COVID 45: Those Are Rookie Numbers

[Padraig]

3 hours ago, Heartofice said:

I'd say from previous waves, especially Omicron, there are probably one or two measures (making EVERYONE work from home, closing schools bars and clubs and restaurants) that have a noticeable effect, and most barely move the dial. So you are kind of stuck with Lockdown or No Lockdown as choices.

Our medical leaders are in line with that, so I can't dismiss it.  77% of the total population have been vaccinated.  Over 20% have been infected.  Half of that 20% over the last 2 months alone but we can probably double that 10% given a lack of testing.

So yes, the medical people may indeed believe that Omicron can't be control without truly draconian measures but the worst is over anyhow, so why bother?

At the same time, I would have waited for hospitalisations to fall more.  Just to be safe.  They have just started.  I saw Denmark mentioned today for the first time in our press, which was interesting.  There are definitely a few worried medical people but they are not the majority.

I do believe earlier restrictions had a quantifiable difference though.  And we still have masking.

1 hour ago, Week said:

That's not a great message is it.  The US messed up its reaction to COVID so badly (not enough vaccinations, not enough masking etc.) that it had a terrible effect on schools.  And thus, all safety measures are wrong.   

But I believe most countries in the West didn't have to close schools as much because they applied those safety measures far better.  It will be interesting to see how the narrative is formed over the coming weeks.  Research may effect it but research takes time.

[Zorral]

This study has been brought up here, but this is the most detailed description in language I can understand I've seen so far.  Of course, the premise still needs a lot more time to be proven, but if so, it is really good news for those who have been long consumers of oral CBD for pain, etc.

https://www.vice.com/en/article/bvn743/oral-cbd-prevented-covid-19-infection-in-real-world-patients-study-suggests

I may well be mistaken but I've gotten the impression that the regular posters here on the covid thread who perhaps inbibe CBD, at least along with the THC, outnumber the number of regular posters, who, so far, have actually contracted covid.  Is that the case?  Besides, most of us who haven't -- and even those who have -- contracted covid, have also practiced all the safety protocols quite rigorously all along and still are, and gotten vaxxed and boosted as soon as they could.

[Impmk2]

1 hour ago, Padraig said:

Our medical leaders are in line with that, so I can't dismiss it.  77% of the total population have been vaccinated.  Over 20% have been infected.  Half of that 20% over the last 2 months alone but we can probably double that 10% given a lack of testing.

So yes, the medical people may indeed believe that Omicron can't be control without truly draconian measures but the worst is over anyhow, so why bother?

Be interested to see how this holds up when more analysis is done.

Here in Australia it certainly hasn't been the case this wave - the state which stripped all of it's relatively light (basically masking) restrictions right around when omicron hit (NSW) has fared significantly worse than the others*. Has peaked at about 35/100,000 hospitalised and recording ~3.5 deaths per million per day right now (7-day average, has been a pretty sharp increase over the latter half of this week). Predictions are up to 30% of Sydney was infected with Omicron. By comparision here in South Aus we're peaking at 15/100,000 hospitalisations and currently at ~2 deaths per million/day (will also certainly increase).

Main differences in restrictions are pretty light - mask wearing and a 2m^2 per person capacity limits on shops, and 10 person limit on home gatherings (completely unenforcable and everyone knows it). Now Adelaide is a far less dense city than Sydney so that may account for some differences - but Melbourne, higher density, similar population levels to Sydney is also performing markedly better (~2.6/million deaths/day - but coming off far higher Delta numbers, and about a 50% of NSW hospitalisation rate) and they've also been enforcing indoor masking and venue capacity limits throughout.

I can't discount the social factors here - the Sydney peak took off first, and I'm sure people in the other states changed behaviour when they saw the insane case numbers being reported there. And I'm not sure if we won't just have another wave as restrictions relax and schools etc go back. But even if that is the case the net effect will be to spread the peak over a longer period - that would have taken a lot of the peak pressure off the healthcare system, which wouldn't be a bad thing.

*NSW was forced to reintroduce a lot of these restrictions late December / early January when things started looking really dicey, but by that point it was completely out of control.

[Impmk2]

No talk of BA.2 here yet? Same lineage as Omicron and may have a slight transmission advantage. Thankfully seems to be immunologically quite similar, so is unlikely to cause additional waves in countries which have already had their Omicron surge, but there's a few interesting differences in the non-surface proteins (most seem in the RdRP). On current data will probably become dominant.

Some suggestion it's different enough to deserve its own greek letter (Pi?).

Relatively rapid emergence of new Omicron sublineages are probably to be expected with the large biochemical changes seen in the variant -  will likely be able to further host adapt in the short / medium term.

