COVID-19 Megathread 6: Return of the Omicron

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

Legit good story:

Oregon health workers stuck in snow give other drivers vaccine

Are these people going to be able to get a second dose?

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

There just aren’t enough people left to be infected for the peak last month to ever look “extremely minor”.

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

Nate makes a good point here.  The goal is not to eradicate COVID completely, which is probably impossible, but to control it to a level that the world can handle with a minimal amount of disruption, much like we do with the flu.

Yet the United States seems to have adopted a "zero covid" approach. Most states haven't lifted restrictions since the vaccine began being issued.

I don’t agree with a “zero covid” approach, but it’s still way too early in the vaccintion process to start lifting restrictions.  This should be done once the majority of the vulnerable population has been fully vaccinated, which is probably 6-8 weeks away.

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

According to worldometers, average cases peaked on Jan. 11 and average deaths peaked on Jan. 26. This 2-week gap is more or less what we would expect.

It is true that since their respective peaks, cases have fallen faster than deaths.  But I don't think this is something to be too concerned about yet given that (a) there will be much more variance in the time between infection and death than the time between infection and case identification, so all trends in deaths may be flattened relative to trends in cases; and (b) it's only been a week since the death peak, so we just don't have much of a sample size yet.

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

According to data in Israel, the Pfizer vaccine is just as effective against the UK strain as the original strain.

https://twitter.com/Coronavirusgoo1/status/1357053962504052742

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

Has anyone found a good link explaining why cases are down so much basically everywhere across the US?  As of today, we will down more than 50% from our national peak less than a month ago.  Some states like South Dakota are down nearly 90%.  But this hasn't been in the news nearly as much as when cases were rising.

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

Behavior change might be part of it. But North and South Dakota went from having the highest case rates to having among the lowest, and it's not like they suddenly went into super-lock down, or even became moderately conscientious from what I can tell.

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

The number of new cases is going down.

Great news! The farmers are getting the blizzards that their crops need in Michigan, driving conditions are getting hazardous, and people won't be out and about spreading COVID-19.

Deaths from COVID-19 are a lagging indicator, although they remain a tragedy. The Grim Reaper has taken more lives in America now than the population of Miami (42nd-largest city in the USA) from COVID-19 alone.

Wear the d@mn mask if you do go out!  

Maybe the vaccines are starting to help, though I think we are going to experience a very potent wave in a few weeks due to the variants (which are vaccine-resistant, can reinfect people, and have a much higher mortality rate).

The Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are 95% effective. Even with a loss of effectiveness due to new strains, it should still at least be 80% effective. The idea that new variants are going to make the vaccines useless is fear mongering.

Some of the data I have read mentions that the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are only 66-72% effective against the UK strain and only 49-57% effective against the South African and Brazilian strains. With how much COVID has spread worldwide over the past year, there are likely thousands of other variants as well, which could be a problem for the vaccines.

Pfizer is just as good against the UK strain as it is the orginal strain.

https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/israel-pfizer-vaccine-effective-covid-u-k-strain-1.9507594

Even if you look at the SA strain, people that have been vaccinated my get Covid but are not dying and are not even being hospitlized. They are limiting severe disease very well.

The UK strain has been in the US for well over a month now....Where is the uncontrolled spread? In states like CO where it was first found, Covid is trending down which to me seems kind of odd of it is as contagious as they say.

Thanks for the clarification! I am definitely a COVID doomer and fear the spread of the disease. It seems that media sources such as CNN, MSNBC, and online blogs are giving into hysteria by always mentioning the COVID strains.

Sadly the media loves to senastionalize things, especially with Covid. This is one of my favorite tweets as of late, show how effective the vaccines are when it comes to preventing severe disease.

https://twitter.com/ashishkjha/status/1356079020878786561

OK, but notice that this table conveniently neglects to mention how many people in each trial were injected with microscopic GPS robots to be tracked by George Soros.

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

https://scitechdaily.com/most-americans-say-theyll-continue-health-precautions-after-the-covid-19-pandemic/

A new national survey of more than 2,000 Americans by The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center finds most plan to continue many of the pandemic precautions in the name of public health, even when the pandemic is over.



