getting a once in a century moonshot revolution in vaccine technology was pretty cool https://t.co/BQxH5NmgqJ
— World Famous Art Thief (@CalmSporting) December 16, 2021
Americans aged 5 and up are eligible for COVID vaccine.
The vaccines don't prevent illness in all cases, but they make the disease a lot less harmful or deadly in the rare instance of breakthough infection.
My niece and her husband are fully vaxxed and boosted and tested positive— soonergrunt ?? A Capybara Appreciation Account (@soonergrunt) December 15, 2021
So, I really, really need for people to get their shots as soon as practical on time.
I really, really need for people to think about other people who cannot get the shots for whatever reason.
Basically, I really, really need for people to stop fucking around.— soonergrunt ?? A Capybara Appreciation Account (@soonergrunt) December 15, 2021
The US reported +1,802 new coronavirus deaths yesterday, bringing the total to 821,698. The 7-day moving average declined slightly to 1,200 deaths per day. pic.twitter.com/PtGaRAPMdL
— Patrick Chovanec (@prchovanec) December 16, 2021
The new omicron coronavirus mutant speeding around the world may bring another wave of chaos, threatening to further stretch hospital workers already struggling with a surge of delta cases and upend holiday plans for the second year in a row. https://t.co/j31tS6buLJ
— The Associated Press (@AP) December 15, 2021
Several U.S. universities were forced to move final exams online, Apple shut down some of its stores temporarily and long lines formed at many testing clinics in New York City as the threat of a new wave of COVID-19 has brought renewed disruption https://t.co/nEap5NAZLt pic.twitter.com/xXse4119SL
— Reuters (@Reuters) December 16, 2021
Everyone's familiar w/ the 5 stages of denial.
For the pandemic, the US has invented the 5 denials of warnings (it won't happen here). The 5th warning: alarming Omicron signals from S Africa, UK, Denmark & Norway. With no aggressive counter-action. Headed to > 1 million cases/day pic.twitter.com/fXlvCpHeuM— Eric Topol (@EricTopol) December 16, 2021
======
Citing omicron, advocates and Democrats press Biden to push faster on efforts to vaccinate the world https://t.co/ULNwPyKDYc
— Adam Taylor (@mradamtaylor) December 15, 2021
Omicron is spreading at a rate we have not seen with any previous variant. I need to be very clear: vaccines alone will not get any country out of this crisis.
It’s not vaccines instead of masks, distancing, ventilation or hand hygiene.
Do it all. Do it consistently. Do it well. pic.twitter.com/YAVfJXsviQ— Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (@DrTedros) December 14, 2021
As COVID-19 cases spike in South Korea, health officials are reinstating stricter social distancing rules https://t.co/F2uIeffzMr pic.twitter.com/phKWWBubab
— Reuters (@Reuters) December 16, 2021
South Korea will prohibit private social gatherings of five or more people nationwide and force restaurants to close at 9 p.m., rolling out the country's toughest coronavirus restrictions yet as hospitals grapple with the deadliest month of the pandemic. https://t.co/M3BZuaSRjd
— The Associated Press (@AP) December 16, 2021
Japan approves Moderna COVID vaccine as booster, Novavax files for 1st approval https://t.co/Cwy1KM9aPB pic.twitter.com/NDHw10e4QP
— Reuters (@Reuters) December 16, 2021
Malaysia imposes stricter rules, booster requirements over Omicron threat https://t.co/5rkixVecHO pic.twitter.com/ovurY6f3p9
— Reuters (@Reuters) December 16, 2021
President warns against complacency as Indonesia finds first Omicron case https://t.co/6QQ7XbFy8Q pic.twitter.com/qlMaGbnez3
— Reuters (@Reuters) December 16, 2021
WARNING: STRONG LANGUAGE – Thousands of protesters marched through the central business district of Wellington and gathered in front of the parliament building to protest against New Zealand's tough lockdown and vaccine mandates https://t.co/28Gp2kNpew pic.twitter.com/xka7Vz6rsp
— Reuters (@Reuters) December 16, 2021
A summit of European Union leaders will try to coordinate action to tackle the surge of coronavirus infections across the continent and the emergence of the new omicron variant while keeping borders open. https://t.co/oPO2l6DMsd
— AP Europe (@AP_Europe) December 16, 2021
Some former vaccine skeptics in Eastern Europe have had a change of heart as coronavirus infections surge, countries impose more restrictions against the unvaccinated and authorities battle against government distrust and vaccine disinformation. https://t.co/xpM5x5Mdm1
— AP Europe (@AP_Europe) December 16, 2021
Sweden to extend vaccine pass rules to Nordic travellers https://t.co/pJhsT25Skg pic.twitter.com/uNWZFtVqvm
— Reuters (@Reuters) December 16, 2021
France will restrict arrivals from Britain because of fast-spreading cases of the omicron variant, putting limits on reasons for traveling and requiring 48-hour isolation upon arrival. The new measures are expected to take effect over the weekend. https://t.co/gdCl4XUSGk
— AP Europe (@AP_Europe) December 16, 2021
Keep in mind that in the UK as it is, roughly 1000 people are dying of #covid19 every week.
