COVID-19 Megathread 6: Return of the Omicron

[Hammy]

Chicago schools are said to be mandating masks for everyone whether vaccinated or not.

How do they expect to enforce this?

If you're not wearing a mask you get sent home?

But they're getting rid of remote "learning."

I'm assuming they'll just force them to wear masks in much the same way they'd be forced to remain in their seats or go to class on time. Sending them home isn't unprecedented because schools are able to send students or staff home if they have head lice or contagious conditions like chickenpox, but in those cases the students clearly are unwell and contagious and not capable of safely learning. In this case, there's a presumption of "guilt" (or rather, infection) regardless of evidence.  

The generation after Gen Z will be lifelong Republicans because of this.

You clearly have not talked with a child in years.

Democrats are starting to become the establishment, no fun allowed, moralizing party just like the GOP was in my youth. Sure they're the better option for now because we need universal healthcare and the GOP is majority Trump cult but I can definitely see their overzealousness on COVID restrictions biting them in the ass soon.

Sad thing is this isn't even new--I still remember the Dems pushing to ban violent video games even decades ago.

[pppolitics]

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/not-swayed-experts-or-dolly-tennessee-vaccination-rates-stall-delta-n1274782

[emailking]

Interesting the teen who is vaccinated thinks parents should be able to veto the decision, and the one who isn't thinks they shouldn't be able to

[jimrtex]

Interesting the teen who is vaccinated thinks parents should be able to veto the decision, and the one who isn't thinks they shouldn't be able to

They are both adults.

The issue in Tennessee was likely HPV vaccination which were being promoted to teenagers in high schools.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

https://twitter.com/propublica/status/1418973616608268289

[pbrower2a]

https://twitter.com/propublica/status/1418973616608268289

It has to be one of the most depressing lines of work in America. If one bonds with one's elderly clients because they have tales to tell, one sees them degenerate and die. I've been heavily involved in care for elderly parents who died of degenerative diseases... and I wouldn't wish that upon my worst enemy. I have nothing against my worst enemy's parents.

People who hate their jobs often show a sort of death wish. I have often seen retail clerks (I have done that job and hated life while doing so) go out for a smoking break. Cancerettes aren't cheap, and if one can't find something less harmful, like pop music, one has to have big trouble. 

[afleitch]

Scotland is probably the first 'first world' country where Delta slammed hard. Cases are going down now. The key is vaccination, both doses and fast.

[Florida Man for Crime]

This is a follow-up from another thread, but it seems like it belongs more in this thread than in the one about NYC mask mandates, because this is really about broader issues with vaccine efficiency potentially declining over time and the potential need for booster shots.

More info on the Israel study:

https://www.timesofisrael.com/israeli-uk-data-offer-mixed-signals-on-vaccines-potency-against-delta-strain/

The Israeli statistics also appeared to paint a picture of protection that gets weaker as months pass after vaccination, due to fading immunity. People vaccinated in January were said to have just 16% protection against infection now, while in those vaccinated in April, effectiveness was at 75%.

Doctors note that such figures may not only reflect time that has passed since vaccination, but also a bias according to which those who vaccinated early were often people with health conditions and who are more prone to infection, such as the elderly.

Davidovitch stressed that all figures should be treated as preliminary and with limited relevance given the relatively small numbers of positive patients at the moment. “It’s quite early to comment, as the number of positive people is still quite low,” he said.

A lot that the Bloomberg article and our resident misinformation spreader intentionally left out.

(edited as quote was instead hyperlinked)

FWIW the Israeli data which indicates significantly decreasing vaccine efficacy after ~6 months or so, and other data from the UK which does not indicate much decrease in vaccine efficacy may BOTH be correct.

There are a few factors that may explain that seeming paradox.

First, in Israel they generally administered second doses 3-4 weeks after the first dose (which had been what the initial vaccine trials tested). However, subsequent studies found that a longer time between doses was more effective, more like 8-12 weeks.

Whereas in the UK, they adopted a strategy of trying to give out as many first doses as possible to try to build up partial immunity in a larger part of the population (rather than strong immunity in a smaller part of the population). The result of this was that second doses tended to be delayed longer, and ended up being administered on average in something more like that 8-12 week optimal time period.

