Author Topic: Coronavirus Weekly Update  (Read 121501 times)

JoJo

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Re: Coronavirus Weekly Update
« Reply #750 on: December 29, 2021, 05:48:14 PM »
Up 400%!!!   They love using percent increases when the starting number is a low number because it's great click bait.  So the total number hospitalized kids that have COVID went from 18 to 73  (not new hospitalizations, total hospitialized).

NY state had over 67,000 new cases today and we know this is vastly understated because people can't get tests.  What percent of the population in NYC that has covid is anybody's guess, but my guess is about 10% of the population has active covid.   

How many of these kids are hospitalized for something other than covid but just happen to have covid is the real question. 

Some recommended viewing:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OM2VgBm9pTI

Edit:  I'm not stating that Omicron is totally benign, I do think hospitalizations and deaths will increase as cases increase, it's just that the media makes more money the more we watch and click, and we are now more than a month into omicron in South Africa and London and it hasn't been nearly as bad as prior waves.  According to the video, the average hospital stay is 3 days, which is less than prior waves.  The media likes us to think all the hospitalizations last months and nearly everyone is ventilated. 
« Last Edit: December 29, 2021, 06:01:16 PM by JoJo »

Dollar Slice

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Re: Coronavirus Weekly Update
« Reply #751 on: December 29, 2021, 06:45:00 PM »
Up 400%!!!   They love using percent increases when the starting number is a low number because it's great click bait.  So the total number hospitalized kids that have COVID went from 18 to 73  (not new hospitalizations, total hospitialized).

Those are the average numbers currently hospitalized per week. They are constantly coming and going, and constantly going up. On December 23rd there were more pediatric patients hospitalized (115) than any other day during the entire pandemic including March/April 2020, AFAICT. Even though we have vaccines and treatments and masks now. To me that says Omicron is likely more severe for children than previous variants and should sound an alarm. Adult hospitalizations are up 22% statewide in the last two days. It must all be a media hoax! It's just a cold! Let's all go out to a party and then sneeze on a cancer patient on the subway. YOLO.

We'll get a lot of weekly data released tomorrow which will tell us about who is getting sick and how sick (NYC does some data dumps on Thursdays and some of it is delayed by a week or two). Includes breakdowns by age and vax status, and variant sequencing. Should be very informative.

Incidentally, Mt. Sinai hospital is back to deferring surgeries, the subway and bus systems are buckling under staff shortages and unable to run a normal schedule (to the point of temporarily shutting down entire subway lines), police, fire and paramedics are very short staffed, urgent cares are shutting down by the dozens due to short staffing, testing clinics are shutting down due to the staff having COVID. I wish more people would change their behavior to spare the poor health care workers and other essential workers this misery. But good luck with that when this gets to the COVID-denial states, I guess. Please know that some of us are doing our best :-(

JoJo

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Re: Coronavirus Weekly Update
« Reply #752 on: December 29, 2021, 07:18:37 PM »
We're on the same page with that - totally overwhelming the hospital system is very very bad.  We should all do what's reasonable to avoid spread.   I've gotten my 3 shots, distance when I can (spent 7 months of retirement with family and outdoor, distanced national travel rather than traveling the world).  Haven't flown.    I decided against going to mexico for the winter and planning to stay home on NYE. 

I'm just really really sick of the media.



 

Abe

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Re: Coronavirus Weekly Update
« Reply #753 on: December 29, 2021, 07:20:44 PM »
For reasons I’ve detailed in this thread, the South Africa and UK populations differ from the US substantially and we should take caution extrapolating their outcomes to ours.

DarkandStormy

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Re: Coronavirus Weekly Update
« Reply #754 on: December 30, 2021, 10:01:21 AM »
Edit:  I'm not stating that Omicron is totally benign, I do think hospitalizations and deaths will increase as cases increase, it's just that the media makes more money the more we watch and click, and we are now more than a month into omicron in South Africa and London and it hasn't been nearly as bad as prior waves.  According to the video, the average hospital stay is 3 days, which is less than prior waves.  The media likes us to think all the hospitalizations last months and nearly everyone is ventilated.

The median age in South Africa is ~10 years less than in the U.S.  Not really a good apples to apples comparison.  In addition, omicron mutates about every 14 days.

I'm not sure what you're referring to when you say "the media."  Very vague and not really helpful.  Maybe include some sources or citations?

Early estimates I've seen is that omicron will infect 3-4x the number of people as previous waves within ~1 month of becoming the predominant strain/variant.  On an individual level, yes, your odds of being hospitalized are a lot lower.  But *SOME* people will still be hospitalized and die.  A small % of a large number can still be a large enough number to overwhelm hospitals.  Early indications from London and the U.K. is that hospitalizations will be 50-80% of what they were peak delta...on a % basis.  So again, individually, your odds of getting a severe case are low.  Collectively that still remains to be seen.

Dollar Slice

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Re: Coronavirus Weekly Update
« Reply #755 on: December 30, 2021, 04:07:05 PM »
We'll get a lot of weekly data released tomorrow which will tell us about who is getting sick and how sick (NYC does some data dumps on Thursdays and some of it is delayed by a week or two). Includes breakdowns by age and vax status, and variant sequencing. Should be very informative.

Just looked through the Thursday data dump... couple of things that stood out to me. First was that the 0-4 age group in particular had a sharp uptick in hospitalizations last week and now has a higher rate than any other age group below 55. Not great.

Also the breakdown by vaccination status is out for the first week with major Omicron impact, and it really surprised me. I thought there would be a big bump in vaccinated cases since the vast majority of New Yorkers are vaccinated (but mostly not boosted) and everyone is getting breakthrough cases. This is the week that we went from about 25% to 70% Omicron, so maybe averaged 50/50 with Delta. I'll attach the graph - it's almost all unvaxed still. So much for the "vaccinated people are spreading it just as much" line the anti-vaxxers love so much. (Purple is unvaxed, orange is vaxed.)

lost_in_the_endless_aisle

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Re: Coronavirus Weekly Update
« Reply #756 on: December 30, 2021, 05:55:02 PM »
We'll get a lot of weekly data released tomorrow which will tell us about who is getting sick and how sick (NYC does some data dumps on Thursdays and some of it is delayed by a week or two). Includes breakdowns by age and vax status, and variant sequencing. Should be very informative.

Just looked through the Thursday data dump... couple of things that stood out to me. First was that the 0-4 age group in particular had a sharp uptick in hospitalizations last week and now has a higher rate than any other age group below 55. Not great.

Also the breakdown by vaccination status is out for the first week with major Omicron impact, and it really surprised me. I thought there would be a big bump in vaccinated cases since the vast majority of New Yorkers are vaccinated (but mostly not boosted) and everyone is getting breakthrough cases. This is the week that we went from about 25% to 70% Omicron, so maybe averaged 50/50 with Delta. I'll attach the graph - it's almost all unvaxed still. So much for the "vaccinated people are spreading it just as much" line the anti-vaxxers love so much. (Purple is unvaxed, orange is vaxed.)
I don't think you can conclude all of those things from this information. Vaccinated infections may be happening quite a bit at a subclincial level in severity, creating a bias in testing demand massively in favor of the unvaccinated who are more likely to experience characteristic symptoms and seek out a test.

If the US had a proper random surveillance testing program, we would have a clearer idea of the prevalence statistics, but of course, 2 years is not enough time to sort something like that out. And for the % omicron stats, are your percentages based on the CDC now-cast estimate? I guess it takes a week or two to collect and collate the variant data, so we don't really know current variant prevalence beyond a noisy CDC estimate based on aged data and an assumption-heavy model (2 years is evidently not enough time to streamline the genetic sequencing program).