Right now, cases and deaths look like this: pic.twitter.com/DzCgyAdrWC— Kai Kupferschmidt (@kakape) December 15, 2021
Nightclub owner on the news: "What are we meant to do if people don't have a COVID pass? Just not let them in and alienate them?" As someone who was once denied entrance to a club because I was wearing "the wrong kind of trainers" I'd like to invite him to fuck all the way off.
— Nathaniel Tapley (@Natt) December 15, 2021
Kenyans find rural lifeline after Covid city exodus https://t.co/iytveA11gY
— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) December 16, 2021
What can we learn from South Africa's experience with Omicron? https://t.co/A07Jrnts3e
— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) December 16, 2021
The Canadian government advised residents against international travel as provinces ramp up vaccinations to fight the Omicron coronavirus variant https://t.co/ETR1JWdQnA pic.twitter.com/24eO3a0hfy
— Reuters (@Reuters) December 16, 2021
======
I asked a bunch of smart people if we’re going to need #Covid boosters indefinitely. I confess I was a bit surprised by what heard. https://t.co/n2nKUMUU27
— Helen Branswell (@HelenBranswell) December 15, 2021
… The simple truth is that, at this point, there’s no definitive answer to that question.
But virologists, immunologists, and vaccinologists have opinions that are anchored in an understanding of how the immune system works and in emerging data on how Covid vaccines engage with this complicated enterprise that has evolved to help humans fend off disease threats.
STAT asked a number of these experts whether they think we face a future of endless Covid boosting. In the main, their answers were more reassuring than we expected.
Some said they think three doses of vaccine may protect many people for some time against the worst of Covid’s potential ravages. Many said they think the benefit of the third shot, given after a six-month interval, will turbocharge immune responses…
Well worth reading the whole thing!
Billions of people — including most of the Chinese population — have received #Sinovac #COVID19 #vaccines . A @HKUniversity study found 2doses give near-zero protection against #Omicron — 3rd dose improves response.https://t.co/6CnBZAx5LM
— Laurie Garrett (@Laurie_Garrett) December 16, 2021
This. Have spent the past couple of weeks writing about ebola survivors and some of the symptoms that are (were?) waved off by outside observers. The clinically visible stuff (eye problems) register well but not the fatigue + joint pain, memory loss, menstrual irregularities https://t.co/k0qLy2Cxhw
— Adia Benton (@Ethnography911) December 15, 2021
A SARSCoV2 protein can combine w/ a Parkinson's protein causing amyloid formation, a Parkinson's hallmark. Reports suggest young people w/Covid have developed Parkinson's. Now test-tube results show SARS2's N-protein combines w/ a-synuclein to form amyloid https://t.co/Bmz6ilW94r
— delthia ricks ?? (@DelthiaRicks) December 14, 2021
======
100% of COVID patients on ventilators at Duke Health are unvaccinated https://t.co/WRqmx752yQ
— CBS 17 (@WNCN) December 15, 2021
also, the devil's in the details here; they're targeting corporate and management employees, not the rank and file. pic.twitter.com/GmV3NEA9C3
— GOLIKEHELLMACHINE (@golikehellmachi) December 14, 2021
If Democrats break the historic pattern and don't lose the midterms, it will be because there was plague that was only wiping out Republicans. https://t.co/mwduHPLihP
— Let's not, Brandon (@agraybee) December 15, 2021
#BREAKING California is implementing a statewide indoor mask mandate from Dec. 15-Jan. 15.
If you’re unvaccinated & want to attend a mega event (1,000 plus people), you must show a negative antigen test within 1 day of the event or a negative PCR test within 2 days.
— Elex Michaelson (@Elex_Michaelson) December 13, 2021
we have had this for months in portland, it works fine, i have been to multiple concerts and bars where they check your ID + vax card and/or test results at the door, it's a system that works, if imperfectly, shut up and stop whining. https://t.co/DFOM0JjzMb
— GOLIKEHELLMACHINE (@golikehellmachi) December 13, 2021
mask adherence is not quite as good as i would like at concerts, but door checks for proof of vaccination and/or test booths outside venues or at the bar have just become pretty normal. maybe not everywhere, but it's working fine in plenty of places i've been, even dives.
— GOLIKEHELLMACHINE (@golikehellmachi) December 13, 2021
On The Road – way2blue – SÜDSTEIERMARK In October
NeenerNeener
Monroe County, NY:
There were 421 new laboratory-confirmed cases of COVID-19 reported on 12/15/21. There were 74 new positive home test results reported.
516 individuals are hospitalized for COVID-19 in the Finger Lakes Region (up 3 since previous day). 135 of these patients are in ICU (up 4 from previous day).
I’m definitely not going to the lunch for my department today.
The Thin Black Duke
Here’s a piece I did on Kyrie Irving, one of the more prominent anti-vaxxer idiot in a jockstrap.