So, this is one aspect that could explain some of the difference observed in Israel vs the UK. If that turns out to be a significant part of the explanation, that may end up being a problem in the USA, because a lot of people (myself included!) got their second doses as soon as possible after the first dose (4 weeks or so). It may be that booster shots end up being more necessary for people who had second doses shortly after the first dose than people who waited longer to get the second dose after the first one.

The second thing to consider is that Israel began vaccinating earlier than the UK. The main significant finding in the Israeli data, however, is that vaccine efficacy drops off sharply as time goes on. But Israel started vaccinating earlier than elsewhere and got going quickly, so you would expect that any time-dependent effect would be noticed in Israel first, but would take longer to show up in other countries like the UK that took longer to get going. Here's a graph from the Israeli data:

https://www.gov.il/BlobFolder/reports/vaccine-efficacy-safety-follow-up-committee/he/files_publications_corona_two-dose-vaccination-data.pdf



I don't read Hebrew, if anyone does maybe they can translate.

If you just look at those graphs, you can see very sharp drop-offs in efficacy for people who had their second dose in January, down to 16% against infection/symptoms, and 44% for people who had their second doses in February, compared to 75-79% for people who had second doses in April. By any standard, that is a massive difference and is definitely reason for concern, both because if you are infected you can still spread the virus (and help farm future variants), and also because even "mild" COVID is not necessarily "mild" as an ordinary person would understand the word "mild," and can be pretty hellish even if it is not outright life threatening. Not to mention the risks of potential long COVID and unknown long term health effects 5/10/20/30 years down the line.

At least one bit of good news is the drop-off for hospitalizations and severe COVID appears to be a lot less (maybe even, if we are very lucky, not a drop-off due to measurement error). But it could also be the case that efficacy against hospitalization and severe COVID drops off as well, but takes longer to drop off as much.

Another difference is that the vaccines themselves were different. Israel is basically all Pfizer, whereas in the UK it is largely Astrozenica, also with some Pfizer and Moderna. So it is possible that drop off in effectiveness might be more significant for Pfizer than other vaccines.

One thing that some people have pointed to (and also which the Bloomberg article which Hammy links to mentions) which could be a problem with the Israeli data is that they first vaccinated the oldest and most vulnerable people, so maybe the explanation might be just that the vaccine is less effective for those older/more vulnerable people.

However, the Israeli data does break things down by age, and they see the effect for younger people as well as for older people. On the other hand, they only have two age groups, 60+ and 16-59. There is obviously a lot more variation in age than just those two groups, so it is not ideal to only have two age buckets, but nevertheless seems to show that the explanation is very likely not purely age.

Here is data for age 60+:



And here for 16-59:



In both graphs, on the right you can see significant increases in breakthrough infections starting in the right (i.e. recent weeks), and starting more so in the bottom right (i.e. more so in people who were vaccinated earlier).



There is some informed discussion about this here:

https://www.reddit.com/r/medicine/comments/oq0od0/israel_health_ministry_claiming_pfizer_only_39/

[pppolitics]

In Alabama and Louisiana, partisan opposition to vaccine surges alongside Delta variant

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/07/24/covid-vaccine-push-rural-500717

[It’s so Joever]

It is strange how much the data from Israel is devoting from other studies. I am going to wait until some more specific numbers are released, but definitely worthy of keeping an eye on.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

Lol, if you have the flu it's your A1C levels are too high, the lower you hemoglobin is the lower your chances of contracting Covid, most people that die have chronic illnesses already.

When, you have a high fever, from the flu, just think, am mult sugar levels too high, yes they are, because you are most likely dehydrated, I went thru this whole spill when I went to Covid and the medicine in the IV us similar to the medicine they give you in shot, do you might as well take the vaccine, because you are gonna get a dose of it in the zoV in the ICU.

It's too many people thinking that hospital is a magic cure, if that's the case why do they send people to nursing homes when they can't do anymore for them

[Roll Roons]

Something to note: Delta now apparently makes up more than 80% of cases nationwide.

