Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

Hot air and ill-informed banter

This really is a full service blog.

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

No one could have predicted…

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires republicans to act in good faith.

But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

Not all heroes wear capes.

Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.

Just because you believe it, that doesn’t make it true.

Conservatism: there are some people the law protects but does not bind and others who the law binds but does not protect.

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

And now I have baud making fun of me. this day can’t get worse.

Consistently wrong since 2002

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

I know this must be bad for Joe Biden, I just don’t know how.

“More of this”, i said to the dog.

Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.

All your base are belong to Tunch.

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

You are here: Home / Healthcare / COVID-19 Coronavirus / COVID-19 Coronavirus Updates: Tuesday / Wednesday, Nov. 30 – Dec. 1

COVID-19 Coronavirus Updates: Tuesday / Wednesday, Nov. 30 – Dec. 1

by | 72 Comments

This post is in: ,


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Bloomberg reporter in Tokyo:

*Excellent* constituent service:

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Long thread, from Israel:

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“Dr. Oz”, now running for US senate in PA:

Reader Interactions

72Comments

  1. 1.

    NeenerNeener

    Monroe County, NY:

    The Monroe County website says 511 new cases yesterday. Wish we could get above 65% vaccinated.

  2. 2.

    Amir Khalid

    Malaysia’s Ministry of Health reports 5,439 new Covid-19 cases today in its media statement, for a cumulative reported total of 2,638,221 cases. It also reports 55 deaths as of midnight, for an adjusted cumulative total of 30,425 deaths – 1.15% of the cumulative reported total, 1.18% of resolved cases.

    Based on cases reported yesterday, Malaysia’s nationwide Rt is at 0.95.

    400 confirmed cases are in ICU, 161 of them on ventilators. Meanwhile, 6,803 more patients have recovered, for a cumulative total of 2,544,007 patients recovered – 96.4% of the cumulative reported total.

    Six new clusters were reported today, for a cumulative total of 5,953 clusters. 226 clusters are currently active; 5,727 clusters are now inactive.

    5,418 new cases today are local infections. 21 new cases today are imported.

    The National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme (PICK) administered 135,914 doses of vaccine on 30th November: 4,703 first doses, 8,313 second doses, and 122,898 booster doses. As of midnight, the cumulative total is 53,517,981 doses administered: 25,850,878 first doses, 25,398,734 second doses, and 2,457,510 booster doses. 79.2% of the population have received their first dose, while 77.8% are now fully vaccinated.

  3. 3.

    YY_Sima Qian

    On 11/29 China reported 91 new domestic confirmed & 2 new domestic asymptomatic cases.

    Inner Mongolia “Autonomous” Region reported 91 new domestic confirmed & 2 new domestic asymptomatic cases. There currently are 132 active domestic confirmed & 2 active domestic asymptomatic cases in the region. 

    • Manzhouli in Hulun Buir reported 91 new domestic confirmed & 2 new domestic asymptomatic case. 72 of the new domestic positive cases are found via mass screening, 17 are traced close contacts already under centralized quarantine, 2 from voluntary testing & 2 from screening of persons under inpatient care at hospitals. There currently are 130 active domestic confirmed & 2 active domestic asymptomatic cases in the city. 5 sub-districts have been elevated to High Risk. 6 sub-districts are currently at High Risk. 2 sub-districts have been elevated to Medium Risk. 3 sub-districts are currently at Medium Risk.
    • Tongliao did not report any new domestic positive cases. There currently are 2 active domestic confirmed cases in the city. 1 village is currently at Medium Risk.

    Heilongjiang Province did not report any new domestic positive cases. 7 domestic confirmed cases recovered. There currently are 36 active domestic confirmed & 1 active domestic asymptomatic cases in the province.

    • Qiqihar did not report any new domestic positive cases. There currently is 1 active domestic asymptomatic case in the city.
    • At Heihe 7 domestic confirmed cases recovered. There currently are 36 active domestic confirmed cases remaining.

    Shanghai Municipality did not report any new domestic positive cases. There currently are 3 active domestic confirmed & 1 active domestic asymptomatic cases in the city. 3 residential compounds are currently at Medium Risk.

    Xuzhou in Jiangsu Province did not report any new domestic positive cases. There currently is 1 active domestic asymptomatic case in the city.

    Hangzhou in Zhejiang Province did not report any new domestic positive cases. There currently are 2 active domestic asymptomatic cases in the city.

