TallGuyJohninBKK

Reading comprehension... Thai Medics Warn of Covid Surge with 11 New Deaths The headline is correctly talking about a surge of COVID with 11 new deaths. And I think they've got the surge part pretty well covered: The weekly COVID new hospitalization counts reported by the MoPH during the past nine weeks have been as follows, with the spring surge beginning well before this year's mid-April Song Kran holidays, but then climbing rapidly after they arrived: March 16 -- 501 March 23 -- 630 March 30 -- 728 April 6 -- 774 April 13 -- 849 April 20 -- 1,004 April 27 -- 1,672 May 4 -- 1,792 May 11 -- 1,880 But, if someone wanted to be pedantic, they could also correctly point out that weekly COVID death tolls here in recent weeks going from 3 to 9 to 12 to 11 is bit of a surge in itself.

Well, since the cited article above described a summary review of TWENTY FOUR different studies on how COVID vaccination reduces the risk of Long COVID, you're going to have a lot of reading to do to prove your made-up claim that they're all non-credible and compromised.

No... you're indeed wrong. Two weeks ago was 12. Last week, the most recent week reported today, was 11. So the recent progression of weekly COVID deaths has been 3, 9, 12, and now 11. https://ddc.moph.go.th/covid19-dashboard/?dashboard=main

The world has seen almost 13 BILLION COVID vaccine doses administered in the 3-1/2 years since they first became available in late 2020. Not all mRNA, but increasingly so as time has passed. Good effectiveness in reducing the risk of serious illness and death from COVID, compared to those who are un- or under-vaccinated. Documented serious side effects exceedingly rare compared to the vast numbers of vaccine doses given. ---------------- "mRNA vaccines have been studied and researched for quite a few different illnesses, but COVID became the first and largest public deployment of the technology. For more than 30 years, scientists have been studying mRNA vaccines to prevent diseases such as: Cytomegalovirus (CMV). Influenza (flu). Rabies. Zika virus. Scientists are also studying mRNA vaccines to treat diseases like multiple sclerosis (MS) and cancer. These treatments use the same mRNA technology to trigger the immune system to create antibodies. Though they aren’t approved yet, these treatments are currently in clinical trials. https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/treatments/21898-mrna-vaccines

Dunno about anyone else, but as someone in his mid-60s, I'm going to do everything within my power to avoid the prospect of a three to eight week Thai hospital stay because of COVID. That means, as it's always meant, keeping up-to-date with my COVID vaccinations, wearing a quality face mask when around others, and following social distancing and hand hygiene measures. Common sense precautions that have been proven effective.

Haven't been paying much attention during the COVID pandemic? Review estimates 69% 3-dose vaccine efficacy against long COVID Much lower long-COVID prevalence among vaccinated The pooled prevalence of long COVID was 11.8% among unvaccinated participants [emphasis added] and 5.3% among recipients of at least two vaccine doses. https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/covid-19/review-estimates-69-3-dose-vaccine-efficacy-against-long-covid

From the OP..... though I know of virtually nothing the current Thai government is doing in the way of COVID vaccinations: "Strict preventive measures, including mask-wearing, social distancing, and hand hygiene, are being enforced while vaccination efforts continue." The same things that reduced people's COVID risks in past years are still the ones that reduce your risks today.

The elderly make up the majority of COVID hospitalizations and deaths these days, even up to two-thirds or so for COVID hospitalizations, depending on the source. But that still leaves a lot of younger people in the remaining one-fourth to one-third of the population who still are getting sick from COVID. Per the U.S. CDC: "During the first seven months of 2023, adults 65 years and older accounted for 63% of hospitalizations and 88% of in-hospital deaths from COVID-19." That means people under 65 accounted for more than one-third of U.S. COVID hospitalizations during that period, and 12 percent of in-hospital COVID deaths. https://www.cdc.gov/ncird/whats-new/changing-threat-covid-19.html