Much more widespread prevalence would also partially explain the 0-4 hospitalization signal, since that age is not vaccinated (though it's true omicron may also be inherently more dangerous for those ages). Just the sheer number of concurrent infections, though, could give rise to current observations.

My early back-of-the-envelope calculation using early December information had US infections peaking at ~10M per day in the first half of January. Using a 1:3 case to infection ratio, that would imply ~3.3M cases per day at peak, though two factors--testing supply constraints and lower disease severity--will shift this ratio to smaller detection rates. In any case, if prevalence is extremely high already, at least it means we are near the peak.

marty998

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Re: Coronavirus Weekly Update
« Reply #757 on: December 30, 2021, 06:09:57 PM »
We'll get a lot of weekly data released tomorrow which will tell us about who is getting sick and how sick (NYC does some data dumps on Thursdays and some of it is delayed by a week or two). Includes breakdowns by age and vax status, and variant sequencing. Should be very informative.

Just looked through the Thursday data dump... couple of things that stood out to me. First was that the 0-4 age group in particular had a sharp uptick in hospitalizations last week and now has a higher rate than any other age group below 55. Not great.

Also the breakdown by vaccination status is out for the first week with major Omicron impact, and it really surprised me. I thought there would be a big bump in vaccinated cases since the vast majority of New Yorkers are vaccinated (but mostly not boosted) and everyone is getting breakthrough cases. This is the week that we went from about 25% to 70% Omicron, so maybe averaged 50/50 with Delta. I'll attach the graph - it's almost all unvaxed still. So much for the "vaccinated people are spreading it just as much" line the anti-vaxxers love so much. (Purple is unvaxed, orange is vaxed.)
I don't think you can conclude all of those things from this information. Vaccinated infections may be happening quite a bit at a subclincial level in severity, creating a bias in testing demand massively in favor of the unvaccinated who are more likely to experience characteristic symptoms and seek out a test.

If the US had a proper random surveillance testing program, we would have a clearer idea of the prevalence statistics, but of course, 2 years is not enough time to sort something like that out. And for the % omicron stats, are your percentages based on the CDC now-cast estimate? I guess it takes a week or two to collect and collate the variant data, so we don't really know current variant prevalence beyond a noisy CDC estimate based on aged data and an assumption-heavy model (2 years is evidently not enough time to streamline the genetic sequencing program).

Much more widespread prevalence would also partially explain the 0-4 hospitalization signal, since that age is not vaccinated (though it's true omicron may also be inherently more dangerous for those ages). Just the sheer number of concurrent infections, though, could give rise to current observations.

My early back-of-the-envelope calculation using early December information had US infections peaking at ~10M per day in the first half of January. Using a 1:3 case to infection ratio, that would imply ~3.3M cases per day at peak, though two factors--testing supply constraints and lower disease severity--will shift this ratio to smaller detection rates. In any case, if prevalence is extremely high already, at least it means we are near the peak.

3.3 million a day? Astonishing.

Even a 0.2% death rate on that many cases is 6,600 a day, or 45,000 a week. And many many more will require hospitalisation.

Get your boosters!

Abe

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Re: Coronavirus Weekly Update
« Reply #758 on: December 30, 2021, 06:13:10 PM »
It seems if we have a similar pattern to South Africa, this surge will pass by the end of January. The deaths will lag and take a while to happen, but hopefully by March we'll be over with COVID for a few months.

You heard it here first, folks!

Dollar Slice

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Re: Coronavirus Weekly Update
« Reply #759 on: December 30, 2021, 06:52:20 PM »
And for the % omicron stats, are your percentages based on the CDC now-cast estimate?

No, it's from the NYC sequencing. They sequence a percentage of all positive tests.

The 0-4 hospitalizations are rising more sharply than other ages - which to me is notable since kids were having such incredibly low severity before. 5-12 is only 25% fully vaxed, so they shouldn't be hugely different, but the hospitalization rates are just over a third of the 0-4 group. To me it seems like something's going on there. Am I a doctor or epidemiologist, no. Am I making conclusions, no. Just an observation. If I had a kid that age I'd be watching them more closely if they got sick. The hospitalization data is a week newer than the variant sequencing, so it's probably all Omicron doing that.

In terms of vaccinated people having subclinical COVID... it's anecdotal but I know a ton of vaxed people getting tested if they have the slightest off feeling - my mom took two home tests this week because she felt sniffly one day and queasy another day. It's NYC, people are both neurotic and very much want to tamp down COVID. We have 90%+ of adults partially or fully vaxed and there are lines down the block at every testing clinic. There's no way it's mostly unvaccinated people getting tested.

lost_in_the_endless_aisle

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Re: Coronavirus Weekly Update
« Reply #760 on: December 30, 2021, 07:27:01 PM »
And for the % omicron stats, are your percentages based on the CDC now-cast estimate?

No, it's from the NYC sequencing. They sequence a percentage of all positive tests.

The 0-4 hospitalizations are rising more sharply than other ages - which to me is notable since kids were having such incredibly low severity before. 5-12 is only 25% fully vaxed, so they shouldn't be hugely different, but the hospitalization rates are just over a third of the 0-4 group. To me it seems like something's going on there. Am I a doctor or epidemiologist, no. Am I making conclusions, no. Just an observation. If I had a kid that age I'd be watching them more closely if they got sick. The hospitalization data is a week newer than the variant sequencing, so it's probably all Omicron doing that.

In terms of vaccinated people having subclinical COVID... it's anecdotal but I know a ton of vaxed people getting tested if they have the slightest off feeling - my mom took two home tests this week because she felt sniffly one day and queasy another day. It's NYC, people are both neurotic and very much want to tamp down COVID. We have 90%+ of adults partially or fully vaxed and there are lines down the block at every testing clinic. There's no way it's mostly unvaccinated people getting tested.
Yes, the CDC does that but publishes a weekly nowcast that attempts to give current-state estimates but does not give stable results in a quickly changing environment because of limitation on reporting timeliness. Genomic surveillance appears to be much better in other countries, e.g. UK and Denmark. American Exceptionalism at work here.

Your point on 5-12 is a good one and would probably constrain the extent to which the spike in 0-4 hospitalization could be explained by crude infection rates versus being more inherently dangerous to that age group.

Your anecdote might be a reflection of your social group. For the most part, the people I interact with daily in the "Alabama of the Midwest" are not getting tested over the sniffles. Overall, the weight of evidence for countries with higher testing rates suggests breakthrough infections are fairly common for the vaccinated and constitute a significant portion of the omicron cases being reported in such countries. For my part, my (vaxxed and boosted) >70 y.o. parents said fuck it and just flew out here for New Year's.

But like you, I'm an armchair epidemiologist (though I do analyze data for a living). My confidence in my analysis is not particularly high even though the epidemic progression in the US is roughly following the model I built 4 weeks ago. My main point is it's hard to draw strong, specific conclusions on most data (US in particular) because of all of the confounding factors.

Dollar Slice

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Re: Coronavirus Weekly Update
« Reply #761 on: December 30, 2021, 07:49:32 PM »
My main point is it's hard to draw strong, specific conclusions on most data (US in particular) because of all of the confounding factors.

I don't think I ever tried to do that :-)

The NYC sequencing is about 10 days in the past, not a "nowcast" or a guesstimate. It's data, as I presented it. As I said, it was for the first week where Omicron really started surging. Not this week.

