Coronavirus

[Tiger]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1240754657263144960

The "trend" on March 19th 2020. Of course Elon did not explain how he came up with his estimate. I don't remember if he was following a bunch of COVID deniers by mid March.

Elon has admitted he's sometimes off on the timing. I think his COVID estimate is right on par with FSD, Semi, Cybertruck, Plaid+, and 2020Roadster ... let's give him another break, maybe he can make it up with something ...

 

[JRP3]

Locally we are seeing a drop in cases now that Cornell is on spring break. Ithaca College is back from spring break and has seen a small rise in cases but because of the smaller number of students it hasn't noticeably impacted overall case numbers. What happens when Cornell comes back will be interesting but I don't expect it to be good.

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

BA.2 very recently became dominant in the US. Once that happens the increase in R starts to be seen. Basically it a sum of a R <1 for BA.1 and R > 1 for BA.2.

BA.2 has been dominant for weeks now in some parts of the US, and while those places have seen case growth, it simply has not been as explosive as has been seen in Europe. And hospitalizations continue to decline.

So, it’s a mystery! Maybe things will still explode.

My guess, as you know, is that we’ve simply had far, far more infection than Europe and the UK have had over the last couple years (we have not had restrictions of any significance since November 2020 or so, and that really likely made some difference). Perhaps prior immunity is going to wear off…but then we might not see it in the case numbers (no one testing) or hospitalization numbers (less likely to end up in the hospital with a second infection especially if vaccinated as well).

Wastewater isn’t even that remarkable- up 1000% in 10% of locations (mostly NE), but this is from low baselines and it is noisy, so would need a closer look to see whether anywhere is actually seeing explosive growth. Notably quite a few high numbers in Maine which partially dodged massive Omicron infection.

Anyway, it is weird (if you look at vaccination rates and cases only), and I think if we were going to see huge surges like UK or Europe in the short term we would be well into it now. So we’ll likely see a bump but seems like it will be substantially smaller, at least for the next few months. Maybe I’ll be wrong. No one seems to know what is likely going to happen or why.

 

[Jeff N]

My guess, as you know, is that we’ve simply had far, far more infection than Europe and the UK have had over the last couple years (we have not had restrictions of any significance since November 2020 or so, and that really likely made some difference).

I keep seeing people say this but it’s not the impression I have. What I’ve seen is that Europe had huge raging numbers of infections for months (years, really) and their mitigation and behavior isn’t noticeably different from ours. Their vaccination numbers tend to be better although more of their vaccinations were with lower performing vaccines early on.

I’d love to see some numbers to back up this sort of speculation. I’m too lazy to research it myself.

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

I keep seeing people say this but it’s not the impression I have. What I’ve seen is that Europe had huge raging numbers of infections for months (years, really) and their mitigation and behavior isn’t noticeably different from ours. Their vaccination numbers tend to be better although more of their vaccinations were with lower performing vaccines early on.

I’d love to see some numbers to back up this sort of speculation. I’m too lazy to research it myself.

Yeah me too. I think it is very hard to judge without being in Europe. My understanding is that many places in Europe actually had real restrictions (meaning, people took them seriously) for a while though. While we did not here, beyond some remote schooling and other minor alterations. Anyway it’s not about the restrictions - it’s about what people do.

I think it is all very confusing - I first became puzzled by this 4-5 weeks ago or so, as you know, as I posted.

As an example, take a look at this REACT data. And look at where prevalence ends up relative to the % BA.2 (right hand side). It just does not align with what is happening in the US. If we were seeing the same we’d have substantially higher case numbers and hospitalizations. R is only 1.1-1.2 so it doesn’t take much to kill this sort of wave though.

Maybe it is just enough seasonality and the more dispersed living we do here in the US which makes the difference, and not the level of immunity. I don’t know.

I guess if it is seasonality we should expect a surge in the South first? But if that doesn’t happen until May, it will be tough to separate the effect from waning immunity.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1511647049590231040

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

Latest thread from Trevor covering vaccine strategies: summary is he wants to see an Omicron-specific booster ASAP (given currently available information anyway - trial results may change this assessment). Not a sure thing, but the best bet for reducing mortality in future.

