dhanson865
Well-Known Member
If you think no one was ringing alarm bells about covid in Summer 2021 then you have been living in a cave.
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Coronavirus
- Thread starter Wenche
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Daniel in SD
(supervised)
Seems like it will be exactly the same as Australia. The mRNA vaccines will work very well to prevent hospitalizations and deaths. Eyeballing the slopes on log scale the reproduction rate looks about the same to me.I think New Zealand will be one of the most interesting places to watch now that it is spreading there. Close to 80% vax rate (95% of people over 12 are vaccinated) before opening things up if what I'm reading is correct. Cases are skyrocketing, of course, even with the high vax rate because the vaccine protection wanes over time and does not eliminate (though does reduce) your chances of catching and spreading it... particularly with omicron which is more able to infect vaccinated individuals and is wildly contagious.
COVID Vaccine Effectiveness
Hopefully they will be able to avoid the worst of the hospitalizations and deaths by waiting as long as they did, learning from other countries, and getting out so many vaccines ahead of time. I guess we'll find out in the next month or so. This graph below of cases in New Zealand is crazy
According to this model they now have the highest Reff of all 180 countries they analyzed.
COVID-19 Model
I have to give them credit they really kept the numbers down up until now... but I suppose this was going to have to happen at some point unless they wanted to live under lockdowns, border restrictions, and quarantines forever. Some experts think that half the country could become infected in the next 3 months.
Much more interesting is what the heck China is planning on doing. It seems like relying on NPIs and substandard vaccines is a very risky strategy as evidenced by what's happening in Hong Kong.
Australian comparison does look promising and makes sense intuitively. It will be a great example for touting the effectiveness of vaccination if their surge in cases doesn't result in widespread hospitalization and death... especially since there is virtually zero "natural immunity" present from prior waves for people to point to as a possible reason.
If I trusted the data/information coming out of China I'd be more interested. But I agree, their situation is not ideal.
Daniel in SD
(supervised)
There is no significant difference in the amount of infection acquired immunity in Australia and New Zealand and they have the same vaccination rate. The COVID cranks will point to some mysterious coronavirus that only spread in Asia giving them all natural immunity. haha.
I've never understood the idea that China would be able to cover up what's going on Hong Kong right now. It seems like any attempt to suppress news about an outbreak would make the outbreak even worse and harder to suppress. Like Elon, I trust the numbers coming out of China.
It's really not a mystery how China has been able to maintain #covidzero so far. In related news my Chinese employer wants me to go to China this spring which would mean 3 weeks in a quarantine hotel room (not going to happen!).An article on what's going on with China and mRNA vaccines; they seem to be holding off until they can produce one domestically. Seems like a very risky strategy.
These Vaccines Have Been Embraced by the World. Why Not in China?
Beijing once said it had two mRNA shots within reach and ready for approval — one homemade and one produced by a foreign company. Today, neither is available.
Based on the graph you are showing Australia isn't done yet either. But sure, they will both be great case studies of island nations that shut down their borders and kept the virus out until vaccines were widely available.There is no significant difference in the amount of infection acquired immunity in Australia and New Zealand and they have the same vaccination rate. The COVID cranks will point to some mysterious coronavirus that only spread in Asia giving them all natural immunity. haha.
I've never understood the idea that China would be able to cover up what's going on Hong Kong right now. It seems like any attempt to suppress news about an outbreak would make the outbreak even worse and harder to suppress. Like Elon, I trust the numbers coming out of China.
An article on what's going on with China and mRNA vaccines; they seem to be holding off until they can produce one domestically. Seems like a very risky strategy.
These Vaccines Have Been Embraced by the World. Why Not in China?
Beijing once said it had two mRNA shots within reach and ready for approval — one homemade and one produced by a foreign company. Today, neither is available.www.nytimes.com
Hong Kong is a different story than mainland China IMO, I don't expect them to be able to cover that up.
While I agree that they have implemented harsh restrictions and widespread surveillance which have likely kept numbers pretty low I just can't believe their early claims from the initial outbreak and their lack of cooperation in investigating the origin of the virus shows me that they have no interest in being transparent. So I assume they will lie in any situation where they think it will make them look better and they can get away with it. That's just my opinion though I don't have any first hand knowledge.