The COVID vaccines somewhat reduce transmission, especially in the months after vaccination, and more reduces people's risks of getting sick from, hospitalized because of, or dying from COVID. If Thailand had done a better job of keeping its population, or even just the most at risk people, up-to-date with the newest COVID vaccinations, we likely wouldn't be talking about new weekly COVID hospitalizations here having tripled since mid March. Updated COVID-19 vaccines effective against variants, new data show February 01, 2024 The updated COVID-19 vaccines were approximately 54% effective against symptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infection and offered protection against JN.1 and XBB viral lineages, according to early estimates published Thursday by the CDC. ... Overall, VE was 54% (95% CI, 46%-60%) among people who had recently received an updated COVID-19 vaccine. The researchers found that VE for people aged 18 to 49 years was 57% (95% CI, 48%-65%) and for people aged 50 years and older was 46% (95% CI, 31%-58%). https://www.healio.com/news/infectious-disease/20240201/updated-covid19-vaccines-effective-against-variants-new-data-show Latest COVID vaccine, antivirals lower risk of severe COVID-19, new data show March 8, 2024 According to new research from the Cleveland Clinic published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases, updated COVID-19 vaccines—the monovalent (single-strain) XBB.1.5 shots—reduced the risk of severe COVID-19 by 31%, and the use of antiviral drugs reduced the risk of severe disease by 42%. ... In patients aged 65 years or older, the HR was 0.66 (95% CI, 0.55 to 0.79) for XBB.1.5 vaccination (34% protection) and 0.52 (0.45 to 0.60) for antiviral treatment (48% protection). In contrast, in patients aged younger than 65 years, the HR was 0.82 (0.59 to 1.15) for XBB.1.5 vaccination (18% protection) and 0.69 (0.57 to 0.82) for antiviral treatment (31% protection). https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/covid-19/latest-covid-vaccine-antivirals-lower-risk-severe-covid-19-new-data-show

It's crazy anti-vaxer absolutism... Either something works 100%, or we shouldn't be doing it.

If you're a Thai doctor or nurse in an underfunded, understaffed government run hospital, and you've seen the volume of new incoming COVID hospitalizations you have to treat and care for more than triple since mid March, I think it's reasonable to believe there's likely to be a "psychological toll of the pandemic as healthcare workers face burnout and fatigue." Remember, the COVID pandemic has now been ongoing at varying levels for almost four and a half years now, and that alone has taken its toll.

Up-to-date vaccinations significantly reduce the risk of people from getting seriously ill / being hospitalized or dying from COVID. And, it reduces the risk of transmission, particularly in the months immediately following vaccination.

The tone of today's report by the Thai MoPH is particularly interesting, because their comments in past weeks have tended to minimize the spiraling numbers of COVID hospitalizations and suggest everything would be manageable. But now for the first time today, we get a sudden about-face with the following assessment from the OP above: "Concerns are rising among doctors and hospitals as Covid patients are taking longer to recover, leading to a shortage of hospital beds [emphasis added]. The high number of cases is also taking a toll on healthcare workers who are feeling overwhelmed by the demands. The situation has been consistent in recent weeks, with high numbers of Covid hospitalisations. Between 15% to 24% of these admissions require ICU care or supplemental oxygen, with recovery times ranging from three to eight weeks. Limited Covid testing is worrying healthcare professionals as it could lead to extensive spread in the community and potentially result in long-term medical issues, such as new-onset diabetes, hypertension, chronic fatigue, and neuropsychiatric problems." Suddenly, it seems, someone decided that they're actually going to (more or less) start telling the truth. Who knows what might come next? Perhaps someone in the Thai MoPH will come out and explain why they've basically had no national COVID vaccination program for the past year or more, and have shown no signs of making broadly available to the elderly or anyone else the newer COVID vaccines tailored to protect against the newer COVID variants.

Thai Medics Warn of Covid Surge with 11 New Deaths

"Thailand's spring 2024 COVID surge continued for a ninth consecutive week [emphasis added] last week, with the government reporting 1,880 new COVID hospitalizations, up 4.9% from 1,792 the prior week, and 11 new official COVID deaths, a decline of one. The Ministry of Public Health also reported the total number of current COVID hospitalizations rated in serious condition climbed to 588 from 501 the prior week, a 17.4% increase and a tally that appears to be Thailand's highest in almost a year and a half." ... "The weekly COVID new hospitalization counts reported by the MoPH during the past nine weeks have been as follows, with the spring surge beginning well before this year's mid-April Song Kran holidays, but then climbing rapidly after they arrived: March 16 -- 501 March 23 -- 630 March 30 -- 728 April 6 -- 774 April 13 -- 849 April 20 -- 1,004 April 27 -- 1,672 May 4 -- 1,792 May 11 -- 1,880" https://aseannow.com/topic/1326140-hospitalizations-climb-in-thailands-spring-2024-covid-surge/?do=findComment&comment=18911269 https://ddc.moph.go.th/covid19-dashboard/?dashboard=main

More than 1,800 juvenile COVID deaths in the U.S. up thru mid-2023, leaving out all the hospitalizations. Provisional COVID-19 deaths by age group, by sex: United States https://data.cdc.gov/NCHS/Deaths-by-Sex-Ages-0-18-years/xa4b-4pzv And globally through 2023: "Of the over 17,400 deaths reported in those under 20 years of age, 53 per cent occurred among adolescents ages 10–19, and 47 per cent among children ages 0–9. https://data.unicef.org/topic/child-survival/covid-19/

