Covid-19 #41: Collateral Damage

[Luzifer's right hand]

Today I learned that the granddaughter of a friend is part of a study because her mother was infected during pregnancy. They took samples from the umbilical cord among other things. I found this rather interesting. She is completely healthy but the parents agreed to participate because the more you know the better.

[Padraig]

3 hours ago, Luzifer's right hand said:

The UK government seems to be going for the "be fast, have no regrets." approach which is a wee bit surprising. Israel is less surprising.

Cancelling flights is a low cost approach.  Especially, as the UK probably has more links to SA than other European countries.  But I see Germany and Italy are also bringing in restrictions.  I'm sure other countries have done the same (the headlines here are all about "acting quickly").  The EU has flagged it too.  I'd be way more surprised if nothing happened.  It certainly may turn out to be nothing but there are obvious potential concerns with this variant. 

Although, the tweet mentioning 500% does sound like pure headline grabbing.  South Africa had very few reported cases a week ago, so if there is a breakout of cases in a region, you'd expect most of those cases to have the same source.  The very attention of a major breakout causes more cases to be identified.

And if it turns out to be bad, hopefully we can delay things a little.  I doubt avoidance is possible.

2 hours ago, RhaenysBee said:

Studies also show that our generally high pandemic-skepticism doubled compared to the second wave. Twice as many people believe that covid doesn’t really exist and the pandemic is an authoritarian global ploy. Ridiculous. And sad. 

Scary.  On the positive side, major breakouts of COVID does generally drive more people to take the vaccine.  Romania went from 29% to 40% (with at least  1 dose) over the last couple of months (due to its dire wave).  But I fear that other people, while they started off as merely unsure, when they finally made up their minds, given the constant churn of rubbish on social media, they became firmly engrained into the skepticism crowd.  And the more pressure put on them, the more engrained they became.  I doubt anyone has figured out a way to talk to these people in mass.

[rotting sea cow]

It doesn't seem that "Nu" is outcompeting Delta as there is no much Delta to compete with.

S. Africa is interesting, waves by different variants at a frequency of 1/6months.

[Loge]

Meanwhile, at-home test kits have become the new toilet paper. Sold out everywhere...

[williamjm]

2 hours ago, Padraig said:

Although, the tweet mentioning 500% does sound like pure headline grabbing.  South Africa had very few reported cases a week ago, so if there is a breakout of cases in a region, you'd expect most of those cases to have the same source.  The very attention of a major breakout causes more cases to be identified.

It does feel sensationalist and unscientific to suggest specific numbers based on very limited data.

3 hours ago, rotting sea cow said:

I was wondering why we haven't heard of new variants. At this time of the past year, they started to sprout like mushrooms and now there was nothing, except those Delta children and here we go again.

I read an article yesterday pointing out there had been another variant spreading in South Africa that seemed to have largely ended up vanishing, I think it is making up most of the grey bit on the right of the graph above underneath delta.

[The Anti-Targ]

14 hours ago, Paxter said:

Availability isn't the only area in which the West can assist. In a lot of developing countries, foreign aid in relation to distribution would help a lot. But we don't seem to care. 

This from the OECD Sec-Gen:

Quote

“Governments globally have provided 16 trillion dollars’ worth of COVID stimulus measures yet we have only mobilised 1% of this amount to help developing countries cope with a crisis that is unprecedented in our lifetimes,”

 

That's still $160 billion, not an insignificant amount of money. And of course governments are going to spend a lot more on their own populations than on aid for developing countries.

Interesting juxtaposition of news recently what with it being a distinct possibility that Delta suicided itself in Japan, while a strain orders of magnitude worse than Delta may have emerged in South Africa.

[Padraig]

1 hour ago, rotting sea cow said:

It doesn't seem that "Nu" is outcompeting Delta as there is no much Delta to compete with.

Yes.  That is my main take from it.  I wonder is there a natural reason why COVID would increase in Nov/Dec in South Africa?  Last year it was Beta's emergence.  Maybe this year's it will be nu's.  But otherwise, it would be very surprising?  Presumably?

One suggestion would be that infection immunity lasts only around 6 months but my impression was that it is at least 9 months (in most people).

Their mid-year increases would be much more expected.

4 minutes ago, The Anti-Targ said:

That's still $160 billion, not an insignificant amount of money.

It is not significant if the rest of the world becomes an incubator for COVID.  The more worrying thing to me though, is if the rest of the world ends up being unwilling to take the vaccine.  Like Consigliere suggested is happening in South Africa.  We already have too much vaccine hestitancy.

