Coronavirus

[Daniel in SD]

There are 50 states plus DC. That means that the 26th ranked state would be in the middle in terms of age adjusted death rate. Florida is ranked 31st which puts them in the half of states that are better than median.

Age adjusted COVID death rate

Not great but better than most. Yet despite them being ranked in the better half of states they are the subject of the vast majority of COVID policy criticism in this thread (IMO for reasons I can’t talk about due to forum rules).

That is the only reason I’m talking about Florida. Because they get criticized like they have the age adjusted death rate of Texas or New York but are actually a lot closer to Connecticut or California. Plus they did it without mandates, lockdowns, school closures, or mass firings.

So every time I post this stuff to defend Florida against misinformation it turns into a circus and everyone forgets what was actually being talked about. Perhaps I’m just wasting my time.

I want a ranking in terms of Quality Adjusted Life Years lost! Maybe older people in Florida aren't as frail?
What Florida really deserves criticism for is having almost half their deaths occur after vaccines were widely available.

Honestly though it seems like the only thing that makes a difference is:

1. Really trying to avoid getting COVID
2. Being able to work from home
3. Vaccination (would be number one but wasn't available for awhile)
4. Family and friends all meeting criteria 1-3

It's not clear how much government policy short of real lockdowns and vaccine mandates makes much of a difference.

 

[SO16]

There are 50 states plus DC. That means that the 26th ranked state would be in the middle in terms of age adjusted death rate. Florida is ranked 31st which puts them in the half of states that are better than median.

Age adjusted COVID death rate

Not great but better than most. Yet despite them being ranked in the better half of states they are the subject of the vast majority of COVID policy criticism in this thread (IMO for reasons I can’t talk about due to forum rules).

That is the only reason I’m talking about Florida. Because they get criticized like they have the age adjusted death rate of Texas or New York but are actually a lot closer to Connecticut or California. Plus they did it without mandates, lockdowns, school closures, or mass firings.

So every time I post this stuff to defend Florida against misinformation it turns into a circus and everyone forgets what was actually being talked about. Perhaps I’m just wasting my time.

I’ll be curious to see how this pans out after another couple weeks. The deaths per 100k updated on the site I provided for Florida is at 302 as of 1/31/2022 vs yours that shows 286 as of 1/26/2022 (unadjusted for age). Maybe it won’t adjust the ranking.

 

[father_of_6]

”How do you determine who is healthy or not , since many people showed no symptoms?“

Pardon my ignorance, but isn't this easy? If you don't have symptoms, then you're healthy. Virus or not.

No symptoms means your immune system has it under control. Which means you're healthy.

Now take the healthy person, tell them the sky is falling. Take away their job. Force their kids out of school. Panic their neighbors and cause a run on grocery stores. Open the treasury and start handing out all the money as if we'd converted to socialism overnight and without a vote. Cancel their social network, friends, family, church. Limit their oxygen while in public, and increase CO2 intake.

Now you have a sick person.

 

[dhanson865]

hope this lightens the mood, this was from voicemail to text on Tmobile (from reddit, not my VM)

obviously some words didn't get transcribed correctly.

 

[Doggydogworld]

I believe we are 18th in fatality per million, not per case.. I have to look up the statistics to make sure..

Florida is ~25th in deaths per case, almost exactly mid-pack. I recall a while back FL did not include deaths from non-residents (e.g. snowbirds) in their data. I assume they include non-residents in their case numbers, this could obviously throw the death/case ratio out of whack.

Florida death rates look very suspect - compared to all other states, including Texas & California. It is showing 15 per day compared to 193 for Texas (with similar 65k peak cases, currently about 30k).

A while back Florida switched to reporting deaths using an epi curve. So it always looks like deaths peaked about a month ago then dropped precipitously. Due to this you can't compare FL's curve to other states.

