Omicron Update, Dec 2

63 points by yanowitz 3 years ago | 114 comments
  • spaniard89277 3 years ago
    Well if Rt is ~3 I guess we're going to have another ride in Spain. I don't think this country can handle another lockdown.

    In my region people is pretty sensible about mask use etc. We relaxed a bit, but people still take care. I've been to Madrid and Barcelona for work and people behaves like this never happened.

    I hope I get a chance to a boost shot, because I know a couple of dudes that got covid and the side effects are pretty ugly. I'd rather be in my bed with fever for a couple of days.

    • adam_arthur 3 years ago
      Has anyone done the math on whether these lockdown policies have produced objectively better outcomes over the long term?

      Given that widespread vaccination does not stop infection from spreading, lockdowns seem arbitrary and pointless. Especially when you consider economic consequences, which also inflicts very real pain and suffering on the populace.

      Anecdotally, it doesn't seem to have made any difference at all in the US, state by state.

      • Cthulhu_ 3 years ago
        > Given that widespread vaccination does not stop infection from spreading, lockdowns seem arbitrary and pointless.

        Only because they're partial and temporary. NZ and Australia went into a full borders closed lockdown and were back in stadiums with tens of thousands while the epidemic was in full swing in the rest of the world.

        I mean, I get that it's a morally difficult one because freedoms and rights and shit, but if the world went into lockdown for a month when this thing first came out, we wouldn't be in this situation.

        The 'lockdowns' we get now are compromises; in my own country, their aim is to keep the economy going and kids going to school, even if workplaces and schools are probably the biggest spreaders. I say probably, because they announce new measures without providing evidence that the actions they take are the most effective at stopping the spread. Things like closing shops at 5; where are the facts that open shops after 5 are the biggest problem?

        • volta83 3 years ago
          Good question.

          Excess mortality in the USA and the EU in 2020 were ~470k and ~580k deaths.

          The population of the USA and the EU in Jan 2020 was ~329 and ~447 million.

          The excess mortality in the USA and the EU in 2020 was ~143 vs ~129 excess deaths per 100.000 inhabitants. The USA had ~10% more excess deaths per capita than the EU.

          People living in the EU during 2020 had statistically a significantly better chance of not dying of COVID than people living in the USA, even though COVID hit the EU first, which gave the USA longer time to prepare.

          This doesn't really answer your question, because the answer is very personal. Some people were really scared and preferred to trade some freedom for more safety. And well we have many examples of vocal famous people that traded off safety for freedom, and died of COVID. These people would have probably been better off had they lived in the EU, even if they would have been breaking the law and paying fines.

          • disambiguation 3 years ago
            This is really dumb.

            There was no pan-Euro response nor was there a pan-American response, so these groupings are arbitrary. Unless you have an objective "score" that Euro lockdowns and policies on average went further than American lockdown policies, these numbers are meaningless.

            You could easily justify the differences as deriving from Europe having an objectively healthier population and better healthcare systems than the US.

            • adam_arthur 3 years ago
              I wouldn't call 10% difference significantly higher... more like within the margin of error.

              With such drastic policy differences you would expect to see a larger effect.

              • shin_lao 3 years ago
                10% difference for a virus with exponential spread is a margin of error difference.
              • spaniard89277 3 years ago
                Well, it helped to aleviate the collapse of hospitals here. They were late so hospitals collapsed anyway, but could have been worse.

                It's just a question of timing. Late for Madrid, nicely timed for my city.

                Another new problem I see is that healthcare personnel is burnt-out. Not only because of the insane work-hours and all the jazz, they feel mistreated by politicians and society in general, and I have doubts that if they get called for a new emergency they'll go contribute in the same numbers.

                • gunfighthacksaw 3 years ago
                  My problem is that these restrictions only apply to the common folk, political and business elites seem to have a pass… Even golden boy Trudeau who can do no wrong was spotted in Ottawa breaking newly announced restrictions like goddamn.
                  • spaniard89277 3 years ago
                    It happened here too. I guess people seeing politicians trying to hop to be the first in the line to get vaccines helped vaccination.
                  • sirkent 3 years ago
                    My understanding is that a lockdown is only supposed to slow the spread and alleviate pressure on health services so that they are not overwhelmed. We saw what happens when they are overwhelmed in India - Many more people die that could have been saved.

