Covid-19 #34 - Alpha, Delta, It’s All Greek to Me!

[Padraig]

50 minutes ago, Altherion said:

If every adult was vaccinated, R would not quite be 0, but it would be low enough to end community transmission pretty quickly.

Really?  So if 75% of the population was vaccinated, then we'd be fine?  Admittedly, I don't believe we know for sure but weren't people just saying that Alpha and now Delta has increased that threshold significantly?

Part of the problem is travel.  Even if you did get a high proportion of your population vaccinated, new cases would be constantly seeded unless you put in significant restrictions.

Personally, I'd be against mandatory vaccinations (except for certain professions)  but I'd be fine if it was made a little awkward for people.  Travel being the obvious vehicle for that.

3 hours ago, Gorn said:

If someone chooses to forgo that protection, well, I'm fine with the consequences of their choice catching up to them when the next wave comes.

I do think its more complicated than that.  Because it facilitates further mutations, some people can't get vaccinated, they can pass it onto others who may not die but there is still long COVID etc.  Are they allowed to travel to places with low vaccination rates?

[A wilding]

3 hours ago, ljkeane said:

Er, it’s about 12 million people.

My bad. Moral: should not read statistics in a hurry ...

[Altherion]

43 minutes ago, Padraig said:

Really?  So if 75% of the population was vaccinated, then we'd be fine?  Admittedly, I don't believe we know for sure but weren't people just saying that Alpha and now Delta has increased that threshold significantly?

Probably yes, since this is not a randomly selected 75% of the population. Children are much easier to order around than adults in terms of where they may go and whom they may interact with.

58 minutes ago, Padraig said:

Part of the problem is travel.  Even if you did get a high proportion of your population vaccinated, new cases would be constantly seeded unless you put in significant restrictions.

But that's not much of a problem as long as it does not create long chains. If a sick traveler comes to a fully vaccinated place, they might infect nobody at all or at most they will create a few asymptomatic or mild cases that don't shed much virus and are not enough to infect their vaccinated neighbors, friends and coworkers.

[TrueMetis]

4 hours ago, Gorn said:

Or to put it in other words: remember the start of the pandemic, when idiots were comparing Covid to a flu or a common cold? Well, for vaccinated population, that is literally true right now. If you're fully vaccinated, your risk of death or serious illness from Covid is now somewhere between "seasonal flu" and "common cold" levels.

From this point on, Covid is mostly unvaccinated people's problem (at least in the Western countries with easy access to vaccines). And if they want to keep going as they are, natural selection will take care of things.

Yeah fuck all those people who for health reasons or other reasons can't get the vaccine or for whom the vaccine is less effective eugen... er "natural selection" will take care of it.

[Gorn]

19 minutes ago, TrueMetis said:

Yeah fuck all those people who for health reasons or other reasons can't get the vaccine or for whom the vaccine is less effective eugen... er "natural selection" will take care of it.

I was responding to a poster who was literally suggesting denying health care, transport and employment to the unvaccinated. But sure, my stance is the problematic one.

[Gorn]

In other news, Singapore comes up with a roadmap for "new normal", in an op-ed co-written by three of their government ministers: https://www.straitstimes.com/opinion/living-normally-with-covid-19

Quote

 

The new norm can perhaps look like this:

First, an infected person can recover at home, because with vaccination the symptoms will be mostly mild. With others around the infected person also vaccinated, the risk of transmission will be low. We will worry less about the healthcare system being overwhelmed.

Second, there may not be a need to conduct massive contact tracing and quarantining of people each time we discover an infection. People can get themselves tested regularly using a variety of fast and easy tests. If positive, they can confirm with a PCR test and then isolate themselves.

Third, instead of monitoring Covid-19 infection numbers every day, we will focus on the outcomes: how many fall very sick, how many in the intensive care unit, how many need to be intubated for oxygen, and so on. This is like how we now monitor influenza.

Fourth, we can progressively ease our safe management rules and resume large gatherings as well at major events, like the National Day Parade or New Year Countdown. Businesses will have certainty that their operations will not be disrupted.

Fifth, we will be able to travel again, at least to countries that have also controlled the virus and turned it into an endemic norm. We will recognise each other's vaccination certificates. Travellers, especially those vaccinated, can get themselves tested before departure and be exempted from quarantine with a negative test upon arrival.

 

 

[TrueMetis]

12 minutes ago, Gorn said:

I was responding to a poster who was literally suggesting denying health care, transport and employment to the unvaccinated. But sure, my stance is the problematic one.

