Omicron causes less severe disease than other coronavirus variants, according to a new study of nearly 70,000 Covid patients in California. The research aligns with similar findings from South Africa, Britain and Denmark. https://t.co/ta5K0Tq7J2
— The New York Times (@nytimes) January 12, 2022
The explosion in omicron-fueled coronavirus infections has caused a breakdown in basic functions and services across America. https://t.co/5kbV7u4vHp
— ABC News (@ABC) January 13, 2022
The desperate situation in the US, worsening each day, with weeks to go before a turnaround pic.twitter.com/8VIj1S2djJ
— Eric Topol (@EricTopol) January 12, 2022
For two years, coronavirus case counts and hospitalizations have been widely used barometers of the pandemic. But the omicron wave is making a mess of the usual statistics, forcing news organizations to rethink the way they report such figures. https://t.co/zpchuA4xcp
— The Associated Press (@AP) January 12, 2022
Updated chart with corrected date: pic.twitter.com/DvGMbY8PJI
— KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation) (@KFF) January 12, 2022
The number of COVID-19 tests available to schools will be increased by 10 million per month, the White House said https://t.co/yIgZzEe7NA pic.twitter.com/vl2kjQYwqO
— Reuters (@Reuters) January 13, 2022
======
Life insurers adapt pandemic risk models after claims jump https://t.co/5TSE6kDz0K pic.twitter.com/rtbP70G1wE
— Reuters (@Reuters) January 13, 2022
The actuaries are not seeing silver linings:
LONDON, Jan 13 (Reuters) – A coronavirus pandemic which lasts five years, another pandemic in a decade, and ever more transmissible variants are among the scenarios life insurers are predicting after COVID-19 claims jumped more than expected in 2021.
The global life insurance industry was hit with reported claims due to COVID-19 of $5.5 billion in the first nine months of 2021 versus $3.5 billion for the whole of 2020, according to insurance broker Howden in a report on Jan 4, while the industry had expected lower payouts due to the rollout of vaccines…
The long-term nature of life insurance products – often lasting 20 years or more – means premiums are not yet capturing the risk that deaths or long-term illness from COVID-19 will likely remain higher than previously estimated. Competition in the industry is also keeping a lid on premiums.
Actuaries say rising claims will be eating into the capital which insurers set aside to ensure solvency…
“We take into account the possibilities of more transmissible and less transmissible (variants),” Narges Dorratoltaj, scientist at modelling firm AIR said. “We cannot say specifically which path we are going to follow but we are trying to come up with the possible ranges to at least narrow down the possible outcomes.”
AIR is factoring in periodic lockdowns around the world and is also considering factoring in more uncertainty over whether governments will continue to impose restrictions to keep transmission rates low, and over individuals’ willingness to obey them, Narges said…
Bruno Latourrette, chief knowledge officer of reinsurer SCOR Global Life (SCOR.PA), said he did not expect the next pandemic to be as devastating as COVID-19.
“COVID is…the perfect storm with pre-symptomatic contagiousness, a lethality that is not too high to lead to super-strong zero tolerance measures, a waning of immunity and high transmissibility”.
Just weeks before the Winter Olympics, China is battling multiple COVID-19 outbreaks in half a dozen cities with the one closest to Beijing driven by the highly transmissible omicron variant. https://t.co/BfjBvvcwkS
— The Associated Press (@AP) January 13, 2022
Tianjin outbreak grows as Omicron spreads to Dalian, Volkswagen China shuts factories https://t.co/w4Yr2qURq0 pic.twitter.com/t8XROWDpX2
— Reuters (@Reuters) January 13, 2022
2 big questions:
A. How long China can continue with its "zero Covid" policies even with the mounting socioeconomic costs
B. How big will the impact of rolling brown/blackouts in parts of China be on the global supply chain and/or inflation https://t.co/UbYfUWDFfR— Vincent Lee (@Rover829) January 13, 2022
An army of millions is enforcing China’s 'zero-Covid' policy, at all costs. As the lockdown in the massive mega-city of Xi’an has shown, many Chinese people remain willing to work diligently toward the govt’s goal of eliminating the virus, no matter what https://t.co/JAhN6gSrGq pic.twitter.com/zLEc4pgACV
— delthia ricks ? (@DelthiaRicks) January 12, 2022
Analysis: India's new COVID-19 rules aim to free up resources but carry risks https://t.co/qgDit5oiAj pic.twitter.com/jz68ZXj1AZ
— Reuters (@Reuters) January 13, 2022
India has eased its COVID-19 rules on testing, quarantine and hospital admissions in a bid to free up resources for its neediest people, a strategy hailed by experts even though it carries the risk of a heavy undercount of infections and deaths.
The moves will offer a breathing space for healthcare facilities, often overstretched in a far-flung nation of 1.4 billion, as they battle a 33-fold surge in infections over the past month from the highly contagious Omicron variant.
This week, federal authorities told states to drop mandatory testing for contacts of confirmed cases unless they were old or battling other conditions, while halving the isolation period to a week and advising hospital care only for the seriously ill…
India’s tally of infections crossed 36 million on Thursday, with 247,417 new cases, although daily testing has stayed well below the capacity of more than 2 million…
But some experts say the new rules could lull people into taking infections lightly until it is too late, especially in the rural areas home to two-thirds of the population, where few seek tests unless directed by authorities.
“This new strategy will affect data from rural India or certain states in a disproportionate way,” said Bhramar Mukherjee, an epidemiology professor at the University of Michigan.
“It will be harder to predict upcoming hotspots and epicentres,” she added, which would leave authorities less time to marshal resources against the disease.
It would also affect the tracking of COVID-19 deaths, an effort Mukherjee said was “already highly imperfect and under-reported”.
Health experts say India massively undercounts infections, with its death toll outstripping the official figure of about 485,000, as few victims of earlier waves, chiefly in rural areas, learnt of their condition until the last moment…
India's big cities could see COVID-19 cases peak next week https://t.co/kg4G4cHk7v pic.twitter.com/l1jw9FEcqT
— Reuters (@Reuters) January 13, 2022
New COVID-19 infections in Indian cities such as capital New Delhi and Mumbai could peak next week after rising rapidly, experts said on Thursday, as the country reported the highest number of daily cases since late May.
