Covid-19 pandemic & Fake News - How you can help

[kato]

12. A viral video of a woman deliberately coughing on masked shoppers at a Nebraska grocery store while laughing and calling them “sheep” has a perhaps-not-altogether-surprising local angle: the woman appears to be from Scottsdale. It took amateur sleuths just a few days to identify the woman as Janene Hoskovec, who at that time worked for SAP — a longtime Scottsdale resident, at least according to her social media. SAP put out a brief statement on Twitter, apparently in reference to the incident. “The health and safety of our employees and the communities in which we live and work are of utmost concern to us,” it reads. “We are taking the matter of an SAP employee incident very seriously and investigating the situation.” Later, SAP says she's no longer with the company.

Since SAP global HQ is about 20 km from where i sit that one made the local newspaper here. The case is a tad more complicated in that there are no investigations against the woman by the police department in the US (as there have been in similar cases) as no one - being coughed/spit on - has come forward accusing her. SAP simply fired her using the atrociously bad US employee rights without all that much investigation, they don't have any particular ties or long-term employment with her - she previously worked for HP and IBM among others.
Police however is now investigating those "amateur sleuths" for falsely identifying another woman to be her, leading to online and real-life harassment.

P.S.: SAP requires vaccination or testing from its employees throughout the company and has had 90% of its global workforce in home office since the beginning of the pandemic, currently extended until at least June '22.

 

[ngatimozart]

12. A viral video of a woman deliberately coughing on masked shoppers at a Nebraska grocery store while laughing and calling them “sheep” has a perhaps-not-altogether-surprising local angle: the woman appears to be from Scottsdale. It took amateur sleuths just a few days to identify the woman as Janene Hoskovec, who at that time worked for SAP — a longtime Scottsdale resident, at least according to her social media. SAP put out a brief statement on Twitter, apparently in reference to the incident. “The health and safety of our employees and the communities in which we live and work are of utmost concern to us,” it reads. “We are taking the matter of an SAP employee incident very seriously and investigating the situation.” Later, SAP says she's no longer with the company.

We had a mongerel here in Christchurch who during the first lockdown not once but twice got done for walking into a local supermarket and spitting on the public in there. After the second time he was sent to prison. Think he may have just got out.

 

[OPSSG]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1438966184641191939

Thanks to Gov. Greg Abbott, a classmate of mine who stayed in Texas for decades after graduation, felt she had to move back to Singapore (and serve a quarantine period too), for safety reasons as the Covid-19 outbreak there is out of control.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1438784864308793346

The irony is that after her quarantine, she is free to go out but Singapore has had the largest Covid-19 outbreak in recent months with 813 warded. Thankfully, she retained her Singapore citizenship and we welcome her back with open arms.

Delta is really kicking our collective butt in Singapore — even with our high vaccination rate. A total of 8,903,190 doses have been administered in Singapore under the national vaccination programme as at 16 Sep 2021.

 

[kato]

In Germany an anti-masker fatally shot a gas station employee last saturday after being kicked out for not wearing a mask (as legally required) while buying beer.

Might be the first such case outside the US (they had a shooting spree over mask policy at a store in June).

 

[OPSSG]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1444414637697548296

Makes perfect sense! Jurgen Klopp on being vaccinated — it’s to protect others around you. If you drink, don’t drive — it’s to protect others around you. Same with vaccination — protect the service workers you interact with.

 

[kato]

Makes perfect sense! Jurgen Klopp on being vaccinated — it’s to protect others around you. If you drink, don’t drive — it’s to protect others around you. Same with vaccination — protect the service workers you interact with.

The soccer industry - and it is an industry in Germany, with a rather heavy-handed lobby section - wants people vaccinated for one sole reason: Because the pesky state still requires 3G rules (vaccinated, recovered or tested) for people attending stadiums as about the last rule imposed on them.

They already threw around enough weight to have both mask rules and attendance caps lifted (the last cap was 25,000 - now they can fill em up again).

Meanwhile soccer players themselves get infected by the scores (as in, there's more clubs with infected players than without - and yes, with vaccination), and especially in more local leagues soccer matches tend to be regular primary spreader events for the audience...

 

[John Fedup]

In Germany an anti-masker fatally shot a gas station employee last saturday after being kicked out for not wearing a mask (as legally required) while buying beer.

