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Data: Current death ratio: 30+% unvax, 60+% vax

Benaroo — Thu, 17 Mar 2022 04:22:57 +0800

Source: https://github.com/MoH-Malaysia/covid19-pub...hs_malaysia.csv
https://covid-19.moh.gov.my/semasa-kkm/2021...demic-at-github

Data file obtained on 15 March 2022.
Data before March 2021 omitted because no vax back then.
Latest data on March 2022 omitted because most recent data aren't finalized.
Data on partially vaxxed omitted from graph because anti-vaxxers consider them as vaxxers, while vaxxers consider them as anti-vaxxers, so the partially vaxxed are excluded for fairness sake.

The only things added to the data file are columns to calculate percentages & average 14-day/2-week percentages (download from dropbox - https://www.dropbox.com/s/uw5isiu85ast8v7/d...aysia.csv?dl=0), the type of data that used to exist on CovidNow before the government decided to follow the Singaporean government and changed it to the mathematically deceptive "data" we now see.

To see the obfuscation happening on Singapore's side, compare:
https://www.moh.gov.sg/news-highlights/deta...on-(7-oct-2021)
(Detailed number of vaxxed Covid deaths)
with the current updates:
https://www.moh.gov.sg/covid-19/statistics
(That /100k population BS. And now I see them trying to emphasize the all-time data to make unvaxxed people look bad. Will the same happen here?)

This data used to be available on CovidNow (set at 2 weeks data):

Compare the above with the now mathematically obfuscated "data" on CovidNow since 18 December 2021 (set at 2 weeks data):

Here's KJ's claims on February 8:
https://www.nst.com.my/news/nation/2022/02/...ta-wave-says-kj

Partial quote:

QUOTE

KUALA LUMPUR: The country is doing better against the Omicron wave than it did with the Delta wave in July 2021 due to wide vaccination coverage and high booster uptakes.

Not much difference could be observed in terms of new daily cases as Malaysia registered 11,079 new cases on July 13 and reported 11,034 cases on Feb 7.

However, the number of cases admitted to hospitals on Feb 7 was only 1,253 compared to the 1,988 cases that were hospitalised on July 13.

ICU admissions on July 13 stood at 1,436 and by contrast, only 135 patients were receiving treatment at ICU wards on Monday.

Meanwhile, only nine deaths were reported on Monday, as opposed to 193 deaths on July 13.

The data shows gradually increasing percentage of fully vaxxed Covid deaths during the Delta wave and that the percentage didn't truly go down during the current Omicron wave. This means the statement regarding reduced hospitalizations, ICUs, and deaths apply to both the vaxxed & the unvaxxed; which also proves that Omicron is the real reason for reduced hospitalizations, ICUs, and deaths.

Shouldn't all these data and the deliberate obfuscation of data on CovidNow tell you that something isn't really working as claimed?

Data: Death %: before vax 0.4%, after vax >1%

Benaroo — Fri, 11 Mar 2022 05:24:25 +0800

Data sources and backup sources:
Thestar.com.my + archive.org
covidnow.moh.gov.my + archive.org
worldometers.info/coronavirus + archive.org

Formula to calculate death rate %:
(Total deaths)÷(Total closed cases)x100

Total closed cases = (Total recoveries + Total deaths)

*Archived vaccination data from https://www.vaksincovid.gov.my/ totally unreliable (not linear) so this data is gathered from newspaper reports and later from CovidNow.

Vax newspaper refs:
https://www.thestar.com.my/news/nation/2021...to-begin-feb-24
https://www.thestar.com.my/news/nation/2021...eeding-smoothly
https://www.thestar.com.my/news/nation/2021...hot-says-khairy
https://www.astroawani.com/berita-malaysia/...cination-296089
https://www.thestar.com.my/news/nation/2021...-rate-speeds-up
https://www.malaymail.com/news/malaysia/202...ovid-19/1987303
https://www.thestar.com.my/news/nation/2021...ated-says-jkjav

Time stated in graph/data refers to the websites' local time when the pages were archived.

Graph notes:
(Black line) Covid death rate %

(Red line) Double vaccinated population.

(1) (2 dotted purple lines) Spikes in active cases. This is just to show that the spikes in active cases in between does not necessarily result in higher death rate % later on.

(2) (Orange 'L' shaped dotted line) This is the time KJ announces "Records backlog cause of high death figures"
https://www.thestar.com.my/news/nation/2021...h-death-figures

Partial quote:

QUOTE

Records backlog cause of high death figures
NATION
Tuesday, 07 Sep 2021
KOTA KINABALU: The backlog in recording Covid-19 deaths are contributing to the daily numbers of fatalities in areas with high vaccination rates, such as the Klang Valley and Sarawak, says Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin.

However, these numbers can be expected to reduce over the next two or three weeks, he said at the press conference after the Sabah state-level Covid-19 Immunisation Task Force meeting here yesterday.

This part is significant because after that announcement, for 2 months, not weeks, there were no meaningful reductions in death rate %, until Omicron's confirmed arrival into Malaysia since Nov 19.

https://www.thestar.com.my/news/nation/2021...alaysia-says-kj

Partial quote:

QUOTE

Khairy said a positive sample of the Omicron variant was detected on Thursday (Dec 2) involving a 19-year-old South African private university student in Ipoh who arrived from South Africa through Singapore on Nov 19.

Omicron is significant because there are already multiple reports on Omicron, both in humans and animals, consistently proving that the Omicron variant is far less dangerous compared to previous variants:

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/31/health/c...lung-cells.html
(Disable JavaScript to bypass paywall)
https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/new-york-times/

QUOTE

Studies Suggest Why Omicron Is Less Severe: It Spares the Lungs
Compared with earlier variants, Omicron may cause less damage to the lungs, new animal research suggests.

By Carl Zimmer and Azeen Ghorayshi
Dec. 31, 2021
A spate of new studies on lab animals and human tissues are providing the first indication of why the Omicron variant causes milder disease than previous versions of the coronavirus.

In studies on mice and hamsters, Omicron produced less damaging infections, often limited largely to the upper airway: the nose, throat and windpipe. The variant did much less harm to the lungs, where previous variants would often cause scarring and serious breathing difficulty.

“It’s fair to say that the idea of a disease that manifests itself primarily in the upper respiratory system is emerging,” said Roland Eils, a computational biologist at the Berlin Institute of Health, who has studied how coronaviruses infect the airway.

