Covid-19 #38: As the Worm Turns

[karaddin]

@Padraig I want to take a crack at a massive oversimplification of the other dynamic not mentioned yet with the question of updated vaccines targeted at Delta.

If we take vanilla covid-19 as our starting point and Delta has moved 50 steps east, then a vaccine tailored to target those changes in Delta could be even less effective against a new variant which has taken 50 steps west than the vaccine targeted at vanilla if such a variant were to emerge.

As Delta becomes more dominant, due to substantially out competing vanilla, then the risk of that happening diminishes - any further mutations off the Delta variant are going to be starting from the "50 steps east" point and there's not much vanilla left to mutate. This last bit would be part of why someone who actually knows what they're talking about, like Impmk2 and not like me, thinks that an updated vaccine would be a good idea now.

[The Anti-Targ]

I hate people who I hate it when people disseminate mis-information and uses such excuses as 

Quote

Vandervis said he was not giving advice to anyone about what to do and debate was healthy.

"I try to find the best data that I can," he said.

"I give people things to think about."

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/covid-19-coronavirus-delta-outbreak-dunedin-councillors-vaccine-posts-called-provocativeand-unhelpful/VYRJVGQBVLNZ7D35ATMF3JBVCQ/

Quote

Councillor Lee Vandervis last month highlighted a video from a senior former Pfizer employee highly critical of the pharmaceutical industry and governments.

The "unrepentantly provocative" councillor disclosed this month he wanted to buy the elements of an alternative remedy, including anti-parasitic drug Ivermectin.

As if posting this kind of stuff in public forums is anything but deliberate intent to mis-inform and stir up distrust. Real debate can only be had among people who actually have the first clue about the scientific and medical possibilities of different preventatives and treatments. The general public can't debate anything, they can only argue, and most of the time one side is either ignorant or acting in bad faith. That is unhealthy debate.

Disappointing to see imports of ivermectin are increasing here too.

Another false narrative

Quote

University students stuck in lockdown in Auckland say they are falling behind learning remotely while most of their peers are able to attend classes physically.

Sophie Dixon is in her third year of a law degree at the Victoria University of Wellington.

She travelled to Auckland for the break but got stuck when the lockdown came into force on August 18.

Lockdowns, as experienced here, will have no long term consequences on the educational potential of students. In countries where poor access to education has occurred for students for several months or even more than a year, that is likely to have long term consequences. I don't think sub-optimal access to education will have much long term consequence on anyone. I feel mostly for the poor in this respect, as children in poor communities without school for several months or more will be getting almost no education at all, and this will be exacerbating already bad structural inequalities. Us middle class lot who's kids have access to online education are not really suffering much, IMO. Though I stand to be corrected when some PhD Theses are written doing a retrospective analysis of the long term effects on education of extended school closures under emergency scenarios.

[mcbigski]

2 hours ago, The Marquis de Leech said:

To illustrate: Denmark has roughly the same population as New Zealand, an excellent vaccination rate, and three deaths a day. Would New Zealand tolerate a thousand Covid deaths a year, never mind the extra pressure on ICUs? I am sceptical (I really think the major comparison is the road-toll).

Bonus consideration is that this is September. For all we know, Denmark come December and January will be looking much, much uglier... and Fortress New Zealand much, much more attractive.

Who is dying in Denmark?  Are the 3 a day a random mix of the population?  What's the average age? BMI is a flawed measurement compared to body fat percentage, but what way does that data skew?  When setting policy for millions of people, you have to weigh whether 3 people a day near to death dying sooner is better or worse than the externalities of lockdowns and fear.

I still think a zero covid approach is really just a way for the people in charge to consolidate their own power, so if the above sounds off, I probably sound like a raging maniac.  

[The Marquis de Leech]

1 hour ago, The Anti-Targ said:

I hate people who I hate it when people disseminate mis-information and uses such excuses as 

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/covid-19-coronavirus-delta-outbreak-dunedin-councillors-vaccine-posts-called-provocativeand-unhelpful/VYRJVGQBVLNZ7D35ATMF3JBVCQ/

As if posting this kind of stuff in public forums is anything but deliberate intent to mis-inform and stir up distrust. Real debate can only be had among people who actually have the first clue about the scientific and medical possibilities of different preventatives and treatments. The general public can't debate anything, they can only argue, and most of the time one side is either ignorant or acting in bad faith. That is unhealthy debate.

Disappointing to see imports of ivermectin are increasing here too.

As a Dunedinite, I should probably apologise for Vandervis. He's one of those local body politicians who specialises in metaphorical bomb-throwing, just to stir up nonsense for attention.

