COVID 45: Those Are Rookie Numbers

[Kalbear]

1 minute ago, Jaenara Belarys said:

Won't it still cover Omicron, just with less effectiveness? It's still COVID, after all (I will admit, I don't know much beyond what I see on the news, so I could be very wrong). 

This is basically right. This is also why they don't want to release a specific variant-based vaccine - because something that is too specific may not be effective in stopping future variants or even previous variants. That was the case with Delta, where they said they could produce something that worked better against Delta but worse against the base variant - which would have also meant worse against Omicron. 

They are also developing 'universal' coronavirus vaccines that work on more general parts of the coronavirus that should be more effective, but those take a bit more time to develop. 

[Fragile Bird]

A story popped up on my Fb page, showing pictures of the Canadian women’s hockey team, who played and won their game today while wearing KN94 masks.

[The Anti-Targ]

Updated modelling is predicting our omicron peak to be at around 10,000 cases per day. Compared to the history of COVID in NZ that is huge. But relative to omicron waves around the world that would be a fairly modest peak. For instance the Denmark peak (~15% higher population) was 52,000, and the Australia peak (5x our population) was 153,000. If we were looking at a comparable peak that would be between 30,000 and 40,000 cases.

All models are wrong, as the saying goes, but I hope it's not that wrong. It would be even better if it was wrong they other way. I doubt it, but I think we were way off on what would happen with Delta in the last 2 months with it being no where near as bad as predicted, so it might be the same with omicron. We are at the early stage of the rising wave, with highest daily numbers since the start of the pandemic, but not crazy high numbers yet. Were entering into the crazy phase with 79% of the total population fully vaccinated, 85% of the eligible population (5+) fully vaccinated and 91% of the eligible population at least partially vaccinated. We also have ~20% of the total population boosted. I think those are better vaccination stats than most countries had when omicron hit. But, since we haven't really been subject to the filtering of the vulnerable from previous waves, I think maybe proportional to case numbers we might have a higher death wave than most omicron waves.

[Which Tyler]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-60259302

 

Quote

AstraZeneca vaccine: Did nationalism spoil UK's 'gift to the world'?

 

[rotting sea cow]

On 2/5/2022 at 11:43 PM, Padraig said:

Well.  Ouch.  Hard to see Pfizer/Biontech doing better if Moderna falls over, given the similarity of the two.

I don't think Moderna or Pfizer/Biontech got great results when they previously looked at different vaccines against variants.  But because Omicron was much more different than the previous ones, I did expect more.

There is a good write up by D. Lowe regarding the issue and as expected the "Original Antigenic Sin" is probably to blame. He makes clear that he doesn't like that term and prefers "Immune Imprinting"

https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/omicron-boosters-and-original-antigenic-sin

Now. The important part is that vaccines are doing a very good job in keeping people out of the hospitals, but a quite poor one at stopping transmission. Together with the less severe curse of Omicron and widespread infections, I believe we can be quite optimist regarding the future of the pandemic, it might well be we'll be out of woods very soon. There is still need to be vigilant of course.

Regarding future variants, yes, it's a hypothetical risk, but with increasing immunity all around, things might not become as bad as some fear, unless some unexpected developments do occur. Hell, even if SARS1 were to reappear, vaccines and infection provide enough cross immunity to lower its severity to a considerable level. Also, Omicron is infecting everything, so probably the reservoirs of older variants will get it too.

Will we need updated vaccines? Probably at some point, but I feel they will need to be completely reformulated to avoid the problems with current ones.

 

[Jaenara Belarys]

8 hours ago, rotting sea cow said:

Now. The important part is that vaccines are doing a very good job in keeping people out of the hospitals, but a quite poor one at stopping transmission.

Vaccines are mostly intended to help prevent "serious illness and death", are they not?

[The Anti-Targ]

5 hours ago, Jaenara Belarys said:

Vaccines are mostly intended to help prevent "serious illness and death", are they not?

The original intent was also, and equally importantly, to get to population immunity without everyone having to catch the disease (and overwhelm hospitals and morgues, and drive up the share prices of funeral services). It seems with the increasing infectivity of variants true population immunity may not be achievable even though natural infection. So now efforts are more or less solely on reducing serious illness and death.