My response would apply to that dumbassery as well, I should have made that clear. But don't pretend that your stance is actually any better.

[Padraig]

1 hour ago, Altherion said:

But that's not much of a problem as long as it does not create long chains. If a sick traveler comes to a fully vaccinated place, they might infect nobody at all or at most they will create a few asymptomatic or mild cases that don't shed much virus and are not enough to infect their vaccinated neighbors, friends and coworkers.

Hmm.  Sure.  If we actually got close to 100% vaccinated but that can only be achieved if we vaccinate kids.  Children are controlable to a degree but via schools, infections can spread widely.

Some countries will get to 75% fully vaccinated over the next couple of months, so we'll see what happens.  I've not seen many other people say that this is fully controlable at 75% anymore.

Instead, in countries with 70%-75% vaccinated, things shouldn't be bad.  But the people that aren't vaccinated (and it wouldn't just be kids) will leave some people exposed and some people will die.  And possibly enable more mutations.  But sure, if you mean the current crisis is over, sounds plausible.  At least in those countries.

[Clueless Northman]

3 hours ago, Padraig said:

Personally, I'd be against mandatory vaccinations (except for certain professions)  but I'd be fine if it was made a little awkward for people.  Travel being the obvious vehicle for that.

If the choice is between mandatory vaccination and exposing plenty of vulnerable people for whom vaccines didn't work out, and possibly shaking once again the whole healthcare system, I know which one I would choose. Because it's quite clear that if 50% of a country has decided to be sensible and make a short-time small sacrifice of getting vaccinated, they won't tolerate any more hard sacrifices (lockdowns, curfews, global work-from-home, closures of restaurants and other venues) because of entitled unvaccinated assholes - so something else will have to give. At this point, either it's mandatory vaccinations of the reluctant fools, or downright punishment (which we'll call "nudges" or "incentives" for PR reasons) like denied access to some activities and places, if not triage in case of heavily burdened hospitals due to them getting badly sick with covid. Pick your poison - I've no idea which way governments will go, I just know that, when summer ends, unless a new variant escapes the vaccines, any government that actually goes back to heavy restrictions due to the unvaccinated getting sick in big numbers will fall pretty fast.

 

1 hour ago, Altherion said:

Probably yes, since this is not a randomly selected 75% of the population. Children are much easier to order around than adults in terms of where they may go and whom they may interact with.

I was thinking about higher R of Delta, vaccinations targets and kids. Do we have any conclusive data on how sick 0-10 can get and how much they can spread the virus? At some point last year, people were stating that they rarely got genuinely sick and couldn't infect many people on average - possibly something to do with ACE2 receptors in limited amount in children limiting virus replication before immune system kicks in. Because if that's actually the case - unlike, say, measles -, then we could assume that this is tantamount to having a sizable share of the young ones vaccinated, when it comes to evaluating the rate of reproduction of the virus and limiting its spread; for instance, instead of vaccinating 80% of the whole people, we would only need to vaccinate, say, 75%.

11-20 y on the other hand get it as often as adults, we have plenty of data to prove it, and they spread if even more than your average 40+, so it's a good thing that vaccines are safe with 12-18 now, and available. Though I doubt we'll see mandatory vaccines for this age range, it would be very controversial.

[Gorn]

3 hours ago, Clueless Northman said:

If the choice is between mandatory vaccination and exposing plenty of vulnerable people for whom vaccines didn't work out, and possibly shaking once again the whole healthcare system, I know which one I would choose. Because it's quite clear that if 50% of a country has decided to be sensible and make a short-time small sacrifice of getting vaccinated, they won't tolerate any more hard sacrifices (lockdowns, curfews, global work-from-home, closures of restaurants and other venues) because of entitled unvaccinated assholes - so something else will have to give. At this point, either it's mandatory vaccinations of the reluctant fools, or downright punishment (which we'll call "nudges" or "incentives" for PR reasons) like denied access to some activities and places, if not triage in case of heavily burdened hospitals due to them getting badly sick with covid. Pick your poison - I've no idea which way governments will go, I just know that, when summer ends, unless a new variant escapes the vaccines, any government that actually goes back to heavy restrictions due to the unvaccinated getting sick in big numbers will fall pretty fast.

You seem to put a great deal of faith into willingness of democratically-elected politicians to piss off a significant portion of their country's voters (or even a majority in some countries). Or that they want to deal with the fallout of someone getting a blood clot from a government-mandated vaccine.

