COVID-19 Megathread 6: Return of the Omicron

[President Johnson]

https://twitter.com/NYGovCuomo/status/1318294439685705736

[President Johnson]

https://twitter.com/RBReich/status/1322669693140959233

[President Johnson]

I wonder whether vaccine will still be free to everybody under a Biden Administration or whether Republicans in congress will all of a sudden rediscover their fiscal discipline and tell President Biden, it would be too expensive after Trump blew the deficit big time?

[President Johnson]

Yees! Get the King a vaccine shot.

https://twitter.com/CNNPolitics/status/1339226040225435657

[President Johnson]

https://twitter.com/BuzzFeedNews/status/1348708654883557376

[President Johnson]

Joe Biden estimates that the 500,000 death mark will be hit next month in his speech today. "It gets worse before it gets better".

https://twitter.com/CNNPolitics/status/1352345603473367042

[President Johnson]

Why are cases still going up? We're vaccinating more people and there haven't been any major superspreader events, so what gives?

A lot of places have opted to continue on as if COVID doesn't exist, and (depending on the source) you need about 60% to 85% vaccination rate to create herd immunity, and we're at roughly 5% or so.

I read that 50 million doses where vaccinated since Joe Biden took office. This plus people being through an infection is more than 5%, but still not nearly enough for herd immunity. Plus many folks get tired of restrictions and don't take them seriously anymore, I would assume.

[President Johnson]

Amazing how Uncle Joe is delivering results. If the EU countries would just get their act together with vaccination.

[President Johnson]

I think Texas and Mississippi were too quick to remove restrictions, but when is the right time to lift them? It seems like the virus won't be truly eradicated and we'll have to live with it like the flu.

Once enough people are vaccinated or at least everyone who wants to take a shot has been offered one. I don't know why people make such a big deal out of that. Wearing a mask while going into a store or wherever keeping a distance to strangers is not possible isn't that hard. Of course it's annoying to wear, but it helps save lives. And I'd much rather wear a mask than being on ICU or dead.

[President Johnson]

https://twitter.com/POTUS/status/1376610861603774466

[President Johnson]

Usually not a fan of Chris Christie, but credit where credit is due for his efforts. Unfortunately it took him hospitalization for coming out that way.

https://twitter.com/MSNBC/status/1377324095164063751

[President Johnson]

Is there an actual breakdown of variants for now positive tested patients? How dominant is the UK variant? It basically replaced the so called wildtype in Europe within just two months. At least vaccines aren't considerably less effective with this one and the South African one.

[President Johnson]

The Biden Administration got it done ahead of schedule. Actually didn't expect this when he made the promise of 100 million last year.

https://twitter.com/POTUS/status/1385269414564597764

[President Johnson]

I know Atlas doesn’t want to hear bad news ever, but 26 out of the 73 people who have died from the Delta variant in the UK being fully vaccinated is a bit concerning. This is not even a case of symptomatic cases...we are talking full on deaths, which one would think would be more likely to be prevented by vaccines, even with these variants.

What vaccine did they have? AstraZeneca? Janssen? How old were they? Any underlying health conditions?

I know we've all gotten obsessed with raw numbers, but we need to remember that context is equally important. (And yes, we can keep an eye on the Delta variant. But keeping an eye on it doesn't mean grinding society to a halt again. That's just not justified this time.)

I agree we need that information, and currently that isn’t available.
Given the country, probably either Astrazeneca or Pfizer, but we don’t know. Same goes for age and health information, which is why I’m not going full doomer yet.
I would love more context, and do hope we get more stats and information.

And yeah I’m not advocating for shutting down our society, and Mattrose is a troll.
All I want is for people to understand that we are not out of the woods yet, and that it is possible that we may see some temporary setbacks in our progress. How we should respond to those setbacks is a whole another debate and honestly I can’t say what the appropriate response is without full context, which is impossible since it’s a hypothetical now.

Bontech/Pfizer recently said that their vaccine is equally effective against the delta variant after about two weeks following the second shot and that there is no need to modify the vaccine. Biontech CEO stated that their vaccine could be modified for new variants within a few weeks.

For some other vaccines, there's not enough scientific data yet available.

[President Johnson]

There's a new study published in Nature that Biontech/Pfitzer and Moderna vaccines protect most people for years. Looks like mRNA vaccines are the real goldstandard.

https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/1409477942330150914

[President Johnson]

Say what you want, Dr. Fauci has a sense of humor.

https://twitter.com/CNNPolitics/status/1411707643547299842

[President Johnson]

https://twitter.com/dwnews/status/1414928848420892675

[President Johnson]

Good, but not nearly enough:

https://twitter.com/CNNPolitics/status/1423918354176352256

[President Johnson]

Senators Angus King (I-ME) and Roger Wicker (R-MS) have both announced today that they have tested positive for COVID.  King was fully vaccinated; I'm not sure about Wicker.

Both are:

https://twitter.com/CNNPolitics/status/1428425055155929090

[President Johnson]

Joe and Jill Biden will get a booster shot, too:

https://twitter.com/htTweets/status/1428393830487789570

[President Johnson]

This guy is a disaster.

https://twitter.com/CNNPolitics/status/1437786228636721158

[President Johnson]

Good news: everyone is gonna get immunity by the Spring.
Bad news: https://twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1463956686075580421


^{*Caveat first: data here is *very* preliminary, so everything could change.}

I always wondered whether there's a certain limit when it comes to being more and more infectious? Even more so than Delta would be insane, and even cause more trouble if vaccines aren't as effective anymore. While the vaccine can be properly adjusted, it would still require everyone to get another shot in a few months.

[President Johnson]

Am I wrong that at this point we should basically be treating covid like we treat the flu (i.e. healthy people should just get a vaccine once a year and then mostly forget about it)?  I have seen absolutely no evidence that covid is more dangerous than the flu if you are otherwise healthy and up to date on your vaccinations.

You would be correct with a high immunity rate of >85%, but most countries aren't there yet for a number of different reasons. The problem with just treating this like the flu, ergo let infections go, is that when too many infections happen at the same time, too many patients need to get hospitalized. It's always about 5% who seriously get sick. And 5% of several thousand infections per day is still an insane high number. Such a massive virus spread, especially among unvaccinated, inevitably causes the collapse or overload of hospitals sooner or later, which again also impacts patients with other diseases like heart attacks or cancer or treatment for victims of accidents etc. This is currently happening in parts of Germany and elsewhere, despite a good healthcare system.

Covid also has a higher mortality than the flu (1% vs. about 0.1%).

[President Johnson]

https://twitter.com/dwnews/status/1464295295932588036

[President Johnson]

Our healthcare systems are going to have to become a lot more agile. If my understanding is right, the vaccines that are currently being administered are still vaccines based on the original variant that was first identified almost two years ago.

For J&J that's definitely true, as it's a traditional vaccine. But the mRNA vaccines used new technology to future proof, to some extent, against new variants. That's why they've been so effective. But yes they would be more effective against the variants if completely redone.

BioNtech, Pfitzer's German partner firm that developed their vaccine, is currently examining the new variant and whether the vaccine needs an "update" to regain efficiency. If so, that will take about six weeks and first doses could be delivered within 100 days.