    Dalian in Liaoning Province did not report any new domestic positive cases. 6 domestic confirmed cases recovered & 1 domestic asymptomatic case was released from isolation. There currently are 140 active domestic confirmed & 19 active domestic asymptomatic cases in the city. 1 Medium Risk site was re-designated to Low Risk. 3 sites remain at Medium Risk.

    At Hebei Province 3 domestic confirmed cases recovered & 1 domestic asymptomatic case was released from isolation. There currently are 20 active confirmed cases (5 at Shijiazhuang & 15 at Xinji) in the province.

    At Rizhao in Shandong Province 1 domestic confirmed case recovered. There currently are 2 active domestic confirmed & 5 active domestic asymptomatic cases in the city.

    At Sichuan Province 1 confirmed case recovered. There currently are 5 active domestic confirmed cases remaining (4 at Chengdu & 1 at Zigong).

    Chongqing Municipality 1 domestic confirmed case recovered. There currently are 4 active domestic confirmed & 3 active domestic asymptomatic cases remaining.

    At Henan Province there currently are 63 active domestic confirmed cases remaining (47 at Zhengzhou & 16 at Zhoukou).

    Dehong Prefecture in Yunnan Province did not report any new domestic positive cases. There currently are 35 active domestic confirmed & 30 active domestic asymptomatic cases at the prefecture. 1 zone & 1 village at Ruili remain at Medium Risk.

    Imported Cases

    On 11/29, China reported 22 new imported confirmed cases (3 previously asymptomatic), 12 imported asymptomatic cases, 0 imported suspect cases:

    • Yunnan Province (location not specified) – 8 confirmed cases, 7 Chinese nationals returning from Myanmar & 1 from Laos
    • Chengdu in Sichuan Province – 4 confirmed cases (3 previously asymptomatic), 3 Chinese nationals returning from Algeria & 1 from Ethiopia; 1 asymptomatic case, a Chinese national returning from Ethiopia
    • Guangyuan in Sichuan Province – 1 confirmed case, a Chinese national returning from Germany; the case had arrived at Qingdao in Shandong on 11/13, passed through the 14 days of centralized quarantine & tested negative multiple times, upon released from quarantine on 11/27 the case flew to Chengdu & was transferred to Guangyuan & re-entered centralized quarantine, testing positive on 11/30
    • Guangzhou in Guangdong Province – 2 confirmed cases, 1 Chinese national each returning from Vietnam & Iran; 4 asymptomatic cases, 2 Chinese nationals returning from Ethiopia & 1 each from Vietnam & Serbia (via Tehran)
    • Shenzhen in Guangdong Province – 1 confirmed case, a Chinese national returning from Singapore
    • Dongguan in Guangdong Province – 1 confirmed case, coming from the DRC, off a flight that landed at Guangzhou
    • Foshan in Guangdong Province – 1 asymptomatic case, coming from Singapore, off a flight that landed at Guangzhou
    • Zhongshan in Guangdong Province – 1 asymptomatic case, coming from Chile, off a flight that landed at Guangzhou
    • Shanghai Municipality – 3 confirmed cases, 1 Chinese national each returning from Canada, Romania (via Vienna) & Senegal (via Paris CdG)
    • Guangxi “Autonomous” Region (location not specified) – 1 confirmed & 1 asymptomatic cases, no information released
    • Xiamen in Fujian Province – 1 confirmed & 1 asymptomatic cases, both Filipino crew members off a cargo ship
    • Hangzhou in Zhejiang Province – 2 asymptomatic cases, 1 each fro Mexico & Uganda
    • Taiyuan in Shanxi Province – 1 asymptomatic case, no information released

    Overall in China, 35 confirmed cases recovered (14 imported), 22 asymptomatic cases were released from isolation (20 imported) & 3 were reclassified as confirmed cases (all imported), & 1,973 individuals were released from quarantine. Currently, there are 868 active confirmed cases in the country (415 imported), 8 in serious condition (3 imported), 451 active asymptomatic cases (384 imported), 3 suspect cases (all imported). 32,228 traced contacts are currently under centralized quarantine.

    As of 11/29, 2,507.975M vaccine doses have been injected in Mainland China, an increase of 8.162M doses in the past 24 hrs.

    On 11/30, Hong Kong reported 3 new positive cases, all imported, including 1 w/ Omicron Variant coming from Qatar.

  4. 4.