In November, when the first report on the Omicron variant came out of South Africa, scientists could only guess at how it might behave differently from earlier forms of the virus. All they knew was that it had a distinctive and alarming combination of more than 50 genetic mutations.

Previous research had shown that some of these mutations enabled coronaviruses to grab onto cells more tightly. Others allowed the virus to evade antibodies, which serve as an early line of defense against infection. But how the new variant might behave inside of the body was a mystery.

“You can’t predict the behavior of virus from just the mutations,” said Ravindra Gupta, a virologist at the University of Cambridge.

Over the past month, more than a dozen research groups, including Dr. Gupta’s, have been observing the new pathogen in the lab, infecting cells in Petri dishes with Omicron and spraying the virus into the noses of animals.

As they worked, Omicron surged across the planet, readily infecting even people who were vaccinated or had recovered from infections.

But as cases skyrocketed, hospitalizations increased only modestly. Early studies of patients suggested that Omicron was less likely to cause severe illness than other variants, especially in vaccinated people. Still, those findings came with a lot of caveats.

For one thing, the bulk of early Omicron infections were in young people, who are less likely to get seriously ill with all versions of the virus. And many of those early cases were happening in people with some immunity from previous infections or vaccines. It was unclear whether Omicron would also prove less severe in an unvaccinated older person, for example.

Experiments on animals can help clear up these ambiguities, because scientists can test Omicron on identical animals living in identical conditions. More than half a dozen experiments made public in recent days all pointed to the same conclusion: Omicron is milder than Delta and other earlier versions of the virus.

On Wednesday, a large consortium of Japanese and American scientists released a report on hamsters and mice that had been infected with either Omicron or one of several earlier variants. Those infected with Omicron had less lung damage, lost less weight and were less likely to die, the study found.

Although the animals infected with Omicron on average experienced much milder symptoms, the scientists were particularly struck by the results in Syrian hamsters, a species known to get severely ill with all previous versions of the virus.

“This was surprising, since every other variant has robustly infected these hamsters,” said Dr. Michael Diamond, a virologist at Washington University and a co-author of the study.

Several other studies on mice and hamsters have reached the same conclusion. (Like most urgent Omicron research, these studies have been posted online but have not yet been published in scientific journals.)

The reason that Omicron is milder may be a matter of anatomy. Dr. Diamond and his colleagues found that the level of Omicron in the noses of the hamsters was the same as in animals infected with an earlier form of the coronavirus. But Omicron levels in the lungs were one-tenth or less of the level of other variants.

A similar finding came from researchers at the University of Hong Kong who studied bits of tissue taken from human airways during surgery. In 12 lung samples, the researchers found that Omicron grew more slowly than Delta and other variants did.

The researchers also infected tissue from the bronchi, the tubes in the upper chest that deliver air from the windpipe to the lungs. And inside of those bronchial cells, in the first two days after an infection, Omicron grew faster than Delta or the original coronavirus did.

These findings will have to be followed up with further studies, such as experiments with monkeys or examination of the airways of people infected with Omicron. If the results hold up to scrutiny, they might explain why people infected with Omicron seem less likely to be hospitalized than those with Delta.

Coronavirus infections start in the nose or possibly the mouth and spread down the throat. Mild infections don’t get much further than that. But when the coronavirus reaches the lungs, it can do serious damage.

Immune cells in the lungs can overreact, killing off not just infected cells but uninfected ones. They can produce runaway inflammation, scarring the lung’s delicate walls. What’s more, the viruses can escape from the damaged lungs into the bloodstream, triggering clots and ravaging other organs.

Dr. Gupta suspects that his team’s new data give a molecular explanation for why Omicron doesn’t fare so well in the lungs.

Many cells in the lung carry a protein called TMPRSS2 on their surface that can inadvertently help passing viruses gain entry to the cell. But Dr. Gupta’s team found that this protein doesn’t grab on to Omicron very well. As a result, Omicron does a worse job of infecting cells in this manner than Delta does. A team at the University of Glasgow independently came to the same conclusion.

Through an alternative route, coronaviruses can also slip into cells that don’t make TMPRSS2. Higher in the airway, cells tend not to carry the protein, which might explain the evidence that Omicron is found there more often than the lungs.

Dr. Gupta speculated that Omicron evolved into an upper-airway specialist, thriving in the throat and nose. If that’s true, the virus might have a better chance of getting expelled in tiny drops into the surrounding air and encountering new hosts.

“It’s all about what happens in the upper airway for it to transmit, right?” he said. “It’s not really what happens down below in the lungs, where the severe disease stuff happens. So you can understand why the virus has evolved in this way.”

While these studies clearly help explain why Omicron causes milder disease, they don’t yet answer why the variant is so good at spreading from one person to another. The United States logged more than 580,000 cases on Thursday alone, the majority of which are thought to be Omicron.

“These studies address the question about what may happen in the lungs but don’t really address the question of transmissibility,” said Sara Cherry, a virologist at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.

Dr. Diamond said he wanted to wait for more studies to be carried out, especially in people instead of animals, before endorsing the hypothesis that TMPRSS2 is the key to understanding Omicron. “I think it is still premature on this,” he said.

Scientists know that part of Omicron’s contagiousness comes from its ability to evade antibodies, allowing it to get into cells of vaccinated people far more easily than other variants. But they suspect that Omicron has some other biological advantages as well.

Last week, researchers reported that the variant carries a mutation that may weaken so-called innate immunity, a molecular alarm that rapidly activates our immune system at the first sign of an invasion in the nose. But it will take more experiments to see if this is indeed one of Omicron’s secrets to success.

“It could be as simple as, this is a lot more virus in people’s saliva and nasal passages,” Dr. Cherry said. But there could be other explanations for its efficient spread: It could be more stable in the air, or better infect new hosts. “I think it’s really an important question,” she said.

Animal studies are important because, as indicated, animals are guaranteed to be unvaccinated and will therefore give the most accurate and unbiased results.

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/202...1.11.22269045v1

QUOTE

Funding Statement
The study was funded by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Partial quote:

QUOTE

Zero cases with Omicron variant infection received mechanical ventilation, as compared to 11 cases with Delta variant infections throughout the period of follow-up (two-sided p<0.001). Median duration of hospital stay was 3.4 (2.8-4.1) days shorter for hospitalized cases with Omicron variant infections as compared to hospitalized patients with Delta variant infections, reflecting a 69.6% (64.0-74.5%) reduction in hospital length of stay.

