COVID-19 Megathread 6: Return of the Omicron

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

Wow, who would’ve guessed that countries that have re-opened irresponsibly are surging in cases compared to countries that took this seriously and locked down from the start and stayed in lockdown until the virus was under control.

Preventative measures are gonna prevent, y’all.

When do you think places like California, Texas, and Florida should have reopened?  Cases weren't declining in these states even under lockdown.

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

According to Worldometers, Spain is reporting almost 6,000 new cases today.  That would work out to about 40,000 cases in the US on a per capita basis, and they still seem to be doubling every week.  

Per capita death totals in Spain are still significantly higher than the US, despite the fact that they essentially stopped reporting deaths in mid-June.

So what exactly did that country do right again?

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

It's pretty similar to March though in that there's widespread community transmission. Schooling is important, but there's no way it'll be safe with the situation being as it is currently. And the way to get case numbers down quickly enough to start reopening some stuff and not to have an agonising drawn-out economic & health disaster is to go for a hard lockdown.

America had a hard lockdown for 2 months. It didn't work.

That was not a hard lockdown. That was 50 states doing 50 different things.

Do you think Spain had a hard lockdown?

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

https://twitter.com/ByMikeBaker/status/1293573604265795584

Although the UK number seems to be due some bureaucratic snafu

According to worldometers, the number of UK deaths yesterday was 103.

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

I'd actually think that as more months pass, the number of excess deaths should be fewer than the number of covid deaths, because such a large percentage of early covid deaths were from nursing homes.  A majority of nursing home residents die within six month of entering the home.  So a large percentage of those who died in March and April from covid would have died a few months later of other causes, and this should result in a deficit in excess deaths during these later months.

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

Maybe it's a bit too early to say this with certainty, but the last week really seems consistent with the idea that we are - once again - plateauing at a disastrously high number of daily cases.

Cases this week didn’t decline nearly as much as last week because there were a lot of testing and reporting problems last week that suppressed case numbers.  

Besides the weather related problems in FL, there were apparently administrative screw ups in CA that prevented the processing of ~300k tests dating back several weeks.  This testing backlog was being gradually processed this week, which is why case counts in CA shot up so suddenly.

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

Maybe it's a bit too early to say this with certainty, but the last week really seems consistent with the idea that we are - once again - plateauing at a disastrously high number of daily cases.

It seems logical, after all why would case numbers suddenly go down again? Very little has been done to actually stop the spread.

Why did they eventually go down so dramatically in Sweden?
Once a certain threshold of infection is reached, case numbers will inevitably go down over time just due to partial herd immunity.

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

Maybe it's a bit too early to say this with certainty, but the last week really seems consistent with the idea that we are - once again - plateauing at a disastrously high number of daily cases.

It seems logical, after all why would case numbers suddenly go down again? Very little has been done to actually stop the spread.

Why did they eventually go down so dramatically in Sweden?
Once a certain threshold of infection is reached, case numbers will inevitably go down over time just due to partial herd immunity.

Sweden is nowhere close to herd immunity and already has a higher per capita death toll than the US. Cases have gone down because the Swedes have gone to their holiday houses in the countryside and social contact is down, cases and deaths will go back up in the coming months.

I never said anything about the death rate, and I wasn’t meaning to imply that Sweden’s solution was a good one.

But the percentage of the population that must be infected to induce a reduction in cases under a regime of basic social distancing is far lower than the percentage required to achieve full herd immunity with no effort to distance whatsoever.  Even in places that have “reopened”, superspreader events like big conventions and sporting events are not happening (with a few notable exceptions).

For example, rt.live estimated the peak Rt in Arizona post-reopening at 1.25.  If you infect an additional 20% of the population, this by itself should drop the Rt to 1.0, and any additional infections beyond should move toward herd immunity. And it is quite possible that 20% of the population of AZ has been infected...this would be an infection/case ratio of about 7 to 1, which is actually lower than CDC estimates.

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

Schools aren’t really a public good in the economics sense of the term.   Our society has chosen to make them freely available to all children because we believe it is good policy to have a universally educated public, not because it would be impractical to exclude children from them, or to tax individual families to send their children there.

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

I think it was possible to keep schools reopened even if wasn't the greatest idea, However doing it with 0 restrictions was stupid.

The main changes that really need to be made in schools is better ventilation and better access to sinks. I'm the biggest germaphobe in the world, but I don't think kids need to go to school in a hazmat suit.

There's no way schools will be safe when community transmission is so widespread. Until new case numbers are pushed down to a low level, most activities will be too risky.

