International COVID-19 Megathread

[Zinneke]

Hopefully this is the last winter? You mean like last year we did a 6 month autumn-winter curfew because " it won't happen every year"...sorry but I don't believe for a second that we won't see similar case loads every winter/ travel period followed by a government response...how about addressing some structural issues like increasing healthcare capacity? Or prioritising vaccinated people for ICU beds?

Can we just aknowledge that had the big pharma people not found a vaccine (unlikely I know) there would be a case for locking down every single winter until we did, to save healthcare capacity? Instead of actually, increasing it?!

Just an example, Belgium STILL has a numerous fixus for medical students despite the pandemic exposing how strained health workers are.

Yeah, the bottom line is that doing this every winter is not going to be acceptable to most people.

Not only that, what's unacceptable is how some things get banned and other things are just casually allowed. Case in point : the whole Christmas office party is allowed in UK but work from home is enforced. people are still allowed to pray indoors in a non-ventilated room, or have beers in in Belgium in a café by the hundreds yet just now my Church, the football stadium, has been ordered to be fan free despite being open air. There is zero logic to any of this other than who has the best lobbyist to keep their sector open (and I sympathize with every industry and cultural organisation, including churches, affected). It's just a total bust and when a real pandemic comes knocking or when real measures will be necessary for other catastrophic events social compliance will be at an all time low because of how insane the communication and saturation of our patience has unraveled.

Never has the word Omnishambles been so adequate in the way the public health and politicians have struggled with this.

[President Johnson]

Great Britain for the first time in a while reports over 100,000 new cases in a single day. Omicron is dominating now.

[Silent Hunter]

Great Britain for the first time in a while reports over 100,000 new cases in a single day. Omicron is dominating now.

First time full stop - we didn't do mass testing during the first wave, but it was estimated to be around 200,000 at the peak there.

[Pericles]

Great Britain for the first time in a while reports over 100,000 new cases in a single day. Omicron is dominating now.

First time full stop - we didn't do mass testing during the first wave, but it was estimated to be around 200,000 at the peak there.

Wouldn't infections have been higher in the second wave though? Care homes were better protected then, and hospitals had better treatments, so the death toll being even higher had to be because infections were so overwhelming even though they skewed a bit younger.

[Vaccinated Russian Bear]

Great Britain for the first time in a while reports over 100,000 new cases in a single day. Omicron is dominating now.

First time full stop - we didn't do mass testing during the first wave, but it was estimated to be around 200,000 at the peak there.

And now there is estimation there is up to 1,000,000 million a day in UK.

[CumbrianLefty]

Great Britain for the first time in a while reports over 100,000 new cases in a single day. Omicron is dominating now.

First time full stop - we didn't do mass testing during the first wave, but it was estimated to be around 200,000 at the peak there.

And now there is estimation there is up to 1,000,000 million a day in UK.

Erm sorry.....but what??

[Vaccinated Russian Bear]

Great Britain for the first time in a while reports over 100,000 new cases in a single day. Omicron is dominating now.

First time full stop - we didn't do mass testing during the first wave, but it was estimated to be around 200,000 at the peak there.

And now there is estimation there is up to 1,000,000 million a day in UK.

Erm sorry.....but what??

I was wrong, my bad. It wasn't an estimation, but just a model from Dec 13th.


https://www.ft.com/content/d69a0a68-d5ac-4ac3-98ac-1bbceec513b6
How did the UK reach 200,000 Omicron infections in one day?
Scientists warn rates of coronavirus variant will continue to rise ‘like a rocket’

Health secretary Sajid Javid sent shockwaves through parliament on Monday when he revealed that an estimated 200,000 people in the UK had been infected with the Omicron coronavirus variant that day.

If Omicron infections continue to double every 2.5 days, as current estimates suggest, there will be a million people infected this coming Sunday alone.

[Frodo]

https://twitter.com/NoahCRothman/status/1474376875023683590

[CumbrianLefty]

Its endemic, but its becoming less serious. As predicted by some from the beginning.

[Meclazine for Israel]

Western Australia's first community outbreak will occur today:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-12-24/covid-rules-in-wa-explainer-mask-rules-close-contact/100724706

A single person, an infected French backpacker from Queensland came into fortress WA and spread the virus in a night club and food hall.

