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With the U.S. on pace to lose more than 150,000 Americans during this third year of the pandemic, the Biden administration is encouraging people to get booster shots. https://t.co/fR6Hkw5trM
— PBS NewsHour (@NewsHour) December 5, 2022
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Here we go again. A new global covid wave.https://t.co/o5ibW1jsp5
It likely won’t be as bad as prior waves, but there’s much that can be done to defend against it that we’re not doing.— Eric Topol (@EricTopol) December 4, 2022
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Aaand the COVID minimizing to “avoid a panic” has begun🤦🏻♀️ I wonder how that will turn out- it’s a mystery https://t.co/QJxeUeoEvz
— Naomi Wu 机械妖姬 (@RealSexyCyborg) December 5, 2022
COVID minimizers in positions of power like @szdaily1, suffering from normalcy bias have *consistently* contributed to significant losses of life in *every* country by leaving people unprepared and ill-informed- and it will do the same here.
— Naomi Wu 机械妖姬 (@RealSexyCyborg) December 5, 2022
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#India logged 165 new #coronavirus infections, while the active cases further declined to 4,345, according to the Union Health Ministry data updated on Tuesday.https://t.co/tqVNqMuiuv
— The Hindu (@the_hindu) December 6, 2022
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forgot Italy 27%
— Eric Topol (@EricTopol) December 2, 2022
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Covid is associated with a >60% increased risk of newly diagnosed diabetes
A systematic analysis replicated by 2 independent groupshttps://t.co/ZGETxoFrq2https://t.co/uJ5T3ENGrj#PASC #LongCovid pic.twitter.com/uAWoP9YF2z— Eric Topol (@EricTopol) December 5, 2022
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We’ve learned so much about #SARSCoV2 viral load, shedding, how to measure it, impact of the variants and vaccines in the past few years. This exceptional new 5★ review article covers it all https://t.co/yWrWXNZVVI@EckerleIsabella @OlhaVPuhach @BenjaminMeyer85 @NatureRevMicro pic.twitter.com/HrsjMxCjJI
— Eric Topol (@EricTopol) December 3, 2022
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In many US states, such as New York and Califonia, the rate of Covid hospitalizations for seniors now exceeds the BA.5, BA.2 and Delta waves.
It’s not getting enough attention as part of a new global wave, reviewed here:https://t.co/o5ibW1jsp5 pic.twitter.com/dor1e0Fgx7— Eric Topol (@EricTopol) December 5, 2022
Always factor in the two Ws: wastewater and Walgreens. https://t.co/glgJ5udOsc
— Stuart Wexler (@wexlerwriting) December 4, 2022
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In retrospect, I was no longer infectious, but still clearly “sick,” for about four months after my case in June https://t.co/t2KRDd6UqX (Am fine now)Boosters will keep nearly everyone out of hospital, or worse. But you’d still rather avoid getting it as long as you can
— James Fallows (@JamesFallows) December 4, 2022
Arizona, where the media has been hectored into timidity by angry anti-vaxxers:
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Since Neurolink is back in the news:
— Willow: Maybe a Parody (@RockShrimp) December 1, 2022
NeenerNeener
Monroe County, NY:
95 new cases on 12/02/22.
80 new cases on 11/03/22.
94 new cases on 12/04/22.
67 new cases on 12/05/22.
Deaths at 2100, up 12 from last week. The cases seem to be dropping but the deaths are going up. Not good.
Princess
I see Naomi Wu calling it “Chinese Taiwan” and equating it with Hong Kong. As if, unlike Hong Kong, it isn’t a separate country.
She is trying to normalize Taiwan as part of China among people like us. The idea that we’re hearing in her an independent Chinese voice is ludicrous.
New Deal democrat
Bad news from Biobot: the Alphabet soup winter wave looks like it is starting an exponential rise, not just nationally but in every Census region but the West, where the increase is slower. The data is consistent with close to 400,000 “real” daily cases.