Might be the first such case outside the US (they had a shooting spree over mask policy at a store in June).

Sad event for sure and some real incentive for application of the death penalty.

 

[ngatimozart]

Sad event for sure and some real incentive for application of the death penalty.

Think that the death penalty is somewhat of an overkill. I am not really in favour of it except in the most extreme of circumstances. I can think of far more suitable and more to the point, appropriate punishments that will drive the point home.

 

[kato]

P.S. on soccer:
And coincidentally today our local 2nd Federal league club is announcing that it may have to cancel their match tomorrow due to Covid making the rounds among their players, with new infections discovered in three separate sequential test series.

--

Main group getting infected right now in Germany is youths though, due to schools having switched back to mostly presence learning this school year.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1448687948447223809

Incidence map for age group 10-19 by RKI for Germany from their current weekly report (due to political pressure they only report incidence rates once a week now, but in turn go into more detail).

While anti-lockdown lobbyists largely claim that the high incidence rate is due to mandatory testing in schools it is precisely one state (Thuringia) that that has the highest incidence rates in the country, with a statewide rate above 300 per 100,000 youths per week and some areas above 1000. Thuringia abandoned regular testing - and masks - in schools three weeks ago and only tests youths with symptoms, meaning their undetected actual incidence rate is much higher than that.

 

[swerve]

Looking at the map, I can see the dark red area in the middle: Thuringen. Sudden drop in incidence across its western & north-western borders, in northern Hessen & south-eastern Niedersachsen. It's almost as if the fence is still there.

Seems as if there may be a correlation with voting patterns across the country as a whole.

 

[kato]

Seems as if there may be a correlation with voting patterns across the country as a whole.

Nah, there's a correlation with state borders since both lockdown politics and school politics are state-level.

Infection waves in the schools, while correlating with the population-wide waves, are somewhat curtailed by exactly when schools go on break and what set of rules is currently active in the state.

The below shows the waves time-wise in Rhineland-Palatinate state as an example - the chart shows the number of infected students and teachers at public schools on any given day since the start of this year, the breaks are when school is on vacation:



Other states start their school year - after the summer break - at different times, hence why a "current image" may shift slightly. Rhineland-Palatinate above just had an autumn school break this week, hence why on the RKI map their current numbers are very "mixed". For scale: Rhineland-Palatinate has 515,000 school students and 50,000 teachers, the current number of 1,093 means 0.2% of them are actively infected (global numbers for entire population of Germany: 0.15%). Since schools are closed for that break there is no specific outbreak in one district or school that could be isolated, the cases are instead spread individually across the entire state.

Thuringia will only have such an autumn break starting on the 25th - that's when you will see their numbers drop rapidly and go for similar diffusion afterwards (same for Bavaria, where numbers are also relatively high).

Within the states the numbers to some extent (but not always) correlate with population density. Hence why e.g. that yellow patch in the swamps north of Berlin or those in the Vogelsberg and Taunus mountain ranges north of Frankfurt. The drops at border regions have to do with that, these tend to be low-population (and economically distraught) areas - especially so at the former East/West border.

Lockdown politics also play a role at state level. The highest numeric districts can all be pinned to those specific states (Thuringia, Bavaria, Saarland) that have lifted mask requirements in schools to various extent; among the three only Thuringia also does not test students anymore. Northrhine-Westfalia and Baden-Württemberg are planning to follow them next week, which will definitely be "interesting times".

 

[kato]

P.S. on soccer:
And coincidentally today our local 2nd Federal league club is announcing that it may have to cancel their match tomorrow due to Covid making the rounds among their players, with new infections discovered in three separate sequential test series.

P.P.S.: Now cancelled with 17 out of 30 players of the club infected, that includes their youth cadre. A good number of the remaining 13 are players who were not taking part in training in recent days due to other injuries.

 

[Ananda]

Half-truths and lies: How Covid-19 misinformation spreads in S'pore

Should confusion remain, public should trust credible scientists and authorities rather than social media: Experts Read more at straitstimes.com.

www.straitstimes.com

Singapore is an advance small country. The point that this article made if I can concluded, is how difficult to maintain flow of correct information even in small nation but with population that open to various information.

