International COVID-19 Megathread

[Former President tack50]

https://www.twitter.com/ESYudkowsky/status/1425619567703773184

But yeah the world will continue to drive a 500km/h supercar of globalism without the seatbelts and breaks required in their new technical monstrosity, because Western populates got a bit tired of ThE sAnITaRy DiCtAtOrShIp

This is literally a once in a century event though? I do not expect any new pandemics after covid at least until the 22nd century. At that point there will be very few if any Atlas posters left; including myself (doubt I'll live to my 100s). We need those factories and stuff now. We don't need to keep having them in the 2040s or 2050s. There is no need for pandemic preparedness. A pandemic already hit, and the next one isn't due until decades from now

[Former President tack50]

I still don't understand how America's vaccination hesitancy is large enough to overwhelm healthcare systems-deaths should be much lower since most vulnerable people are protected (even more than the average vaccination rate). The wave is clustered disproportionately in the South, but even then, 76% of over 65s in Mississippi are fully vaccinated.

The Delta variant.

My understanding is Delta is more contagious but not necessarily more lethal?

[Former President tack50]

For now ay least, My plans to travel to Italy in january are still on. Does any italian know what are the prospects for entry there in the short term? I have an italian passport by the way Unless there is an outright travel ban or something, I'm still going.

I am not Italian and honestly I have no idea about Italy's actual covid restrictions on entry. However, if you have an Italian passport you will 100% be let in, I am pretty sure countries always let citizens in. Worst case scenario might behaving to do some sort of quarantine at a hotel. Of course a 14 day quarantine would probably be more than enough to kill a hypothetical trip.

[Former President tack50]

Today Catalonia announced their intention to try and get a 1-5 curfew imposed. Needless to say it is stupid. I expect courts to deny their application anyways but the fact that it's still being considered is bad.

Anyways there will be a big meeting of the regional premiers this wednesday where they might anounce stuff.

[Former President tack50]

Article's in German, although it refers to the results of a British study. Bottomline is that the risk of hospitalization with Omicron is only a third of that of Delta.

https://m.tagesspiegel.de/wissen/neue-omikron-daten-hospitalisierung-sinkt-deutlich-variante-greift-lunge-seltener-an/27938452.html

All hail to our new Omicronian overlords.

Well, at least in the short term it does not really matter much that Omicron is 1/3 as severe if it is 3 times as contagious; in the end you end up with the same amount of hospital saturation. Indeed hospitalizations here are already at levels beyond the summer waves, and unless cases end up going down, we will probably be back at the levels of the worst moments of the pandemic, despite vaccinations, exclusively because omicron is ridiculously contagious.

Of course natural immunity probably means that this could be the last wave (or alternatively that future covid waves are even less severe) but this wave looks like it will be just as bad as the ones in winter despite vaccinations since pretty much everyone will catch covid.

Only option for this to not be the case is if somehow ICU usage (or eventually, deaths) do not pick up despite hospitalizations going up. Which could certainly be a possibility, but is far from guaranteed?

And hell even in that "best case scenario", countries should get ready to dramatically ramp up healthcare spending for at least the remainder of the 2020s, unless they want to see hospitals collapsed every year.

[Former President tack50]

WHO says it’s time to lift COVID-19 restrictions calling travel bans “ineffective”

I think that should be up to each individual country. Some may never reopen their borders, and that's okay.

I doubt that Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Germany, France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, and Austria will fully lift their COVID restrictions and border restrictions until COVID cases drop to zero worldwide.

Considering our dependency on tourism, that would be equal to economic suicide,so I am confident we will drop pandemic restrictions at some point