                    So to answer your question, you would have to define 'objectively better'. Are you referring to economic outcomes, number of deaths or some other measurement?

                    • junon 3 years ago
                      > Given that widespread vaccination does not stop infection from spreading

                      There is not widespread vaccination, though. That's where your argument falls apart.

                      • adam_arthur 3 years ago
                        Covid is spreading at a similar rate today in most countries as it did when it first struck and there was no vaccine at all.

                        Look at the trends in Italy, UK, US, for example.

                        I agree the vaccine helps, but there is no clear impact on reducing spread if you look at infection data in aggregate.

                        We've gone from 0% vaccinated, to 60-70% with no discernable dip in infection counts.

                        • spurgu 3 years ago
                          Are you serious? Most of Europe at least is at numbers that would've created herd immunity with the alpha variant (had the vaccine actually stopped transmission). I'd say that's pretty widespread.
                          • loeg 3 years ago
                            That, and vaccination does reduce transmission in addition to disease severity.
                          • shin_lao 3 years ago
                            Imagine if the conclusion is "the lockdowns were useless".
                            • simonh 3 years ago
                              Widespread vaccination dramatically reduces the rate at which the virus spreads, by more than 80%. It's not a binary does/doesn't stop spreading.

                              https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02054-z

                              Vaccination rates in the US have been abysmal by developed world status, precisely because so many of you don't think vaccination works. It does work to dramatically slow spreading, but only if enough people take it up.

                            • shmatt 3 years ago
                              Not an official study but just an observation - its very possible to avoid lockdowns so far, by implementing true vaccine passports. Israel did that without any shutdowns during the 4th wave. Basically banning non-vaccinated people from most public areas

                              and by true, that means something you can actually validate isn't fake, while checking for ID at the same time. And also not allowing in un-vaccinated children because of fairness. Deadly viruses do not care about fairness

                              At least here in NY, USA - I have my vaccine passport checked very often, but verified with my ID about 10% of the time. So that wouldn't have the same effect

                              • beagle3 3 years ago
                                It is possible to avoid lockdown by not imposing lockdowns. It is that simple.

                                It is not the vaccine passports that stopped lockdown - in fact, there is no evidence they had any effect on transmission.

                                • piva00 3 years ago
                                  > Not an official study but just an observation - its very possible to avoid lockdowns so far, by implementing true vaccine passports. Israel did that without any shutdowns during the 4th wave. Basically banning non-vaccinated people from most public areas

                                  You are just pushing the work to be done by low-level employees at this point. Yes, it can work for a while but go talk to anyone who works in public event spaces (theaters, bars, cinemas, etc.) in, for example, Germany and you will see how much fatigue this causes.

                                  And what happens when people get fatigued due to the extra workload created by forcing these measures to be taken by small businesses? People get sloppy, they get tired of a procedure that usually would take 2 minutes taking 15, chipping time away from other duties they are responsible for (and supervised). Over time they stop doing the checks properly and just like with other COVID measures, becomes increasingly ineffective.

                                  I only had this realisation after chatting with some friends of friends in Berlin working in hospitality (hotels, bars, etc.) and events, almost every single one of them were exhausted from having to perform the extra checks on every customer, every shift, every play, every table they sit. They were trying really hard to not get sloppy because they actually care about the people, but it was clear how it was affecting them. It didn't look as a sustainable measure against COVID after 2 years of a pandemic.

                                  That was also the fear I read voiced by experts during the first 6 months of the pandemic: people will get tired of the measures, when they get tired and don't follow them anymore it gets much worse. How to balance that is exactly all this political game going on, there is no simple solution when we talk about population levels of a nation.

                                  • michaelmior 3 years ago
                                    > At least here in NY, USA - I have my vaccine passport checked very often

                                    Also in NY (upstate). I can recall my passport being checked only once or twice since the beginning of the pandemic. I assume you're referring to NYC?

                                  • sjwalter 3 years ago
                                    They're only arbitrary and pointless if you believe the goal is public health.