This if we see to Singapore larger neighbours shown the difficulty to maintain false information in check close to impossible. In Indonesia there's no other choices but to 'force' the population on vaccine for the prices of their mobility. However even that is not enough, as some portion of population will still try to find loop hole in mobilities restrictions, without has to go through regulated testing and tracing apps.

In this case, like it or not, it seems more authoritarian steps will be needed.

 

[OPSSG]

Part 1 of 4: Avoiding Vaccine Misinformation

This if we see to Singapore larger neighbours shown the difficulty to maintain false information in check close to impossible. In Indonesia there's no other choices but to 'force' the population on vaccine for the prices of their mobility. However even that is not enough, as some portion of population will still try to find loop hole in mobilities restrictions, without has to go through regulated testing and tracing apps.

In this case, like it or not, it seems more authoritarian steps will be needed.

1. Yes, mis-information on vaccines is a problem even in Singapore. As of 23 Oct 2021, 84% of Singapore’s population has completed their full regimen/received 2 doses of vaccines, and 85% has received at least one dose. The small numbers of unvaccinated people (15% unvaxxed) are causing a disproportionate health care capacity problem by clogging up the ICU or high dependency Covid-19 wards. Once in ICU, these sick people are going to occupy the bed for a long time on the road to recovery or they die.

2. Recently, the Ministry of Health (MOH) in Singapore said of the 495 people with severe illness, 55% (or 270) came from this small group of unvaccinated people who got infected. So the number to worry about is not how many people are getting infected every day. This number has remained stable.

​

(a) The more important number is that of the unvaccinated people who are getting infected daily, because they are disproportionately filling up hospital and ICU beds — it’s the 100 unvaccinated people out of more than 3,000 people who get infected every day, that is taking up ICU capacity. Current overall ICU utilisation rate is 72.8%.​

​

(b) Minister for Health, Ong Ye Kung said the data shows that among this group, 25% will require oxygen to help them breathe, or will get so sick that intensive care is needed, or they will die.​

3. MOH is monitoring 7 active clusters, which have already been ringfenced through tracing, testing and isolation. The MOH said 80 new patients had to be admitted into ICU over the past fortnight, compared with 46 in the preceding two weeks. This is a worrying figure, since most will be there for several days, and some for weeks. We know that Covid-19 affects older people, especially those with underlying medical conditions, more seriously. Vaccines work. As at 26 Oct 2021, Singapore’s Covid-19 hospitalised is at 6.8%:

(a) Home Recovery:19,013 (72.4%)​

(b) Community Care & Treatment Facilities: 4,570 (17.4%) & 878 (3.3%)​

(c) In hospital: 1,787 (6.8%)​

• Oxygen supplementation: 289
• ICU: 79

 

[kato]

So the number to worry about is not how many people are getting infected every day. This number has remained stable.
(a) The more important number is that of the unvaccinated people who are getting infected daily, because they are disproportionately filling up hospital and ICU beds.

States here started separating infection incidence rates by vaccinated and unvaccinated this summer. In my state it's currently 40.8 for full vaccinated and 285.4 for unvaccinated, for an average of 128.4 in the population. As a note numbers were fairly stable for two months until last week (at least among unvaccinated, among vaccinated they doubled at low levels in those two months). Last week they suddenly shot up 20% for both as the next wave is starting.

Incidence is no longer a relevant factor for lockdown measures in my state though - instead they're using the number of hospitalisations. As of today we have 20 more Covid ICU beds to fill before we enter the next lockdown stage (probably by wednesday).

The 28-day hospitalisation incidence is 5.3 for full vaccinated and 29.6 for unvaccinated, which broadly scales equally for numbers - i.e. the proportion of those detected positive that end up in hospital is about the same for vaccinated and unvaccinated (about one in 7 over the last two months). Since vaccinated are exempt from virtually all spot testing regimes asymptomatic cases do not get detected in the first place, hence their lower rates.

The main reason for switching to hospitalisation incidence is that if we were using last year's regime then with the current infection numbers we'd already be fully locked down, and the fourth wave hasn't even really started.

However even that is not enough, as some portion of population will still try to find loop hole in mobilities restrictions, without has to go through regulated testing and tracing apps.

