Health experts are keeping a wary eye on the latest #Omicron subvariant, XBB.1.5.
This version of the #coronavirus has swiftly risen to prominence, comprising ~1/4 of #Covid cases across the U.S. & >70% of new cases in the Northeast https://t.co/DNA2h4eY9Q pic.twitter.com/nMPpFhvwHy— delthia ricks š¬ (@DelthiaRicks) January 8, 2023
The virus is talking. We're not listeninghttps://t.co/k6ymRyUE6f pic.twitter.com/7JOxoWbu3R
— Eric Topol (@EricTopol) January 9, 2023
(link)
(link)
======
China on Saturday marked the first day of “chun yun”, the 40-day period of Lunar New Year travel known pre-pandemic as the world’s largest annual migration of people, bracing for a huge increase in travellers and the spread of COVID-19 infections.
This Lunar New Year public holiday, which officially runs from Jan. 21, will be the first since 2020 without domestic travel restrictions.
Over the last month China has seen the dramatic dismantling of its “zero-COVID” regime following historic protests against a policy that included frequent testing, restricted movement, mass lockdowns and heavy damage to the world’s No.2 economy…
But the abrupt changes have exposed many of China’s 1.4 billion population to the virus for the first time, triggering a wave of infections that is overwhelming some hospitals, emptying pharmacy shelves of medicines and causing long lines to form at crematoriums.
The Ministry of Transport said on Friday that it expects more than 2 billion passengers to take trips over the next 40 days, an increase of 99.5% year-on-year and reaching 70.3% of trip numbers in 2019.
There was mixed reaction online to that news, with some comments hailing the freedom to return to hometowns and celebrate the Lunar New Year with family for the first time in years.
Many others, however, said they would not travel this year, with worry of infecting elderly relatives a common theme.
“I dare not go back to my hometown, for fear of bringing the poison back,” said one such comment on the Twitter-like Weibo…
Some analysts are now saying the current wave of infections may have already peaked.
Ernan Cui, an analyst at Gavekal Dragonomics in Beijing, cited several online surveys as indicating that rural areas were already more widely exposed to COVID infections than initially thought, with an infection peak already reached in most regions, noting there was “not much difference between urban and rural areas.”…
Nearly 90% of people in China's 3rd most populous province have been infected with SARSCoV2, a top health official in Henan Province says. The head of the health commission in central Henan said the infection rate is 89%. Henan's population is 99.4 million https://t.co/bzSKu8RhlL pic.twitter.com/c1hpn1oVUm
— delthia ricks š¬ (@DelthiaRicks) January 9, 2023
(link)
(link)
This lunar new year holiday season is awfully miserable for lots of families. The unprepared and bad timed open up is as disastrous as one can imagine. https://t.co/y4bqNMLweI
— ChunXuCFA (@ChunXuCFA) January 6, 2023
The Chinese Academy of Engineering reported that 20 members have died in less than a month, compared with an average annual death rate of 16
āMembers usually have privileged access to healthcare, but now there are no beds available to treat themā https://t.co/KuQ4n2kJjn
— Jess (@MeetJess) January 8, 2023
It's nice, but I don't think folks here are ready for the bill that's going to come due on all this, and I'd expect expat/international healthcare in China to have a *very* different service tier for the well-off to address that. https://t.co/VmlmMkY8j9
— Naomi Wu ęŗę¢°å¦å§¬ (@RealSexyCyborg) January 9, 2023
(link)
(link)
The ability of Hong Kong residents to travel into mainland China is one of the most visible signs of Beijing's easing of border restrictions following almost three years of closures due to the coronavirus pandemic. https://t.co/crFGPGLhB9
— The Associated Press (@AP) January 8, 2023
American expat in Hong Kong:
Iām so old I canāt even keep a straight face on this one. pic.twitter.com/0aq3btOIt3
— Panda Bernstein (@J4Years) January 9, 2023
(link)
(link)
Saudi Arabia announces that Islamās annual hajj will return to pre-pandemic levels this year after restrictions saw the pilgrimage curtailed over concerns about the spread of the coronavirus. By @jongambrellAP. https://t.co/2gqmXsy9B9
— AP Middle East (@APMiddleEast) January 10, 2023
(link)
(link)
(link)
======
An experimental #Covid vaccine being studied in Spain so far appears to guard against infection & brain damage caused by the virus. The research is underway in animal models but bodes wellāso farāas a way to shield the brain from the impact of #LongCovid https://t.co/Wli2qf7MH5
— delthia ricks š¬ (@DelthiaRicks) January 9, 2023
In the lab: A new #Covid vaccine is being developed with a "universal spike protein." The aim is to have a vax to help our immune systems combat antigenic drift, the random genetic mutations that result in the ever-changing parade of variants. Vax is in animal model research ā¬ļø https://t.co/JIzgVe82to
— delthia ricks š¬ (@DelthiaRicks) January 8, 2023
(link)
(link)
======
(link)
Latest NYC and NYS #COVID19 numbers (as of Jan 4, 2023) pic.twitter.com/qJupRTsxBa
— Laurie Garrett (@Laurie_Garrett) January 9, 2023
The @GOP is obsessed w/ voting out rules put into place to protect them & the country from COVID. Dr. Fauci saved lives through his work but they vilify him. They speak of eliminating working from home rather than gathering when COVID was high. Do they forget about Herman Cain? pic.twitter.com/OTNbxofjZp
— Jennifer Gervase (@jengervase) January 9, 2023
Reader Interactions
39Comments
Comments are closed.