I thought you had to be double vaccinated to travel into WA, but clearly not.

2 Million people on edge as 5 cases detected on Dec 24.

In 3 days, that could go to 500. Luckily, we are 87% double vaccinated.

[It’s so Joever]

Deaths rising in South Africa.

[Pericles]

Obviously you don't try eliminate it forever because the cost is not worth it even if it were achievable compared to simply living with it as a normal disease. However, how you live with it is the real question, the Covid case loads and death tolls in many countries remain above what you would tolerate from seasonal flu. We will get there and some countries sooner than others, but I think it's about easing into it rather than expecting it all be solved in a single day.

[Middle-aged Europe]

New contact restrictions ahead in Germany. While I support the measure, the pandemic is so tiresome. Hopefully this is the last winter we're having this. The vaccine mandate needs to come.

https://twitter.com/dwnews/status/1473351742272294926

https://twitter.com/NoahCRothman/status/1474376875023683590

Personally, I know a few people who by now have literally gone from "more compliant with COVID restrictions than me" to "less compliant with COVID restrictions than me". It was a combination of the expectation that the pandemic would have ended by fall 2021 (as it had in fact been promised by a couple of leading politicians) and the fact that the aforementioned people are by now triple-vaccinated - leading to a "leave me alone" attitude - that broke the camel's back.

[Hammy]

Deaths rising in South Africa.

Already going down

[CumbrianLefty]

When this is (finally) over, how some of the political left became evangelists for endless lockdowns (in some cases actual Zero Covid) at the least excuse is going to be worthy of investigation.

[Silent Hunter]

A game I've started playing later is counting the number of Covid-19 people credited in TV shows.

[Mike88]

Portugal update:

Health officials have reduced the number of days of isolation from 10 to 7. Also, people who contacted with an infected person but have already a booster dose of the vaccine don't have to isolate. Those without a booster shot would still have to isolate.

Cases have been growing in Portugal, a record 28,659 new cases today, but testing has been massive, with big lines in testing centers across the country, with some days with more the 300,000 tests conducted. In the last 10 days, more than 2,173,000 tests were conducted. Deaths continue low, as well hospitalizations and ICUs.

[Middle-aged Europe]

A number of Germany's top virologists - including Christian Drosten and Hendrick Streeck - have showed themselves cautiously optimisic with regards to Omicron and the preliminary data coming out of South Africa and the UK pointing to a higher prevalence of milder cases. While this makes another full lockdown less likely and is seen as the early beginning of the endemic phase, they also stress though that the current level of COVID restrictions will likely be necessary till Easter or so.

[CumbrianLefty]

A number of Germany's top virologists - including Christian Drosten and Hendrick Streeck - have showed themselves cautiously optimisic with regards to Omicron and the preliminary data coming out of South Africa and the UK pointing to a higher prevalence of milder cases. While this makes another full lockdown less likely and is seen as the early beginning of the endemic phase, they also stress though that the current level of COVID restrictions will likely be necessary till Easter or so.

Given the apparent speed with which Omicron is going through the populace, quite possibly not.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Covid booster 88% effective against hospital treatment with Omicron: https://www.bbc.com/news/health-59840524

[It’s so Joever]

If some of the trends in South Africa hold up, I believe humans will be able to transition into a more pre-Covid esque way of life. Let’s keep watch, deaths did rise over a 7 day period yesterday and today, but both of those were so close to Christmas last week that I suspect the count may have been deflated last time.

[WMS]

Official COVID death toll: 5.4 million

Economist estimate of actual deaths: 18.6 million to 21.7 million.

[Pericles]

Official COVID death toll: 5.4 million

Economist estimate of actual deaths: 18.6 million to 21.7 million.

Technically it's 11.7-21.7 million with 18.6 as the median, but it's an incredibly sad number. It will take a long time to accurately quantify the true toll of the pandemic, if that ever happens. I suppose the best that can be done is to step up every effort to prevent another pandemic like this or worse in our lifetimes.

[Silent Hunter]

The ZOE Covid tracker in the UK suggests a slowing of infection growth there.

[MATTROSE94]

The ZOE Covid tracker in the UK suggests a slowing of infection growth there.

That means Omicron should peak in the US around the middle of January considering that the UK is a few weeks ahead of the US regarding COVID.