Amir Khalid
Malaysia’s Ministry of Health reports 4,262 new Covid-19 cases today in its media statement, for a cumulative reported total of 2,707,402 cases. It also reports 33 deaths as of midnight, for an adjusted cumulative total of 30,989 deaths – 1.14% of the cumulative reported total, 1.17% of resolved cases.
Based on cases reported yesterday, Malaysia’s nationwide Rt is at 0.92.
284 confirmed cases are in ICU, 135 of them on ventilators. Meanwhile, 4,985 more patients have recovered, for a cumulative total of 2,620,147 patients recovered – 96.8% of the cumulative reported total.
Six new clusters were reported today, for a cumulative total of 6,062 clusters. 248 clusters are currently active; 5,814 clusters are now inactive.
4,226 new cases today are local infections. 36 new cases today are imported.
Meanwhile Health Minister Khairy Jamaludin said today that two cases of the Omicron variant have been detected in Malaysia so far. Both are imported cases: a South African university student returning from visiting family, and an eight-year-old Malaysian girl whose family resides in Nigeria.
The Institute of Medical Research is doing whole genomic sequencing on samples from another 18 suspected Omicron variant cases, Khairy said. The results would be known on Friday.
The National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme (PICK) administered 168,716 doses of vaccine on 15th December: 4,246 first doses, 5,125 second doses, and 159,345 booster doses. As of midnight, the cumulative total is 55,383,495 doses administered: 25,940,616 first doses, 25,529,153 second doses, and 4,107,585 booster doses. 79.5% of the population have received their first dose, while 78.2% are now fully vaccinated.
Baud
@The Thin Black Duke:
That was righteous. Nice work. I wish more people followed that advice.
New Deal democrat
First, the “relatively” good news (bearing in mind that half of everything we read about Omicron, even from good sources, is wrong; we just don’t know which half):
https://mobile.twitter.com/mugecevik/status/1471088936999137281
“According to a new lab study, Omicron infects & multiplies ~70x faster than the Delta variant and the wild type SARS-CoV-2 in the human bronchus, but not in the lung.
“Interestingly, it replicated ~10x less efficiently in the lung tissue
“These preliminary laboratory analyses indicate that; Omicron is significantly more transmissible than delta; Less efficient replication in the lungs may suggest lower severity, but severity in humans is not determined only by virus replication but also the host immune response”
And from South Africa:
https://mobile.twitter.com/tomtom_m/status/1471137280966414337
“The proportion testing positive, measured on a daily (as opposed to weekly) basis, has turned in the last few days….
“GAUTENG ONLY the reported (both PCR and Ag) cases peaked only (possibly!) on 12 December
[also] “Normalised cases and normalised (lagged) excess deaths: in the previous 3 waves, these metrics moved almost perfectly in sync. Not so much. Not even in Gauteng (where cases are > 80% of the peak in W3, yet excess deaths not even 10% of the W3 peak.
“These data are really important. They STRONGLY suggest that the Omicron wave in South Africa will be different.
“But this is NOT definitive proof. We need another week or two data. And this is NOT clinical or virological evidence. And it MAY still be confounded (not least of all by age; we don’t think so but still working on that). All round the most positive news in weeks”
Note the above two items might be related. If Omicron is relatively less replicating in the lungs (and bloodstream), but much more replicating in the nose, that would be very consistent with an exponential rise in cases but not in deaths – yet; crossing fingers.
Bad news from the US:
Per https://mobile.twitter.com/K_G_Andersen/status/1471364364284284929
“San Diego Omicron reporting is massively behind reality – we nowcast Omicron at ~20%, meaning it’ll likely be dominant by next week with rising cases to follow.”
It’s really a shame, because the latest averages show virtually no winter wave in the South and West; and maybe a post-Thanksgiving peak in the Midwest. The heavily vaccinated Northeast is now the region with the most cases per capita, likely partly due to Omicron.
Noteworthy that Canada, over 75% fully vaccinated, is clearly now in a rising, perhaps exponential, trend as well.
YY_Sima Qian
On 12/15 China reported 69 new domestic confirmed (2 previously asymptomatic) & 1 new domestic asymptomatic cases.
Inner Mongolia “Autonomous” Region reported 2 new domestic confirmed cases. 9 domestic confirmed case recovered. There currently are 501 active domestic confirmed cases in the region.
Heilongjiang Province did not report any new domestic positive cases. 3 domestic confirmed cases recovered. There currently are 33 active domestic confirmed & 4 active domestic asymptomatic cases in the province.
Shaanxi Province reported 4 new domestic confirmed cases. There are currently 8 active domestic confirmed cases in the province.
At Shanghai Municipality there currently are 6 active domestic confirmed & 2 active domestic asymptomatic cases remaining. 2 residential compounds are currently at Medium Risk.
Jiangsu Province did not report any new domestic positive cases. There currently are 1 active domestic confirmed (at Nanjing) & 3 active domestic asymptomatic cases (2 at Wuxi & 1 at Xuzhou) remaining in the province.
Zhejiang Province reported 56 new domestic confirmed cases. There currently are 316 active domestic confirmed & 1 active domestic asymptomatic cases in the province.