Per Worldometers, the 7-day average was just under 50k - no worse than it was at the beginning of May. And it was already lower yesterday than it was the day before, indicating that we've probably already hit a peak. Seems like people are just dooming for the sake of it or falling for the media's fearmongering.

[emailking]

Something to note: Delta now apparently makes up more than 80% of cases nationwide.

Per Worldometers, the 7-day average was just under 50k - no worse than it was at the beginning of May. And it was already lower yesterday than it was the day before, indicating that we've probably already hit a peak. Seems like people are just dooming for the sake of it or falling for the media's fearmongering.

Because the 7 day average was lower than it was the day before? I think you need more than that.

[Bandit3 the Worker]

Yesterday, the number of new cases on Corona Scanner was MINUS 97,465. Obviously, that's impossible, but what it suggests is that some recent cases had been mistakenly counted as COVID and they were correcting the number.

I don't know how Worldometer handled this.

[ProudModerate2]

...Seems like people are just dooming for the sake of it or falling for the media's fearmongering.

We are 610,000 people dead in the US, and yet some people are still downplaying Covid as just "fearmongering."
Un-fing believable.

[Horus]

...Seems like people are just dooming for the sake of it or falling for the media's fearmongering.

We are 610,000 people dead in the US, and yet some people are still downplaying Covid as just "fearmongering."
Un-fing believable.

He said the media's coverage of COVID is fear mongering, not COVID itself. The media is vastly overstating the risks to the vaccinated. I haven't worn a mask anywhere in over a month and unless the business forces me to I have no plans to start again. I have no idea why other fully vaccinated Americans are still so fearful.

[emailking]

I don't think the media is overstating the risks to the vaccinated. I hear over and over again, if you're vaccinated you're good (or at least, you won't get really sick). Among the unvaccinated set, things are getting bad.

[Progressive Pessimist]

I don't think the media is overstating the risks to the vaccinated. I hear over and over again, if you're vaccinated you're good (or at least, you won't get really sick). Among the unvaccinated set, things are getting bad.

They should emphasize though that while you still can get the virus while fully vaccinated, the instances of that happening are almost statistically astronomical.

[emailking]

I don't know, I don't consider a 5-10% chance to be astronomically small.

[Mr. Morden]

https://news.yahoo.com/fauci-cdc-mask-mandate-155642381.html

Dr. Anthony Fauci said Sunday that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is examining whether to reinstate mask guidance even for fully vaccinated people in public.

"This is under active consideration," Fauci told CNN anchor Jake Tapper, when asked if masks should be brought back for vaccinated Americans.

Tapper had cited CNN's reporting, which said that the Biden administration's top health officials are holding "preliminary conversations" on whether to urge vaccinated people to wear masks again in public. The Washington Post also reported that the talks were in a "preliminary phase and their result could be as simple as new messaging from top White House officials."

[Hammy]

...Seems like people are just dooming for the sake of it or falling for the media's fearmongering.

We are 610,000 people dead in the US, and yet some people are still downplaying Covid as just "fearmongering."
Un-fing believable.

I see more talk about vaccines allegedly not working anymore (something that isn't even true) than I do pointing out that >99% of hospitalizations and cases are among unvaccinated, which is clearly fearmongering for ratings.

[compucomp]

...Seems like people are just dooming for the sake of it or falling for the media's fearmongering.

We are 610,000 people dead in the US, and yet some people are still downplaying Covid as just "fearmongering."
Un-fing believable.

He said the media's coverage of COVID is fear mongering, not COVID itself. The media is vastly overstating the risks to the vaccinated. I haven't worn a mask anywhere in over a month and unless the business forces me to I have no plans to start again. I have no idea why other fully vaccinated Americans are still so fearful.

