Covid-19 #41: Collateral Damage

[Knight Of Winter]

I have a question, aimed to hopefully people from as many various countries as possible: what are you country's policies regarding booster dose? E.g. for which age groups, if any, is it recommended? How much time should it pass between second and third dose? Do people vaccinated with third dose have different set of privileges and rights compared to those vaccinated with two doses (or one, in case of J/J vaccine) ?

 

[RhaenysBee]

11 minutes ago, Knight Of Winter said:

I have a question, aimed to hopefully people from as many various countries as possible: what are you country's policies regarding booster dose? It’s highly recommended and frequently communicated to take it. E.g. for which age groups, if any, is it recommended? Every age group who is eligible for the first two, especially for 60+.  How much time should it pass between second and third dose? 4 months  Do people vaccinated with third dose have different set of privileges and rights compared to those vaccinated with two doses (or one, in case of J/J vaccine) ? Absolutely none, even double vaccinated people have no significant privileges (aka the unvaccinated are barely in any manner restricted). The willingness to take the booster is minuscule too. 

 

Answered in italic. 

[Padraig]

14 hours ago, Paxter said:

The excess mortality studies provide some clue. Take Egypt as an example of a relatively unvaccinated country. Officially the death count is 16k, but the excess mortality data points to a true death toll of 205k. That is a massive difference and a massive death toll.

Yikes.  Is there a good source for global figures by country?  I see ourworldindata has added excess mortality figures but its a little hit and miss.  No figures for Ireland, for example.  Although it does have Egypt.

14 hours ago, Zorral said:

@Padraig  -- Knew you'd find those stories, probably sooner than later, and you did.  

Hah!  I did think you might like that.

[BigFatCoward]

First day back at work since sick and the first thing my colleague said was 'fucking hell you look like absolute shite'. I do admire the plain speaking in the office occasionally. 

[Paxter]

1 hour ago, Padraig said:

Yikes.  Is there a good source for global figures by country?  I see ourworldindata has added excess mortality figures but its a little hit and miss.  No figures for Ireland, for example.  Although it does have Egypt.

Hah!  I did think you might like that.

Personally I like The Economist's excess deaths tracker. Unfortunately excess deaths data is hard to come by outside of the Americas and Europe, so the dataset is not complete. Notable omissions amongst highly populated countries are India, Pakistan and Indonesia (though there's a figure for Jakarta). China too, but they (probably) don't have much of an excess death count. 

But there are some cools pieces of information in there. Statistically, Bulgaria, Russia and Peru have the highest excess deaths per capita and are therefore the worst pandemic performers globally. NZ is the best performer with many deaths avoided since 2020 due to reduced spread of contagious illnesses etc. Malaysia also has a negative excess deaths count, which is pretty amazing for a country parked next to two not-so-good performers (Indonesia and the Philippines). 

The FT also has charts tracking excess deaths if interested in seeing the time series. That is interesting as you can clearly see the key pain points for different countries: e.g. Italy suffered a lot of its excess deaths in a large spike at the start of the pandemic, while Poland had two large spikes either side of January 2021. 

ETA: Oh and Ireland has been a decent performer according to The Economist. Fewer excess deaths than Canada and Finland, a few more than Denmark.

[Luzifer's right hand]

14 hours ago, BigFatCoward said:

First day back at work since sick and the first thing my colleague said was 'fucking hell you look like absolute shite'. I do admire the plain speaking in the office occasionally. 

So no change?

16 hours ago, Knight Of Winter said:

I have a question, aimed to hopefully people from as many various countries as possible: what are you country's policies regarding booster dose? E.g. for which age groups, if any, is it recommended? How much time should it pass between second and third dose? Do people vaccinated with third dose have different set of privileges and rights compared to those vaccinated with two doses (or one, in case of J/J vaccine) ?

 

 

Austria:

In the age group 16+ are all eligible and an mRNA booster is the recommended path. I think you can insist on an AZ or J & J booster though(although no idea on the availability).

J & J 28 days after the shot and again 6 months after that.

AZ and at risk groups 4-6 months after the 2nd shoot(not all states have the same approach). 

mRNA vaccines 6 months

There are no plans for boosters for 12 and younger so far.

No special privileges for boosted people but you extend the validity of your vaccine certificate.

