COVID-19 Megathread 6: Return of the Omicron

[jamestroll]

sigh... all the money we spent to battle covid-19.... we could have used to battle climate change. That will cause far more deaths and economic displacements than Covid-19 ever could.

[jamestroll]

Let's face it! The only reason Democrats are pushing covid restrictions at this point.. its obvious.

They want Florida very bad and think pushing covid restrictions in their states will make people move to Florida, Texas, etc.. and flip them blue. It will literally be the most counter productive plot ever.

[Roll Roons]

https://deadline.com/2022/02/l-a-mayor-garcetti-says-he-held-his-breath-for-maskless-photo-with-magic-johnson-1234925457/

Garcetti says he "held his breath" while taking a maskless photo. How f**king dumb do these elitist Democrats think we are?

[gerritcole]

https://deadline.com/2022/02/l-a-mayor-garcetti-says-he-held-his-breath-for-maskless-photo-with-magic-johnson-1234925457/

Garcetti says he "held his breath" while taking a maskless photo. How f**king dumb do these elitist Democrats think we are?

stfu bigot! do you not see the sacrifices the elites are making on our behalf??? Hold your breath for 2 weeks in repentance to save grandma

[Middle-aged Europe]

Let's face it! The only reason Democrats are pushing covid restrictions at this point.. its obvious.

They want Florida very bad and think pushing covid restrictions in their states will make people move to Florida, Texas, etc.. and flip them blue. It will literally be the most counter productive plot ever.

You're deranged.

[Calthrina950]

https://deadline.com/2022/02/l-a-mayor-garcetti-says-he-held-his-breath-for-maskless-photo-with-magic-johnson-1234925457/

Garcetti says he "held his breath" while taking a maskless photo. How f**king dumb do these elitist Democrats think we are?

They seem to think we are very much gullible. And many people are, unfortunately. Coronavirus restrictions and policy have truly become a partisan issue and closely affiliated with one's political identity. Los Angeles, in particular, was one of the earliest jurisdictions to reimpose a mask mandate when the Delta variant emerged, and they haven't let up. And they've gone all in on vaccine mandates and on restrictive measures at schools.

[It’s so Joever]

Let's face it! The only reason Democrats are pushing covid restrictions at this point.. its obvious.

They want Florida very bad and think pushing covid restrictions in their states will make people move to Florida, Texas, etc.. and flip them blue. It will literally be the most counter productive plot ever.

You're deranged.

It’s honestly a sign of mental illness, and it’s sad that the Republicants on here are encouraging the downward spiral of others on the forum to advance their own agendas. Such is how they operate.

[compucomp]

Why people are catching Omicron more than once

If you caught Omicron during the December surge you might now be feeling somewhat invincible – especially if you have two or more vaccines under your belt.

In theory, your immune defences should now be at a high point, warding off further infections with ease.

But there’s bad news. Although already having had the virus and jabs will boost your immunity, scientists say you can catch the variant more than once.

“It's very clear that the risk of reinfection with Omicron following another variant infection is higher than with any other variant,” Dr Gerald Barry, Assistant Professor of virology at UCD, told Buzz. “Data from the UK recently said that over the Christmas and New Year the risk of reinfection with Omicron was 16 times higher than the previous six months.”

The article goes on to say that the new subvariant BA.2 makes this worse and that people have caught Omicron (BA.1) and then BA.2 weeks later. It does not provide statistics on how protective recent Omicron infection is against re-infection, however it notes that cases are on the rise in Denmark and UK again.

People in this thread are declaring the pandemic over again, and it looks quite possible they'll end up looking like fools again. Hopefully this phenomenon remains uncommon, but if re-infection is this much of a threat it's quite possible 400K COVID deaths per year and peak hospitalizations of 150K-200K will become normal. Even if all of society chose to willfully ignore COVID and pretend it's 2019, things still won't go back to totally normal because many new hospitals will need to be built to accommodate peak demand, vaccine and treatments need to be mass produced perpetually in the billions, medical personnel will have to be paid more to keep them in their jobs, etc, resulting in a substantial increase in medical costs for everyone.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

Johns Hopkins Study: Covid Lockdowns saved 0.2% of Lives at Enormous Economic and Social Costs in US/Europe.

https://sites.krieger.jhu.edu/iae/files/2022/01/A-Literature-Review-and-Meta-Analysis-of-the-Effects-of-Lockdowns-on-COVID-19-Mortality.pdf

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10466995/New-study-says-lockdowns-reduced-COVID-mortality-2-percent.html

'While this meta-analysis concludes that lockdowns have had little to no public health effects, they have imposed enormous economic and social costs where they have been adopted,' researchers wrote. 'In consequence, lockdown policies are ill-founded and should be rejected as a pandemic policy instrument.'

