Coronavirus

[JRP3]

Worldometers had the US over 1 mil a while ago, showing 1.02 mil today.

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

Meanwhile, deaths continue to drop, as expected (slight tick up yesterday, but I expect that to be temporary). Hospitalizations, though rising, still have low ICU numbers (not rising), so we should continue to see those deaths drop for the time being. Hopefully to all-time lows; under 200 per day seems possible (maybe unlikely though?), but that low level will likely be endangered by increasing cases soon. What happens in the next couple weeks will obviously depend on case trajectories - right now it doesn't seem like there's been enough of an increase in cases to significantly increase deaths two weeks from now (increasing new deaths will be largely offset by decreasing old deaths).

One million (recorded) deaths is definitely upon us, one way or the other, depending on the count. We should remember the COVID cranks at this time, who said it could never happen (even though it was completely obvious from day one of the “two weeks to slow the spread” that it could).

 

[NikolaACDC]

...
We should remember the COVID cranks at this time, who said it could never happen

Well, now they just say 1 Million 'never happened'

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

Over 100k cases yesterday. Will be very interesting to see if we explode to 200k next week, or just level off. Anecdotally, seems like in this wave so far it is mostly vaccinated people who haven’t had it before. If that continues (might not for BA.2.12.1, we’ll see!) seems like this will certainly be shortlived, if Omicron-infected folks are largely immune. There’s not very many of these infection-naive folks! That being said, in San Diego, on a per capita basis, the wave is dominated by unvaccinated folks, as usual. I wouldn’t know if they’ve had it before or not, since I know nothing about this group of people, but one round of infection a year ago is not going to be as good as a boosted response, so this makes sense that they’re getting infected with alacrity.

I’m definitely at the most risk I’ve ever been, going into an office with people coughing and sneezing and sniffling, very few masks in use, and a fully boosted but minimally infected population. Hopefully the mask will be helpful, though it comes off enough for drinking water that if it’s airborne in the true sense of the word (not clear that it is) I’m definitely screwed.

 

[scottf200]

Re: Around the USA info

Graphics via: Newsnodes USA COVID-19 Monitor

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

Can see in the wastewater data the extremely underwhelming impact of BA.2 - many experts (not Trevor Bedford though!) made the wrong call on that one being a problem; seems like growth was likely nearly entirely driven by relaxing of precautions. However, these plots don't break out the BA.2.x variants separate from baseline BA.2, and this may be an important distinction. Hard to know how much of BA.2.12.1 is in San Diego at this point (I would guess less than 40%). Hopefully it all comes to nothing and we start to see wastewater levels drop off, but currently cases are increasing in San Diego, and potentially quite significantly in the coming weeks.

San Diego Wastewater Surveillance - SEARCH

Wastewater surveillance for COVID-19 in San Diego County.

searchcovid.info

 

[PACEMD]

In the words of V. S. Naipaul, "Let we wait and see" said Hat wisely......A House for Mr. Biswas.......

Meaning everyone's predictive schemes have had about the same utility as diddly-squat......give or take a red herring.......most of us on the front lines would agree........

​

 

[cwerdna]

FDA limits use of J&J's Covid-19 vaccine for adults

FDA said on Thursday it was limiting the use of Johnson & Johnson's Covid-19 vaccine for adults

www.cnbc.com

https://www.washingtonpost.com/heal...9.SIh81zyTZ4homjk_5pCirH4Foi-KyNSN0vio9B2iG6M has more details.

Journalists from multiple news outlets test positive after White House Correspondents Dinner weekend

Trevor Noah joked about the event becoming a superspreader — and now the cases are rolling in.

www.cnn.com

U.S. Secretary of State Blinken tests positive for Covid, has mild symptoms

Secretary of State Antony Blinken had not seen President Joe Biden in person for several days before testing positive for the coronavirus.

www.cnbc.com

 

[Daniel in SD]

FDA limits use of J&J's Covid-19 vaccine for adults

FDA said on Thursday it was limiting the use of Johnson & Johnson's Covid-19 vaccine for adults

www.cnbc.com

https://www.washingtonpost.com/heal...9.SIh81zyTZ4homjk_5pCirH4Foi-KyNSN0vio9B2iG6M has more details.

