COVID-19 Megathread 6: Return of the Omicron

[Beet]

https://twitter.com/DrEricDing/status/1291172686824189952?s=19

[Beet]

https://twitter.com/germanrlopez/status/1293158220958248964

[Beet]

https://twitter.com/kerpen/status/1293990087911514112

It is funny on how the pro-lock down people refuse to acknowledge the stats like this.

And I have not had one pro-lockdown person yet have a coherent answer when they are confronted with the societal issues of mass evictions, mass suicides, permanent unemployment, etc just to save a few old people.

This has been answered before.

1. There is no clear study proving the relationship between suicides and lockdowns. While there is some anecdotal evidence that suicides have increased, no one knows whether that is because of the lockdown or because the stress of the pandemic itself. And there are other reports that suicides decreased. Indeed, statistics show suicides actually declined during lockdowns in Germany, New Zealand, the Indian states of Punjab and Haryana, and Japan. A cross-national Google study suggest that life satisfaction similarly fell with the arrival of the pandemic and rebounded after lockdown began. If negative mental health and suicides are indeed being driven by the pandemic itself and not the lockdown, then lockdowns may actually help mental health in the long run by bringing the pandemic under control earlier.

2. A lockdown must be accompanied by a ban on evictions, of course. It's a catastrophe that not all jurisdictions have chosen this.

3. A lockdown must be accompanied by either paid furloughs or generous universal basic income to tide people over, accompanied by financial support to small businesses, funded by QE. Again, there is a problem when these or similar economic measures are not implemented and I would not advocate strict lockdowns without these measures.

[Beet]

These steps are way too draconian.

I hope the students get support from the ACLU and/or FIRE and sues the h*ll out of Northeastern.

Your actions have consequences. That’s not totalitarianism.

Sure. The consequences should be a $200 fine, at most. Not being kicked out of school.

[Beet]

Are most people still wearing masks in your area? I went out for the first time in a while and about 80% of people weren't even wearing masks. Kind of shows you why Biden and Harris backtracked on the mask mandate.

[Beet]

https://www.ibtimes.com/coronavirus-capable-invading-brain-study-3043217

Headaches, confusion and delirium experienced by some Covid-19 patients could be the result of the coronavirus directly invading the brain, according to a study published Wednesday.

The research is still preliminary -- but offers several new lines of evidence to support what was previously a largely untested theory.

[Beet]

Daily COVID cases are down by almost half in the US from the peak of July despite some schools reopening

I don't believe the numbers ever since the White House took control of the data.

I mean hospitalization numbers can tell a truthful picture. But the pandemic has its ups and downs... it has substantially declined in other countries before only to come back roaring with a vengeance.

[Beet]

https://twitter.com/AvidCommentator/status/1307516226956980224

[Beet]

Still a looong way to go for herd immunity.

Fewer than one in ten Americans have antibodies to the virus that causes Covid-19, indicating relatively low rates of immunity to the pathogen that has killed more than 200,000 people in the U.S.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-09-25/covid-immunity-remains-low-with-under-10-of-u-s-adults-exposed

[Beet]

^ ^ ^

I agree with that, but it does seem to be getting less deadly with time. Not sure why exactly that is. Perhaps the less deadly strains are also less likely to give you symptoms but are more infectious. It makes sense, as people who don't show symptoms are less likely to take precautions and more likely to transmit the virus. But the virus they are transmitting may be less potent to begin with. Also, random mutations over time may make the virus a less effective killer. Finally, treatment methods may be getting better with more experience.

[Beet]

https://twitter.com/JamesSurowiecki/status/1314197180962476032

[Beet]

https://twitter.com/DaddyKrakenProd/status/1315825546811629568

[Beet]

Here is some more bad news.

WHO study shows remdesivir has "little or no effect" in preventing COVID-19 deaths.

The antiviral drug remdesivir, considered one of the most promising COVID-19 treatments, turns out to do little to prevent deaths from the disease, according to a World Health Organization-backed study.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/who-study-shows-remdesivir-has-little-or-no-effect-in-preventing-covid-19-deaths/

It is all on a vaccine or other experimental therapeutics now.

[Beet]

413,000 new cases reported yesterday.

This thing has gone Full Beet.

Apologies to Beet for underestimating his now clearly accurate early-stage pandemic hyperbolae.

I will never doubt your pre-pandemic estimates and over-exaggerated mathematical projections again.

He said the death rate was approaching 100% at one point.

https://talkelections.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=355597.msg7146506#msg7146506

He was right in some ways but not others.

That was the number then very early on when we had no idea what this was. A number of people had died, but virtually no one had recovered. Fortunately as we got a bigger picture the IFR turned out to be much lower.

We were fortune with this one where the IFR is under 1% and it primarily affects the elderly. There are some zoonotic viruses with IFR of over 20%. In those cases, I would expect much greater panic and a stronger social reaction. At a high enough IFR, it won't actually kill that many people because society will be unified to suppress the epidemic entirely. At a low enough IFR, it becomes just the flu, or similar to the 2009 swine flu outbreak. However, between those two extremes there is an IFR that is high enough to kill many, but not high enough to convince people they need to focus on killing the pandemic in a single handed manner. This middle IFR will actually result in the most deaths. COVID-19 unfortunately it seems has found the "sweet spot." If there is no vaccine or treatment we could see this going on for several years.

[Beet]

One thing that bothers me is the idea that the botched response is being deliberately whipped up by the Democrats just to make things look bad so Trump loses. As bad as the response is, that seems low even by the Democrats' miserable standards lately. I have never been a Trump supporter, but I don't have so much Trump derangement to try to purposely botch a pandemic response just to make him lose.