Conclusions During a period with mixed Delta and Omicron variant circulation, SARS-CoV-2 infections with presumed Omicron variant infection were associated with substantially reduced risk of severe clinical endpoints and shorter durations of hospital stay.

Others notes of interest include hospitalization rates between the unvaxxed, 1-vaxxed, 2-vaxxed, & boosted. To see, go to {Full Text}>>>{Table S4}

So we should all be thankful for Omicron, for both the common folk and even big pharma. Why big pharma as well? What better way to promote an ineffective vaccine, than to use data from a weaker variant to "prove it's efficacy"? Isn't this no different than "taking credit from other people's(Omicron's) work"?

And speaking of stealing credits, here's another example from asymptomatic infected people. Before vaccines existed, asymptomatic people are often indirectly labeled by the media either as "non existent beings" (what a totally unscientific way to paint a picture of 100% Covid severity. And the evidence? Just in this forum itself, there are still people who vehemently believe unscientifically that there's no such thing as infected and unvaccinated people who are asymptomatic or only mildly symptomatic throughout the entire infection period), or "dangerous silent spreaders"

https://www.biospace.com/article/why-asympt...n-is-dangerous/

QUOTE

Why Asymptomatic COVID-19 Transmission Is Dangerous

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-52840763

QUOTE

Coronavirus: The mystery of asymptomatic 'silent spreaders'

when in fact not only these asymptomatic patients hold the key to solving Covid if only anyone had the scientific mind to find out why asymptomatic people are asymptomatic in the first place, but also proven that there are many unvaccinated, infected people who are asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic throughout the entire infection period:

Hist: infection raises immunity; lockdown risky

Benaroo — Sun, 27 Feb 2022 18:51:14 +0800

https://nzhistory.govt.nz/culture/1918-infl...mic/death-rates
(NZ gov official website)

QUOTE

The 1918 influenza pandemic
Page 4 – Uneven rates of death
No matter how the second wave developed in New Zealand, it was many times more deadly than any previous influenza outbreak. No other event has killed so many New Zealanders in so short a space of time. While the First World War claimed the lives of more than 18,000 New Zealand soldiers over four years, the second wave of the 1918 influenza epidemic killed about 9000 people in less than two months.

Influenza at Seacliff Hospital
Influenza in institutions

Death did not occur evenly throughout the country. Some communities were decimated; others escaped largely unscathed.

Māori suffered heavily: their overall rate of death was nearly 50 per thousand people, more than eight times that of Europeans. In one Māori community, Mangatāwhiri in Waikato, about 50 out of 200 people died. Whina Cooper recalled similar suffering at Panguru, Hokianga:

Everyone was sick, no one to help, they were dying one after the other. My father was very, very sick then. He was the first to die. I couldn't do anything for him. I remember we put him in a coffin, like a box. There were many others, you could see them on the roads, on the sledges, the ones that are able to drag them away, dragged them away to the cemetery. No time for tangis.

But there was an exception. Mortality amongst Māori on the East Coast of the North Island was, according to historian Geoffrey Rice, ‘much less than expected in comparison with other North Island districts’. This may have been because they had received partial immunity from the first wave, which was reportedly widespread in the district during August and September.

The overall rate of death for Europeans was 5.8 per thousand people. But in some communities it was well above the national average.

Featherston army camp
Featherston military camp

The most striking of these was the isolated coalmining district of Nightcaps and Wairio in western Southland. Its rate of 45.9 deaths per thousand people rivalled that of many Māori communities.

Geoffrey Rice notes that ‘the only places where the mortality showed any uniformity were the military camps’, which were ‘by far the most dangerous places to be in 1918’. At the large Featherston and Trentham camps, the death rates were 22.6 and 23.5 per thousand people respectively.

Rice observes that explanations for the variations in mortality ‘must remain to some extent speculative’, but concludes that:

The underlying cause of extreme variations in deaths was almost certainly the quirky nature of the patterns of partial immunity left by the mild first wave, together with the unpredictable behaviour of a virulent and rapidly mutating virus.

FYI, there were no vaccines during the Spanish flu pandemic:

https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/...demic-h1n1.html

Partial quote:

QUOTE

With no vaccine to protect against influenza infection and no antibiotics to treat secondary bacterial infections that can be associated with influenza infections, control efforts worldwide were limited to non-pharmaceutical interventions such as isolation, quarantine, good personal hygiene, use of disinfectants, and limitations of public gatherings, which were applied unevenly.

A history lesson to learn: being isolated means not being exposed to viruses, leading to untrained immunity systems not equipped to deal with much more dangerous viruses.

History: Vax causing long lasting nerve damage

Benaroo — Sat, 26 Feb 2022 20:49:38 +0800

https://weather.com/health/cold-flu/news/20...the-flu-vaccine

https://adfontesmedia.com/weather-channel-b...nd-reliability/

Partial quote:

QUOTE

In 1976, a swine flu outbreak hit New Jersey, which incited fears of a new pandemic, so President Gerald Ford announced that the federal government would vaccinate all Americans. Congress approved $137 million for producing a vaccine for this purpose before flu season started. Unfortunately, hundreds of people developed Guillain-Barré syndrome (which causes nerve damage and paralysis) after receiving this vaccine, making many people fear it. The Ford family tried to alleviate fears by televising getting their flu shots, but ultimately the swine flu vaccination program was cancelled.

https://academic.oup.com/aje/article/178/6/962/107755
(Oxford University Press)

Partial quote:

QUOTE

Chart-Confirmed Guillain-Barré Syndrome After 2009 H1N1 Influenza Vaccination Among the Medicare Population, 2009–2010

Guillain-Barré Syndrome (GBS) is a peripheral neuropathy characterized by rapid onset of bilateral limb weakness and diminished or absent reflexes. It occurs with an annual incidence in the range of 0.4–4 per 100,000 persons, with average incidence increasing by approximately 20% for every 10-year increase in age (1–4). The disease is thought to be caused by an autoimmune process that results in nerve demyelination, axonal damage, or both (5). It is considered to be postinfectious, triggered by preceding respiratory or gastrointestinal infection in approximately two-thirds of cases (6, 7), and has been occasionally associated, though not necessarily causally linked, with vaccinations (e.g., for influenza, polio, meningococcal disease, rabies) (8–12). The most notable vaccine-associated GBS occurred in 1976 with the influenza A/New Jersey/1976(H1N1) vaccine when the risk of GBS was found to be 7.6 times higher within the 6 weeks following vaccination and approximately 18 times higher 2–3 weeks after vaccination (13–15). Reassessment of this association by using enhanced case ascertainment and a standardized case definition revealed a similar elevated relative risk of 7.1 within the 6 weeks following vaccination (16).