    Matt McIrvin

    What numbers are Dr. Oz talking about, anyway? As far as I know, the IFR for COVID in children is way below 2-3%. Maybe he’s talking about their parents dying? That seems more like the number of deaths you’d get if absolutely everyone in the country got COVID while unvaccinated. And it’s a bit high even for that, but maybe if it was Delta, I dunno…

  5. 5.

    Ken

    I see the UK, Germany, and Canada on that map, and I think “omicron is probably in the US already”. Then I see Australia and I think “yeah, it’s here.”

    Also, Dr. Oz is lucky the Saw killer is fictional, or he’d be high on the list to wake up locked into some weird mechanism, with a puppet on a video saying “You weigh 170 pounds. What 3% of that are you willing to give up to live?”

  6. 6.

    Robert Sneddon

    Here in Scotland the ten reported Omicron variant cases can all be traced from one “super-spreader” event held on 20th November, apparently. This suggests this variant’s communicability is high, comparable or greater than Delta. However all ten cases are being treated at home with self-isolation suggesting the severity of the variant is not anything out of the ordinary since no hospitalisation is required even after ten days or so since initial infection.

    We’ve not been given any information on the vaccination status, ages etc. of the ten people in question but it’s likely most or even all of them have been vaccinated since about 90% of all adults in Scotland are fully vaccinated and about 35% of all adults having received boosters over the past few weeks. Get vaccinated folks.

  7. 7.

    satby

    @Matt McIrvin: Oz is a fucking quack, so any numbers he quotes are suspect. But the idea that we might willfully ignore the risk to children as acceptable collateral damage in service to the economy is as reprehensible as the idea that senior citizens should have been willing to risk infection and death for it.

  8. 8.

    Matt McIrvin

    My biggest concern about the messaging with Omicron is that it’s going to drive people to hold off getting kid vaccinations or booster shots because they’re waiting for an Omicron shot–which is at least a few months from general availability, if it’s even deemed to be necessary. And right now, the Delta variant is ripping through my part of the Northeast, and getting boosted seems to be a really good defense against it.

    So I’m hoping there are more indications that the existing booster is an effective defense against, at least, severe illness from Omicron. Those fragmentary reports out of Israel are encouraging.

  9. 9.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Marcus Lamb, a brazen anti-vaxxer & Christian TV network owner, has died of Covid. He founded Daystar network that reaches ~2 billion people globally. He denigrated vaccines calling them satanic & pushed an array of quack treatments, including ivermectin

    Your soul may belong to Satan but your ass belongs to Covid.

  11. 11.

    Matt McIrvin

    (My worry about people waiting for different shots is based on the situation in Australia a few months ago, when people were hesitant about vaccination because the AstraZeneca was widely available but they’d heard the Pfizer was the good one, so they were “waiting for Pfizer” and didn’t get vaccinated at all. Fortunately they seem to have gotten past that one way or another.)

  12. 12.

    OzarkHillbilly

    DR OZ: “Schools are a very appetizing opportunity. I just saw a nice piece in The Lancet arguing the opening of schools may only cost us 2 to 3%, in terms of total mortality. Any, you know, any life is a life lost, but … that might be a tradeoff some folks would consider.”

    Pro-Life my ass.

    eta: It’s a tradeoff any childless couple would be happy to make!

  13. 13.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @satby:

    Oz is a goddamned fucking monster. Children aren’t human to him. They’re numbers, statistics, counters on some infernal board game he’s playing, the prize for which is celebrity and political power.

  15. 15.

    Matt McIrvin

    @satby: But also, what schools are we talking about that he wants to reopen? Nearly all schools are already open.

    It’s just weird–it’s like he’s pretending it’s April 2020 and taking the “let it rip/herd immunity” position for that hypothetical.

    edit: oh, I see, it’s an old interview.

  18. 18.

    lowtechcyclist

    Marcus Lamb, a brazen anti-vaxxer & Christian TV network owner, has died of Covid. He founded Daystar network that reaches ~2 billion people globally. He denigrated vaccines calling them satanic & pushed an array of quack treatments, including ivermectin

    Like the saying goes, I don’t wish death on anyone, but there are some obituaries I read with great pleasure.

  20. 20.

    lowtechcyclist

    @MagdaInBlack:

    @satby: Again, the pro-life party. JFC these people.

    One silver lining to this horrible plague is that I will never, ever again have to take the allegedly moral arguments of “pro-lifers” seriously as long as I live.