Confirmed cases have increased from about 37,000 before Thanksgiving to 55,800. Hospitalizations have increased from 24,000 in mid-November to 34,600, 6,000 of which is just in the past 7 days. Deaths still remain very low at 295.
Confirmed cases are also rising in all 4 Census regions. The Northeast is doing the worst, and the South the best. The worst jurisdictions are NJ, PR, NY, NM, IL, AZ, CO, CA, WI, and FL. The jurisdictions with the lowest cases are DC, TX, AK, VT, LA, TN, GA, SC, NC, and HI.
It’s clear that Thanksgiving get-together helped spark this new wave, and more holiday get-together will only make it worse. While colder regions are generally doing worse, places like CA, AZ, and FL are also doing poorly (just guessing that some of this may be age-related, as FL and AZ are major retirement destinations).
Unfortunately, part of this is the very poor uptake of the new bivalent booster shot. Per Dr. Eric Topol, “ Only 1 in 3 American seniors have been boosted in ≥ 6 months.” The numbers are even abysmal for seniors.
https://mobile.twitter.com/EricTopol/status/1599807277669965824?cxt=HHwWgIDT6cWP1LMsAAAA
Hospitalizations for seniors, at least in some States, are higher than they have been since the original Omicron wave one year ago. This is particularly exasperating, since the CDC just updated their data showing that being fully boosted lowers seniors’ risk of hospitalization by 80%.
My template remains that this wave will be like the BA.2.12.1 and BA.5 waves earlier this year: 125,000 confirmed cases and 500 deaths a day.
With mitigation measures having evaporated and old vaccine immunity waning, hopefully that is only as bad as it gets.
Amir Khalid
Malaysia’s Ministry of Health reported 1,576 new Covid-19 cases yesterday, for a cumulative reported total of 5,001,908 cases. It also reported three deaths, for an adjusted cumulative total of 36,716 deaths – 0.73% of the cumulative reported total, 0.74% of resolved cases.
18,693 Covid-19 tests were conducted yesterday, with a positivity rate of 8%.
There were 21,800 active cases yesterday, 705 fewer than the day before. 1,504 were in hospital. 98 confirmed cases were in ICU; of these patients, 69 confirmed cases were on ventilators. Meanwhile, 2,278 more patients recovered, for a cumulative total of 4,943,392 patients recovered – 98.8% of the cumulative reported total.
1,575 new cases reported yesterday were local infections. One new case was imported.
The National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme (PICK) administered 1,927 doses of vaccine on 5th December: 48 first doses, 50 second doses, 412 first booster doses, and 1,417 second booster doses. The cumulative total is 72,506,779 doses administered: 28,116,251 first doses, 27,527,184 second doses, 16,267,833 first booster doses, and 595,511 second booster doses. 86.1% of the population have received their first dose, 84.3% their second dose, 49.8% their first booster dose, and 1.8% their second booster dose.
Matt McIrvin
@New Deal democrat: In greater Boston, the post-Thanksgiving spike is clearly visible in wastewater but not in case counts, yet. I think this is mostly because case counts are garbage now. Hospital admissions are up a bit.
Looking at the wastewater, though, I’m not sure it isn’t already topping out. It’s hard to say; I might be reading too much into noise.
That said, in 2020 and 2021 the post-Thanksgiving wave was small potatoes compared to the post-Christmas wave.
Ohio Mom
It’s been two weeks since I tested negative (after two weeks of Covid) and I am just beginning to feel almost back to normal. Still totally beat by super time and still have a cough.
I agree with James Fallows, don’t get Covid.
Spanky
@NeenerNeener:
Emphasis on “seem to be dropping”. My guess, based on what I see around me, is that many cases are asymptomatic, or confused with cold/allergy. There seems to be a lot of long-term “colds” around here.
People no longer bother with testing unless symptoms are severe, and death is a more probable outcome.
