received an mRNA COVID vaccine before 20 weeks of pregnancy. Unfortunately, health messaging dos not always reach those who most need to hear it in time. There are also others who simply do not want to hear or understand the science.

Winter Surge

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The Omicron blizzard that continues to sweep across America will find just about everybody this winter.

“Omicron, with its extraordinary, unprecedented degree of efficiency of transmissibility, will ultimately find just about everybody,” Dr. Anthony Fauci told J. Stephen Morrison, senior vice president of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “Those who have been vaccinated … and boosted would get exposed. Some, maybe a lot of them, will get infected but will very likely, with some exceptions, do reasonably well in the sense of not having hospitalization and death.”

Those who are not vaccinated are “going to get the brunt of the severe aspect of this,” Fauci added. Across the United States, at least one in five eligible Americans — roughly 65 million people– are not vaccinated against Covid-19. Only 23% who are fully vaccinated are also boosted, according to data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

US Food and Drug Administration acting commissioner Dr. Janet Woodcock said at a Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee hearing on January 18 2022, “I think it’s hard to process what’s actually happening right now, which is: Most people are going to get Covid… and what we need to do is make sure the hospitals can still function, transportation, you know, other essential services are not disrupted while this happens.”

Dr. Fauci pointed out that there are 5 stages of the pandemic and we are still in phase 1. He cautioned against thinking we are further along than we actually are. The first phase of the pandemic—or the “The truly pandemic,” according to Fauci—is “where the whole world is really very negatively impacted as we are right now.”

The following four steps are deceleration, control, elimination, and finally eradication.

Deceleration will be a slowdown in the number of newly confirmed cases.

Control refers to endemicity. That means that COVID-19 would become integrated into the broad range of infectious diseases we commonly experience, like the flu or the common cold.

Elimination comes when the virus still exists in the world but it has been eradicated from certain regions or countries.

Eradication will be nearly impossible to reach.

Anime Superspreader

Posted on by Thor

A fully vaccinated and boosted man from Minnesota and 30 friends flew to New York City to attend an Anime Convention at the . After attending the the man tested positive for the Omicron variant of COVID-19. 15 of the others in his party also tested positive for COVID-19. It is uncertain whether any of those cases involved the Omicron variant.

The Minnesota man has recovered from mild symptoms that began shortly after the convention ended. His friends are from other states and their conditions are not yet known.

Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont reported on December 4, 2021 his state’s first case, a man in his 60s, seemed to originate from a relative of an infected man who had recently attended the anime convention. Additional family members were being tested, and both the man and his relative were fully vaccinated and experiencing only mild symptoms.

The anime convention, which drew 53 thousand people to the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center for three days, was likely a vector for spreading the new variant. Many attendees wore masks but some of the rooms were incredibly crowded with people crowded together shoulder to shoulder.

Convention attendees were required to provide proof that they had received at least one vaccine shot and they had to wear masks, according to convention web site. A single shot of Pfizer or Moderna vaccine is at most 80% effective at preventing infection. That efficacy drops with the new Omicron variant. The bottom line is that it was irresponsible to hold such a crowded convention in a pandemic.

America’s COVID-19  testing and contact-tracing efforts, have been a complete failure since the start of the pandemic so the full extent of the spread from this single convention will never be fully known. After Minnesota officials learned that the convention attendee had the Omicron variant, they informed the New York City Health Department. City health officials said that they had begun sending text messages and emails to the thousands of the anime convention’s attendees, urging them to get tested. Dr. Ted Long, who oversees the city’s contact tracing program, said that he was aware of five positive cases so far among New York City residents who attended the anime convention. The CDC is assisting the Minnesota and New York City health departments in tracking any cases, a spokeswoman said.

It is easy the Anime Convention organizers to pass the blame. Perhaps the Minnesota man and his friends were infected at a restaurant, at the hotel or on the flight. Besides these people chose to attend this superspreader event. It is their own damn fault, oh, and thanks for attending.

No Immunity

Posted on by Thor

Every person vaccinated is another brick in the wall to try and reach herd immunity against COVID-19. As of 6 a.m. November 23, 2021 only 59 % of the country’s population, according to the CDC‘s data. That leaves plenty of unvaccinated human fuel for the virus to burn through.

As we approach the holidays, the hospitalizations are again on the rise. Americans have grown weary and are returning to pre-pandemic life styles with no masks and no social distancing. Even when American locked down at the beginning of the pandemic, only 35% truly locked down and isolated. Many European countries locked down far harder but like America they re-opened too  soon.

Only 42% of Germans are vaccinated. The German health minister, Jens Spahn, has warned citizens that they would be either “vaccinated, cured or dead” from COVID-19 by the end of winter as several European countries impose restrictions amid surging infections. As intensive care beds fill up fast, Germany’s worst-hit regions have ordered new shutdowns, including the closure of Christmas markets. In regions with high hospitalisation rates, the unvaccinated will be barred from public spaces like cinemas, gyms and indoor dining.

Austria has only 42% of it’s population vaccinated. They are experiencing a huge surge in cases that is forcing the country into a hard lock down. At first only the unvaccinated had to stay at home, but now everyone is in a forced lockdown to try and slow the spread of the virus. Everyone in the country has been mandated too get vaccinated.

What is happening in Europe can and likely will occur in America again as complacency, ignorance and misinformation allows people to let their guard down.  With winter the once hoped for wall  of immunity will collapse.