    They can take their fucking bullshit and stick it where the sun don’t shine.

  21. 21.

    Princess

    I hope some of Marcus Lamb’s flock will learn from his death. At least he can no longer persuade people to do things that will kill them.

    Also: things that make you wonder. I’m in the UK. All October there was a terrible cold going around that made people feel as sick as “mild” covid but didn’t turn up positive tests (there’s a lot of testing being done here, free antigen/lateral flow tests available to everyone). Then, there were a ton of cases of people, including me, who got positive lateral flow tests, but when they went to get them checked out with pcr tests, they came back negative. This should not happen: false negatives are common with the quick tests, but false positives are extremely rare.  Some were attributed to a bad lab, but it happened to me after the lab problem had been identified. I was mildly ill with cold symptoms. Negative pcr. I figured there was just a problem with the lateral flow test I took, but now I wonder. I know one of the genes drops out of pcr tests with omicron, and I don’t know how UK pcr tests work.

  22. 22.

    Bruce K in ATH-GR

    Greece: well, you saw the report about the over-60 vaccine mandate – though Kathimerini reports it’s been submitted to Parliament, not yet law. And I’m still not sure what they’ll do about those medically unable to receive a vaccine.

    Meanwhile, 664 ICU patients are intubated, 7,486 new cases reported in the 24 hours ending the evening of November 30, and 88 dead.

    The reports of the US tightening entry requirements hits me personally – I’m booked to go to the US to visit loved ones over the Christmas holiday, though I do have access to rapid tests. I’m vaxxed and boosted, I can be careful, I can be tested, but quarantine is a bit much for me to manage.

  25. 25.

    Kay

    Oz is a horrible grifter but there aren’t going to be any Democrats running in 2022 on school closures. The school closures came at a real cost for students- the damage is huge in the lowest income groups and it’s showing up across the board- test scores, behavior, even physical health (weight gain and inactivity). It was a cost/benefit analysis – there was a real cost to students.

    The “public education Party” will not be arguing that schools aren’t essential -Biden actually ran on opening schools – open in his firt 100 days, repeated over and over- and the rest of them will be running on keeping them open.

  26. 26.

    Cermet

    @OzarkHillbilly: Couldn’t said it better; another satanic whorshiping* loon dies; while all deaths are sad, some are less sad then others – this one is certainly close to zero as would be a certain west virgina senator or the orange gas bag.

    *As in his first and only god is money

  27. 27.

    Another Scott

    @satby: That is indeed a beautiful and powerful remembrance.  Thanks for the pointer.

    Condolences to them, and to you, and to everyone who has suffered this year.

    Best wishes,
    Scott.

  29. 29.

    Percysowner

    @Cermet: As a note, if we lose that “certain West Va Senator” Mitch McConnell becomes majority leader and any hope of any of Biden’s remaining agenda is down the drain.

    I don’t wish anyone dead, but if told I had to pick one I’d go with a Republican Senator in a state with a Democratic Governor who can appoint a replacement, not a Democratic Senator from a state with a Republican Governor and who is possibly the ONLY Democrat who can be elected from that state.

  31. 31.

    Sloane Ranger

    Tuesday in the UK, where we had 39,716 new cases. The rolling 7-day average is up by 1%. New cases by nation,

    England – 33,590 (down 1316)

    Northern Ireland – 1585 (up 121)

    Scotland – 2569 (up 325)

    Wales – 1972 (down 1997).

    Deaths – There were 159 deaths within 28 days of a positive test yesterday. The rolling 7-day average is down by 14.9%. 143 deaths were in England, 2 in Northern Ireland, 10 in Scotland and 4 in Wales.

    Testing – 1,014,359 tests took place on Monday, 29th November. The rolling 7-day average is up by 4.2%. The PCR testing capacity reported by labs on that date was 727,300.

    Hospitalisation – As of Monday, 29 November, 7631 people were in hospital and 916 were on ventilators. The rolling 7-day average for hospital admissions was down by 7.1% as of 26 November.

    Vaccinations – As of 29 November, 50,963,718 people had had 1 shot of a vaccine, 46,367,149 had had 2 and 18,215,535 had had a 3rd shot/booster. This means that 88.6% of all UK residents aged 12+ had had 1 jab as of that date, 80.6% had had 2 and 31.7% had had a 3rd shot/booster.

  32. 32.

    New Deal democrat

    91-Divoc has not updated today. Using an alternative data source, nationwide reported cases in the US have not fully rebounded from the Thanksgiving holiday hiatus in reporting.

