Raffin

Today cases resume their upward track and 1,078 were held over, adding to the already large number waiting to be announced. Also 16 labs were late and the DOH released data which point to a likely 100 or so cases that were missed. Positivity up to 26.2% from 24.9k tests. Testing levels are not yet responding to the rise in positivity.

Recoveries 611

Deaths 18, 14 RDs
2 from Jan, 8 Dec, 2 Nov, 3 OCT, 1 Aug and 2 July

Active 29,809

Severe 1,546, down 17. Critical 328, down 3

NCR ICU 35%, up 6%. National 26%, up 3%
Significant increases.

NCR beds used 28.7%, down 1.3%

Alert level 3 for 3 provinces around the NCR:

https://www.gmanetwork.com/news/tops...story/?just_in

The DOH now assuming local Omicron transmission:

https://news.abs-cbn.com/news/01/03/...on-assumed-doh

A Danish study on Omicron's ability to evade immunity:

https://news.abs-cbn.com/spotlight/0...an-delta-study

Dr John reviews six papers from university medical research teams around the world which focus on Omicron disease severity.
From Hong Kong, Belgium, US, Germany and Scotland.
All look differently at Omicron's severity but all come to similar conclusions.

One example:


He says these hamsters have been very good research models for covid in humans.
Delta does its damage in the lungs. Omicron in the upper airways.
So better to have Omicron (except for kids, who are more susceptible to upper respiratory tract infection. This point is not in DrJohn's video, but I know this. Given the large child population in the Philippines this would be a significant finding for here).

Philosophical 11

Illogical that only the unvaccinated should be made to have a test every two weeks when indeed the vaccinated could also be carrying the virus.

Bealinehx

P11 with all of your experiences what do you find logical in this Land of 7,000 isles? LOL

Raffin

These mayors don't look at the latest research on Omicron, they have a quick meeting and just follow the lead from the top, like this:

https://news.abs-cbn.com/news/01/05/...ven-if-you-die

I pity the Brgy officials if they are really going to have to follow any of that.

Crude but it will work on some. Then there will be some reports of major mistakes.

https://www.gmanetwork.com/news/tops..._picks&order=4

But this is interesting:

https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/153581...nvaxxed-people

I have an idea who that might be, let's see later.

Data yesterday giving 1k more cases in the NCR.
Around 70% of national cases for each of the past 5 days.
Notable that QC's cases yesterday increased by two thirds over Tuesday's.

Social media posts reporting some instances of stock out of Biogesic, paracetomol etc. Of course all denied by the DOH.
This is not the flu season, that's in the Rainy season. It may not be suggesting more colds, rather more Omicron.
The ZOE symptom tracker researchers in the UK reckon there 75% of people with cold symptoms have covid.

Philosophical 11

I was reading an interesting theory that the new variants are coming from the mRNA vaccines. It goes something like this...... The effect of the vaccinations lasts only for a few months hence the booster jabs. But in the meantime the vaccines override the natural immune system and weakens it, and so once the vaccine wears off the body has less chance to fight off infections than those vaccinated.. Their immunity weakens not just for Covid but for all sicknesses.

The RNA interferes with the virus whilst it is replicating, connects with the viruses DNA, and lo and behold, a mutation; a new variant.

I have seen this expounded a few times now which quite frankly goes over my head....but I wonder what our own ''Dr Raffin'' makes of this......

Raffin

I understood that both vaccines and natural infection have an antibody effect, which does weaken after a few months, but also have other longer term effects on immunity with T cells, memory cells and others. There are ten types they say. Is there something different happening with mRNA vaccines? Wiki says that once the viral antigens are produced by the cell "the normal adaptive immune system responses are followed". And they have lots of production advantages over virus derived vaccines.

The spread of mutants is well explained in a short article from Pittsburgh Uni, published a few months ago, so pre Omicron, saying that although many mutants can arise, the more transmissible ones with larger quantities of virus will tend to be preferred to the ones which are better at evading the vaccine. Places with large numbers of unvaccinated hosts will tend to be where these mutants will take off. So India with Delta, and now Omicron with SA, where they already had had Delta, Beta and Alpha. but the Omicron variant was far more transmissible. It can evade vaccines somewhat but its greater transmissibility is its main advantage.

