Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Second rate reporter says what?

No Justins, No Peace

The poor and middle-class pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the wealthy pay politicians.

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

And we’re all out of bubblegum.

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

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

The revolution will be supervised.

This blog will pay for itself.

Republicans don’t trust women.

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

Authoritarian republicans are opposed to freedom for the rest of us.

There are consequences to being an arrogant, sullen prick.

Republicans in disarray!

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

In my day, never was longer.

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

They traffic in fear. it is their only currency. if we are fearful, they are winning.

Come on, man.

Is it negotiation when the other party actually wants to shoot the hostage?

Innocent people don’t delay justice.

A lot of Dems talk about what the media tells them to talk about. Not helpful.

You are here: Home / Healthcare / COVID-19 Coronavirus / COVID-19 Coronavirus Updates: Saturday / Sunday, Dec. 18-19

COVID-19 Coronavirus Updates: Saturday / Sunday, Dec. 18-19

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  2. 2.

    Amir Khalid

    Malaysia’s Ministry of Health reports 3,108 new Covid-19 cases today in its media statement, for a cumulative reported total of 2,718,955 cases. It also reports 29 deaths as of midnight, for an adjusted cumulative total of 31,073 deaths – 1.14% of the cumulative reported total, 1.17% of resolved cases.

    Based on cases reported yesterday, Malaysia’s nationwide Rt is at 0.91.

    326 confirmed cases are in ICU, 143 of them on ventilators. Meanwhile, 3,701 more patients have recovered, for a cumulative total of 2,634,381 patients recovered – 96.9% of the cumulative reported total.

    Three     new clusters were reported today, for a cumulative total of 6,077 clusters. 252 clusters are currently active; 5,825 clusters are now inactive.

    3,071 new cases today are local infections. 37 new cases today are imported.

    The National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme (PICK) administered 71,650 doses of vaccine on 18th December: 1,230 first doses, 1,932 second doses, and 68,488 booster doses. As of midnight, the cumulative total is 55,803,470 doses administered: 25,951,823 first doses, 25,546,035 second doses, and 4,500,495 booster doses. 79.5% of the population have received their first dose, 78.2% are fully vaccinated, and 13.8% have had booster doses.

  3. 3.

    Princess

    I hope that the omicron surge will be short, if it is going to be (and it is) sharp. But the Gauteng data is not useful. Gauteng province has a big exodus of migrant industrial workers at this time of year every year. It’s like Ithaca after the students leave town. Watch all of South Africa to know what an omicron surge will look like, not just one province.

  4. 4.

    NeenerNeener

    Monroe County, NY:

    There were 483 new cases of COVID-19 reported on 12/18/21.

    I’m glad I skipped the office Christmas lunch on Thursday.

  5. 5.

    lowtechcyclist

    @raven: 

    I’m gonna have to pull out 4-Way Street just to listen to this song, with Neil’s intro (“sorta starts off real slow, then fizzles out altogether”).

  6. 6.

    New Deal democrat

    @Princess: Ok serious question. This is from Prof. Tom Moultrie 2 days ago:
    https://mobile.twitter.com/tomtom_m/status/1471723711287996416
    “On similar metrics (not shown) ALL northern provinces (NW, GT, MP, LP) seem to have now turned.”

    Granted we would all like to have the most comprehensive data, but realistically does that deal with the issue you raised about Gauteng?

    One other note about SA, not directed at you, just a general comment for the thread: deaths have now risen 250% from their lows about 4 weeks ago. Looks like the start of an exponential rise (but not necessarily one as steep as cases).

  7. 7.

    Ken

    São Paulo says it has fully vaccinated more than 100 percent of its adults.

    I can’t decide if this reflects innumeracy, and if so, who is to blame.  For example the government announces they vaccinated 9.7 million people of all age groups, some reporter looks up the adult population of the city and finds it’s 9.3 million, idiocy follows. (And until I was looking for realistic numbers, I didn’t know São Paulo was the fourth most populous city in the world, and the largest in the Americas.)

    Will it be enough to stop omicron?

    Depends on whether the important word is “vaccinated” or “says”; that is, does reality match the government claims.

  9. 9.