 

[Paxter]

Belgium looks to be the next lockdown cab off the rank, with a high-level meeting on Wednesday to prepare for restrictions likely commencing this weekend. 

The Austria "lockdown" for unvaccinated people begins today. 

[RhaenysBee]

So I think I’m down the dark abyss of crippling COVID anxiety again. I mean at this point what is the realistic chance that my family is not going to catch it? Virtually nothing. And there’s really no telling of the vaccines will protect them or not, because don’t actually have real information on whether the 100+ people dying every day are vaccinated or not. And there are no restrictions, lockdowns or working from home, so it’s literally down to sheer chance and luck if taking a crowded train to teach 15 people in a 15 square meter room is going to land my mother on a ventilator. And I don’t get, she hates to go in and teach a physical class and the students are scared to attend physical classes so why doesn’t anybody do anything? Or why don’t they just stay home? I feel so helpless and afraid, and it’s not getting better. We keep hoping every time that okay, this is it, things will be better now because the pathogen will weaken and then it doesn’t, so we tell ourselves okay, next time it’ll be better because we are all vaccinated now, and it’s not. And it’ll just never end, until everybody all dies or goes mad being afraid that everybody will die. I’m sorry, I know I’m not being rational. I’ll somehow drag myself out of this state of mind. 

[williamjm]

8 hours ago, Knight Of Winter said:

I have a question, aimed to hopefully people from as many various countries as possible: what are you country's policies regarding booster dose? E.g. for which age groups, if any, is it recommended? How much time should it pass between second and third dose? Do people vaccinated with third dose have different set of privileges and rights compared to those vaccinated with two doses (or one, in case of J/J vaccine) ?

As of today (which lowered the age limit) the UK is recommending boosters for people over 40 or with serious underlying health conditions who had their second dose at least 6 months ago. The boosters will be either Pfizer or Moderna regardless of what the earlier doses were. Currently there isn't special treatment for those with 3 doses.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

6 hours ago, BigFatCoward said:

First day back at work since sick and the first thing my colleague said was 'fucking hell you look like absolute shite'. I do admire the plain speaking in the office occasionally. 

Yeah, holliday with kids is not as much fun and relaxing as it is without them, is it. 

[Zorral]

https://gothamist.com/news/nyc-says-any-adult-can-now-get-covid-booster-shot

So anybody can get a booster in NYC.

My usual Covid dashboard tracker for Manhattan still isn't updating.  So looking around, if I can read the graphs right, it looks as though my own zip code, as well as those above and around, all more than doubled since the last update, which was when the numbers were going up already.  The week before that was the Halloween Parade.

 

 

[Clueless Northman]

58 minutes ago, RhaenysBee said:

so we tell ourselves okay, next time it’ll be better because we are all vaccinated now, and it’s not.

Of course it's not, because unless you're Portugal or Cuba, you're not ALL vaccinated. Specially in Central/Eastern Europe. Though if people once again begin to drop like flies, this time we'll know very well why it is happening.

[Padraig]

1 hour ago, RhaenysBee said:

I mean at this point what is the realistic chance that my family is not going to catch it? Virtually nothing. And there’s really no telling of the vaccines will protect them or not, because don’t actually have real information on whether the 100+ people dying every day are vaccinated or not.

Its definitely very reasonable to be concerned.  COVID is way too prominent.  But I think you can be confident that being vaccinated does improve your odds significantly regarding serious illness.  All the real life results have showed that.  Even, Hungary's fatality rate has fallen a lot.  If your parents are boosted, that would help though.

The UK released results today on boosting.

Boosters give over 90% protection against symptomatic COVID-19 in adults over 50

6 hours ago, Paxter said:

...

Thanks.  Good sites.  There is a bit more lag around excess mortality but I was wondering were there countries that are suffering very badly from COVID right now but are ignored because they are not reporting accurate figures.  We know Peru and Bulgaria are the worst countries overall but right now, it is a bit less clear (although, from the graphs on those sites,  Bulgaria is one of the worst currently).  Those sites don't report specifically on that though.

In Ireland:

Quote

If you have received a COVID-19 vaccine course, you should get a booster dose if you are:

- 60 or older, or

- a healthcare worker

You should get your booster dose 6 months after finishing a course of COVID-19 vaccines.  If you had COVID-19 since you were vaccinated, you should get your booster dose around 6 months after your positive test result.