I might wait on my second booster for a few more months hoping something better comes along. Maybe extend it to 12 months.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1511871589184270337

 

[NikolaACDC]

Study out of Israel:
Protection by a Fourth Dose of BNT162b2 against Omicron in Israel | NEJM

"Conclusions
Rates of confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection and severe Covid-19 were lower after a fourth dose of BNT162b2 vaccine than after only three doses. Protection against confirmed infection appeared short-lived, whereas protection against severe illness did not wane during the study period."

and an article about it:
Protection against COVID-19 infection improves after fourth vaccine dose but wanes quickly: study

"A new study in Israel has found that the fourth dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine improves protection against infection and severe COVID-19; however, protection against confirmed infection appears to be short-lived.

The study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine on Tuesday, found that the effectiveness against COVID-19 infection in the fourth week after receipt of the fourth dose was lower when compared to protection after the third dose of the vaccine.

It added that protection against severe illness did not wane during the six weeks after the fourth dose was administered and found that the rate of confirmed infection in the fourth week after was lower than that in the group with three vaccine doses.
However, the study added that protection against infection waned in later weeks.

Israel was the first country to begin administering a fourth dose. The study, conducted by the Sheba Medical Center, included more than 1.25 million vaccinated people in Israel from Jan. 10 to March 2.

It included those who were 60 years of age or older and had received three doses of Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine at least four months before. It took place as the omicron variant led to a winter surge of coronavirus cases around the world."
______________________________

I'm hoping for boosters that target Omicron better.

 

[bhzmark]

It's unethical and misleading journalism to make the headlines

about this

protection against infection waned in later weeks.

instead of this huge benefit:

protection against severe illness did not wane during the six weeks after the fourth dose was administered

The end goal isn't to test negative on a test. The end goal is reduce deaths and disability. If the protection from the vaccine regarding whether you might test positive as infected in four weeks goes down, that is mostly irrelevant if while you are testing positive you are still protected against dying or needing to go to the hospital.

 

[Daniel in SD]

Shanghai widens COVID testing as other Chinese cities impose curbs

Shanghai on Friday announced a record 21,000 new cases and a third consecutive day of COVID testing as a lockdown of its 26 million people showed no sign of easing and other Chinese cities tightened curbs - even in places with no recent infections.

www.reuters.com

Of Shanghai's cases, just one is suffering severe symptoms and is under treatment, a health official said on Friday.

Now, this seems implausible given what we saw in Hong Kong. 130,000 cases and 1 severe case. 1 out 857 people has died in the Hong Kong Omicron wave, population fatality rate not case fatality rate.

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

Now, this seems implausible given what we saw in Hong Kong.

All very odd. NOW I think they might actually be hiding something. Either that or their testing is messed up and they’re over counting cases by 100x. Maybe they are doing pooled testing and not bothering to figure out who actually has it? INTO ISOLATION YOU GO!

Quality of reporting is exceedingly poor on all of this.

 

[madodel]

Yeah me too. I think it is very hard to judge without being in Europe. My understanding is that many places in Europe actually had real restrictions (meaning, people took them seriously) for a while though. While we did not here, beyond some remote schooling and other minor alterations. Anyway it’s not about the restrictions - it’s about what people do.

I think it is all very confusing - I first became puzzled by this 4-5 weeks ago or so, as you know, as I posted.

As an example, take a look at this REACT data. And look at where prevalence ends up relative to the % BA.2 (right hand side). It just does not align with what is happening in the US. If we were seeing the same we’d have substantially higher case numbers and hospitalizations. R is only 1.1-1.2 so it doesn’t take much to kill this sort of wave though.

Maybe it is just enough seasonality and the more dispersed living we do here in the US which makes the difference, and not the level of immunity. I don’t know.

I guess if it is seasonality we should expect a surge in the South first? But if that doesn’t happen until May, it will be tough to separate the effect from waning immunity.

My daughter just got back to Germany after a few days intersession trip to Prague. Almost no one was wearing masks there and people kept telling her that masks were no longer required as she and her boyfriend continue to wear masks indoors in public spaces. Of course many people are no longer wearing masks here in my part of Pennsylvania either. Hopefully the weather change doesn't allow this to come roaring back.