I just realized that the screenshot from my phone earlier didn't capture the numbers for some reason - the unvaccinated cases are 5829/100k, the vaccinated cases are 212/100k. It's an extreme difference and I have a hard time believing that it is due purely to lack of testing the vaccinated. You can look at all the data here if you want, it's a real treasure trove. Just pay attention to the different dates because some is released daily and some is weekly and the weeks don't always line up (some is delayed and some is not). https://www1.nyc.gov/site/doh/covid/covid-19-data.page#daily

lost_in_the_endless_aisle

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Re: Coronavirus Weekly Update
« Reply #762 on: December 30, 2021, 09:22:55 PM »
My main point is it's hard to draw strong, specific conclusions on most data (US in particular) because of all of the confounding factors.

I don't think I ever tried to do that :-)

The NYC sequencing is about 10 days in the past, not a "nowcast" or a guesstimate. It's data, as I presented it. As I said, it was for the first week where Omicron really started surging. Not this week.

I just realized that the screenshot from my phone earlier didn't capture the numbers for some reason - the unvaccinated cases are 5829/100k, the vaccinated cases are 212/100k. It's an extreme difference and I have a hard time believing that it is due purely to lack of testing the vaccinated. You can look at all the data here if you want, it's a real treasure trove. Just pay attention to the different dates because some is released daily and some is weekly and the weeks don't always line up (some is delayed and some is not). https://www1.nyc.gov/site/doh/covid/covid-19-data.page#daily
Ah, right, NYC. I forgot you people thought you were the entire US, hence my confusion ;)

That case info sounds totally incompatible with UK data based on stuff like this:
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1041270/2021-12-15_COVID-19_Press_Conference_Slides_PUBLICATION.pptx.pdf

ratio is 4-6:1 for unvaccinated to vaccinated for hospitalization, while what you're suggesting nearly 30:1 (for cases; too lazy to keep trying to find stats for UK cases rather than hospitalizations). US has lower vaccination rate but not sure that could make up the difference.

But wait, I just followed your link and found case counts in NYC by vax status: the ratio is in fact 5:1 matching the Uk data. Where are you possibly getting 25-30:1 -- that can't be right! Maybe the line chart is showing all history, while the bar chart snipped below is showing "since vaccinations began?"  In any case, the bar chart looks more in-line with other countries.


Dollar Slice

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Re: Coronavirus Weekly Update
« Reply #763 on: December 30, 2021, 10:07:03 PM »
Ah, right, NYC. I forgot you people thought you were the entire US, hence my confusion ;)

(eyeroll) Oh, you're one of those people. OK. Har har. *insert condescending joke about flyover country* Happy now?

I never said anything about extrapolating data about what's happening in NYC to the entire country or world. I'm observing people's behavior here, within city limits, and observing the data that's being collected here, within city limits, and trying to figure out what it might mean.

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Where are you possibly getting 25-30:1 -- that can't be right!

From the website I just linked you to? The numbers are on the chart. As of 12/18 the cases per 100k for unvaxed are, like I said, 5829, and the cases per 100k for vaxed are, like I said, 212. It is shocking. But that is what the chart says. I don't know why you're making it like I'm making this up or "suggesting" it. Take it up with the New York health department if you think it's a lie. Or am I hallucinating or something? What are you even confused about here?

lost_in_the_endless_aisle

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Re: Coronavirus Weekly Update
« Reply #764 on: December 30, 2021, 10:23:32 PM »
Ah, right, NYC. I forgot you people thought you were the entire US, hence my confusion ;)

(eyeroll) Oh, you're one of those people. OK. Har har. *insert condescending joke about flyover country* Happy now?

I never said anything about extrapolating data about what's happening in NYC to the entire country or world. I'm observing people's behavior here, within city limits, and observing the data that's being collected here, within city limits, and trying to figure out what it might mean.

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Where are you possibly getting 25-30:1 -- that can't be right!

From the website I just linked you to? The numbers are on the chart. As of 12/18 the cases per 100k for unvaxed are, like I said, 5829, and the cases per 100k for vaxed are, like I said, 212. It is shocking. But that is what the chart says. I don't know why you're making it like I'm making this up or "suggesting" it. Take it up with the New York health department if you think it's a lie. Or am I hallucinating or something? What are you even confused about here?
I'm confused because of the bar chart (not the line chart) on the same source that I posted previously suggesting a much smaller disparity that is in line with reporting from other countries.

Dollar Slice

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Re: Coronavirus Weekly Update
« Reply #765 on: December 30, 2021, 11:36:57 PM »
I'm confused because of the bar chart (not the line chart) on the same source that I posted previously suggesting a much smaller disparity that is in line with reporting from other countries.

The bar chart from here? The hospitalization rates? The same data is available on the NYC site and it's pretty similar to cases, close to 30:1. I'm not sure if the most recent data is complete, it looks a little off since the vaxed line dips down instead of heading up. Maybe that's the mild Omicron breakthrough cases showing up.

You can't really compare NYC to entire other countries like it's apples to apples. We have very stringent COVID mandates and have tried really hard to get people vaccinated. If you're one of the 7.5% of adults who have not gotten a single dose of a vaccine at this point, you're a real outlier. (Not including, obviously, the rare few medical exceptions.) You've refused a $100 cash payment for each of your first and third vaccines, you've refused tickets to a variety of ball games and museums, free subway passes, a chance for your kid to get free college tuition, lottery tickets. You've accepted that you can't get a job at many, many different places in the city at a time of high unemployment. You've accepted that you cannot legally enter a restaurant, bar, movie theater, concert, gym, museum, bowling alley, pool hall, strip club, theater, conference or convention. You've essentially removed yourself from society and turned down free money to do so. I would put good money down that this is a population that has a very high number of people who are unable to make good decisions about personal safety on an ongoing basis.

JoJo

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Re: Coronavirus Weekly Update
« Reply #766 on: December 31, 2021, 01:33:20 PM »
Here's a video of Fauci himself talking about the juvenile hospitalizations.  Is this video new?  I've been unable to find this video online other than tweets by people/groups such as Ted Cruz, but the article is dated 5 hours ago so I'm assuming the video is new?

https://www.newsweek.com/fauci-children-hospital-covid-omicron-1664676

Gin1984

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Re: Coronavirus Weekly Update
« Reply #767 on: December 31, 2021, 02:24:32 PM »
Here's a video of Fauci himself talking about the juvenile hospitalizations.  Is this video new?  I've been unable to find this video online other than tweets by people/groups such as Ted Cruz, but the article is dated 5 hours ago so I'm assuming the video is new?

https://www.newsweek.com/fauci-children-hospital-covid-omicron-1664676
I would not assume that it is new.  They say he was speaking to mnbc yet I cannot find any current mnbc coverage of this. 

Taran Wanderer

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Re: Coronavirus Weekly Update
« Reply #768 on: December 31, 2021, 02:28:27 PM »
I’ve found out this week about 10 Covid cases in people I know. One died. The unvaccinated case was the death. The vaccinated cases have so far all involved mild symptoms and recovery at home. Yes, it’s anecdotal, but it’s my reality. Based on the contacts of the positive cases, I’m expecting 6 to 10 more positive tests in their family members in the next week.

OtherJen

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Re: Coronavirus Weekly Update
« Reply #769 on: December 31, 2021, 02:38:40 PM »
I’ve found out this week about 10 Covid cases in people I know. One died. The unvaccinated case was the death. The vaccinated cases have so far all involved mild symptoms and recovery at home. Yes, it’s anecdotal, but it’s my reality. Based on the contacts of the positive cases, I’m expecting 6 to 10 more positive tests in their family members in the next week.

Anecdotally, I knew a few people who died of COVID pre-vaccine. One was 42.

Since then, several people of my acquaintance have gotten it. One vaccinated person ended up in the hospital with pneumonia for several days. She was over 65 with an underlying condition and hadn't yet had a booster. She continued a local political campaign from her hospital bed, won, and is now serving in office. All others who've had breakthrough cases after vaccination have had illnesses ranging from a mild cold to a moderate flu-like illness, and they've all recovered.