    I did check all of the Midwestern States specifically, and with the exception of Ohio, the 7 day averages are all still below where they were before the holiday break, although all except for Michigan have fully resumed reporting. Notably both Dakotas are still well below their peaks from September. Last year the winter wave peaked in the Midwest just before Thanksgiving, so I am looking to see if the same pattern repeats.

    A couple of other notes:

    Dr. Charity Dean is one of the heroes of the book, “The Premonition,” members of W’s pandemic task force who tried to energize the public health services in the US, and in particular saw very early how big an emergency COVID was, but were stymied by the lethargic CDC and state bureaucracies.

    Presumably I am preaching to the choir here, but the evidence isn’t that Omicron “is spreading” from South Africa, but rather that Omicron has been spreading globally for weeks if not months from an unknown source until it was *detected* by the excellent South African COVID surveillance apparatus.

  33. 33.

    Jinchi

    @Matt McIrvin: What numbers are Dr. Oz talking about, anyway? As far as I know, the IFR for COVID in children is way below 2-3%.

    Republicans throw out percentages like this like they’re trivial so it doesn’t really matter which numbers he’s talking about, they’re all catastrophic levels of mortality.
    If he’s talking about American school children, that would be about 2 million kids.
    If he’s talking about spread through the whole population, which is how covid really works, it would be 6 to 10 million Americans.
    “Any, you know, any life is a life lost, but … that might be a tradeoff some folks would consider“​

  34. 34.

    Kay

    There were no broad public school closures with the onset of Delta because there was a recognition that the cost to students is too high – masking, ventilation and vaccines- “broad closures” aren’t going to be on the menu of options. You don’t have to argue the economy to open schools. You can just look at the harm to students in keeping them closed.

    Closing schools was a policy choice we made. We could have made other choices to reduce transmission to the same extent that closing schools did. I don’t think you’ll see many Democrats defending school closures on the campaign trail. It’s a process and they learned as they went, but we have lots of evidence of the harm now. The cost is probably too high.

  37. 37.

    Suzanne

    @satby:

    But the idea that we might willfully ignore the risk to children as acceptable collateral damage in service to the economy is as reprehensible as the idea that senior citizens should have been willing to risk infection and death for it. 

    100%.
    These people genuinely want to kill us. Polarized? No. Murderous.

    I am looking for a pediatrician who will give Spawn the Youngest the vaccine off-label. No luck so far, but if anyone knows, WaterGirl has my email address.

  40. 40.

    Hoodie

    They should send that Oz clip to Lara Logan, she seems to have misidentified the reincarnated Dr. Mengele.

  41. 41.

    Soprano2

    I wish they would all just SHUT UP ABOUT OMICRON UNTIL THEY ACTUALLY KNOW SOMETHING! Hearing the head of Moderna opine about how Omicron might challenge the effectiveness of the vaccine a lot, then saying “But we really don’t know yet”, makes me crazy! All people will hear and remember is that the head of Moderna said the vaccines aren’t effective against Omicron, when we don’t know that AT ALL!!. Just shut up until you have actual information to impart, you’re making it even worse.

  42. 42.

    Fair Economist

    I find it likely the US has Omicron but 2000 is too much. We are actually leading the major world countries in the fraction sequenced and we would have caught one had that been the case.

    Japan semi closing its borders makes no sense. It does no meaningful good without an aggressive zero COVID approach, which they aren’t doing. I do think a general long term quarantine system could help to slow a dangerous variant in the future, but slowing only helps combined with something else that needs the slowing, like a zero COVID approach or reformulated boosters.

  43. 43.

    Fair Economist

    If the Pfizer vaccine is really 90% effective vs. Omicron then neutralizing antibodies aren’t a big part of the effectiveness, in spite of all the talk about them. It would have to be T cells that matter for it to hold up that well against this level of antigenic change. Apparently almost every spike protein change in Omicron is nonsynonomous (changes the protein), which indicates they were undergoing intense selection, and thus must substantially change antigenicity.

  44. 44.

    Another Scott

    @Fair Economist:  Eh? My understanding is that PCR tests can be too sensitive – picking up virus fragments that cannot cause or indicate current infection. Giving false positives, not false negatives.

    More words please.

    Thanks.

    [eta] My understanding is that Omicron PCR tests have to look for the right changes in the virus, otherwise it might detect Alpha or Delta.  Is that what you mean?  That a PCR test might give a negative for Omicron but not for COVID?