[The Anti-Targ]

Community transmission of omicron confirmed here now, going to code red tonight. Life carries on mostly as normal day to day, but tighter restrictions on crowd / audience sizes means events will be affected. Mask wearing will be compulsory in more situations, but for the most part in places where strangers are in the same indoor space everyone is masking anyway. Masks at schools mandatory for all people older than 8. I think all office workplaces require masks now too. Numbers are still very low (only about 12 confirmed omicron community cases so far) but the govt is preparing for a major spike in daily cases some time in the next 2 weeks. Expecting possibly over 1000 cases per day, as compared to our previous highest peak of 220 cases in a single day.

This is probably going to be the real test of whether the measures taken over the last 2 years are going to see NZ with one of the lowest overall death rates in the developed world by the time the pandemic is properly over. There is no more trying to keep a tight lid on COVID anymore

2 hours ago, Zorral said:

This study has been brought up here, but this is the most detailed description in language I can understand I've seen so far.  Of course, the premise still needs a lot more time to be proven, but if so, it is really good news for those who have been long consumers of oral CBD for pain, etc.

https://www.vice.com/en/article/bvn743/oral-cbd-prevented-covid-19-infection-in-real-world-patients-study-suggests

I may well be mistaken but I've gotten the impression that the regular posters here on the covid thread who perhaps inbibe CBD, at least along with the THC, outnumber the number of regular posters, who, so far, have actually contracted covid.  Is that the case?  Besides, most of us who haven't -- and even those who have -- contracted covid, have also practiced all the safety protocols quite rigorously all along and still are, and gotten vaxxed and boosted as soon as they could.

A prescription here is $1500 a month because our drug funding agency is not subsidising it. I asked my doctor for a prescription for my insomnia, he said he could write me a script but he unofficially said it might be possible to find CBD oil from unofficial sources. Our govt is being total dicks when it comes to CBD pharmaceuticals which can be useful for several conditions. They need to get their shit together and cover it as a subsidised prescription product.

It seems the largest (and most likely to be significant) data set suggest possibly a reduction in infection of about 30%. That is good if it turns out to be true. For countries where it is not available over the counter, it could be usefully deployed for anyone who is a contact of a known case. Take it for about a week as soon as you are identified as a contact to reduce chance of infection, whether or not your vaxed.

Do people even know how much CBD they are taking in when they consume for recreational purposes? The study was on people taking anti-seizure doses of CBD, which I think 700-2000 mg/day. That sounds like a lot of CBD to try to consume through eating or smoking the whole leaf (or seed?). I suspect smoking a few joints or eating a few brownies isn't going to give you the CBD dose you need.

I hope people don't jump on this and it becomes yet another ivermectin / HCQ situation. Early studies of these were hyped and it turned out they didn't live up to the hype.

 

[Padraig]

1 hour ago, Impmk2 said:

Here in Australia it certainly hasn't been the case this wave - the state which stripped all of it's relatively light (basically masking) restrictions right around when omicron hit (NSW) has fared significantly worse than the others*.

Very unteresting example.  The main difference with us is that we are removing restrictions after we have come over the peak.  We are around 75% below that peak now (in terms of case numbers).  In less than 2 weeks.  It turned around very quickly.  (I see that Australia also seems to be seeing falling case numbers?)

If cases start to go up again because of this change, then people will look silly.  But so many people have been infected over the last 2 months, I could imagine that the medical people think there isn't much more fuel left to burn.  But this change might slow the reduction.  And i'll be very curious to see where we flatline at.  After Delta in the summer, we flatlined at a high enough level.

[The Anti-Targ]

It appears an omicron wave lasts about 6-8 weeks. South Africa isn't quite at pre-omicron case numbers, but it is possibly at a sort of omicron baseline. Pre-omicron it was seeing 4-700 cases per day. With omicron one couple possibly see up to 2000 cases per day being an equivalent situation in terms of hospitalisation and death rates. The South Africa omicron wave death rate is still elevated above pre-omicron levels, so when daily deaths drop to </=50 per day then the baseline has probably been reached for all metrics. Daily deaths peaked on 15 January, about 1 month after the daily cases peak. I guess every country can expect death rate to go up to some extent until about 1 month after the daily case peak. The UK seems to be following that pattern, death rates still rising slightly almost 3 weeks after the daily cases peak. US peak is about 1 week behind the UK.

[Teng Ai Hui]

9 hours ago, rotting sea cow said:

Are you in China? Which city?

Yes, Tianjin

[Zorral]

1 hour ago, The Anti-Targ said:

Do people even know how much CBD they are taking in when they consume for recreational purposes?

People don't take CBD for recreational purposes -- because CBD is w/o the THC -- recreational -- component.  We take it for pain and other medical reasons, including sleep problems.  

