COVID-19 Megathread 6: Return of the Omicron

[Smeulders]

During the Ebola pandemic, Andrew Cuomo and Chris Christie enacted quarantines that applied only to people who had been exposed to Ebola patients. This meant very few people were even quarantined. Yet a lot of people back then said this was much too strict. Dr. Fauci even said this was much too strict and urged only monitoring, not a quarantine. When Florida implemented monitoring, some people even said that was too strict.

So why do we now have these much stricter measures that have lasted 5 whole months, and nobody dares to publicly oppose them?

Because there is no asymptomatic transmission in cases of Ebola. This means that keeping people not showing symptoms away from other people does absolutely nothing to combat transmission. Keeping people apart during Vivid pandemics on the other hand does save lives.

[Smeulders]

The WHO now estimates the IFR at just 0.13%.  Covid may be super contagious, but, in terms of severity of the illness, it literally is just the flu.

https://twitter.com/AlexBerenson/status/1312180625412038656

The WHO very much does not estimate the IFR at 0.13%, unless the WHO also officially estimates that the deaths are equal to those reported. Time and again, we see that officially reported deaths are significantly lower than excess mortality and that is in first world countries.

Whenever anyone feels the need to report a speculative IFR below < 0.25% they should explain how that is consistent with the very certain .28% of NYCs total population reported to die of Covid, or Lima's excess deaths of .4% of total population, or Lombardy's excess deaths of .25% in March and April alone. All of these are for total population, not infected.

[Smeulders]

https://twitter.com/AlexBerenson/status/1313879186126319617

Oh yes, I love Covid-19.
Clearly I enjoy the fact that our president killed 200,000 people, I just love worrying for my own life, I just get such a high off of watching the World suffer. Seriously just shut the f**k up. You have been so consistently wrong on the trajectory of Covid-19 and the efficacy of masks, you have no reason to post anything here anymore.

It’s telling that you care more about what some hippie old fart thinks than about the thousands of people who have lost their lives and the serious repercussions of this pandemic. We can argue and disagree on the best way to fight the pandemic, but your constant denial of the seriousness of the situation is getting older than your “I am totally still a moderate Republican” act.

Given what passes for "news" in this thread and all across USGD, what Jane Fonda says re: COVID-19 certainly makes the cut for post-worthiness.  I don't care what she says, but very few people here care about "who" says something as long as conforms to their pre-existing worldview. 

The fact that you believe our president is personally responsible for the deaths of 200k people just proves that you are not a serious poster, and you never have been on this issue.  Extended lockdowns, school closures and other such restrictions are highly damaging, unsustainable and worse than the disease itself.  Continued insistence on these measures and "social distance" has probably permanently hampered the resiliency of our country and communities.  At every step of the way, you have refused to treat COVID as what it is - a manageable public health problem, and instead defaulted to the politics of fear and death obsession. 

Manageable!?!?!?!?

I guess if your standard is that it doesn't kill everyone it infects, COVID-19 isn't a major problem. However there is a considerable difference between thinking lockdowns have been overdone and ignoring basic preventive measures such as using masks as Typhoid Trump has done. Trump's focus has never been on managing the pandemic itself, but on managing the perception of the pandemic. It's shown once again that he's all about style rather than substance. Anything substantial he's accomplished has been a fortuitous byproduct of his quest for style. Moreover, I can't think of a single thing Trump has actually accomplished these four years that Republicans would think is a good thing that any other Republican president wouldn't have also accomplished.

Wait...do you seriously think COVID is some existential, impossible threat that can't be beat by common-sense risk mitigation measures?  We survived similar global pandemics in 1957-58 and 1968-69 that no one even talks about today.  Despite the constant fear-mongering by the media, COVID-19 is no different.  It's manageable.

Trump's musings on masks are all sound and fury.  Where local mayors and governors have mandated social distance/masks, people have been overwhelmingly compliant.  This is how it should be in a federal system.  Trump has accomplished channeling Federal resources into securing PPE/critical care equipment, monitoring/surging system capacity, increasing testing, building robust public-private partnerships in order to fast track vaccine development, and delivering economic stimulus.  You can surely disagree with some aspects of his response, but Federal action on COVID has been anything but only "stylistic." 

You know, I agree that Covid is "manageable". Multiple countries are actually managing it appropriately even without extreme measures (NZ, Vietnam).

Everything in that second paragraph though...

• Securing PPE and equipment. That's the Kushner college buddy group right? The one outbidding states and local authorities and the re-distributing based on no discernible criteria? The one buying from day old companies run by republican operatives? I mean give me enough money and I'll get stuff to hospitals as well, probably about as effectively as Kushner. I may have a smaller network, but am also less corrupt.
• Testing. The US ran way behind almost every Western country there. I seem to recall they caught up in tests per capita at some point, simply because the virus was so much more widespread and Europe simply didn't have as many people left to test. How much of the testing was set up by the federal government as opposed by state and local authorities?
• Monitoring. Here is where we mention the monitoring and publishing of data was removed from the CDC for unclear reasons. Removing non-partisan experts from the process. The hallmark of every well functioning response.
• Vaccine development. Why not thank Trump for the sun rising while we're at it. Promising pharmaceutical companies money for developing a vaccine is again the bare minimum. The only difference Trump in the WH has is that he is pushing for vaccine release before they're proven safe. Not a fast-track I'd be bragging about.

The Trump administration had definitely done stuff. None of it even on par with any random better than any barely competent government.

[Smeulders]

Yeah, complete and utter .... Sure lockdowns add some risks, they also take away others (traffic and workplace accidents). I won't pretend to know which way the balance goes, but to pretend that it significant in either direction is very questionable. In Belgium excess deaths track very strongly with reported Covid deaths. If the effects of lockdowns have a significant influence, we'd expect the excess deaths to fall slower than Covid deaths. (As the lockdown lowers case numbers, Covid deaths go down, but "lockdown" deaths go up). This simply does not happen.

I always love seeing "lack of medical care" in those lists of the risks of lockdowns as well. Medical systems do not delay procedures because there is a lockdown. They delay other medical procedures because they are overburdened by Covid cases. Lockdowns make sure capacity in the medical system remains available for other medical issues.

Of course, I'm not sure why I'm even trying to argue with someone who jumps straight to "conspiracies by the global capitalist elite"

[Smeulders]

If the reports are true that Omicron is considerably milder than past strains, isn't this a good thing?  Don't we want it yo become the dominant strain?  Zero covid is never going to happen, but it will eventually likely be pretty harmless.

Though, unless it significantly evades natural immunity, I think much of the South will have a hard time spiking again, at least not to the extent of previous waves.

Yes. IF it is considerably milder.
Emphasis on IF, because that is not known.

Isn’t there usually a trade off between virulence and transmissibility? If a virus kills its host it dies off with it.

There is some evolutionary pressure in that direction, but very limited in the case of Covid. It's true that killing off the host means it can't survive within the host, but if the host survives it usually kills off the virus, so in either case the virus needs to spread to new hosts. Since Covid is most contagious before symptoms occur, the severity of symptoms have little impact on the number of new hosts infected. (For diseases that are most contagious while symptomatic, mild symptoms are more important, as a bedridden or dead host will meet less other people).