Suzhou in Anhui Province reported 1 new domestic confirmed case, a person who arrived from Shaoxing in Zhejiang on 12/11. The case has previously tested negative on 12/12, was placed under centralized quarantine on 12/14, testing positive on 12/15. 1 village has been elevated to Medium Risk.
At Chongzuo in Guangxi “Autonomous” Region there currently is 1 active domestic asymptomatic case remaining.
Guangdong Province reported 6 new domestic confirmed (2 previously asymptomatic) & 1 new domestic asymptomatic cases. There currently are 9 active domestic confirmed & 1 active domestic asymptomatic cases in the province.
At Dalian in Liaoning Province 1 domestic confirmed case recovered. There currently are 25 active domestic confirmed & 1 active domestic asymptomatic cases remaining.
At Shijiazhuang in Hebei Province there currently are 5 active confirmed cases remaining.
At Rizhao in Shandong Province there currently are 4 active domestic asymptomatic cases remaining.
At Chongqing Municipality there currently are 2 active domestic confirmed & 1 active domestic asymptomatic cases remaining.
At Henan Province 2 domestic confirmed cases recovered. There currently are 29 active domestic confirmed cases remaining (28 at Zhengzhou & 1 at Zhoukou).
Dehong Prefecture in Yunnan Province did not report any new domestic positive cases. 1 domestic confirmed case recovered. There currently are 51 active domestic confirmed & 25 active domestic asymptomatic cases at the prefecture. The High Risk zone at Longchuan County has been re-designated to Low Risk.
Imported Cases
On 12/15, China reported 8 new imported confirmed cases (none previously asymptomatic), 19 imported asymptomatic cases, 0 imported suspect cases:
Overall in China, 31 confirmed cases recovered (16 imported), 11 asymptomatic cases were released from isolation (9 imported) & 2 were reclassified as confirmed cases (both imported), & 4,288 individuals were released from quarantine. Currently, there are 1,506 active confirmed cases in the country (512 imported), 14 in serious condition (5 imported), 459 active asymptomatic cases (414 imported), 1 suspect case (imported). 52,158 traced contacts are currently under centralized quarantine.
As of 12/15, 2,640.059M vaccine doses have been injected in Mainland China, an increase of 9.855M doses in the past 24 hrs.
On 12/16, Hong Kong reported 10 new positive cases, all imported.
Matt McIrvin
Soonergrunt’s thread is great except that I think we need to stop calling it “the rare instance of breakthrough infection”. Breakthrough infection (at least to the point of testing positive and maybe having mild symptoms, like the vaccinated people in Soonergrunt’s family) is about to become the norm rather than the exception and if we pretend it’s not, everyone will treat everything we say as a lie.
Van Buren
NYC teachers are being told to prepare for remote learning ASAP.
Like, by the end of the day.
The Thin Black Duke
@Baud: Thank you, sir.
Amir Khalid
Laurie Garrett’s tweet re Sinovac makes me worry. The first vaccine to land in Malaysia was a shipment of Sinovac from China — 300,000 doses worth, as I recall. My own vaccination is two doses of Sinovac. I have not yed been received the text with my booster appointment.
lowtechcyclist
We had a dozen people at my HOA’s meeting last night. I was the only one wearing a mask.
I think it’s time for me to shift from cloth masks to N95s. If no one else around here is wearing them, I need a mask to protect me from them, and not just the other way around.
NotMax
Good on them. More like this, please.
Cermet
The power of false propaganda (i.e. Russian trolls and fox) is amazingly effective both here and Europe. Hard to believe these people were so readily prepared by racism towards others to jump on the bandwagon of being antivax and mask. Make no mistake – at the heart of all Western antivax beliefs are people who are first and foremost racists’ to their core.
Matt McIrvin
@New Deal democrat: The big differences between South Africa and the US is that South Africa’s population is (1) much younger on average, (2) much less vaccinated, but on the other hand (3) almost universally already infected with Delta in the recent past. How all that affects Omicron’s impact, nobody can really say.
YY_Sima Qian
The HKU study that showed 0/25 persons double vaxxed w/ Sinovac vaccine having neutralizing levels of antibodies against Omicron also showed only 5/25 persons doubled vexed w/ Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine having the same. It is also not clear from the reporting how long ago the cases had their 2nd shots. We know antibody levels for all vaccines drop over time, & the inactivated whole varion vaccines start w/ lower antibody levels & drop somewhat faster. Lastly, the study does not examine T- & B-cell immunity.
Implication – get boosted immediately!
I got my booster shot this morning, a SinoPharm (Wuhan Institute of Biological Products) inactivated whole varion vaccine. Have slight dizziness, chills & soreness as side effects.
lowtechcyclist
@Van Buren:
Whoa. I understand why, but damn, that’s a lot to ask of the teachers. Even if they were teaching remotely last school year.
Matt McIrvin
@lowtechcyclist: We’d already made the jump from simple cloth masks to multi-layer deals with a paper filter in them. My wife got a stack of N95s a few weeks ago in preparation for Thanksgiving travel and I’ve switched to those whenever I’m in public places. We’re all working in the dark here, don’t know how effective they are, but they do make me feel a bit safer.
phdesmond
@The Thin Black Duke:
Duke,
that was good. thanks for posting.
here’s something i wrote:
Pandemic Polemic
Stanch the bleeding, douse the flame.
