COVID-19 Megathread 6: Return of the Omicron

[Person Man]

Australia (NSW and VIC) just had the highest two days of infections since the outbreak began.

We have about 4-6 weeks to wait before the warm weather comes back and the vaccinations start to take effect.

It will be interesting to find out if natural immunity to COVID-19 is more long lasting than Pfizer, Moderna or Astra Zeneca.

The people who have already been infected will be OK.

People who are vaccinated will be OK.

And then the humid Australian summer massively reduces transmission rates outdoors.

The weather at first helped and Florida but now it’s not.

[Person Man]

https://twitter.com/accnetwork/status/1433916233599143944

Resistance libs getting up in arms about this video without realizing that Virginia Tech has a vaccine mandate.

This is what you can do with a vaccine mandate.

[Person Man]

It's interesting how much lower vaccination rates are in Oregon and Colorado vs. most of the NE.  Are they running into the more traditional organic granola anti-vax types in Oregon?   

Florida continues to be the only above average Trump state.  Texas is getting close and had quite an upswing recently, so it might get there this month.

Virginia really stands out vs. the rest of the South, but VA doesn't provide county level data, so this could just be because the D.C. area is at 85% or something.

New Mexico has the most impressive performance outside of the NE states. 

South Dakota is doing way better than North Dakota.

Kentucky is doing particularly well compared to its neighbors.

Andy Beshear.

[Person Man]

When you go get your third COVID booster shot, ask for Moderna:

https://twitter.com/business/status/1432548424067518465

This explains why those of us who took Pfizer had far less side-effects than those who had the other vaccines -and why it has a hidden cost:

https://twitter.com/DrJasmineParker/status/1435682376282161159

Hence the need for a booster apparently.

[Person Man]

I shared some links and commentary in the since-deleted thread on the pre-print study release on myocarditis in teenage boys that the Guardian and other infotainment outlets are sensationalizing.

That post is now lost because the thread was deleted either by forum moderators or OP, but here is a Twitter thread that gets into the details:

https://twitter.com/AngryCardio/status/1437023653443608577?s=20

Critical points:

1) I don’t think it’s reasonable to give estimates for the frequency of myocarditis/pericarditis based in this data set. No amount of adjustments will work.

2) It follows that comparison to COVID hospitalization rates are misplaced.

The media has been desperate for opportunities to sensationalize the dangers of the vaccine. First it was risks to pregnant women, then it was risks to reproductive health, then it was the 2 per million risk of often non-fatal blood clotting with J&J, then it was Guillain Barre, then it was decreased antibodies, and now it's this. There'll be more.

The press needs to be held accountable for killing people.

[Person Man]

It's official: 1 in 500 Americans has died of COVID.

Wut about muh aborshun?

[Person Man]

It's official: 1 in 500 Americans has died of COVID.

Wut about muh aborshun?

I am pro-choice but come on.

Anyways if you care (you don't and were just looking for a cheap shot presumably) in 2018 there were 620k abortions in the US. Assuming it has remained constant and linearly scaling to 18 months would imply 930k abortions since the start of covid.

Since the start of the pandemic meanwhile 664k Americans have died. Of course this doesn't get into the whole excess deaths debate.

So the number of Americans killed by Covid and the number of would-be Americans killed by abortion (if you thought abortion is murder; which I don't) is at least roughly in the same ballpark; with abortions probably being higher

No. I am just giving people a hard time. I did see a conservative meme on Facebook comparing Covid to abortion though.

[Person Man]

They said there are risks to distributing boosters too soon, including the potential for side effects such as a rare heart inflammation condition known as myocarditis, which is more common after the second dose of mRNA vaccines.

“If unnecessary boosting causes significant adverse reactions, there could be implications for vaccine acceptance that go beyond COVID-19 vaccines,” they wrote.
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/09/13/covid-booster-shots-data-shows-third-shots-not-appropriate-at-this-time-scientists-conclude.html

BTW... This week, my mother and I are currently dealing with Covid-19.  She was very sick on Wednesday with a fever and vomiting, but I took a risk driving her up to get one of those shots.  She was better the next day despite being immunocompromised.  Saved her life.  My sister in-law also had the same results the next day.  I know dozens of people that recovered immediately after taking the shot.  People over 65 that were vaccinated and unvaccinated. 