NYtimes is all pay walled and I am not inclined to pay for it. I am sure the article is interesting but I won't be able to read it.
AlanSubie4Life
Efficiency Obsessed Member
Omicron appears to have about 3x lower IFR (I think in an immune naive individual, though it is hard to exactly quantify) - which, to be clear, is an extremely virulent, dangerous disease at that level, especially when combined with its ability to spread rapidly in naive populations.
But when combined with vaccination, IFR is even lower, and importantly hospital burdens are lower.
It’s all about hospital burdens and not getting to a point where hospital burdens could be a problem. It always has been. Right now in most places (not all) there is no issue. And trajectories are very good. It’s unlikely we’ll see explosive growth from Omicron again for a while. So, we relax restrictions.
I’d love to see COVID zero, but I am also a pragmatist.
At current disease levels, which are dropping quickly for the moment, the hospital burden is on target to be very low and relatively normal healthcare access can resume.
That being said, we have a serious problem in this country with older individuals not being sufficiently vaccinated. Have to continue to figure out how to convince people to lower their risk tolerance.
So given the reduced virulence, I would say we’re in a similar position to where we were at that minimum in 2021 - or at least we will be in a couple weeks even with restrictions lifted. Obviously everything is local and there are areas where this is not the case.
Am I concerned that eliminating restrictions could result in resurgence? Sure. But I cannot be sure this will happen, so I think we have to follow what we know and follow the data, which suggest disease levels are still dropping, even though people have already relaxed restrictions a few weeks ago.
Hopefully in a few weeks we’ll see deaths drop below 500 a day. And maybe we can hope for below 250 a day or even lower at some point in the not-so-distant future. For that we’ll need to get more old people vaccinated and boosted though.
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AlanSubie4Life
Efficiency Obsessed Member
Sure, this is probably true for China.
But in this case, specifically what would they be lying about? It’s very hard to see how there’s anything they could be lying about which would be relevant to this conversation about their historical and current COVID case load and the possibility of future outbreaks.
It’ll be interesting to see how it turns out there. It would be a shame if they could not avoid a major mortality surge simply because they weren’t willing to get people effectively vaccinated (whatever that takes - more doses of the same or an mRNA or whatever). It’s also going to become increasingly costly to them if the rest of the world is actually able to return to normal travel without quarantines without provoking major surges (TBD). They will have to do something and probably bite the bullet on the infection surge like everyone else - they just have to make sure everyone is properly protected first. I don’t see how they avoid this unless COVID actually disappears, which seems unlikely.
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While I agree that this has and is the current goal, I still have to wonder if we aren't paying enough attention to long COVID.
There seems to be enough long COVID cases that while the short-term effects of maintaining reasonable hospital capacity has the trade off of significantly lowering the quality and length of life for a significant portion of the population.
One area that strikes me as being under appreciated is what a modest effort in improve building ventilation and filtration could do, not just for COVID, but all airborne diseases.
AlanSubie4Life
Efficiency Obsessed Member
I definitely think efforts to improve ventilation would be well worth it.
Regarding long COVID, I'm not that concerned about it for vaccinated individuals (I think everyone should get vaccinated, otherwise you're definitely at elevated risk). It likely exists for vaccinated folks too, but at much lower rates (this is a guess - the data seem not very clear on this yet).
Long COVID in general puts the spotlight on long-term sequelae of viral disease, which are not limited to COVID and may not be any more rare for other viruses than they are for COVID (assuming you're vaccinated - the thing that makes SARS-CoV-2 different initially was the novel nature and acquiring it as an adult, which sets it apart from other illnesses - but the vaccine should level that field a bit - though it's possible there are inherent features of SARS-CoV-2 which lead to higher rates of long-term effects...all very unclear).
It's very unclear to me what the rate of long COVID is for vaccinated individuals, and it's definitely of interest to me. I'm continuing to be careful since I definitely don't want to be infected (with this being one of the primary reasons).