Antivaxxers are to blame!
peter
Matt McIrvin
@YY_Sima Qian: Biggest worry for me right now: my daughter is just several months shy of the age where she can get a booster, under current recommendations. The data I’ve seen do show that the original two shots of mRNA vaccines confer robust protection against serious illness, and I’m just banking on that, plus the protection afforded by her age, at this point.
Bruce K in ATH-GR
Greece: yesterday’s COVID report noted 4,801 new cases and 77 dead, with 700 intubated patients in ICUs. The intubations are still high, but the other numbers are lower than recent days.
On the other hand, Greece also just announced that starting December 19, all incoming travelers must get COVID PCR tests within 48 hours of arrival. The only exemption is for travelers who spent less than 48 hours in another country.
On that note, I find myself in need of information: does anyone in the jackaltariat know of a location in the vicinity of Baltimore, Maryland, that will do PCR tests with a 24-hour turnaround?
Crap.
YY_Sima Qian
@Amir Khalid: I thought Malaysia had given go ahead to people who got Sinovac to be boosted w/ another vaccine weeks ago?
I would definitely try to get boosted as soon as possible, even if it is another Sinovac shot.
In fact, everyone should be boosted if at all possible. I think studies out of UK have shown that the 2 shots of AZ-Oxford vaccine also confers very low level of protection against Omicron (especially if months ago), which the incidence rate there implies, as well. 2 shots of Moderna? Same.
The Thin Black Duke
I went to the South South Plaza mall the other day to pick an item my Beloved ordered online. It was cheaper to get it myself than having it delivered. Over half of the people there weren’t wearing masks.
YY_Sima Qian
@Matt McIrvin: Yeah, incomplete data so far does suggest that while naturally acquired & vaccination induced “immunity” do not offer much protection against infection by Omicron, they are still relatively effective against hospitalization & death, w/ mRNA vaccines still the best comparatively speaking.
My daughter is months away from being eligible for vaccination. Even in China, I think we will have to be extra careful this winter. Looks like another Chinese New Year that we will not be visiting family outside of Wuhan (in Beijing or Nanjing).
gbbalto
@Bruce K in ATH-GR: One place I know of – not cheap –
https://www.newdiscoverylabs.com/for-individuals
i
Peale
Thankfully, I live in a New York county that’s decided to defy the governor and has a county executive that’s gone on Fox Business to declare that there is no COVID crisis here currently, even though hospitalizations are up 40% in the past week. So we won’t be masking up indoors here, no matter what size the crowd, by golly.
I guess its a positive sign that most of the people at the convenience store I go to each morning are masked again, so I think the message is trickling down that we are about to have a problem.
Decided to continue what I’ve been doing, even though I am boosted. When I have to go to the grocery store, I tend to go stores I know where the staff and the customers have never stopped masking. My partner though is a mess at the moment. He works at a hospital and his collogues who are vaxxed are starting to drop like flies. He’s also boosted and they weren’t yet. But still, its probably only a matter of time before the hospitals are going to fall apart due to staffing issues.
Yeah, I think we’re heading towards 1,000,000+ cases per day. We’re going to find out that even “milder of than the last wave” doesn’t really help much when 10-15% of the workforce is at home with headaches and nausea all at once.
Bruce K in ATH-GR
@gbbalto: Thank you! It’s good to have options, even expensive ones. My better half is looking at possibilities, but a fallback strategy is always good.
On the bright side, hey, the EU officially said that the Johnson & Johnson shot works as a booster after a two-shot mRNA series. (source) So even if neither the US nor the EU acknowledges that I’m boosted, both acknowledge that I’m vaccinated, and functionally I’m boosted.
New Deal democrat
@Matt McIrvin: “South Africa’s population is (1) much younger on average…”
Which was also true of their 4 previous waves. Only in this one have deaths decoupled from cases (so far)
“(2) much less vaccinated, …”
Which means the current wave should not have the kind of decoupling suggested (vs. being more vaccinated)
“but on the other hand (3) almost universally already infected with Delta in the recent past.”
That’s a big assumption, which might be true but is not confirmed by hard data, which shows a much lower rate of infection than in the U.K. or US. Also, it is contrary to your previous argument that Delta doesn’t protect against Omicron and visa versa.
“How all that affects Omicron’s impact, nobody can really say.”
We’re all reading tea leaves at this point, but you have to start somewhere.
P.S. not being snarky at all; your comments are always intelligent and helpful.
Matt McIrvin
@Peale: How the (alleged) relative mildness of Omicron interacts with the relative larger numbers of cases to produce population-wide health impacts is the big unanswered question. Do we end up with more deaths or fewer? It will definitely be another big economic disruption even if nobody dies.
Matt McIrvin
@New Deal democrat:
My impression is that there’s very little protection against infection, but probably significant protection against severe disease.
gkoutnik
@Amir Khalid: That made me sit up and notice, as well. 0% effectiveness. Good lord.