Amir Khalid
Malaysiaās Ministry of Health reported 383 new Covid-19 cases yesterday, for a cumulative reported total of 5,030,696 cases. 381 of these new cases were local infections; two new cases were imported. It also reported eight deaths, for an adjusted cumulative total of 36,883 deaths ā 0.73% of the cumulative reported total, 0.73% of resolved cases.
12,389 Covid-19 tests were conducted yesterday, with a positivity rate of 2.7%.
There were 11,414 active cases yesterday, 20 more than the day before. 607 were in hospital. 28 confirmed cases were in ICU; of these patients, 11 confirmed cases were on ventilators. Meanwhile, 355 more patients recovered, for a cumulative total of 4,982,399 patients recovered ā 99.0% of the cumulative reported total.
The National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme (PICK) administered 8,555 doses of vaccine on 9th January: 111 first doses, 63 second doses, 765 first booster doses, and 7,616 second booster doses. The cumulative total is 72,614,915 doses administered: 28,122,541 first doses, 27,533,933 second doses, 16,285,277 first booster doses, and 673,164 second booster doses. 86.1% of the population have received their first dose, 84.3% their second dose, 49.9% their first booster dose, and 2.1% their second booster dose.
NeenerNeener
Monroe County, NY:
159 new cases on 01/06/22.
132 new cases on 01/07/22.
110 new cases on 01/08/22.
64 new cases on 01/09/22.
Deaths at 2136, up 9 from last week.
As for hospital beds, only 3% are actually available, including 15 ICU beds among 4 hospitals. The largest hospital has no regular available beds and only 6 ICU beds open.
NeenerNeener
If work-from-home is eliminated then I’m going to retire.
New Deal democrat
Biobot updated yesterday, showing at least a temporary peak in nationwide COVID levels almost exactly equal to this past summerās BA.2.12.1 peak. Regionally only the South is increasing; the Northeast and West are decreasing slightly and the Midwest decreasing sharply. But the Northeast remains at a level well in excess of its BA.2.12.1 peak. This is consistent with last Fridayās CDC variant data, which showed XBB dominant in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic, with much smaller (but growing) shares in all other regions.
BIobotās data is consistent with over 300,000 new cases daily. Confirmed cases have increased to 73,500 cases, their highest level since September, but only 60% of their BA.2.12.1 peak last summer. Hospitalizations have declined slightly from a peak of 46,800 four days ago to 45,200. This is almost exactly their level at the BA.2.12.1 peak last summer. Deaths have risen to 538, their highest level since the beginning of September, and also very close to their BA.2.12.1 peak.
Confirmed cases are highest in the Northeast and South, and low in the Midwest and West. The worst jurisdictions are NY, NJ, RI, PR, FL, NC, SC, AL, WV, and KY. The best are AK, ND, SD, WY, CO, OR, ID, UT, VT, and IA. Again this is consistent with the Biobot data, and it suggests XBB is spreading among the more densely populated States, and has yet to seriously impact the most sparsely populated ones.
In the two past winters, cases peaked right about now. (After the last of the holiday get-togethers). We are probably seeing a slow rolling peak this year as XBB spreads to different regions. The (relatively) good news is that the peak is well below not just the Omicron peak, but the 2020-21 winter peak as well, and roughly equal to this past summerās BA.2.12.1 peak.
