Weekly coronavirus-related chat, questions, and minor updates - week of July 19

Anti-vaccine groups changing into ‘dance parties’ on Facebook to avoid detection

Group members have incorporated a range of coded language to mask their discussions, many of which perpetuate debunked theories about the vaccines. “Danced” or “drank beer” mean “got the vaccine.” References to “Pfizer” generally use the terms “pizza” or “Pizza King,” and Moderna is referred to as “Moana.” Users generally play around with unofficial language about dancing to create more coded language.

For example, one group member said her husband had become sick after going on a “cross country trip where we spent 2 nights with dancers,” referring to two people who had just been vaccinated.

“He believes that by being around those who have danced the glitter caused the shingles reactivation,” the group member wrote. The glitter, in this case, refers to “vaccine shedding,” a false theory among anti-vaccine activists that claims people who have been vaccinated are somehow “shedding” their vaccine onto the unvaccinated, and causing them to become sick with a litany of illnesses.

(and a Twitter thread from the author, which has screenshots of some of the worst of the FB posts)

It's weird. I live in Florida, and I'm starting to feel less safe than I did before I was vaccinated. The numbers are really bad, in my county in particular. No one wears masks, and lately I've actually been hearing about people my friends know testing positive. I've temporarily stopped hanging out with a friend because multiple people at their work have come down with COVID.

I'm still probably at higher risk because of my chronic illness, so I don't feel reassured when people say breakthrough infections are "mild" normally - my body isn't normal, and if a mild cough caused my disability in the first place, how much worse might it get if I contract COVID?

I'm also kind of angry. I had to put off a lot of medical stuff last year because of COVID, and after I got vaccinated I was only able to coordinate my yearly MRI before the CDC lifted masking guidelines and things got bad again. Now my optometrist doesn't require masks, and I'm nervous about getting a blood test or going to a hospital for a specialist appointment. It sucks.

My brother-in-law and his partner tested positive yesterday when they got home from a short vacation. They are fully vaccinated and confirmed with an at-home test after noticing depressed sense of smell/taste. Also experiencing some shortness of breath, cough, and mild fatigue. Since they used an at-home test, we don't know what strain of COVID they contracted, but they hope the fact that can still smell/taste at all is a sign the vaccine is mitigating the effects of the virus.

Ed Yong interviews Rhea Boyd, a pediatrician and public-health advocate in the San Francisco Bay Area:

America Is Getting Unvaccinated People All Wrong

More than 600,000 people told to isolate by NHS Covid-19 app

One man, who was heavily involved in the design of the app, told me people didn't realise that it worked on a number of levels - "even if someone ignores the message to self-isolate, telling them they have been exposed to the virus is likely to make them behave more cautiously."

He also said that while the anonymous nature of the app meant only limited data could be extracted from it, there was useful and early information for epidemiologists about the spread of the virus and the R rate.

The government still insists the app is doing the job for which it was designed - but there will be mounting pressure from industry for a more rapid change to allow people who are pinged to be tested rather than to isolate.

Three New Estimates of India’s AllCause Excess Mortality during the
COVID-19 Pandemic

From the abstract:

First, extrapolation of state-level civil registration from seven states suggests 3.4 million
excess deaths. Second, applying international estimates of age-specific infection fatality rates (IFR)
to Indian seroprevalence data implies a higher toll of around 4 million. Third, our analysis of the
Consumer Pyramid Household Survey, a longitudinal panel of over 800,000 individuals across all
states, yields an estimate of 4.9 million excess deaths.

Vaccinated People Make up 75% of Recent COVID-19 Cases in Singapore, but Few Fall Ill

Of Singapore's 1,096 locally transmitted infections in the last 28 days, 484, or about 44%, were in fully vaccinated people, while 30% were partially vaccinated and just over 25% were unvaccinated, Thursday's data showed.

While seven cases of serious illness required oxygen, and another was in critical condition in intensive care, none of the eight had been fully vaccinated, the health ministry said.

[…]

"It is important to always compare it against the proportion of people who remain unvaccinated...Suppose Singapore achieves a rate of 100% fully vaccinated...then all infections will stem from the vaccinated people and none from the unvaccinated."

Singapore has already inoculated nearly 75% of its 5.7 million people, the world's second highest after the United Arab Emirates, a Reuters tracker shows, and half its population is fully vaccinated.

[…]

Singapore uses the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines in its national vaccination programme.

Friday's 130 new locally-transmitted infections were off this week's 11-month high. The recent rise in cases prompted authorities to tighten curbs on social gatherings in the push to boost vaccinations, particularly among the elderly.