The 247,417 new infections were more than 30 times higher daily cases from a month ago, rising as the more transmissible Omicron variant replaced Delta across the country. Total infections reached 36.32 million, behind only the United States.
“Our modelling, and those of others, suggests that the big Indian cities should see their peaks in cases close to Jan. 20, while the overall peak in India may be shifted a bit later, to early February,” said Gautam Menon, professor of physics and biology at Ashoka University near the capital.
Mumbai recorded a high of 20,971 infections last Friday but cases have been coming down since. City officials said the rate of infection was also coming down, with nearly 80% of COVID-19 hospital beds vacant.
Delhi reported more than 27,500 infections on Wednesday, close to its all-time high, and its health minister told local media this week infections could start coming down in a few days…
India has administered two primary vaccine doses to nearly 70% of its 939 million adult population but many still remain unvaccinated. This has worried officials especially as five states hold elections starting on Feb. 10.
The country reported 380 COVID-19 deaths on Thursday, more than 46% of them fatalities in the southern state of Kerala not previously recorded. Total deaths have reached 485,035, only behind tolls in the United States and Brazil.
South Korea has received its first supply of Pfizer’s antiviral COVID-19 pills to treat patients with mild or moderate symptoms. Health officials have described the Paxlovid pills as a potentially important tool to suppress hospitalizations and deaths. https://t.co/nXxyUq2re5
— The Associated Press (@AP) January 13, 2022
Philippines reports record 34,021 new COVID-19 cases https://t.co/iLbJOdx5oU pic.twitter.com/FY8pV2hykl
— Reuters (@Reuters) January 13, 2022
Australia, with 78% of its population 2-shot vaccinated, crushed the virus throughout the pandemic. Then came Omicron. The absolute numbers of ICU patients and fatalities are small. But the near vertical lines convey Omicron's pathogenicity.@OurWorldinData pic.twitter.com/MvG1363pLj
— Eric Topol (@EricTopol) January 12, 2022
⚡ Russia on Thursday reported 21,155 new Covid-19 infections — a 17.8% increase overnight https://t.co/05zsoU3Cod
— The Moscow Times (@MoscowTimes) January 13, 2022
France to relax its restrictions for those travelling from UK from Friday, government announceshttps://t.co/LRBP8WH5Xd
— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) January 13, 2022
Already exhausted by the pressures of surging COVID-19 cases, French teachers are walking out in a nationwide strike organized by teacher’s unions to protest virus-linked class disruptions and ever-changing isolation rules. https://t.co/IirvfzllGk
— The Associated Press (@AP) January 13, 2022
Peru’s hospitals are near collapse as the South American nation is experiencing a third wave of coronavirus infections. While 66% of the population has been vaccinated, vaccine hesitation by some is a challenge for health and government officials. https://t.co/NCMNgeOuC3 Peru’s
— The Associated Press (@AP) January 12, 2022
Canada drops vaccine mandate for its truckers after pressure from industry https://t.co/aPXdewX2UW pic.twitter.com/LZ8a8Bldma
— Reuters (@Reuters) January 13, 2022
======
Once again – rapid tests are detecting Omicron virus.
“It’s working as it was designed…There does not seem to be any performance deficit with Omicron.”
-Joe Derisi Professor and Head of BioHub at @UCSF https://t.co/D0wx6pZl7n
— Michael Mina (@michaelmina_lab) January 12, 2022
this is something I have been wondering about – whether the vaccines are also likely to significantly reduce the odds of long covid. (Magdi, a very informed and intelligent writer, is an excellent follow on health stuff.) https://t.co/Mz6VKoBfjp
— James Palmer (@BeijingPalmer) January 12, 2022
Analyses: 52,297 #COVID19 cases w/#Omicron vs 16,982 cases #DeltaVariant at Kaiser-Permanente SoCAL since Nov30:
– 1.3% of Delta cases admitted to hosp
– 0.5% of Omicron cases admitted
– D cases hospitalized avg 5 days; O cases 1.5 dys
– zero deaths for Ohttps://t.co/mhndu8A6Vw— Laurie Garrett (@Laurie_Garrett) January 12, 2022
======
Officials across the U.S. are again weighing how and whether to impose mask mandates as COVID-19 infections soar and the public grows weary of pandemic-related restrictions. Much of the debate centers around the nation’s schools. https://t.co/H0dRGiRKuP
— The Associated Press (@AP) January 12, 2022
Suspicion, misinformation and other factors have combined to produce what authorities say are alarmingly low COVID-19 vaccination rates in U.S. children ages 5 to 11. As of Tuesday, just over 17% of these youngsters were fully vaccinated. https://t.co/F1gospEOo5
— The Associated Press (@AP) January 12, 2022
More evidence of the #staffingcrisis in #longtermcare. National Guardsmen arrive at NJ long-term care facilities amid staff shortages https://t.co/BMjt4JgkIT
— Irving Stackpole (@istackpole) January 12, 2022
Another example of disinformation by strategically sharing only part of the story. Of those 458 officers, 301 died of COVID-19. That one statistic fundamentally changes the meaning of this story. https://t.co/V6gPGFZ8PF
— Caroline Orr Bueno, Ph.D (@RVAwonk) January 12, 2022
Boomer bait!
they're gonna tell you a big fat story all about their town https://t.co/YA6lKvfEVJ
— zeddy (@Zeddary) January 13, 2022
Seriously, though — apart from the notorious Standells song, Boston tests wastewater because they’ve got the capacity to do so. Surely there are other cities that do so?
Being anti-vax is very in vogue right now, but in an ironic way, like when they were "ironically" into the lab leak theory. https://t.co/lN0tjdmLfj
— Let's not, Brandon (@agraybee) January 12, 2022
NeenerNeener
Monroe County, NY:
Monroe County website:
There were 1461 new laboratory-confirmed cases of COVID-19 on 1/12.
There were 928 new positive COVID home tests reported on 1/12.
Things aren’t looking any better around here. I wonder when we’re going to run out of unvaccinated folks to infect.