Are you suggesting that all school districts should consider going fully online for the fall semester? I am only beginning to imagine the consequences that will have for many families and students across the country. Of course, opening schools "normally" and in-person is fraught with its own difficulties, so we have a truly tough situation here.

Students (parents) should be given an option of in-person (traditional) schools, on-line charter schools, charter and private schools, cottage schools, home schooling, or no schooling.

Traditional schools should determine their capacity (teachers willing to work, class sizing, etc.). If more students want to attend than space is available, then oldest students in each grade are given priority.

Public schools should pay for students choosing on-line charter schools, charter and private schools, cottage schools, or home schooling.

For students choosing no schooling, taxes would be reduced.

Paying people to be illiterate?

Not levying taxes for services not provided.

Let's say a school district has 10,000 children of school age 5-17. They assess taxes to raise $7000 per student, or a total of $70M.

They are able to provide in-person schooling for 5000 willing students. 2000 choose on-line charter schools, 1000 choose private or charter schools, and 1000 choose to home school. 1000 prefer to defer education until they believe in-person schooling is safe, and don't like the alternatives.

So taxes are assessed for 9000 students.

That’s not how public goods work.

How so?

Public goods are things that you can’t just make for certain people because there is no effective or desirable way to exclude people from the good or service.

If you are unable to provide that service, then there is no excuse to charge those who are funding the service.

Why would only people who choose not to send their kids to school get a tax rebate?  What about all the people who don’t have school age children?  Why are we making them pay for public schools now when they don’t use them?

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

Good grief! I just don't get it.

Of course I think schools should offer online instruction, but I don't understand the fetish for moving everything online when some families want in-person classes. Online schooling is only good as a short-term solution, but it's been going on since March.

Sooner or later - like very soon - we've got to get our schools back open just like normal. When I first voted when I was 18, one of my priorities was education. There's no way an all-online system would have been tolerated back then, even if it had been invented.

I know there's some people who still have some fear, but this is something we as a community and nation are going to overcome.

This does not apply to primary school education (or even to high school though a model like this could be implemented there), though I will note that distance learning is nothing new, especially at the college level.

No idea if there is anything similar in the US, but at least here we've had the chance to do distance education at the college level since the mid 1970s, well before the internet even existed!

Of course, back in the 70s and 80s, instead of getting your lessons through the internet, you got them by watching them on TV or listening to the radio (this university ran a TV program and a radio program); or alternatively you'd get mailed a VHS tape (or later CD-ROM or DVD) with your lessons.

Though it is worth noting that this university did (and does) still use in-person exams. (Well except in 2020 because covid of course)

Still its existance does prove that, even back in the 70s or 80s, distance education was already a thing, albeit implemented differently.


In any case I personally think the US just screwed up in reopening schools way too early. It is still August. I understand why schools can and should be reopened, but the start of the school year should have been delayed?

From what I understand the average school year in the US is worth roughly 180 days of classes (36 weeks). Is it so hard to do a schedule like this?

October: 4 weeks
November: 4 weeks
December: 2 weeks (2 weeks Christmas break)
January: 4 weeks
February: 4 weeks
March: 5 weeks
April: 4 weeks
May: 4 weeks
June: 5 weeks

The school year would run from October 5th to July 2nd. Now, finishing the school year in July and having no spring break whatsoever would suck (you can add 1 week of spring break of course, at the cost of finishing a week later).

Still a calendar like this would buy 1 and a half months worth of time to get the pandemic under control and allow for at least primary schools to reopen (with tons of safety measures and social distancing of course)

Accounting for bank holidays the school year might need to be prolonged even more, but still, an October 1st to July 2nd school calendar would be perfectly fine

The issue is that most people who don’t want schools open now don’t actually want to see them open until their is a vaccine available.  If you believe infections will drop enough nationally in the next month or so that this would be dispositive, why wouldn’t it be reasonable to have schools open on schedule in areas with lower infection numbers, like New York and New England? 

(FWIW, schools are not yet open in most parts of the country.  Some Southern school districts just open exceptionally early, but most don’t open until after Labor Day.)

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

I just read that Oxford is starting a phase 3 trial of their vaccine for 1500 subjects in Arizona over the next few weeks.  

I'm sure this sounded like a great plan a month or two ago when they were deciding on trial locations.  Unfortunately, Arizona now has a new case rate well below the national average.  I guess Brazil is still promising!

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

I think the key for college campus is much more to establish as much of a bubble around the campus rather than to prevent any contact within the bubble.

Classes at my university start on Monday.  We are testing all students as they arrive on campus.  So far, we’ve tested about 4,000, and gotten only 5 positives (0.1% positivity rate).  So I am optimistic.