My guess is that they will take the path of least resistance, which is to do nothing. Or alternatively, that they will declare that doing nothing is actually part of their grand strategic vision, which is what Singapore just did.

[Padraig]

5 minutes ago, Gorn said:

You seem to put a great deal of faith into willingness of democratically-elected politicians to piss off a significant portion of their country's voters (or even a majority in some countries). Or that they want to deal with the fallout of someone getting a blood clot from a government-mandated vaccine.

My guess is that they will take the path of least resistance, which is to do nothing. Or alternatively, that they will declare that doing nothing is actually part of their grand strategic vision, which is what Singapore just did.

I'd agree that discussing mandatory vaccinations is strictly a theoretical discussion.  Its not going to happen (excluding certain jobs).  If there was a huge desire for it, it proably wouldn't be needed, since peer pressure would make people roll up their sleeves.

BUT, I wouldn't agree that countries will do nothing.

Quote

Germans who are vaccinated against Covid will not have to go into full lockdown again and will enjoy more freedoms than unvaccinated people in case of another virus resurgence.

This was the message from the country's health minister today.

https://www.rte.ie/news/coronavirus/2021/0702/1232590-coronavirus-global/

Ireland is also moving towards giving greater freedom to vaccinated people.  Ironically, these sort of initiatives will only be accepted where a high proportion of people will get vaccinated.  If you have 50% that refuse to get vaccinated, then I expect a government wouldn't try this.  There is a suggestion in that article that Singapore will expect people to vaccinate themselves also.

Ending COVID is unfortunately linked to vaccinating kids.  The Atlantic has a thoughtful article about this.

Quote

Millions of young people have been infected; thousands  have been hospitalized; more than 300 younger than age 18 have died. We still don’t know how many kids hit by the virus will go on to develop long COVID, and the CDC has also logged more than 4,000 cases of a severe inflammatory complication called MIS-C. This condition can itself involve severe myocarditis—far worse than the cases that typically follow vaccination—and seems to carry a 1 percent fatality rate. It also disproportionately impacts people of color. 

Ireland also announced  today that (like Denmark) we are getting 1m Pfizer/Moderna doses from Romania.  1m is a lot for us (although not sure about delivery dates) so yay but Romania?  I fear for you!

[Knight Of Winter]

28 minutes ago, Padraig said:

Ireland also announced  today that (like Denmark) we are getting 1m Pfizer/Moderna doses from Romania.  1m is a lot for us (although not sure about delivery dates) so yay but Romania?  I fear for you!

I read the same piece of news today. Turns out that Romania has far more vaccines than people willing to vaccinate, Only a quarter of population received a vaccine - and almost all of them already getting both shots probably means that the interest in vaccination has dried up. Whoever wanted the vaccine, already got one. So they're selling extra doses they (unfortunately) don't need anymore.

[williamjm]

10 hours ago, ljkeane said:

Er, it’s about 12 million people.

It looks like we should go past half the total population being fully vaccinated in the next couple of days.

[Clueless Northman]

40 minutes ago, Padraig said:

Ireland is also moving towards giving greater freedom to vaccinated people.  Ironically, these sort of initiatives will only be accepted where a high proportion of people will get vaccinated.  If you have 50% that refuse to get vaccinated, then I expect a government wouldn't try this.  There is a suggestion in that article that Singapore will expect people to vaccinate themselves also.

Vaccinated people who'll have to be subjected to the same level of restrictions as unvaccinated ones might want to ask their country's courts if that's reasonable or a gross abuse, because there's so far no genuine valid reason to punish them, except to treat equally people who made due diligence and people who acted recklessly.

 

1 hour ago, Padraig said:

Ending COVID is unfortunately linked to vaccinating kids.  The Atlantic has a thoughtful article about this.

Not totally surprised about myocarditis, because I can confirm one of the linked articles talking about increased heart rate. Mine is usually below 60, didn't notice anything special after 1st dose of Moderna. 2nd dose gave me a bloody fever like I had the flu once again, though it merely lasted 1 day, and increased heart rate as well, 85-90 range, at the same time, so basically a 50% increase; granted, tachycardia is supposed to be above 100, bit considering the lower starting level, I'd say it came very close a very mild one. So I can get that there might be heart inflammation or other short-term issues arising. Still, 2 days and a half after 2nd jab, I was back to setting off the alarm bell, taking my rate heart when waking up in the morning, because it was at the alarm threshold, at 50. I still assumed weight-lifting or running a marathon weren't a good idea during the following week, just in case my heart wasn't in most excellent shape.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

Just got an email from my old gym (I built a small one for myself at home since the pandemic began) saying they no longer require masks and that I should reconsider reactivating my membership.