When it comes to pain, the CBD component needs a teensy tiny component of THC to trigger the pain mitigation, but that amount won't get anybody at all even remotely high.  I know because I refuse the recreational aspect entirely -- do not want. But I do do medical / pain mitigation with CBD and have for some years now.

Finally some while ago CBD sales become legal in our state, w/o doctor approval.  But we still need a doctor's approval for the best pharmaceuticals, which is still a real difficulty to get and costs a lot.  California, for instance, is really different that way.

For quite a while now CBD products are sold all over the place.  If one has access in some way to a THC product -- well, we call it mico dosing, and one gets that same mitigation.

Cannabis can mean CBD, THC, or a combo of them.  One wants to make sure which cannabis product one wants for one's own needs. Again, me for instance, do not want a product that is high percentage of THC or pure THC at all.

Oils and so on have droppers that show how much one is imbibing at any one time. It's so easy when it's legal.  I have a bottle of CBD oil here that is 1500 mg per filled dropper, for instance.

 

[The Anti-Targ]

Another bit of good news on day 1, effectively, of our omicron wave is we have no COVID cases in ICU anywhere in the country. So, for serious cases the health system is as set up as it can be for omicron.

[Clueless Northman]

1 hour ago, The Anti-Targ said:

It appears an omicron wave lasts about 6-8 weeks.

Just had a look at OurWorldInData, and that seems to work for some countries. Central-Eastern Europe's wave began right after New Year so they're still in the massive rise phase. Then there are a few weird situations, like France and Denmark: it seemed to have peaked a week ago then went straight up once again. My money is on kids getting it massively at school after having been spared to an extent during the holidays, and they're bringing it back home. Didn't happen that much in other countries probably because they're still doing it online, or cases were already dropping and there were fewer infected schoolkids around when they went back there. Whatever, I expect that a clear majority of these people will have caught Omicron when the wave is over, more than in your average Western country.

Israel numbers are totally bonkers as well: 0.7% of the whole country tested positive in a single day. Though to be fair it's one of the countries that test the most. Still, at 5% confirmed infections a week, they're at 10% for real, and possibly more.

As for Oz and NZ (and Japan, Taiwan, China and a few others), I really hope Omicron will be milder when it comes to mortality than previous waves have been, and that when the whole population will have been exposed to it, the death rate will be far lower to what we've experienced over time in N. America and Europe. Considering your efforts, you deserve a not too unhappy ending.

[The Anti-Targ]

We do have a bit of a scary time coming, both Aus and NZ. We've been on summer almost holiday the whole time the world has been in the grip of omicron. School is due to go back late Feb / early Jan. For Aus that's looking to be when the omicron wave is tracking to be almost over, for us school is going back about the time we expect to see cases starting to rise. I'm not sure the government has much of a good plan for schools. Only about 10% of 5-11s will be vaccinated once by the time school goes back, which I guess for omicron is basically like being unvaccinated. So really the whole primary/elementary school student population is completely vulnerable to infection.

Also only 56% of people eligible for boosters (+4 months from 2nd shot) have got boosters.

Looking at Australia's death peak for this wave, it seems like omicron might be more deadly in populations that are only really immune by vaccination with basically no immunity from previous infection. This is possibly because 100% of the unvaxed population is completely vulnerable, whereas in almost every other country a substantial proportion of the unvaxed population has some immunity from past infection. It's clear our death wave from omicron will be far higher than anything we've seen previously since we've never really had a death wave. The late 2021 delta outbreak still only had deaths recorded on 20 out of 150 days of the outbreak to date. The big question is whether having schools open will just mean the wave gets over and done with more quickly with no second wave, without killing more people, or it will kill and clog up hospitals substantially more that if we delayed school for a month?

[Varysblackfyre321]

19 hours ago, Padraig said:

Our medical leaders are in line with that, so I can't dismiss it.  77% of the total population have been vaccinated.  Over 20% have been infected.  Half of that 20% over the last 2 months alone but we can probably double that 10% given a lack of testing.

So yes, the medical people may indeed believe that Omicron can't be control without truly draconian measures but the worst is over anyhow, so why bother?

At the same time, I would have waited for hospitalisations to fall more.  Just to be safe.  They have just started.  I saw Denmark mentioned today for the first time in our press, which was interesting.  There are definitely a few worried medical people but they are not the majority.

I do believe earlier restrictions had a quantifiable difference though.  And we still have masking.

That's not a great message is it.  The US messed up its reaction to COVID so badly (not enough vaccinations, not enough masking etc.) that it had a terrible effect on schools.  And thus, all safety measures are wrong.   

But I believe most countries in the West didn't have to close schools as much because they applied those safety measures far better.  It will be interesting to see how the narrative is formed over the coming weeks.  Research may effect it but research takes time.

I didn’t know we could just say we were done with Covid and it’s no longer a problem/s

I do suspect she does have many left-wing friends that are afraid of saying what she does because they’d be looked at as stupid.