Dr. Eric Topol had a good thread several days ago showing that the rise in hospitalizations definitely hit the Northeast, but also other areas, suggesting it wasnāt just about XBB (probably holiday gatherings):
https://mobile.twitter.com/EricTopol/status/1611797466642518016
And medical modeler J Weiland has a good thread explaining the big weekly revision in the CDCās variant update last Friday, XBBās growth advantage over other strains, and itās likely peak at about the end of this month as it takes over in the remaining Census regions:
https://twitter.com/JPWeiland/status/1611871597199257601
Matt McIrvin
Since the last one of these posts, the wastewater COVID counts on the North Shore of the Boston area seem to have peaked, and we can get a better idea of what we’re dealing with in the XBB.1.5 wave: here, the counts peaked at about a quarter of the big Omicron wave last year.
That’s consistent with the death rates and the ICU hospitalizations: running something like 1/4 of a year ago. But the overall hospitalization rate is higher–more like half. My best guess is that that’s because the hospitals got completely saturated in the first Omicron wave and people with less grave cases who would be admitted today were being forced to ride it out at home. But it’s a guess.
Matt McIrvin
@New Deal democrat: Here in the NE, things are definitely worse than last summer’s peak–maybe twice as bad, and wastewater counts are higher than in any of the pre-Omicron waves. But the death counts and filled ICU beds are nowhere near the first Omicron wave or the ones from before vaccines.
YY_Sima Qian
Lack of meaningful data continues to pose challenges for developing a clear picture of the exit tsunami in China. The data dump that the China CDC published on 1/8 still shows rapidly increasing active severe/critical cases (the absolutely number, at 7,557, may be an order of magnitude lower than reality, but ~ 50% higher than the number on 1/5). The number of active domestic confirmed cases reported on 1/8 is 118,117, which is probably orders of magnitude lower than reality, but ~ 25% higher than reported on 1/5. I am not sure if the changes in official data is actually reflective of the underlying trend in reality. Almost all parts of China are well past peak in terms of infection & peaked or peaking in terms of severe/critical cases & deaths. Perhaps the official data is simply starting to converge w/ reality.Ā
However, starting from today, the China CDC will only report COVID-19 data on a monthly basis. I am not sure how the population will see a new wave coming. I suppose the authorities still have near real time visibility from data out of the infectiously disease reporting system, surveillance testing, & modeling, at least after the exit tsunami subsides.
As of 1/9, 3,484,655M vaccine doses have been injected in Mainland China, an increase of 1.217M doses in the past 24 hrs.
On 1/9, Hong Kong reported 11,614 new positive cases, 323 imported & 11,318 domestic, & 64 new deaths. There have been 12,406 total COVID-19 deaths to date.
On 1/8, Macao reported 52 new cases & 6 new deaths. There have been 83 total COVID-19 deaths to date.
On 1/9, Taiwan added 17,318 new positive cases, 416 imported & 16,902 domestic. There were 40 new deaths. There have been 15,585 total COVID-19 deaths to date.
YY_Sima Qian
On a more personal note, my wifeās grandfather continues to show marked improvement, we hope that he will be discharged from the hospital next week. OTOH, one of my auntsā husband is now in the hospital, after over a week of persistent fever, & more recently breathing difficulties & falling blood oxygen. He is > 90 & w/ a range of underlying conditions, & unvaccinated.Ā
hells littlest angel
The virus is talking. The climate is talking. Democracy is talking. We’re not listening to any of it.
New Deal democrat
@Matt McIrvin: āHere in the NE, things are definitely worse than last summerās peakā
Yes, thatās what Biobot shows. I imagine the same will be the case in the other regions as well, but because XBB will slow roll into them, the national situation will be a gradual peak about equivalent to BA.2.12.1.
Another Scott
Thanks for keeping us informed AL and everyone.
1. I’d like to know where Reiner is getting his 500 Americans a day are dying of COVID number. All the places I look have much lower numbers, but too many places don’t seem to be reporting at all any more. The US numbers are almost worthless any more. :ā -ā (. China is worse, and that’s scary.
2. Eminent scientists and engineers are almost always opinionated old dudes who discount medical advice. A bad combination in a raging pandemic. Turnover will lead to big disruptions. We’ll soon see whether their systems have a few great figureheads on top of weakness, or whether they are resilient and have a burst of progress with new talent moving up.
3. So far this winter, Japan and a few others look scary and I fear that their numbers are the closest we have to accurate ones. I also think that the virus isn’t done with us, especially with the GQPers in the House, but we’re in better shape than in 2020. Stay safe, everyone.