COVID-19 Vaccination and Incidence of Pediatric SARS-CoV-2 Infection and Hospitalization "We provide evidence that California’s pediatric COVID-19 immunization program averted 376 085 (95% PI, 348 355-417 328) reported cases and 273 (95% PI, 77-605) hospitalizations among children aged 6 months to 15 years during the 4 to 7 months following vaccine availability. This represents a reduction of 26.3% of the number of cases that would have been seen in this population absent the vaccine." https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2817868

Regarding state measles vaccine mandates for children, this 2015 journal article provides some background on the various opt-out options that are typically available. The state tally numbers probably have changed some over the years, but the opt-out category options remain. "Opt-outs from these school-entry vaccination requirements do exist, though. All 50 states allow children to be exempted for medical contraindications to vaccines, 48 states (all but West Virginia and Mississippi) allow religious exemptions, and 19 states allow personal belief or philosophical exemptions. These philosophical exemptions primarily exist to reduce infringement on individual choice and enhance the sustainability and acceptability of compulsory vaccination." https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4388794/ FWIW, with Republicans taking over control of a lot of state Legislatures in recent years in the mid-West and South, the above exception listings probably have expanded now to more states than was the case back in 2015. The point of the historic policy in the U.S. has been to make childhood vaccinations the default option, and then allow individual exceptions as warranted.

1. No vaccine provides 100% protection, but the measles vaccine comes close: "The MMR vaccine is very safe and effective. Two doses of MMR vaccine are about 97% effective at preventing measles; one dose is about 93% effective." https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vpd/measles/index.html 2. The reasons for the measles vaccine mandates at the state level -- where generally there are also exemptions made available for religious and medical reasons -- is that measles is a highly infectious and potentially deadly disease. "In 2021, there were an estimated 9 million cases and 128,000 deaths from measles worldwide. Twenty-two countries experienced large and disruptive outbreaks. Declines in vaccine coverage, weakened measles surveillance, and continued interruptions and delays in immunization activities due to COVID-19, as well as persistent large outbreaks in 2022, mean that measles is an imminent threat in every region of the world." https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2022/p1123-measles-threat.html 3. The reason for the measles vaccine mandate is when societies get to the 95% vaccination rate -- which the U.S. and the U.K. currently have fallen short of, and thus have been experiencing measles outbreaks -- measles will no longer spread and even those who are unvaccinated should be protected. "Measles, for example, spreads so easily that an estimated 95% of a population needs to be vaccinated to achieve herd immunity. In turn, the remaining 5% have protection because, at 95% coverage, measles will no longer spread. For polio, the threshold is about 80%. https://www.yalemedicine.org/news/herd-immunity

From the recent past: Trump renews praise for Covid vaccines, 'one of the greatest achievements of mankind' Trump was booed by an audience in Dallas on Sunday after revealing he got his Covid booster shot. Dec. 23, 2021 WASHINGTON — Former President Donald Trump praised the efficacy of the coronavirus vaccines in a new interview just days after being booed by an audience for revealing he received a Covid booster shot. "The vaccine is one of the greatest achievements of mankind," Trump told conservative commentator Candace Owens in an interview on Wednesday. While Trump has expressed opposition to vaccine mandates, he has long taken credit for the vaccines developed on his watch. "I came up with a vaccine, with three vaccines all are very, very good," he said in the interview, referring to the Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson shots. (more) https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-renews-praise-covid-vaccines-one-greatest-achievements-mankind-n1286551