    Cermet

    With Delta still burning through large area’s of the country, and an Omicron plague just starting to burn through, this means we get two dis-jointed but overlapping ‘spikes’. Translation, a much longer convoluted curve that, with both antivaxxer or previous uninfected, will result in a tail as those people get ill. Translation – no nice spike like South Africa.

  11. 11.

    NotMax

    Massive bump in number of infections. One day does not portend a trend, but still sobering.

    Hawaii records 3 new coronavirus-related deaths, 707 additional infections
    [snip]
    Today’s new confirmed and probable infection count by island includes 622 new cases on Oahu, 22 on Hawaii island, 32 on Maui, 22 on Kauai, and nine Hawaii residents diagnosed outside the state. Source

  13. 13.

    Ken

    @mrmoshpotato: Mississippi mandated that some workers get the vaccine?

    Sneaked it in under the livestock regulations.

    Seriously: I think it would be a net benefit if a COVID variant appeared that could infect chickens or pigs. We’d see a dozen states mandate the vaccine within days.

  14. 14.

    Feathers

    As if these “wealthier people in NYC” know any homeless people or talk with them to arrange a transaction like this.

    Getting their drug dealer to find someone to get shots in their name? I’d buy that. But homeless people just sounds very urban legend to me. But it will show up in a movie or Law & Order pretty soon.

  15. 15.

    germy

    Today in London, anti-vaxxers attacked an Apple store yelling “shame on you”, presumably because they think Bill Gates owns Apple. And they filmed the attack with their iPhones. I guess they “did their own research”? pic.twitter.com/yaIhVtBHVo

    — Barak Shoshany ⚡ (@BarakShoshany) December 18, 2021

    Whew!

  17. 17.

    Baud

    @germy:

    That was on Reddit.  Someone said it was fake.  That the reason was because Apple was removing antivax apps from the App store.  Don’t know the truth, but be wary.

  18. 18.

    Cameron

    Anybody in my neck of the woods who’s unvaccinated is definitely living that way by choice.  Within about 5 blocks of where I live CVS, CVS at Target, Publix, Walgreen’s and Winn-Dixie all offer shots.  Manatee County as a whole is still under 70% with at least one dose.

  19. 19.

    Ken

    @germy: One of those times where I have to remind myself that the extinction of humanity would be a net loss.  Though it gets harder and harder to say why, beyond “nothing would be named any more”.

  20. 20.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Ken: Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard have well over 100% vaccination too. I think the numbers in many places are rife with record-keeping issues, particularly second and third shots not properly linked to the first one so they register as new first vaccinations, or nonresidents vaccinated there and recorded as residents.

  22. 22.

    Anne Laurie

    @Feathers: But homeless people just sounds very urban legend to me.

    Oh, fersure.  IMO, it’s the latest excuse among the anti-vaxxers as to why their revered Thought Leaders, like TFG and Tucker Carlson, haven’t really betrayed them by getting their shots.  See, they’re like us — we buy fake vaxx cards on Etsy, and they pay street bums to get ‘authentic’ cards for them!

  23. 23.

    sab

    Ohio governor has activated 1100 National Guard members to help understaffed hospitals in NE Ohio cope with a surge in hospitalizations. But governor still won’t impose any sort of mandates. And two of the three main hospital systems in the area ( Cleveland Clinic and University) don’t have vax mandates for staff. Summa has had vax mandate for a while.

  24. 24.

    germy

    @Baud:

    I think you’re right, that issue is mentioned further down the thread.  The angry mob wants Apple to help them in their antivax propaganda, and they’re angry it won’t happen.

    I wonder where Steve Jobs would be on the issue.  He delayed medical treatment for his cancer so he could pursue worthless alternative treatments.  I wonder if he’d be in the horse paste camp today.  Maybe not.

    These dumb protests are happening all over the world.  Probably from people reading the same anti-vax propaganda we see in the U.S.

  26. 26.

    Robert Sneddon

    @germy:  From what I understand Mr. Kelly, the CEO of South West Airlines is fully vaccinated and has received a booster shot. He does not appear to be a vaccination-denier.

