COVID-19 Megathread 6: Return of the Omicron

[Person Man]

Some of the posts here about the media are hyperbolic and kind of cringy but I absolutely see where they're coming from. https://twitter.com/CNBC/status/1421209879629422594
You see headlines like this? A majority of readers are only going to see "125,000 people test positive" and wrongfully assume that vaccines aren't working. Emphasizing the 125,000 people testing positive and not the fact that they represent less than .08% of vaccinated Americans is just going to promote vaccine hesitancy when vaccines are proven to be the most effective way of combatting COVID.

Skunk you hit nail right on the head

most people will not read beyond the headline and that is why it's such a big problem when these news organisations either don't get it right or the headline ends up not reflecting what the actual story is really about

The press lies. News at 11.

[Person Man]

The press lies. News at 11.

There's an inherent contradiction there.

OK, Alice.

[Person Man]

https://twitter.com/kylegriffin1/status/1421576405142355974

The number coming out of Florida is insane
If things keep going this way I wonder if this will actually start to hurt Ron Desantis politically

What if they actually do end up shutting down emergency rooms?

[Person Man]

https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/1422555523644264453

Democrats go full circle and support segregation.

Because those who forego the needle implicitly are introduced to the tar brush? Don’t be a bitch.


OK. That was mean but you generally are a reasonable guy but that was wrong. I’d rather call you a bitch than report you for hyperbolically equating public health to racism.

[Person Man]

https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/1422555523644264453

Democrats go full circle and support segregation.

Because those who forego the needle implicitly are introduced to the tar brush? Don’t be a bitch.


OK. That was mean but you generally are a reasonable guy but that was wrong. I’d rather call you a bitch than report you for hyperbolically equating public health to racism.

Do white liberals understand that a disproportionate number of Hispanics and blacks are unvaccinated? Are they deplorable "anti-vaxxers" who don't deserve to go into a restaurant? This policy is literally racist.

No, it's not.  It's a public health policy regardless of how you try to twist it.  Anyone of any race can get in simply by showing proof of vaccination.  If they choose not to get vaccinated, that's their decision but it is not a racist policy.

And vaccines are free.

[Person Man]

https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/1422555523644264453

Democrats go full circle and support segregation.

Because those who forego the needle implicitly are introduced to the tar brush? Don’t be a bitch.


OK. That was mean but you generally are a reasonable guy but that was wrong. I’d rather call you a bitch than report you for hyperbolically equating public health to racism.

Do white liberals understand that a disproportionate number of Hispanics and blacks are unvaccinated? Are they deplorable "anti-vaxxers" who don't deserve to go into a restaurant? This policy is literally racist.

No, it's not.  It's a public health policy regardless of how you try to twist it.  Anyone of any race can get in simply by showing proof of vaccination.  If they choose not to get vaccinated, that's their decision but it is not a racist policy.

And vaccines are free. And yes. I wouldn't mind Voter ID laws if IDs were free.

[Person Man]

https://twitter.com/seldo/status/1424746056890281984?s=20

My inner nerd thinks that some regression analysis can predict the true numbers (twirls mustache)

They probably aren't doing horrible unless that was the motive of lying. A regression or nearest-K algorithm probably means its doing as well as Iowa or Colorado.

[Person Man]

Pass on Covid 3rd Booster, don't need it, my Red blood cells are done after first vaccine Jansen

#prayForOlawakandi

Pray for us not being annoyed to death. I’m sick and tired of this virus.

[Person Man]

Our covid ICU is starting to fill up again, all with unvaccinated people. Had three people die in the past 24 hours, none of them would be in that spot with a simple vaccine. I can't even begin to describe how frustrating this is, one patient wanted the vaccine before he was intuabted. These people will go for any exiperiminatal treatment we can throw at them once they get in the ICU, sadly there isn't a whole lot we can offer them once they get to us. It usually ends up being a waiting game to see if their body can overcome it after we intubate, prone and paralyze them.

What stories are you hearing (directly or through other staff) about why these people chose not to get vaccinated?

I think the craziest was a guy that was full of conspiracy theories, didn't think it was real but then claimed that we gave it to him on purpose even though he came to the hospital with all the classic symptoms. His family was even worse, literally blaming us for giving him covid. It was bizarre.