---skip---

Although the Institute of Medicine has concluded that the evidence through 2008 has been inadequate to accept or reject a causal relationship between GBS and influenza vaccines administered after 1976, we found a statistically significant increased risk of GBS among Medicare beneficiaries after the 2009 monovalent H1N1 influenza vaccination, with and without adjustment for seasonality and exclusion of cases with preceding illness. This observed risk was slightly higher than that seen with previous seasonal influenza vaccines (17–23), and it was similar to or slightly lower than that found in other studies examining GBS risk with this vaccine (38–41). However, additional results that used a stricter case definition were not statistically significant, and our ability to account for preceding illness was limited. Furthermore, the observed risk was substantially lower than that seen with the 1976 swine flu vaccine.

https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditi...es/syc-20362793

https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/mayo-clinic/

Partial quote:

QUOTE

Guillain-Barre syndrome

Overview
Nerve and damaged myelin sheath
Nerve and damaged myelin sheath Open pop-up dialog box
Guillain-Barre (gee-YAH-buh-RAY) syndrome is a rare disorder in which your body's immune system attacks your nerves. Weakness and tingling in your extremities are usually the first symptoms.

These sensations can quickly spread, eventually paralyzing your whole body. In its most severe form Guillain-Barre syndrome is a medical emergency. Most people with the condition must be hospitalized to receive treatment.

The exact cause of Guillain-Barre syndrome is unknown. But two-thirds of patients report symptoms of an infection in the six weeks preceding. These include respiratory or a gastrointestinal infection or Zika virus.

There's no known cure for Guillain-Barre syndrome, but several treatments can ease symptoms and reduce the duration of the illness. Although most people recover from Guillain-Barre syndrome, the mortality rate is 4% to 7%. Between 60-80% of people are able to walk at six months. Patients may experience lingering effects from it, such as weakness, numbness or fatigue.

Symptoms
Guillain-Barre syndrome often begins with tingling and weakness starting in your feet and legs and spreading to your upper body and arms. In about 10% of people with the disorder, symptoms begin in the arms or face. As Guillain-Barre syndrome progresses, muscle weakness can evolve into paralysis.

Signs and symptoms of Guillain-Barre syndrome may include:

Prickling, pins and needles sensations in your fingers, toes, ankles or wrists
Weakness in your legs that spreads to your upper body
Unsteady walking or inability to walk or climb stairs
Difficulty with facial movements, including speaking, chewing or swallowing
Double vision or inability to move eyes
Severe pain that may feel achy, shooting or cramplike and may be worse at night
Difficulty with bladder control or bowel function
Rapid heart rate
Low or high blood pressure
Difficulty breathing
People with Guillain-Barre syndrome usually experience their most significant weakness within two weeks after symptoms begin.

---skip---

Risk factors
Guillain-Barre syndrome can affect all age groups. But your risk increases as you age. It's also more common in males than females.

Guillain-Barre syndrome may be triggered by:

Most commonly, infection with campylobacter, a type of bacteria often found in undercooked poultry
Influenza virus
Cytomegalovirus
Epstein-Barr virus
Zika virus
Hepatitis A, B, C and E
HIV, the virus that causes AIDS
Mycoplasma pneumonia
Surgery
Trauma
Hodgkin's lymphoma
Rarely, influenza vaccinations or childhood vaccinations
COVID-19 virus
COVID-19 Johnson & Johnson vaccine
Complications
Guillain-Barre syndrome affects your nerves. Because nerves control your movements and body functions, people with Guillain-Barre may experience:

Breathing difficulties. The weakness or paralysis can spread to the muscles that control your breathing, a potentially fatal complication. Up to 22% of people with Guillain-Barre syndrome need temporary help from a machine to breathe within the first week when they're hospitalized for treatment.
Residual numbness or other sensations. Most people with Guillain-Barre syndrome recover completely or have only minor, residual weakness, numbness or tingling.
Heart and blood pressure problems. Blood pressure fluctuations and irregular heart rhythms (cardiac arrhythmias) are common side effects of Guillain-Barre syndrome.
Pain. One-third of people with Guillain-Barre syndrome experience severe nerve pain, which may be eased with medication.
Bowel and bladder function problems. Sluggish bowel function and urine retention may result from Guillain-Barre syndrome.
Blood clots. People who are immobile due to Guillain-Barre syndrome are at risk of developing blood clots. Until you're able to walk independently, taking blood thinners and wearing support stockings may be recommended.
Pressure sores. Being immobile also puts you at risk of developing bedsores (pressure sores). Frequent repositioning may help avoid this problem.
Relapse. From 2% to 5% of people with Guillain-Barre syndrome experience a relapse.
Severe, early symptoms of Guillain-Barre syndrome significantly increase the risk of serious long-term complications. Rarely, death may occur from complications such as respiratory distress syndrome and heart attacks.

No matter what anyone claims, real experiences don't lie. Claims from vaxxers not getting any side effects are as real as claims from unfortunate people getting severe long lasting side effects from the vax. People should always exercise caution when dealing with any medical product just as how people would exercise caution when dealing with any herbal health products. What happened in the past can always happen again whether now or in the future.

UK's Johnson scraps COVID restrictions in England

Benaroo — Fri, 25 Feb 2022 19:05:41 +0800

https://news.yahoo.com/uks-johnson-scraps-c...-220139899.html

QUOTE

UK's Johnson scraps COVID restrictions in England
Tue, February 22, 2022, 6:01 AM

"First, we will remove all remaining domestic restrictions in law."

British Prime Minister Boris on Monday (February 21) said he would lift all coronavirus restrictions in England.

"We will end routine contact tracing and no longer ask fully vaccinated close contacts and those under 18 to test daily for seven days."

Johnson's move to end health restrictions has drawn skepticism from some scientists and political opponents, who warn the move is premature and will leave the country vulnerable to new viral variants.

"Mr Speaker, COVID will not suddenly disappear. So those who would wait for a total end to this war before lifting the remaining regulations would be restricting the liberties of the British people for a long time to come."