                                    Imagine seeing what's going on in eg Australia and still thinking this is about a virus!

                                    • jrochkind1 3 years ago
                                      What's going on in Australia, you mean the international travel restrictions?

                                      One of the things I see "going on in Australia". Australia has had around 8 covid deaths per 100K population. Compared to, say, the United States with 237 covid deaths per 100K population. I see that and still think it's about a virus, yup.

                                      In general over the past two years as a whole, people in Australia have lived with fewer restrictions or changes to everyday life than here in the US, with an order of magnitude fewer deaths. I still think it's about a virus, yup.

                                      (I do not necessarily endorse international travel restrictions, including the ones the USA is enforcing, which seem to be pretty fruitless, and in some cases stricter than Australia's. I think they are mistaken. But it's about a virus, yup. Among other things, certainly US general xenophobia and anti-immigrant sentiment are involved in ours too. I too worry that we are imposing controls we will never see the end of, including related to border-crossing, which suits the agenda of some just fine. I'm sure it's about more than one thing in Australia too. Human things usually are. But it's about a virus, yup.).

                                      • pfisch 3 years ago
                                        Pretty sure it is about the virus and not some loony toon new world order thing or whatever the conspiracy of the week is.
                                      • zamalek 3 years ago
                                        Sweden did a nationwide study, it didn't end well.[1] Several of the bad variants also originated from countries which did not participate in full lockdown (India, Brazil).

                                        Edit: if Omicron becomes a second 2020, I'd pay close attention to how Sweden reacts, given their recent experiences.

                                        [1]: https://www.businessinsider.com/sweden-covid-no-lockdown-str...

                                        • adam_arthur 3 years ago
                                          That seems dated. Deaths per million is higher in many countries with significantly stricter lockdowns like Spain and Italy.

                                          There are of course density, age, and other differences to consider.

                                          https://www.statista.com/statistics/1104709/coronavirus-deat...

                                          • disambiguation 3 years ago
                                            Are you just reacting to that headline?

                                            Sweden's numbers are really good all things considered [1]

                                            This defies intuition, we would expect a "no restrictions" policy to result in significantly worse outcomes. Maybe the take away is that a healthier population and a better healthcare system is a more significant factor than restrictions and mandates?

                                            [1] https://ncov2019.live/data/europe

                                            • beagle3 3 years ago
                                              Sweden’s death rate is worse than its neighbours but way better than e.g. Belgium and Britain that did lock down.

                                              It’s also significantly better (x2-x4) than Israel by every excess death measure, where Israel locked down super seriously and vaccinated super quickly.

                                              So you can’t conclude “it didn’t end well”

                                              • sjwalter 3 years ago
                                                And omicron arose in vaccinated people and traveled the world in the respiratory tracts of the fully vaxxed.
                                          • thomcano 3 years ago
                                            Let's do our jobs properly to minimize the spread of the Omicron variant as possible; this will help our health works and researchers somehow.
                                            • rossdavidh 3 years ago
                                              The graph showing Omicron outcompeting Delta is, I think, actually good news. The worse condition would be if they don't even compete, i.e. Omicron was so different that having either Delta or Omicron wouldn't make you immune from the other. The pretty abrupt decline in Delta as Omicron ramps up, suggests pretty strongly that they do compete.

                                              I think this one might be The One. Everyone will be immune soon, perhaps, one way or the other. But if Omicron and Delta compete, then it seems plausible that the existing vaccines would at least help a bit with the severity of symptoms.

                                              • tgv 3 years ago
                                                Yeah, but only if it's milder than Delta, of course. This was my initial hope: if the virus mutates so quickly, it could mutate itself out of existence after a while by becoming very contagious but as strong as a common cold.

                                                Of course, once this happens, people will forget it ever happened and ignore the next warning signals.