I said it in May 2020, when it wasn't socially acceptable, but now I'll say it again: worst public policy decision in decades.

A couple thoughts after reading.

Johns Hopkins is a research university that encompasses a large number of schools and other facilities. The publisher of this study is the Institute for Applied Economics, Global Health, which operates under the Zanvyl Krieger School of Arts and Sciences, which includes the Johns Hopkins Hospital and Applied Physics Laboratory, among others that may be more familiar to the general public.

I am not personally familiar with the Institute for Applied Economics, Global Health, but I note that their "about" page includes "Related Links" to the Cato Institute, which is never an encouraging sign.


As noted in the paper, their standard for comparison is Sweden, which, while it did not engage in "lockdowns", did strongly encourage (and get) a significant response from the public (arguably with better actual compliance in nations with formal but sketchily-enforced lockdowns like much of the US), the effectiveness of which is still being debated.

The review also includes a single study from New Zealand, (and none from Taiwan, a rather glaring omission) which is read as concluding there was no effect from the New Zealand government's actions, which flies in the face of well-documented reality.

For anyone who wishes to review similar work from a medical perspective, I found (but have not yet read):

Effectiveness of non-pharmaceutical public health interventions against COVID-19: A systematic review and meta-analysis (Nov 2021)

Effectiveness of public health measures in reducing the incidence of covid-19, SARS-CoV-2 transmission, and covid-19 mortality: systematic review and meta-analysis (Oct 2021)

Systematic review of empirical studies comparing the effectiveness of non-pharmaceutical interventions against COVID-19 (Sept 2021)

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

Why people are catching Omicron more than once

If you caught Omicron during the December surge you might now be feeling somewhat invincible – especially if you have two or more vaccines under your belt.

In theory, your immune defences should now be at a high point, warding off further infections with ease.

But there’s bad news. Although already having had the virus and jabs will boost your immunity, scientists say you can catch the variant more than once.

“It's very clear that the risk of reinfection with Omicron following another variant infection is higher than with any other variant,” Dr Gerald Barry, Assistant Professor of virology at UCD, told Buzz. “Data from the UK recently said that over the Christmas and New Year the risk of reinfection with Omicron was 16 times higher than the previous six months.”

The article goes on to say that the new subvariant BA.2 makes this worse and that people have caught Omicron (BA.1) and then BA.2 weeks later. It does not provide statistics on how protective recent Omicron infection is against re-infection, however it notes that cases are on the rise in Denmark and UK again.

People in this thread are declaring the pandemic over again, and it looks quite possible they'll end up looking like fools again. Hopefully this phenomenon remains uncommon, but if re-infection is this much of a threat it's quite possible 400K COVID deaths per year and peak hospitalizations of 150K-200K will become normal. Even if all of society chose to willfully ignore COVID and pretend it's 2019, things still won't go back to totally normal because many new hospitals will need to be built to accommodate peak demand, vaccine and treatments need to be mass produced perpetually in the billions, medical personnel will have to be paid more to keep them in their jobs, etc, resulting in a substantial increase in medical costs for everyone.

1.) What is this website?  I’ve never heard of it.
2.) This article mostly relies on quoting notorious “Covid-Zero” fanatics.

Do you have a better source for these claims?

[It’s so Joever]

I think it was the Washington Post which argued this, but it seems levels of social trust have a very high correlation with how countries did in handling Covid. This would definitely make some sense, as it’s one thing to try and legislate from the office, but if the regular Del Tacos of your country aren’t following the law or the spirit of it…well you can’t do much about it barring some insanely authoritarian response (which would result in huge consequences if social trust isn’t high enough anyways)

[Roll Roons]

Why people are catching Omicron more than once

If you caught Omicron during the December surge you might now be feeling somewhat invincible – especially if you have two or more vaccines under your belt.

In theory, your immune defences should now be at a high point, warding off further infections with ease.

But there’s bad news. Although already having had the virus and jabs will boost your immunity, scientists say you can catch the variant more than once.

“It's very clear that the risk of reinfection with Omicron following another variant infection is higher than with any other variant,” Dr Gerald Barry, Assistant Professor of virology at UCD, told Buzz. “Data from the UK recently said that over the Christmas and New Year the risk of reinfection with Omicron was 16 times higher than the previous six months.”

The article goes on to say that the new subvariant BA.2 makes this worse and that people have caught Omicron (BA.1) and then BA.2 weeks later. It does not provide statistics on how protective recent Omicron infection is against re-infection, however it notes that cases are on the rise in Denmark and UK again.