Stay safe, Amir.
Soprano2
I remember as soon as I saw the preliminary stories about how Covid-19 was mostly sickening and killing non-white people in big cities I knew conservatives would quit taking it seriously. There was about a month in the beginning when they were as afraid of it as the rest of us, but as soon as they thought it would only sicken and kill people who weren’t like them, they lost interest in doing anything about it. I don’t think everyone who is antivax is racist, but I think a lot of them think that their “superior” immune systems and health habits will protect them from Covid. I’ve heard quite a few comments here like “we don’t live on top of each other here like they do in big cities so it won’t hurt us like it did them” and “if you just take vitamin C, vitamin D, zinc and blah blah blah it’ll strengthen your immune system and you won’t get sick”. They really think somehow the way they live will protect them from getting sick even in the face of a massive amount of evidence that it doesn’t.
YY_Sima Qian
@Matt McIrvin: Given the extraordinary escalation in Omicron incidence rate even in populations w/ very high seropositivity, I am not optimistic. Even if hospitalization rate of Omicron is 1/4th of that of Delta, it only takes 2 doublings for Omicron to close the gap in total hospitalizations, & the doubling time for Omicron appears to be 2 – 3 days during the exponential surge phase. It suggests a shorter but more brutal wave.
I read somewhere that if everyone in the US catches the common cold in 2 weeks, or 2 months, it would still be a public health, sociological & economic catastrophe.
Omicron may finally be the variant that renders China’s “Dynamic Zero COVID” strategy untenable. I fervently hope that is not the case.
lowtechcyclist
@Matt McIrvin: Agreed. Maybe even the term ‘breakthrough infection’ isn’t exactly a good one. It isn’t like the vaccine is a wall that has to be broken through in order for the virus to infect you. And like you say, they’re going to become a fairly normal event, just that the vaccines ought to keep us out of the ICU.
Amir Khalid
@YY_Sima Qian:
They did. I have no idea what vaccine I’ll get for a booster. I only found out I was getting Sinovac when I was at the vax centre for my first dose. The Health Ministry is no longer administering Sinovac, by the way; it stopped reordering that vaccine, and now relies largely on Pfizer’s Comirnaty.
Another Scott
@Amir Khalid: Getting a booster is good.
IANAMD, but my understanding is:
Keep doing what you are doing, watch the news, but don’t panic.
Good luck!
Cheers,
Scott.
Peale
@Soprano2: Yeah. If we white people know one thing about black people, its that we get our vitamin D because we can consume fortified dairy products. So they way they all jumped into the “Vitamin D is the key” is so typical. Also, it really was the most predictable thing last April to have them turn on a dime from “Stay indoors. Protect grandma from this disease” to “Fuck grandma. More black people are dying so I’m all for risking that ol’ bitch’s life.” Like literally that was the Truth about COVID the proud boys were rioting over in Detroit. Stopping ambulances from getting patients to the hospital to call out that particular truth.
YY_Sima Qian
@Amir Khalid: It would be great if you could get a Pfizer-BioNTech booster, but if you are offered an AZ-Oxford or J&J-Janssen shot, by all means take it.
Soprano2
I just found out that one of my co-workers is out until the middle of next week because of Covid. His son tested positive, so he tested and was positive too. Thing is, he got his booster on Tuesday! So he was probably positive and didn’t know it when he got his booster.
Cermet
@YY_Sima Qian:
You and me both.
Cermet
@Peale: My point is racist readily adapt any troll message if its flagged with race aspects and all these people easily become anti-vax and mask. Not that all antivax people are racist (through many are.) That’s why fox watchers are so easily turned against obviously clear messages that vaccination and masks work – the old saying about “Don’t believe your lying eyes, but believe what I’m telling you” (any fox talking head.)
If it only affected these people, well, too bad but they are plague rats inflecting all of us and keeping the virus ramped.
Soprano2
@Peale: They’re also obsessed with taking zinc as a way to ward off Covid. I can’t take that as a supplement, it makes me nauseous. There was a woman at Jazzercize who was big on the “strengthen your immune system and you won’t get sick” thing, although she also told me she thought she got Covid in January 2020 on a cruise in Hawaii, which is actually possible. I can’t tell you how many people I know who have said “I think I had Covid in Ocotber/November/December 2019,”, and I always say “Covid was not in this city at that time”, and nothing I’ve seen says it could have been otherwise. I think for some people it was a way of telling themselves they’d already had it so they couldn’t get sick with it again.
rikyrah
@The Thin Black Duke:
Don’t let me have been the owner of the team. he wouldn’t play another game for me for the entirety of his contract
rikyrah
@Van Buren:
for real?
rikyrah
@lowtechcyclist:
truth
rikyrah
@Cermet:
no lie told with regards to COVID
Matt McIrvin
@Cermet:
The idea that nothing really bad will happen to me because I’m one of the STRONG people–there’s something very eugenicist about it.