    As for the efficacy of masks on an aircraft with limited airflow in the cabin and people packed in shoulder-to-shoulder like sardines, well… One example I know of in the news recently concerned two flights from South Africa to the Netherlands which together carried about 600 passengers.

    In theory all passengers provided a negative COVID-19 test before boarding the planes in Johannesburg. When they arrived at Schiphol twelve hours later and everyone was tested there were over sixty positive tests, of which thirteen were thought to be Omicron variant. All passengers were theoretically supposed to wear masks on the flights and I expect most of them did most of the time.

  27. 27.

    YY_Sima Qian

    On 12/18 China reported 44 new domestic confirmed (1 previously asymptomatic) & 4 new domestic asymptomatic cases.

    Inner Mongolia “Autonomous” Region did not report any new domestic positive cases. 22 domestic confirmed case recovered. There currently are 454 active domestic confirmed cases in the region. 

    • Hulun Buir did not report any new domestic positive cases. 22 domestic confirmed case recovered. There currently are 453 active domestic confirmed cases (443 at Manzhouli & 10 at New Barag Right Banner) in the city. 7 sub-districts are currently at High Risk. 2 townships & 2 sub-districts are currently at Medium Risk.
    • At Tongliao there currently is 1 active domestic confirmed case in the city.

    At Heilongjiang Province 8 domestic confirmed case recovered. There currently are 23 active domestic confirmed & 4 active domestic asymptomatic cases in the province.

    • At Harbin 8 domestic confirmed cases recovered. There currently are 23 active domestic confirmed cases in the city. 1 residential compound  has been re-designated to Low Risk. 1 residential building & 4 residential compounds remain at Medium Risk.
    • At Qiqihar there currently are 4 active domestic asymptomatic cases in the city. 1 village remains at Medium Risk.

    Shaanxi Province reported 10 new domestic confirmed & 3 new domestic asymptomatic cases. There are currently 30 active domestic confirmed & 7 active domestic asymptomatic cases in the province.

    • Xi’an reported 10 new domestic confirmed & 3 new domestic asymptomatic cases, 6 of the 13 new domestic positive cases are traced close contacts already under centralized quarantine, 2 at fever clinics & 5 are found via mass screening. There currently are 28 active confirmed & 7 active domestic asymptomatic cases in the city. 6 residential building units, 1 residential building, 3 residential compounds & 1 shop are currently Medium Risk.
    • At Yan’an there currently is 1 active domestic confirmed case in the city.
    • At Xianyang there currently is 1 active domestic confirmed case in the city.

    Shanghai Municipality reported 1 new domestic asymptomatic case, found via testing in preparation for domestic travel on 12/17. The case had recovered from COVID-19 while in Germany in May, returned to Shanghai on 10/18 & exited quarantine on 11/3. So far, 42 F1 & 120 F2 traced close contacts have all tested negative, as have all but 2 environmental samples (both positive samples taken from the case’s residence). It is possible that the case is simply shedding dead viral fragments from past infection. There currently are 7 active domestic confirmed & 3 active domestic asymptomatic cases remaining. 1 residential compound is currently at Medium Risk. 

    At Jiangsu Province 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 31 new domestic confirmed cases (1 previously asymptomatic). There currently are 391 active domestic confirmed cases in the province.

    • Ningbo reported 6 new domestic confirmed cases, all traced close contacts already under centralized quarantine. There currently are 74 active domestic confirmed cases in the city, all found within a single sub-district. 2 residential compounds & an office building are currently at Medium Risk.
    • Hangzhou did not report any new domestic positive cases. There currently are 28 active domestic confirmed cases in the city. 1 residential building is currently at Medium Risk.
    • Shaoxing reported 25 new domestic confirmed cases (1 previously asymptomatic). There currently are 366 active domestic confirmed cases in the city. 4 communities & 1 supermarket are currently at High Risk. 2 sub-districts, 12 villages, 2 residential buildings & 5 corporate campuses are currently at Medium Risk.

    Suzhou in Anhui Province did not report any new domestic positive cases. There currently is 1 active domestic confirmed case in the city. 1 village is currently at Medium Risk.

    At Chongzuo in Guangxi “Autonomous” Region there currently is 1 active domestic asymptomatic case remaining.