My nephew’s doctor didn’t seem to be terribly concerned about his condition, but we in his family are still freaking out.
debbie
Bet the source for that tweet about the Columbus Fox station’s statistic on police deaths came from the FOP.
CaseyL
I don’t understand the discrepancy between Omicron being less deadly and hospitalizations/deaths soaring. Unless the hospitalizations/deaths are still from Delta?
I can see, if indeed Omicron is less serious, relaxing restrictions even as case numbers soar. The most salient issue seems to be, not raw numbers of cases, but how sick people get. IOW: Is Omicron more like a regular flu (vaccinations are available and effective; and illness is very serious in a very limited number of instances, but most people can be treated effectively and recover completely)?
This is particularly important to keep entire sectors of society – healthcare and education – from collapsing.
YY_Sima Qian
On 1/12 China reported 124 new domestic confirmed (none previously asymptomatic) & 9 new domestic asymptomatic cases.
Shaanxi Province reported 6 new domestic confirmed cases. 122 domestic confirmed cases recovered. There are currently 1,385 active domestic confirmed cases in the province.
At Yuncheng in Shanxi Province there currently is 1 active domestic confirmed case, a person arrived from Xi’an in Shaanxi.
Guangdong Province reported 1 new domestic confirmed & 1 new domestic asymptomatic cases. 1 domestic confirmed case recovered. There currently are 28 active domestic confirmed & 2 active domestic asymptomatic cases in the province.
At Guangxi “Autonomous” Region there currently are 17 active domestic confirmed (all at Dongxing in Fangchenggang) & 1 active domestic asymptomatic (at Chongzuo) cases in the province.
Tianjin Municipality reported 41 new domestic confirmed & 5 new domestic asymptomatic cases. There currently are 108 active domestic confirmed & 21 active domestic asymptomatic cases (all presumed Omicron) in the city, concentrated at Jinnan District. 3 residential compounds are currently at High Risk. 5 residential compounds are currently at Medium Risk.
Dalian in Liaoning Province reported 2 new domestic asymptomatic cases (confirmed to be Omicron), both university students that returned from Tianjin on 1/8 (both had tested negative before leaving), both have been under centralized quarantine upon arrival.
At Shanghai Municipality there currently are 16 active domestic asymptomatic cases in the city.
At Jiangsu Province there currently are 1 active domestic confirmed (at Nanjing) & 3 active domestic asymptomatic cases (all at Wuxi) in the province.
At Zhejiang Province 41 domestic confirmed cases recovered. There currently are 135 active domestic confirmed cases (spread across Shaoxing, Ningbo, Hangzhou & Jinhua) in the province. A factory & a village at Jinhua remain at Medium Risk. A factory & a village at Beilun District in Ningbo remain at Medium Risk.
At Xiamen in Fujian Province there currently is 1 active domestic confirmed case remaining, a quarantine hotel worker.
Henan Province reported 76 new domestic confirmed cases. There currently are 579 active domestic confirmed cases in the province.
Yunnan Province reported 1 new domestic asymptomatic case, at Ruili in Dehong Prefecture, found via voluntary screening. There currently are 11 active domestic confirmed (6 at Dehong Prefecture & 5 at Kunming) & 4 active domestic asymptomatic (2 each at Dehong & Sipsongpanna Prefectures) cases in the province.
At Tongren in Guizhou Province the domestic confirmed case recovered.
Imported Cases
On 1/12, China reported 66 new imported confirmed cases (6 previously asymptomatic), 22 imported asymptomatic cases, 9 imported suspect cases:
Overall in China, 206 confirmed cases recovered (41 imported), 23 asymptomatic cases were released from isolation (all imported) & 6 were reclassified as confirmed cases (all imported), & 2,922 individuals were released from quarantine. Currently, there are 3,460 active confirmed cases in the country (1,175 imported), 10 in serious condition (2 imported), 726 active asymptomatic cases (674 imported), 9 suspect cases (all imported). 47,490 traced contacts are currently under centralized quarantine.
As of 1/12, 2,918.249M vaccine doses have been injected in Mainland China, an increase of 6.071M doses in the past 24 hrs.
On 1/13, Hong Kong reported 14 new positive cases, 9 imported & 5 domestic (all traced close contacts).
On 1/13, Taiwan reported 65 new positive cases, 51 imported (28 from the US, 3 from Vietnam, 2 each from Australia, the Philippines, France & the UK, 1 each from Costa Rica, Guatemala, Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Denmark, Germany, Italy & the UAE, 3 yet to be published) & 14 domestic. Another cluster has developed at a bank in Taoyuan.
Nelle
Des Moines, Iowa tracks Covid in wastewater. Should be easy for Brian B to google it, or do a bit of research, right?
YY_Sima Qian
As of 2 PM on 1/12, there is a total of 148 positive cases (all presumed Omicron) in Tianjin Municipality, of whom 126 are confirmed cases & 22 asymptomatic.
As of 8 AM on 1/12, Anyang in Henan Province reported another 5 positive cases (all mild, all at Tangyin County), to be included in tomorrow’s data dump, for 140 cases total (all mild, all presumed Omicron).
Matt McIrvin
Santa Clara County, CA and several cities in Canada are releasing wastewater COVID surveillance data. And Chicago says they’re doing it but they don’t seem to be putting out public numbers I can find.
I think Boston just got on this early and started putting out public numbers early. Some company named Biobot Analytics is involved in cooperation with the MWRA.
debbie
@CaseyL:
Don’t forget it’s largely the unvaccinated who are hospitalized now.
Matt McIrvin
@CaseyL:
The infections are happening at a far, far greater rate. Multiply that by the smaller fraction of severe disease/death and you can still get increasing numbers. In addition to that, Delta is still around in my part of the country.
But I think that in most places, this is mostly Omicron now. We’re not as fully-vaccinated or especially as boosted as the UK is. Seniors particularly need to get booster shots and many of ours haven’t. Our vaccination statistics are still headlining “1+ shot” numbers that haven’t really been the right thing to track since last summer.
Baud
@CaseyL:
Volume.
Geminid
@Nelle: Last year U. Va. put woman athletes in one dorm and monitered it’s wastewater. They were not the only ones by far.