The prime minister said the economic costs and the toll on personal liberty were too high to pay any longer.

The plan to ditch remaining legal restrictions is a priority for many of Johnson's Conservative Party lawmakers, whose discontent over his scandal-ridden leadership has threatened his grip on power.

Plastic pollution on the rise

Benaroo — Thu, 24 Feb 2022 21:19:44 +0800

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34020352/

QUOTE

Plastic waste associated with the COVID-19 pandemic: Crisis or opportunity?
Kuan Shiong Khoo et al. J Hazard Mater. 2021.

Abstract
Coronavirus Diseases 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has a huge impact on the plastic waste management in many countries due to the sudden surge of medical waste which has led to a global waste management crisis. Improper management of plastic waste may lead to various negative impacts on the environment, animals, and human health. However, adopting proper waste management and the right technologies, looking in a different perception of the current crisis would be an opportunity. About 40% of the plastic waste ended up in landfill, 25% incinerated, 16% recycled and the remaining 19% are leaked into the environment. The increase of plastic wastes and demand of plastic markets serve as a good economic indicator for investor and government initiative to invest in technologies that converts plastic waste into value-added product such as fuel and construction materials. This will close the loop of the life cycle of plastic waste by achieving a sustainable circular economy. This review paper will provide insight of the state of plastic waste before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. The treatment pathway of plastic waste such as sterilisation technology, incineration, and alternative technologies available in converting plastic waste into value-added product were reviewed.

https://www.thestar.com.my/news/nation/2021...9-waste-problem

QUOTE

Covid-19 waste problem

PETALING JAYA: About 400 tonnes – or the weight of four blue whales – that’s the average weight of Covid-19 clinical waste generated every month in Malaysia this year.

Examples include personal protective equipment (PPE) worn by frontliners, syringes, used test swabs, body fluid and food waste from quarantine centres, said the Department of Environment (DOE).

The mountain of clinical waste is pushing treatment facilities to the limit in Malaysia.

But this may soon change with food waste and containers from quarantine centres declassified as clinical waste and now categorised as municipal solid waste.

“For the first nine months of this year, 3,576 tonnes of Covid-19-related waste was produced nationwide,” the department told Sunday Star.

That makes up 8% of the overall 44,793 tonnes of clinical waste produced in Malaysia during the same period (Jan 1-Sept 30).

So far, the amount of clinical waste this year has exceeded the reported 30,958 tonnes produced in the country last year.

With the heavy load, the department said all licensed facilities treating such waste are now operating “at full and beyond their capacity”.

“The increase in clinical waste due to Covid-19 has generated backlogs in such premises.

“This has affected the technological and storage capacities of these facilities to effectively dispose of all clinical wastes,” it added.

Currently, there are eight licensed premises in the country, with five appointed by the government.

To deal with the issue, the department has given temporary approval to licensed facilities to set up mobile incinerators to expedite the treatment of clinical wastes.

It also granted approval for temporary storage to boost storage capacities.

One reason for the huge pile up is the food waste and food containers from Covid-19 quarantine centres being considered as clinical waste.

“We have highlighted that this has significantly increased the quantity of clinical waste, upsetting the performance of the licensed treatment facilities,” the department said.

The DOE is expecting the amount of clinical waste to decrease after the Health Ministry declassified food waste and containers from quarantine centres, and started treating them as municipal solid waste from Aug 24 this year.

It also believes the closure of vaccination centres and the recent decline in Covid-19 cases will lead to less trash.

However, Prof Dr P. Agamuthu from the Jeffrey Sachs Center on Sustainable Development at Sunway University said there is a risk in declassifying such waste used by Covid-19 patients.

“There is a risk that the coronavirus is passed in the food.

“This is similar to the face mask the public wears and disposes of which is currently treated as solid waste and not clinical waste,” he said, adding that all clinical waste are incinerated.

Prof Agamuthu, who specialises in solid and hazardous waste management, said patients who are asymptomatic or have mild symptoms (Categories One and Two) are quarantined at home so they would also produce waste that ends up in normal landfills that collect household waste.

“Most will not know how to sterilise their food containers before they throw it.

“So garbage collectors or waste scavengers would risk being exposed to the virus,” he said, urging for more caution on this matter.

https://www.thestar.com.my/news/focus/2021/...amount-of-trash

QUOTE

Tackling the rising amount of trash
FOCUS
Sunday, 24 Oct 2021

Currently, there are 141 solid waste landfills in Malaysia. This open landfill at Bercham has been replaced by a new modern landfill in Papan.

MALAYSIANS generate about 38,699 tonnes of solid waste every day – at least 1.17kg per person.

While Malaysia has many landfills, the number is still not enough accommodate the large amount of trash generated, says the Housing and Local Government Ministry.

“The life expectancy of a landfill is about 20 to 25 years, depending on how much area it takes up.

“But a big part of such sites will be full or unusable within two to three years due to the rising amount of waste,” it says.

The amount of solid waste is expected to continue piling up as the population grows.

“But the amount of garbage can be reduced if the public has good and proper waste disposal practices such as separating their trash to be recycled as a habit,” it says.

Currently, there are 141 solid waste landfills in Malaysia. Of those, 116 are open dump sites, 21 are sanitary landfills (which are engineered with anti-pollution features to allow safe decomposition) while four are residual waste landfills.

“Proper waste management is important because if not carried out accordingly, it will cause a host of negative impacts including water and land pollution, which will in turn affect our water sources,” the ministry adds.

Due to space constraints, Malaysia is now transitioning to incineration methods to overcome its garbage disposal issues.

The ministry says there are currently four small-scale thermal treatment plants; the Langkawi plant can process 100 tonnes of trash a day, Cameron Highlands can handle 40 tonnes, Pangkor 20 tonnes, and Tioman 15 tonnes.

Such incineration centres can help as waste can be burnt quickly, with 99% of solid waste being incinerated at temperatures around 800°C to 900°C.

“With this method, about half of the solid waste produced can be incinerated daily. The ashes are considered 99% safe to be disposed of in existing landfills,” the ministry says.

Aside from solid waste, there’s also a growing concern over clinical waste in Malaysia, which has increased due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

The Department of Environment (DOE) is planning to increase the number of treatment facilities that can process clinical waste, which includes used test swabs, personal protective equipment and other items from hospitals, clinics and quarantine centres.

“There are several development projects, and one facility will start operating by the end of this year,” the department says.

