COVID-19 Megathread 6: Return of the Omicron

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

It is worth reminding people that there has been absolutely NO surge in covid deaths in blue America (with a small number of local exceptions).

Here's a graph from the Washington Post of the states with the highest current average deaths per 100k residents:



And states with the lowest:

[Matty]

This is a nightmare

Cases in the UK are going back up yet again

Covid is proving to be the most stubborn virus the world has EVER seen

In 1918, despite how primitive our medical technology was, the flu pandemic was gone in like 1.5 years

The world will be dealing with covid for years and years

A nightmare

We need to stop trying to eradicate it. The goal at this point is vaccines that turn it into a sinus infection

This is awful

[GeorgiaModerate]

https://mobile.twitter.com/kylegriffin1/status/1424783910622273564

[Calthrina950]

It seems like even many Republicans are getting tired of Madison Cawthorn:

https://twitter.com/guypbenson/status/1424782040147300357?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7C...

[Horus]

It is worth reminding people that there has been absolutely NO surge in covid deaths in blue America (with a small number of local exceptions).

Here's a graph from the Washington Post of the states with the highest current average deaths per 100k residents:



And states with the lowest:

Sadly it doesn't matter. Look through this thread. People are terrified and I don't think any data is going to calm them.. The country is truly in the depths of neurosis. Thanks msm.

[GeorgiaModerate]

Interesting development: a close relative of mine had COVID (positive test, symptomatic) early this year. He then got fully vaccinated when he became eligible last Spring. Yesterday he was feeling sick with COVID symptoms again and it was confirmed by multiple positive tests.

Update: that relative has apparently infected another fully vaccinated one (textbook symptoms starting today, waiting for test results). Fortunately I haven’t been in contact with either of them lately.

[roxas11]

This is a nightmare

Cases in the UK are going back up yet again

Covid is proving to be the most stubborn virus the world has EVER seen

In 1918, despite how primitive our medical technology was, the flu pandemic was gone in like 1.5 years

The world will be dealing with covid for years and years

A nightmare

We need to stop trying to eradicate it. The goal at this point is vaccines that turn it into a sinus infection

This is awful

In 1918 they did not have to deal with facebook letting idiots post BS like this


social media has played a very destructive role when it came to dealing with Covid and I really do believe that the world would have never been able to eliminate Polio if Facebook had existed back then

[Hammy]

This is a nightmare

Cases in the UK are going back up yet again

Covid is proving to be the most stubborn virus the world has EVER seen

In 1918, despite how primitive our medical technology was, the flu pandemic was gone in like 1.5 years

The world will be dealing with covid for years and years

A nightmare

We need to stop trying to eradicate it. The goal at this point is vaccines that turn it into a sinus infection

This is awful

I think this would be an easily reachable goal, especially given several studies show an exponential boost in immunity with a third booster. I'd personally consider it a victory.

[snip]

So we're supposed to live in a permanent state of depression, anxiety and fear? Not sure what the point of your response was.

Fighting a virus and fighting a war are pretty similar. The quote makes perfect sense.

Media wants to create a fearful public who is incapable of making decisions without tuning into these stations to await basic instructions on how to live their day to day life. There's an absurd amount of profit to be made there.

Update: that relative has apparently infected another fully vaccinated one (textbook symptoms starting today, waiting for test results). Fortunately I haven’t been in contact with either of them lately.

How significant are the symptoms, since this is a good first hand case to use as reference?

[Bandit3 the Worker]

Why haven't cases in the U.S. completely crashed and stayed there? I'm flabbergasted that we still have more than a handful of cases.

In my spreadsheet document, Rhode Island has almost 83% of the people protected by either past infection or vaccines, and that's way above any serious estimate of the herd immunity threshold. So why does Rhode Island still have many cases? Granted, Rhode Island per capita doesn't have as many as most states, but still.

(And yes, my spreadsheet does account for the fact that there's some overlap between past infections and vaccines.)

[pbrower2a]

This is a nightmare

Cases in the UK are going back up yet again

Covid is proving to be the most stubborn virus the world has EVER seen

In 1918, despite how primitive our medical technology was, the flu pandemic was gone in like 1.5 years

The world will be dealing with covid for years and years

A nightmare

We need to stop trying to eradicate it. The goal at this point is vaccines that turn it into a sinus infection

This is awful

In 1918 they did not have to deal with facebook letting idiots post BS like this



social media has played a very destructive role when it came to dealing with Covid and I really do believe that the world would have never been able to eliminate Polio if Facebook had existed back then

Facebook would never allow posts espousing Holocaust denial, which -- horrid as it is -- does not directly kill people. It offends and deludes, and it may cause people to trivialize the meaning of Nazi symbols and memes. OK, if I managed a site, then Holocaust denial would be streng verboten.

Freedom of speech gives nobody justification for irresponsible speech even if irresponsible speech somehow avoids criminal sanctions. Someone like Stephanie Kelley Haines deserves to have posts like this haunting her all her life.

If there is one area in which I would eliminate free speech, then it would be in medical quackery which can never have any value in enriching any debate. I see her posts as the equivalent of barnyard fowl (Chicken Licken, Ducky Lucky, and Turkey Lurky) being convinced that the sky is falling, only to find that Foxy Loxy has a safe place from a falling sky. It is an oven.