 

[scottf200]

#LongCOVID

1 of 2

https://twitter.com/x/status/1489006828533043202

2 of 2

https://twitter.com/x/status/1483824487284023297

 

[wdolson]

Apologize if this has already been posted and discussed but kind of goes along with my above CBS News article on long covid workers out of the workforce. Researchers in England using xenon have found in their small study that long haulers are shown to have lung damage that doesn’t get picked up on traditional x-rays and goes to explain why they remain so tired and out of breath. The lung scan is quite an eye-opener. Larger studies are planned. But for anyone thinking covid isn’t so bad and no big deal, they should read about this if they are trying to get better informed before vaccinating. Anyone with bad asthma or COPD will tell you not being able to get enough air is a horrible thing to live with. Long haulers have no idea when or if they will fully recover.

Lung abnormalities found in long COVID patients with breathlessness

Researchers have identified abnormalities in the lungs of long COVID patients with breathlessness but whose other tests are normal.

www.nihr.ac.uk

I've done neurofeedback, and my partner has done more than I have. She's working with a therapist who is a major brain geek. He's convinced long COVID is a form of brain damage. He's gotten to a point where he can spot it on a brain map. He's been working on protocols to reverse it, but it's a slow process.

He was essentially the first neurofeedback therapist in the world to look at long COVID. He started seeing patterns in brain maps and went on practitioner forums and nobody else had seen it. That was about a year ago. More people are looking at it now.

#LongCOVID

1 of 2

https://twitter.com/x/status/1489006828533043202

2 of 2

https://twitter.com/x/status/1483824487284023297

My partner wanted to be a doctor, but couldn't get through the math requirements in pre-med. She does routinely read medical journal articles for whatever health thing interests her at the moment. She's been research long COVID (because she's had a mildish case since 2020). She's been frustrated because there isn't much research out there yet, but she said that several articles seemed to point to long COVID being an auto-immune disease. Essentially the immune system gets so cranked up it keeps attacking even after COVID has left the system. With no virus around, it attacks the body.

That makes sense that people who had mild cases of COVID are more likely to develop long COVID. The immune system fought off the virus with little trouble, but it recognized the seriousness of the threat and went on hyper-alert.

I didn't quote the article from Tuesday that a lot of people who dropped out of the workforce have long COVID. I'm not surprised that has happened.

People keep talking about "getting back to normal". COVID has permanently changed society. Omicron is not as dangerous as previous variants of COVID, but compared to the endemic diseases we deal with in a before times year, it is still dangerous. We don't know yet if the risk of long COVID is diminished, and people are getting sicker with Omicron than they typically do with cold or flu.

If Omicron becomes the long term variant, or something similar does, we will be seeing higher work and school absences from illness. Some people are still getting pretty ill with Omicron. The net drag on the economy from people who could be permanently disabled from long COVID will be with us the rest of our lives.

We also have a big mental health burden from this pandemic. People lost people they were close to. Some people dealt with the isolation fine, but others suffered badly. Parents had to deal with kids home all the time and a generation of kids just went through high weirdness during a very formative part of their lives. I also know people who tend towards anxiety who are still scared to death of COVID. In the US and I think many other countries alcohol consumption went up, there may be some substance abuse issues in the coming years.

I feel like I've been through a battle, everyone around me got wounded and I got away with a few scratches. My work didn't change, home life didn't change, shopping got weird, but I was fortunate not to lose anyone close from the virus. Though my father did die of natural causes during the pandemic. I do know people who lost people close and they are hurting. Some others who lost loved ones to natural causes feel they weren't able to have the proper funeral and feel like there wasn't closure.

We have a lot of damage from this. "Getting back to normal" is going to be like Charlie Brown, Lucy, and the football. We need to find a new normal.

 

[FloridaSun]

Florida is ~25th in deaths per case, almost exactly mid-pack. I recall a while back FL did not include deaths from non-residents (e.g. snowbirds) in their data. I assume they include non-residents in their case numbers, this could obviously throw the death/case ratio out of whack.


A while back Florida switched to reporting deaths using an epi curve. So it always looks like deaths peaked about a month ago then dropped precipitously. Due to this you can't compare FL's curve to other states.

Actually, reporting guidlines require to report the infected based on state of residence. This is not just in Florida.
Death reporting I believe happens a few days later in Florida, so the curve always seems to be dropping even if it isn't. The way Florida reports those is different while the way non residents are counted is the same everywhere.