Currently, the DOE says it is prioritising projects involving clinical waste treatment to increase this sector’s capacity and technological abilities.

It has been reported that clinical waste has increased by 20% since the coronavirus outbreak began in Malaysia in March 2020. As at Sept 30 this year, 3,576 tonnes of Covid-19-related waste had been produced nationwide.

The DOE is urging hospitals, clinics and quarantine and vaccination centres to ensure that all clinical waste generated on their premises is sent to licensed facilities for proper treatment and disposal.

The department believes these facilities need to strengthen their capabilities in terms of treatment technology, which should be certified by the World Health Organisation.

“Such facilities must look into having adequate storage capacity to cater to incidents such as this pandemic.

“They should upgrade existing treatment technology and comply with requirements in the agreement they signed and not intentionally delay the process,” the department says.

The DOE also believes state governments should do their part in ensuring clinical waste is managed efficiently in their states.

“Currently, there are many clinical waste management services providers that do not have sufficient capacity to manage clinical waste. We encourage companies that are able to develop better facilities to come forward for further engagement,” it says.

https://www.thestar.com.my/news/focus/2021/...tic-predicament

QUOTE

Our plastic predicament
By YUEN MEIKENG
FOCUS
Sunday, 24 Oct 2021

Think twice: With Malaysia having the highest annual per capita plastic use in South-East Asia, we need to think hard before using single-use plastic containers and water bottles. — Filepic/The Star

YES, Covid-19 has left behind tonnes of clinical waste in its wake but we need to pay attention to the pile of plastic waste we produce too.

Environmental groups believe that more plastic waste is being produced due to the pandemic, be it used masks or food packaging from taking away and delivery.

It’s a concern that Malaysia has the highest annual per capita plastic use in South-East Asia, at 16.78kg per person, based on a 2019 study by the WWF (World Wide Fund for Nature). Thailand’s usage was 15.52kg, Vietnam 12.93kg, Indonesia 12.5kg and the Philippines 12.4kg.

However, Malaysia’s Housing and Local Government Ministry assures us that recycling efforts are still ongoing, achieving a rate of 30.67% last year – slightly more than the targeted 30%.

It says plastic items also took up a smaller portion of total waste disposed of in 2020, compared with before the pandemic, in 2019.

“Plastic waste made up 24.8% of total disposed waste at landfills in 2019. This percentage dropped to 22.7% last year, based on a study on solid waste composition by the Solid Waste Management and Public Cleansing Corporation,” the ministry tells Sunday Star.

But the ministry did not disclose the total amount of waste produced in both years.

The demand for plastic seems to be on the rise, given the circumstances surrounding the ongoing pandemic, say environmental groups.

“More and more people are opting for food take-outs and deliveries, purchasing groceries online and switching to disposable utensils for convenience and reassurance.

“Almost all of our food is wrapped in plastic, and this causes a huge spike in packaging waste generation, primarily consisting of plastics,” says WWF-Malaysia sustainable markets programme lead Dr Adrian Choo.

As one of the key components of medical equipment and gear, plastic has played an essential role in keeping hospitals running and protecting frontliners during the pandemic.

Although it is too early to say what the long-term impacts of the pandemic will be in terms of plastic pollution, WWF-Malaysia observes there has been increase in single-use plastic.

“Plastic polymers used in lifesaving medical equipment such as medical masks, protective suits and face shields as well as in takeout food packaging and single-use plastic water bottles have all seen a rise in demand,” Choo says.

This has led to a spike in plastic waste, with restaurants shifting to cater to more deliveries or take-aways and the rapid turnover of personal protective equipment in our healthcare system.

Given such trends, there may be more masks and other materials ending up in nature than before the crisis began.

“It is our collective responsibility to act to ensure that the materials we are using to secure our health and safety now are used, processed and disposed of in a way that doesn’t impact our long-term health and well-being and that of the planet,” Choo says.

Taking action

About 4.8 to 12.7 million tonnes of plastics find their way into oceans every year worldwide.

The WWF has projected that the volume of plastic waste will increase four-fold between 2010 and 2050, and by weight, the ocean could contain more plastic than fish.

“Plastic pollution is long-lasting, and if we do not take urgent and proper action now, it will negatively impact our health, wildlife, and the natural environment in the long term,” Choo stresses.

For decades, waste management has always been the responsibility of the public and government.

“However, this system needs further involvement and support to make it more efficient.

“A revision of the existing system is crucial to ensure greater responsibility beginning from the producers themselves,” he says.

This can be done through the Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) scheme, which holds producers accountable for end-of-life products. This means that the producers are responsible for the management of waste produced by their consumers.

“We are also pleased with the Malaysian government’s introduction of the EPR scheme and circular economy in the 12th Malaysia Plan, as it will set directions for better measures on product packaging and design for recycling or waste management.

“As individuals, we need to do our part as well,” Choo says, urging the public to start by rethinking the use of everyday plastics such water bottles, shopping bags and to-go containers.

With Malaysia allowing interstate travel now, Malaysian Nature Society president Dr Ahmad Ismail says it is likely to cause an increase in rubbish generated. He laments that Malaysians are still not fully aware of the importance of reducing waste and lack good practices when it comes to rubbish.

“Many travellers will stop at rest stops or R&R areas. We will see a lot of rubbish in these spots, either an overflow of rubbish around the bins provided or where people park their cars.

“The authorities should reschedule rubbish collection at these places during the holidays or have more bins in the area,” he suggests, adding that many stop at R&R areas specifically to use the bins.

Even though we can use fabric masks, single use or disposable masks are still in demand, especially with the practice of double-masking to guard against Covid-19.

“Nevertheless, fabric masks can help reduce plastic waste pollution, as they can be washed and reused,” he says.

“Fabric masks can be used as part of our new culture during the pandemic or endemic phase of Covid-19.

“This is as long as the fabric mask fulfils standards such as having three layers as advised by the authorities,” he says.

Ahmad calls on the public to change our lifestyles if we want to reduce plastic pollution.

“All plastic used must be separated to be reused or recycled.

“Plastic is non-biodegradable and can stay in the ocean for a long time, fragmenting and causing danger to marine life.

“Think before using single use plastic and water bottles, don’t use personal care and pharmaceutical products containing microbeads, avoid ordering food from outside and always carry reusable shopping bags,” he urges the public.

