COVID-19 >>"True and Helpful" Covid Information Thread

[Anonymous]

Most of North America is dropping masking requirements..



BC could be in for some protests.

[Anonymous]

No "if". It's being organized now.

Folks have had enough of the restrictions.

[Thiel]

The government of BC will not follow Alberta and Saskatchewan by dropping masking in public and vaccine passports.

That is unfortunate.

[Anonymous]

Could infection lead to increased risk of dementia?



Even Mild Cases of COVID-19 Can Lead to Brain Changes: Study



Mild COVID-19 cases were linked to changes in the brain, in a newly published study.



Approximately 785 people underwent a brain scan and about half later tested positive for COVID-19. All the participants got a second brain scan, including those who had survived the disease.



Researchers from the Wellcome Centre for Integrative Neuroimaging at the University of Oxford analyzed the scans and found the participants infected with COVID-19 had a reduction in the thickness of gray matter—which helps humans perform various functions such as making decisions—and other negative outcomes.



"Despite the infection being mild for 96% of our participants, we saw a greater loss of grey matter volume, and greater tissue damage in the infected participants, on average 4.5 months after infection," professor Gwenaëlle Douaud, the study's lead author, said in a statement.



"They also showed greater decline in their mental abilities to perform complex tasks, and this mental worsening was partly related to these brain abnormalities. All these negative effects were more marked at older ages."



The paper was published in Nature following peer review.



The scans were taken from the UK Biobank, a large-scale medical database that contains information on approximately 500,000 UK residents.



Those whose scans were analyzed were aged 51 to 81. The reason the study did not include younger people is that all participants in the scanning were 40 or older, Douaud told The Epoch Times in an email.



The scans were taken on average 38 months apart.



Researchers said the two cohorts—people who ended up getting infected and people who did not—were similar in terms of age, sex, and many risk factors.



Participants also engaged in cognitive tests, and the infected group was more likely to experience cognitive decline by the time of the second test.



The brain changes ranged from 0.2 to 2 percent additional change in the infected group.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/even-mild-cases-of-covid-19-can-lead-to-brain-changes-study_4323882.html?utm_source=morningbriefnoe&utm_campaign=mb-2022-03-09&utm_medium=email&est=YYbj5YA5is%2BSkgFngyAVjHoC6sVstZnbYfdlwc0fXDIVRdLrupRzEtktIkkaORZm7g%3D%3D">https://www.theepochtimes.com/even-mild ... Zm7g%3D%3D">https://www.theepochtimes.com/even-mild-cases-of-covid-19-can-lead-to-brain-changes-study_4323882.html?utm_source=morningbriefnoe&utm_campaign=mb-2022-03-09&utm_medium=email&est=YYbj5YA5is%2BSkgFngyAVjHoC6sVstZnbYfdlwc0fXDIVRdLrupRzEtktIkkaORZm7g%3D%3D

[Anonymous]

Oh my goodness Seoul..



I hope they continue testing the same people every eighteen months.

[cc]

BA.2

https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/coronavirus/new-studies-bring-ba-2-variant-into-sharper-focus-1.5793134">https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/coronavir ... -1.5793134">https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/coronavirus/new-studies-bring-ba-2-variant-into-sharper-focus-1.5793134





"The situation that we're seeing on the ground, and I get this from talking to a number of my colleagues who actually do the genomic surveillance, is BA.2 is kind of creeping up in terms of numbers, but it's not the meteoric rise that we saw with BA.1," said Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at the Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization at the University of Saskatchewan in Canada.



That's because in many countries like the U.S., U.K., and Denmark, BA.2 has hit speed bumps left in its wake by BA.1, which was already very contagious.



"It's so soon after that initial BA.1 peak that you have a lot of people who were either vaccinated or boosted ... [or] got Omicron, and so right now all of those people will have relatively high titers of antibodies, neutralizing antibodies that will protect against infection," Rasmussen says.



The new studies are preprints, which means they were posted to an online library of medical research before being reviewed by outside experts and published in medical journals.



NO INCREASE IN HOSPITALIZATIONS

The first new study comes from South Africa, where BA.2 grew rapidly, rising from 27 per cent to 86 per cent of new COVID-19 infections over the course of a single week in February. Researchers looked at cases tied to more than 95,000 positive COVID-19 tests. Among these, roughly equal proportions of people were hospitalized for their infections -- roughly 3.6 per cent of people who had presumed BA.2 infections compared to 3.4 per cent of those with signs infections caused by BA.1.



After researchers accounted for things that might influence a person's risk of severe disease, such as older age, they found no difference in the risk for hospitalization between people infected by BA.1 and those infected by BA.2. Roughly one-quarter of people hospitalized with both BA.1 and BA.2 infections were fully vaccinated.



Those findings echo hospitalization studies from Denmark, where BA.2 is also the predominant cause of COVID-19 infections.



The lead researcher on the South African study, Dr. Nicole Wolter, says that while it's difficult to say how the South African experience with this variant may translate to other countries, what they're seeing from BA.2 after their fourth wave isn't a second peak, but a longer tail.

