Coronavirus

[EVNow]

I have a bet with my SO, by 10/1/21 percentage of fully vaccinated US age > 16 will be less than 70%.

Seriously, I think it depends on how the cases go. If there is another wave, I expect more people to get vaccinated. Fear is a big motivator. If the cases are relatively "low" (like its now) - then a lot of them won't get vaccinated. This is what happened in India - the cases went down and vaccine appointments were going unused. Even doctors are not getting vaccinated (<50% in my brother's hospital).

Another twist are the variants and what further information we get about how the vaccines handle the variants. I won't be surprised if booster shots for variants will be here by October and we start another round of vaccinations all over again.

I'm also afraid the recent blood clot news about Astra-Zeneca will be used to tar all the vaccines by anti-vaxxers.

 

[Dave EV]

Seriously, I think it depends on how the cases go. If there is another wave, I expect more people to get vaccinated. Fear is a big motivator.

The third wave is here.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1372713658254467076

For many weeks now, the number of cases and hospitalizations has been going down across the country. Unfortunately, that trend has now reversed in the state of Michigan. Cases * and * hospitalizations are both on the rise there.

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

The third wave is here.

Fourth wave, though I guess third for some places. There are a few states where this is starting to happen

Yeah, the hospitalizations rising is troubling, but also expected, to some extent. It’ll be interesting to see where these hospitalizations are occurring and what the affected age groups are. Might be an access/acceptance issue. And also we will see how much oomph this wave has. Hopefully not much.

Thread suggests low vaccination rates in at-risk communities - would be good to see how these hospitalizations correspond. Hopefully someone will do the leg work.

Need to keep vaccinating!

 

[madodel]

Herd immunity could come when we vaccinate children too, Fauci says

He estimates that anywhere between 70% and 85% of the population would need to be vaccinated or otherwise immune to the virus to get to the point of herd immunity. "He said when high school students are vaccinated, the US might reach herd immunity."

 

[scottf200]

twitter. com/EricTopol/status/1372905849773981699
Eric Topol @EricTopol
Vaccination isn't enough to prevent a surge.
Look at Chile, one of top 3 in the world now for vaccination per capita
@OurWorldInData

 

[JRP3]

Vaccination isn't enough to prevent a surge.

I'd say more accurately that just recently hitting 14% vaccination isn't enough to prevent a surge.

 

[bkp_duke]

Nearly Half of Frontline Healthcare Workers Not Vaccinated: Survey

www.medscape.com

These people should be thankful I'm not in Hospital Administration . . . COVID-19 vaccination would be a job requirement.

Morons, absolute dumbasses.

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

These people should be thankful I'm not in Hospital Administration . . . COVID-19 vaccination would be a job requirement.

Morons, absolute dumbasses.

This annoys me tremendously because I'm having to enter medical facilities these days to get some treatment for my shoulder. It should be a nearly perfectly safe environment at this point (patients are kept well isolated from one another), but it sounds like it's not.

Seems like the third/fourth surge is just beginning. It seems to be coming perhaps a week later than predicted by models (though that could be due to the models providing day of symptoms and the surge being the day of report).

We'll see how bad it is (I expect we'll remain below 100k for the 7-day average, which is quite high but depends on the age distribution). I'm still optimistic that in many states it's going to end up being very mild due to immunity from infection and vaccination. Just have to keep a close eye on those hospitalizations as the cases spike. I expect the surge will be largely cut off and brought to a halt by late April, regardless. At that point there should be just too much immunity to support a massive outbreak.

It's bad news for school reopening, of course. We really want minimal community spread and very low baseline levels for that to avoid having children killing their parents with the virus. The resumption of spread is not going to make successful reopening easier. Still no talk of rapid tests.

 

[madodel]

Nearly Half of Frontline Healthcare Workers Not Vaccinated: Survey

www.medscape.com

These people should be thankful I'm not in Hospital Administration . . . COVID-19 vaccination would be a job requirement.

Morons, absolute dumbasses.

My wife says that just about everyone of her office staff has gotten vaccinated, but the hospital employees are only about half vaccinated. That seems assbackwards to me as the hospital staff should have seen or talked to people who saw what COVID can do to people. Though the office staff sees the longhaulers so maybe that worries them. As soon as I qualify I will get vaccinated. My county is one of the worse for percent vaccinated in the state of Pennsylvania which is pretty pisspoor overall. Did I mention that our county arranged for prison guards to get vaccinated and only 20% did? What is wrong with these people?

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

Seems like the third/fourth surge is just beginning.

Silver lining here is that it should help ongoing vaccine trials go faster.

 

[JRP3]

Did I mention that our county arranged for prison guards to get vaccinated and only 20% did? What is wrong with these people?

Ideology. It's no secret who is most likely to refuse covid vaccinations.

 

[TespaceX]

Taking a very casual look at the vaccination and daily case numbers, it seems like many states that are doing better than the average with vaccinations are actually the ones seeing an increase in cases recently. Could be a coincidence, but I feel like it’s the vaccinations causing populations to act as if life can now be back to normal. Or, maybe these states have opened things up earlier coinciding with higher vaccination rates.

We’ll see what happens in CA as we’re a little below average in terms of % population vaccinated and the state is opening everything up.

 

[SMAlset]

So many covid stories that break your heart reading. This guy, Kent Taylor CEO of Texas Roadhouse Restaurants, sounded like the gem of the earth. Even gave his employees his salary from March 2020 thru January 2021 to keep them afloat during this hardship. He caught covid and suffered from bad post-covid symptoms including severe tinnitus (ringing in the ears). Lost his battle at only age 65 from suicide. This disease affects so many people in different ways.