Being boosted earns you no extra credits right now.  But I wouldn't be surprised if that changes in the longer term.

[Zorral]

It's particularly difficult to resist that sense of hopelessness about covid when the cases increase so quickly and so many, and winter begins to draw in.  One feels surrounded by it, so how in heck can one avoid it, w/o once again losing all life outside and being with people.  I felt like that last October etc. Plus looming election.  Then there was the election and then vaccines, and things got a lot better, emotionally. This year I've been not so depressed -- yet. But again I'm seeing the numbers going up all around, and more and more more outsiders from everywhere showing up -- far more than last year, now that Europe is allowed back in.  Still, I'm hoping to some degree we can keep up an in person life with our important people instead retreat.  Of course in our case, that latter is the choice of our school.  It's all in-person.

[Zorral]

This is the latest for around here -- https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/us/new-york-city-new-york-covid-cases.html

Quote

....An average of 1,074 cases per day were reported in New York City, a 32 percent increase from the average two weeks ago. Since the beginning of the pandemic, at least 1 in 7 residents have been infected, a total of 1,133,838 reported cases. Right now, New York City is at a very high risk for unvaccinated people. ... .... The number of hospitalized Covid patients has fallen in the New York City area. Deaths have remained at about the same level. ... The trend in deaths tends to lag weeks behind the trend in reported cases: Cases have recently increased in New York City, which could mean a rise in deaths will follow. ... New York City is at a very high risk level for unvaccinated people because there was an average of 12 daily cases per 100,000 people reported in the past two weeks. The risk in New York City will decrease to high risk if the daily case rate drops to less than about 11.4 cases per 100,000 people over the past two weeks and the test positivity stays low. The case charts on this page show 7-day averages, while risk levels are assessed based on 14-day case averages, which may be different.

 

[The Anti-Targ]

7 hours ago, Paxter said:

Personally I like The Economist's excess deaths tracker. Unfortunately excess deaths data is hard to come by outside of the Americas and Europe, so the dataset is not complete. Notable omissions amongst highly populated countries are India, Pakistan and Indonesia (though there's a figure for Jakarta). China too, but they (probably) don't have much of an excess death count. 

But there are some cools pieces of information in there. Statistically, Bulgaria, Russia and Peru have the highest excess deaths per capita and are therefore the worst pandemic performers globally. NZ is the best performer with many deaths avoided since 2020 due to reduced spread of contagious illnesses etc. Malaysia also has a negative excess deaths count, which is pretty amazing for a country parked next to two not-so-good performers (Indonesia and the Philippines). 

The FT also has charts tracking excess deaths if interested in seeing the time series. That is interesting as you can clearly see the key pain points for different countries: e.g. Italy suffered a lot of its excess deaths in a large spike at the start of the pandemic, while Poland had two large spikes either side of January 2021. 

ETA: Oh and Ireland has been a decent performer according to The Economist. Fewer excess deaths than Canada and Finland, a few more than Denmark.

Interesting that the USA being in the top 20 COVID deaths/million doesn't have a single week over +50% of expected deaths. Not that +45% in some weeks is brilliant, just that being among the highest death rates for COVID in the world the weekly excess deaths seem to be a lot lower on average than the other to 20. Of course being number 20 on the deaths/million list it is expected to be lower than average of the other top 20s, it's the seemingly extent of the different that I mean.

[Mlle. Zabzie]

@Zorralper the NY State App, on 11/13 the positivity rate for Manhattan was .97% (195 positives out of 20,025 tests).  There has definitely been an uptick, and there WILL be an uptick, and, frankly that is going to be ok in the general sense for the vaccinated.  

For those who are in despair, don't be.  We are never going to be at zero cases.  But we will live in a world that lives with Covid.  And that will be ok.  Get vaccinated, and spend time with your vaccinated loved ones, because life is short and uncertain and time with those we love cannot be replaced.  *hugs*.

[Paxter]

22 minutes ago, The Anti-Targ said:

Interesting that the USA being in the top 20 COVID deaths/million doesn't have a single week over +50% of expected deaths. Not that +45% in some weeks is brilliant, just that being among the highest death rates for COVID in the world the weekly excess deaths seem to be a lot lower on average than the other to 20. Of course being number 20 on the deaths/million list it is expected to be lower than average of the other top 20s, it's the seemingly extent of the different that I mean.