                                                • SketchySeaBeast 3 years ago
                                                  The other side of that is that, given the long time COVID takes to kill someone and the amount of time they are infectious before that, it doesn't have much of a reason to become less deadly. Sure, it could mutate by chance to become more benign, but if it's communicable for twoish weeks, including while asymptomatic, then stops being communicable, and then kills the host what does it matter evolutionarily speaking that the host died? I don't think there's any pressure on COVID to become less deadly.
                                                • jsnell 3 years ago
                                                  You are misreading the graph. The y axis is a percentage of total infections, not absolute number of infections. You can't tell from it whether the number of Delta infections is down, steady, or even up.
                                                  • Cthulhu_ 3 years ago
                                                    I don't see how a mutation, no matter what, being more infectious is good news. The fact it (and Delta for that matter) was allowed to mutate in the first place is already pretty telling that the approach used to stem the tide was not effective.
                                                  • christmm 3 years ago
                                                    I find that the most relevant information is given by Dr Fauci. Everyone needs to trust the science and Dr Fauci, and stop reading anything else when we know the rest is misinformation.
                                                    • digitalsushi 3 years ago
                                                      I trust science and I trust Fauci but if I am learning anything from the current tense, it's that we should push back on idolization
                                                    • draw_down 3 years ago
                                                      Related:

                                                      > Dr ANGELIQUE COETZEE, the doctor who alerted the world to the Omicron Covid variant, says we are over-reacting to the threat

                                                      https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-10256373/Dr-ANGEL...

                                                      • shmatt 3 years ago
                                                        She, as a family doctor, was fast to alert from the front lines. But she is not an infectious disease specialist.

                                                        The first doctors seeing HIV cases in California without knowing what it was, yet alerting the medical community, were not the same people who brought us the current medication that controls it

                                                        Her position on the front lines is very important. But the decision on how dangerous the variant is should be given to those who specialize in just that (and would probably suck at diagnosing you with a stomach ulcer)

                                                        • edmcnulty101 3 years ago
                                                          That's because the news media does not make money on rational and level headed takes, and the people in power do not maintain power with rational and level headed takes.

                                                          Threat level ORANGE!

                                                          • SketchySeaBeast 3 years ago
                                                            Is the assumption that those in positions of power in various governments are just watching the news, so that's why they chose to take more drastic actions with this one, even though Delta raised similar flags with the media but much less action was taken?
                                                            • edmcnulty101 3 years ago
                                                              Its more of a historical observation. Fear is the powerful person's best friend. US has been surprisingly tame with it's authoritarian power grabs probably due to our checks and balances and state rights. I hear other countries are having much bigger problems with authoritarian power grabs.
                                                          • y4mi 3 years ago
                                                            i don't have any domain knowledge so i cannot build an opinion on the matter, but the fact that they discovered it doesn't give them more authority on the topic then everyone else.

                                                            most researchers i've heard on the topic only said "we will have to pay close attention to it", which sounds pretty reasonable from my uneducated perspective.

                                                            • jrochkind1 3 years ago
                                                              The South African scientists I have read saying "over-reacting" also agree with what you summarize as most researchers saying: "we will have to pay attention to it".

                                                              They say we are over-reacting because many places are doing more than paying attention to it, making policy decisions and instituting additional restrictions based on unproven fears about it, not just paying attention to it.

                                                              The South African scientists who discovered it don't have more authority on the topic than everyone else, but they have as much or more than many. They have more than, say, me. They probably have as much as most other scientists in the field, since they're on the ground with access to evidence, and for longer than anyone else.

                                                              • TheOtherHobbes 3 years ago
                                                                Believing there's an option to do nothing until more data is available is a luxurious fallacy.

                                                                By then it's too late. Obviously.

                                                                That's the problem with exponential growth. Not much seems to happen until suddenly it all happens at once, and the only chance to prevent that was a few weeks ago.

                                                                • junon 3 years ago
                                                                  > but they have as much or more than many

                                                                  That's not how epidemiology or even science works. There are so many variables at play that a response in one region might not make sense in another region, and the same goes for the virus's behavior.

                                                                • tremon 3 years ago
                                                                  Both the name and the picture in the article would suggest that "he" is, in all likelihood, a she.
                                                                  • y4mi 3 years ago
                                                                    I corrected it to they, sorry for using a gendered pronoun. It sometimes slips my mind, as I never really thought about "he" being male in this kind of context. I will pay more attention to it.
                                                                    • junon 3 years ago
                                                                      Wtf is your goal with this comment?