Pass. 

[Luzifer's right hand]

It looks like a convinced a friend I thought I had lost to the anti-vax crowd(he refused to vaccinate his kid even before the current crisis) to get Pfizer.

An unexpected but pleasant development. I just hope he changes his mind about other vaccines regarding his kid too.

[Loge]

11 hours ago, Padraig said:

I'd agree that discussing mandatory vaccinations is strictly a theoretical discussion.  Its not going to happen (excluding certain jobs).  If there was a huge desire for it, it proably wouldn't be needed, since peer pressure would make people roll up their sleeves.

BUT, I wouldn't agree that countries will do nothing.

https://www.rte.ie/news/coronavirus/2021/0702/1232590-coronavirus-global/

Ireland is also moving towards giving greater freedom to vaccinated people.  Ironically, these sort of initiatives will only be accepted where a high proportion of people will get vaccinated.  If you have 50% that refuse to get vaccinated, then I expect a government wouldn't try this.  There is a suggestion in that article that Singapore will expect people to vaccinate themselves also.

Ending COVID is unfortunately linked to vaccinating kids.  The Atlantic has a thoughtful article about this.

Ireland also announced  today that (like Denmark) we are getting 1m Pfizer/Moderna doses from Romania.  1m is a lot for us (although not sure about delivery dates) so yay but Romania?  I fear for you!

Germany has federal elections in September. Politicians like Spahn seem to hope that they can sit out the situation over the summer and not have to deal with corona before the elections. That won't work because the delta variant is spreading fast, despite the summer.

[Padraig]

4 hours ago, Loge said:

Germany has federal elections in September. Politicians like Spahn seem to hope that they can sit out the situation over the summer and not have to deal with corona before the elections. That won't work because the delta variant is spreading fast, despite the summer.

All talk and no action is certainly unlikely to work.  The hope is that there are enough people vaccinated to stop hospitals being over-run.  The UK is managing it but it has more people fully vaccinated.  Portugal is probably a better indicator.  It has been seeing an increase in cases for weeks now (and has similar numbers vaccinated to Germany).  Hospitalisations have doubled (while cases have quintupled) in Portugal but it is still early days.

Germany is seeing overall cases still decrease though.  Every week helps.  If it could somehow get to even mid July before cases turn, that might be a decent bulwark.

But a few more countries fall to delta every week though.  UK, Portugal and Russia were the first.  Then Cyprus.  Now Spain and Ireland.  You can almost see it seep across borders.  A number of other countries are seeing increases too, which will probably turn nasty soon.  We haven't allowed indoor dining, which is a good thing.

And the US is seeing an increase too (albeit moderate right now).  But big increases in South Africa, Namibia, Botswanna, Tunisia.  A lot of that (if not all of it) is delta.

[Luzifer's right hand]

2 minutes ago, Padraig said:

All talk and no action is certainly unlikely to work.  The hope is that there are enough people vaccinated to stop hospitals being over-run.  The UK is managing it but it has more people fully vaccinated.  Portugal is probably a better indicator.  It has been seeing an increase in cases for weeks now (and has similar numbers vaccinated to Germany).  Hospitalisations have doubled (while cases have quintupled) in Portugal but it is still early days.

Germany is seeing overall cases still decrease though.  Every week helps.  If it could somehow get to even mid July before cases turn, that might be a decent bulwark.

But a few more countries fall to delta every week though.  UK, Portugal and Russia were the first.  Then Cyprus.  Now Spain and Ireland.  You can almost see it seep across borders.  A number of other countries are seeing increases too, which will probably turn nasty soon.  We haven't allowed indoor dining, which is a good thing.

And the US is seeing an increase too (albeit moderate right now).  But big increases in South Africa, Namibia, Botswanna, Tunisia.  A lot of that (if not all of it) is delta.

Austria and the Czech Republic might be the beta test for Germany again. Although we do still test a lot. 

[Luzifer's right hand]

I know someone who works at BMW and the company vaccine program at least in Austria has changed and they are planning to give people who had J & J a 2nd shot. Not a decision such a big company would make without proper consultation I suspect. Official reason is delta. 

Just a rumor I guess but the friend said he already got an appointment for the 2nd shot with the company doctors. It is supposed to be one of the mRNA vaccines.