Matt McIrvin
@Matt McIrvin: …and I should add, the Christmas wave in the past couple of winters was really a winter wave that started before Christmas; it just massively peaked after. In the MWRA wastewater numbers from last year you could actually see a distinct small spike after Thanksgiving that dropped off a bit before the rise into the massive winter wave–that might have been Omicron taking over from Delta.
It will be interesting to see if this winter is any different.
YY_Sima Qian
On 12/5 Mainland China reported 4,988 new domestic confirmed (683 previously asymptomatic), 22,859 new domestic asymptomatic cases, 0 new domestic suspect cases, & 0 new domestic deaths. Mainland China reported 58 new imported confirmed cases (3 previously asymptomatic), 157 imported asymptomatic cases, & 0 imported suspect cases.
Overall in Mainland China, 3,198 confirmed cases recovered (84 imported), 35,485 asymptomatic cases were released from isolation (154 imported) & 686 were reclassified as confirmed cases (3 imported), & 295,532 individuals were released from quarantine. Currently, there are 42,481 active confirmed cases in the country (599 imported), 128 in serious/critical condition (all domestic), 371,140 active asymptomatic cases (1,783 imported), 0 suspect cases. 1,908,640 traced contacts are currently under centralized quarantine. There have been 5,235 total COVID-19 deaths to date.
As of 12/5, 3,444.548M vaccine doses have been injected in Mainland China, an increase of 253K doses in the past 24 hrs.
As of 12/5, Hong Kong reported 9,996 new positive cases, 637 imported & 9,359 domestic, & 11 new deaths. There have been 10,806 total COVID-19 deaths to date.
On 12/5, Taiwan added 14,081 new positive cases, 62 imported & 14,019 domestic (including 10 moderate & 27 serious). There were 29 new deaths (from 50+ to 90+ y.o., actual dates of death range from 11/22 – 11/29, all have chronic underlying conditions, 8 fully vaccinated & boosted). There have been 14,500 total COVID-19 deaths to date.
As of 11/28, 1,304.631M individuals have taken at least 1 shot (or 92.54% of the total population), 1,272.83M are fully vaccinated (90.28% of the total), & 811.176M boosted (57.54% of the total). Of the > 60 y.o. cohort, 239.4M individuals have taken at least 1 shot (or 90.68% of the cohort), 228.165M are fully vaccinated (86.42% of the cohort), 181.511M boosted (68.75% of the cohort). Of the > 80 y.o. cohort, 27.426M individuals have taken at least 1 shot (or 76.6% of the cohort), 23.563M are fully vaccinated (65.8% of the cohort), 14.456M boosted (40.38% of the cohort).
YY_Sima Qian
Local mitigation policies in China remain in flux, w/ changes day by day, but the overall trend is continued loosening/opening at a fairly rapid clip. Just over the weekend the restrictions on interregional travel have been loosened significantly. Many cities have dropped mass screening efforts, as well as negative PCR requirements for accessing public transportation. Instead, you only need to show a green health code. However, due to the significant drop in testing, as well as contact tracing in general, health code status is no longer a meaningful signal of infection risk. On Monday, residents in Beijing, Shanghai & Guangzhou complained that many office towers and shopping malls still require negative PCR results w/in 24 or 48 hrs., yet the community testing booths are mostly closed, so people had to scramble to find a testing site, & the lines could reach a km long. Today, these cities have rescinded the PCR test requirements for public spaces, except restaurants, bars, cafés & gyms. Most places are now allowing home quarantine of positive cases, as long as the living arrangement allow.
Case incidence data in from China is no longer meaningful, & it will take a couple of weeks for them to even reflect the underlying trend. The percentage of asymptomatic cases are dropping because such cases are no longer being caught by mass screenings. The city of Baoding in Hebei Province did not report a single domestic positive case yesterday, but Weibo (Chinese counterpart to Twitter) is full of residents reporting fever symptoms. Hebei may well be the 1st region in China to experience the exit wave in full. Anecdotal evidence from across China that medical staff are being depleted due to infections & isolations. The numbers to watch now are severe/critical cases (corresponding to hospitalizations & ICUs in the ROW) & deaths. The local & central authorities can massage the data, but they will not be able to hide a large wave, or overwhelmed hospitals.