The University also tested athletes and coaches frequently. A coach I know was tested 55 times during the season.
OzarkHillbilly
My bile rises as I’m asked to move my dying cancer patient out of ICU to make room for an unvaccinated man with Covid
lowtechcyclist
Good question. Here’s my WAG.
There’s typically a delay of, what, about 3 weeks to a month? between when people are first infected with Covid, and when they die of it. So most of the people dying of Covid in the week of January 6-12 would have typically gotten Covid in or around the interval between December 6 and December 22, of which only the last few days are in the period where Omicron was becoming dominant.
But then you factor in reporting delays, and I’m not sure what the effect of that is, but let’s say it pushes things back another 1-3 days, and if that’s about right, then we’re still looking largely at Delta deaths.
Like I said, this is a WAG, so I’d enthusiastically welcome adjustment and correction from my fellow jackals.
My next WAG is that Omicron’s still going to push up the death count. In comparing the variants, we’re looking at the product of number and severity of cases, basically. Average severity of Omicron cases is noticeably lower, but the sheer number of them is way, way higher.
?BillinGlendaleCA
Positive tests were over 40k here in LA County yesterday, but the positivity rate has plateaued, we may be at the peak here. We’re still understaffed in the store, my dept head called out yesterday, I don’t know if for potential exposure or actually sick.
debbie
@OzarkHillbilly:
They’re being put in horrible, horrible ethical and moral dilemmas. All so some asshole can shriek about his freedoms. //
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly:
I remember when right wingers opposed assisted suicide.
I guess there is an exception when the assistance is provided by a virus.
Matt McIrvin
@lowtechcyclist: South Africa seems to be hitting its peak in Omicron deaths now, about 4 weeks after their big case wave. It’s not nearly as many deaths as in their earlier waves but the peak is pretty obviously there. UK looks like a similar pattern.
The US has more vaccination than South Africa, less than the UK–but our age demographics and our pattern of prior infection are also markedly different from South Africa’s so it’s hard to use their experience to estimate anything directly
One difference from all the other waves is that everything is happening so much faster. Total cases/deaths are the area under the curve–we could have a high peak but a narrow one, for fewer total deaths than in previous waves but happening more rapidly.
Baud
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Stay safe (as best as you can).
charon
@CaseyL:
I found this in the replies to that tweet:
https://twitter.com/pellegew/status/1481358447069339652
CaseyL
@OzarkHillbilly: JFC. These stories make my blood boil.
“The cancer patient is going to die anyway”?
Well, FFS, so is the Covid patient. And the Covid patient is unvaccinated – meaning, they didn’t “trust” medicine until they got sick, then all of a sudden it’s all hands on deck. Fuck them.
I don’t blame the doctors, necessarily. Their Hippocratic Oath puts them in an insoluble dilemma: each has to give their patient the best care they can. But that’s why Medical Ethicists exist! To help navigate those dilemmas!
ETA: The rancid cherry on top is how many Freedumb From Vax families have been physically attacking HCPs when their unvaxxed relative does die.
OzarkHillbilly
@CaseyL: Yeah, we’re all gonna die.
New Deal democrat
Internationally, in South Africa both cases and deaths declined slightly. In the U.K., Ireland, and Canada, cases appear to have peaked, while deaths are still increasing. In heavily vaxxed Portugal and Denmark, cases are still increasing.
In the US, the nationwide 7 day average of cases declined slightly yesterday. Only the West Census region is showing an unambiguous continued increase. States where cases are flat or only slightly rising over the last 5 days include FL, IL, KS, KY, LA, MS, OH, and TX, in addition to NY, NJ, DE, DC, MD, and PR. So the Omicron wave in the US is likely close to or at peak in terms of new cases.
US hospitalizations are up 25% in the past 7 days, matching almost exactly a 25% increase in cases in the previous 10 days. Since cases increased roughly another 90% in the past 10 days, hospitalizations are likely to be in crisis worse than any we have seen to date over the next two weeks.
US deaths also have continued to increase slightly to just over 1700, a 15% increase since January 8 (24 days after the spike in Omicron cases started). Deaths are likely to exceed the Delta peak, but beyond that it is still to early to say.
If the US were to follow South Africa’s pattern, then we will still be running at over 200,000 new cases per day at the end of February.
Argiope
@CaseyL: I think what we are seeing with the family members of the dying unvaxxed lashing out represents reality crashing down on disinformation-based prior assumptions, causing massive loss of face and identity threat coinciding with grief. Of course they are probably also assholes to begin with. Fucker Carlson has so very much to answer for.
rikyrah
@OzarkHillbilly:
See, this angers me.
Phuck the Unvaccinated.
Not one phucking person should lose their hospital bed to them
rikyrah
Are the Chinese demanding that all athletes and anyone associated with the Olympics from other countries be vaccinated before they are allowed into China?
Another Scott
@CaseyL: In addition to what’s mentioned above, there’s the “with Covid” vs “for Covid” issue. (Opportunitunistic infection vs bad Covid disease.) Though I don’t expect that’s the main reason. (Omicron is highly infectious, but less severe, but someone admitted for something else is still counted as a Covid case.). This was reported to be the case early on in SA – many more admitted cases, but less need for oxygen and vents.
We need better data, and recommendations for Omicron need to be different than for Delta, etc.
Stay safe, everyone.
Cheers,
Scott.
Suzanne
@Matt McIrvin: My alma mater, the University of Arizona, started tracking wastewater of individual dormitories when they want back to campus in August 2020. They were able to identify buildings where there were cases of Covid and then test all of the residents of the building and have the positive ones quarantine. I didn’t think the wastewater testing was any new thing.
KayInMD (formerly Kay (not the front-pager))
Omicron may be less severe in most cases, but it’s not unserious in all cases. My cleaning lady texted last week that she wouldn’t be able to come because she had covid. So last night, I texted her to let her know that if it hadn’t been ten days since her diagnosis, she shouldn’t worry about not coming, we would pay her anyway. She texted back that she was sorry, she wouldn’t be coming this week, and probably not next week either. The virus got into her heart, and her doctor was not releasing her to work for awhile.