COVID-19 isn't as efficient a killer as is Foxy Loxy's oven, but it is something to avoid. 

[wbrocks67]

This is pathological.

https://twitter.com/CBSMiami/status/1424825696921194496

[Horus]

This is pathological.

https://twitter.com/CBSMiami/status/1424825696921194496

While mask mandates in schools are dumb, an extra hassle for the teacher and an annoyance at minimum to kids, it would make a lot more sense to withhold the salaries of those refusing the vaccine.

[Inmate Trump]

I just got a call from my contractor up in Hudson, NY. I am in Hoboken. A mason showed up to do some work on the lintels on a house that I am redoing that is well ventilated because it was gutted, and has some "holes" in it. Two days after, the mason and two of my contractor's workers got sick. All three who got sick had not been vaccinated, one with a very high morbidity risk, but thankfully, not sick enough yet to have to go to the hospital. My contractor and everyone else has now taken tests. Yes, my contractor was vaccinated. Delta is really, really contagious, even in very well ventilated settings. For the moment, work has stopped.

Stories like this, and from GeorgiaModerate, as well as my own knowledge of certain breakthrough cases are reason to worry...even if you're vaccinated.

Vaccination saves lives and these vaccines in particular are great, but life can't go back to normal yet, even for the vaccinated.  Wear a freaking mask and continue social distancing.  No one's saying to do that forever, but we have to get this under control.

[HillGoose]

they are never gonna let it end

its so depressing

everything just gets worse forever

[Progressive Pessimist]

they are never gonna let it end

its so depressing

everything just gets worse forever

I want this tattooed on myself.

[Dr. MB]

Multnomah County just re instituted a mask mandate. With a $1000 fine for anyone who violates. If that isn’t the definition of insanity then idk what is.

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

Why haven't cases in the U.S. completely crashed and stayed there? I'm flabbergasted that we still have more than a handful of cases.

In my spreadsheet document, Rhode Island has almost 83% of the people protected by either past infection or vaccines, and that's way above any serious estimate of the herd immunity threshold. So why does Rhode Island still have many cases? Granted, Rhode Island per capita doesn't have as many as most states, but still.

(And yes, my spreadsheet does account for the fact that there's some overlap between past infections and vaccines.)

Rhode Island is currently averaging about 150 cases per day, but only 2 deaths per WEEK.

Clearly you can still easily test positive after being vaccinated, especially with the delta variant.  It’s just that almost no one vaccinated ever dies from covid (or gets seriously sick).

[GeorgiaModerate]

https://mobile.twitter.com/jesus_jimz/status/1424857523866193930

That would be the same governor who recently signed an order barring mask and vaccine mandates in Texas.

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

Same sort of story in Texas as in Florida... Asking people to get vaccinated and/or wear a mask is a bridge too far, but apparently it is just fine to put on hold "non-essential" medical treatment:


Gov. Greg Abbott asks Texas hospitals to delay nonessential procedures as COVID-19 patients strain capacity

Abbott's request was one of several steps to address rising coronavirus case numbers and hospitalizations. He did not back down from his refusal to allow local mask mandates.

Gov. Greg Abbott announced new moves Monday to fight the coronavirus pandemic as it rages again in Texas, including asking hospitals to again put off certain elective procedures to free up space for COVID-19 patients.

Still, the governor did not back down on his refusal to institute any new statewide restrictions on businesses or to let local governments and schools mandate masks or vaccines.

Instead, Abbott announced he had written to the Texas Hospital Association asking hospitals to "voluntarily postpone medical procedures for which delay will not result in loss of life or a deterioration in the patient’s condition." As coronavirus was consuming the state last summer, Abbott took a more restrictive approach and banned elective surgeries in over 100 counties before ending the prohibition in September.

Note that the definition of "elective" or "non-essential" is fairly broad, and last time around included some medical procedures/appointments that, while not imminently needed as an immediate life/death matter, nevertheless are not good for people's health to delay, including things like "non-essential" cancer screenings.

But apparently the average Texas Republican primary voter that Abbott is trying to appeal to thinks that it is better to delay those sorts of things than to wear masks and get vaccinated.

Hopefully the hospitals/hospital association in TX tells Abbott to go **** himself and come up with some sort of actual policy instead, since Abbott is asking them to "voluntarily" delay those procedures.

[Bandit3 the Worker]

Multnomah County just re instituted a mask mandate. With a $1000 fine for anyone who violates. If that isn’t the definition of insanity then idk what is.

I saw the article on this. This mandate doesn't expire until January.

That's right, January.

I remember last year when they said the holiday season would be normal this year. But they lied. Again. This year, the whole holiday season is hosed again. Halloween, Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, Christmas, New Year's. All hosed. For the second year in a row.

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

It is worth reminding people that there has been absolutely NO surge in covid deaths in blue America (with a small number of local exceptions).

It never ceases to amaze me how after all this time, so many people STILL do not understand that hospitalizations and deaths lag cases.