Matt McIrvin
@Soprano2:
And by the time it did, Joe Biden was President. So from their perspective, COVID was nothing until Biden made it worse. For someone in the urban Northeast, the reverse was true–while we have more acknowledged cases now, we had our greatest dying back in the late Trump era. I think that difference in time sequences affects general perception of how it’s gone.
smith
@Matt McIrvin: Not sure I agree. The rural death rate from covid soared ahead of the metropolitan death rate starting in August 2020. They’ve had plenty of time to adjust their ideas about covid being primarily a big city disease, and certainly it was clear before the election that it was their problem too. They’re just not people who can easily alter their beliefs in response to new information.
different-church-lady
*throws phone on floor*
*weeps*
*goes back to getting on with things
Miss Bianca
@Cermet: I believe you. I think someone here posted this thread read which uses Wilkerson’s Caste as a lens to look at antivaxxer behavior: he doesn’t use the word “racism” as a synonym for “caste” per se, but yeah…it’s racism.
randy khan
I love the description of something like 30 years of steady, boring research that resulted in the creation of the principal COVID-19 vaccines as a “moonshot.” Okay, I don’t love it, but it is pretty funny.
Fair Economist
@YY_Sima Qian: Unfortunately both SinoVac and SinoPharm are inactivated virion vaccines, which produce minimal T cell responses.
Sloane Ranger
Wednesday in the UK we had 78,610 new cases, which is a massive increase over the day before and an all time high. Chris Whitty has warned that he expects more records to be broken as the Omicron wave progresses.The rolling 7-day average is up by 19.1%. New cases by nation,
England – 68,868 (up 15,775)
Northern Ireland – 2156 (up 575)
Scotland – 5155 (up 2038)
Wales – 2431 (up 612).
Deaths – There were 165 deaths within 28 days of a positive test yesterday. The rolling 7-day average is down by 5%. 129 deaths were in England, 4 in Northern Ireland, 22 in Scotland and 10 in Wales.
Testing – 1,319,891 tests took place on Tuesday, 14 December. The rolling 7-day average is up by 15.2%. The PCR testing capacity reported by labs on this date was 836,845.
Hospitalisations – As of Tuesday, 14 December, there were 7673 people in hospital and 896 people on ventilators. The 7-day average for hospital admissions was up by 10.4% as of 11 December.
Vaccinations – As of Tuesday, 14th, 51,332,920 people had received 1 shot of a vaccine, 46,842,497 had had 2 and 24,732,162 had had a 3rd shot/booster. In percentage terms, this means that 89.3% of all UK residents aged 12+ had had 1 shot of a vaccine by that date, 81.5% had had 2 and 43% had had a 3rd shot/booster.
In other news, in response to a question from a journalist, Chris Whitty suggested that people should decide what Christmas related activities were most important to them, prioritise those things and not attend other events in order to increase their chances of being able to enjoy the important stuff. Some swivel eyed Tory MP’s have blasted him for saying this, as, according to them, this is a stealth lockdown and only elected people should be offering advice about behaviour. After listening to Sir Desmond Swaine during the Commons debate on Tuesday, I am convinced that the Tory Party is about 10 years behind the Republicans in terms of embracing magical thinking and denial of reality as a modus operandi.
Fair Economist
@Soprano2:
Doubly stupid since they *could* get it again, like any cold virus.
There was a bad flu season in 2019-20 which, unusually, had two different strains in successive waves. Unfortunately symptoms are pretty similar in type, just not severity. If these people could understand they are *not* protected and that COVID would likely be substantially worse for them, we’d all be better off, but here we are.
Another Scott
@randy khan:
Robert Goddard would like a word…
;-)
Yeah, even moon-shots build on decades of grunt-work. :-)
Cheers,
Scott.
VeniceRiley
“let that zinc in.” – Saw some wag over at r/hca comment.
Robert Sneddon
@Sloane Ranger: The Thursday report on gov.uk says 88,376 new cases, up around 10,000 or so since yesterday’s figures. The webpages are updated at 16:00 assuming nothing goes wrong. The equivalent coronavirus data for Scotland is updated two hours earlier at 14:00.
We’re still not seeing a big uptick in hospitalisation, ICU bed occupancy and deaths in the UK yet. The daily new cases figure has doubled over the past couple of weeks and realistically it won’t top out soon. The booster campaign is chasing the Omicron surge with about 750,000 booster doses administered yesterday. The bad news is that’s close to the maximum rate, logistically speaking although with a push we might manage a million a day eventually. The other bad news is that the numbers of first and second vaccinations has pretty much flatlined — without mandates and/or vaccine passporting I don’t see the unvaccinated Young Immortals stepping forward to get their initial protective doses, never mind a booster.
Bill Arnold
@lowtechcyclist:
[Expletive] Yes! I mean, with that many people, those meetings are risking property values by medically bankrupting or killing one or more homeowners.
N95s are a lot better; face needs to be shaven (or naturally hairless) to minimize leakage, and not everyone’s face is a good fit for a cone mask. They are good enough to provide significant protection to medical staff from patients with infection respiratory diseases and to protect people working casually with toxic/dangerous dusts.