    Guangdong Province reported 3 new domestic confirmed cases. There currently are 16 active domestic confirmed & 1 active domestic asymptomatic cases in the province.

    • Dongguan reported 2 new domestic confirmed cases, both from mass screening. There currently are 13 active domestic confirmed cases in the city. 1 residential building unit & 1 residential compound have been elevated to Medium Risk. 4 residential compounds, 1 residential building unit & 5 residential buildings are currently at Medium Risk.
    • Guangzhou reported 1 new domestic confirmed case, a traced close contact (living in the same building) of the imported confirmed case (Omicron Variant) reported on 12/13 & has been under centralized quarantine since then. There currently are 3 active domestic confirmed & 1 active domestic asymptomatic cases in the city.

    Chengdu in Sichuan Province did not report any new domestic positive cases. There currently is 1 active domestic confirmed case in the city.

    Xiamen in Fujian Province did not report any new domestic positive cases. There currently is 1 active domestic confirmed case in the city.

    At Dalian in Liaoning Province 1 domestic confirmed case recovered. There currently are 22 active domestic confirmed & 1 active domestic asymptomatic cases remaining.

    At Shijiazhuang in Hebei Province 1 domestic confirmed case recovered. There currently are 4 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 there currently are 28 active domestic confirmed cases remaining (all at Zhengzhou).

    Dehong Prefecture in Yunnan Province did not report any new domestic positive cases. 2 domestic confirmed cases recovered & 1 domestic asymptomatic case was released from isolation. There currently are 46 active domestic confirmed & 22 active domestic asymptomatic cases at the prefecture.

    Imported Cases

    On 12/18, China reported 39 new imported confirmed cases (3 previously asymptomatic), 37 imported asymptomatic cases, 2 imported suspect cases:

    • Shanghai Municipality – 14 confirmed cases, 3 Chinese nationals returning from the US, 2 each from Jamaica (via Germany) & Nigeria (via Amsterdam Schiphol), & 1 each from Russia, Papua New Guinea (via Australia), Sri Lanka, Guinea (via Addis Ababa), Zambia (via Addis Ababa), El Salvador (via Madrid), & a Taiwanese resident coming from the US; 2 suspect cases, no information released
    • Guangxi “Autonomous” Region (location not specified) – 7 confirmed & 3 asymptomatic cases, no information released
    • Guangzhou in Guangdong Province – 3 confirmed cases, 1 Chinese national each returning from Bangladesh, France & Niger (via Istanbul); 4 asymptomatic cases, 2 Chinese nationals returning from France & 1 each from Bangladesh & the Sudan (via Istanbul)
    • Shenzhen in Guangdong Province – 1 confirmed case, a Chinese national returning from Thailand; 1 asymptomatic case, a Chinese national returning from Egypt (via Hong Kong)
    • Foshan in Guangdong Province – 1 confirmed case, coming from South Korea; 4 asymptomatic cases, 1 each coming from Malaysia, Peru, the UK & the US, all off flights that landed at Guangzhou
    • Yunnan Province (location not specified) – 3 confirm case, 2 Chinese national each returning from Laos, Myanmar & Vietnam; 2 asymptomatic cases, both Chinese nationals returning from Myanmar; all via land border crossings
    • Lanzhou in Gansu Province – 3 confirmed cases, all Chinese nationals returning from Russia
    • Dalian in Liaoning Province – 2 confirmed & 2 asymptomatic cases, no information released
    • Shenyang in Liaoning Province – 1 confirmed & 5 asymptomatic cases, no information released
    • Xiamen in Fujian Province – 2 confirmed cases, both Chinese nationals returning from the US
    • Fuzhou in Fujian Province – 1 asymptomatic case, coming from Japan
    • Tianjin Municipality – 1 confirmed case (previously asymptomatic); 1 asymptomatic case, a Chinese national returning from Italy
    • Chengdu in Sichuan Province – 1 confirmed case (previously asymptomatic), a Chinese national returning from Algeria; 3 asymptomatic cases, 2 Chinese nationals returning from Egypt & 1 from Cambodia
    • Hangzhou in Zhejiang Province – 6 asymptomatic cases, 3 coming from Tanzania & 1 each from Singapore, Peru & Uganda
    • Wuhan in Hubei Province – 3 asymptomatic cases, all coming from Pakistan
    • Xi’an in Shaanxi Province – 1 asymptomatic case, a Chinese national returning from Azerbaijan, off a flight diverted from Beijing
    • Jiangsu Province (location not specified) – 1 asymptomatic case, no information released