[Padraig]

9 hours ago, rotting sea cow said:

There is a good write up by D. Lowe regarding the issue and as expected the "Original Antigenic Sin" is probably to blame. He makes clear that he doesn't like that term and prefers "Immune Imprinting"

https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/omicron-boosters-and-original-antigenic-sin

That's a very good article.  So Omicron is still too close to the original virus for the primed body to differentiate it.  Although, there was a suggestion that some of the Pfizer vaccine variants did quite well (the alpha one especially, for some reason).  It will be interesting more data.

Otherwise, the US is considering increasing the gap between the first 2 doses to 8 weeks because it reduces the risk of myocarditis and increases immunity.

https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/covid-vaccine-cdc-advisers-weigh-delaying-second-shot-eight-weeks-rcna14905

And more on Novavax's eternal delays.

https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/novavax-underdelivers-covid-vaccine-promises-2022-02-08/

[The Anti-Targ]

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Omicron spreading between animals

Awesome!!!

[mcbigski]

I caved tonight and showed my vaccination card for the first time today.

I feel dirty, and unfree.

Some random guy working the gate at a college basketball game has zero right to my health info in a reasonable world.  But I wanted spend some time with a friend so I didn't blow up about it.

That being said, apparently the show your papers is a Uconn thing and not a city of Hartford thing.  

I  had already decided that I wasn't going to contribute to my alma mater after they paid Robin DiAngelo $20k plus to stoke racial hatred, but final nail.  Plus Uconn football is like Jets the last 50 years without Sanchez and Ryan at least making the AFC finals.

[rotting sea cow]

17 hours ago, Jaenara Belarys said:

Vaccines are mostly intended to help prevent "serious illness and death", are they not?

Yes. That's the primary public health goal.

However, there has been confusing messaging and policies regarding vaccination that has left many people with high expectations.

Trials were not designed to measure reduction of mortality and morbidity, only reduction of infection and vaccines passed that test spectacularly, with the best vaccines showing >90% reduction. That led people and policymakers to consider that herd immunity was possible or at the very least severe reduction of transmission rates based on a vaccine-only policy.

However, together with antibody waning and new more infectious variants, that goal got more difficult to achieve and it's now impossible with Omicron, owning its high immune escape and infectiousness.

As a passing note, I do wonder if pharma companies did withheld the information regarding the effects of antibody waning on infectious rates. They certainly continued to follow trial participants and by March 2021 that effect should have been evident.

Anyway, given that group immunity protection for the most vulnerable is probably out of reach, what options do they have? First, the vaccines are reducing in a considerable amount the risk for elderly and together with Omicron being less severe, they are being left probably in the same ballpark as with the flu. There are new antivirals and treatments and if people follow some simple measures for themselves, they can be quite reassured that their chances of dying or getting hospitalized will be severely reduced.

 

[rotting sea cow]

7 hours ago, The Anti-Targ said:

Omicron spreading between animals

Expected. There are multiple animals catching the virus, which makes me nervous about future spillovers. Omicron might have been one, from some rodent.

Anyway, I prefer that every single creature in the world catches Omicron instead of being reservoirs of older variants which, upon spillover, end messing up even more the phylogenetic tree of this damn virus. IIRC many of those deer in US harbor some Alpha sub-variant. We don't need to resurrect that extinct lineage. 

[Heartofice]

1 hour ago, rotting sea cow said:

However, together with antibody waning and new more infectious variants, that goal got more difficult to achieve and it's now impossible with Omicron, owning its high immune escape and infectiousness.

Surely there is nothing unusual about anti bodies waning over time, and also that viruses tend to mutate towards being more contagious (often less deadly at the same time) due to selection pressure. None of this should have been in any way surprising for us all. 

[maarsen]

8 hours ago, mcbigski said:

I caved tonight and showed my vaccination card for the first time today.

I feel dirty, and unfree.

Some random guy working the gate at a college basketball game has zero right to my health info in a reasonable world.  But I wanted spend some time with a friend so I didn't blow up about it.

