Updates: COVID Dick is Real, Disappointing Arizona Booster Uptake, Urine Drinker Trying to Arrest Governors, Florida Suspends Public Health Official

 

Here are some updates on previous Corona-zona posts.

COVID Dick is Real

In July of last year, I blogged about a reason males should be afraid of COVID-19: Erectile dysfunction. At that time the reports were anecdotal. Not anymore. This report from Gizmodo covers all the latest research, and the short story is that it's real. Not only can in infection impair one's ability to get it up even after recovery, it can also shrink your member. Yikes! Also there have been reports of sexual dysfunction in women.

Disappointing Arizona Booster Uptake

That update makes it even more puzzling that booster shot update in Arizona is so low.  Back in December, I reckoned that only about 11% of Arizona residents had gotten their booster shot (depending on what you used as the divisor). Now AzDHS is reporting actual numbers and they are not much better. Only 37% of eligible people have gotten their third jab. Why would you get two shots then skip the third?!

Urine Drinker Lives by His Own Rules

A few weeks ago I reported on fruitcake anti-vaxxers who were consuming excrement to prevent COVID-19—instead of getting vaccinated. It featured this COVIDiot Christopher Key who drinks his own urine. Now he's on a cross-country tour in a car plastered with anti-vax messages, driving without a license because he thinks he doesn't need one. His mission: Arrest governors of different states on his route for some reason. Somebody nab this nut-job and poke him into jail, will ya? He shouldn't be hard to spot.

Florida Suspends Public Health Official for Doing His Job

I've regularly blogged about all the pandemic stupidity taking place in Florida. I mean, it's such a target-rich environment. But this one takes the cake: A top Florida Department of Health official has been suspended for encouraging his employees to get vaccinated. Dr. Raul Pino wrote an email to his Orange County staff expressing frustration that only about half of them had gotten vaccinated, and said they were being irresponsible. For doing his job he has not only been suspended but is under criminal investigation for possibly violating Florida public illness laws for mandating vaccines, which he did not do. You couldn't make this stuff up.


Popular posts from this blog

Looks Like Immune Responses are Enduring After All

Image
 For some time, public health officials have fretted about whether immunity to COVID-19, acquired via infection or vaccination would stick.  Studies showed rapid declines in antibodies during recovery from infection and thereafter . It turns out that this concern was overblown. A study just released says bone marrow plasma cells are a persistent source of protective antibodies, and that "circulating resting memory B cells directed against the S protein were detected in the convalescent individuals."   Another study , yet to be reviewed, suggests that vaccines boost this effect. In fact, some are suggesting this situation this could actually mean  lifetime immunity .   Whether the same thing happens with vaccination is not clear. Most estimates suggest that vaccine immunity will last about a year . More pessimistic estimates putting the protection period at six months .  The possible shorter time frame, plus the appearance of the new variants, have the vaccine makers working
Read more

Another One Bites the Dust

Image
Hi all. Stepping out of retirement for a moment to say that the day has finally arrived. After four years of successfully avoiding COVID-19 infection I had a positive test yesterday. Symptoms are very mild—I've had worse colds. The provider at urgent care said almost all the cases they are seeing are the same. Mild symptoms may also be due to the fact that I had the original vaccine then the two boosters. All this time I thought I might be a NOVID —one of those people who never get the bug. But no, it must have been my assiduous mask wearing and avoidance of high-risk situations when things were bad. So here's double middle fingers to all the kooks who think masks don't work (I've not been wearing masks for months now). I don't know what variant I have but it's likely JN.1. It is said to be extraordinarily contagious and accounts for 60% of cases worldwide . It also tends to produce mild infections like the one I have.  This article claims that right now every
Read more

AZ Pandemic Numbers Summary for the Seven Days Ending November 9: Everything is Going South

Image
Here are the Arizona pandemic numbers and graph of statewide cases for the seven day period ending yesterday: Well this isn't good. The lull seems to be over. Virtually every number is up, both over a week and over four weeks. The most worrisome is hospital beds, which have been steadily trending up over the last several weeks.  Wastewater signals are all up except Tempe (dashboard is up again) which after going up last week (from 41 to 100) decreased by about 10%. The increases are worrisome because the latest data from ASU's Lim Lab (last updated October 31), where they sequence PCR samples to identify variants, shows that only about 46% of sequences showed BA.5. That is one of the Omicron variants the new bivalent vaccine was designed to protect against.  All the rest of the samples are BA.2.75 (7.7%), which I flagged several weeks ago, and BQ,1.1 (15.4%), and BQ.1 (30.8%), both of which I blogged about a couple weeks ago.  Those, new research confirms , are much more lik
Read more