So it looks like mutants will continue to trouble us to varying extents in different countries as long as some highly populated areas of the world remain largely unvaccinated and/or uninfected and we allow international travel. You could argue we usually can't stop it. Dr J's view in his latest video is that unless a country wants to remain closed for years it may be better to allow the Omicron virus to spread, as long as it can avoid its health and other services from being overwhelmed.

https://scitechdaily.com/what-is-cau...d-19-vaccines/

mikemike

local generic paracetamol sold out at all local outlets, we tried them before going for the more expensive brand name

Bealinehx

Marikina has just announced that the dreaded face shields are mandatory in its vaccination centres.

Philosophical 11

I am tending to think that ultimately we will end up with voluntary annual jabs to deal with the variants as we do with the flu jab.

Raffin

Today 10,775 new cases were announced, 9 labs were late. Positivity up at 31.7% from 44.6k tests. leaving a whopping number of cases held over, 3,377. Maybe the DOH lost staff late last year or some are sick? The late labs were likely to have added about 600 cases too.

Recoveries 605

Deaths 58, 57 of which were the mysterious RDs!
8 from Dec, 8 Nov, 24 Oct, 15 Sep, 3 Aug

Active 39,974

Severe 1,512, down 34. Critical 319, down 9

NCR ICU 37%, up 2%. National 27%, up 1%
Ward beds NCR 33.3%

Rapid at home tests being studied!

https://news.abs-cbn.com/video/news/...self-test-kits

Virus transmission is high in the NCR from these US CDC criteria:


New cases per 100k last week about 50, will be more now. But NCR positivity greatly over 10%, nearer 30%. They say take the highest indicator.

Some recent positivities from individual NCR labs:


PGH 30+


Red Cross 20+



St Luke's 30+


Makati Med 40+



Valenzuala 20+


Marikina 40+


De Los Santos, QC 40+



SA Omicron well on the decline.

Raffin

NCR new cases yesterday rose by over 3,600 to nearly 7,500.. Interesting that the % contribution fell a little to 69%. This because cases in 15 of the other 16 regions also rose, not by much in most, but showing more cases and tests after the Xmas holiday and Odette. Central Luzon stood out with over 400 more than the day before.

In the NCR Taguig's cases tripled, Caloocan's and Paranaque's more than doubled. Manila added more than 600, QC had nearly 800 more.

In the provinces around the NCR most more than doubled heir cases, including Laguna which has been put up to Alert Level 3.

Those of you reading my posts over the last year will remember the good father Austriaco. He got himself in the otherwise good OCTA group but I think he is only there to attract donations from religious bodies here. Claimed last year to be working on a new vaccine in the US, but he is always popping up here.
This time he is claiming the vaccination roll out here has been excellent! What a good move it was to be late and use so much Sinovac!

https://www.msn.com/en-ph/news/natio...X?ocid=BingHPC

Also claiming 100% of the eligible NCR population are fully vaccinated.
According to ABS-CBN 9.6M 2 doses have gone in there. The official 2021 population figure from the Census is13.5M. Likely to be well down on the true figure as the Census was taken during the pandemic when many had left the NCR. Now they've come back from the provinces, maybe more than left. So let's say 14-15M. About 1.5M are 0.5. leaving at least 3M unvaccinated.


The risk "gain" to the unvaccinated/uninfected in terms of Omicron severity. From the UK Chief Scientific advisor, based on the latest UK data. Of course we don't know, and won't for a long time, what's happening to Delta here.

RedApe

It's simply bunk. The vaccines don't "override the natural immune system". That's not what vaccines do...they aren't like a drug that substitutes for your natural system (think narcotics that replace your natural pain tolerance capacity). Vaccines STIMULATE the immune system. They trigger an immune response to an antigen (foreign body) that encourages two things. The first is to generate an immediate antibody load to deal with the immediate and short term "infection". This level of immediate antibody load is able fight off an immediate infection by Covid-19, but this load wanes over time. Thus you need the second dose for some vaccines, and after that a booster to drive up that immediate front-line defense. If you have a high timer of antibodies you may not even get measurably ill by testing.

The second thing the vaccine does is produce a set of T-cells in the Thymus that have a memory of the original antigen and can quickly manufacture antibodies These antibodies are sometimes more generalised and can attack similar antigens. You might get infected (test positive) but it is these T-cells that are likely to prevent you from getting seriously ill.