As they should 

Living or operating in a society can sometimes be inconvenient to one’s personal comforts. 

[Filippa Eilhart]

14 hours ago, Clueless Northman said:

Central-Eastern Europe's wave began right after New Year

might have been delta. Poland’s omicron wave only just started this past week.

[kairparavel]

There's an anti-vaccine mandate rally and march going on here in DC, two days after the annual March for Life was held here Friday. I'll let that sink in for a bit. 

Anyways, it's a rich and succulent stew of stupid. Anti-vaxxers like RFK Jr, libertarians (thanks for all the promotional advertising on your podcast Joe Rogan), anti-abortion leftovers, anti-maskers, horse paste chewers, and of course the Proud Boys. I wish it had stayed in the teens and low twenties, temperature-wise.

I fucking hate living here sometimes. 

Can only imagine the nightmare it's been for hospitality workers given you've needed to show proof of vaccination at bars and restaurants since last weekend.

[Zorral]

I for one fail to find any upside to this -- it's just out-and-out insane, a set-up to make even more people sick with covid.  I'm seeing a version of this call from hospitals around the country too.

"Stressed hospitals are asking workers with covid to return — even if they may be infectious"

https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/01/23/hospital-workers-covid-isolation-cdc/

 

 

[Padraig]

21 hours ago, Clueless Northman said:

Then there are a few weird situations, like France and Denmark: it seemed to have peaked a week ago then went straight up once again.

Impmk2 mentioned that Denmark has a different strain of Omicron, which is possibly even more transmissable.   I wonder has France been hit by that also.  But Denmark's fatality rate hasn't escalated so far, so it may just be a transmission thing.

Conversely, Italy's cases seem to be stabilising but its fatality rate is quite high.  Not close to Bulgaria high but US high.  For a country that had very bad COVID waves and has high vaccination rates, that is surprising.  Now its bad COVID rates were in 2020, so maybe that immunity wore off partly.  Or maybe Delta stuck around in pockets longer than in other countries.

COVID is hard to figure out!

Edited to add:  This gives more info.

https://fortune.com/2022/01/21/what-is-stealth-omicron-new-covid-variant-substrain-denmark/

Quote

 

But Danish authorities also urged the public to not read too much into BA.2's rise at this point.

“Initial analysis shows no differences in hospitalizations for BA.2 compared to BA.1,” Denmark’s Statens Serum Institut, a government-run infectious disease research center, said in a statement on Thursday. “It is expected that vaccines also have an effect against severe illness upon BA.2 infection.”

 

 

[RhaenysBee]

We are officially on the omicron track. 40000 new cases over the weekend (don’t be fooled, this is the aggregated number of 3 days so roughly 13-14000 cases per day), but only 122 deaths and we have 200+ deaths per day with delta. So maybe this thing is not quite as bad? 

 

[rotting sea cow]

On 1/23/2022 at 1:35 AM, Teng Ai Hui said:

Yes, Tianjin

Is there any idea how China will proceed in the near and mid future? What do people say? From here, they seem to be dead-set with a Zero COVID policy (I don't blame them), but at some point that will fail. Omicron is a completely different beast compared to the original strain. There are real worries about the impact of the massive city-wide lockdowns in a fragile world economy.

Over here there, you can find a mixture of do-nothing and knee-jerk ineffective, divisive and ultimately detrimental measures. 

 

[rotting sea cow]

On 1/21/2022 at 9:02 PM, TrueMetis said:

Well the difference there is one of those is being done by the federal government, who's actions make sense if a little weak, and the other is the province, who hates healthcare workers and seems to be taking this as an opportunity to break the healthcare system.

I'm actually talking that many of these measures are doing more harm than good in the current context.

First, you have decades on policies neglecting and damaging the health care system (not only in US but many other developed countries). Then you get hit by the biggest health crisis in a century and during the last two years, little to nothing has been done to strengthen the system and support the HC workers. As result, a record number are quitting their posts citing burn-out and psychological damage (understandably!). On top of that, like there is abundance of resources, politicians decide to fire the stubborn unvaccinated workers, citing dangers to the public and do nothing to support those remaining, worsening the crisis.  Is there any figure that tell how big is the current shortage of HC workers? Even a 5% is a big number. These workers aren't going to be created out thin air.

Similarly, in France, the main public health policy is called "pissing-off the unvaccinated" while the schools sink into chaos.

Canada (and now US apparently) are banning the unvaccinated truck drivers from crossing the borders. Yes, that will certainly improve the raging epidemic within their borders, solve all the problems in the supply chain and lower the inflation numbers.

Politicians should stop implementing knee-jerk measures that only appease a certain crowd and only do additional damage to the battered lives of their citizens. If they don't know what to do, then do nothing.