N95s can also be reused for casual use in public indoor places (best to rotate through a few of them) until a strap breaks or they are damaged – not as quite as good as a fresh mask and one should be careful not to pick one’s nose after handling a recently-used one and before washing hands. But better than lesser masks – in particular the side leakage is less.
(Yes, there are cloth masks with filter inserts that are as good and are more comfortable. I would probably use such if working in a shared indoor space.)
Also, effort spent to get a local mask requirement is probably worthwhile. At the very least it makes people aware that some in their community are concerned (and well-informed about) about public health.
YY_Sima Qian
@Fair Economist:
This is not really true. The Stage III trial of the Sinovac vaccine conducted at Chile tested for T-cell immunity, & found robust activation of CD4+ T helper cells (though it was more muted for elderly > 60). Activation was less robust for CD8+ cytotoxic T cells compared to mRNA & adenoviral vector vaccines.
Sri Lankan study of the SinoPharm BIBP vaccine also found activation of CD4+ & CD8+ T cells, though again at lower levels than seen w/ mRNA & adenoviral vector vaccines.
We will have to see what T cell immunity looks like after a booster shot. A lot of mature vaccines in use today for other diseases require 3 shots spread over many months to achieve fully robust response.
However, I do not believe the statement that inactivate whole varion vaccines will necessarily result in “minimal” T cell response is correct.
Bill Arnold
Re that Delthia Ricks tweet above (“A SARSCoV2 protein can combine w/ a Parkinson’s protein causing amyloid formation, a Parkinson’s hallmark. Reports suggest young people w/Covid have developed Parkinson’s. Now test-tube results show SARS2’s N-protein combines w/ α-synuclein to form amyloid”), the studies actually date back to April/August 2021.
The cautious might want to be really vaccinated (including booster) with spike protein (mRNA Moderna and/or Pfizer at least) vaccines. It may be the case that the spike protein is a safe protein in a SARS-CoV-2 family virus, which is the precise opposite of some of the more extreme conspiracy theories/antivaxxer propaganda.
Interactions between SARS-CoV-2 N-Protein and α-Synuclein Accelerate Amyloid Formation (December 3, 2021, Slav A. Semerdzhiev, Mohammad A. A. Fakhree, Ine Segers-Nolten, Christian Blum, and Mireille M. A. E. Claessens) (First on bioRxiv 2021.04.12[need to check this])
(2021 Aug 9, Asis K. Jana, Augustus B. Greenwood, and Ulrich H. E. Hansmann)
Bill Arnold
@Another Scott:
[Actual immunologists, please forgive me. Currently slogging through an immunology textbook and some review papers.]
Antibodies are the fast response part of the body’s adaptive immune system. If they fail to knock out the infection immediately (reduce the virus population to zero?), it becomes a race in the body between the exponentially reproducing virus and a (initially probabilistic) exponentially reproducing defensive response (either memory B cells or from scratch) making new antibodies. (With a lot more complexity, e.g. see YY_Sima Qian at #59 )
gvg
I don’t have any medical background. My impression though is that in non pandemic emergency conditions of vaccine development, researchers spend a lot of time and testing trying to find the ideal spacing of vaccines. What age to give them, how to space multiple shots, how long immunity lasts etc. With the emergency they could not explore ALL the scenarios to find the most effective vaccine regime. For instance they went with a 3 and 4 week wait period between pfizer and moderna. Other countries with more of a supply issue had to space them apart further and I have read that those people may have actually gotten better results overall, but for the months before their 2nd shots, they weren’t that protected at all. In a non emergency situation, research would have tested and had facts to decide that and the wait in between would not be especially risky. Research would also decide how long protection lasts and chances to tweak and improve. In the non emergency future we may have found one or 2 improved vaccines that work, and have a certain age we get the shot, a certain best spacing for a 2nd if necessary, and maybe when to get a booster which might be never or every 5 years or every year with the flu shot. Probably fewer side effects after time to improve.
I can see some kind of testing to check how our immune system is retaining protection. There are several tests for how well individuals systems remember childhood vaccinations. I can see revaccinating after chemo becoming a thing too.
These are my own speculations, but I want to remember that all the experts are having to operate with less than perfect information and can’t responsibly wait for that info. It will take a few years of organized research before anyone will have what is a normal disease complete information.
dkinPa
@The Thin Black Duke: Love your article — thanks for posting!
Matt McIrvin
@gvg:
Luck played a role here–with the early variants of COVID, the first shot actually gave you quite a lot of protection, to the extent that it made sense to count people with one shot as “vaccinated”. Many people even decided to roll the bones and not get the second one, because they’d heard about side effects and that the first shot was already pretty good.
That also helped out the countries that chose a wide dose spacing. And then it turned out that it made the second shot more effective too.
Delta upended that–now the first shot wasn’t that great by itself.
Kalakal
@lowtechcyclist:
Make the shift. I’ve been wearing N95s for over a year. Florida, public library, thanks to DeathSantis, masking has been totally optional by the public.of the 20% or so that wear masks the vast majority use them as chin supports.