Kind of like how, just a few pages back in this thread and just a week ago, people STILL didn't think that deaths would rise in Florida and Texas when cases were rising there but hospitalizations/deaths were still lagging (spoiler: they are rising now).

Deaths arent ticking up at all. The variant is infecting people but no one is getting very ill from it. Hospitalizations continue to fall.

Cases in the UK beginning to fall as well, I think this is the last gasp of the virus.

After all this time, still nobody understands that hospitalizations and deaths are lagging indicators. I swear, we could be on wave #7 and we'll still be getting "but deaths are not going up" comments. In fairness, that makes sense for vaccinated cases, but it completely neglects the fact that a large portion of the population is not vaccinated (especially in many states where cases are surging the most in the south).

What I do is compare the rate the deaths are going up compared to how they were previous times we've reached certain caseload milestones. They are still about a third per number of cases compared to last time, I suspect a big part of it being many highest risk people have already been vaccinated.

That is a bad/unscientific way to compare. With the delta variant, if you are comparing based on a raw level # of cases, deaths will tend to lag behind more than with previous variants, because it is more transmissable. The slopes of epidemiological curves depend on the R value for a virus, and that has changed.

Simple hypothetical example with simplified math:

1) With previous variants, suppose it took 10 cases 1 week to turn into 100 cases

2) Whereas suppose with the new variant, it takes 5 cases 1 week

3) Suppose that some indicator (hospitalizations or deaths) lags by 1 week.

4) With the new variant, after 1 week when you have 100 cases, you will have half as many instances of the lagging indicator (hospitalizations or death) as in the previous case with the old variants, because the lagging indicator will be proportional to 5 rather than to 10.


Of course, let me hasten to add that I would not expect deaths to go as high as before (unless cases REALLY explode) because it is true that many of the most vulnerable people are already vaccinated (or deceased). However, that doesn't mean that deaths/hospitalizations are not going to behave as a lagging indicator and go up, it just means that the *level* at which they go up to should be lower relative to the number of cases than before (or at least would be if all cases were accurately and reliably tested for).

There are some reasons why cases (and hospitalizations and deaths) are less likely to go up as much in northern and more Dem states:

1) Climate: less reliance on air conditioning in the summer implies more open windows/better ventilation, which implies that aerosols dissipate more quickly and hence less viral spread (same thing that happened last summer). The converse is true in the winter, which is why last summer there were more cases in the south in the summer, and why there were more cases in the north (and also in Europe) during the winter.

2) Vaccination: general higher vaccination rates in more Dem areas imply lower overall levels of cases, deaths, and hospitalizations.

3) Masks/compliance with public health measures: same as with vaccinations; generally higher compliance imply lower levels of all three of cases/deaths/hospitalizations.

But none of that changes the fact that hospitalizations and deaths lag cases, which is a fundamental and (you would think) intuitive property of the virus. As cases go up, hospitalizations and deaths will also go up - with a lag. They will go up to varying degrees depending on how much vaccinations and demographics can reduce the death rate, but nevertheless they will go up. And it doesn't take a rocket scientist to understand that. And yet people keep making the same incorrect prediction that as cases go up, hospitalizations and deaths won't, despite having been incorrect the first 20 times.

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

It is worth reminding people that there has been absolutely NO surge in covid deaths in blue America (with a small number of local exceptions).

It never ceases to amaze me how after all this time, so many people STILL do not understand that hospitalizations and deaths lag cases.

Kind of like how, just a few pages back in this thread and just a week ago, people STILL didn't think that deaths would rise in Florida and Texas when cases were rising there but hospitalizations/deaths were still lagging (spoiler: they are rising now).

Deaths lagged cases by about two weeks in every previous surge; e.g. nationally cases peaked around Jan 13 and deaths peaked around Jan 26.  And cases have now been rising for well over a month. 

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

Deaths lagged cases by about two weeks in every previous surge; e.g. nationally cases peaked around Jan 13 and deaths peaked around Jan 26.  And cases have now been rising for well over a month.  

You apparently have not bothered to look and see that in fact deaths ARE going up:

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/usa/florida/

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/usa/texas/

As I mentioned earlier though, one would expect longer lag times for a virus with a higher R (because the median hospitalized patient will be more recently infected if infections are rising more rapidly).

There is also likely some degree of underreporting/delayed reporting of deaths (there was in previous surges, which subsequently got revised upwards, but only after the fact).

[emailking]

For the whole country though, deaths are clearly climbing.

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

Deaths lagged cases by about two weeks in every previous surge; e.g. nationally cases peaked around Jan 13 and deaths peaked around Jan 26.  And cases have now been rising for well over a month.  

You apparently have not bothered to look and see that in fact deaths ARE going up:

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/usa/florida/

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/usa/texas/

As I mentioned earlier though, one would expect longer lag times for a virus with a higher R (because the median hospitalized patient will be more recently infected if infections are rising more rapidly).

There is also likely some degree of underreporting/delayed reporting of deaths (there was in previous surges, which subsequently got revised upwards, but only after the fact).

I know deaths are going up in states with lower vaccinations rates.  They are not going up in states with high vaccination rates.  That was the whole point of my post with the graphs.