Anyone that is against monocholoidal antibodies is a complete F-ing idiot.  The science demonstrates that it works.  I've seen it work.  Democrats need STFU about this treatment.  It is saving lives.  It is so effective that even crazy Vaxxer-Nazis are taking it.  50% of monocholoidal antibody patients are vaccinated, and that's almost as many people that are vaccinated in my state. 

Stem cell research saves lives but treatment is not an alternative to prophylactics. A treatment oriented approach would encourage irresponsibility. It’s definitely great that it exists but it isn’t a replacement. It’s ironic that nationalists are now treating their COVID this way.

[Person Man]

Last century saw both "people being told to do "the right" thing" by "experts" along with resulting piles of corpses. Why tf would anyone sane or historically informed listen to "experts"?

What are you talking about

He’s going Godwin.

[Person Man]

A few weeks ago, I posted a ranking from a spreadsheet that estimates the percentage of people who are immune in every state, based on vaccination and case numbers found on websites. This is the latest ranking, which I just compiled:

New Mexico   87.64
Rhode Island   86.04
Arizona   84.85
Florida   84.55
New Jersey   84.11
New York   82.48
Massachusetts   82.28
Connecticut   81.97
Mississippi   81.91
Georgia   81.48
Nevada   81.24
California   80.89
Texas   80.87
Lousiana   80.25
Alabama   80.05
Delaware   79.61
Arkansas   79.50
Tennessee   78.74
District of Columbia   78.55
South Dakota   78.45
Oklahoma   77.98
Maryland   77.83
Illinois   77.53
Puerto Rico   77.44
South Carolina   77.02
Colorado   76.79
Kentucky   76.48
Pennsylvania   76.05
Kansas   75.75
North Dakota   75.27
Vermont   74.92
Maine   74.62
Virginia   74.51
Utah   74.26
Washington   74.21
North Carolina   74.06
Iowa   74.05
Wyoming   73.77
Wisconsin   73.30
Michigan   73.21
Minnesota   73.09
Nebraska   72.79
Indiana   72.39
Montana   72.25
New Hampshire   71.78
Oregon   70.77
West Virginia   70.18
Missouri   70.02
Idaho   69.98
Alaska   69.74
Ohio   69.17
Hawaii   67.98

It should be ending soon then right?

[Person Man]

It should be ending soon then right?

It almost has to. Some of the states with a higher number (such as Florida) seem to be dropping quite a bit.

We don't know length of natural immunity. Which is partially linked to horrible data collection on reinfection, which is not a conspiracy. The UK for instance does not consider 2nd infections to be distinct "cases".

We will know a lot more, sadly, in about a year.

1. How bad will things be in the Northeast this winter?
2. Will the SEC states have another, smaller, winter surge like last year? On top of this one.
3. Will the SEC states have a another one next summer and will it be bigger or smaller than this one?

By “SEC” states, you mean the Bible Belt. If this thing is going to end, I’d expect it to be substantially weaker as we head into October and November. None of this crap about the news getting jammed with gender reveal parties turning into a scene at the ER after a 100 car pile up.

If this vaccine/herd immunity deal doesn’t work, that basically leaves us with Regeneron or something that’s going to be a slow motion Civilization Ender.

[Person Man]

Most death tolls are an undercount but I don't see why Florida's would be particularly large.

There are suspicions that there might be and though they were somewhat addressed to a point, it was done in such an authoritarian way that I feel there is still an element of “trust me, broh” with the statistics.

[Person Man]

The US death toll from Covid-19 just surpassed that of the 1918 flu pandemic

Despite all the scientific and medical advances of the past 103 years, the Covid-19 pandemic has now killed more Americans than the 1918 flu pandemic did.

More than 675,000 people in the United States have died from Covid-19, according to Johns Hopkins University. That surpasses the estimated US death toll from the deadliest pandemic of the 20th century.

"If you would have talked to me in 2019, I would have said I'd be surprised," said epidemiologist Stephen Kissler of the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health.

"But if you talked to me in probably April or May 2020, I would say I would not be surprised we'd hit this point."

https://www.cnn.com/2021/09/20/health/us-covid-deaths-surpass-1918-pandemic/index.html

This is the official death toll from Covid -19 so far, the actual number are much higher as alot of them don't get counted

Population adjustment would suggest that far, far fewer Americans have died of COVID-19 than the Spanish flu. 

Still more people have died whether the national fatality rate is .25% or .75%. There’s also 100 years of medical progress to consider. All taken into account, the situation is about as dangerous.