Mostly people just say they didn't get around to it, didn't think it was anything to worry about or some want it to be approved first. I've also had families say that they didn't think covid was real before their loved one got sick. Sadly it takes something traumatic for these people to truly get it.

A full half of the country exhibits classic paranoid schizophrenic behavior.

I've been screaming about this from the top of my lungs the last few years. Finally people are getting it!

[Person Man]

Less than 1% of Americans have schizophrenia. Come on guys.

How do you explain the behavior? There is PROBABLY a benign explanation or some other explanation but this sort of behavior that is being exhibited by so many people isn't what any reasonable person would consider "normal".  I guess if it means anything, people claiming to be abducted by aliens don't really appear to have anything wrong with them if we control for everything else, but then again that isn't a rational end of the story. Either 1) they HAVE been abducted by aliens, 2) there is something wrong with them, or 3) something else is happening that we don't understand and just because we don't understand it doesn't mean everything is OK or that nothing exists.

From all that we know, this is some sort of induced mass psychosis that is connected somehow to the end of a society and the start of another one. Maybe there is some sort of tangible connection between individuals in the societies they identify with. It could be related to the sort of thing that animals freak out about before someone dies, there is a major disaster, or something like that. We really don't know and there is nothing right now that can explain it and it should be studied but we don't even really know how to do that.

[Person Man]

https://twitter.com/sahilkapur/status/1428712218112233472

FWIW, the non-white, esp black, are still disproportionately hospitalized, even though white are probably disproportionately leaning R.

What about professional class and middle class minorities?

[Person Man]

It is EXTREMELY suspicious that Florida’s deaths have dropped dramatically despite a sudden peak that rivaled the other two waves (even with the vaccines) but cases are still at the peak.
Deaths lag behind all other metrics, and that makes sense because it takes time for people to die from Covid. It’s very weird what is happening in Florida, I don’t see a similar trend in any other state so I am puzzled.

Indeed, it looks quite suspicious. It always looks like this though, the reason being that Florida only updates weekly now because DeSantis decided we beat COVID back in June, so it wasn't a priority (a defensible decision at the time).

The thing is though that we didn't really defeat COVID, it came back and now during these surges we're sorta missing data for much of the week, which really sucks, because it'd be pretty swell to have it.


Speaking of which, Florida's weekly report for August 13 - August 19, 2021 was just released.

Here's the full update:

Cumulative Confirmed Cases: 3,027,954

JUL 22 - 2,479,975 (+73,199 New Weekly, +3.04%) (15.7% Positivity Rate)
JUL 29 - 2,590,699 (+110,477 New Weekly, +4.45%) (18.8% Positivity Rate)
AUG 05 - 2,725,450 (+134,506 New Weekly, +5.19%) (19.4% Positivity Rate)
AUG 12 - 2,877,214 (+151,514 New Weekly, +5.56%) (19.6% Positivity Rate)
AUG 19 - 3,027,954 (+150,118 New Weekly, +5.22%) (19.8% Positivity Rate)

Cumulative Confirmed Deaths: 42,252

As for deaths, I'll just show you all the graph, and not the actual numbers, because the numbers, they just don't add up. There's a lack of data here, so older deaths are constantly being added onto the logs, and not all the newer deaths are here yet (last week the August 12 week had only ~700 deaths, now it's at ~1,000).

Image Link

It looks like we've hit a plateau now, though in terms of cases, it remains to be seen when and how fast deaths will now decline. What really sucks, though, is that they don't break down the data by day, so we don't know exactly when it peaks. Once again, lack of data (screw these guys honestly).

The silver lining here is that the most vulnerable, the elderly, are by and large vaccinated, thankfully. It'd be absolutely horrible if they weren't (in terms of deaths and impact).

This probably is why our death numbers (and likely other death numbers across the U.S.) are gonna be way lower than what you may expect based on the case counts, and also are unlikely to reach December/January levels (which were horrific).

And yeah, everybody here has COVID. I probably got it too earlier lol, luckily it just was a sniffle and I didn't spread it much.


Another thing that I'm sure many of you have been waiting for. Florida's deaths per capita (1,922 per million) has surpassed the total United States number (1,877 per million).