Germany just voted down a mandatory 4th injection for over 60. Germany’s Scholz rules out second attempt at vaccine mandate. After an attempt to introduce an over-60s vaccine mandate was rejected in parliament, German chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) has said his government will not bring the issue to a vote again.

 

[prkm18]

I didn’t find a tread suitable for this topic, so here I go. I found this page that claims to have a real time update on the Corona Virus. It shows nubers of infected, deaths, and recovered from the virus. It also include a realtime view of the building of the Wuhan hospital. Anyone here familiar with the sours of this live stream? I think this virus might might be a matter to consider as a TSLA shareholder.
Coronavirus Map

I second that but then despite the pandemic, Tesla sales are holding up fairly well so nothing to worry about as a TSLA shareholder

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

Almost no one was wearing masks there and people kept telling her that masks were no longer required as she and her boyfriend continue to wear masks indoors in public spaces.

No doubt it is relaxed now - the question is how consistent have people been in being careful for the prior two years, relative to the US.

If we don’t see an explosive wave here, I can’t really point to much except differing levels of infection-acquired immunity - the US is far behind on boosters and vaccination in general.

Seems like an infection is worth something like two doses of vaccine. With some major, major downsides.

 

[heltok]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1512581957808447490

https://twitter.com/x/status/1512530608773373959

Unstoppable force meets immovable object

 

[Jeff N]

If we don’t see an explosive wave here, I can’t really point to much except differing levels of infection-acquired immunity - the US is far behind on boosters and vaccination in general.

A year ago Europe saw a big wave of Alpha cases that mostly fizzled in the USA except for Minnesota and Michigan. Nobody seems to have a good explanation of why that happened. Whatever the cause was, it didn’t stop the USA from having a serious wave of Delta and then Omicron cases a few months later.

 

[madodel]

U.S. life expectancy falls for 2nd year in a row

Anyone surprised? Interesting that unlike in 2020, minority life expectancy didn't change much.

"Many of the deaths occurred in people in the prime of their lives, Woolf says, and drove the overall U.S. life expectancy to fall to 76.6 years — the lowest in at least 25 years."​

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

Nobody seems to have a good explanation of why that happened.

This doesn’t seem nearly as mysterious. Alpha wasn’t that different than prior variants (it was a “scariant” as I recall, extremely well addressed by two doses) and the early wave in the Upper Midwest coincided with widespread vaccine rollout (which was faster in the US than most other countries initially). There were also modest restrictions still in place and people were being sort of careful still so it seems easy to explain away. The US on paper may well have had more population immunity at that point than other places. Apparently enough to prevent explosive growth in most places in conjunction with the arrival of warm weather.

Now on paper we clearly have much less immunity (cases plus vaccines) and other countries who have already had large recent waves and have much more “paper” immunity (cases plus vaccines) see additional explosive growth while we see very little.

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1512581957808447490

https://twitter.com/x/status/1512530608773373959

Unstoppable force meets immovable object

China should have gone the New Zealand route.
NZ is up to 15% infected and looks like that will start to taper soon (we’ll see). They’ve increased their deaths by 10x; very modest numbers, with dramatic mortality reductions, in the face of the extremely dangerous Omicron variant.

If China had had the right strategy they could have just let things rip at this point, and 200k-400k deaths later (sucks, but not sure what you can do about people who refuse to protect themselves which would make up the majority here), they’d be fine. That would be an good result.

As it is, it seems they currently have exposure to at least 2 million deaths and maybe closer to 5 million (hard to say exactly; too lazy to dig up all the detailed numbers to work it out).

It’s not too late to address this. They can still get people vaccinated, there is plenty of time - it just means they can’t let infection spread rapidly, which is a major impediment to economic output and letting people live their lives.

 

[heltok]

Summary of all the Shanghai-videos:

OPEN THREAD: Can we talk about what's happening in China?

Or is that a big no-no?

edwardslavsquat.substack.com

 

[Daniel in SD]

Summary of all the Shanghai-videos:

OPEN THREAD: Can we talk about what's happening in China?

Or is that a big no-no?

edwardslavsquat.substack.com

I think it's about a virus. I'm also sure germ theory is correct. haha.