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  46. 46.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Fair Economist:

    If the Pfizer vaccine is really 90% effective vs. Omicron then neutralizing antibodies aren’t a big part of the effectiveness, in spite of all the talk about them.

    Do you have an actual virologist/immunologist source saying such a thing? Seems wrong–my understanding is that, while T and B cells can prevent severe disease, you don’t get anything like sterilizing immunity without preexisting antibodies doing some of the work. And even if the antibodies are less effective because of changes in the spike protein, people who are recently boosted have really high levels of antibodies in them, far higher than you get from prior infection.

  47. 47.

    Matt McIrvin

    Early in the COVID pandemic there were a lot of people, especially conservatives and especially especially libertarians, who seemed outright attracted to plans that would kill huge numbers of people. “Herd immunity” from immediate mass infection.

    Sometimes they proposed taking millions of young healthy people and injecting them with the virus, so they could be an immune workforce to run the economy once they recovered (we now know from experience just how stupid that would be, of course–even if they didn’t die the infections could be debilitating enough to keep a lot of them from functioning well, and the resulting immunity likely wouldn’t be that great against future variants). Ironically, mass vaccination is basically the not-insane version of that plan, but, no, that’s a bridge too far.

    It’s almost as if mass human sacrifice was something they were hungry for, to satisfy some itch or to make themselves sound like steely-eyed pragmatists.

  48. 48.

    NorthLeft12

    @Matt McIrvin: Yes, I have seen a couple of highly respected medical professionals (at least here in Canada) opine that border closures to completely keep out a virus are a waste of energy and doomed to failure (Omricon is already here and spreading), but they acknowledge that the Public Health and government officials must be seen to be doing something.
    Canada/Ontario is increasing testing and sequencing to try and isolate the virus  in country.

    Note: My daughter is coming home for Christmas from the UK, and we are reviewing how we are going to quarantine with her in our house until she gets her test results. Wonderful.

  49. 49.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Kay:

    The “public education Party” will not be arguing that schools aren’t essential -Biden actually ran on opening schools – open in his firt 100 days, repeated over and over- and the rest of them will be running on keeping them open.

    Biden likely knew enough that he had a fair degree of confidence that he’d be able to vaccinate adult staff and parents in his first 100 days, and all the other knowledge that had been accumulated since the beginning of the pandemic. (He may not have counted on the level of vaccine refusal that we’ve got.)

    If Oz here was talking about 2-3% mortality, which is roughly an order of magnitude higher than the losses we’ve had already, he was apparently just thinking about letting it rip through the whole population. It’s hard for me to imagine Biden considering that an acceptable price.

    It’s been observed in other contexts that the ghoulishness in these cases isn’t that people are doing a cost-benefit analysis about human lives, it’s how ridiculously low they set the price. Often far lower than any insurance company would, for instance.

  50. 50.

    Robert Sneddon

    @NorthLeft12: Border closures and travel limitations are being carried out to slow down the spread of this variant, not to completely stop it spreading. By the time it does spread widely (assuming its apparent level of virulence is real) the scientists and epidemiologists will know a lot more about it, what measures need to be taken to deal with it etc. At the moment all we can do is carry on doing what we are doing right now, vaccinating with existing vaccines and social distancing and other mitigations and hope Omicron isn’t going to have greater case severity and a higher level of hospitalisations than Delta. Hope is not a plan though.

  51. 51.

    chopper

    this is the hard part when it comes to having data on transmissibility before having data on virulence/death.

  52. 52.

    Matt McIrvin

    @lowtechcyclist:

    One silver lining to this horrible plague is that I will never, ever again have to take the allegedly moral arguments of “pro-lifers” seriously as long as I live.

    What it keeps making me think about is how utter bullshit all the One Percent Doctrine talk about protecting the homeland after 9/11 was. These people encounter a threat that can’t be met with aggression, nationalism and bigotry and they just dismiss it even when it’s killing a 9/11’s worth of people every single day.

  53. 53.

    chopper

    Marcus Lamb, a brazen anti-vaxxer & Christian TV network owner, has died of Covid. He founded Daystar network that reaches ~2 billion people globally. He denigrated vaccines calling them satanic & pushed an array of quack treatments, including ivermectin

    i mean, come on, the showrunners are really fucking with us here.