Cheers,
Scott.
YY_Sima Qian
@Another Scott: Membership in Chinese Academies of Science & Engineering are lifetime appointments. The members of the Academies that have died in the exit tsunami are almost all retirees in their 90s or late 80s, & are no longer actively working. I don’t think these tragic deaths will affect China’s scientific & technology development.
Another example: the university my wife works at lost 26 retired professors in Nov. & Dec., while only 25 had died from Jan. – Oct. All of the recent deaths have been people 80 or older.
Matt McIrvin
@Another Scott: 91-DIVOC says the nationwide average now is about 500 deaths/day. That aggregation is per Johns Hopkins and Our World In Data.
OzarkHillbilly
Wasn’t he responsible for the Cain Mutiny?
tobie
Best I can tell, it’s well nigh impossible to get a hospital bed in Florida. My father has been dealing with bacterial pneumonia. His doc sends him to the ER. He sits for hours in the ER with folks coughing up a storm. They give him antibiotics and send him home. Rinse and repeat. It’s infuriating. Too much COVID, too few resources, and no public willingness to exercise caution in the face of a pandemic.
Another Scott
@Matt McIrvin: Interesting.Ā I check Worldmeters.info pages daily. Maybe they aren’t getting as good numbers as they used to.
Dunno.
Thanks.
Cheers,
Scott.
Amir Khalid
I feel sorry for that poor kitty being subjected to a Covid test.
Another Scott
@YY_Sima Qian: Thanks.
It’s hard, and probably dangerous, to make generalizations, but lots of really high-power people don’t stop working even after they “retire”.Ā They can be like Fauci, or they can be like that old guy who had a great career 30 years ago and is kept on the payroll or has an office because of the prestige those old awards bring the institution.Ā They can still affect advancement and distribution of resources to younger STEM folks.
Change is scary but has opportunities.
Thanks.
Cheers,
Scott.
Matt McIrvin
As always, I’m assuming that case counts even in Blue America are worthless for long-term comparisons with the past, because most people are not getting tested unless they feel really sick or have some other specific reason to get tested. The reported test positivity rates are quite high, which is a sign of poor test coverage. Most very mild or asymptomatic COVID cases are probably being missed completely.
Wastewater is more accurate–however, that also has the effect of underestimating the pre-Omicron waves because those variants produced so much less virus in an infected person. Looking at the long-term history in Massachusetts is bizarre because the wastewater count for the first great wave of spring 2020 looks like a tiny blip, yet the death count during that wave was colossal, up to 170 deaths a day just in our state (edit: got that wrong before).
Amir Khalid
@NeenerNeener:
I guess too many bosses miss that master-of-all-he-surveys feeling they used to get when they looked out over the open-plan office and saw their minions hard at work looking busy.
Chris T.
@Amir Khalid:
Also (and quite significant), certain well-to-do people, especially Republican senators, are heavily invested in office REITs … which do well when there are a lot of bodies in offices, and poorly when everyone works from home.
It’s not even sinister conspiracy here, it’s basic greed.
Matt McIrvin
@Amir Khalid: There are, I think, genuine benefits to face-to-face presence when collaborating on something. You can work things out much more rapidly than over Zoom/Slack.
But to do that, you don’t necessarily need to be in every day.
narya
The most concerning thing for me is the lack of efficacy of Evusheld with this new variant. My mom had a kidney transplant and has had Evusheld–and she lives in eastern PA. She is still quite careful, including masking, and she’s been vaxxed and boosted and so on, so fingers crossed . . .
Matt McIrvin
@narya: The wide availability of Paxlovid is a huge boon but I get the impression that doctors are more reluctant to prescribe it than they should be.
wenchacha
@NeenerNeener: My son estimates solar construction projects out in Silicon Valley. He’s been so lucky, working from home for most of the last three years. It has allowed him to care for his newborn. Now he does three days at home. He has the most flexible boss in the world.
I am so grateful that my kid has this situation. I wish it were so for more people.
narya
@Matt McIrvin: Yeah, if she or my dad gets it, I will push it on them if their docs don’t. And I know she knows about it.
Edmund Dantes
@Chris T.: i donāt know. Basic greed is pretty sinister.
Matt McIrvin
@narya: The genuine problems with it are that it has a lot of drug interactions and apparently makes everything taste nasty while you’re on it.