At the beginning of the pandemic we told her we didn’t feel comfortable having someone come into the house from outside every week, but we would continue to pay her until this was over (my husband thought maybe six months) or vaccines were available. Her church told her not to get vaccinated, but her friend convinced her that since we had paid her throughout the pandemic (which I thought everyone would do, but apparently not), she owed it to us to get vaccinated. I think her friend saved her life last spring.
Soprano2
OMG, that idiotic tweet about wastewater surveillance of Covid. Here’s a link to a map of just communities in MIssouri that are doing this. It’s happening all over the U.S. in every state. Just because the newspapers aren’t telling Beutler about it doesn’t mean it’s not happening. I assume he knows how to use an internet search engine. He should have done that rather than showing his ignorance for the whole world to see. Jesus, wastewater treatment plants have been monitoring for drugs and disease for years before Covid!!!!! It’s something the public doesn’t know much about, or didn’t until now.
New Deal democrat
@CaseyL: Hospitalizations lag cases by about 10 days. Omicron became dominant, and cases started spiking, about December 15. So for the past 2-2.5 weeks, hospitalizations have been mainly to almost totally Omicron (and as I wrote in a comment above, in the past week have been rising at the same rate as cases with a 10 day lag).
Deaths lag cases by 3 to 4 weeks. Deaths have probably mainly been Omicron only for the last week or less.
Baud
@Soprano2:
This happens a lot IMHO. People all the time assume something isn’t happening because they don’t know that it’s happening, and then they’re outraged that it’s not happening.
rikyrah
Any word from Amir????
different-church-lady
@Baud: It’s not so much assisted as it is ironic suicide.
different-church-lady
@OzarkHillbilly: I’m not. And I’m kinda pissed off about it.
Soprano2
@Baud: I thought Beutler was smart enough to fire up Google and do a search before he showed his ass so thoroughly like that. There have been many, many stories in the press about wastewater surveillance for Covid. I guess he missed them all!!!
Matt McIrvin
@Baud: There’s the classic case of someone seeing a news story and responding “WHY AREN’T THE MEDIA TALKING ABOUT THIS???”
Matt McIrvin
@rikyrah: I’m worrying about him too.
Butter Emails!
@charon:
I have a hard time believing that the study wouldn’t have factored in the age and vaccination status of the individuals infected. That’s data I’m assuming would mostly be available. Comparing the difference between severity in the vaccinated cohort seems like it could be more difficult due to the rise in admitted for X, incidentally tested positive for asymptomatic Covid cases. Of course the authors of the paper could be complete morons.
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
Haha. Yes, that too.
Matt McIrvin
@CaseyL: As far as I can tell, Omicron is less severe than previous variants but not enough less severe that it makes sense to just let it rip. The far greater rate of infection means that the amount of death and severe illness it causes is still high unless the population is more highly vaccinated than ours is. And we don’t really know how much subtle damage it is doing either.
gvg
Omicron is often milder, so that many of the Covid “hospitalizations” are people who are there for something else, but now all or most hospitals test every person for Covid and they are finding asymptomatic positives. In addition, hospitals are always a place where you can catch something because it is a place full of sick people. They try to prevent it, but people are getting it after admission to hospitals. And they get tested multiple time, so it gets found out. This happened in earlier waves too, but Omi is even more contagious.
Nephew tested positive last night. Middle school from denial county, no mask requirement. He wore masks because his mom is a doctor and told him too but luck ran out. Now mom the doctor can’t go to work and they are slammed already. Mild so far.
CaseyL
@Another Scott: I imagine being diagnosed with Covid while you’re in he hospital for something else also makes recovery from whatever you were originally admitted for more problematic. More post-op deaths that would not have happened if the patient didn’t also have Covid.
Ken
I’m trying to decide if there’s any significance in that AP story about officials considering mask mandates using a photo of a pro-mask rally. Maybe it’s been happening all along but I only remember the many anti-mask photos because they irritate me?
NotMax
An OB-GYN doctor speaks.
The littlest political footballs.
Zero is an illusion.
Anyway
@Soprano2:
Yes. Public health officials have tracked diseases through wastewater for decades – dumb tweets comes about through twitter pundits bypassing genuine expertise in bureaucracies (and RWNJs undermining statistics and data monitoring in all realms). Anything with the word public is suspect for the ignorant RWers.
Nicole
I clicked through to read the article about police deaths and wow, the bias is strong with this one. It’s all percentages until they get to the Covid deaths and then it switches to raw numbers, probably because the stat that almost 66% of officer deaths were due to Covid wouldn’t support their theme. They also kept referring to officers being “killed,” and I would argue that we don’t usually say someone was “killed” when they died by illness. You can, but it’s not common. Oh, and tucked in there was that officers in the Northeast had the lowest rates of death; rates were highest in Texas, Florida and Georgia. Nice to see how all that freedum is working out for the police.
My great-aunt, were she still alive, would find all of this “died in the line of duty” stuff due to illness pretty rich. She was married to a PA State Trooper, who died of a heart attack (this was in the 1950s, or very early 1960s) and spent the next couple of years fighting the State Police, who argued it wasn’t technically a death in the line of duty, and, as such, she was not entitled to his pension. She eventually won, but the police did all they could to try to hang onto that widow’s money.
YY_Sima Qian
The Delthta Ricks tweet is fairly moderate, but I fine the NYT article written by Li Yuan utterly contemptible. She went Godwin by the middle of the article, comparing petty abuses of rent-a-cop security guards to Adolf Eichmann’s “banality of evil”, for f*ck’s sake! Yes, China’s pandemic response relies upon the dedicated & diligent work of millions of grassroots personnel – low level bureaucrats, community workers, residential compound management, rent-a-cop security guards, volunteers from stated owned enterprises, etc. It also relies upon the cooperation & acquiescence of the 1.4B people in China. After all, the millions of workers only have armbands, loudspeakers & notebooks to enforce the social distancing & lock downs measures, they don’t even have batons or tasers. The military & paramilitary are not mobilized for these lock downs (except sometimes their medical corps), & China’s civilian police force is actually relatively small, mostly keep a low profile & are also unarmed (except for SWAT). What is Li Yuan’s explanation for the acquiescence of the Chinese population? I supposed she thinks the Chinese are brutalized & brainwashed like the Germans of 1930s? & what of the hundreds of thousands of foreign expats living in China, that also mostly support China’s response to outbreaks, because they too benefit from its impact?