:/

The lack of transparency is really ironic but it isn't when you see that a lot of these Elite Republican politicians being trained at Ivy League schools where there are a lot of professors from places like China or Vietnam, where there is an instilment of Confucian Values. That alone accounts for quite a bit for how Republicans behave. The entire Confucian ethos actually fits in well with Western philosophies surrounding things nationalism and very vertical social and economic hierarchies.

[Person Man]

The scariest part of this to me is Florida, because it's more vaccinated than the national average and things are still getting this bad there.  Does not bode well at all for the North in Oct-Dec!  Really hope they crank out those boosters promptly and efficiently, because I suspect no state has reached herd immunity yet.

This is a horribly misleading way, bordering on intentional, of looking at it as the states that are in the 30s-% range are dragging down the national average. The entire Northeast is at or above 70% while Florida is only at 50%--and bear in mind it's only just now reaching that 50% mark, and things were terrible there before that. Not to mention they're a resort state who is acting as if there is no covid which is a recipe for the disaster that's unfolding.

False. VT has highest rate at 67% fully vaccinated vs FL 51%. NY has 58%, and DC has 56%. So FL has similar level comparing with bigger NE states.

Smaller NE states are better, esp if you look at vaccination of older population. Among 65+ VT has 99% (!!), ME has 98% vs Floridas 87%, though slightly better than NY 86% or DC 83%.

I wonder what % of vaccination among medical/nursing home etc personal is. Suspect, that for example NY has higher than FL. Would explain a lot.

Another reasons FL is now hit harder than for instance NY, are climate and that (D) Cuomo already managed to kill grandmas. "Weirdly", it has never really been a big deal among Dem and their media.

If you look at EU, Spain and Portugal that have Florida'ish climate are now in top of vaccination rates and are very good at vaccinating older population (66% of all ages and 92% of 40+ are fully vaccinated, so better than VT) . They've been very strict on useless mask etc, still they are now hit (death per capita) ~20 times harder than Scandinavia that followed science and barely use masks at all.

https://ig.ft.com/coronavirus-vaccine-tracker

I'll agree that climate would explain a lot of the original dynamic. However, it only really appears to be an obstacle at first. Brazil and India have climates like Miami and they started out OK but not now are taking in the whole thing.

[Person Man]

The lack of transparency is really ironic but it isn't when you see that a lot of these Elite Republican politicians being trained at Ivy League schools where there are a lot of professors from places like China or Vietnam, where there is an instilment of Confucian Values. That alone accounts for quite a bit for how Republicans behave. The entire Confucian ethos actually fits in well with Western philosophies surrounding things nationalism and very vertical social and economic hierarchies.

Uhm. I pretty sure that FL had one of the best data reporting. Until lately that is, which is unfortunate. But even now there is no really lack of transparency, but lag. I don't really see why an additional week of lag is that big of problem.

That, of course, has become a bigger matter of opinion.

[Person Man]

The scariest part of this to me is Florida, because it's more vaccinated than the national average and things are still getting this bad there.  Does not bode well at all for the North in Oct-Dec!  Really hope they crank out those boosters promptly and efficiently, because I suspect no state has reached herd immunity yet.

This is a horribly misleading way, bordering on intentional, of looking at it as the states that are in the 30s-% range are dragging down the national average. The entire Northeast is at or above 70% while Florida is only at 50%--and bear in mind it's only just now reaching that 50% mark, and things were terrible there before that. Not to mention they're a resort state who is acting as if there is no covid which is a recipe for the disaster that's unfolding.

False. VT has highest rate at 67% fully vaccinated vs FL 51%. NY has 58%, and DC has 56%. So FL has similar level comparing with bigger NE states.

Smaller NE states are better, esp if you look at vaccination of older population. Among 65+ VT has 99% (!!), ME has 98% vs Floridas 87%, though slightly better than NY 86% or DC 83%.

I wonder what % of vaccination among medical/nursing home etc personal is. Suspect, that for example NY has higher than FL. Would explain a lot.

Another reasons FL is now hit harder than for instance NY, are climate and that (D) Cuomo already managed to kill grandmas. "Weirdly", it has never really been a big deal among Dem and their media.