[Person Man]

It's getting very late in the game-vaccinated people who have done everything right need to be able to live normal lives. If one more month would save lives then sure, but this can't go on forever. Very soon, there is no alternative but to let it rip among the unvaccinated-if they die sorry but they should have taken more personal responsibility for their health.

Except then the virus will mutate into a form that is immune to all our vaccines. Plus the unvaccinated are filling up hospitals to the point that vaccinated people are indirectly dying from other things.

If you want restrictions to continue because of the possibility of mutations then you're essentially asking for eternal COVID restrictions, and I wish that people in your political sphere would just bite the bullet and admit that this is what you're calling for.

For me, the major remaining question is this winter.  If we get through the holiday gathering season without chaos in the healthcare system in the cold but highly vaccinated states, that's the signal that people should move on from COVID and resume their normal lives. 

I would call that the end of pandemic.

[Person Man]

Let’s see what the new weeks, numbers say.

[Person Man]

'Vigilante treatments': Anti-vaccine groups push people to leave ICUs

Anti-vaccine Facebook groups have a new message for their community members: Don’t go to the emergency room, and get your loved ones out of intensive care units.

Consumed by conspiracy theories claiming that doctors are preventing unvaccinated patients from receiving miracle cures or are even killing them on purpose, some people in anti-vaccine and pro-ivermectin Facebook groups are telling those with Covid-19 to stay away from hospitals and instead try increasingly dangerous at-home treatments, according to posts seen by NBC News over the past few weeks.

The messages represent an escalation in the mistrust of medical professionals in groups that have sprung up in recent months on social media platforms, which have tried to crack down on Covid misinformation. And it’s something that some doctors say they’re seeing manifest in their hospitals as they have filled up because of the most recent delta variant wave.

I suppose this is a good thing because if this gains traction, then ICU spaces are preserved for people who deserve them. Eating sh**t and dying to own the libs must be the new fad. Maybe they think Trump is still the president and that they need to keep the COVID numbers low so their glorious leader doesn't look bad. 

The fact that we now have people nebulizing hydrogen f***ing peroxide because they refuse to get the vaccine really does a lot to show just how bad a place we are in as a society when it comes to misinformation and delusional pseudo-populist fanaticism against scientific expertise.

I really don't know how we fix this, and it scares me. This is the sort of thing that five years ago, if I had made it up as a caricature of anti-vaxxers, it would have been considered too over-the-top and unrealistic.

Either the willful idiocy eventually dies back down to much lower levels, or society eventually collapses under the weight of it.

I saw something in Medium today about what a “post-society America” would look like. I imagine it being that the life I led in between school becomes the norm for most people.

[Person Man]

'Vigilante treatments': Anti-vaccine groups push people to leave ICUs

Anti-vaccine Facebook groups have a new message for their community members: Don’t go to the emergency room, and get your loved ones out of intensive care units.

Consumed by conspiracy theories claiming that doctors are preventing unvaccinated patients from receiving miracle cures or are even killing them on purpose, some people in anti-vaccine and pro-ivermectin Facebook groups are telling those with Covid-19 to stay away from hospitals and instead try increasingly dangerous at-home treatments, according to posts seen by NBC News over the past few weeks.

The messages represent an escalation in the mistrust of medical professionals in groups that have sprung up in recent months on social media platforms, which have tried to crack down on Covid misinformation. And it’s something that some doctors say they’re seeing manifest in their hospitals as they have filled up because of the most recent delta variant wave.

I suppose this is a good thing because if this gains traction, then ICU spaces are preserved for people who deserve them. Eating sh**t and dying to own the libs must be the new fad. Maybe they think Trump is still the president and that they need to keep the COVID numbers low so their glorious leader doesn't look bad. 

The fact that we now have people nebulizing hydrogen f***ing peroxide because they refuse to get the vaccine really does a lot to show just how bad a place we are in as a society when it comes to misinformation and delusional pseudo-populist fanaticism against scientific expertise.

I really don't know how we fix this, and it scares me. This is the sort of thing that five years ago, if I had made it up as a caricature of anti-vaxxers, it would have been considered too over-the-top and unrealistic.

Either the willful idiocy eventually dies back down to much lower levels, or society eventually collapses under the weight of it.

I saw something in Medium today about what a “post-society America” would look like. I imagine it being that the life I led in between school becomes the norm for most people.

I would say eventually we get to Idiocracy levels of stupidity.

We’d lose about 90% of our population due to starvation long before then. The documentary Earth 2100 is far more likely than that though I know this is a joke but still.