People in this thread are declaring the pandemic over again, and it looks quite possible they'll end up looking like fools again. Hopefully this phenomenon remains uncommon, but if re-infection is this much of a threat it's quite possible 400K COVID deaths per year and peak hospitalizations of 150K-200K will become normal. Even if all of society chose to willfully ignore COVID and pretend it's 2019, things still won't go back to totally normal because many new hospitals will need to be built to accommodate peak demand, vaccine and treatments need to be mass produced perpetually in the billions, medical personnel will have to be paid more to keep them in their jobs, etc, resulting in a substantial increase in medical costs for everyone.

1.) What is this website?  I’ve never heard of it.
2.) This article mostly relies on quoting notorious “Covid-Zero” fanatics.

Do you have a better source for these claims?

Compucomp wants the pandemic to continue forever so he'll find some article from some random website that uses fearmonger-in-chief Eric Dingleberry as its main source.

[compucomp]

Why people are catching Omicron more than once

If you caught Omicron during the December surge you might now be feeling somewhat invincible – especially if you have two or more vaccines under your belt.

In theory, your immune defences should now be at a high point, warding off further infections with ease.

But there’s bad news. Although already having had the virus and jabs will boost your immunity, scientists say you can catch the variant more than once.

“It's very clear that the risk of reinfection with Omicron following another variant infection is higher than with any other variant,” Dr Gerald Barry, Assistant Professor of virology at UCD, told Buzz. “Data from the UK recently said that over the Christmas and New Year the risk of reinfection with Omicron was 16 times higher than the previous six months.”

The article goes on to say that the new subvariant BA.2 makes this worse and that people have caught Omicron (BA.1) and then BA.2 weeks later. It does not provide statistics on how protective recent Omicron infection is against re-infection, however it notes that cases are on the rise in Denmark and UK again.

People in this thread are declaring the pandemic over again, and it looks quite possible they'll end up looking like fools again. Hopefully this phenomenon remains uncommon, but if re-infection is this much of a threat it's quite possible 400K COVID deaths per year and peak hospitalizations of 150K-200K will become normal. Even if all of society chose to willfully ignore COVID and pretend it's 2019, things still won't go back to totally normal because many new hospitals will need to be built to accommodate peak demand, vaccine and treatments need to be mass produced perpetually in the billions, medical personnel will have to be paid more to keep them in their jobs, etc, resulting in a substantial increase in medical costs for everyone.

1.) What is this website?  I’ve never heard of it.
2.) This article mostly relies on quoting notorious “Covid-Zero” fanatics.

Do you have a better source for these claims?

Compucomp wants the pandemic to continue forever so he'll find some article from some random website that uses fearmonger-in-chief Eric Dingleberry as its main source.

Whether I want the pandemic to continue forever is irrelevant. The virus will do what it does and that decides whether the pandemic continues or not.

Apparently the web site is owned by the Irish Daily Star which is a tabloid. So it is fair to question the credibility of the report. They are probably overplaying a few known instance of Omicron-BA.2 instances but it is reasonable that waning immunity and reinfection means that COVID will drop to seasonal-flu like "endemic" levels but instead come back in force every 6-12 months in waves and cause hospitalizations and deaths far in excess of the seasonal flu. If you're really intent on forcing society to pretend that COVID doesn't exist you'd better get on setting up government funds and other investments in the medical infrastructure to accommodate the permanently increased demand, and then be prepared to pay the new taxes and other increased medical costs. But wait, you're Republicans, this is not what you do, you'll sit on your hands, wait for Biden and Democrats to do it instead, and then blame them for it.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

Posting this essay from last May, because it's good and still relevant:
Novelty Means Severity: The Key To the Pandemic

If nobody has adaptive immune protection, a virus spreads faster. Even a few immune individuals in a population can meaningfully slow the rate of virus spread, since they are less likely to become infectious and infect others. If there are enough immune individuals, the virus may not be able to spread at all. This is the logic of population immunity and herd immunity. It is important. We talk about it a lot.

If nobody has adaptive immune protection, a virus causes severe disease in more of the people it infects. This is also important. We don't talk about it enough.

Unless we eradicate SARS-CoV-2—possible but not likely, especially in the short term—just about everyone is going to encounter the virus sooner or later. But those who have adaptive immunity from infection or vaccination may not get sick at all. Even if they do, they will be less likely to get very sick or die.

Now that we have safe, effective vaccines, we can give people immunity without causing dangerous disease. That puts us into a global race against the virus. The more people who see the vaccine before they see SARS-CoV-2, the fewer severe cases, long-term health problems, and deaths. Faster worldwide rollout will save lives. It really is that simple.

[Crumpets]

For some good news, here's an updated map of the 14-day trend in case numbers by state. 10% increments starting at zero (so, 30% = 1-9% growth/decrease, 40% = 10-19% growth/decrease, etc.).