[The Marquis de Leech]

3 hours ago, Makk said:

We came into the covid lockdown with historical low levels of debt in an extremely robust position. Now it is trending towards the midterm. Yes there is a bit of wriggle room, but it cannot continue indefinitely. Countries that are producing real things (we do OK on food, not much else) are going to come out of this much better off.

The situation is much more analogous than you are letting on. These countries continued to print money for years to maintain a standard of living while their production in real terms was being destroyed (either by themselves or uncontrollable world events which they ignored). If we are locking down Auckland for multiple months a year our own production is going to take a real hit. Even now already at this early stage it is effecting the entire country through shortages of building supplies, exactly when we desperately need to be building more houses. This is real, it is not fictitious scaremongering.

A closed border doesn't interfere with our dairy production, which is the sun around which the entire New Zealand economy orbits. Based off 2020, once lockdown's over, we'll recover pretty well.

Inflation is rather moot, seeing as the Government isn't funding its Covid response by printing money - it's funding it by selling bonds, as per normal.

[The Marquis de Leech]

46 minutes ago, mcbigski said:

Who is dying in Denmark?  Are the 3 a day a random mix of the population?  What's the average age? BMI is a flawed measurement compared to body fat percentage, but what way does that data skew?  When setting policy for millions of people, you have to weigh whether 3 people a day near to death dying sooner is better or worse than the externalities of lockdowns and fear.

I still think a zero covid approach is really just a way for the people in charge to consolidate their own power, so if the above sounds off, I probably sound like a raging maniac.  

Put it this way: as it currently stands, letting Covid in knocks six months to a year off someone's life-expectancy. Since New Zealand (once the current outbreak is gone) will be back to Zero Covid, the question is whether we're willing to accept that, just so people can travel around more easily. I suspect the answer's pretty negative.

(I'd actually suggest that from a New Zealand perspective, reading overseas people bashing our response is truly hilarious).

[Luzifer's right hand]

8 hours ago, Makk said:

We came into the covid lockdown with historical low levels of debt in an extremely robust position. Now it is trending towards the midterm. Yes there is a bit of wriggle room, but it cannot continue indefinitely. Countries that are producing real things (we do OK on food, not much else) are going to come out of this much better off.

The situation is much more analogous than you are letting on. These countries continued to print money for years to maintain a standard of living while their production in real terms was being destroyed (either by themselves or uncontrollable world events which they ignored). If we are locking down Auckland for multiple months a year our own production is going to take a real hit. Even now already at this early stage it is effecting the entire country through shortages of building supplies, exactly when we desperately need to be building more houses. This is real, it is not fictitious scaremongering.

The shortage of building supplies is a global thing right now. Here in Austria even things like bricks are difficult to get. Ending a local lockdown in a part of a tiny country is not going to change that supply situation significantly. The shortages in the chip industry are also a global thing.

Brexit is far worse for the supply of goods than lockdowns it seems at this point though as the UK is the only European country with significant supply problems on the supermarket side of things.

[Week]

6 hours ago, mcbigski said:

Who is dying in Denmark?  Are the 3 a day a random mix of the population?  What's the average age? BMI is a flawed measurement compared to body fat percentage, but what way does that data skew?  When setting policy for millions of people, you have to weigh whether 3 people a day near to death dying sooner is better or worse than the externalities of lockdowns and fear.

I still think a zero covid approach is really just a way for the people in charge to consolidate their own power, so if the above sounds off, I probably sound like a raging maniac.  

Yup, nailed it.

[The Anti-Targ]

 

11 hours ago, Makk said:

We came into the covid lockdown with historical low levels of debt in an extremely robust position. Now it is trending towards the midterm. Yes there is a bit of wriggle room, but it cannot continue indefinitely. Countries that are producing real things (we do OK on food, not much else) are going to come out of this much better off.

The situation is much more analogous than you are letting on. These countries continued to print money for years to maintain a standard of living while their production in real terms was being destroyed (either by themselves or uncontrollable world events which they ignored). If we are locking down Auckland for multiple months a year our own production is going to take a real hit. Even now already at this early stage it is effecting the entire country through shortages of building supplies, exactly when we desperately need to be building more houses. This is real, it is not fictitious scaremongering.

We do OK on food? Food IS what we do. We do excellently on Food. Food is as real a thing as you can get. We also do excellently on forestry, though it would be nice if we exported fewer raw logs, and made stuff instead, but log prices are very high (ref the global building material shortage that has naught to do with the Auckland lockdown) and it's hard not to sell them when people are willing to pay so much for so little effort. Heck, even wool is starting to regain some of its popularity, being not a fossil fuel based fibre, and enjoying many qualities over synthetics that people are starting to rediscover. There is a reason that international organisations who think about these things say NZ is the best place to ride out an apocalypse. It's because we basically have all the essentials that are needed to live relatively comfortably while the rest of the world has a bit of a lie down.