    Overall in China, 46 confirmed cases recovered (12 imported), 13 asymptomatic cases were released from isolation (12 imported) & 3 were reclassified as confirmed cases (2 imported), & 1,413 individuals were released from quarantine. Currently, there are 1,685 active confirmed cases in the country (574 imported), 6 in serious condition (4 imported), 496 active asymptomatic cases (448 imported), 5 suspect cases (all imported). 50,087 traced contacts are currently under centralized quarantine.

    As of 12/18, 2,673.688M vaccine doses have been injected in Mainland China, an increase of 11.85M doses in the past 24 hrs. As of 12/17, 1,186.289M individuals have been fully vaccinated, or ~ 84% of the total population. However, no information yet on the number of individuals boosted.

    On 12/19, Hong Kong reported 8 new positive cases, all imported (from France, Italy, Spain & the UK).

  28. 28.

    debbie

    Goddamn NPR, leading off with an interview with a physician from rural Missouri about our current predicament being Joe Biden’s fault because of his mandates. If only we hadn’t made them do it! They might have done it on their own! Assholes acting like mandates came first! Mandates came only after people refused to listen and take precautions. They came only after people threw maskless hissy fits in stores and spit on each other. I sense an angry email in my future.

  29. 29.

    germy

    @Robert Sneddon:

    Why does Mr. Kelly oppose masks on airplanes?

    Kelly had told the oversight committee during Wednesday’s hearing that an airliner’s air filtration system is very safe, arguing in favor of lifting the federal mask mandate on board flights.

    “The case is very strong that masks don’t add much if anything in the air cabin environment,” he said to the committee. “It’s very safe, and very high quality compared to any other indoor setting.”

    I disagree with him.

  30. 30.

    New Deal democrat

    @Cermet: If you look at the data divided by US Census region, neither the South nor the West have had any discernible “winter wave” at all comparable to last year so far – and we’re late into December! The Midwest did have one, but it was lower than last year’s, and until a couple of days ago was still declining. That leaves the Northeast, where I suspect we will find out that Omicron was beginning to circulate by Thanksgiving.

    Also, as of yesterday, in South Africa Delta cases had declined by 2/3’s compared with what they were when Omicron hit.

    So, on balance I think Delta was continuing to recede in the US, and will largely be replaced by Omicron. Obviously we will see, and very soon.

    Finally, according to Trevor Bedford’s regressions, 12 days ago Omicron was about 3% of all US cases. If that exponential trend has continued, probably about 1/3rd of all new cases in the US now are Omicron. It took less than 45 days for Omicron to become nearly 100% of cases in SA. The US is about 30 days in. So in 2 weeks the US caseload May be almost entirely Omicron.

    To:dr-> buckle your seatbelt, Dorothy, ’cause Kansas is going bye-bye.

  31. 31.

    NorthLeft12

    Quick update before I walk the dog…..picked up my daughter at Pearson airport in Toronto  (she flew in from London, England) without incident, she did not get chosen for a Covid test so no quarantine, although we have chosen to stay away from everyone for the next two days and will use a few of her rapid tests to confirm that we are all Covid free.

    The weather on the three hour drive there and back was much better than expected so we had some good luck there.

  32. 32.

    Mousebumples

    I had seen something yesterday (and now I can’t find it again, of course), speculating that the quick up and down of Omicron in South Africa may be because onset to symptoms is quicker so people test and isolate faster than the typical asymptomatic spread before symptoms with Delta? ??

  33. 33.

    Princess

    @New Deal democrat: That would be good news if it keeps up! I have nothing invested in it — I’m merely reporting a caution one of the people in SA who first reported on omicron there posted on twitter (I am sorry, i don’t remember the name).

  34. 34.