If you look at EU, Spain and Portugal that have Florida'ish climate are now in top of vaccination rates and are very good at vaccinating older population (66% of all ages and 92% of 40+ are fully vaccinated, so better than VT) . They've been very strict on useless mask etc, still they are now hit (death per capita) ~20 times harder than Scandinavia that followed science and barely use masks at all.

https://ig.ft.com/coronavirus-vaccine-tracker

I'll agree that climate would explain a lot of the original dynamic. However, it only really appears to be an obstacle at first. Brazil and India have climates like Miami and they started out OK but not now are taking in the whole thing.

US and Western Europe are much more similar. There is no doubt that Covid is seasonal, probably depending on people being outside/inside.

The other reason of Portugal/Spain's fall is the re-opening of turism. Forget to mention it. Don't know much about turism in US, though.

It gets waaayyy hotter and colder in the NE and MW than in Europe. The South probably has similar winters to Europe but way hotter in the summer though Emilia Romagna felt just like Northern Florida when I was there for a weekend road trip for cheap dental work in Hungary.

[Person Man]

https://twitter.com/VincentRK/status/1429489529275158531

Heckuva job there, Governor.

This is the cost we pay to punish various "deviants" and "socialists".

[Person Man]

Yeah, if you've been spending more of your time on criticizing FL than NY, NJ and MI, you're a hack.

It was similar last year.

FL got hit hard during Summer - DeathSantis.
MI, IL and CA got hit, perhaps, even harder during Fall/Winter - radio silence.

Real test will be whether CA/NE get hit this winter.
Whether Florida gets hit again next summer.

If North East mostly escapes and this happens again next summer, I suspect that is the scenario where DeSantis is in trouble for reelection. He can survive this if it is in fact the final wave. But if herd immunity is achieved through natural immunity which fades after 9 months, and everyone gets reinfected again next summer and you have 100+ deaths a day going into 2022 elections then there is a huge problem.

That said DeSantis created a lot of his own PR problems here. Had he stopped at opposing lockdowns, blocking enforcement of those, and then let local school boards hang themselves on unpopular mask mandates while also avoiding a clash with Disney/Cruise lines he would be at 60%+. He went in 125% on a winning strategy and ended up taking the fall for things which were entirely foreseeable*

* the blocking of daily data releases on June 4th was an astronomical blunder for all the reasons you note. He proclaimed that Covid was over and therefore there was no need to even monitor it weeks before he should have known a wave was coming and when one was already building in Missouri. Furthermore, he handed control over the narrative, and Florida's daily numbers to the Biden CDC.

DeSantis has played Covid horribly since about May of 2021. Whether that makes him responsible for many if any deaths is more debatable. But virtually all the political damage he is suffering is self-inflicted by really stupid decisions anyone with a room temperature IQ could see would play out the way they did.

Addendum to that. Urban legends about Vaccines causing autism meant a generation of parents whose kids developed symptoms of autism and had a vaccine blamed vaccines for it. Because they like blaming things. Long Covid has horribly defined symptoms which basically include any symptoms of Autism, ADHD, or even being teenager, namely moodyness, low energy, sleeping in, lack of motivation. DeSantis may not have given a single kid long covid. But there are going to be tens of thousands of mothers of whom thousands will be willing to go on TV and in effect say DeSantis crippled my child and gave them ADHD.

There is no requirement for any evidence masks work. All that will be needed is the kid showing any symptoms whatsoever, and for the kid to have tested positive for covid and DeSantis personally will have crippled their kid.

It will definitely test the power (or lack thereof) of the brand in Florida.

[Person Man]

CNN's Donie O'Sullivan speaks to Trump supporters at a rally in Alabama about their decision to not get the Covid-19 vaccine.

Click here to watch ... https://us.cnn.com/videos/business/2021/08/24/donie-osullivan-trump-supporters-ac360-biz-vpx.cnn/video/playlists/coronavirus/

I don't know if a want to laugh or cry or scream-out in anger.
Listening to these people, you would think they just arrived from Mars or something.
One of them, even says he has stocked-up on hydroxychloroquine ... wasn't that like last year's BS miracle?