In recent weeks we've been seeing quite a number of cases of either "anti-vac" doctors faking vaccination (in hundreds of cases), or enterprising individuals faking vaccination certificates (same). In both cases money is the main driver of course.

 

[OPSSG]

Part 2 of 4: Avoiding Vaccine Misinformation

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1452815571758698499

4. Life expectancy in the US declined by 1.5 years in 2020, according to the CDC. The coronavirus is largely to blame. Covid-19 contributed to 74% of the decline in life expectancy from 78.8 years in 2019 to 77.3 years in 2020, according to the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics. Thanks to Twitter and its Covid-idiots like theBlogMire and ianmSC, Life expectancy in the US continues on its downward trend.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1453169616629366784

5. Due to success at the vaccine drive (that includes home vaccination for elderly & immobile), 98.7% of these with Covid-19 in Singapore have mild symptoms. When compared to Florida’s daily new Covid-19 stats, why are there seemingly more infected in Singapore? The reason is simple. Testing and a lot more of it on even people without Covid-19 symptoms. Singapore’s Covid-19 testing stats, as at 18 Oct 2021:

• Total swabs tested = 20,667,026
• Total swabs per one million population = 3,625,800
• Average daily number of swabs tested over the past week = 32,900

6. Over the last 28 days, 98.7% of the 90,203 infected individuals had no or mild symptoms. Another 0.9% required oxygen supplementation in the general ward, 0.1% were unstable and under close monitoring in the intensive care unit (ICU), while 0.1% were critically ill and intubated in the ICU. Those who have died make up 0.2%. There were 15 more deaths on 28 Oct 2021.

7. While Singapore’s Covid-19 death rate is bad for unvaxxed 60 years & above, it is much more deadly for unvaxxed 80 years & above — with 1 out about 60 dying. Conversely, there is a reduction of deaths among the 80++ year olds of 8~10 times by vaccination. Based on data from 1 May to 16 Oct 2021, published by MOH in Singapore, and shared by Ho Ching:

(a) amongst 80 years & above:​

​

- 13.3% of unvaxxed died, when infected; and​

- 1.6% of the vaxxed died, when infected;​

​

(b) amongst 70 years & above:​

​

- 4.9% of unvaxxed died, when infected;​

- 4.1% of partially vaxxed died, when infected; and​

- 0.31% of the vaxxed died, when infected;​

​

(c) amongst 60 years & above:​

- 2.9% of unvaxxed died, when infected;​

- 0.68% of partially vaxxed died, when infected; and​

- 0.06% of the vaxxed died, when infected.​

8. Singapore’s Covid-19 stats, as at 28 Oct 2021:

• Total SG Covid-19 deaths = 364
• Cumulative SG infected = 187,851
• New SG Covid-19 count = 3,432
• Life expectancy = 83.9 years

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1453804529653325828

9. Florida’s Covid-19 stats, as at 25 Oct 2021:

• Total Florida Covid-19 deaths = 58,803
• Cumulative Florida infected = 3,638,142
• New Florida Covid-19 count (14,564 per week) = 2,081
• Life expectancy = 78.9 years

 

[cdxbow]

A good study showing the effectiveness of the early use of Sotrovimab, which IIRC is the monoclonal antibody the Australian government has purchased. Early Treatment for Covid-19 with SARS-CoV-2 Neutralizing Antibody Sotrovimab | NEJM The preprint was kicking around a while ago, about when the UAE study of Sotrovimab came out.

In Australia we have developed a new type of medical expert, derived originally from politicians and journalists, these folks have developed such intellectual prowess they identified cures for Covid19 that simply escaped the docs. We have them to thank for Ivermectin and HCQ, Australians will know who they are, Craig Kelly, Clive Palmer, Andrew Blot, Rowan Dean et al, Just so as you don't have to wait for therapeutic enlightenment from this group of geniuses, I've done a little cut and paste of the results.

"A total of 3 of 291 patients in the sotrovimab group (1%), as compared with 21 of 292 patients in the placebo group (7%), had disease progression leading to hospitalization (for >24 hours) for any cause or death (relative risk reduction, 85%; 97.24% confidence interval [CI], 44 to 96; P=0.002) (Table 2). The primary reasons for the 24 hospitalizations were consistent with progressive Covid-19 (Table 3), with one probable exception: 1 patient in the sotrovimab group who had a notable medical history of small-intestinal obstruction presented 22 days after infusion with a small-intestinal obstruction.