The one person I knew personally who died of it in the last 6 months was an anti-vaxxer.

JoJo

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Re: Coronavirus Weekly Update
« Reply #770 on: December 31, 2021, 03:07:22 PM »
OK, confirmed this video is new (12/29/2021 Rachel Maddow).  Discussion that hospitalized WITH Covid rather than hospitalized because of Covid, and it's all getting counted as COVID hospitalizations.  Around 3:20 on this video:

https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/watch/reduced-severity-of-omicron-illness-shifts-focus-from-case-numbers-to-hospitalizations-129807429857

This is where I'm anti-media.  Let's look for the most negative thing we can write up, but don't look for reasons why ... just make it sound like it's all bad as long as it gets clicks and supports their narrative. 

BikeFanatic

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Re: Coronavirus Weekly Update
« Reply #771 on: December 31, 2021, 03:38:07 PM »
I understand it is confusing and dificult to decifer the data in real time as the surge is happening now. Once we get through the next 2-4 weeks  we will probably will know more of what we are facing as far as hospitalizations for covid ( and vaccine status).

I am triple vaccinated and I just recently came down with Covid. I know who gave it to me and I usually take a lot of precautions but I was inside with her mostly masked twice and we share dogs, so they could have transmitted?
anyway I had like a bad cold or flu. I ave been Isolating since she got her pos test and I tested negative Xmas eve then Positive 3 days ago. I guess/ hope the vaccine prevented me from having bad covid.  My mother traveled to NYC and came home very sick so far like a bad cold but the cough I am a little worried she is triple vaxed as well. SO we will see how she does she tested negative on christmas in NYC with an at home test. I just do not know how accurate those tests are.

From my experiece coding and billing in the hospital they have separate codes for hospitalized with covid infection versus hospitalied with heart attack and has covid incidently . SO most research  uses these codes as  data from hospital and  those numbers get crunched and interpreted. There is an  physician in England who talks about the numbers and decifers alot of this type of data for the masses. He is on youtube. He talks about the US as well as Great Britian. Last video I saw he said 50% of all colds in england ( meaning people with cold symptoms) were coronavirus omnicrom (presents as cold like symptoms.) He also explained that almost 80 % hospitalisations  with Covid ( either in London or the UK I cant recall) were incidental covid infections in the hospital, in other words they came in with something else. I am going to look at the racheal Maddow link here is the guy I discussed on you tube. NOt that I can vouch for this guy but he crunches the numbers and interprets for the masses. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OM2VgBm9pTI

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Re: Coronavirus Weekly Update
« Reply #772 on: December 31, 2021, 06:11:35 PM »
Re the YouTube video. Dr. Campbell is a nurse educator (Cumbria University) with a Ph.D, hence the Dr.  He has been diligent in digging out facts and following progress of this epidemic.  His teaching background shows in the way he clearly presents information.   I especially like that he posts all his sources and tells viewers not to trust him, go read for themselves.

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Re: Coronavirus Weekly Update
« Reply #773 on: December 31, 2021, 07:01:36 PM »
I feel like vaxxed/unvaxxed is not the only dimension we need to know about. is anyone even discussing this? How unhealthy are the people in both cases?

To my mind, unvaxxed and unhealthy (usually metabolically unhealthy per typical bad Western diet) is the highest risk. I'd guess that most deaths are in this category if the person is under about 70. I'd wager that mainstream Americans are mostly in this category.

The lowest adult risk for death and disability, but also for infection (2 different things too!) is young (I'll call that under 60), vaxxed and healthy (no health conditions, not overweight or insulin resistant, no immune compromise). I'm in this category FWIW. Very strong immune system, no conditions, the health and weight of someone a lot younger I suppose, given what the trends are these days, is how I'd describe me. Also not stupid. Novel infectious disease is novel infectious disease.

The most confounding combos, IMO, are unvaxxed/presumed healthy and vaxxed/unhealthy.

When someone has health risks but is vaxxed, their risks and outcome are not equivalent at all to those of someone who is healthy and vaxxed (at this point, to me, this means triple vaxxed). So we really can't compare vaxxed/healthy and vaxxed/unhealthy. Yet these have not been separated in basically any reporting I've seen anywhere.

There are a lot of semi-celeb fitness and health enthusiasts that I used to respect promoting basically anti-vaxx, anti-mask, and anti-any-safety-protocol philosophies, many of them openly announcing they have or have had Covid. They are poisoning the prevention waters actively, like on Twitter. What the fuck. IMO this is stupid irresponsible.

Yes, I imagine it's true that healthier is safer, but it's not proven bulletproof. And you can't make unhealthy people healthy instantly by advocating your health practices, and most people are unhealthy these days because our society has led them there with propaganda, addictive bullshit, and disinformation.
« Last Edit: December 31, 2021, 07:30:28 PM by Rusted Rose »

Rusted Rose

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Re: Coronavirus Weekly Update
« Reply #774 on: December 31, 2021, 07:03:07 PM »
we share dogs, so they could have transmitted?

Not sure about dogs, but cats can get it AFAIK.

Rusted Rose

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Re: Coronavirus Weekly Update
« Reply #775 on: December 31, 2021, 07:06:49 PM »
And I probably shouldn't say this, but, oh well.

What is now the common cold I can imagine is a variant of a coronavirus that once killed a lot of our early ancestors.

We'll be on our way to something like this eventually, but omicron is probably not it. :P

BlueMR2

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Re: Coronavirus Weekly Update
« Reply #776 on: January 01, 2022, 09:59:43 AM »
It seems if we have a similar pattern to South Africa, this surge will pass by the end of January. The deaths will lag and take a while to happen, but hopefully by March we'll be over with COVID for a few months.

The rate it's spreading in my area (based on family/friends reporting being down with it), that seems pretty likely.  Now *everyone* is getting it at basically the same time.  Everyone that's not dead will have fresh immunity all at the same time...  Plus side is that it seems very mild overall, so hopefully the hospitals won't get overwhelmed.  A couple people are having bad symptoms, but the bulk are just "mild cold with loss of smell".

Abe

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Re: Coronavirus Weekly Update
« Reply #777 on: January 03, 2022, 05:52:26 AM »
Latest update from the UK’s national health system:
Risk of ER after omicron infection is 50-57% compared to delta after adjusting for various risk factors. Absolute risk was 0.6% in the time surveyed.

Risk of hospitalization is 30-37% compared to delta. About 6% of people presenting to the ER died.

2 doses of vaccine reduce risk of symptomatic omicron by 65%, while 1 dose has no effect. 3 doses increases efficacy to 80% (similar efficacy of 2 doses against delta).


Update here in Houston:
Testing positivity is at 30% (double the prior record with delta). This seems to have leveled off for the last week.
Hospital admission rate (new admission per day) very quickly peaked back up to peak of delta (but in half the time) and has stabilized for the last week.
We are at 70% of total inpatients compared to delta (and above last year's winter peak). This doubled within the last week (and quadrupled from two weeks ago), but should potentially become linear since the prior two measures are plateauing.
ICU capacity is stable, but COVID patients are 20% of total capacity (from <5% at the nadir between this surge and delta, and peak of 35% during delta). This also doubled within the last week, and needs to be watched closely.