[cc]

Around the world. There is some good news globally as well -- the number of new coronavirus cases around the world fell 21 per cent in the last week, marking the third consecutive week that cases have droppedd,

 

-- COVID-19 has already killed more than 6.2 million people in two years

[Anonymous]

BA.2

https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/coronavirus/new-studies-bring-ba-2-variant-into-sharper-focus-1.5793134">https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/coronavir ... -1.5793134">https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/coronavirus/new-studies-bring-ba-2-variant-into-sharper-focus-1.5793134





"The situation that we're seeing on the ground, and I get this from talking to a number of my colleagues who actually do the genomic surveillance, is BA.2 is kind of creeping up in terms of numbers, but it's not the meteoric rise that we saw with BA.1," said Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at the Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization at the University of Saskatchewan in Canada.



That's because in many countries like the U.S., U.K., and Denmark, BA.2 has hit speed bumps left in its wake by BA.1, which was already very contagious.



"It's so soon after that initial BA.1 peak that you have a lot of people who were either vaccinated or boosted ... [or] got Omicron, and so right now all of those people will have relatively high titers of antibodies, neutralizing antibodies that will protect against infection," Rasmussen says.



The new studies are preprints, which means they were posted to an online library of medical research before being reviewed by outside experts and published in medical journals.



NO INCREASE IN HOSPITALIZATIONS

The first new study comes from South Africa, where BA.2 grew rapidly, rising from 27 per cent to 86 per cent of new COVID-19 infections over the course of a single week in February. Researchers looked at cases tied to more than 95,000 positive COVID-19 tests. Among these, roughly equal proportions of people were hospitalized for their infections -- roughly 3.6 per cent of people who had presumed BA.2 infections compared to 3.4 per cent of those with signs infections caused by BA.1.



After researchers accounted for things that might influence a person's risk of severe disease, such as older age, they found no difference in the risk for hospitalization between people infected by BA.1 and those infected by BA.2. Roughly one-quarter of people hospitalized with both BA.1 and BA.2 infections were fully vaccinated.



Those findings echo hospitalization studies from Denmark, where BA.2 is also the predominant cause of COVID-19 infections.



The lead researcher on the South African study, Dr. Nicole Wolter, says that while it's difficult to say how the South African experience with this variant may translate to other countries, what they're seeing from BA.2 after their fourth wave isn't a second peak, but a longer tail.

I haven't been following COVID news. This is the first I heard about BA.2.

[cc]

It will make the rounds, eventually anywhere. With viruses, most infectious always spreads faster and  takes over

[Anonymous]

It will make the rounds, eventually anywhere. With viruses, most infectious always wins

We will only hear about it after it's here and spreading fast.

[cc]

True. It's not a different true variant BTW, it's a variation of XI or omicron and called that ...



It has been seen in every state & Province in varying amounts

[Anonymous]

BA.2

https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/coronavirus/new-studies-bring-ba-2-variant-into-sharper-focus-1.5793134">https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/coronavir ... -1.5793134">https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/coronavirus/new-studies-bring-ba-2-variant-into-sharper-focus-1.5793134





"The situation that we're seeing on the ground, and I get this from talking to a number of my colleagues who actually do the genomic surveillance, is BA.2 is kind of creeping up in terms of numbers, but it's not the meteoric rise that we saw with BA.1," said Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at the Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization at the University of Saskatchewan in Canada.



That's because in many countries like the U.S., U.K., and Denmark, BA.2 has hit speed bumps left in its wake by BA.1, which was already very contagious.



"It's so soon after that initial BA.1 peak that you have a lot of people who were either vaccinated or boosted ... [or] got Omicron, and so right now all of those people will have relatively high titers of antibodies, neutralizing antibodies that will protect against infection," Rasmussen says.



The new studies are preprints, which means they were posted to an online library of medical research before being reviewed by outside experts and published in medical journals.



NO INCREASE IN HOSPITALIZATIONS

The first new study comes from South Africa, where BA.2 grew rapidly, rising from 27 per cent to 86 per cent of new COVID-19 infections over the course of a single week in February. Researchers looked at cases tied to more than 95,000 positive COVID-19 tests. Among these, roughly equal proportions of people were hospitalized for their infections -- roughly 3.6 per cent of people who had presumed BA.2 infections compared to 3.4 per cent of those with signs infections caused by BA.1.



After researchers accounted for things that might influence a person's risk of severe disease, such as older age, they found no difference in the risk for hospitalization between people infected by BA.1 and those infected by BA.2. Roughly one-quarter of people hospitalized with both BA.1 and BA.2 infections were fully vaccinated.



Those findings echo hospitalization studies from Denmark, where BA.2 is also the predominant cause of COVID-19 infections.



The lead researcher on the South African study, Dr. Nicole Wolter, says that while it's difficult to say how the South African experience with this variant may translate to other countries, what they're seeing from BA.2 after their fourth wave isn't a second peak, but a longer tail.

Old Herman is done with all the restrictions and mandates even if it does come roaring back.

[cc]

We have heard that

[Anonymous]

We have heard that

I will not be the only one.

[cc]

Herm. I merely posted accurate & informative information  .. period



You quoted it , but did not comment on it at all,  .. merely used it as a vehicle to say what you have already said a gazzillion times