Association is not necessarily causation. And, the cited study is a small one from Iran, curiously authored by an epilepsy doctor for some reason, and counted people who had received only ONE COVID vaccine dose, which is not full vaccination. Meanwhile, there are many other Long COVID studies from around the world that consistently say COVID vaccination prior to COVID infection significantly reduces the subsequent risk of Long COVID. Review estimates 69% 3-dose vaccine efficacy against long COVID A meta-analysis today in Antimicrobial Stewardship & Healthcare Epidemiology estimates a vaccine effectiveness (VE) of 69% for three doses of COVID-19 vaccine against long COVID, while two doses offer 37% efficacy. Led by researchers at the University of Iowa, the meta-analysis involved 24 studies [emphasis added] on COVID-19 VE against long COVID among recipients of at least two doses of a vaccine before or after infection from December 2019 to June 2023. ... Much lower long-COVID prevalence among vaccinated The pooled prevalence of long COVID was 11.8% among unvaccinated participants and 5.3% among recipients of at least two vaccine doses. https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/covid-19/review-estimates-69-3-dose-vaccine-efficacy-against-long-covid AND Getting Vaccinated May Be Your Best Protection from Long COVID November 22, 2023 People vaccinated before their first case of COVID-19 are diagnosed with Long COVID almost four times less than unvaccinated people, suggests a large new study published Nov. 22 in the BMJ. That’s not an entirely new finding. For years, studies have shown that, while vaccinated people can and do develop Long COVID, they are at lower risk than people who haven’t had their shots. But researchers have come to drastically different estimates about exactly how much protection vaccines offer against Long COVID, with their findings ranging from about 15% efficacy to around 50%. The new study offers encouraging evidence that people who get vaccinated before their first COVID-19 case are at significantly lower risk of developing long-term symptoms like brain fog and fatigue, with each additional dose received prior to infection offering extra protection. A single pre-infection dose of one of the original COVID-19 vaccines reduced the risk of Long COVID by 21%, two doses by 59%, and three or more doses by 73%, the researchers estimated. (more) https://time.com/6338434/vaccination-long-covid-risk/

"The Trump campaign said this line refers solely to COVID-vaccination mandates for students, not older immunization requirements for diseases like polio, measles, and diphtheria. “If you actually listen to the entire section, and also if you’ve been following his speeches for the past year, he’s talking about COVID vaccines in addition to masks in the same breath. This isn’t anything new he hasn’t said,” Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung said via email. Trump did not say the word COVID while discussing his education plans on Saturday, or in previous versions of his stump speech that featured similar phrasing. [emphasis added] https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/trump-school-funding-vaccine-mandates.html Others took him at his word for what he actually said: https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/trump-school-funding-vaccine-mandates.html

The guy is an utter idiot, and by now, I guess that's to be expected, especially since he's running again for president and is trolling for what he thinks will bring him votes. Here's what he's running up against: Researchers estimate vaccines have saved 154 million lives over past half-century May 9, 2024 An international team of health and medical researchers including workers at the WHO, working with economists and modeling specialists, has found that the use of vaccines to prevent or treat disease has saved the lives of approximately 154 million people over the past half-century. ... The goal of the team was to evaluate the degree of success of the Expanded Program on Immunization (EPI) launched by the World Health Organization in 1974. The goal of the EPI has been to vaccinate all the children in the world against the most common deadly diseases. At its onset, the list included seven diseases; it has since been expanded to include 14. ... The research team also found that children benefited the most from vaccination—101 million of the lives saved were under the age of 1. They also found evidence that vaccination programs had a major impact on infant mortality rates—over the past half-century, rates have declined globally by 40%. The researchers also found that the measles vaccine made the biggest impact—it was responsible for 60% of the lives saved. (more) https://medicalxpress.com/news/2024-05-vaccines-million-century.html

1. No one ever forced "the entire population to vax" related to COVID in the U.S., nor is anyone proposing to for the future. and 2. Trump here -- at least based on his actual words spoken -- isn't just talking about school vaccine mandates relating to COVID. He's talking about wanting to ban federal funding for any school that requires ANY vaccine, including those for things like polio and measles that have long been a standard requirement for attending public schools. From the OP:

Clinical trials aim to assess potential treatments for sleep disturbances, exercise intolerance and post exertional malaise The National Institutes of Health (NIH) will launch clinical trials to investigate potential treatments for long-term symptoms after COVID-19 infection, including sleep disturbances, exercise intolerance and the worsening of symptoms following physical or mental exertion known as post-exertional malaise (PEM). The mid-stage trials, part of NIH’s Researching COVID to Enhance Recovery (RECOVER) Initiative, will join six other RECOVER studies currently enrolling participants across the United States testing treatments to address viral persistence, neurological symptoms, including cognitive dysfunction (like brain fog) and autonomic nervous system dysfunction. The new trials will enroll approximately 1,660 people across 50 study sites to investigate potential treatments for some of the most frequent and burdensome symptoms reported by people suffering from long COVID. “The group of symptoms these trials will try to alleviate are truly disruptive and devastating for so many people struggling with long COVID,” said Walter J. Koroshetz, M.D., director of NIH’s National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, and co-lead of the RECOVER Initiative. “When people can’t get reliable sleep, can’t exert themselves and feel sick following tasks that used to be simple, the physical and mental anguish can lead to feelings of utter helplessness. We urgently need to come up with answers to help those struggling with long COVID feel whole again.” (more) [details of the specific potential treatments to be explored are listed in the full announcement linked below] https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/nih-open-long-covid-clinical-trials-study-sleep-disturbances-exercise-intolerance-post-exertional-malaise