[rotting sea cow]

Ok. News have broken that this new variant has been detected in Belgium from a woman traveling from Egypt.

This seems to be very bad news, but there is a silver lining. It means that the variant is likely all across Africa and probably elsewhere and this hasn't led to a huge increase of cases or deaths that we know of. That might indicate that might be less aggressive.

Of course, one shouldn't rely on that and to not take precautions until we can learn more about it.

[Zorral]

Moderna announced it could make a vaccine to deal with the latest South African variant in 100 days, stock shooting up this AM.  Also so say Pfizer and they all.  So said they all about all the new ones that have been detected in the past in South Africa.  Which is something to be grateful for!

But if South Africa remains so vaccination averse they continue to incubate new strains, it seems?

~~~~~~~~~~

These corps are making enormous profits out of this.  One of our Thanksgiving participants, fully vaxxed and boosted, went, just in case, to have a test though, for this holiday weekend, that includes elderly.  This time he used his insurance card -- and he saw how much was charged for the test -- $450!!!!!!

 

[Varysblackfyre321]

The new variant has spiked investors; 
https://wolfsonwallstreet.com/2021/11/26/ftse-100-plummets-amid-new-covid-19-variant-will-the-stock-market-crash/

[Zorral]

A damning report on the surge here in the "vaccination averse states." 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2021/11/25/covid-cases-increase-michigan-minnesota/

Not only are there record numbers again, continuing to increase in alarming numbers, so are all kinds of other patients with other conditions, many if not most exacerbated in severity due to their health care being put off for so long -- and also flu is really bad.

Plus, you know, yet another surge is expected -- while the Delta surge continues its momentum

 

[RhaenysBee]

5 hours ago, Padraig said:

Scary.  On the positive side, major breakouts of COVID does generally drive more people to take the vaccine.  Romania went from 29% to 40% (with at least  1 dose) over the last couple of months (due to its dire wave).  But I fear that other people, while they started off as merely unsure, when they finally made up their minds, given the constant churn of rubbish on social media, they became firmly engrained into the skepticism crowd.  And the more pressure put on them, the more engrained they became.  I doubt anyone has figured out a way to talk to these people in mass.

A friend of the boyfriend of a friend has been posting a lot about this on Facebook. He’s a doctor and he’s at his wits end about trying to talk people into getting vaccinated and listening to the wildest, most surreal “responses”  they make. Neither data, nor emotion, not even personal tragedy (a family member deceased because of covid) will sway them. So many will say, until they are on the ICU bed at least, that okay so what they’ll die then. It’s horrible. So sad. 

[JoannaL]

Its omicron not ny (just announced).  an interesting name, no idea how they counted. I think its sounds haunting?

[Fragile Bird]

2 hours ago, JoannaL said:

Its omicron not ny (just announced).  an interesting name, no idea how they counted. I think its sounds haunting?

Sounds like the title to a sci-fi series.

Book 1: Omicron Ascending

Book 2: Omicron’s Embrace

Book 3: Omicron Sinking

Book 4: Omicron’s Revenge

 

A bit lame, but I haven’t had my coffee yet.

[Which Tyler]

Omicron Persei 8, surely

 

[HoodedCrow]

It’s Pi- Phi:)

[Which Tyler]

Snu Snu Next

 

[Impmk2]

The data as it stands would indicate an R0 of 30 or more. That simply is not possible. People just don't have (an average of) 30 unique contacts each to spread to during their infectious period. However:

Undetected spread for a few months sounds far more plausible. 

[Zorral]

11 minutes ago, Impmk2 said:

People just don't have (an average of) 30 unique contacts each to spread to during their infectious period

Not even if they are at close-packed concerts indoors and etc.?  Where nobody's even masking?  Honestly, just asking.

[Impmk2]

13 minutes ago, Zorral said:

Not even if they are at close-packed concerts indoors and etc.?  Where nobody's even masking?  Honestly, just asking.

The issue is that this is an average and they'd have to be entirely unique. So each persons needs to be completely different from each other persons. Near everyone would have to be spreading and incredibly fleeting pre-symptomatic contacts would have to be infectious. Even then I'm not sure. The dynamics would be mind boggling.

If the R0 really is up around where that initial data suggests this is going to really shortcut the pandemic. That kind of R0 would rip through the entire world inside 3 months.

Variant has just been named Omicron.

Edit: Ah I see that's already been said. 6am here I completely missed that!