Summary - does appear to be less virulent on an individual level compared to delta, but similar to pre-delta strains. Given its rapid spread, we may have a blow-up or a long plateau here and nationally. Best case scenario is this has rapidly spread, the true positive # is much higher than reported, and then rapidly drop as everyone gets infected. Worst case scenario is that spread will continue because kids are back in school, the admission rate will remain high and we will get a tsunami.
« Last Edit: January 03, 2022, 05:48:49 PM by Abe »

GuitarStv

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Re: Coronavirus Weekly Update
« Reply #778 on: January 04, 2022, 07:22:54 AM »
Here in Ontario we're seeing close to double the number of infections as at our previous peak when we were starting to overload the health care system.  The numbers just kept going up and up, so our government decided to radically reduce testing.  That way the numbers don't go up as much - it's a perfect solution!

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Re: Coronavirus Weekly Update
« Reply #779 on: January 04, 2022, 07:54:37 AM »
Looks like cases may have peaked in western Europe, waiting for the wave to spread elsewhere.  Australia is the one to watch now... cases soaring.


Anon-E-Mouze

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Re: Coronavirus Weekly Update
« Reply #780 on: January 04, 2022, 10:24:05 AM »
Here in Ontario we're seeing close to double the number of infections as at our previous peak when we were starting to overload the health care system.  The numbers just kept going up and up, so our government decided to radically reduce testing.  That way the numbers don't go up as much - it's a perfect solution!

I live in Ontario, too, and I think your statement above misrepresents the government's decision and how they are portraying it. They've made it clear that they reduced testing because they don't have capacity to test everyone who is symptomatic. (That's another problem and there are, perhaps, valid reasons for complaining about the lack of testing capacity.) They have also made it clear that because they're aren't testing everyone who wants a PCR test, the reported test results represent an underestimate of the true number of infections. Here's a statement from Public Health Ontario today with respect to the reported results (as reported by CityPulse 24):

"However, Public Health Ontario says the case count is an underestimate of the true number of infections as a large swath of Ontario’s population is no longer eligible for free PCR testing."

GuitarStv

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Re: Coronavirus Weekly Update
« Reply #781 on: January 04, 2022, 11:47:24 AM »
Here in Ontario we're seeing close to double the number of infections as at our previous peak when we were starting to overload the health care system.  The numbers just kept going up and up, so our government decided to radically reduce testing.  That way the numbers don't go up as much - it's a perfect solution!

I live in Ontario, too, and I think your statement above misrepresents the government's decision and how they are portraying it. They've made it clear that they reduced testing because they don't have capacity to test everyone who is symptomatic. (That's another problem and there are, perhaps, valid reasons for complaining about the lack of testing capacity.) They have also made it clear that because they're aren't testing everyone who wants a PCR test, the reported test results represent an underestimate of the true number of infections. Here's a statement from Public Health Ontario today with respect to the reported results (as reported by CityPulse 24):

"However, Public Health Ontario says the case count is an underestimate of the true number of infections as a large swath of Ontario’s population is no longer eligible for free PCR testing."

Yeah, I'd agree with what you wrote above if the Conservatives didn't just three days ago decide to hide all the covid numbers in schools and daycares.  What tests are required to report those?

deborah

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Re: Coronavirus Weekly Update
« Reply #782 on: January 04, 2022, 12:05:15 PM »
Who knows how many cases we’ve got in Australia? Yesterday we reported more cases than we had in the entirety of 2020 + 2021. The testing centres are overwhelmed - people are queuing for many hours for them and testing centres are overwhelmed as soon as they open each morning by people who’ve queued overnight, the pathology centres can’t keep up (yesterday old tests were thrown out), people are being urged not to get tested unless they have symptoms so our positivity rate has gone up to 20%, and no one can find any rapid antigen tests to use themselves.

Thank goodness we have a pretty high vaccination rate (10th in the OECD), especially where all the cases are, and vaccination has been very recent (because the government was very slow in getting vaccines). Unfortunately, boosters have only just been released, so we have 10% with boosters.
« Last Edit: January 04, 2022, 12:11:22 PM by deborah »

HPstache

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Re: Coronavirus Weekly Update
« Reply #783 on: January 04, 2022, 12:46:37 PM »
Watching how Omicron has gotten into the US and flourished like this with the Biden admin in charge and even with a functional vaccine makes me realize how I was foolish to think the OG variant should have been somehow been stopped.

Taran Wanderer

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Re: Coronavirus Weekly Update
« Reply #784 on: January 04, 2022, 01:08:45 PM »
Watching how Omicron has gotten into the US and flourished like this with the Biden admin in charge and even with a functional vaccine makes me realize how I was foolish to think the OG variant should have been somehow been stopped.

Looking beyond the US political situation, we can look at China as an example of how a goal of complete eradication doesn’t work. I heard a report this morning that the Chinese locked down a city of 1 million over 3 asymptomatic cases. How long can that go on? Maybe for a while in a totalitarian state, but regardless of who is in the White House, that is no longer going to work in the US or most other western countries. At this point it’s about risk management - we don’t eliminate cars or driving because of motor vehicle deaths, but we do have licensing, speed limits, seatbelts, airbags, and cars designed to perform reasonably well in a collision. Beyond that, people assume the risk of being on the roads. It’s going to need to be like that with Covid, too.

GuitarStv

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Re: Coronavirus Weekly Update
« Reply #785 on: January 04, 2022, 01:27:21 PM »
Watching how Omicron has gotten into the US and flourished like this with the Biden admin in charge and even with a functional vaccine makes me realize how I was foolish to think the OG variant should have been somehow been stopped.

The fundamental problems of comparing the two situations aside (vaccines are widely available now, Omicron is 5.4 - 6.8 times more transmissible than original flavour covid, pandemic fatigue has set it and people are less willing to take precautions two year in, etc.) . . . I don't think that Biden would have prevented covid from getting a strong foothold in the US.  I'd be surprised if the US didn't prevent a lot of deaths though, and if the Republican anti-vaccine position didn't help push that viewpoint so widely.

Taran Wanderer

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Re: Coronavirus Weekly Update
« Reply #786 on: January 04, 2022, 09:32:06 PM »
I was at a conference with a bunch of business leaders from our region.  Near universal vaccination among the attendees, and yet broad opposition to vaccine mandates. They were vaccinated, they supported their employees being vaccinated, they were philosophically opposed to requiring people to be vaccinated. There were different feelings from many about requiring medical staff to be vaccinated.

I share all this to point out that there are many Republicans who are pro-vaccine, but anti-mandate. The problem is that loudly proclaiming that sounds like mixed messaging:

1. Everyone must get vaccinated!
2. I’m vaccinated. Everyone should get vaccinated. But I’m opposed to requiring vaccinations.
3. Vaccines are the spawn of the devil!!!

Two of those are clear and concise positions. #2 requires you to hold what appear to be conflicting thoughts in your head at the same time, and frankly, many people can’t do that.

Paper Chaser

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Re: Coronavirus Weekly Update
« Reply #787 on: January 05, 2022, 04:59:59 AM »
Watching how Omicron has gotten into the US and flourished like this with the Biden admin in charge and even with a functional vaccine makes me realize how I was foolish to think the OG variant should have been somehow been stopped.

This comment makes me wonder... if anyone other than Trump was President when this pandemic started, would the anti-vax movement have gone mainstream? Would COVID-denial early on have been popular? Could anyone else have single-handedly caused such a successful disinformation campaign to get some teeth?

Trump was loudly tooting his own horn for fast tracking effective vaccines. Trump, GOP congresspeople and GOP governors almost universally got vaccinated as soon as it was possible. Trump has been booed by supporters at his own rallys for suggesting that people get vaccinated.

