COVID 46 - Please disperse, nothing to see here!

[Heartofice]

5 minutes ago, Luzifer's right hand said:

The infect everyone crowd has won so it is irrelevant to discuss these things anyways.

There is no 'infect everyone crowd'. There is a 'everyone is going to get infected, accept reality' crowd.. who are correct.

[Impmk2]

The baseline mortality the WHO used to calculating excess deaths in Germany is... somewhat interesting. It's raised a few eyebrows. 

Seems there's scope for reasonable disagreement for what the baseline mortality should be in a given country, and that can completely change the analysis.

[A wilding]

Indeed, all the stats I have seen show Germany's excess mortality rate comfortably less than the UK (and similar results when comparing other Covid indicators). Which matches my anecdotal knowledge or conditions there.

[Padraig]

5 hours ago, A wilding said:

Indeed, all the stats I have seen show Germany's excess mortality rate comfortably less than the UK (and similar results when comparing other Covid indicators). Which matches my anecdotal knowledge or conditions there.

Yes.  In ourworldindata, the UK's excess rate is almost double Germany's.  The official numbers say that the UK has 50% more deaths (on a per population basis).  So a reasonably consistent story.  The WHO figures do seem very questionable.

Italy had a major disadvantage, as it was hit first in Europe.  Other countries had a little more time to react.  Most didn't react well but at least they had a chance to do so.

Sweeping statements can be somewhat misleading.  A better analysis would also divide the data into pre-vaccination and post-vaccination (since you could do very well in 1 period but not in the other.  Since most deaths occured in the initial period, a country could react poorly in the second period compared to  other countries but that could get lost in the data otherwise).  And you probably should divide the post-vaccination period in 2 also, as we move from still some restrictions to almost no restrictions.

[Impmk2]

Had a chat to my wife about this last night. She's a physicist who spends her days writing programs to analyse data coming off wind radars and eats statistical analysis like this for breakfast. (odd start to the conversation 'what do you know about spline fitting?' - turns out lots)

Anyway her take away was that she doesn't think there's anything wrong with the WHOs statistical analysis per se. At a glance it all looks reasonable. It's just that they've taken a single model and applied it to every country, which may miss specific local conditions, and throw up the occasional odd result. So there's a pretty big degree of uncertainty in all this. 

 

[Zorral]

Coronavirus wave this fall could infect 100 million, administration warns

https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/05/06/fall-winter-coronavirus-wave/

[Wilbur]

On Monday I got my second booster (fourth shot total) of the Pfizer vaccine in preparation for constant exposure to teenagers in the upcoming summer basketball sessions.  Fry's grocery and the Arizona Health Dept. send an email, reminding me to schedule a shot, I schedule a shot, I get the shot at the grocery store pharmacy.  Very smooth.

This was the first time I had any noticeable side effects, but it was similar to the experience I had last winter when I got the flu vaccine and my second shingles vaccine on the same day: left side where I got the shot all achy, nausea, stomach upset, headache so bad it woke me up, etc.

The symptoms started up about ten hours after I got the shot, and they were gone by the time 24 hours had passed.  So about fourteen hours of feeling lousy, all together.

Still better than the real thing, though.

[The Anti-Targ]

LoL?

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/bogus-ashley-bloomfield-vaccine-letter-goes-viral-among-us-far-right-and-qanon-followers/4QH3JTDPLGGXCTJBB6CNISAD2A/

Quote

Bogus Ashley Bloomfield [NZ Health Chief] vaccine letter goes viral among US far right and QAnon followers

The faked letter, which has spread across Facebook, Twitter and Telegram, peddles the falsehood that unvaccinated New Zealanders face a $15,000 fine or jail time.

A fabricated letter, purporting to be from Ashley Bloomfield, the director general of health, has been circulating liberally on social media for almost a fortnight, having received a major boost in the past few days from Donald Trump super-fans and adherents of the QAnon conspiracy theory.

Completely funny if it wasn't potentially dangerous.

[mcbigski]

On 5/6/2022 at 8:13 PM, Zorral said:

Coronavirus wave this fall could infect 100 million, administration warns

https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/05/06/fall-winter-coronavirus-wave/

We better fortify the elections Stat!

[Zorral]

350,000 covid cases in unvaccinated North Korea, fueling concerns of new and deadly variants mutating and flowing about the globe.

 

 

[The Anti-Targ]

On 5/14/2022 at 5:05 AM, Zorral said:

350,000 covid cases in unvaccinated North Korea, fueling concerns of new and deadly variants mutating and flowing about the globe.

 

 

Fortunately, North Korea is a bit of a Pariah state, so hopefully any new strains might be contained to North Korea only.

It seems highly suspect that this is North Korea's first dance with COVID-19, though I guess the isolationism that could keep their version of COVID in might have kept our versions of COVID out, until now.