All 5 patients who were admitted to the ICU were in the placebo group; 2 of these 5 patients received invasive mechanical ventilation, and a third patient declined to undergo intubation and subsequently died by day 29. Emergency department visits without hospitalization or hospitalization for less than 24 hours were observed in fewer patients in the sotrovimab group than in the placebo group"

So it clearly reduces severe disease, reduces ICU admissions and deaths. This was consistent with the UAE study.

I think it costs a few thousands dollars for a single infusion which is the usual treatment That may sound expensive but that's the cost of about 8 hours in an Australian ICU. At present it's use in Oz is restricted to 'at risk' patients.

We have effective vaccines and a now a very effective treatment for Covid19.
Well done medical science. Pox on Craig Kelly, Clive Palmer, Andrew Blot, Rowan Dean and the other liars.

 

[swerve]

Not the first effective treatment. Dexamethasone (which IIRC has the advantage of being very cheap), tocilizumab, molnupiravir & a couple of other monoclonal antibodies like Sotrovimab have all been found to be useful treatments, & are being used. There aren't any cures yet. though, & some of the treatments have limited uses.

But the more the better. Congratulations to the people who proved its value.

And a pox on the scammers & fantasists!

Good article for general readers from Wellcome (who know their stuff) about the topic -
What treatments are working for Covid-19? | News | Wellcome

 

[cdxbow]

Not the first effective treatment. Dexamethasone (which IIRC has the advantage of being very cheap), tocilizumab, molnupiravir & a couple of other monoclonal antibodies like Sotrovimab have all been found to be useful treatments, & are being used. There aren't any cures yet. though, & some of the treatments have limited uses.

But the more the better. Congratulations to the people who proved its value.

And a pox on the scammers & fantasists!

Good article for general readers from Wellcome (who know their stuff) about the topic -
What treatments are working for Covid-19? | News | Wellcome

It's a good article but I think the article undersells monoclonal antibodies a bit, I appreciate they are too expensive for many health care systems and are clumsy in that they require an effusion. The antivirals have thus far been disappointing, in that article they refer to Molnupiravir, an oral agent which is claimed to reduce severe disease by 50%. The paper is in preprint. so it's waiting peer review. MSD is pretty confident in it, expecting to produce 10 million courses of treatment by the end of 2021. Nature has an article about it for those interested How antiviral pill molnupiravir shot ahead in the COVID drug hunt (nature.com)

 

[OPSSG]

Part 3 of 4: Avoiding Vaccine Misinformation

10. Singapore has one of the highest vaccination rates in the world, allowing its government to open borders up with vaccinated travel lanes including to parts of Europe, Australia, Canada and the U.S. It’s now trying to ease the strain on the healthcare system by maintaining domestic restrictions at least until late Nov 2021.

11. Strangely daily infections had surged to 5,324 on 27 Oct 2021. This is an unusual spike bringing the total infected as at that date to 184,419 prompting authorities to say they were investigating the surge. Thus far, Singapore’s Covid-19 daily case count has fallen back to its recent baseline of above 3,000 (after a mysterious one-day surge pushed infections above 5,000 earlier this week). The weekly infection growth rate is at 1.12, down from 1.14. This means that the average daily case count that was rising at a steady rate of 14% has gone down to 12%, depending on which data point snapshot is used to count.

12. If the clusters can be ring fenced, the daily case count can dip for certain periods. But in view of the data released, the infection growth rate is between 12% to 15%.

13. Fortunately, the strain on intensive care beds continued to ease, as the percentage of ICU beds in the country being used fell to 72.8% on 26 Oct 2021, from 79.8% 25 Oct 2021. Thus far, there is no information on what caused the unusual spike in daily case counts and what brought it down again.

14. Singapore’s Covid-19 stats, as at 31 Oct 2021:

• Total SG Covid-19 deaths = 407
• New deaths = 13
• Cumulative SG infected = 198,374.
• New SG Covid-19 count = 3,163
• Current overall ICU utilisation rate: 68.3%
• Life expectancy = 83.9 years