Li Yuan cites a handful of tragic incidents to invalidate the entire strategy, the same handful that international (& Chinese domestic) media have been cite for the past week. In a city of 14 million people, I am certain there have been more than a few medical emergencies during the 2+ weeks of lock down, how were those resolved? There are recent & ongoing lock downs elsewhere in China too, if not whole cities then entire districts, townships & villages, dozens of them going back nearly 2 years. The execution failures at Xi’an have not been seen to the same extent elsewhere, even places less wealthy. She dismissed the people punished for these incidents as “low level”, a general manager of a major hospital in Xi’an is not a pencil pushers. Only the 2 rent-a-cop security guards who beat up a hungry person going out to find food was punished, because they alone are responsible for their actions (well, their contractor employer deserves a warning to better train & supervise their people), because physical abuse in enforcement of lock downs is not policy & is in fact extremely rare (which is why the beating caused a firestorm on Chinese social media). & how many persons in power, low level or otherwise, have been held responsible for their failures anywhere else?!
If China’s pandemic response is ultimately the CCP regime’s power play, then why are all the restrictions removed after each outbreak is eliminated? Why not keep COVID-19 cases at a slow burn to justify maintenance of the measures? (Because it would be economically ruinous, duh!) Why do the words & deems of the authorities repeatedly reveal an overriding focus to get to zero incidence as soon as possible, so the lock downs can end after 14 days for zero community cases? Heaven knows the CCP regime us heavy handed & jealously guards its power over the country, but pandemic response is the wrong evidence to cite.
All of this doubly ironic because Li Yuan had written an article a year ago detailing the sharp contrast that result from China’s pandemic response to that of the West.
Increasingly, I find Western governments & MSMs are fighting against imagined phantoms when it comes to China, all the while losing focus on the actual abuses from the CCP Regime. Even if one considers China the enemy, to prevail in Cold War 2.0 requires “knowing thy enemy & knowing thyself.” Seeing the China related discourse in Western MSM & governments, I don’t think they know the “enemy”, & I am not sure they know themselves. The CCP is happy to see this, because they can use the bias, hypocrisy & outlandish accusations to discredit all foreign criticism, including those that are legitimate. A.L. once linked to a James Palmer tweet that CCP critics need to be able to maintain credibility in the eyes of the Chinese street. I am sorry but that ship has largely sailed. The pat answer would be that the Chinese people are victims of CCP censorship & propaganda, & they are indeed factors, but I think articles such as these move the needle even more. Most Chinese who venture overseas for study or climb over the Great China Firewall via VPN end up even more patriotic & sometimes more pro-CCP.
I am doubly exasperated because Western media still do some good work in their China reporting, covering important topics that Chinese media is unwilling or unable to cover. However, overall the quality of Chinese coverage (particularly US MSMs) has nose dived since the Trump Administration successfully shifted the national zeitgeist on China & the Overton Window of China related discourse. Sometimes I get the sense that NYT/WP editorial staff see themselves as foot soldiers in a new Cold War to counter CCP propaganda, rather than news people covering reality.
End of rant…
YY_Sima Qian
@rikyrah:
Yes, or a 3 week long centralized quarantine before allowed into the bubble. However, vaccination alone do not slop spread, so expect outbreaks to significantly impact the games. Hold the games now is a political decision that I hope China and the CCP regime do not come to regret.
Fair Economist
@Matt McIrvin: Of note, while South Africa isn’t having all that many Omicron deaths, it’s still having a lot of excess deaths with the same profile, many times the rate of Omicron deaths. South Africa has seen this before with previous waves; evidently their recording system can’t properly assign most COVID deaths. Their death rate is up 30%, which is similar to our current COVID driven increase.
Suzanne
Glenn Beck has Covid. Again.
Thoughts and prayers.
Matt McIrvin
@Fair Economist: The other thing I was going to say is that peak definitely isn’t “deaths with COVID” it’s “deaths of COVID” (as at least one major cause) because we wouldn’t see the nearly 4-week lag otherwise.
smith
@YY_Sima Qian: The MSM’s dedication to bothsidesing the liberal vs RW responses to covid here leads them, I think, to avoid acknowledging how very bad the overall US performance in controlling covid really is. We are far and away the worst in the world! The richest, most powerful country in the world is woefully unable to get its act together! That’s deeply embarrassing. Making other countries’ responses look worse than they are is one way to avoid acknowledging that the American devotion to Freedumb at all costs could is deeply maladaptive.
YY_Sima Qian
@Matt McIrvin: “Death w/ COVID” never made any sense. If there is a significant escalation in mortalities, & COVID is only incidental to the deaths, then there is another public health crisis that is yet unknown & that no one is responding to…
Miss Bianca
@OzarkHillbilly: Doctor Me: “Sorry – he chose his fate, she didn’t. DENIED.”
Probably a good thing I’m not a doctor.
Peale
I’m feeling a bit more hopeful today since the NY Metro area seems to have definitely reached a plateau. I’m not yet convinced that the cases will take a sharp downward turn, since our Delta wave also plateaued and went on and on. But unless there is some kind of tradition of throwing massive MLK Day parties that I’m not aware of, we should be good.
Sadly, Omicron is ripping through the Philippines at the moment and 4 of the 6 family members have come down with it.
Robert Sneddon
Scotland — 8,200 new cases of COVID-19 reported. As of 13 January 2022, this figure includes cases identified using either a first LFD (lateral flow device) or PCR (polymerase chain reaction) positive test. Previous reporting was based on confirmatory positive PCR tests only but the health services are now accepting home-administered LFD test results as notified via the reporting system in place. There is still a backlog of test results from the central labs. There’s no test positivity rate given today, I take it that it’s not much up or down from previous numbers of about 30% or so.
26 new reported death(s) of people who have tested positive. That’s up maybe 50% since early November 2021 when all reported cases were due to the Delta variant, before Omicron started to spread widely through Scotland.