[Zorral]

Our Dear Pod Partner, Friend, Neighbor's mother of child has cancer -- which would probably not have happened if she'd been able to see doctors etc. in 2020.  Or even last summer.

Now, finally, things are rolling for treatment.  She needs both chemo and radiation.  Her second chemo was for today.  She can't have it because she's got covid.  Which she got from the techs, etc. who administered the first chemo treatment, BECAUSE NOBODY IS WEARING MASKS.  NOBODY.  NO MATTER HOW CLOSE THEY ARE HOVERING OVER HER AND BREATHING.

She was so was so concerned about at the first treatment.  Lo. And. Behold.

[Luzifer's right hand]

7 hours ago, Zorral said:

Our Dear Pod Partner, Friend, Neighbor's mother of child has cancer -- which would probably not have happened if she'd been able to see doctors etc. in 2020.  Or even last summer.

Now, finally, things are rolling for treatment.  She needs both chemo and radiation.  Her second chemo was for today.  She can't have it because she's got covid.  Which she got from the techs, etc. who administered the first chemo treatment, BECAUSE NOBODY IS WEARING MASKS.  NOBODY.  NO MATTER HOW CLOSE THEY ARE HOVERING OVER HER AND BREATHING.

She was so was so concerned about at the first treatment.  Lo. And. Behold.

The COVID is over narrative will harm many people that need protection.

Hopefully she will recover quickly from it. 

[Zorral]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/05/17/latest-coronavirus-wave-us/

Quote

 

.... Americans like Wassermann are navigating murky waters in the latest wave of the pandemic, with highly transmissible subvariants of omicron spreading as governments drop measures to contain the virus and reveal less data about infections. With public health authorities shifting their focus to covid-related hospitalizations as the pandemic’s U.S. death toll hits 1 million, people are largely on their own to gauge risk amid what could be a stealth surge.

Experts say Americans can assume infections in their communities are five to ten times higher than official counts.

“Any sort of look at the metrics on either a local, state or national level is a severe undercount,” said Jessica Malaty Rivera, an epidemiologist at the Pandemic Prevention Institute housed at The Rockefeller Foundation. “Everyone knows someone getting covid now.” ....

 

 

[Zorral]

Today NYC entered the category of 'high risk' for covid infection.  No safety mandates of course, though our fearful leaders do 'highly recommend wearing masks indoors and avoid crowds.'  This is going to do the job, you betcha, to keep NYC from entering the catagory of 'extremely high risk' for covid infection, next week.

[The Anti-Targ]

Reached the next grim milestone today. After passing 1 million confirmed cases (20% of the population) a week or so ago, we have now hit 1000 deaths. At the beginning of 2022 our death total was just 59, at the beginning of March it was only 68. We blinked and 932 people died, and almost no one seems to have noticed. Was a time when a single death was cause for a press conference.

I still think we will reach the proper endemic phase, whenever that comes, with a decently low death rate, but it is disappointing to see that vaccination has been a lot less effective at preventing death than I had first hoped. Our double vax (at least) rate is 81%. Deaths among the double vaxed (at least) accounts for ~79% of deaths since 2nd vaccinations became widely available. On the face of it at the individual level there seems to be little to recommend vaccination as a way to decrease the risk of death. Of the remaining 21% of deaths there isn't a distinction made between the unvaxed and the single vaxed.

The latest update of death certificate information has confirmed that almost 50% of all reported deaths are due to COVID-19 as the underlying cause, ~25% of deaths have been confirmed as COVID-19 being contributory, ~20% have been confirmed as not being related to COVID-19 at all, and about 15% have not been officially coded yet. I can't see in the public stats what the vax breakdown is for the ~680 deaths where COVID-19 is a factor and the 160 deaths where COVID-19 was definitively ruled out as a factor. I hope at some stage they do a break down of the confirmed COVID-19 related deaths and vax status.

Overall it feels like we were saved from having a really high death rate by keeping the really bad versions of COVID-19 out and only caving in to the lower risk Omicron. It was definitely good policy to max the vax and keep the border shut while og, Alpha, Beta and Delta were doing the rounds.

Another perhaps interesting stat is that there have only been a total of 183 ICU admissions for COVID, which is only about 1/3 of the number of confirmed COVID-19 contributory deaths, so the vast majority of deaths are in people that never made it to ICU, and obviously some people (hopefully most) were discharged from ICU and did not die from COVID-19.

[Sophelia]

3 hours ago, The Anti-Targ said:

it is disappointing to see that vaccination has been a lot less effective at preventing death than I had first hoped. Our double vax (at least) rate is 81%. Deaths among the double vaxed (at least) accounts for ~79% of deaths since 2nd vaccinations became widely available. On the face of it at the individual level there seems to be little to recommend vaccination as a way to decrease the risk of death. Of the remaining 21% of deaths there isn't a distinction made between the unvaxed and the single vaxed.

