Covid 19 #43: Oh Omicron, oh Omicron, how numerous are thy spike proteins.

[Zorral]

As far as sunshine, inside, outside etc. -- Here is it winter, perfect weather right, but Florida's cases are skyrocketing.  Despite all the elderly who presumably are fully vaxxed.

[Kalbear]

2 minutes ago, Zorral said:

As far as sunshine, inside, outside etc. -- Here is it winter, perfect weather right, but Florida's cases are skyrocketing.  Despite all the elderly who presumably are fully vaxxed.

Well, part of that is that omicron is more vaccine resistant. It has a lot more fuel to go through. 

On the seasonality- a lot of that isn't just the cold or even going inside. It's that most northern hemisphere countries start gathering more. We have school in Sept, university late Sept, then more cold, then big holidays like Halloween, Thanksgiving and Xmas. We also have bigger sports events in the fall. It may not be seasonal in the sense of doing worse in hot weather - it may simply be more seasonal just because of how humans interact. 

[Zorral]

5 minutes ago, Kalsandra said:

bigger sports events in the fall.

Would that explain the Alpha and Delta summer spikes (which this year has never stopped as in ND) that arrived in July of 2020 and 2021 from the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally?  But what about Florida and all the Gulf states also, all summer, and early fall with Delta this year?

 

[Kalbear]

I would think some of that is vacation time - going to nicer spots in the summer and getting people traveling. 

 

[The Anti-Targ]

So it's really that people are behaving as if there isn't a pandemic happening and continuing to do all the things that should mostly not be done when there is a pandemic that is spread by close contact.

[Padraig]

3 hours ago, Raja said:

Had a look at Paxlovid and I dunno - there's a lot of things that need to go right for it to make a big difference, off the top of my head.

Yikes.  Well, lets hope they prove it is useful in other groups then.

The short time interval isn't great either but if Track and Trace worked ok...

1 hour ago, Zorral said:

Would that explain the Alpha and Delta summer spikes (which this year has never stopped as in ND) that arrived in July of 2020 and 2021 from the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally?  But what about Florida and all the Gulf states also, all summer, and early fall with Delta this year?

A new virulent variant is always going to cause a spike, whenever it happens.  Trying to focus on one factor is rather hopeless.  People mentioned UK's rather odd profile earlier.  But that's more explainable.  The government there took a decision to let COVID run free in July.  That kept cases high for months, despite a decent enough vaccination rate.  Their hope was that COVID would have run out of steam by winter (since they felt that winter would otherwise lead to a further spike in cases (going back to the seasonality factor), and you have other ailments in that period also).

It half-worked, in so far as cases didn't initially spike again in winter (when other European countries did see growth) but it half didn't work also, as COVID never ran out of steam and cases never fell.  And of course, Omicron then hit, which seems to have completely changed the game again.

[Zorral]

My grandniece who will be three in January got boosted -- and was taken to have her photo with Santa.  Holy cow. Her mother got boosted yesterday and is having a reaction, yet before that was socializing in so many ways.  It's not as though they don't know about all this.  They are just ... continuing.  Whereas my bro, older than 70, stays home or at work, but the company's essentially closed for the holidays -- he's off until a week after New Year's and has been off since last week.  But it seems likely he will be sent to work from home again, if there's a sense it is needed.  It's hard.  I guess this is what it's going to be like from now on?  People just do what they want because you will either get sick or won't.  Except, of course, you can't have your surgery as the hospitals are so short staffed from so many out with covid themselves, airlines can't fly for the same reasons, and so on and so forth, including schools, which we can't shut down -- but there are hardly any teachers who aren't down with covid.  All of this the same time, everywhere, ongoing. A most unpleasant situation.

[The Anti-Targ]

The head of the fish is now 90% (eligible) double vaccinated.

...

For those who don't know what that means, if you look at the North Island on a map and squint a bit it looks a bit like a fish. So the first people to occupy New Zealand called it Te Ika a Maui, The Fish of Maui. The head of the fish is the southern end of the Island. All of the regions that are part of the head have now reached that double vaxed target, and that's where I live.

Hmmm, if the southern end is the head, and Northland is the tail, then that must mean that Auckland, which is at the south end of the tail has to be the...

[Spockydog]

Just had a horrible fucking row with my sister because I told her we had to cancel Christmas Dinner today. Well, dinner is not cancelled, just her invitation.

She took my niece to see fucking Frozen in the West End on Tuesday night. Now my niece has 'a cold', but sister says we shouldn't worry because the lateral flow test came up negative.

GTFOH.

Now she's pissed, presumably because she's got nothing in for dinner. I'm pissed because she insisted on going to a super spreader event.