The survey found that nearly three-quarters (72%) of Americans plan to continue to wear masks in public, four out of five (80%) will still avoid crowds and 90% plan to keep up frequent handwashing and sanitizer use after COVID-19. Gonsenhauser says it’s encouraging that people are willing to continue these practices and that this year’s flu season is proof of their effectiveness.

Somehow I really doubt this. But let's entertain this for a moment, if this was true, this means the end of conventions and large gatherings

It means the end of every business that requires crowds, including sporting events, theme parks, movie theaters, cruises, and concerts. None of those can survive with only 20% of the public willing to even consider attending them. If it's true, and I seriously doubt it, it means that the minds of Americans have been fundamentally broken by this trauma and there likely is no coming back for this country.

There's no way that poll is even close to true as it is being presented.  Way more than 20% of people were already doing almost nothing to avoid crowds when the pandemic was at its peak.

I know I for one will be going to as many concerts, theaters, casinos, conventions, etc. that I possibly can as soon as I am fully vaccinated.

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

According to this article (preprinted in Nature), the Pfizer vaccine should work almost as well against the South African variant as it does against the original strain, based on observed immune response to several engineered versions of the virus:

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-021-01270-4

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

A poll is a poll. If they think they messed it up they can redo it or reweight or something, but if they think the methodology is sound then you release. You don't hold it back because the results are depressing.

It is really accurate to say they released it?  I can't find any details at all about this poll, such as question wording or methodological details.  I found a link for downloads associated with the poll, but it is just press releases and sound bites.  Why is a medical center even doing a poll?

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

As we have seen in Iowa, some states are completely opening things up already.  And there's going to be huge political pressure to open up everywhere in about two months once we have completed Phase 1 and all vulnerable people and essential workers have had the opportunity to be vaccinated.  At that point, deaths will likely drop to less than 10% of what we are seeing now, and there will really be no reason not to open up at least among people who have been vaccinated.

Fauci said on Meet the Press on Sunday that once J&J is approved, he expects vaccine supply will be able to fully meet demand by April.  And we have contracts to supply enough doses of Pfizer and Moderna alone to vaccinate 300 million people (more than the age 12+ population of the US) by July.

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

To be honest, I’d be OK opening up if we are consistently below 10k new cases nationally. I mean, we’ve done all we can at this point.

It would probably be 5,000 cases per day for me. 10,000 cases per day I would still keep some restrictions in place such as 75% or 80% capacity restrictions.

I’d love to see everywhere limited to 75%-80% capacity permanently regardless of any health considerations.

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

According the new British data, a single dose of the Pfizer vaccine is 79-84% effective.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/02/10/coronavirus-covid-live-updates-us/#link-7D5XR43OCJBFLIUCNVASWN7TKU

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

My own state of Virginia seems like it may be the only big state in the country resisting the nationwide trend of consistently falling cases.  We are below our mid-January peak, but week-over-week cases have now risen 6 of the last 7 days.  And there is no sign of declining deaths yet.  I have no idea whether this is a leading indicator of national trends or a lagging one.

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

I think schools should have reopened long ago. 

But I don't understand why all teachers and school staff wouldn't have already had the opportunity to be vaccinated, and thus there should really be no issue whatsoever.

Are they really states where they haven't been vaccinated yet?  Shouldn't they be the frontest or frontline essential workers?

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

The new CDC Director was on Meet the Press yesterday, and she reiterated what all the research shows about covid within schools: transmission to or by children is very uncommon, and most transmission is staff-to-staff.  Once school employees are vaccinated, keeping schools closed any longer in unconsionable.

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

Here's a good new article from Vox by an epidemiologist summarizing the scientific evidence about covid transmission in schools:

https://www.vox.com/2021/2/15/22280763/kids-covid-vaccine-teachers-unions-schools-reopening-cdc

Everyone who was criticizing virus skeptics last year for not listening to the scientists and doctors should start following their own advice on the issue of school reopening.