    Geminid

    @New Deal democrat: The Soutb might not have a “winter wave” until it actually has winter. It was in the °60s this past week in central Virginia, and we’ve had only a few days of cold weather since October.

  36. 36.

    Brachiator

    The swift spread of the Omicron variant allows a kind of experiment in red states and counties.

    Conservative governors seem determined to do nothing special about the pandemic even if there are new, potentially more troublesome variants of the Covid virus. And anti vaxx idiots believe that mythical “natural immunity,” shouting “Liberty” and applying various snake oil remedies provide a solution.

    They will lie about the data, but we may still be able to track the probable increase in hospitalizations and deaths in the next few months.

  37. 37.

    WaterGirl

    @Mousebumples: I read something similar but with very different conclusions.

    With Omicron, it happens so fast that people are already spreading Omicron BEFORE covid shows up in a positive test.

    It’s a tweet thread and I’m not sure which # had that info, but the whole thread is totally worth reading.

  38. 38.

    trnc

    https://twitter.com/theosanderson/status/1471907339397738502?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1472135640884068353%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es3_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.balloon-juice.com%2F2021%2F12%2F19%2Fcovid-19-coronavirus-updates-saturday-sunday-dec-18-19%2F

    Any wingnut older than 30 – “Did Al Gore make that graph? Har!”

    ETA: In case any web page stats are being gathered, this post required me to use the text box, whereas I was able to use the Visual box on a different thread 10 minutes ago.

  39. 39.

    Another Scott

    @burnspbesq: I saw a tweet that pointed to a nice footnote that pointed out that OSHA has “health” in its name, so of course it can regulate workplace health.

    Some good judges are still out there.

    Cheers,

    Scott.

  40. 40.

    Matt McIrvin

    @New Deal democrat:

    One other note about SA, not directed at you, just a general comment for the thread: deaths have now risen 250% from their lows about 4 weeks ago. Looks like the start of an exponential rise (but not necessarily one as steep as cases).

    It’s a mathematical fact that when you have two rising exponential functions (say, rising cases and rising deaths), without any further information, an increased delay between one and the other looks numerically exactly the same as an exponentially smaller scale factor. So if they’re related by both a delay AND a scale factor, a greater delay can be exactly compensated by an exponentially LARGER scale factor. Without tracking individual cases, you don’t know what the situation is until both curves deviate from exponential and turn over.

    A few days ago, there was a tweet about a paper out of Denmark that was giving people heart attacks because they were misreading a graph from it taken out of context. It was basically demonstrating various alternative hypotheticals (based on real data), but you could easily misinterpret it as showing a real-world time sequence instead of a collection of different scenarios.

    But what it was really trying to show was that if the delay between first positive test and hospital admission is short, that plus the extant Danish data on hospitalizations implies less severity; whereas if the delay is long, that plus the extant data implies greater severity.

    Now, from everything I’ve heard, the observations from the ground imply that in South Africa, this delay is actually quite short. Which in a strange way is better news.

     

  41. 41.

    smith

    @New Deal democrat: That’s a >250% increase from a very low baseline. Four weeks ago SA had its lowest death rate since the very beginning of the pandemic. The rolling daily average hit a low of 11.4 deaths per day about 4 weeks ago, which has risen to 32.7. For comparison, during the delta wave SA deaths peaked at 419.7 deaths per day. This was approximately 3 weeks after the peak in delta cases. If SA has in fact reached its peak in omicron cases, the deaths will have to soar very dramatically very soon to be anything like what they saw with delta.

  42. 42.

    What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us

    @Matt McIrvin: Could be they’ve vaccinated a bunch non-residents of the city on top of 100% of residents, though they’re still not describing it accurately.

  43. 43.

    Cermet

    I see the NYT map of Delta shows not just the north east but the entire mid-west is suffering; there looks like a few very small brush fires across the rest of the country. Delta isn’t finished nor just the north east. Omicron will burn through all regions if it is as contagious as they claim. We are not south Africa in any real aspect – besides having a population with far more older people as a percentage, we have huge regions that are semi-isolated besides a huge number of massive population centers. This is ideal for delayed transmission and a pandemic that is dragged out for a lot longer then a tiny country like SA. Ditto, death rates in SA aren’t going to be like a population here that skews so much older. Don’t make any big conclusions about Omicron relative to SA – it may be milder then Delta but besides that, I’m not sure we can make many other generalizations about how it plays out here.

