COVID-19 Megathread 6: Return of the Omicron

[GeorgiaModerate]

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution published a blistering editorial on the state's "halting, tepid and overall inadequate" response to the virus.  Worth reading the whole thing.

Georgia's governor must step up on COVID-19

[GeorgiaModerate]

Georgia colleges are starting class this week, with most of them having at least a partial on-campus presence.  Here's a scene from the University of North Georgia this weekend:

https://twitter.com/GAFollowers/status/1294843707485806593

[GeorgiaModerate]

UNC throws in the towel after a week of in-person classes:

https://twitter.com/dailytarheel/status/1295452926362746885

[GeorgiaModerate]

MyPillow CEO-turned-scientist Mike Lindell is selling a miracle death cure:
https://twitter.com/DrGJackBrown/status/1295491801126600704?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoog...
For the best night's sleep in the whole wide world.

I am guessing many people would willingly buy poison pills if he found the right market.

That's not real good for return business, though.

[GeorgiaModerate]

https://twitter.com/reporterdavidj/status/1295833909817729024

[GeorgiaModerate]

https://twitter.com/Anthony/status/1295828516014039041

[GeorgiaModerate]

The Atlanta Peachtree Road Race, which had already been postponed from July 4 to Thanksgiving this year, is going to a virtual format due to COVID-19.  This 10 km race is quite a big deal in the Atlanta area; it's been run every July 4 for the last 50 years through midtown, and is one of the largest foot races in the world (typically 60,000 runners and walkers).  I did it a few times in my younger days.

https://www.ajc.com/peachtree/ajc-peachtree-road-race-will-only-be-run-virtually/ZULNELGIFNAEHC77UCDQP7YZZI/

[GeorgiaModerate]

An aggressive push by Iowa’s pro-Trump governor to reopen schools amid a worsening coronavirus outbreak has descended into chaos, with some districts and teachers rebelling and experts calling the scientific benchmarks used by the state arbitrary and unsafe.

https://www.ajc.com/news/nation-world/iowa-governors-push-to-reopen-schools-descends-into-chaos/5FV6YLL57NHRJA4HD4AK2XHUYM/

[GeorgiaModerate]

An aggressive push by Iowa’s pro-Trump governor to reopen schools amid a worsening coronavirus outbreak has descended into chaos, with some districts and teachers rebelling and experts calling the scientific benchmarks used by the state arbitrary and unsafe.

https://www.ajc.com/news/nation-world/iowa-governors-push-to-reopen-schools-descends-into-chaos/5FV6YLL57NHRJA4HD4AK2XHUYM/

This on top of the storms too? You can do something about this on November 3, Iowa!

Unfortunately, Iowa is safe R at this point.

Iowa polling averages:

RCP: Trump+1.7
538: Trump+1.4
Economist: Trump+1.2

To quote Arthur Dent: This is obviously some strange usage of the word 'safe' that I wasn't previously aware of.

[GeorgiaModerate]

University of Georgia health faculty: Campus is in "grave danger".

[GeorgiaModerate]

Please explain your novel epidemiological theory as to how reducing social contact increases cases and deaths from Covid-19.

Why were there so many more cases when lockdowns were worse (at least in the U.S.)?

Because the lockdowns helped slow down the rate of infection, which in turn slowed down the number of deaths.  But there is a time lag in both of those steps.

When it's hot inside a building, the air conditioning turns on.  It gradually cools off the air temperature and then turns off.  Following your logic, the AC is ineffective because it was hotter in the building while the AC was running than after it turned off.

[GeorgiaModerate]

https://twitter.com/tarahaelle/status/1295524456585207811

[GeorgiaModerate]

Responding to an outcry from medical experts, Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Stephen Hahn on Tuesday apologized for overstating the life-saving benefits of treating COVID-19 patients with convalescent plasma.

Scientists and medical experts have been pushing back against the claims about the treatment since President Donald Trump’s announcement on Sunday that the FDA had decided to issue emergency authorization for convalescent plasma, taken from patients who have recovered from the coronavirus and rich in antibodies.

Trump hailed the decision as a historic breakthrough even though the treatment’s value has not been established. The announcement on the eve of Trump’s Republican National Convention raised suspicions that it was politically motivated to offset critics of the president’s handling of the pandemic.

https://apnews.com/a7f0e8aac34a860ad502912564681b7c

[GeorgiaModerate]

Tuscaloosa closes bars as coronavirus wallops University of Alabama

A sudden spike in new coronavirus cases is threatening to derail on-campus classes at the University of Alabama.