Lately I've been hearing a bunch of arguments from people who are irrationally afraid of covid in schools based on conspiracy theories and speculation completely unsupported by evidence.  This can be just as damaging as conspiracies and irrational arguments on the other side like "Plandemic" or the collodial silver cure.

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

US life expectancy dropped a full year in first half of 2020, according to CDC

Life expectancy in the US dropped a full year in the first half of 2020, according to a report published Thursday by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Health Statistics. Experts say that Covid-19 was a significant factor contributing to the decline.

The life expectancy for the entire US population fell to 77.8 years, similar to what it was in 2006, CDC data shows.

Changes to life expectancy also widened racial and ethnic inequities. Compared to 2019, life expectancy for non-Hispanic Black people in the US fell about three times what it did for non-Hispanic White people, by 2.7 years. It fell by twice as much for Hispanic people, by 1.9 years.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/18/health/life-expectancy-fell-pandemic/index.html

I read this article, and I can’t understand where this calculation is coming from. 

Covid has killed about 0.15% of Americans.  If the deaths were equally spread across all age groups, whis would result in an overall decline in life expectancy of about 0.05 years.  And since the deaths were heavily weighted toward older people, this number is actually much, much lower. 

The article says it also accounts for things like drug overdoses and alcoholism as a result of the shut downs, but these would have to be like 100x more deadly than the actual virus for the total to make sense.

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

A new study in New England Journal of Medicine shows that getting just one dose of both Pfizer and Moderna is 92 percent effective after just two weeks.  

https://news.yahoo.com/pfizer-moderna-vaccines-prove-92-193917869.html

It’s so frustrating that we’ve been so rigid about this and have insisted on basically wasting half of our vaccine supply while it is still so scarce.

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

A new study in New England Journal of Medicine shows that getting just one dose of both Pfizer and Moderna is 92 percent effective after just two weeks.  

https://news.yahoo.com/pfizer-moderna-vaccines-prove-92-193917869.html

It’s so frustrating that we’ve been so rigid about this and have insisted on basically wasting half of our vaccine supply while it is still so scarce.

Their original studies said the 1st dose was only 52% effective, according to the article. You can't blame Moderna and Pfizer insisting on two doses if that's what their original research said.

Their original research supported the same conclusion as this study; it also found almost 90% effectiveness of one dose after two weeks.  The 52% figure that kept getting quoted was evaluating the effectiveness of the first dose starting immediately after the vaccine was given.

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

Cases today crossed a threshold that seemed meaningful to me, though maybe not anyone else: 

For the first time since late October, average cases are now below the peak of the -second- wave in late July. 

So we can no longer say the case numbers are still worse than anything we saw over the summer.

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

For some reason Virginia recorded record deaths totals each of the last two days, without any real explanation. 

I wouldn’t be surprised if week-over-week cases see a slightly increase the next couple days even if the overall trend remains downward given the holiday last weekend.

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

I’ll remind everyone of my post from last night:

I wouldn’t be surprised if week-over-week cases see a slight increase the next couple days even if the overall trend remains downward given the holiday last weekend.

I actually expect we’ll see the biggest case jump tomorrow.

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

2/22 (Today): <M>

• Cases: 28,826,307 (+60,884 | ΔW Change: ↑8.27% | Σ Increase: ↑0.21%)
• Deaths: 512,590 (+1,457 | ΔW Change: ↑41.59% | Σ Increase: ↑0.29%)

sh**t

Last week was Presidents' Day so the normal holiday backlog occurred. This is expected.

It's not listed as a backlog in Worldometers, but I suppose that it's possible. Let's see what the rest of the week looks like.

The week-over-week holiday trend isn't backlog exactly.  It's just that the previous week's cases were irregularly low, so even if we were getting a normal number of cases this week (or a steady trend in case decrease), they are going to look higher relative to last week.

Generally, cases have been decreasing about 20% per week for the last 6 weeks.  But last Monday and Tuesday, they decreased about 40% due to recording irregularities from the holiday.  If the real trend of 20%/week were still ongoing, we should expect cases to decline this week 36% compared to two weeks ago, but actually increase 4% compared to last week.