You have to look at the probabilities of death in vaxxed/unvaxxed people, otherwise, where the majority are vaccinated, the majority of illness/death will also be among the vaccinated even if vaccination does help a lot.  I've found some graphs for you showing that vaccination really does substantially help protect against severe illness/death:

a California article on deaths by vaccination status from February this year:

https://abcnews.go.com/Health/dying-covid-unvaccinated/story?id=82834971

a US one on deaths by vaccination status from September last year:

https://www.statista.com/chart/25756/covid-deaths-england-by-vaccination-status/

a UK one on severe illness by vaccination status on twitter analysis up to January this year:

 

[The Anti-Targ]

1 hour ago, Sophelia said:

You have to look at the probabilities of death in vaxxed/unvaxxed people, otherwise, where the majority are vaccinated, the majority of illness/death will also be among the vaccinated even if vaccination does help a lot.  I've found some graphs for you showing that vaccination really does substantially help protect against severe illness/death:

a California article on deaths by vaccination status from February this year:

https://abcnews.go.com/Health/dying-covid-unvaccinated/story?id=82834971

a US one on deaths by vaccination status from September last year:

https://www.statista.com/chart/25756/covid-deaths-england-by-vaccination-status/

a UK one on severe illness by vaccination status on twitter analysis up to January this year:

 

When you break it down by age demographic you see the benefit of vaccination. While over the whole population the double vax rate is ~80%, in the 60+s the double vax rate is 95% maybe higher. In that 60+ age bracket 21% of deaths have come from 5% of the population. A very clear indication that vaccination has done a big job in protecting people from death.

Also while our easily accessible stats only give the deaths in the 0-59s, it seems highly likely that the vast majority of deaths have happened in the 12+ population, the not fully vaxed % of the 12-59s is about 7%. Roughly 35% of the deaths in the 0-59s is among the unvaxed / single vaxed (only about 2% of people are single vaxed). It's just that there are far fewer total deaths in the under 60s compared to 60+.

So when you drill down to the demogrtaphics that are actually dying and look at the vax stats it does become very clear that vaccination has been very protective. And this is with Omicron being the cause of 90% of our confirmed COVID-19 associated deaths, and 95% of our officially reported deaths (death withing 28 days of a positive test).

So my earlier post definitely is an examination of the gross stats that can easily mislead without really considering the finer details.

[Zorral]

Long article.

Over 75 Percent of Long Covid Patients Were Not Hospitalized for Initial Illness, Study Finds
Researchers analyzed the largest database of private insurance claims in the United States in the first four months after a diagnostic code for long Covid was created.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/18/health/long-covid-hospitalization.html

Quote

 

It’s the most succinct and dispassionate name for long Covid: U09.9 — a medical diagnostic code created last year to allow doctors to document post-Covid conditions.

Now, a large new study has analyzed data from the first few months after the code took effect, and the results paint a sobering picture of long Covid’s serious and ongoing impact on people’s health and the American health care system.

The analysis, based on what the report calls the largest database of private health insurance claims in the United States, found 78,252 patients who were diagnosed with the U09.9 code from the International Classification of Diseases between Oct. 1, 2021, and Jan. 31, 2022, and the vast majority of them had not been hospitalized for their initial infection.

Dr. Claire Steves, a clinical academic and physician at King’s College London, who was not involved in the new research, said the overall number of people who received the diagnosis was “huge,” especially given that the study covered only the first four months after the diagnostic code was introduced and did not include people covered by government health programs like Medicaid or Medicare (though it did include people in private Medicare Advantage plans). “That’s probably a drop in the ocean compared to what the real number is,” Dr. Steves said.

The study, conducted by FAIR Health, a nonprofit organization that focuses on health care costs and insurance issues, found that for 76 percent of the patients, the initial coronavirus infection did not make them sick enough to require hospitalization. Yet months later, they were experiencing symptoms that were diagnosed as post-Covid conditions, including breathing problems, coughing, fatigue and hypertension.

“It’s generating a pandemic of people who were not hospitalized, but who ended up with this increased disability,” said Dr. Paddy Ssentongo, an assistant professor of infectious disease epidemiology at Penn State, who was not involved in the new study.

Another striking finding was that while two-thirds of the patients had pre-existing health conditions in their medical records, nearly a third did not, a much larger percentage than Dr. Ssentongo said he would have expected. “These are people who have been healthy and they’re like, ‘Guys, something is not right with me,’” he said. ....

 

 

[Larry of the Lawn]

 

What COVID protocols actually lead to fewer COVID deaths?

Masking

High vax rates

Ventilation / monitoring of enclosed spaces

Encouraging early treatment instead of waiting till you can't breathe

And a whole lot of excess hospital beds 

Eta: yes it's from January but thought it was relevant to current discussion