New Zealand is never going to get super rich as a great big farm with a few cities, but there will always be a demand for what we have to sell.

[Padraig]

There are a few things to say about Denmark.  Last week, on average, 3 people did die a day.  But over the previous 26 weeks, the average was just over 1 person (i.e. 8 a week).  Denmark is one of the best countries in Europe when it comes to dealing with COVID.  And it also has a very high vaccination rate (74% of the population fully vaccinated).

It has also now removed all restrictions.

https://www.politico.eu/article/denmark-first-eu-lift-coronavirus-restrictions/

Quote

The country's "COVID pass" will no longer be required to enter restaurants, sports centers or nightclubs, and children will no longer automatically be sent home if they come into close contact with a confirmed COVID-19 case. Only those infected have to quarantine. People can go back to the office as normal, and schools are open.

The move is the latest in the country's decisions to ease pandemic measures, including the scrapping of the mask requirement for public transit on August 13. 

Quote

 

Along with the successful vaccine rollout, experts have pointed to high levels of trust in authorities. Almost three-quarters of adults are fully vaccinated and COVID-19 hospitalization rates are low.

One buzzword that some use is samfundssind, or social mindedness. 

 

Cases have been falling significantly over the last couple of weeks also (and it tests a lot).  You could say it is a good example of a country successfully dealing with COVID (without going the elimination route).

At the same time, risks remain.  Now that all restrictions are gone, will cases start to increase again?  It will be interesting to see what happens over the next few weeks but its incremental approach seems very reasonable so far.

10 hours ago, karaddin said:

As Delta becomes more dominant, due to substantially out competing vanilla, then the risk of that happening diminishes - any further mutations off the Delta variant are going to be starting from the "50 steps east" point and there's not much vanilla left to mutate. This last bit would be part of why someone who actually knows what they're talking about, like Impmk2 and not like me, thinks that an updated vaccine would be a good idea now.

And yes.  That makes sense.  There is a risk around an updated vaccine but potential large benefits also.  I'm just a little surprised that there hasn't been more of a debate on costs v benefits at government/pharma level.  I may have missed it though!

[Padraig]

13 hours ago, Mudguard said:

I'm not sure a single inactivated virus vaccine has been approved yet for coronavirus.

Valneva is one example but it has run into major problems.  The Health Secretary in the UK said the following:

Quote

There are commercial reasons that we have cancelled the contract, but what I can tell her is that it was also clear to us that the vaccine in question that the company was developing would not get approval by the MHRA [The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency ] here in the UK.

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-58510519

Quote

The Financial Times reported that in a recent UK trial looking at potential booster jabs, the Valnera vaccine was found to be less effective than some rivals.

However, the vaccine has not yet completed clinical trials.

Suggesting that it would not get approval is quite extreme.  How bad were preliminary results?  It was taking part in a mix and match study between various vaccines.

[Mlle. Zabzie]

I have to say that I'm in the "zero covid, even for an island nation, isn't a long-term strategy."  The rest of the world is not going zero covid.  The whole thing sort of feels like people going through stages of grief in their own ways.  In one corner, you have the denialists who are denying the long term impact of covid on the social and economic fabric of a country, refusing to get vaccinating, and moving through bargaining with horse dewormer.  In another corner, you have denialists who still dream of a zero covid world (that ship sailed IMO a year ago May, or thereabouts) and still advocate ferocious lockdowns to control spread, notwithstanding the fact that long term that is damaging to mental, physical and economic health in other ways.  In the third corner, you have the people bargaining through vaccines - assuming that we can vaccinate our way out.  I mean, we sort of can, but it's a long and fraught road, given that we will be dealing with various mutations.  Think that is a 2024 or 2025 end game at the earliest.  And then, I think there is the fourth way, which is to acknowledge that the virus exists, that it has changed life, and that we need to accept the available tools (vaccination, masks), work on additional therapeutics, and go on with life as safely as we can?