There have been times when Trump and various GOP leaders have said or done things to breed distrust in scientists and therefore the vaccines. But the derision and distrust are so deep that the anti-vax contingent or covid deniers don't seem to want to see or hear anything positive about the vaccines, even when it comes from the people they support and agree with.
« Last Edit: January 05, 2022, 05:07:43 AM by Paper Chaser »

Phenix

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Re: Coronavirus Weekly Update
« Reply #788 on: January 05, 2022, 06:26:42 AM »
I was at a conference with a bunch of business leaders from our region.  Near universal vaccination among the attendees, and yet broad opposition to vaccine mandates. They were vaccinated, they supported their employees being vaccinated, they were philosophically opposed to requiring people to be vaccinated. There were different feelings from many about requiring medical staff to be vaccinated.

I share all this to point out that there are many Republicans who are pro-vaccine, but anti-mandate. The problem is that loudly proclaiming that sounds like mixed messaging:

1. Everyone must get vaccinated!
2. I’m vaccinated. Everyone should get vaccinated. But I’m opposed to requiring vaccinations.
3. Vaccines are the spawn of the devil!!!

Two of those are clear and concise positions. #2 requires you to hold what appear to be conflicting thoughts in your head at the same time, and frankly, many people can’t do that.

Let's simply restate #2 as, I believe vaccines work and getting one is a personal choice.  Now you're no longer in two camps and instead, making what seems to be a widely held position.

Paper Chaser

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Re: Coronavirus Weekly Update
« Reply #789 on: January 05, 2022, 08:11:42 AM »
I was at a conference with a bunch of business leaders from our region.  Near universal vaccination among the attendees, and yet broad opposition to vaccine mandates. They were vaccinated, they supported their employees being vaccinated, they were philosophically opposed to requiring people to be vaccinated. There were different feelings from many about requiring medical staff to be vaccinated.

I share all this to point out that there are many Republicans who are pro-vaccine, but anti-mandate. The problem is that loudly proclaiming that sounds like mixed messaging:

1. Everyone must get vaccinated!
2. I’m vaccinated. Everyone should get vaccinated. But I’m opposed to requiring vaccinations.
3. Vaccines are the spawn of the devil!!!

Two of those are clear and concise positions. #2 requires you to hold what appear to be conflicting thoughts in your head at the same time, and frankly, many people can’t do that.

Let's simply restate #2 as, I believe vaccines work and getting one is a personal choice.  Now you're no longer in two camps and instead, making what seems to be a widely held position.

#2 is essentially the "My body, my choice" position of the Right. I don't see how anybody that fights for wider access to birth control or autonomy with one's own reproductive rights can argue that vaccines should be mandated. Employers and/or governments shouldn't have say in what people can/cannot do with their bodies. And alternatively, I don't see how somebody that doesn't want to be required to get a vaccine might want to control what others do with their body/reproductive rights. They're both arguing for the same basic thing, but only viewing it through a partisan, politicized lens.

GuitarStv

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Re: Coronavirus Weekly Update
« Reply #790 on: January 05, 2022, 08:26:56 AM »
I was at a conference with a bunch of business leaders from our region.  Near universal vaccination among the attendees, and yet broad opposition to vaccine mandates. They were vaccinated, they supported their employees being vaccinated, they were philosophically opposed to requiring people to be vaccinated. There were different feelings from many about requiring medical staff to be vaccinated.

I share all this to point out that there are many Republicans who are pro-vaccine, but anti-mandate. The problem is that loudly proclaiming that sounds like mixed messaging:

1. Everyone must get vaccinated!
2. I’m vaccinated. Everyone should get vaccinated. But I’m opposed to requiring vaccinations.
3. Vaccines are the spawn of the devil!!!

Two of those are clear and concise positions. #2 requires you to hold what appear to be conflicting thoughts in your head at the same time, and frankly, many people can’t do that.

Let's simply restate #2 as, I believe vaccines work and getting one is a personal choice.  Now you're no longer in two camps and instead, making what seems to be a widely held position.

#2 is essentially the "My body, my choice" position of the Right. I don't see how anybody that fights for wider access to birth control or autonomy with one's own reproductive rights can argue that vaccines should be mandated. Employers and/or governments shouldn't have say in what people can/cannot do with their bodies. And alternatively, I don't see how somebody that doesn't want to be required to get a vaccine might want to control what others do with their body/reproductive rights. They're both arguing for the same basic thing, but only viewing it through a partisan, politicized lens.

When an employees body directly impacts the employer, it is common to control employees bodies.  Look at dress codes and drug tests.  Generally, US case law has determined that medical procedures can't be mandated by employees - unless it can be demonstrated that there is a sufficiently serious health issue and that the requirement will meaningfully assist with reducing such a risk for people at work.  I think the argument can be made that vaccines fall into this category too.

Abortions do not impact employers (might even be a net benefit as there's no maternity leave) or other employees so aren't really very similar when you consider them beyond the facile level.

GodlessCommie

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Re: Coronavirus Weekly Update
« Reply #791 on: January 05, 2022, 08:33:18 AM »
Watching how Omicron has gotten into the US and flourished like this with the Biden admin in charge and even with a functional vaccine makes me realize how I was foolish to think the OG variant should have been somehow been stopped.

Maybe it couldn't have been stopped - but it surely could have been managed better. Avoiding bidding wars for PPE between states and localities seems like a no-brainer. Advising people to take it seriously. Not trading ventilators for praise. Not having maskless WH parties. All these rather simple measure would have saved lives, even if they wouldn't stop Covid.

jrhampt

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Re: Coronavirus Weekly Update
« Reply #792 on: January 05, 2022, 09:07:09 AM »
Pregnancy isn't contagious; covid is.  You can't endanger another employee by coming to work after having had an abortion.

Paper Chaser

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Re: Coronavirus Weekly Update
« Reply #793 on: January 05, 2022, 09:08:28 AM »
I was at a conference with a bunch of business leaders from our region.  Near universal vaccination among the attendees, and yet broad opposition to vaccine mandates. They were vaccinated, they supported their employees being vaccinated, they were philosophically opposed to requiring people to be vaccinated. There were different feelings from many about requiring medical staff to be vaccinated.

I share all this to point out that there are many Republicans who are pro-vaccine, but anti-mandate. The problem is that loudly proclaiming that sounds like mixed messaging:

1. Everyone must get vaccinated!
2. I’m vaccinated. Everyone should get vaccinated. But I’m opposed to requiring vaccinations.
3. Vaccines are the spawn of the devil!!!

Two of those are clear and concise positions. #2 requires you to hold what appear to be conflicting thoughts in your head at the same time, and frankly, many people can’t do that.

Let's simply restate #2 as, I believe vaccines work and getting one is a personal choice.  Now you're no longer in two camps and instead, making what seems to be a widely held position.

#2 is essentially the "My body, my choice" position of the Right. I don't see how anybody that fights for wider access to birth control or autonomy with one's own reproductive rights can argue that vaccines should be mandated. Employers and/or governments shouldn't have say in what people can/cannot do with their bodies. And alternatively, I don't see how somebody that doesn't want to be required to get a vaccine might want to control what others do with their body/reproductive rights. They're both arguing for the same basic thing, but only viewing it through a partisan, politicized lens.

When an employees body directly impacts the employer, it is common to control employees bodies.  Look at dress codes and drug tests.  Generally, US case law has determined that medical procedures can't be mandated by employees - unless it can be demonstrated that there is a sufficiently serious health issue and that the requirement will meaningfully assist with reducing such a risk for people at work.  I think the argument can be made that vaccines fall into this category too.

Abortions do not impact employers (might even be a net benefit as there's no maternity leave) or other employees so aren't really very similar when you consider them beyond the facile level.

I was referring more to individual values than legal precedent. It seems inconsistent to me to support bodily autonomy on one subject and oppose it on another. Regardless of the topic at hand or which side of the arguments you land on.