So briefly...the use of vaccines does NOT "weaken" a natural immune response. Instead it PREPARES the immune response to an antigen that is actively transmissible. In fact there is some very good evidence that children who don't have an immune system that is regularly exposed to some moderate to easy antigens are likely to have allergies and either extreme immune responses (food allergies) or a lack of sufficient response.

What happens when you don't have a vaccination (or prior exposure to Covid)? Quite simply your immune system has no prior experience with that antigen (Covid-19 in this case). The immune system has no initial targeted antibodies and has to build them from scratch. That can take several days...in the meantime the virus is proliferating exponentially throughout your body, infecting millions of your cells. By the time you start producing antibodies you are certainly infective if not quite sick. If you are older your immune system may already be doddering.

Now RNA vaccines....these use the standard RNA sequence for the spike of the standard Coronavirus-19. They can't cause an infection themselves...they are not a reproducing virus. The mRNA never enters the cell where the DNA is located as it is bound to an "anchor" that is too large to pass through the nuclear membrane. But even if it could it has an inappropriate structure to hybridise with your DNA...it's chemistry has a Uracil nucleic acid base rather than Cytosine. Furthermore the coiling system is different. It has a life expectancy of about a day. The mRNA is used to stimulate the production of the spike protein and then it breaks down just like all mRNA sequences after they are transcribed at the ribosomes.. So you'll have only those spike proteins. Those will trigger the production of antibodies and T-cells. But they will only be a limited number since the vaccine dose is limited and not replicating. Once the antibodies wipe out the spike proteins the spikes also are no longer in your system.



The Coronavirus-19 (in fact all Coronaviruses) are RNA viruses. Not DNA viruses. Hybridisation of a vaccine mRNA with a viral RNA is also unlikely. mRNA is different in structure from the viral RNA. And if they did hybridise all the vaccine mRNA would contribute would be the the code for an already vaccine-protected spike protein. The "outside" Covid virus might have a novel spike. Hybridisation would make it more sensitive to destruction, not less.It would be losing it's uniqueness to gain a immune-system sensitized spike.
​​​​​​​

Raffin

Many thanks RA for that detailed but understandable explanation.

That some people are willing to believe that a particular vaccine could weaken immune responses across the board makes me think this tale was something concocted by anti-vaxxers.

Raffin

Yesterday we saw about 6,500 more cases. In addition 4,864 cases were held over. Also there was likely another 800 from the 11 late labs. I see reports that labs are struggling to keep up with the demand for testing, so we should expect more of that. Positivity at a very high 36.9% from 59.8k tests.

Recoveries 616

Deaths 81, 66 RDs
6 Jan, 6 Dec, 8 Nov, 19 Oct
The remaining 42 going back to May.

Active: 56,561

Severe 1,470, down 42. Critical 312. down 7

NCR ICU 43%, up 6%. National 31%, up 4%
Ward beds NCR 45.6%
A nearly 9% increase!

One important question is how are the governments Alert Levels going to work, if, as seems likely, the Philippines is well into an Omicron surge?

These are the latest AL 3 area classifications:



But what with the data delays are we to be soon qualifying for AL 4?


Then in a few weeks AL 5 is imaginable:


The first part of AL 5 may well be here now!
The last part implies strict lockdowns, the economy badly affected.

Are they going to fight the last war?

They could look to other countries around the world who have not brought in really strict measures.

From a quick look around the SE Asian region travel restrictions and banning mass gatherings seems so far to be the main responses.

Raffin

New cases today rise to 21,919 but a whopping 6,201 are held back. Also 10 labs late leading to a likely 300 plus more cases. Positivity at a very high 40.0% from 70k tests.

Recoveries 973

Deaths 129, 111 RDs
8 Jan, 34 Dec, 14 Nov, 26 Oct, 32 Sep and 15 back to April.

Severe 1,461, down 9 Critical 312, unchanged

NCR ICU 48%, up 5%. National 32%, up 1%

Yesterday the NCR with11,630 new cases, additional to Wednesday's by more than 4k.
A slightly lower 68% of all cases..

Region 4A's cases increased by 83% to 3,187.
Manila's cases increased by 38% over the day before, QC's by 34%.

Signs of increases in some other cities, eg Baguio, Bacolod, CDO and Cebu, but the numbers are small for now.