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

If Omicron becomes the long term variant, or something similar does, we will be seeing higher work and school absences from illness

I think this is not clear. If there are not substantial variants after Omicron (unlikely, but let’s go with that), I think there is not a lot of evidence that Omicron can escape Omicron-induced immunity. There is some data showing that infection-acquired immunity is weak, but it may be that a couple more infections resolve that in the short term. We just don’t know yet whether the virus is now less immunogenic or whether there is something else going on here.

I would guess that if the virus does not change, it will have minimal surge potential in future.

This is not just in Florida.

Right, it is not, but it might have outsize impact in states where there are large transient/migratory populations. In any case, clearly it would be interesting to know how many people died in a given state, as that seems like the most relevant metric. Unfortunately we just don’t know, since that data is not reported, and it is going to take a couple years to untangle, I suspect.

 

[FloridaSun]

I think this is not clear. If there are not substantial variants after Omicron (unlikely, but let’s go with that), I think there is not a lot of evidence that Omicron can escape Omicron-induced immunity. There is some data showing that infection-acquired immunity is weak, but it may be that a couple more infections resolve that in the short term. We just don’t know yet whether the virus is now less immunogenic or whether there is something else going on here.

I would guess that if the virus does not change, it will have minimal surge potential in future.


Right, it is not, but it might have outsize impact in states where there are large transient/migratory populations. In any case, clearly it would be interesting to know how many people died in a given state, as that seems like the most relevant metric. Unfortunately we just don’t know, since that data is not reported, and it is going to take a couple years to untangle, I suspect.

Not sure if statistics are available based on the state that the cases/deaths happened and not based on state of residence. I remember that back in the beginning of the pandemic, the first Florida COVID deaths in Florida were California residents, so their deaths were reported as California COVID deaths.. So, this has been reported that way since the beginning and I'm not sure if there is a way to get the actual data based on infection and death location.

 

[madodel]

Twitter thread by Eric Feigl-Ding on comparison of COVID Omicron versus Omicron variant BA.2 showing a higher attack rate for BA.2 in Britain.


New Flag of United Kingdom data show the Omicron subvariant BA.2 has a ~30% higher Upwards arrowattack rate of #BA2 in households than old Omicron. BA2’s growth rate is also quite fast Upwards arrow125% per week! It will overtake old BA1 Omicron & become dominant soon. Stay vigilant.

 

[wdolson]

I think this is not clear. If there are not substantial variants after Omicron (unlikely, but let’s go with that), I think there is not a lot of evidence that Omicron can escape Omicron-induced immunity. There is some data showing that infection-acquired immunity is weak, but it may be that a couple more infections resolve that in the short term. We just don’t know yet whether the virus is now less immunogenic or whether there is something else going on here.

I would guess that if the virus does not change, it will have minimal surge potential in future.

It appears immunity from infection fades, maybe faster for some people than others. That's common for respiratory illnesses. Rinoviruses have very fast immunity fade, which is why you can get more than one cold in a year.

Even if Omicron immunity lasted a year for most people, that would mean a seasonal surge of cases at least once a year. I think that's what endemic COVID is going to look like. Hopefully the milder COIVD won't cause long COVID. If it doesn't, you'll just see high work and school absence rates when the surge passes through. It won't kill that many people, and won't have a big impact on hospitals, but the economy will take a hit from all the absences.

Twitter thread by Eric Feigl-Ding on comparison of COVID Omicron versus Omicron variant BA.2 showing a higher attack rate for BA.2 in Britain.


New Flag of United Kingdom data show the Omicron subvariant BA.2 has a ~30% higher Upwards arrowattack rate of #BA2 in households than old Omicron. BA2’s growth rate is also quite fast Upwards arrow125% per week! It will overtake old BA1 Omicron & become dominant soon. Stay vigilant.

i was hoping that an R0 in the measles range was the highest a virus could do, but BA2 might be more infectious than measles. If COVID is continuing to mutate into more and more contagious variants to out compete previous variants, where does it end?