  44. 44.

    Bill Arnold

    @Geminid:

    The Soutb might not have a “winter wave” until it actually has winter.

    The (American) South had a summer wave, during air conditioning season.
    There is some work correlating humidity levels and SARS-CoV-2 spread, but superficially, relative spread speed  (for a given strain) appears to be more correlated with how much people are sharing unfiltered exhalations while indoors. Indoor season in the Northern USA is lower humidity inside (air is warmed) unless humidified, and Indoor season in the deep south is higher humidity inside (air is cooled) unless dehumidified.
    As you say, the south may not have a winter season unless it gets cold enough for people to socialize indoors (unmasked, because gullible homicidal-propaganda-huffing Republicans). Really warm winter in the Northeast so far. Forsythia is all blooming in my area now in mid-Hudson valley NYState. (Will get killed in the first killing cold.)

  45. 45.

    Bill Arnold

    @Brachiator:

    The swift spread of the Omicron variant allows a kind of experiment in red states and counties.

    Those states/jurisdictions are the control arm in a large, unethical natural experiment.
    I prefer to be in the intervention arm, in a blue state (NY). NY City sucks at the moment but other parts of the state, including some bedroom communities, are doing better.

  46. 46.

    Kent

    Yep, one of our local WA state MAGA dipshit state legislators killed himself with Covid.  Doug Erikson was one of those smart MAGA dipshits who went all in on the Anti-vax bullshit.  The whole El Salvador subplot makes the story even more bizarre.  His district represented Bellingham which is a blue college town but spread across the northern border with Canada across the cascades to some pretty red but pretty unpopulated areas.  The 2022 redistricting maps are still not final in WA so I’m not exactly sure what happened to the WA-42nd that he represented.  But hopefully it will be a blue pickup and Bellingham can finally be represented by a Democrat.

  47. 47.

    dc

    Why are they suggesting people stay in hotels rather than in the homes of family members if they are unvaxed? So hotel employees and other guests don’t count as people? So they can infect a greater number of people and get even better community spread? So they can themselves be more effectively infected? What kind of advice is that? If they are not vaxed, they should not be around other people, strangers or family.​
    ​
    ​

  48. 48.

    Bill Arnold

    In the interest of honesty, I’ve finally found a description of a superspreader event where the index patient (but not the other people) was masked. The teaching staff member was claimed to be wearing a (undescribed) cloth mask.  The children were not. This was 2020, pre-Delta; Delta spreads much more easily.
    Hamburg says Covid masks must continue in schools after ‘superspreader’ investigation (5 October 2021)

    The investigation revealed that the outbreak could be traced back to a member of the teaching staff. According to the report, this person infected 23 pupils and another staff member during two teaching sessions. The person was wearing a cotton material face mask. The young people were not wearing masks because it was not required at that time.
    The next day, the teacher with Covid-19 taught in two more school classes and infected four more children. On that day, the teacher also wore a mask and tried to keep at least 1.5 metres away from other people, the report says. After a “feeling of sickness appeared”, the member of staff finished the second lesson and left the school.

    For all other superspreader events that I have read about, either the index patient was unmasked, or it is unclear whether they wore a mask (i.e. probably not, because it would have been reported). (to be clear: have not read all case studies.)

  50. 50.

    Feathers

    @dc: From what I’ve seen the Covid hotel staying in NYC is a program run under health department supervision, with a nurse available if needed and meals left outside your door. You stay in the room 24/7. Presumably someone who gives enough of a shit to be isolating in a hotel would be taking reasonable precautions there.

  51. 51.

    dopey-o

    @debbie: Goddamn NPR, leading off with an interview with a physician from rural Missouri about our current predicament being Joe Biden’s fault because of his mandates. If only we hadn’t made them do it! They might have done it on their own! Assholes acting like mandates came first!

    when Quinerly left Misery for the Land of Enchantment, our collective IQ declined 25%. We still have a couple of hillbillies and some woman who sings down in the corner. And 1or 2 whose nyms i forgot.

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