[Person Man]

'Vigilante treatments': Anti-vaccine groups push people to leave ICUs

Anti-vaccine Facebook groups have a new message for their community members: Don’t go to the emergency room, and get your loved ones out of intensive care units.

Consumed by conspiracy theories claiming that doctors are preventing unvaccinated patients from receiving miracle cures or are even killing them on purpose, some people in anti-vaccine and pro-ivermectin Facebook groups are telling those with Covid-19 to stay away from hospitals and instead try increasingly dangerous at-home treatments, according to posts seen by NBC News over the past few weeks.

The messages represent an escalation in the mistrust of medical professionals in groups that have sprung up in recent months on social media platforms, which have tried to crack down on Covid misinformation. And it’s something that some doctors say they’re seeing manifest in their hospitals as they have filled up because of the most recent delta variant wave.

I suppose this is a good thing because if this gains traction, then ICU spaces are preserved for people who deserve them. Eating sh**t and dying to own the libs must be the new fad. Maybe they think Trump is still the president and that they need to keep the COVID numbers low so their glorious leader doesn't look bad. 

I have no objection to this.

These people keep insisting COVID is "just the flu" so if they really want to stick to their principles, they shouldn't be going to the hospital at all, since virtually no one ever needs the ICU for influenza.

I know people who have had necessary surgeries and procedures delayed because the COVID people are overcrowding the hospitals. So if they'll just stop going there, they'll free up the space for the rest of us.

While I agree with your sentiment, the bolded part is completely, 100% false. A bad flu can very well put you in the ICU. I vividly remember an old teacher of mine who got the flu, developed pneumonia and was completely absent for a full month, including a stay at the hospital. She did recover to full health thankfully, though she was quite wean and short of breath for a month after coming back

You know what he meant. It wasn’t to trivialize flu was to trivialize  the pandemic.

This isn’t the worst pandemic in a century, it’s the worst pandemic in this country’s history. Period. If it’s not under control by the end of the year it will probably have killed more people than AIDS has.

[Person Man]

When do we get our weekly update?

[Person Man]

https://twitter.com/DrJBhattacharya/status/1442656553845334016

https://twitter.com/ianmSC/status/1444031277577891844

Ron LifeSantis

Where do these demented nutjobs get this stuff? There are literally no lockdowns in California and in fact through most of the state, authorities are refusing to enforce what few measures exist.

Then why was there a spike? Spikes ordinarily come down with no prompting.

If there’s no cause to problems, there’s no solution to problems. If there’s no solutions, there’s no problems.

[Person Man]

Fascinating visualization:

https://twitter.com/JohnHolbein1/status/1446952172818731019

You can map the mental and moral decline of parts of the country now in real time. Really cool. I’m only being 70% sarcastic.

[Person Man]

Greg Abbott issues executive order banning vaccine mandates for private businesses

https://www.texastribune.org/2021/10/11/texas-greg-abbott-covid-19-vaccine-mandate/

Not sure that he actually has the ability to do this, but nonetheless, what a POS.

Incredibly based. Great to see Republicans breaking the shackles of free market economics.

“For” or “Of”?

[Person Man]

We haven’t had a weekly COVID update in a while.

[Person Man]

https://twitter.com/EricTopol/status/1457438899580456968

Also, given what is happening in Europe now, I think, that another mini-wave is coming to US soon.

Luckily those heavily hit areas are sparsely populated and relatively well vaccinated.

[Person Man]

COVID-19 hospitalizations rising in parts of California, a potentially ominous sign

https://www.msn.com/en-us/weather/topstories/covid-19-hospitalizations-rising-in-parts-of-california-a-potentially-ominous-sign/ar-AAQuNrG

Article clearly states that rates are flat in heavily vaccinated areas. More COVID scaremongering from the sensationalist msm.

Yes, but the article is from sensationalist LA Times, not MSM (they only re-published it). Credit where credit is due.

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-11-09/covid-19-hospitalizations-rising-in-parts-of-california-a-potentially-ominous-sign

The rate of increase in cases last fall and winter peaked right about this time last year, incidentally. Right now, we're not nearly as bad as we were a year ago.

The peak was in January.

The peak of the actual numbers was in January, but the peak of the rate it was increasing was in November.

The summer's peak rate this year was "postponed" compared to last year? No idea, though, if it was just by chance, or by some weather-to-behavior related reasons. No idea, if it means, the fall peak rate might be "postponed" as well, either.

If anything, Fall probably came sooner this year than last. The tropics went from super active to dead that last week of September.