On top of that, there’s a fear of “Paxlovid rebound” that seems to be completely blown out of proportion–people do often experience some rebound after going off Paxlovid, but it’s no more common or severe than with COVID cases without Paxlovid.
jonas
@Matt McIrvin: I think one of the issues with Paxlovid is that there are a number of common medicines, like statins, that it’s contraindicated for. So doctors may be hesitant to prescribe it if they think the patient may have a bad reaction due to the other Rx’s they’re on.
Soprano2
@NeenerNeener: Oh Good Lord no one is going to “eliminate” work from home. I have a friend who was working from home well before Covid hit. Some companies may change their policies, that is true. Some jobs and some people are suited to work from home, others aren’t.
OzarkHillbilly
@Amir Khalid: I feel sorry for the person administering it. I sure do hope they have good insurance.
Matt McIrvin
@Soprano2: There are some Elon Musk-style asshole bosses who are going to eliminate it completely just to be “hardcore”. What I’m seeing more generally is companies requiring SOME office days where it’s possible. I think the expectations for white-collar workers have genuinely changed from what they were pre-pandemic and it’s not going to roll back 100%.
YY_Sima Qian
@Another Scott: The recent deaths among members of the Academies & other prominent retirees have been a topic of much conversation on Chinese social media. From what I can gather, the vast majority of the recently deceased have not been active for years/decades.
Princess
@jonas: Most people can stop their statin for the few days they are taking Paxlovid without ill effects. The bigger challenge is if the prescribing pharmacy has a complete record of all your other meds and can give you a full picture of contraindications.
EmbraceYourInnerCrone
@NeenerNeener: Many of my coworkers say the same.Ā I am , unfortunately not able to work from home.Ā The other 14 cubes around mine are all empty, as are the ones in the next area over that had all of our Client Service operators.Ā Most have been working from home since March 15, 2020.
Urza
@EmbraceYourInnerCrone: Safer for you at least.Ā When our offices opened I stopped in a few times to see how many people were there.Ā In open office spaces meant for about 100, a busy day was 5.Ā Depends on the team of course but most people just aren’t wanting to be there all the time.Ā Even those going in regularly are usually only doing it a 2 or 3 out of 5 days.
Unless you have something physical to work on there is no good reason to be in an office.Ā I’ve been saying that since broadband came out.
Bill Arnold
@Urza:
One of the very welcome (and expected) side effects of the COVID-19 pandemic was the emptying of open plan plague pits.
They are also, for many people, absolutely toxic work environments. In my last stint in an open plan office (software dev) that ended shortly before the pandemic, I could, with good earplugs + David Clark ear protectors, concentrate in a proper flow state for a maximum of 10 seconds at a time (there were no visual barriers, either). (After hours, it was better.) Made for really “choppy” software development, with random errors only caught by careful tests and code review.
ETA also, any bosses forcing people back to open plan offices without improvements in ventilation/filtering and other such respiratory-infectious-disease-spread-reduction measures are quite simply proud and blatant sociopaths.
lowtechcyclist
@Urza:
FTFY.Ā I do expect my employer to provide an adequate place to work, should I wish to take advantage of it.Ā And I do – my workspace at home is tiny, and it’s totally overwhelmed by all the stuff from home, work, and volunteer stuff that’s on it.
But over two years ago, they decided to take advantage of our absence due to the pandemic to redo our office space, so there isn’t any office to move back into yet.Ā They may or may not finish before I retire.
Fair Economist
Influenza Summary for week ending Dec. 31, 2022;
Summary: Influenza down but still at epidemic rates. Respiratory mortality continuing to rise and above pre-COVID peaks.
Flu lab positivity down from 19.8% to 15%. Visits for influenza-like illnesses (ILI) down from 6.1% to 5.4%. Flu hospitalizations up slightly from 18,848 to 18,954. Respiratory mortality up from 12.1% to 12.8%.
Flu types are overwhelmingly Flu A (99.7%) with H3N2 being the large majoriy of those (70.2%), but H1N1 up substantially from last week. After missing last year, the flu vaccine has hit the mark this year with almost all virues tested immunologically close to vaccine strains. Yay! Also, all flu viruses tested this year have been susceptible to all flu treatment drugs, so yay there too.
Most areas are now seeing declines in ILI although rates are still high in most states. NYC is the big exception, with ILI remaining extremely high. NYC has a high rate of the recently evolved XBB 0.5 strain, which is a possible cause.
https://www.cdc.gov/flu/weekly/index.htm