  54. 54.

    smith

    The pro-child-sacrifice stance of Republicans, nutjobs and grifters (but I repeat myself) is not in the least surprising. It’s very similar to their moral calculus vis a vis gun control: Hundreds or thousands of dead kids is an acceptable price to pay so that inadequate men can keep their penis extenders.

  55. 55.

    BrianM

    @Jinchi: ​
     
    My hunch is that he means a 2-3% increase in total mortality, so somewhere around 24,000 lives by now. Which is, to be fair, in the ballpark of other death-serving decisions we as a country regularly make. For example, if the US had the same traffic fatality rate (per mile driven) as Germany, that would save about 22,000 lives. (Deaths include pedestrian and bicyclist deaths, for which road design and regulations in cities have a big effect.)

  56. 56.

    Kay

    @Matt McIrvin:

    Absolutely – no one knew at the onset of the pandemic the cost/benefit of closing schools but now we do know – their were real costs to students

    we’re supposed to be the “evidence” people

    the evidence suggests that the cost of missing school to 50 million children exceeded the benefit

    i don’t think you’ll ever see broad school closures again

  57. 57.

    Brachiator

    In interviews, officials keep admitting that omicron (and the current lack of data) presents a messaging bind. No one wants to sound alarm unnecessarily — but failing to warn about potential risks is a bigger sin in public health, especially if actions now could protect people.

    Again with the phony “messaging” bullshit.

    Nuance is not the same thing as confusion.

    Idiots keep demanding immediate “answers.” Then they accuse the government of lying to them when actual facts determined later result in changes to recommendations.

    People just need to calm down.

  58. 58.

    Fair Economist

    @Matt McIrvin: The truth is we don’t really know that precisely how all the different components of immunity work together to confer resistance. My point is that neutralizing antibodies from vaccination are going to work very poorly vs. Omicron, so if the vaccines are still highly effective then some other immune function has to be doing the heavy lifting.

  59. 59.

    Fair Economist

    @Kay: Part of the reason school closures seem like a bad deal now, though, is that children don’t often die from COVID. We didn’t know that at first, and it might not be true in the next pandemic.

  60. 60.

    Fair Economist

    @Another Scott: PCR can be too sensitive, but it only becomes an issue with contamination. But from the very early part of the pandemic, PCR has generated lots of false positives. Could be a sampling error; could be that the virus is not in the area sample (e.g. nasal swabs won’t pick up a virus in the nose), could be that the virus is already mostly cleared, could be the virus is still low low level. And PCR is touchy; labs can make mistakes. For example, a study cited here estimated a 38% false negative rate on the day symptoms start.

  61. 61.

    Cermet

    @Fair Economist: Are you pulling that out of your as … I mean, thin air, or is your PhD in the field and you are an expert in the study of covid viruses and so have some expertise in making that extreme claim? Because to date, no expert has said that.

  62. 62.

    Scout211

    @Kay:

    @Fair Economist:

    Please don’t leave out all the teachers and staff who were unprotected for many months until the vaccinations were widely available. The delta variant emerged after teachers were fully vaccinated so they were much less vulnerable to the virus and death.

    I do get that academics and socialization are very important for the kids but distance learning was not just to protect the students from the virus. The adults were the vulnerable ones. 

    My family has several teachers in it (as many of yours do) and yes, they are struggling this year to get their students caught up academically. But (at least the teachers in my family) did not get sick and did not die, like some teachers did

    There are many things to weigh in making decisions to keep people safe during a pandemic. We may know more in the future. Or we may be faced with something very different, with different choices altogether. We all just do the best that we can.

  63. 63.

    Brachiator

    @Fair Economist:

    Part of the reason school closures seem like a bad deal now, though, is that children don’t often die from COVID. We didn’t know that at first, and it might not be true in the next pandemic.

    But things are better if kids are at least vaccinated. Otherwise, they can still spread the virus to teachers and others.

    Also, we knew early on that children were not as strongly affected by Covid as adults. This has been pretty consistent from the beginning.

  64. 64.

    Kay

    @Fair Economist:

    True. We learned a lot. One of the things that is often missed is that TIME operates differently for children and adults.

    If they had said “Kay, you can’t practice law for 2 years, we need to get this virus under control” I’m harmed, but I can make it up. I’m a middle aged experienced lawyer who has lost 2 years of practice.

    But if you’re 7 years old and schools close for 2 years and your parents were at work so you didn’t do shit on zoom, you’re a 9 year old second grader. You’re harmed. They have to hit marks for that 12 year “child” span. They progress. Or not.