Vastly overstating? If anything, the media is not warning the public of the true danger, still peddling the line that if you're vaccinated you're safe with no mitigation measures and that you can resume your 2019 life safely. Consider the following:

-The Delta variant is much more contagious than before, with an R0 of 6-8. Walensky called it one of the most infectious respiratory viruses she's ever seen.
-There's substantial evidence the vaccine is not as effective against Delta than before at protecting against infection, from increasing anecdotal reports of mass infections of vaccinated people to the Israeli study. These have been discussed on this thread and there is cause to question them, but it would be sticking your head in the sand to still believe in the prior 95% efficacy.
-With mask mandates rescinded and cases on the rise across the US, one's exposure to COVID in public places is greater than it was before, and this is especially true if one chooses to resume activities like dining at restaurants, potentially cancelling out the protective effect.

If one gets infected, then one is playing a lottery, where the "good" option is asymptomatic infection or the sniffles, the "bad" option is a nasty fever, malaise, losing sense of smell/taste, etc, and there's still a 5-10% "disaster" option where one ends up hospitalized. We don't even know the odds between the "good" and "bad" options since they're both classified as "mild" symptoms. I don't expect everyone to come to the same conclusion, but to me it's reasonable for one to conclude that vaccination at this point is not sufficient to be safe and resumes mask-wearing or reduces risky activities. Denying this and continuing to proclaim absolute confidence in the vaccine may well end up on the Public Proclamation Wall of Shame alongside "Masks Don't Work" and "COVID-19 Is Not Airborne".

[Bandit3 the Worker]

By the way, U.S. cases dropped for the second day in a row today (after increasing 18 days in a row).

[ProudModerate2]

...Seems like people are just dooming for the sake of it or falling for the media's fearmongering.

We are 610,000 people dead in the US, and yet some people are still downplaying Covid as just "fearmongering."
Un-fing believable.

I see more talk about vaccines allegedly not working anymore (something that isn't even true) than I do pointing out that >99% of hospitalizations and cases are among unvaccinated, which is clearly fearmongering for ratings.

What media are you hearing more "about vaccines not working anymore," than "pointing out that 99% of hospitalizations are among the unvaccinated"?
I've actually seen the opposite. And I have not seen any news, anywhere, that "vaccines not working anymore." (I'm serious.)

[Hammy]

-There's substantial evidence the vaccine is not as effective against Delta than before at protecting against infection, from increasing anecdotal reports of mass infections of vaccinated people to the Israeli study.

The study indicated vaccine efficiency wanes over time, not that the vaccines are less effective--as I posted in reply to your antivax nonsense, people vaccined in April were still 75% protected against infection. Not to mention the UK study (which had a MUCH larger pool of people--Israel was getting 5 or so new cases per day during their study) showed about an 89% efficiency against COVID. That is far from "substantial evidence."

If one gets infected, then one is playing a lottery, where the "good" option is asymptomatic infection or the sniffles, the "bad" option is a nasty fever, malaise, losing sense of smell/taste, etc, and there's still a 5-10% "disaster" option where one ends up hospitalized. We don't even know the odds between the "good" and "bad" options since they're both classified as "mild" symptoms.

Hospitalization likelihood is closer to 5%--one in three hospitalizations were asymptomatic, and were hospitalized for reasons unrelated to COVID--something the CDC readily stated in their study. And that is a 5% rate of hospitalizations if you actually get COVID--if the rate of protection is 75%, then the rate of hospitalization among people who encounter it is around 1-2%.

I don't expect everyone to come to the same conclusion, but to me it's reasonable for one to conclude that vaccination at this point is not sufficient to be safe and resumes mask-wearing or reduces risky activities. Denying this and continuing to proclaim absolute confidence in the vaccine may well end up on the Public Proclamation Wall of Shame alongside "Masks Don't Work" and "COVID-19 Is Not Airborne".

While I have no problem if people wish to continue wearing masks (as I currently am, both for mental health and physical pain mitigation) it is absurd to determine that masks should be worn by all. And you can thank the unvaccinated idiots for these uniform mask mandates and not anything scientific, as Republicans are enacting laws that prohibit the unvaccinated from being singled out.

And the "Masks don't work" and "COVID is not airborne" people are not even the same people you're debating on this issue--these are the people who claim vaccines are not necessary. So you're further positioning yourself with the antivax crowd.