Hopefully the long-term impact of long COVID on the population at large ends up being less catastrophic than some people currently think it will be.
I think data-based education on the risks of long COVID should be part of the messaging when it comes to encouraging people to continue to be careful, even if there are no mandates or actual restrictions. I think people should be educated about the risks, and educated on the extremely high efficacy of N95 masks, and the benefits of ventilation, so that people know that it is relatively easy to prevent infection if they so desire. There's not much point in harping on people about dangers if there's nothing they can do about it. But the fact is there's a lot people can do.
JRP3
Hyperactive Member
As someone who hasn't been in public places for months I may be akin to a cave dweller but at the end of July 2021 I took my first vacation in 2 years and met family at the Jersey shore for a week. NJ was hit hard early in the pandemic and took it seriously but by then you'd never know it from all the unmasked people crowding bars and restaurants. Any concern was not widespread at that point.
Numbers are currently trending down, obviously if we see a reversal we'll have to reassess but as we head into spring and then summer I think the risk continues to drop.
dhanson865
Well-Known Member
Idiots not wearing masks weren't the ones sounding the alarm bells. What was the CDC saying at that time? What were they saying at end of July when cases were 4x higher than the minimum? I'll give you a clue, they weren't telling people to take off their mask.
"On July 27th, CDC updated its guidance for fully vaccinated people, recommending that everyone wear a mask in indoor public settings in areas of substantial and high transmission, regardless of vaccination status. This decision was made with the data and science available to CDC at the time, including a valuable public health partnership resulting in rapid receipt and review of unpublished data."
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JRP3
Hyperactive Member
And now with dropping case levels, a more mild variant, and higher vaccine levels, they are.
EVNow
Well-Known Member
And more importantly dropping approval ratings, inflation and upcoming mid-term elections
I think CDC and others were asleep. What was happening in India wasn’t going to stay there. There were no new measures to deal with delta.
EVNow
Well-Known Member
When historians write the story of Covid, they will note how many thousands of lives were saved in NZ/Aus and even China …. compared to US.
And life in NZ/Aus has also been much better with few restrictions.
scottf200
Well-Known Member
AlanSubie4Life
Efficiency Obsessed Member
For sure. If they plateau and don't keep dropping for another 3-4 weeks, I think definitely reassessment is required. For sure, I'm not advocating proceeding as though things are done. It's just time to take a breather and regather and replenish so that any future waves can actually be intercepted early (something we've never done before and I'm not convinced will happen in future even though it's possible now).
We'll see. I certainly hope we can avoid a resurgence that soon, though one seems inevitable eventually.
I just imagine they have undercounted their deaths quite a bit in the official reporting. I am just replying to the other guy saying that the Chinese situation will be interesting to watch. It’s only interesting to me if I believe the numbers. At the end of the day it’s not that important though I’m just about over worrying about COVID unless some wicked new variant comes along… I’m not gonna be sitting around staring at the data like I did 3 months ago.
Daniel in SD
(supervised)
It's good we have the possibility of nuclear war to distract us now.
Seriously though it looks like we're going to have a nice spring and summer (knock on wood).
AlanSubie4Life
Efficiency Obsessed Member
I’m sure some, but primarily due to the timing of their initial surge when they could not count. I’d guess they are off by several thousand. I definitely think we have undercounted more in absolute terms in the US, for example, probably by over an order of magnitude.
Even a factor of 10 undercount would put them in a position with basically no deaths. And even that level of undercount would be very very hard to hide. Hiding the problem only makes it worse, as has been pointed out here many times. Unlike many of the things that China suppresses, suppressing COVID info is counter to their goals.
So discussing how “much” China has hidden seems largely irrelevant to the discussion about China being interesting in the near future in terms of how they will take an off ramp. It will definitely be interesting since they definitely have not had a lot of COVID in their country (yet), since there is no way for them to hide it. They’re not a 3rd world country where no one has any internet and there is no scrutiny (like in some places in Africa), where deaths ARE heavily undercounted (but even in those places we see it in excess mortality to some extent).
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