I think the State-specific fluctuations over the course of the pandemic are probably masking some of those really terrible weeks for the US (e.g. Florida's worst weeks have probably been evened out by better performances in the NE corner). 

Smaller, more concentrated countries probably lack that kind of aggregation effect. 

[The Anti-Targ]

3 hours ago, RhaenysBee said:

So I think I’m down the dark abyss of crippling COVID anxiety again. I mean at this point what is the realistic chance that my family is not going to catch it? Virtually nothing. And there’s really no telling of the vaccines will protect them or not, because don’t actually have real information on whether the 100+ people dying every day are vaccinated or not. And there are no restrictions, lockdowns or working from home, so it’s literally down to sheer chance and luck if taking a crowded train to teach 15 people in a 15 square meter room is going to land my mother on a ventilator. And I don’t get, she hates to go in and teach a physical class and the students are scared to attend physical classes so why doesn’t anybody do anything? Or why don’t they just stay home? I feel so helpless and afraid, and it’s not getting better. We keep hoping every time that okay, this is it, things will be better now because the pathogen will weaken and then it doesn’t, so we tell ourselves okay, next time it’ll be better because we are all vaccinated now, and it’s not. And it’ll just never end, until everybody all dies or goes mad being afraid that everybody will die. I’m sorry, I know I’m not being rational. I’ll somehow drag myself out of this state of mind. 

Unless your country is very special, it's likely that 90+ of those hundred deaths per day are unvaccinated people. And if your country has a low vaccination rate then it's probably 95+ out of 100.

Interesting comment from some immunologists here, they have stated that viral load nd infectiousness drops off to negligible risk quicker in vaccinated people. So the govt is making isolation requirements for vaccinated people with COVID 10 days (minimum the last 3 days symptom free, so could be longer if you have symptoms on day 8/9/10), whereas for unvaccinated its 14 days (also last three days must be symptom free).

The small town where I first started my career after university has an anti-vax* (though claims not to be, only pro-freedom of choice) doctor (two actually as his wife is also a doctor and anti-vax*. They were the doctors when I was there 27 years ago. Bernard (his name is in the public domain as he has featured in news website articles) was a competent mainstream doctor with an excellent "bedside" manner. Sad to see such a person become a magnate for bad science and bad health advice. One reason I am bringing him up is * his claim he isn't anti-vax is because he says he is willing to vaccinate anyone who asks for it, though his (and his wife's) actions would seem to indicate otherwise, he is unvaccinated himself, and he does not recommend vaccination to anyone and actively advises against vaccination for children and pregnant women, when it seems like pregnancy is an indication which recommends vaccination. He claims to simply give people information about the vaccine and let them make their own choices. In my view that is bordering on unethical for a doctor. Doctors are trained specifically to give medical advice to patients in particular to advise on the best course of action in a given situation. To not advise people to get vaccinated when there is a clear benefit that far outweighs risk is irresponsible at best, negligent and reckless at worst. Yet this doctor seems to see it as highly principled to be completely neutral to most people, and actively oppose vaccination for some. The town is mostly Maori, and is less than 50% first dose vaccinated.

The other point is he is outspokenly opposed to the health and education worker vaccine mandate (of course), and the claim being made by everyone strongly opposed is around freedom of choice. This is also a grossly false narrative. Health and education workers have freedom of choice about whether they get vaccinated. What they are not free of is consequence. The consequence of getting vaccinated is keeping your job and being significantly more protected from the disease than unvaccinated people, and being less of a danger of infecting other people, with a very small risk of side effects and an extremely small risk of serious side effects. The consequence of not being vaccinated is having to find a job in a sector that does not mandate vaccination, having no specific protection from infection, illness and death from the disease, and being a greater risk of infecting others in the community, with the benefit of there being no vaccination side effect.

[Zorral]

1 hour ago, Mlle. Zabzie said:

For those who are in despair, don't be.  We are never going to be at zero cases.  But we will live in a world that lives with Covid.  And that will be ok.  Get vaccinated, and spend time with your vaccinated loved ones, because life is short and uncertain and time with those we love cannot be replaced.  *hugs*.

 We must try.  Including continuing to fight tooth and claw the fascists or whatever our choice is to designate the forces arrayed against common sense and humanity!  Which means rallying each other, even on anonymous forii such as this.