Journalists from multiple news outlets test positive after White House Correspondents Dinner weekend

Trevor Noah joked about the event becoming a superspreader — and now the cases are rolling in.

www.cnn.com

U.S. Secretary of State Blinken tests positive for Covid, has mild symptoms

Secretary of State Antony Blinken had not seen President Joe Biden in person for several days before testing positive for the coronavirus.

www.cnbc.com

I don't understand why they didn't do this back in April 2020. The J&J vaccine was clearly less safe and less effective back then and the mRNA vaccines were widely available at that point.
It would be fun to sequence the WHCD cases to see if the transmission actually occurred there. Of course the whole thing is silly since most people are taking zero precautions these days and there is a lot of virus circulating, especially among the WHCD attendee demographic it seems.

 

[madodel]

Children’s Mental Health Impacted by Adult COVID-19 Vaccination Rates

The researchers found that trajectories of stress, sadness, and COVID-19-related worry decreased after adult vaccination rollout.​

 

[bkp_duke]

School Closures During Social Lockdown and Health and Well-being of Children and Adolescents During COVID-19

This systematic review assesses published reports on the associations of COVID-19 school closures during broader social lockdown measures and mental health, health behaviors, and well-being among children and adolescents.

jamanetwork.com

COVID Harmed Kids' Mental Health—And Schools Are Feeling It • Stateline

After more than 18 months of school closures and social isolation, the nation’s more than 50 million public school children are mostly back at their desks. But two months into the fall semester, teachers and students already are saying they need a break. The grief, anxiety and depression...

www.pewtrusts.org

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

2020

2021! Very bizarre that they were pushing this vaccine at all after the significant side effects became obvious (and I think they may have been predicted even before they happened due to AZ similarities).

School Closures During Social Lockdown and Health and Well-being of Children and Adolescents During COVID-19

This systematic review assesses published reports on the associations of COVID-19 school closures during broader social lockdown measures and mental health, health behaviors, and well-being among children and adolescents.

jamanetwork.com

COVID Harmed Kids' Mental Health—And Schools Are Feeling It • Stateline

After more than 18 months of school closures and social isolation, the nation’s more than 50 million public school children are mostly back at their desks. But two months into the fall semester, teachers and students already are saying they need a break. The grief, anxiety and depression...

www.pewtrusts.org

Yep. Not a surprise. On the other hand, it (in combination with other measures) did save a million lives or so, and therefore a significant number of lives of parents, particularly in disadvantaged communities (as the article points out, this is one major driver of the mental health issues!). So definitely a tradeoff. I’m sure the analysis will go on for years. It’s unfortunate we didn’t have the same inherent advantages and leadership as New Zealand (though I am not suggesting that outcome could have happened here - we just could not easily get to zero). Also would have been nice to be more strict about non-school-involved interventions, to allow maximum access to in-person learning without the cost in lives. Definitely more important for kids to be in school than to go out to eat at a restaurant. Widespread use of N95 masks probably would have enabled more in-person access too. The balance was off, but of course the profit motive was in play and that is just the way it goes.

Anyway, hopefully any harms to children can be acknowledged, and work promptly done to address and correct the impacts before they become permanent, where possible (obviously to some extent in some cases it is permanent, but kids are also resilient).


The pace of infections at work is picking up again, as expected.

 

[cwerdna]

Hundreds of MacBook Pro workers break through COVID barriers, battle guards :O

 

[Doggydogworld]

Meanwhile, deaths continue to drop, as expected (slight tick up yesterday, but I expect that to be temporary).

I think the apparent decline is mostly states like FL reporting on an epi curve basis. 7 day average was well below 300 on Sun/Mon but those days are now showing 330-340. I thought we'd challenge last summer's all time low of ~250/day, but it looks like 330 is the trough.

Hospitalizations have been rising for a few weeks. Cases in early-hit NY looked like they were rolling over a couple weeks ago, but have resumed their climb.

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

I think the apparent decline is mostly states like FL reporting on an epi curve basis. 7 day average was well below 300 on Sun/Mon but those days are now showing 330-340. I thought we'd challenge last summer's all time low of ~250/day, but it looks like 330 is the trough.

Hospitalizations have been rising for a few weeks. Cases in early-hit NY looked like they were rolling over a couple weeks ago, but have resumed their climb.