Can’t comprehend why anyone would want to roll the dice and be at higher risk of getting it for lack of mask wearing, social distancing and not getting vaccinated. As far as it being fake news—the whole world is experiencing it so come on. More countries headed into next wave now with these variants, and with relaxed socializing levels, Spring Break and Easter/Passover coming up with friends and family I expect well be experiencing more of the same.

Texas Roadhouse CEO Kent Taylor, Who Gave Away Salary to Help Employees During Pandemic, Dies at 65

Texas Roadhouse CEO and founder Kent Taylor has died, the company confirmed on Thursday

people.com

Family of Texas Roadhouse founder/CEO Kent Taylor releases more information about his death

The family said Friday that Taylor took his own life after a battle with post-COVID-related symptoms.

www.wsaz.com

With 630 restaurant locations in 49 states chances are good many of you may have eaten in one of his.

 

[NikolaACDC]

Taking a very casual look at the vaccination and daily case numbers, it seems like many states that are doing better than the average with vaccinations are actually the ones seeing an increase in cases recently. Could be a coincidence, but I feel like it’s the vaccinations causing populations to act as if life can now be back to normal. Or, maybe these states have opened things up earlier coinciding with higher vaccination rates.

We’ll see what happens in CA as we’re a little below average in terms of % population vaccinated and the state is opening everything up.

Could have to do with
Risk compensation - Wikipedia

People getting careless because 'everything's OK now'.

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

Taking a very casual look at the vaccination and daily case numbers, it seems like many states that are doing better than the average with vaccinations are actually the ones seeing an increase in cases recently.

No idea is this is true (have not been looking at the data closely lately).

It’s also possible that those states with the best numbers overall are doing the least well in terms of targeting of their vaccinations. If they are underperforming on vaccinations of the elderly or communities with a high social vulnerability index, while getting very high overall numbers due to an “easy” rollout, you would expect outbreaks to be more severe in those states with the most vaccinations, due to this reason. Outbreaks are very much non-homogenous, so it makes sense to get the communities most likely to have an outbreak vaccinated at high levels, early.

Just speculation though, based on zero analysis.

 

[bkp_duke]

This annoys me tremendously because I'm having to enter medical facilities these days to get some treatment for my shoulder. It should be a nearly perfectly safe environment at this point (patients are kept well isolated from one another), but it sounds like it's not.

Seems like the third/fourth surge is just beginning. It seems to be coming perhaps a week later than predicted by models (though that could be due to the models providing day of symptoms and the surge being the day of report).

We'll see how bad it is (I expect we'll remain below 100k for the 7-day average, which is quite high but depends on the age distribution). I'm still optimistic that in many states it's going to end up being very mild due to immunity from infection and vaccination. Just have to keep a close eye on those hospitalizations as the cases spike. I expect the surge will be largely cut off and brought to a halt by late April, regardless. At that point there should be just too much immunity to support a massive outbreak.

It's bad news for school reopening, of course. We really want minimal community spread and very low baseline levels for that to avoid having children killing their parents with the virus. The resumption of spread is not going to make successful reopening easier. Still no talk of rapid tests.

It's actually the opposite. Since the beginning of the pandemic, 1 in 6 infections have been healthcare workers or their families. Assuming they know how to use PPE (most do), this really speaks volumes of just how infectious this virus is.

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

It's actually the opposite. Since the beginning of the pandemic, 1 in 6 infections have been healthcare workers or their families. Assuming they know how to use PPE (most do), this really speaks volumes of just how infectious this virus is.

I am not sure what you are referring to being “the opposite”?

There are 20 million healthcare workers in the United States, 1 in 17 people, as far as I can tell (I just look up the numbers; and I do not know whether your infections number applies to that same population definition). So 1 in 6 infections sounds to me about right, given their very high exposure level, and suggests that PPE and their procedures work quite well to reduce spread. (I’d expect ~1 in 2 infections to be in healthcare workers if PPE did not work well, due to ~10x average exposure risk - not only do they get more exposure at work, their immediate community is more likely to be comprised of healthcare workers, and thus they have higher risk outside of work.)
It also means that states that do a good job of vaccinating these people will see a stronger than expected effect on infections since healthcare workers are one nexus of infection, due primarily to their exposure.

 

[Jeff N]

There have been more updates to the Helix sequencing data (they seem to happen at least once a week).

California’s 5-day average is “only” 29% but the ramp looks to hit 40% very soon. Although not shown here, Minnesota (where overall cases are rising) is above 40% and looks to be not far behind Michigan (where overall cases are now rising sharply).

Tableau Public

public.tableau.com

 

[JRP3]

Looks as if Cali is grabbing all the vaccines

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

Looks as if Cali is grabbing all the vaccines

View attachment 646262

California has had 12% of the vaccine supply delivered to them. They have 12% of the US population. (I don't know when the gov't will change the per-capita allocation - probably not for a while though.)

It looks to me like they are making up for their early lag in administration of vaccines now, but they're still behind many states, according to the data published (but I am not sure how accurate the counts are).

Just speculation though, based on zero analysis.

Most likely the differences in new cases from state to state have to do with the B.1.1.7 prevalence, less to do with vaccination levels. But again, pure speculation, haven't looked at any data. Multiple factors at play, plus probably some luck.