58 people were in intensive care yesterday with recently confirmed COVID-19, that’s up about 75% from the all-Delta numbers from the beginning of November 2021. 1,560 people were in hospital yesterday with recently confirmed COVID-19, that’s up 300% or more since early November 2021.
We’re starting to push through the extra case load due to partying and socialising superspreader events over the Xmas and the New Year period. The authorities must be seeing something better in the forecasts as they’re opening up events like football and rugby to full stadium occupancy on Monday, just in time for the Six Nations rugby matches being held down the road from where I live in Edinburgh. That means capacity crowds of 67,000 plus another few thousand stewards, concession stands staff and the like all packed into a 25-acre site (with the central acre reserved for the actual matches).
YY_Sima Qian
@Peale: Sorry to hear that! How is the vaccination/boosting effort in the Philippines?
Matt McIrvin
@YY_Sima Qian: The people harping on this never pay attention to excess death rates; they’re pulling an excuse out of thin air.
Peale
@YY_Sima Qian: The promoters of this idea could then never explain what happened in early 2020 to suddenly have all these people fill up the hospitals. The idea that there is some unknown “toxin” that was causing this disease rather than a virus, which is otherwise a benign virus. As if the hopitalizations would all stop if we stopped eating Lay’s potato chips and drank detox teas for a month.
YY_Sima Qian
@Peale: Well, it certainly did not make sense before, but still does not make sense even w/ the milder Omicron Variant in substantially vaccinated populations.
Matt McIrvin
@smith:
Not actually true. There are a lot of countries that are doing worse at controlling COVID than the US–our case rate is probably elevated by a greater ability to detect cases–but they are generally poorer than the US. Taking into account the vast wealth and power of the US, you can make a case that we’re doing the worst relative to that.
Peale
@YY_Sima Qian: His mom and their elderly maid are boosted because there are doctors in the family, so they could figure out how to get them, but only 49% of the population is fully vaccinated. The Philippines has had the worst vaccine rollout in East Asia with the exception of Papua New Guinea. As usual, they want to excuse this as the challenge of being an Island nation, but so are Malaysia and Indonesia, who are doing much better at distributing vaccines.
Matt McIrvin
@Peale: I recall some attempts to claim that the lockdowns made them all commit suicide.
YY_Sima Qian
@NotMax: The Chinese authorities have essentially communicated that there will likely be breaches from the Olympic bubble. However, if you aim for zero, you get fewer breaches leading to smaller outbreaks that are more manageable. Beijing traffic police has published notices that if any Beijinger gets into an accident w/ a marked vehicle operating in the Olympic bubble, they are not to approach the said vehicle & instead wait for properly equipped authorities to arrive on scene. But what if the said vehicle is on fire & there are injured people trapped inside? Also, way to make the visitors feel welcome! Why even hold the Games under such circumstances, other than to check the box?
(I know, there are huge political & commercial interests that propel the Games forward, & far from just Chinese interests.)
Peale
@YY_Sima Qian: Alternative medicine have really had noting to add since 2020 and all of the inroads that have been made in the past 2 years for treatments have come from “Big Pharma” and “Scientific Medicine” that has understood COVID as a virus. But people have made big emotional investments in their supplements, detox teas, diet and the endless list of crystals, spinal adjustments, essential oils and whatnot being the path to health. A lot of the “debunking” of the vaccines is the people who’ve made money pitching medical woo for decades trying not to be exposed as irrelevant.
NotMax
@YY_Sima Qian
A question for which there is no good answer other than saving face,
The Moar You Know
@OzarkHillbilly: That doc is a far better person than I. Which is why I’m not a doctor; I would have said something along the lines of “give her some horse dewormer, hydroxycloroquine and a crapload of morphine and put her out in the parking lot with the idiots who don’t give a shit about the rest of us.”
Kick a dying cancer patient out of bed to make room for what amounts to a voluntary suicide? Nope.
Now that I’ve exhausted my rage, I just gotta that either one of those physicians are exactly the kinds of people I’d want treating me. Advocates for their patients, desperately trying to do the right thing.
The Moar You Know
@YY_Sima Qian: for the same reason China sat on the news that they had a raging epidemic for weeks, long enough to let it loose throughout the world. To save face. Which I get. But it’s still a shit reason to do things.
Peale
@NotMax: If I’m in Oslo right now, I’m feeling pretty smug and relieved about not being selected to host these games. If I’m in Kazakhstan, I’ve got other things on my mind at the moment, but eventually I’d feel relieved that Almaty wasn’t selected. I’m just glad Lake Tahoe or whatever lost out in the early rounds so we didn’t have to deal with this right now.
WaterGirl
@rikyrah: I have not received a reply from the email I sent to Amir on Tuesday morning.
lowtechcyclist
@YY_Sima Qian:
Yeah, I remember going, “look, total 2020 deaths are up by half a million over 2019, and the normal year-over-year increase in deaths is on the order of 35,000. So you’re out there looking for the real killer, right?” But of course:
@Matt McIrvin:
Yeppers.
Brachiator
@Matt McIrvin:
RE: As far as I can tell, Omicron is less severe than previous variants but not enough less severe that it makes sense to just let it rip. The far greater rate of infection means that the amount of death and severe illness it causes is still high unless the population is more highly vaccinated than ours is.
A doctor commenting on the recent study noted that none of the Omicron infected patients required a ventilator.
The doctor did not know the vaccination status of the patients. It might not have been part of the study. But it is possible that at least some of the patients had not been vaccinated.
Don’t know if there was a breakdown by age.
ETA. For some reason, the quote box tool did not work. Odd. Or I did something wrong.
YY_Sima Qian
The thing is there is no popular pressure to go ahead with the Olympics in China, it is widely viewed as a burden & a health risk. The Chinese government could have postponed the Games for a year and placed the blame elsewhere – an Omicron Variant that emerged ouside of its borders & that other countries failed to mitigate.
However, winter will always be dicy with novel respiratory pathogen, but delay of a year would have allowed for a couple of more rounds of booster shots in the population, possibly reduced prevalence outside of the country, and maybe for an even milder variant to emerge to become dominant.