    It was interesting to watch the shift in my own local school district. First it was all about harm to adults and the broader public, but as it went on we started to SEE what it was doing to kids, so it shifted. It became “get them back in by any means necessary”. My district is majority low income- bare majority- 51%. The lower income kids fell off a cliff. At one point 20% of our high school students were not checking in at all. 20% of 50 million US students is a big price to pay. The reduction in transmission better be worth it. If it turns out it’s not, we need to use what we learned and change our policy and practice.

  65. 65.

    Kay

    @Fair Economist:

    And schools did change. They adapted. One of the smarter things they did (in hindsight) was offer a choice between remote learning and in person. It operated to make the in person problem smaller- a quarter of our families WOULD NOT return initially. That meant we had 25% less we had to serve in person.

    I think you’ll see that going forward. The assumption is “open” with accomodations for remote. But “open” should be the default. The cost is too high to close.

  66. 66.

    dc

    @Scout211: Children also are not islands, they go home to their parents, older siblings and other adults. They may not (thankfully) very often have serious or worse Covid outcomes, but they do contract it and spread it. Schools can safely (reasonably) reopen, but only under certain conditions that many places refuse to recognize: low community spread (masking, vaxing, ventilating) and schools have to implement the same (masking, with high-filtration masks, I am so sick of seeing almost worthless cloth masks worn badly when actually effective masks are readily available, vaxing, and VENTILATION/FILTRATION!!!!!!). All this requires, money, effort and caring about other people, even when they are very different from you.​ And having sane and responsible people in charge at the municipal, county, state and federal levels.

  67. 67.

    Robert Sneddon

    @dc: Here in Scotland there was a deliberate political tradeoff driven by public sentiment to get children back in schools and accepting the wider spread of COVID-19 even before vaccines were readily available.

    Last year the examinations schedule was toast due to schools being closed and graduating students were awarded provisional exam grades by teachers which affected their university selections and entry into jobs etc. It ended up with lots of appeals and sob stories in the press and the Scottish Education Minister having to resign as a sacrificial chicken. The government learned from this, that keeping schools open was seen as more important by the population than keeping the spread of this disease in check.

  68. 68.

    Fair Economist

    @Kay: In my area, OC CA, schools mostly reopened Fall ’20 with podding, masking,  regular testing, and plenty of hybrid and homeschooling options. I was skeptical, but it worked epidemiologically. They also mostly stopped the distance learning for 21 and I was skeptical about *that* too – but it turned out they were right on that as well.

     

    I don’t know how it worked scholastically, but it wasn’t 2 years lost here. My impression is that CA did about as well as it could given the uncertainty.

  69. 69.

    Cermet

    @Fair Economist:  Again, do support your belief on the virus with real facts traceable to real scientific papers – because no expert has said that extreme statement about the virus and it now being able to evade the antibodies; so you are either an expert’s expert or making shit up. If the later, then don’t.

  70. 70.

    Sister Golden Bear

    @satby: Thank you so much for sharing.

    Sadly we lose far, far too many of our trans kids. According to a recent study, 52% transgender and nonbinary youth have seriously considered suicide. (Overall 42% of LGBTQ+ teens have.) Too often they succeed.

    As Haley’s obituary aptly put:

    She had grown weary of the knowledge of her reality, knowing this country and this world would never stop trying to force her to submit to its ignorance, and her family rages for her. We would’ve burned the whole world down if we’d thought it would keep her safe, and our fury and outrage is eclipsed only by our grief.

    We trans elders try telling our kids that “it gets better,” but with the ever increasing attacks trans people that are trying to eradicate — a word I don’t use lightly — us from public life, it’s hard for the phrase to not ring hollow.

  71. 71.

    J R in WV

    @BrianM: ​

    My hunch is that he means a 2-3% increase in total mortality…

    But that isn’t what he said. My hunch is that he can’t do per cent calculations in his head, or even discuss them intelligently.

    Don’t go putting words in his mouth, unless you want to appear as stupid as Oz is. Which is what you have done here!

  72. 72.

    J R in WV

    @Fair Economist:

    My point is that neutralizing antibodies from vaccination are going to work very poorly vs. Omicron…

    But we have no way of knowing that today, so you are acting out in public at least as stupid than Dr Oz and that Daystar Theocrat who died of Covid. Shut up until we know something!

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