[Luzifer's right hand]

33 minutes ago, Mlle. Zabzie said:

I have to say that I'm in the "zero covid, even for an island nation, isn't a long-term strategy."  The rest of the world is not going zero covid.  The whole thing sort of feels like people going through stages of grief in their own ways.  In one corner, you have the denialists who are denying the long term impact of covid on the social and economic fabric of a country, refusing to get vaccinating, and moving through bargaining with horse dewormer.  In another corner, you have denialists who still dream of a zero covid world (that ship sailed IMO a year ago May, or thereabouts) and still advocate ferocious lockdowns to control spread, notwithstanding the fact that long term that is damaging to mental, physical and economic health in other ways.  In the third corner, you have the people bargaining through vaccines - assuming that we can vaccinate our way out.  I mean, we sort of can, but it's a long and fraught road, given that we will be dealing with various mutations.  Think that is a 2024 or 2025 end game at the earliest.  And then, I think there is the fourth way, which is to acknowledge that the virus exists, that it has changed life, and that we need to accept the available tools (vaccination, masks), work on additional therapeutics, and go on with life as safely as we can?

I'm for lockdowns for the unvaccinated at this point.

No more postponed surgeries because people don't want to contribute to society.

[Fragile Bird]

21 hours ago, Padraig said:

 

That corner of Europe has amazingly kept numbers low.  It could still hit but Poland/Hungary/Czech remain the best countries in Europe for COVID.  Hope it lasts!  Other countries have had their spike and have come out the other side.  Very contrasting experiences.

I keep shaking my head at Poland’s numbers, I don’t understand how their numbers are so low. However, last year at this time Poland was in far better shape than Canada was, then in late September numbers shot up and the case count and death rate went crazy. I was watching Poland not only because of my ethnicity but because Poland and Canada have almost identical populations. As of today, Poland has had 2,895,223 cases and 75,454 deaths, while Canada has had 1,555,121 cases and 27,262 deaths. 
 

I had mentioned the issue of excess deaths before, and Canada apparently had almost 20,000 excess deaths from January, 2020 to April, 2021. I see Poland had a staggering 24,000 excess deaths in the first quarter of 2021 alone, one of the highest rates in Europe. And, oh hell, I just saw the number for 2020, 82,000, the highest percentage in Europe that year.

And to get to the point I wanted to make, I just looked at the weekly trends chart on Worldometer and the new cases in Poland, while very low, are up by 1,000 over the previous 7-day period. I hope for Poland’s sake history is not going to repeat itself.

[Zorral]

59 minutes ago, Luzifer's right hand said:

I'm for lockdowns for the unvaccinated at this point.

No more postponed surgeries because people don't want to contribute to society.

Also paying for it.  Billions in costs for the covid unvaccinated hospital stays in the last couple of months.

They are breaking the health care in every possible way -- and it isn't necessary except THEY choose not to be vaccinated and wear masks. Or distance at all, instead follow masked people around in order to rip off the masks and cough.

Zabs -- your idea of how to continue sounds good -- except the jerkwaddies won't cooperate so it will get worse and worse and worse.  There is no negotiating with jerkwaddies.  They won't.

[BigFatCoward]

1 hour ago, Luzifer's right hand said:

I'm for lockdowns for the unvaccinated at this point.

No more postponed surgeries because people don't want to contribute to society.

You spelled beatdowns wrong. 

Out of more than 51,000 Covid deaths in England between January and July 2021, only 256 occurred after two doses.

there is no need for hardly anyone to be dying anymore, except the terminally stupid. 

[Zorral]

Can this be right?  I know our numbers are ridiculous, but this many? If so, it dramatically illustrates the deaths are clustered in unvaccinated, non-masking regions.  Mustn't it?  

Quote

"1 in every 500 US residents have died of Covid-19"

https://www.cnn.com/2021/09/15/health/us-coronavirus-wednesday/index.html

[DireWolfSpirit]

2 hours ago, Luzifer's right hand said:

I'm for lockdowns for the unvaccinated at this point.

No more postponed surgeries because people don't want to contribute to society.

1. Segregate (as in a sea burial) 2. deport or 3. shoot them, they could be given 3 choices with 30 seconds to decide.

I think this would be eminently generous and shows how thoughtful the people are.

Of course we will need to get on with building new housing in Antarctica for the deportees but it's for a tremendous cause.

[Maithanet]

11 minutes ago, Zorral said:

Can this be right?  I know our numbers are ridiculous, but this many? If so, it dramatically illustrates the deaths are clustered in unvaccinated, non-masking regions.  Mustn't it?  

https://www.cnn.com/2021/09/15/health/us-coronavirus-wednesday/index.html

That's really only true if you include "the past" as a region, because the majority of those deaths occurred before vaccines became widely available in spring of this year (in US at least).  Deaths since March or so have been overwhelmingly among the unvaccinated, but that is still a much smaller raw number than we saw in spring 2020 or winter 20/21. 

[Fragile Bird]

The shocking number is that 1 in every 500 Americans have died of Covid-19.