Yes, entirely possible. It's interesting, because ICU numbers are far lower than they were at last summer's low, about half the number (though they are now increasing), which makes it a little confusing (and the main reason why I thought we might still go lower). You'd think if ICU numbers are half of what they were last summer you'd see lower deaths in future. However, it's not the same situation; classification criteria may have changed, etc. Maybe the people dying these days just go more or less straight to the morgue. Or the ICU numbers are wrong (also possible).

I'm still hoping that we're seeing the long tail of death reports from January-March (and hangers-on from that wave; pretty common to be hospitalized for a couple months before kicking off), but the increase seems to be sustained, so may be too much to hope for. Certainly the increase seems to be more than a day or two blip at this point. It's just odd that it's not really very well correlated with ICU census.

 

[JRP3]

Hundreds of MacBook Pro workers break through COVID barriers, battle guards :O

I hope we don't see something similar from the Shanghai factory.

 

[Doggydogworld]

Yes, entirely possible. It's interesting, because ICU numbers are far lower than they were at last summer's low, about half the number (though they are now increasing), which makes it a little confusing (and the main reason why I thought we might still go lower). You'd think if ICU numbers are half of what they were last summer you'd see lower deaths in future. However, it's not the same situation; classification criteria may have changed, etc. Maybe the people dying these days just go more or less straight to the morgue. Or the ICU numbers are wrong (also possible).

I'm still hoping that we're seeing the long tail of death reports from January-March (and hangers-on from that wave; pretty common to be hospitalized for a couple months before kicking off), but the increase seems to be sustained, so may be too much to hope for. Certainly the increase seems to be more than a day or two blip at this point. It's just odd that it's not really very well correlated with ICU census.

Yes, I also gave a lot of weight to those low ICU numbers. The January peaks in 2021 and 2022 had similar ICU count vs deaths/day ratios, so why would the relationship break down a few months later?

Maybe it's just a very long tail, as you say. ICU held pretty steady for almost 2 months starting mid-March of 2021, yet deaths dropped from ~1000 to ~600/day. That doesn't fit with a fixed one week lag time or even a simple normal distribution.

 

[bkp_duke]

Yes, I also gave a lot of weight to those low ICU numbers. The January peaks in 2021 and 2022 had similar ICU count vs deaths/day ratios, so why would the relationship break down a few months later?

Maybe it's just a very long tail, as you say. ICU held pretty steady for almost 2 months starting mid-March of 2021, yet deaths dropped from ~1000 to ~600/day. That doesn't fit with a fixed one week lag time or even a simple normal distribution.

More recent strains are less severe. At least my neighbors (hospitalists that work in the ICU) are telling me that the patients they are seeing now:
1) don't need to go to the ICU as often
2) have higher survival rates when they do have to go to the ICU (and treatments have not changed in the past 2-3 months)

 

[PACEMD]

More recent strains are less severe. At least my neighbors (hospitalists that work in the ICU) are telling me that the patients they are seeing now:
1) don't need to go to the ICU as often
2) have higher survival rates when they do have to go to the ICU (and treatments have not changed in the past 2-3 months)

That is true, and our experience nationally. Cautiously optimistic for at least the near future. We do have some breathing room, so to speak.

 

[Jeff N]

More recent strains are less severe. At least my neighbors (hospitalists that work in the ICU) are telling me that the patients they are seeing now:
1) don't need to go to the ICU as often
2) have higher survival rates when they do have to go to the ICU (and treatments have not changed in the past 2-3 months)

I haven’t yet read this study myself, but it was discussed on the latest TWIV clinical update podcast.

Although the unadjusted rates of hospital admission and mortality appeared to be higher in previous waves compared to the Omicron period, after adjusting for confounders including various demographics, Charlson comorbidity index scores, and vaccination status (and holding the healthcare utilization constant), we found that the risks of hospitalization and mortality were nearly identical between periods. Our analysis suggests that the intrinsic severity of the Omicron variant may be as severe as previous variants.

SARS-CoV-2 Omicron Variant is as Deadly as Previous Waves After Adjusting for Vaccinations, Demographics, and Comorbidities

The B.1.1.529 (Omicron) variant of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has previously been reported as more transmissible, but less severe than other SARS-CoV-2 variants. To test this assumption, we linked state-level vaccination data with quality-controlled electronic he...

www.researchsquare.com