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

The problem with "distance learning" isn't that teachers don't know how to use Zoom.
The problem is that 6-year olds absolutely should not be staring at a computer screen for 5 hours a day.

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

It looks like the surge in infections has moved to the Plains and upper Midwest, while cases in FL/AZ/TX/NV continue to decline rapidly.

Kansas set a new record for daily cases yesterday, and it looks like Iowa, Minnesota, and North Dakota have already set new records for cases today.

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

Basically everywhere is eventually going to see a surge in cases until they reach herd immunity.
Fortunately, many scientists now believe that herd immunity may be reached at about a 20% infection rate:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/brazil-coronavirus-manaus-herd-immunity/2020/08/23/0eccda40-d80e-11ea-930e-d88518c57dcc_story.html

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

I'm doing in-person teaching right now (albeit at the college level).

I can't see why this would be objectionable as long as both the students and the teachers have to option to elect distance learning if they feel that they or members of their family are especially vulnerable to the virus.

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

I don't know what's going on with some of the case numbers the past couple days.  South Dakota is also reporting a new record number of cases with 623.  Their previous record was 251, and yesterday they reported 66.

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

I was perplexed to see that Iowa reported almost 2300 new cases today after averaging 400-500 cases per day consistently for the last two months. 

But apparently, Iowa suddenly decided to start counting positive antigen test results as confirmed cases.  Didn't we already thoroughly hash through this issue months ago?  How is this still happening?

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

https://twitter.com/brianklaas/status/1299651625640919040

This guy needs to stop reporting Spain covid deaths as though they were real information.

According the to NY Times, Spain reported almost 10,000 new coronavirus cases yesterday.   This is way more on a per capita basis than the US is now reporting.  The reason they are reporting so few deaths is that the country basically just stopped reporting covid deaths several months ago.

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

The extent to which this country has collectively just completely given up on actually suppressing the virus is infuriating. Plateauing at 40-45K new cases per day most days is disastrous and inexcusable.

Why do you say we’ve given up? 

I see almost eveyone wearing masks virtually everywhere I go now, even outdoors.  We still have no concerts or conventions or big sporting events, and the few restaurants or bars that are open for indoor dining have tables spaced really far apart.  Schools and universities are operating at a fraction of capacity if not completely online. 

Several of these are major disruptions that we’ve been living with for 6 months, and they do seem to have slowed the spread in the vast majority of states.

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

If herd immunity isn't real, how do we explain the decline in cases in places that were already hit the hardest?

It isn't a strategy. It's just something that's already happened. We can't reverse it now that it's happened already.

Cyclical cause and effect.  Places that get hit hard go in for more social distancing (whether mandated or not).  Then when cases understandably go down as a result, social distancing relaxes and cases go back up again.  

Herd immunity has not been reached to any significant degree anywhere in the U.S. except possibly the New York City area.

I’m not sure how you explain the trends in Arizona other than herd immunity.  They had the highest per capita case rate for quite a while, and then cases suddenly dropped almost 90% over the last eight weeks.  Did they really do anything drastically different than any other state?

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

If herd immunity isn't real, how do we explain the decline in cases in places that were already hit the hardest?

It isn't a strategy. It's just something that's already happened. We can't reverse it now that it's happened already.

Cyclical cause and effect.  Places that get hit hard go in for more social distancing (whether mandated or not).  Then when cases understandably go down as a result, social distancing relaxes and cases go back up again.  

Herd immunity has not been reached to any significant degree anywhere in the U.S. except possibly the New York City area.

I’m not sure how you explain the trends in Arizona other than herd immunity.  They had the highest per capita case rate for quite a while, and then cases suddenly dropped almost 90% over the last eight weeks.  Did they really do anything drastically different than any other state?

It’s a combination of temporary immunity, mask usage, and some (but not a lot) of decrease in activity.

But nowhere else has seen a 90% drop in cases in the last two months.  Has Arizona really enforced masks and decreased activity that much better than everywhere else?

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

I don't think anyone is assuming that immunity will be permanent, or that it needs to be permanent to effectively fight the virus.  For the present purpose, it just needs to last until a vaccine is widely available.

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

I also even opposed Virginia moving into Phase 3 because I feared a huge spike in cases.. and what do you know..it happened lol.

But right now I would keep VA in phase 3. The damage has been done and we can not reverse.

Virginia never had a huge spike in cases.  We’ve been well below the national average for cases per capita since early June. 

But it’s actually been a bit of a problem, in that Virginia has also not seen any decline in cases since then.  We’ve been stuck around 1,000 new cases per day for almost two months.  This is still below the per capita rate of about thirty other states, but it seems to have left the state paralyzed as to which direction we should be moving.