The state’s flagship school reported 531 confirmed cases among students, faculty and staff since classes resumed in Tuscaloosa last week, according to an online COVID-19 dashboard that was unveiled Monday.

[GeorgiaModerate]

COVID-19 cases among children surge in Georgia

The number of Georgians under the age of 18 diagnosed with COVID-19 has jumped 65% in the past month, with more than 21,000 testing positive since March.

[GeorgiaModerate]

Just saying more retail workers have died from anti mask people shooting them down than have people died from covid 19...

That is the most asinine statement I've read on this forum in a long time.  There are over 180,000 deaths from COVID-19 in the U.S., let alone the rest of the world.  Are you seriously suggesting that more than that number of people have been shot by anti-maskers?

[GeorgiaModerate]

What if there is no vaccine? That remains a possibility, although I think it is an unlikely one at this point. The restrictions we are seeing now cannot continue indefinitely.

I think some of our public officials actually would continue them indefinitely - forever if they could. Even if covid is eradicated, I think they'd try to continue some of them. Just because they can.

I don't mean this unkindly, but that is verging on paranoia.

[GeorgiaModerate]

A 25-year-old Nevada man appears to be the first documented case of Covid-19 reinfection in the United States, researchers say.

Genetic tests indicate the patient was infected with two different varieties of the virus, the team at the University of Nevada Reno School of Medicine and the Nevada State Public Health Laboratory reported.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/28/health/covid-19-reinfection-nevada/index.html

[GeorgiaModerate]

I've seen those posts on social media all day how, supposedly, only 9,000 people have died from the virus in the US.

I have too. It's only counting cases with Covid-19 as the sole cause of death; in most cases there were co-morbidities.

I've seen this too. I wonder who the main instigator of this particular information campaign is.

It's dumb.  Would a person who died of pneumonia, cancer, or any other disease not be counted as such because they happened to have high blood pressure or some other comorbidity?  Of course not.

[GeorgiaModerate]

https://twitter.com/DecoherenceWave/status/1300939069610885121

This is not good.

[GeorgiaModerate]

https://twitter.com/DecoherenceWave/status/1300939069610885121
This is not good.

But I was told by Kristi Noem we needed to put on our positive pants!

Unfortunately, the positive pants are counteracted by the negative knickers.

[GeorgiaModerate]

If herd immunity isn't real, how do we explain the decline in cases in places that were already hit the hardest?

It isn't a strategy. It's just something that's already happened. We can't reverse it now that it's happened already.

Cyclical cause and effect.  Places that get hit hard go in for more social distancing (whether mandated or not).  Then when cases understandably go down as a result, social distancing relaxes and cases go back up again.  

Herd immunity has not been reached to any significant degree anywhere in the U.S. except possibly the New York City area.

[GeorgiaModerate]

Penn State football doctor: 30-35% of COVID-19-positive Big Ten athletes had myocarditis

During a State College Area school board of directors meeting on Monday night, Wayne Sebastianelli — Penn State’s director of athletic medicine — made some alarming comments about the link between COVID-19 and myocarditis, particularly in Big Ten athletes. Sebastianelli said that cardiac MRI scans revealed that approximately a third of Big Ten athletes who tested positive for COVID-19 appeared to have myocarditis, an inflammation of the heart muscle that can be fatal if left unchecked.

“When we looked at our COVID-positive athletes, whether they were symptomatic or not, 30 to roughly 35 percent of their heart muscles (are) inflamed,” Sebastianelli said. “And we really just don’t know what to do with it right now. It’s still very early in the infection. Some of that has led to the Pac-12 and the Big Ten’s decision to sort of put a hiatus on what’s happening.”

[GeorgiaModerate]

Interactive map by the New York Times that shows the number of COVID-19 cases at colleges around the country: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/covid-college-cases-tracker.html

[GeorgiaModerate]

Indiana University reports "uncontrolled spread" of COVID-19 among fraternities and sororities.

Mitigation testing positivity rates in some houses are now above 50 percent. As such, IU's team of public health experts is extremely concerned that Greek houses are seeing uncontrolled spread of COVID-19. This poses a significant risk to the nearly 2,600 students currently living in Greek or other communal housing organizations, as well as to the other 42,000 IU Bloomington students, the campus's 12,000 faculty and staff, and the surrounding community.

https://news.iu.edu/stories/2020/09/iub/releases/03-advisory-greek-housing-re-evaluate-living-situation.html