[compucomp]

Since posters here seem to be supporting the Canadian "trucker protest", have a look at yet more extremists taking part:



So in this protest, I've now seen flags of
-Nazi Germany
-CSA
-Three Percenters
-QAnon

These are the folks you are siding with now? Are they "very fine people" like Trump used to say? Have you gone crazy? Have COVID restrictions warped your minds to the point that you'll accept any ally in your fight against them?

[It’s so Joever]

For some good news, here's an updated map of the 14-day trend in case numbers by state. 10% increments starting at zero (so, 30% = 1-9% growth/decrease, 40% = 10-19% growth/decrease, etc.).

Actually Maine is very unique in some ways. I was looking at the data and it appears it may have been only very recently that omicron wrestled control in Maine. Truly fascinating.

[GeneralMacArthur]

The rolling average for USA peaked at about 800K in mid-January.  Today it fell under 400K.  And the sharp decline continues.

In New York they're basically back down to zero.  I wouldn't be surprised if New York fully reopens in the next week or two.

Knock on wood but it really does feel like the light at the end of the tunnel is in sight.  The cases are collapsing, we've got a full arsenal to combat severe infections, we've got vaccines to prevent those severe infections and a few on the way to add even more firepower.  Original COVID is completely destroyed.  Delta seems to be mostly gone as well.

I'd be pretty surprised if the Biden administration doesn't start loosening restrictions by the end of the month.

[Lief 🗽]

This is the future the anti-vaccine, forever-pandemic left wants… really disturbing
https://twitter.com/saitomri/status/1489151047507800064?s=21

[Calthrina950]

This is the future the anti-vaccine, forever-pandemic left wants… really disturbing
https://twitter.com/saitomri/status/1489151047507800064?s=21

I saw a report on CBS Mornings with one of their correspondents, who is in Beijing as part of the "reporter bubble" covering the Olympics. She described the elaborate procedures she has had to endure, to be able to travel and stay there. She had to get two negative COVID tests prior to making her trip, and is subject to regular testing on site. And everyone is masked at all times, and is constantly monitored. China's response to the pandemic, unfortunately, has greatly influenced responses around the world to this.

[Calthrina950]

The rolling average for USA peaked at about 800K in mid-January.  Today it fell under 400K.  And the sharp decline continues.

In New York they're basically back down to zero.  I wouldn't be surprised if New York fully reopens in the next week or two.

Knock on wood but it really does feel like the light at the end of the tunnel is in sight.  The cases are collapsing, we've got a full arsenal to combat severe infections, we've got vaccines to prevent those severe infections and a few on the way to add even more firepower.  Original COVID is completely destroyed.  Delta seems to be mostly gone as well.

I'd be pretty surprised if the Biden administration doesn't start loosening restrictions by the end of the month.

This POLITICO article discusses the strategy which the Biden Administration seems to be pursuing. It appears that they are going to be renewing their emphasis on testing (i.e. rapid tests), expanding treatments and therapies, and extending the vaccination campaign to more children and infants. They are also reiterating the importance of wearing masks-which they view as a "necessary" tool to fight the pandemic and as being of minimal cost. I disagree strongly with them on that, but masks are still strongly supported by most Democrats and I've come to accept that they aren't going away anytime soon.

[Torie]

Going to China to have fun suggest psychosis to me.

[Horus]

The rolling average for USA peaked at about 800K in mid-January.  Today it fell under 400K.  And the sharp decline continues.

In New York they're basically back down to zero.  I wouldn't be surprised if New York fully reopens in the next week or two.

Knock on wood but it really does feel like the light at the end of the tunnel is in sight.  The cases are collapsing, we've got a full arsenal to combat severe infections, we've got vaccines to prevent those severe infections and a few on the way to add even more firepower.  Original COVID is completely destroyed.  Delta seems to be mostly gone as well.

I'd be pretty surprised if the Biden administration doesn't start loosening restrictions by the end of the month.

I told you this would happen weeks ago.

[Horus]

This is the future the anti-vaccine, forever-pandemic left wants… really disturbing
https://twitter.com/saitomri/status/1489151047507800064?s=21

Compucomp, MacArthur etc see nothing wrong with this either.. Some people just have no humanity.

[GeneralMacArthur]

This is the future the anti-vaccine, forever-pandemic left wants… really disturbing
https://twitter.com/saitomri/status/1489151047507800064?s=21

Compucomp, MacArthur etc see nothing wrong with this either.. Some people just have no humanity.

On the contrary, this seems excessive and unnecessary to me at this point in the pandemic.  In America, nobody would take such a job.  In China you have no choice.