Paper Chaser

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Re: Coronavirus Weekly Update
« Reply #794 on: January 05, 2022, 09:12:39 AM »
Pregnancy isn't contagious; covid is.  You can't endanger another employee by coming to work after having had an abortion.

I'd bet that an anti-abortion advocate would argue that abortion is 100% lethal, while covid is less than 2% lethal. Either bodily autonomy is valued or it's not. Both sides of the aisle seem to have inconsistencies on the subject to me.

I'm sorry for making the comparison. I don't want to sidetrack the discussion into reproductive rights debates. I just wanted to point out what I see as inconsistent views by people on both sides here.

JGS1980

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Re: Coronavirus Weekly Update
« Reply #795 on: January 05, 2022, 09:14:35 AM »
We currently mandate vaccines for children in public schools. Same exact argument as Covid vaccinations.
We mandate vaccines in the military to ensure we have appropriate military "readiness". Same argument.
We mandate that vaccination status is UTD for immigrants to the USA. Same argument.

EscapeVelocity2020

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Re: Coronavirus Weekly Update
« Reply #796 on: January 05, 2022, 09:41:21 AM »
Pregnancy isn't contagious; covid is.  You can't endanger another employee by coming to work after having had an abortion.

I'd bet that an anti-abortion advocate would argue that abortion is 100% lethal, while covid is less than 2% lethal. Either bodily autonomy is valued or it's not. Both sides of the aisle seem to have inconsistencies on the subject to me.

I'm sorry for making the comparison. I don't want to sidetrack the discussion into reproductive rights debates. I just wanted to point out what I see as inconsistent views by people on both sides here.

The 'my body my choice' anti-vaccine mandate stance is very much a Republican view.  The apolitical science around mandating vaccinations is clear - you need the population to widely adopt being vaccinated, otherwise the disease will establish a foothold.

Let's not get this thread shut down by getting in to political debates - start a new thread if you want to discuss this further @Paper Chaser

GuitarStv

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Re: Coronavirus Weekly Update
« Reply #797 on: January 05, 2022, 09:49:04 AM »
I was at a conference with a bunch of business leaders from our region.  Near universal vaccination among the attendees, and yet broad opposition to vaccine mandates. They were vaccinated, they supported their employees being vaccinated, they were philosophically opposed to requiring people to be vaccinated. There were different feelings from many about requiring medical staff to be vaccinated.

I share all this to point out that there are many Republicans who are pro-vaccine, but anti-mandate. The problem is that loudly proclaiming that sounds like mixed messaging:

1. Everyone must get vaccinated!
2. I’m vaccinated. Everyone should get vaccinated. But I’m opposed to requiring vaccinations.
3. Vaccines are the spawn of the devil!!!

Two of those are clear and concise positions. #2 requires you to hold what appear to be conflicting thoughts in your head at the same time, and frankly, many people can’t do that.

Let's simply restate #2 as, I believe vaccines work and getting one is a personal choice.  Now you're no longer in two camps and instead, making what seems to be a widely held position.

#2 is essentially the "My body, my choice" position of the Right. I don't see how anybody that fights for wider access to birth control or autonomy with one's own reproductive rights can argue that vaccines should be mandated. Employers and/or governments shouldn't have say in what people can/cannot do with their bodies. And alternatively, I don't see how somebody that doesn't want to be required to get a vaccine might want to control what others do with their body/reproductive rights. They're both arguing for the same basic thing, but only viewing it through a partisan, politicized lens.

When an employees body directly impacts the employer, it is common to control employees bodies.  Look at dress codes and drug tests.  Generally, US case law has determined that medical procedures can't be mandated by employees - unless it can be demonstrated that there is a sufficiently serious health issue and that the requirement will meaningfully assist with reducing such a risk for people at work.  I think the argument can be made that vaccines fall into this category too.

Abortions do not impact employers (might even be a net benefit as there's no maternity leave) or other employees so aren't really very similar when you consider them beyond the facile level.

I was referring more to individual values than legal precedent. It seems inconsistent to me to support bodily autonomy on one subject and oppose it on another. Regardless of the topic at hand or which side of the arguments you land on.

From an 'individual values' level, I can see why an employee endangering other employees might be a problem for some employers.  I can't see why why an employee doing something that has no impact on others would.

So it seems that 'individual values' should probably be in line with the legal precedent when viewing this as unrelated beyond surface level consideration.

OtherJen

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Re: Coronavirus Weekly Update
« Reply #798 on: January 05, 2022, 09:58:01 AM »
We mandate vaccines in the military to ensure we have appropriate military "readiness". Same argument.

Apparently not for these special snowflakes: https://www.navytimes.com/news/2022/01/04/navy-blocked-from-acting-against-35-covid-vaccine-refusers/

I'd love to know whether they've received all of the other vaccinations that I understand are mandatory to participate in military service.

PeteD01

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Re: Coronavirus Weekly Update
« Reply #799 on: January 05, 2022, 01:42:40 PM »
I was at a conference with a bunch of business leaders from our region.  Near universal vaccination among the attendees, and yet broad opposition to vaccine mandates. They were vaccinated, they supported their employees being vaccinated, they were philosophically opposed to requiring people to be vaccinated. There were different feelings from many about requiring medical staff to be vaccinated.

I share all this to point out that there are many Republicans who are pro-vaccine, but anti-mandate. The problem is that loudly proclaiming that sounds like mixed messaging:

1. Everyone must get vaccinated!
2. I’m vaccinated. Everyone should get vaccinated. But I’m opposed to requiring vaccinations.
3. Vaccines are the spawn of the devil!!!

Two of those are clear and concise positions. #2 requires you to hold what appear to be conflicting thoughts in your head at the same time, and frankly, many people can’t do that.

Let's simply restate #2 as, I believe vaccines work and getting one is a personal choice.  Now you're no longer in two camps and instead, making what seems to be a widely held position.

What we are seeing right now is actually the beginning of the transition from pandemia to endemicity.
Looking at endemicity from the point of view of tolerance of a certain amount of death and suffering on the part of the general population leads directly to the perception of the severity of the threat.
With the perception of of severity of the disease decreasing, measures of risk mitigation will meet less and less acceptance. This puts vulnerable people at increasing risk. We are currently at the cusp of having highly active therapeutics generally available and these medications allow us to quickly develop strategies to avert serious infections in the immunocompromised. We will likely be able to protect the immunocompromised from serious disease in the near future, removing this large number of patients from the high risk pool leaving it comprised almost exclusively of the unvaccinated.

Ironically, the general population is about to adopt a view of Covid similar to views common on the Covid denier/no-vax side from the very beginning of the pandemic.
I cannot stress enough that the decreasing perception of illness severity on the part of the general population is in lockstep with the acceptance of bad outcomes in an identifiable subgroup, i.e. Covid deniers and the unvaxxed, effectively marginalizing them in the pursuit of return to normality.
Politically and ethically, an administration cannot simply abandon efforts to reach the vulnerable subgroup, no matter how unsympathetic the members of the group are and how ready the general population is to leave them to their own devices. Of course, extremist and populist goverments would not have a problem with that because such governments are always on the lookout for subgroups to ostracize and hurt.

And that is why I hold two apparently contradictory positions:

1. getting the vaccine is a personal choice but not getting it may require acceptance of some inconveniences in daily life

2. vaccine mandates are necessary while knowing that universal compliance is impossible to achieve.

I am certain that the current administration knows perfectly well that the bogging down of mandates in the legal system was unavoidable and that they were actually to be expected. It is also very clear that the federal mandates are achieving what could reasonably be expected to be achieved by simply starting the debate about "mandates". It is a simple case of advancing your goals just by having a debate without any expectation to win the debate.
The debate about mandates has been going on for many weeks and will keep going and here is an incomplete list of what the "mandates" are accomplishing.