OTOH, there are still a number of 3rd/4th/5th Tier cities w/ low COVID-19 prevalences that have held on to many if the mitigation measures (other than large area soft lockdowns). I expect them to follow suit in the coming days & weeks due to popular pressure, financial pressure, & exhaustion of the bureaucracy. There are a lot of experimentation going on at local levels, in the absence of clear & specific guidelines from Beijing, so the degree of policy incoherence & confusion across jurisdictions may persist for a few more weeks.
COVID-19 is designated as a “Class B” infectious disease (same as AIDS, dysentery & syphilis) due to its pathogenicity, but prevention has been following “Class A” infectious disease protocols (same as cholera & pestilence), which provides legal basis for the draconian restrictions commonly associated w/ “Dynamic Z COVID”. It is rumored that prevention of COVID-19 will be downgraded to “Class B” in the coming weeks.
The dominant narrative in state media has also shifted very quickly over the past week. Now the message is that the latest Omicron variants are less dangerous to most individuals, & that only the elderly & those w/ underlying conditions are at risk. Interviews w/ patients who recovered from Omicron infections, who report relatively light symptoms, are being shown. Prominent health care experts are making the case in media to shift to “living w/“ COVID-19, albeit under a new normal w/ mitigation measures, & that the socio-economic damaging policies associated w/ “Dynamic Zero COVID” are no longer sustainable or necessary. Risk of Long COVID to the individual is claimed to be low.
All in all, things are loosening up much more quickly for my comfort, given that we are heading into winter, all of China’s population is under vaccinated by international standards, far too many of the most vulnerable population are immunologically naive, & we are just weeks away from the annual Spring Festival migration. The new narratives are just as bad as that now prevalent in the ROW. COVID-19 is not like the common cold or flu, risk of Long COVID is real, reinfection is frequent, long term impact of repeated infections is unknown, & the likelihood of health care system being overwhelmed in the short to medium term (through the exit wave) is very high. It seems the Chinese government is adopting the same talking points as those trotted out in the ROW to promote reopening while minimize panic. I guess they are just banking on the latest Omicron variants being even milder than BA.1/2/5.
The majority of the population still maintains a healthy fear of COVID-19. Masking mandates are still enforced, & most people still mask up even outdoors. Schools are still online, universities are ending their Fall Semesters early, & students are being sent home before prevalence explodes. Those who can, parents are driving in from elsewhere to pick up their children from the university campuses, to avoid infection on public transportation & bringing the virus home. Even if in person instruction resumes, many parents may keep their children home, particularly for kindergartens.
Matt McIrvin
Eric Topol’s observations have been interesting of late: one of his messages is that bivalent booster uptake is foolishly low; another is that Paxlovid really works and rebound is not really a reason not to use it–but it seems to be under-used.
New Deal democrat
@Matt McIrvin: Aside from the total lack of mitigation efforts, the other big difference, if you believe the recent seroprevalence information, is that with over 90% of Americans already having been infected, this winter there will mainly be re-infections.
If it gets much worse than the summer waves, I expect we’ll see a sudden increase in masking again, and a rush by older people to get the bivalent booster.
Ohio Mom
@Matt McIrvin: I had Paxlovid rebound but who knows, maybe my Covid would have been worse without it.
I felt absolutely terrible before it kicked in, felt almost all better four days later, rebounded on day six, and felt merely terrible for another week. Merely terrible was better than absolutely terrible.