That being said, apparently the show your papers is a Uconn thing and not a city of Hartford thing.  

I  had already decided that I wasn't going to contribute to my alma mater after they paid Robin DiAngelo $20k plus to stoke racial hatred, but final nail.  Plus Uconn football is like Jets the last 50 years without Sanchez and Ryan at least making the AFC finals.

Doesn't that same random guy have access to your financial info in that he can deny you entry if you didn't pay? 

[Padraig]

1 hour ago, Heartofice said:

Surely there is nothing unusual about anti bodies waning over time

We just didn't understand the speed. Some vaccines remain effective for years.  And in fact, I still remember reading an article a couple of weeks before Israel starting giving third doses to people that suggested that COVID immunity would last years.  It might still do so but it could be protection against serious illness and not vaccination.

There seems to be (at least) 5 factors involved with immunity:

1. How many doses did you get
2. What vaccine did you get
3. What was the gap between doses (i.e. the US is considering longer gaps between dose 1 and 2 to improve immunity)
4. The length of time since your last dose
5. The type of protection we are talking about (infection v serious illness).

I haven't read anything very definitive on how all of the above interact with each other.  There are so many factors, that it is very difficult to be very definitive.

For example, a third dose seems to help versus Omicron even compared to somebody who has just gotten their 2 doses (never mind somebody who got their second dose 6 months ago).  But I wonder if there was a bigger gap between doses 1 and 2, would the improvement after getting a third dose be lower?  Canada did have longer gaps between doses and seems to be doing better than most but the type of restrictions plays a major role there.

And in fairness to the pharma companies, they were suggesting the need for a booster dose months before countries accepted the principle.

3 hours ago, rotting sea cow said:

Trials were not designed to measure reduction of mortality and morbidity, only reduction of infection and vaccines passed that test spectacularly, with the best vaccines showing >90% reduction.

And just to add.  The reason for this design was that they wanted to get results fast.  Waiting for enough people to die to get statistically significant results would have taken much longer.

3 hours ago, rotting sea cow said:

First, the vaccines are reducing in a considerable amount the risk for elderly and together with Omicron being less severe, they are being left probably in the same ballpark as with the flu.

Very interesting graph.

[Zorral]

5 hours ago, rotting sea cow said:

Omicron being less severe

Mostly, as the articles I've been seeing during the latter part of the surge hospitalizations, Omicron is less severe in all groups, particularly the most vulnerable ONLY if they are vaccinated and, mostly, it seems, also boosted.

 

[Mlle. Zabzie]

5 hours ago, maarsen said:

Doesn't that same random guy have access to your financial info in that he can deny you entry if you didn't pay? 

The amount of data we have all given to Apple, Google, Meta, your mobile carrier, Amazon, etc. etc. etc. far dwarfs the momentary provision of a card, in hard copy, for visual inspection, as a condition to entry to a place of business.  

[Zorral]

So the state imposed mandate of masking in businesses is finished with tomorrow.  I do wish they continued it at least for another week.

Still must mask on transportation, government offices, etc.  And schools, at least here in NYC.

[The Anti-Targ]

9 hours ago, rotting sea cow said:

 

As a passing note, I do wonder if pharma companies did withheld the information regarding the effects of antibody waning on infectious rates. They certainly continued to follow trial participants and by March 2021 that effect should have been evident.

Anyway, given that group immunity protection for the most vulnerable is probably out of reach, what options do they have? First, the vaccines are reducing in a considerable amount the risk for elderly and together with Omicron being less severe, they are being left probably in the same ballpark as with the flu. There are new antivirals and treatments and if people follow some simple measures for themselves, they can be quite reassured that their chances of dying or getting hospitalized will be severely reduced.

 

One downside of a fast-tracked vaccine rather than one that takes the usual 5-10 year process. Though a small price to pay I think.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

2 hours ago, Mlle. Zabzie said:

The amount of data we have all given to Apple, Google, Meta, your mobile carrier, Amazon, etc. etc. etc. far dwarfs the momentary provision of a card, in hard copy, for visual inspection, as a condition to entry to a place of business.  

This is why you're a bad liberal influence on @Chataya de Fleury.