The introduction of federal workforce vaccine requirements and the ongoing debate about vaccine "mandates":

1) is giving cover to employers to introduce their own requirements and inconveniences

2) is giving cover to unvaxxed individuals who may be under social pressures to not getting vaccinated or who have spouted antivaxx sentiments before and now have an excuse to get vaccinated while saving face
 
3) is leading to vaccinations in countless people who do not have strong opinions about vaccinations, i.e. fence sitters and procrastinators etc, and have not received them for a variety of reasons but needed a nudge

4) will be giving cover to the government against any accusations that they did not do everything in their power to reach high risk populations, and this is independent of the extent to which the courts and state legislatures allow the efforts to proceed.

Now about number 4. The administration is under pressure to demonstrate that it did everything possible to mitigate the pandemic impact on vulnerable and disadvantaged populations and everything possible is, in a liberal democracy, what is allowed under the law and the constitution and the courts are the place where the limits of executive power are established. I would be the first to accuse the government of abandonment if they did not test the limits in the federal court system. Obviously, after all efforts regarding mandates have been exhausted and nothing more can be done, the stage is set for abandonment of the remaining vaccine resistant populations to their own devices and alignment with the general public sentiment which is trending strongly towards perception of Covid as not much worse than the flu; which happens to be close to the truth for fully immunized people.
Luckily, the majority of the unvaxxed appear to ingest anything whatsoever once they feel sick, giving the administration another opening in trying to contain the catastrophe among the unvaxxed with the new antiviral drugs.

Now about the apparently decreased severity of Covid caused by Omicron. This discussion is marked by confusion and it might be time to clarify a few things.
In a certain sense this discussion is about the virulence of the coronavirus as manifested in its different variants. The problem here is that virulence is not a straightforward concept and, without a bit of background knowledge, the public discourse fails to make sense.

First we have to acknowledge that there are different meanings of the term
virulence depending on who uses the term (or a synonymous term) under which circumstances and with which intent. The reason why virulence is not a straightforward concept is because in its original meaning the virulence of a pathogen is simply a measure of the ability of a pathogen to cause disease or death. In a contolled laboratory environment in which virulence ist measured by the effect of a pathogen on a standardized host organism and the change of those effects in response to alterations of pathogen. If a particular feature of a pathogen results in a differential effect on virulence based on the absence or presence of said feature (for example absence or presence of a capsule in some bacteriae renders them either harmless or  dangerous), the feature is then called a virulence factor.
In the laboratory with a standardized host organism, virulence thus appears solely determined by the pathogen. This is untrue in the real world where cases of infection are drawn from non-standardized populations and where the definition of virulence, number of cases / number of disease and death, reasserts itself as showing the virulence in the real world is just as dependent on the population from which the cases are drawn as on the pathogen itself.

The closest the public discourse comes to the scientific meaning of virulence is this:

1. the effect of a new variant on severity and frequency of severe disese and death in the unvaccinated population. This is the closest to the lab setting as the unvaxxed population is somewhat standardized because it has never encountered the pathogen. Unfortunately, at this point there is no good way to remove the never infected from the other unvaccinated in the equation, making it very difficult to arrive at an accurate estimate. The presence of some previously infected will cause underestimation of virulence to an unknown degree. This is why there is such a delay in determining if Omicron is less dangerous than other variants - the error lies in the same direction and on top of it, everybodey wants to hear that it is less dangerous.


The second way the term virulence, or equivalent, is used I would call apparent virulence, and this apparent virulence is of great importance for policy decisions:

2. Apparent virulence is simply the number of all cases in a geographic area divided by the number of cases of severe disease and death. Apparent virulence is the most important measure going into health care resource management assessments.
Apparent virulence is a measure of the impact of the pathogen on health care resources in a particular area and depends not only on the actual virulence (1., above) of the pathogen but also on the immune status of the population.
Apparent virulence therefore does not tell us much about the pathogen when the immune status of the population is not well known, but is of immense practical value for medical resource management.


The third meaning in which the term virulence or equivalent is used I would call perceived virulence:

3. Perceived virulence is the most politically charged and arguably the most important sense in which comparative disease severity of the Omicron variant is discussed. Perceived virulence (or threat perception) is what was manipulated from day one of the pandemic by political actors and is still the focus of political activity.
Covid denial, for example, is just the extreme to which downplaying disease severity (virulence) can be pushed. The extent to which the perceived virulence of the coronavirus has been successfully lowered by political actors and their multiplicators (mostly on the right) in susceptible populations can be seen in the surprise many unvaxxed Covid victims show when they get really sick and end up dying from a disease they were convinced to be largely a hoax.
Perceived virulence is now decreasing rapidly among the vaccinated as the conviction that those who are still unvaxxed cannot be reached (which is technically certainly untrue but practically likely true). The administration is actively working on all levels to support that notion and faces no resistance whatsoever as downplaying Covid is what the unvaxxed are doing all day long and the rest of the population is ready to join the unvaxxed in that stance.
Unfortunately, for the unvaxxed, the Omicron variant so far appears to be less virulent than Delta but of similar virulence as the original virus. Two years ago, the world shut down for a virus with that virulence but today we call it a mild form. This cannot be explained by anything but the lowered perceived virulence and actual apparent virulence in the vaccinated population. In other words, the unvaccinated are on their own and we can be assured that everything possibe up to "mandates" was done to help them.
Of course, this is not good news for health care resources stretched to the limit and it is not the end of what the current administration has on their plate.
The fact that majority opinion is aligning with opinions on the unvaxxed side now also means that the issues with downplaying the pandemic on the basis of ones own risk for a bad outcome are now appearing everywhere. And that is because perceived virulence is ultimately an assessment of ones own risk of a bad outcome  plus a common good consideration that is now excluding the still unvaxxed.
The readiness of the general public to leave the unvaxxed in the dust and the capability of societies to tolerate mass casualties should not be underestimated. Just think how easily we tolerate tens of thousands of traffic deaths and injuries per year for te sake of transportation. We would never tolerate a death toll like that if microwave ovens were zapping us on a regular basis in exchange for some hot beferage. But a couple of hundred thousand deaths a year from Covid in the hinterlands in exchange for return to normality while not being in much danger oneself would be tolerated quite well - especially as the unvaxxed are willing to collaborate in their own deception. As long as the stakes are appropriate, an enormous number of deaths and much misery will be tolerated.
A decrease of perceived virulence of a pathogen in the general population is also the best marker for te transitioning of a pandemic to the endemic state as it is an attitude adjustment based on a risk benefit assessment. I find it fascinating to observe this in real time.


There are many moving parts but the general direction appears clearer by the day. It is obvious that we are moving toward a situation where a susceptible population that is disadvantaged for social reasons suffers the brunt of a disease transitioning to the endemic phase for the rest of the population. The fact that the behavior of this risk group does not make them sympathetic should not distract from the duty of government and other entities to find ways to mitigate the effects of the disease. Some interventions will also help decompress the health care systems such as large scale programs for preemptive antiviral treatments etc. as well as travelling health care resources to absorb local spikes and need to be vigorously pursued. I personally find it encouraging that the unvaxxed appear to be ready to swallow anything as soon as they get a sore throat - so the antiviral strategies have a chance to work.

All that said, another variant can change things but at this point I consider it likely that Omicron will result in a different immunologic situation on a society level than before, thus heralding a new phase in the coronavirus saga.
« Last Edit: January 05, 2022, 02:41:20 PM by PeteD01 »

 

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