YY_Sima Qian
I forgot to mentioned in my guest post last week that it is not just large parts of the population that were exhausted by “Dynamic Zero COVID”, but the entire bureaucracy & and medical profession. Nurses & nursing students had been tasked w/ swabbing the communities for mass screenings, they are tired & divert resources away from staffing hospitals. One call by the perfunctory way some nurses perform the swabs, leading to false negatives. The local community workers are at the ends of their ropes, being held responsible for the retail execution of the most restrictive policies, such as lockdowns (soft & hard), home quarantines, providing provisions for those under hard lockdown & home quarantine, arranging transportation for those needing urgent medical attention, arranging logistics for mass screenings. Across China, these grassroots government workers have been working longer hours & on short sleep for most of the year. Meanwhile, mass screenings are a significant drain on local government finances, & the reduced economic activities (& taxes) further strain their financial conditions. Central government finances are similarly stressed.
Those commentators/analysts who suggested that Xi Jinping would find it impossible to pivot away from DZC have always misread the CCP regime & Xi. The CCP has been quite comfortable living contradictions (such as the whole concept of Socialism w/ “Chinese Characteristics”) while never acknowledging the ideological incoherence, or making start policy reversals w/o acknowledging mistakes (The Great Leap Forward & the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution are the only mistakes the regime acknowledges post-1949, & just as soon everyone forget about). We can fully expect XI & the regime to declare victory of DZC, even as China steadily opens up & experiences an exit wave.
Matt McIrvin
@New Deal democrat: It might make sense to think of whatever is coming as the first real example of an endemic COVID winter season.
YY_Sima Qian
The Singapore study comparing the severe outcome rates of Sinovac/Sinopharm vs. BioNTech contradicts the Hong Kong from earlier this year. One potential reason is that the Singapore study does not disaggregate the demographics of those who have taken the respective vaccines. As in Hong Kong, it is the elderly population in Singapore that showed preference for the Sinovac inactivated whole virion vaccine, fearing the greater side effects of the mRNA vaccines. Since those who have taken the Sinovac/Sinopharm are likely to skew much older than those who took BNTs, that alone would explain the worse outcomes. The Hong Kong study specifically studied the > 80 y.o. cohort.
We will gave to see the Singapore study published in full to draw a firm conclusion.
gene108
Elizabeth Jacobs’ Tweet is evergreen.
Ever since the first open-up protests happened in the U.S., the country’s embraced a “you’re on your own” attitude to high risk groups.
dmsilev
I did some comparisons of LA County’s trends, looking at this winter vs. last and the year before. Case rate statistics are evidently nonsense, but the hospitalization curve is trending up pretty sharply. Last year, that spike didn’t show up until just before Christmas, but the winter of 2020-21 had a massive wave which was apparent from mid-November. We’re thankfully well below that (roughly half the number of people in the hospital compared to the equivalent date two years ago), but these past few years have hammered home what “grows exponentially” really means. Hopefully this wave will peak out below the last two; they were brutal for all concerned.
YY_Sima Qian
@Princess: While I certainly would not have used “Chinese Taiwan”, Naomi Wu is merely repeating what Our World in Data uses, & I don’t know why the site uses that term. Of course, she is not showing any sensitivity to any of her Taiwanese followers in doing so.
I have followed Naomi for over a year, this is the only time I recall her using a term other than “Taiwan”. I can’t recall her asserting any position position on independence or unification. For all of the extremely useful information she shares on reducing personal risk to COVID-19 infection, the lived experiences of an LGBT person in China, as well as DIY tech in general, zeroing in on this one reference is pretty myopic.
Tim Ellis
Honestly hard to imagine a more depressing sentence than “the US is on pace to lose 150,000 Americans a year and the most powerful leader on the planet is politely asking people to maybe consider doing one thing that on its own isn’t nearly enough to arrest the catastrophe”.
We are still experiencing roughly one 9/11 every week and the President is like “come on man, maybe get a shot once in a while?” as though there’s nothing else in the toolkit.
We have decided the pandemic is “over” but in fact this is about as bad as it’s ever been, and getting worse as the winter goes on. And people are only really tracking deaths from the acute infection – but we know that strokes, heart attacks, diabetes, and auto-immune dysregulation are all also outcomes from COVID infection.