She really didn't like it when I told her she should have followed Whitty's advice, and do what is important. She thought Frozen was important, now she ain't getting no turkey.

 

[DireWolfSpirit]

We (the U.S.) are now exploding with cases like Europe has been. New York and Florida are reporting even higher case numbers than their previous peaks. Expect January to be brutally harsh and such a disappointment for those that thought the worse was behind us.

[The Anti-Targ]

I guess people need to keep being reminded that a positive lateral flow result is almost certainly positive, but a negative result has a decent chance of being wrong.

Also, on the point about people with cold symptoms, I hear that in the UK "they" are saying if you have common cold symptoms there is a 50% chance it's COVID-19 and not the common cold. So it is right to keep anyone away who has cold symptoms if you don't want to expose yourself.

[DireWolfSpirit]

I'm so grateful our workplace is having its annual, end of year, 2 week shutdown currently. I don't have to be back til the 5th or so.

Perfect time to be separated from all the germ-y coughing and wheezing I've been hearing. I've been thinking a few may be fighting back denial cases, hoping they have a cold when it's wishful thinking they may potentially find out.

[lessthanluke]

Sooo many local cases popping up where I'm at (South Wales)

My 85 year old grandad just tested positive in a nursing home so hopefully it doesn't start running rampant there! (He's fine just a little more tired than normal thankfully)

[DireWolfSpirit]

I tell everybody stay away from the medical centers if possible because the stuff is inevitably clustered there.

Surprisingly there are always hypochondriac types that seem to make any excuse to go for checkups even when they are imagined maladies. During breakout periods like currently, it's just playing with fire imo.

I will not go anywhere near a hospital right now unless I had an actually limb ready to fall completely off the torso.

[williamjm]

35 minutes ago, DireWolfSpirit said:

I tell everybody stay away from the medical centers if possible because the stuff is inevitably clustered there.

Surprisingly there are always hypochondriac types that seem to make any excuse to go for checkups even when they are imagined maladies. During breakout periods like currently, it's just playing with fire imo.

I will not go anywhere near a hospital right now unless I had an actually limb ready to fall completely off the torso.

Unfortunately there are also the people who will seize upon any excuse not to seek medical help even when it's the right thing to do.

There was a news report here a couple of days on a campaign reminding people to seek medical attention urgently if they have the symptoms of a stroke, otherwise they might not live long enough for covid to be a concern.

[DireWolfSpirit]

Yes we could include stroke, along with falling off limbs, among the smart reasons to expose yourself to the hospitals during the pandemic.

Real or imagined minor aches and pains that will pass on their own, not so much imo.

There's real risk to be weighed.

[Fragile Bird]

A newly released study shows that fully-vaccinated cancer patients have a much higher mortality rate when they get a break-through case of Covid-19 than the general public. The rate was 13%.
 

A group of 1787 cancer patients were being followed, most of who were unvaccinated, but 54 fully-vaccinated cancer patients did contract Covid-19 and the mortality rate was the said 13%. The article didn’t go into details about the patients, but the study just appeared on Friday in the Annals of Oncology journal.

[The Anti-Targ]

2 hours ago, Fragile Bird said:

A newly released study shows that fully-vaccinated cancer patients have a much higher mortality rate when they get a break-through case of Covid-19 than the general public. The rate was 13%.
 

A group of 1787 cancer patients were being followed, most of who were unvaccinated, but 54 fully-vaccinated cancer patients did contract Covid-19 and the mortality rate was the said 13%. The article didn’t go into details about the patients, but the study just appeared on Friday in the Annals of Oncology journal.

So that's 7 patients out of the 54 vaxed. I would call that interesting but not definitive. Needs more investigation. What was the death rate among the unvaxed.

[Fragile Bird]

59 minutes ago, The Anti-Targ said:

So that's 7 patients out of the 54 vaxed. I would call that interesting but not definitive. Needs more investigation. What was the death rate among the unvaxed.

Neither the story nor the linked press release mention the unvaccinated patients, it looks like their interest was in vaccinated cancer patients. It does say 46% of the vaccinated patients had lower levels of lymphocytes even after two doses. The news report mentions the number of reported breakthrough Covid-19 cases among the fully vaccinated here in Canada and the number of deaths. The mortality rate so far has been 1.14%.

eta: the researchers also point out their numbers were small and more research has to be done.

[Paxter]

On 12/25/2021 at 5:37 AM, DireWolfSpirit said:

We (the U.S.) are now exploding with cases like Europe has been. New York and Florida are reporting even higher case numbers than their previous peaks. Expect January to be brutally harsh and such a disappointment for those that thought the worse was behind us.

It’s still quite possible that the worst is behind us in terms of fatalities, at least for vaccinated countries.