Now it's what? Livestock dewormer? This isn't how adults act.

[Person Man]

Reported deaths per 1 million pop using the 2020 Census instead of 2019 estimates (which Worldometer and CDC are still using)

1--New Jersey      2882
2--Mississippi       2755
3--New York         2705
4--Arizona            2606
5--Louisiana         2601
6--Massachusetts  2588
7--Rhode Island    2515
8--Alabama          2389
9--South Dakota   2321
10--Connecticut    2310 
11--Arkansas        2241

It still sucks that my state is in first, but Mississippi overtaking New York really is kind of vindicating when it comes to having a comeback for the infamous "Republican Governors can do whatever they want because New York and New Jersey."

So we are at about an infection rate of 12% and a fatality rate of 2%? The numbers add up.

If things were only slightly worse in the R0, fatality rate, or our sh**t response to this, our nation would have been crippled for a decade at least.

[Person Man]

I am not opposed to indoor mask mandates.. like the one Pritzker just imposed..but I am worried of the slippery slope into more restrictions.

From my perspective, as someone who works with the public, I want to see businesses open (which they are) and people masked.

The thing about indoor mask mandates is that they don't actually cost anyone anything.  Almost all businesses can operate as normal with indoor mask mandates.  Here in Seattle most businesses have been requesting that you wear masks even when we didn't have a mandate.

The only ones that it won't work for are like comedy clubs and nightclubs and things like that where the point of the business is to talk or laugh or do something else where a mask doesn't work.

Shuttering businesses and going back to lockdowns obviously comes at a much higher cost.  People are much more willing to accept vaccine mandates than they are to accept a lockdown for Delta.  Especially because the point of the lockdowns was to wait until we had the virus under control, like we'd stay in lockdown until we saw the light at the end of the tunnel.  But now we have the vaccine.  We're at the end of the tunnel.  The virus could end tomorrow.  It only propagates because of idiot anti-vaxxers.  If we enter a lockdown because of the current situation then that lockdown will continue indefinitely until the anti-vaxxers get the vaccine.  And I for one am not willing to endure a lockdown just to coddle the anti-vaxxers.  I think all restrictions should be targeted at them and extremely punitive.  This is all their fault and they deserve society's wrath.

...in the worst way.

[Person Man]

people who defy social pressure in dystopias are based and better people than those who comply or worse, harass others into complying

Don't cut yourself on that edge, mister.

[Person Man]

Report also asserts Covid was not a biological weapon and China did not have foreknowledge before the initial outbreak in Wuhan.

I can believe it was a leak given how defensive the PRC has been about it. It’s better to look “bad” than “dumb”, right?

[Person Man]

The Delta variant is ripping through western Sydney's ethnic communities and starting up in Melbourne. Once in a household, it infects everyone who is unvaccinated.

When Dec 2021-Jan 2022 comes around in the US, watch out:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/health/2021-08-28/nsw-covid-number-high-lockdowns-victoria-cases/100409856

This a previous R factor of 1.3, things were manageable for COVID-19.

But the Delta variant has an estimated R factor of between 5-9. This will be near-impossible to stop in the winter months in the US in Dec/Jan.

It is estimated that in the next 10 years, based on those numbers, every person in the western world will get COVID-19 three times.

What would happen if COVID became as deadly for people under 60 as much as it was for the those over 70?

[Person Man]

https://twitter.com/daithaigilbert/status/1432329444652355587

Mr Steele (no known relation to Christopher Steele of Steele Report fame), was also know for his accusations that NASA operates a Martian child slavery ring.

This is how a lot of children were killed by the Nazis in the Aktion-4 program. They let children rebel against wearing jackets or living properly and a lot of them died of pneumonia. The nazis literally let children die of their disabilities. Just like these folks.

[Person Man]

https://kfor.com/news/local/patients-overdosing-on-ivermectin-backing-up-rural-oklahoma-hospitals-ambulances/

SOUTHEASTERN OKLAHOMA, Okla. (KFOR) – A rural Oklahoma doctor said patients who are taking the horse de-wormer medication, ivermectin, to fight COVID-19 are causing emergency room and ambulance back ups.

This is literally what eugenicists were warning us about 100 years ago.