Completely nonsensical. There should be a massive public awareness campaign to get people to mask up and get boosted; there should be mask mandates in essential areas (hospitals, public transit, grocery stores); there should be tax incentives to encourage hybrid and telecommuting; there are so many ways we could be doing actual public health. Instead we’ve decided on eugenics. We should all be fucking embarrassed and ashamed tbh.
nclurker
the thanksgiving tourist rush up here over thanksgiving weekend has resulted in a huge wave.
even friends thrice boosted and masked have it now.
and with the damn tourist returning from florida in their annual christmas migration,
i’m certain even more cases will arise.
what a fucking species.
H.E.Wolf
@Tim Ellis:
One of the interesting (as in: appalling) aspects of the USA’s mitigation efforts has been the large number of death threats and threats of violence against women in health care and in government.
You may recall that a group of white men planned to kidnap, torture, and eventually kill MI Gov. Whitmer, because of her COVID mitigation policies. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gretchen_Whitmer_kidnapping_plot#COVID-19_pandemic_and_mitigation_measures_in_Michigan
Nurses and doctors, a high percentage of them women, have received threats or experienced physical assault in hospitals since the start of the pandemic.
Men have also received death threats related to COVID mitigation efforts: Dr. Fauci is a high-profile example.
The right wing has been fomenting and supporting domestic terrorism and civic disorder, re: COVID mitigation. Healthcare professionals and elected officials know as well as we do that stronger public health measures are needed. Is it any wonder, though, that they are treading carefully when they are at risk for violence and murder?
frosty
@Ohio Mom: Too late. I tested positive yesterday. Made it 2 years and 10 months though!
So far, mild. Hope it stays that way.
Matt McIrvin
@Tim Ellis:
Not actually the case. Just taking Massachusetts as an example, the current experience is nothing like the peak in spring 2020 when we had 170 people dying of COVID every day; it’s about 13 now. In most of the relevant metrics we’re running about a fifth to a quarter of the peak of the 2021-22 Omicron wave, when infections were highest.
Massachusetts was hit unusually hard by the first wave, but our Omicron experience was more typical.
We’ve gotten habituated to a situation that would be a massive public health emergency by any reasonable measure, and things could get as bad as the Omicron peak again, but it’s not there right now.
eachother
Boosted yesterday 3 months after catching Covid. That was mild but obviously not like anything in my virus-catching experience.
I am concerned about this time we are in. Damn Covid is here and active. Mask mitigation is visually thin. But at least now, mask wearing isn’t the catalyst of rude behavior it was earlier in the pandemic.
Gatherings for the season are nearing. I have decided not to attend. My reasons are well represented in this Article. In my gut is a familiar sense of earlier Covid times. That of imminent community hazard.
RaflW
One of my favorite travel bloggers was overnighting at a hotel in France a couple weeks ago. The HVAC was totally turned off, and he inquired. It was off because they were ‘between seasons.’ His CO2 monitor showed 2000ppm, off the charts bad in terms of likely Covid circulation.
First world countries have learned f**k all about ventilation & mitigation. I’d forehead slap, but it’s potentially deadly and not funny at all
@eachother: I’m bivalent boosting tomorrow, just shy of 4 months after having covid (which I contracted 10 weeks after boost 4). I was really miserable for five days. I never felt in danger, and ultimately declined to opt for the Paxlovid I was qualified for, but it was not unlike the one really bad bout of flu I had 10+ years ago. I do not want to experience that again, and I feel luck to say that I don’t think I have any long tail issues from August.
JaneE
I am seeing more and more people masked in public places where it hasn’t been required for a year. Just as when Covid-19 first started, the people are already taking precautions without waiting for the public health folks to weigh in. Our local rates are still pretty low, compared to much of the past couple of years, but they are inching up again. Now we only get updates on counts once a week, and have to go to the state website to do even that.