 

[Double-O]

Lockdowns only reduced COVID deaths by 0.2 per cent, Johns Hopkins study finds

'We find no evidence that lockdowns, school closures, border closures, and limiting gatherings have had a noticeable effect on COVID-19 mortality'

nationalpost.com

Study out of johns hopkins showing lockdowns basically had no positive impact. Sure did do a lot of harm to the economy and kids though.

 

[Daniel in SD]

Lockdowns only reduced COVID deaths by 0.2 per cent, Johns Hopkins study finds

'We find no evidence that lockdowns, school closures, border closures, and limiting gatherings have had a noticeable effect on COVID-19 mortality'

nationalpost.com

Study out of johns hopkins showing lockdowns basically had no positive impact. Sure did do a lot of harm to the economy and kids though.

It's a meta study. They just picked a bunch of other papers and averaged them together.

What I'd like to see is for someone to create a model that explains why NPIs do and don't work. There have been vastly different outcomes in different countries and it would be interesting to know why. I think a lot of it is there's a big disconnect between a country's rules (what these papers always seem to use) and what people actually do. California would probably be classified as having a lockdown last winter (only essential travel allowed) but I have eyes and I can see that's not what actually happened.

 

[FloridaSun]

Lockdowns only reduced COVID deaths by 0.2 per cent, Johns Hopkins study finds

'We find no evidence that lockdowns, school closures, border closures, and limiting gatherings have had a noticeable effect on COVID-19 mortality'

nationalpost.com

Study out of johns hopkins showing lockdowns basically had no positive impact. Sure did do a lot of harm to the economy and kids though.

The psychological impact of lockdowns has been huge! I have friends in the mental health field who confirmed this..

 

[SDRick]

That makes sense that people who had mild cases of COVID are more likely to develop long COVID. The immune system fought off the virus with little trouble, but it recognized the seriousness of the threat and went on hyper-alert.

I am not sure if I understand this part. Those who are vaccinated tend to have milder cases. So does this mean the vaccinated are more likely to develop long COVID?

 

[Daniel in SD]

The psychological impact of lockdowns has been huge! I have friends in the mental health field who confirmed this..

How do you separate that from the psychological impact of the pandemic itself?
I always struggle when people refer to lockdowns because what comes to mind is restrictions to movement. But sometimes people seem to be referring to everything pandemic related, sometimes even including the knowledge that there is a pandemic happening! (a lockdown of the mind?)

Anyway, quantifying mental health would be interesting and comparing it in different states with different NPIs.
I'm in full agreement that we should have never shutdown schools unless we were actually serious about #zerocovid (which in hindsight I don't think the US had a snowball's chance in hell of pulling off).

 

[wdolson]

I am not sure if I understand this part. Those who are vaccinated tend to have milder cases. So does this mean the vaccinated are more likely to develop long COVID?

I don't think anybody knows. Most of the data we do have on long COVID is from people who had COVID before the vaccines were available. It's also possible that long COVID is more common phenomenon with COVID original and the variants less so.

 

[bhzmark]

A while back Florida switched to reporting deaths using an epi curve. So it always looks like deaths peaked about a month ago then dropped precipitously. Due to this you can't compare FL's curve to other states.

Citations for this sort of claim would be helpful. Curious I found this: Opinion | There’s No Mystery in Florida’s Covid Reporting

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

Citations for this sort of claim would be helpful. Curious I found this:

It sounds like you found one article supporting @Doggydogworld‘s claim.

You can also see it from the curve that @Doggydogworld’s claim was correct - it is always sloping to zero at the end and it shows none of the reporting bumps (holidays, weekly patterns, etc.) that other states’ curves have (though other states often have epi data available if you look). The best epi curves are the rainbow color-coded ones though. Reduces confusion and gives an idea of the current rate of change which is normally difficult to see in an epi curve (or at least counterintuitive). (In an epi curve, the steeper the decline in daily deaths, the more deaths are currently occurring on a daily basis - this is confusing to people, though it is quite evident when you think about it.). Steepest decline = maximum death rate, roughly (this is not exactly true, and it depends on reporting patterns).