The sadder part is that folks on other boards who are either involved in the Democratic Party or have very liberal views are starting to say the Democrats did indeed bungle it on purpose. The people saying this are anti-Trump, but they know more about the inner workings of the Democratic Party than I do.

And my goodness, I'm actually starting to believe them!

It's not true. This pandemic has disproportionately killed Blacks, minorities, and poor people. They would be stupid to kill off their own voters, even from a selfish standpoint. I'm certainly no fan at all of the people running this party, but even I don't think they're that depraved.

[Beet]

Decease - Covid
Dem Cure - save White Wealthy Urban Bachelor Libs, throw Poor/Low-Educated/Minority under Lock-down bus by false, racist rhetoric Grandma vs Economy.
Good work, everyone, good work...

Alternative take: Pandemic exposes what the Dems have been saying all along - women, minorities, the poor/low educated are particularly vulnerable economically and should get more government support via progressive economics as the long term solution (as opposed to ignoring the pandemic, which also kills the poor and minorities disproportionately).

[Beet]

This is bad news:

https://twitter.com/ReutersScience/status/1321153048236957697?s=20

[Beet]

Pence absent from Covid-19 planning calls for more than a month

Once a driving force behind the White House’s coronavirus messaging, the group hasn’t held a collective press briefing in months. Inside the West Wing, task force members’ growing alarm over the virus’ resurgence has gone largely ignored. And among health officials on the front lines, there is mounting consensus that the federal government has little new aid to offer – leaving states to face the pandemic’s third and potentially worst wave increasingly on their own.

“There’s not any acknowledgment or appreciation of the severity of the surge,” said an official in one governor's office long frustrated with the federal response. “The stark reality that we’re facing is the White House – from top to bottom – has stopped governing and is only campaigning.”

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/10/29/pence-absent-coronavirus-calls-433637

[Beet]

https://twitter.com/JoeBiden/status/1322254443644026880

Biden realizes that another full lockdown would not be a good idea. This puts to rest one of the real worries I had about him.

[Beet]

This is going parabolic. It'd be nice to think that Trump still cares about fighting the pandemic but we have the next two and a half months with a complete lame duck who doesn't give a cr#@! about anyone but himself.

[Beet]

I had the virus. I got through it. We can not live in fear.

Just wait until he gets it again and realizes that there's no acquired immunity to it and that reinfections are typically worse than the first cases.

Where are all the reports of reinfection? You'd think we'd hear of more cases by now if that was the case.

[Beet]

Trump has left us with a huge national debt. If you think that is bad. The blame lies squarely with the GOP.

If Covid had been controlled earlier, we would need neither stimulus nor lockdown

[Beet]

The nation has mentally moved past the virus - doesn't help that politicians seem to be playing by different rules (Newsom/Feinstein/all GOP) while preaching different rules to the people

There can't be another lockdown. The authorities have blown their credibility. They had one shot to get it right and they failed. They'll have to fight the pandemic without that tool.

[Beet]

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin on Thursday that he won’t support extending several of the emergency loan programs his agency set up with the Federal Reserve that are set to expire at the end of the year.

In a letter to the Fed, Mnuchin said the Fed’s innovative lending program for small- and medum-sized businesses would not be extended. He also said he wouldn’t extend the Fed’s municipal lending and corporate credit loan programs.

In a statement, the Fed said that it opposed Mnuchin’s decision. Under the law, the Treasury secretary must agree in order for the programs to continue.

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/mnuchin-pulls-plug-on-some-coronavirus-emergency-lending-programs-over-feds-objections-11605826491

[Beet]

Data from Europe, but should be same'ish in US as well.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/covid-deaths-in-europe-are-overwhelmingly-among-those-over-60-11606053600
Covid Deaths in Europe Are Overwhelmingly Among Those Over 60
Survival rates improve modestly, but disease still takes the elderly, and more men

LONDON—Europe’s older citizens are bearing the brunt of the coronavirus pandemic’s second wave in the region.

People over 60 make up more than nine in 10 fatalities linked to Covid-19 since the start of August, figures show, with more men than women succumbing to it. The virus has now claimed more than 1.3 million lives world-wide.

The pattern, similar to that observed in Europe’s first wave of the pandemic as well as in the U.S., highlights the danger the virus continues to pose to older age groups and the difficulty of shielding the most vulnerable if the pandemic spreads more broadly, researchers say.

The policy conclusion: If the virus gets out of control in the community, there isn’t a practical way to prevent older people from catching it.

Doctors say they are seeing modest improvements in survival rates among all age groups, as their armory of treatments expands and their knowledge of the disease deepens.

“On the ground, the demographic is pretty similar to what it was,” said Tom Wingfield, an infectious-disease physician in Liverpool, England. “But people are having better outcomes,” he said.

Demographic data on all deaths in Europe isn’t available. But an analysis by The Wall Street Journal of around 78,000 deaths in an ECDC database of patients hospitalized with Covid-19 shows that in both the first and second waves more than 90% of deaths were in those age 60 and over.

Those over 80 years old account for a slightly higher proportion of second-wave deaths, with 67% of fatalities in that age group from Aug. 3 to Nov. 15. That compares with 60% for the year through July 31. Men made up 56% of all deaths across both waves.

Statistically, one average death from Covid-19 is probably equal to about 1/5th-1/10th of a death in a normal epidemic in terms of years of life lost.