Only 0.0014% of children died from Covid

Benaroo — Thu, 24 Feb 2022 00:22:16 +0800

https://www.thestar.com.my/news/nation/2022...s-parents-urged

QUOTE

“In 2020, about 13,000 children in Malaysia were infected. Last year, when the Delta variant emerged, almost 500,000 children were infected. There were fatalities too.

The Health Ministry reported that between June 2020 and December 2021, 174 children below the age of 18 had suffered from MIS-C due to Covid-19, which also resulted in seven deaths.

To calculate % of deaths/serious cases:
(Total deaths/serious cases)÷(total infected)x100=?%

Assuming that the total infected children during the stated period is exactly 500,000:

7 ÷ 500,000 x 100 = 0.0014% chance of children dying from Covid

Meanwhile, for children going through MIS-C/serious symptoms:

174 ÷ 500,000 x 100 = 0.0348% chance of children getting serious symptoms after infection

Children vaccination may not be made mandatory now, however in the near future will it be indirectly made mandatory, for the sake of an extreme minority?

Vaccine? Or Non Steroidal Anti Inflammatory Drug?

Benaroo — Wed, 23 Feb 2022 22:51:25 +0800

https://www.thestar.com.my/aseanplus/aseanp...ovid-19-vaccine

QUOTE

Vietnam records first death from adverse reaction to AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine
VIETNAM
Saturday, 08 May 20216:34 PM MYT

A nurse prepares an AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine dose for administration. — VNA/VNS

HANOI (Vietnam News/ANN): A 35-year-old female medical worker in the southern province of An Giang died on Friday (May 7) of anaphylactic shock after receiving a dose of the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine a day earlier.

Từ Quốc Thuấn, director of An Giang’s health department, confirmed the death late on Friday, making this the first death from adverse reaction to Covid-19 vaccine in Vietnam since the country started its inoculation drive using primarily AstraZeneca doses in early March.

The woman was working at Tân Chân Region General Hospital and received the vaccine shot on Thursday.

After the injection, the patient went into shock and was treated by the Tân Châu Hospital in accordance with the protocol.

The hospital also consulted with experts and doctors from the An Giang Province General Hospital and Chợ Rẫy Hospital in HCM City via telemedicine regarding the treatment.

She was then transferred to An Giang Province’s General Hospital, and the Ministry of Health instructed Chợ Rẫy Hospital to send intensive care specialists there to provide emergency assistance, but the patient did not survive.

The official cause of death was registered as anaphylaxis, with an underlying condition identified as an allergy to non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs.

The health ministry’s notice said this is an extremely rare incident in regards to Covid-19 vaccinations.

Health minister Nguyễn Thanh Long called the woman's family to send his condolences and sympathies for their loss as well as the loss of An Giang’s frontline healthcare forces.

Earlier on Thursday, Long along with three of his deputies received AstraZeneca doses, stressing the need to ensure a safe vaccination programme.

"The Ministry of Health has established a Steering Committee for safe immunisation, which brings together leading experts and professors in all relevant fields to be ready to assist localities in handling any situation arising during the vaccination drive," Long said.

As of Friday morning, 747,827 people in Vietnam, mostly frontline workers and medical staff, had received Covid-19 vaccine shots.

History: Overwhelmed hospitals not unique to Covid

Benaroo — Wed, 23 Feb 2022 22:35:54 +0800

There's been too much hype in the media making it look like as if Covid is the only virus causing overwhelmed hospitals. Here are old news articles showing a history of hospitals, mostly in the west, overwhelmed by INFLUENZA, not Covid, despite the fact that influenza pandemics have always been active worldwide:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2738491/
[PubMed]

QUOTE

In December 1997, media reported hospital overcrowding and “the worst [flu epidemic] in the past two decades” in Los Angeles County (LAC). We found that rates of pneumonia and influenza deaths, hospitalizations, and claims were substantially higher for the 1997–98 influenza season than the previous six seasons. Hours of emergency medical services (EMS) diversion (when emergency departments could not receive incoming patients) peaked during the influenza seasons studied; the number of EMS diversion hours per season also increased during the seasons 1993–94 to 1997–98, suggesting a decrease in medical care capacity during influenza seasons. Over the seven influenza seasons studied, the number of licensed beds decreased 12%, while the LAC population increased 5%. Our findings suggest that the capacity of health-care systems to handle patient visits during influenza seasons is diminishing.

https://www.daytondailynews.com/lifestyles/...yNmHmZDIxgGHgI/

https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/dayton-daily-news/

QUOTE

Local hospitals ask flu patients to stay away

Local hospitals ask flu patients to stay away
HEALTH NEWS
By Katherine Wright,Malik Perkins
Jan 1, 2015
CDC says nation hits epidemic status.
Local hospitals have restricted visits and are asking people with flu symptoms to stay away as epidemic levels of the virus affect the region.

“If they’re not very young or old, and don’t have other respiratory issues, we’re encouraging people to contact their primary care physician and not go to the emergency room,” Bryan Bucklew of the Greater Dayton Hospital Association said Wednesday. “Hospitals are at very full capacity right now, and staff is getting sick as well.”

The number of influenza-related hospitalizations in Ohio has increased dramatically in the past month, according to numbers released Dec. 20 by the Ohio Department of Health. Nearly 2,000 people were hospitalized for the flu in the third week of December, as compared to just 533 people hospitalized the same week last year.

Updated numbers are set to be released by the department Friday.

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention said this week that the flu has reached the epidemic threshold nationally and is widespread in 36 states. Four pediatric flu-related deaths have been confirmed in Ohio, including an infant less than six months old in Cincinnati. Adult influenza-associated deaths are not required to be reported to the state health department.

The virus is not showing any signs of letting up in around Dayton, and hospitals and urgent care centers have been swamped for the past two months, according to Mark Williams, the chief medical officer at Miami Valley Hospital.

Williams said he is not aware of any deaths from the flu in Dayton.

Bucklew said several factors have contributed to the high levels of flu this year, including the reduced effectiveness of this year’s flu vaccination and the early onset of flu season, hitting people around the holidays when they are traveling and spending time with friends and family.

The sickness has infected staff at hospitals, threatening to decrease staffing levels at a time when the hospitals are at capacity.

“Since the flu shot is less effective this year, all the staff have received the flu shot, but they’re still getting sick as well,” Bucklew said. “We’re facing staffing challenges, just trying to make sure we have enough healthy staff.”