Peale
@The Moar You Know: The Olympics were going to happen for the same reason we’re still having football games and not reintroducing seating capacity limits and the same reason they held an NCAA tournament in 2020. Frankly, I hope that the Japanese and Chinese experience of hosting huge money losing games is going to make it harder for the IoC to find suckers to host these “prestige” events.
Jay
Don’t count Canada as “peaked” in this wave.
In almost all Provinces except for the Atlantic Bubble, testing is capped out, so the reported cases, are artificially low,
many Provincial authorities are saying we have to watch hospitalizations now, not reported cases.
The Moar You Know
@YY_Sima Qian: On the other side of that line, it’s been that way here regarding the media coverage of China for decades. It’s not recent. I went to China…hell, almost 25 years ago now and spent three weeks there on a business visa. Not the managed tourist experience. I saw a lot. Some very bad, a lot really good. A lot I was not expecting.
Now 25 years is a long time. But this was true 25 years ago and undoubtedly true right now; the Western world’s coverage of China has been appallingly wrong for a long time, I can tell you that.
YY_Sima Qian
@The Moar You Know: Oh, I know the bias & hypocrisy & myopia in China coverage were always rather pervasive, but there were also gems to be found. The gems are fewer & farther in between now. Or maybe I was just less knowledgeable & more naive then.
Jay
@The Moar You Know:
as we now know, Covid was already global, when China had it’s first detected cases. “It” was already “out there” and spreading. The couple of weeks when local authorities suppressed reporting made no real difference and local Experts quickly broke the “firewall”, sometimes at tragic cost, but with great benefit to us all.
daveNYC
From what I’m hearing from the peeps on our Indian team, that country is in ‘everyone is getting it’ mode with omicron. Just nasty.
Jay
@WaterGirl:
I hope it’s just other things, life and hospitals, and not bad.
His guitars need him and we miss him.
Peale
@daveNYC: You mean “resigned to let it rip” mode, or everyone is actually getting it. I’m down 3 staff on my India team today. Which is nowhere near the 15% I was down at one time during Delta. I think overall 25% of my workforce had it during Delta staggered over the two months.
RaflW
@Baud: Looking at the KFF slide of how White vax uptake is on a lower slope than Black, Latino & Asian I just marvel (in a rueful and even furious sort of way) at the suicide cheerleaders in the GOP, on Fox &etc, and among the right wing influencers on social media.
Jay
Rumour is, an Associate came in to work knowing they had Covid.
( we have Covid “sick time”, 42 days, but some people took that paid time off at the start of Covid to avoid having to “deal”, and as of Jan 2nd, “regular” sick time got bumped up to 5 days (plus saved),. So, I don’t know what they thought they were doing.)
As a result, we have nobody in Flooring, 7 people out for at least a week, if they didn’t catch Covid.
RaflW
I’m not opposed to giving the unvaccinated-by-choice* some care if they become significantly symptomatic.
But they should be triaged to gymnasium type wards like back in the 1918 pandemic. Prone ’em, give them Paxlovid or monoclonal antibodies (if there’s enough supply), fever reducer, etc, and maybe hook ’em up to those juryrigged Cpap machines if they’re gasping.
The idea that vaccinated people may not get the Covid infection, heart attack, stroke, car crash or even cancer care they should reasonably expect is infuriating.
We don’t have to say “fk em”, I don’t want to be part of a country that callous, but if crisis standards of care are in effect, then triage the idiots to crisis standards, dammit.
*18 & up, vaccine not medically contraindicated, and not an active Christian Scientist or the few other limited religious traditions that don’t vax. (“Vaccines aren’t my spirit animal” from some person who has accepted DPT and MMR is not a religious exemption.)
Another Scott
@Another Scott: To be clear, yes, many GQPers have tried to weaponize the “deaths with/from” COVID distinction. Logically, excess deaths are definitely (primarily) due to COVID. Nothing else makes sense.
But when it comes to infection numbers, and policy responses, they need to take into account the most probable course of the disease. Back in Alpha/Delta, people were told to get checked out by their docs/ERs if they had symptoms because of the real risk that their O2 sat could rapidly plummet. That is not as much of a concern with Omicron (because it mostly stays out of the lungs) – at least so far.
Unvaccinated people should be taking it deadly seriously (WaPo link), of course.
Clearly hospitalizations, ICU capacity, O2 needs, vent needs, etc., need to be tracked to know how to direct resources and figure out what to do next. Exploding infections are a serious problem, indeed, but the disease is changing and responses need to change, also too. Rapid sequencing needs to be ramped up (it was taking 2 weeks not that long ago).
Obligatory – IANAMD.
Cheers,
Scott.
lowtechcyclist
@RaflW: Yeah, that’s pretty much where I am.
dc
@YY_Sima Qian: Thank you for sharing your insights. It’s so valuable to have on-the-ground and knowledgeable sources.
Cermet
@Matt McIrvin: India for instance – I believe they’ve actually lost like 5 million (and counting fast again) people but report under half a million.
Cermet
@WaterGirl: That’s disturbing.
Bill Arnold
@KayInMD (formerly Kay (not the front-pager)):
Death cult?
Seriously – unless the theological basis also applies to all other medical care, what theological basis is there for an anti-vaxxer stance? Is it related to Jesus interacting with lepers? Or is it something that would change if there was a Republican president, or if the virus was something like (hypothetical!) respiratory Ebola?
laura
So late to this thread, but will do so until Amir Khalid returns. You are missed. Get well soon.
J R in WV
@Soprano2:
People don’t want to think about their “waste” being analyzed for diseases they don’t believe in… or somefing like dat… ;~)
J R in WV
@The Moar You Know:
Pretty sure this is a racist and false accusation. I think the lower level authorities made a knee-jerk decision to attempt to keep things quiet that any US county commissioner would have attempted.
There’s a reason you have been in my pie safe for a long time. If you hadn’t been responding to YY_Sima I wouldn’t have seen your low rate comment. My bad for toggling your post.
Matt McIrvin
@Baud: (I have to credit old Usenet hand Joe Manfre for pointing out that phenomenon to me years ago)