During the week ending Dec. 27, 1,099 cases were reported in the 10-county area including Mongtomery County, according to Bill Wharton, public information officer for Public Health of Dayton and Montgomery County.

But that report does not represent the true number of flu cases, Wharton said.

“The flu is not a disease that everyone, or even many people, report. So when you see numbers associated with the flu, it’s the tip of the iceberg,” he said. “But it does give us an index that tells us we’re having a very, very significant increase in flu cases. We have a lot of sick people out there in our community.”

This year’s flu shot included four strains of the virus, one of which was not a strong enough match to adequately prevent the strain, Wharton said.

This year’s virus is also stronger than it has been previous years, and it is causing a higher and longer-lasting fever in many people affected by the virus.

“We’re encouraging anyone who is sick to stay at home so they don’t go to work and spread it around further. Minimize anything that would tend to spread the flu,” Wharton said. “Be cognizant of the fact that there’s so much flu out there right now.”

Among Ohio’s confirmed hospitalizations this year, 177 have been children age 4 or younger, and 929 have been adults age 65 or older.

Area hospitals imposed restrictions on visitation last week due to abnormally high rates of hospitalization. The restrictions include: No visitation by anyone who is ill with any respiratory symptoms including coughing or fever, and no visitation by anyone under age 14, even if they have received the seasonal flu vaccine.

https://time.com/5107984/hospitals-handling...n-flu-patients/

https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/time/

QUOTE

Hospitals Overwhelmed by Flu Patients Are Treating Them in Tents

BY AMANDA MACMILLAN
JANUARY 18, 2018 2:28 PM EST
The 2017-2018 influenza epidemic is sending people to hospitals and urgent-care centers in every state, and medical centers are responding with extraordinary measures: asking staff to work overtime, setting up triage tents, restricting friends and family visits and canceling elective surgeries, to name a few.

“We are pretty much at capacity, and the volume is certainly different from previous flu seasons,” says Dr. Alfred Tallia, professor and chair of family medicine at the Robert Wood Johnson Medical Center in New Brunswick, New Jersey. “I’ve been in practice for 30 years, and it’s been a good 15 or 20 years since I’ve seen a flu-related illness scenario like we’ve had this year.”

Tallia says his hospital is “managing, but just barely,” at keeping up with the increased number of sick patients in the last three weeks. The hospital’s urgent-care centers have also been inundated, and its outpatient clinics have no appointments available.

MORE: Here’s Why the Flu Is Especially Bad This Year

The story is similar in Alabama, which declared a state of emergency last week in response to the flu epidemic. Dr. Bernard Camins, associate professor of infectious diseases at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, says that UAB Hospital cancelled elective surgeries scheduled for Thursday and Friday of last week to make more beds available to flu patients.

“We had to treat patients in places where we normally wouldn’t, like in recovery rooms,” says Camins. “The emergency room was very crowded, both with sick patients who needed to be admitted and patients who just needed to be seen and given Tamiflu.”

In California, which has been particularly hard hit by this season’s flu, several hospitals have set up large “surge tents” outside their emergency departments to accommodate and treat flu patients. Even then, the LA Times reported this week, emergency departments had standing-room only, and some patients had to be treated in hallways.

The Lehigh Valley Health System in Allentown, Pennsylvania, set up a similar surge tent in its parking lot on Monday, in response to an increase in patients presenting with various viral illnesses, including norovirus, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and the flu. “We’ve put it into operation a couples times now over the last few days,” said a hospital spokesperson. “I think Tuesday we saw upwards of about 40 people in the tent itself.”

Many hospitals are also encouraging visitors to stay away. Kaiser Permanente Los Angeles Medical Center announced last week that it was temporarily restricting visits from children 14 and under and anyone with flu symptoms. “This measure is to prevent unnecessary spread of influenza and to protect you, our patients, and our staff,” the health system posted on Facebook.

Loyola University Health System in Chicago—which set a hospital flu-activity record of 190 confirmed cases between January 7 and 13—has also instituted similar visitor restrictions, although a spokesperson for the hospital says it’s a standard precaution for flu season. Loyola also requires all employees to receive a mandatory flu shot, a policy it started in 2009.

MORE: ‘It’s Actually a Nightmare.’ Mother Warns Others After 10-Year-Old Suddenly Dies From Flu

In Fenton, Missouri, SSM Health St. Clare Hospital has opened its emergency overflow wing, as well as all outpatient centers and surgical holding centers, to make more beds available to patients who need them. Nurses are being “pulled from all floors to care for them,” says registered nurse Jennifer Braciszewski, and are being offered an increased hourly rate to work above and beyond their normal schedules. Many nurses have also become sick, however, so the staff is also short-handed.

The flu has especially affected hospital patients with other health issues, says Braciszewski, who works with cardiac patients. “Almost every patient in the hospital has the flu, and it’s making their pre-existing conditions worse,” she says. “More and more patients are needing mechanical ventilation due to respiratory failure from the flu and other rampant upper respiratory infections.”

Braciszewski says she’s picked up a few extra shifts so far this month, and that while the work is difficult and overwhelming, it’s also rewarding. “They haven’t gone into mandatory overtime on my floor yet, but nurses are helping out by staying an extra four hours here and there or coming in early,” she says. “The thing about nursing is it’s a sister/brotherhood; we can’t leave each other in distress.”

CDC director Brenda Fitzgerald said last week that the flu appeared to be peaking, but that “it will take many more weeks for flu activity to truly slow down.” Camins says flu activity at UAB Hospital was slightly lower this week than last week, but that it’s too early to know if the worst has come and gone.

“It’s slowing down, thank God, but there have been some seasons that have actually had two peaks—so we really don’t know what the next few months will be like,” he says. “We’ve already had three times the volume of the peak from last year in Jefferson County, and I think we’re going to end up quadrupling it by the time we finally get all the data in.”

Doctors say it’s not too late to get a flu shot this season—even if you’ve already been sick—and many hospitals are asking patients about the flu vaccine and offering it to those who haven’t yet received it. They’re also encouraging otherwise healthy people who think they have the flu to call their primary care doctors rather than visit the emergency room, especially while hospital volume is so high.

If you’re otherwise healthy, “you can ask your doctor to prescribe an anti-viral medicine over the phone,” says Camins. That way, he adds, emergency departments can be freed up to care for patients who are the most vulnerable to serious complications from the flu—like children, the elderly and people with pre-existing conditions.