Coronavirus All Purpose Thread: The unnecessary Dumb Dumb 4th wave

[blankall]

Originally Posted by Azure

How are those countries getting people to prove prior infection?

You have to be diagnosed with a positive Covid test. The UK requires a positive PCR test, which allows you to get a passport after you've come out of quarantine.

[blankall]

Originally Posted by opendoor

We're not stretching the process out by choice; we're doing it because we won't have a healthcare system if we just let it run wild through the unvaccinated.
Sort of. Immunity from a recovery is likely more durable, but it still wanes just like with every other coronavirus. Based on the study I linked above, the risk ratio triples from the 6 month point to the 12 month point after recovery.

And of course there are some inherent biases in reinfection data that might overstate its effectiveness and longevity. As I mentioned above, that Israel study showed reinfections having nearly 4x the rate of severe cases to total cases when compared to breakthrough infections. I can't think of any immunological reason for that, so it likely comes down to willingly unvaccinated people also having different test-seeking behaviors or poorer access to testing. If that's correct, then the actual number of infections in the recovered group would be much higher than it appears in the data, relative to the number of breakthrough infection.

And there is also survivorship bias in reinfection data. The people who might be most likely to be reinfected are likely also the ones who end up dying or becoming severely sick from it in the first place. Whereas an equally vulnerable person who is vaccinated might have a breakthrough infection and survive.

It triples, but still remains very low, at 30.2/100,000. Obviously, getting vaccination further adds to protection.

You're also looking at numbers and not rates of severe infection:

The resulting crude rates of severe disease for persons age 60 or older, ignoring the time from the last immunity-conferring event, were 0.6 per 100,000 person days for the Recovered cohort, 0.5 for the Recovered then Vaccinated cohorts, 1.1 for the Vaccinated then Recovered, 4.6 for the Vaccinated cohort, and only 0.4 for the Booster.

Rates of severe infection within the recovered are much less than the just vaccinated, unless booster shots are administered.

I also guarantee you that if you were to cross reference the above data with age and co-morbidities, you'd find an extremely low level of severe infection among otherwise health and vaccinated and/or previously infected individuals.

[opendoor]

Originally Posted by blankall

It triples, but still remains very low, at 30.2/100,000. Obviously, getting vaccination further adds to protection.

You're also looking at numbers and not rates of severe infection:

Rates of severe infection within the recovered are much less than the just vaccinated, unless booster shots are administered.

I also guarantee you that if you were to cross reference the above data with age and co-morbidities, you'd find an extremely low level of severe infection among otherwise health and vaccinated and/or previously infected individuals.

I'm looking at the rates for 16-39 year olds which makes up the vast majority of the data for unvaccinated people:

Recovered: 0.179% of reinfection cases were severe

Vaccinated: 0.05% of breakthrough cases were severe

Yes the rates are low, but that's not my point. What I'm saying is that there's no reason (outside of different testing behaviors/access) that breakthrough infections would see severe cases at just over 1/4 the rate that reinfections do. You would expect them to be higher among the vaccinated group if anything, since the more vulnerable people (who are more prone to severe disease) are much more likely to be vaccinated.

Given that, the numbers imply that reinfections aren't being caught in that data at the same rate as breakthrough cases which would overstate the differences in effectiveness. Which makes sense, since the demographics that make up that group would tend to be lower income and have less interaction with the health system. At a similar severe-to-overall case ratio, you would have about 3x as many reinfections given their # of severe cases, which would triple their risk ratio.

[Azure]

New data published on Saturday suggest that the Omicron corona variant is more contagious but not as dangerous as other variants, according to Prof. Dror Mevorach, a senior physician from Hadassah-Hebrew University Medical Center.

“We have to say this with a lot of caution, but if we look at the currently available information, there is reason to believe that the variant is spreading fast, but maybe it is not so dangerous,” Mevorach said.

According to South Africa’s Tshwane District Omicron Variant Patient Profile – Tshwane being the epicenter of the Omicron outbreak – 80% of hospital admissions in the previous two weeks were people below age 50, the vast majority of whom did not require oxygen support.

This can be explained in several ways, including the lower age of the patients, or that the course of the Omicron variant is milder.

Some experts suggested that if Omicron is more infectious but milder, it could make corona more similar to the flu. Mevorach agreed, saying “it would really be good news for the world. I think that we have had indications of vaccinated people getting infected, but it appears that their disease is mild.”

If this is so, he said different scenarios might emerge.
“We might need to accept that some people are going to get sick, and treat them with the antiviral treatments that are about to become available, or the vaccines might be slightly tweaked to be more effective,” he said. “However, I’m not really sure that we will need to do it. The first option might be good enough.”

https://www.jpost.com/health-and-wel...the-flu-687924

[MoneyGuy]

Originally Posted by Firebot

Not a single death has been attributed to Omicron so far as per WHO.

You mean people are not “dropping like flies” from Omicron like I’ve been told by a moron anti-vaxer?

[blankall]

Originally Posted by opendoor

I'm looking at the rates for 16-39 year olds which makes up the vast majority of the data for unvaccinated people:

Recovered: 0.179% of reinfection cases were severe

Vaccinated: 0.05% of breakthrough cases were severe

Yes the rates are low, but that's not my point. What I'm saying is that there's no reason (outside of different testing behaviors/access) that breakthrough infections would see severe cases at just over 1/4 the rate that reinfections do. You would expect them to be higher among the vaccinated group if anything, since the more vulnerable people (who are more prone to severe disease) are much more likely to be vaccinated.

Given that, the numbers imply that reinfections aren't being caught in that data at the same rate as breakthrough cases which would overstate the differences in effectiveness. Which makes sense, since the demographics that make up that group would tend to be lower income and have less interaction with the health system. At a similar severe-to-overall case ratio, you would have about 3x as many reinfections given their # of severe cases, which would triple their risk ratio.

You had a total of 6 severe infections in the recovered aged 16-39 group. It could be a statistical error. It could also be a function of X percentage of the population being prone to severe infection due to a co-morbidity. You're looking at the ration of severe infection to infection, not severe infection to total cohort. So if you have x people in that group who are likely to have severe infection, regardless of previous infection/vaccination, the ratio will be higher if there are fewer overall infections in the cohort.

[opendoor]

Originally Posted by blankall

You had a total of 6 severe infections in the recovered aged 16-39 group. It could be a statistical error. It could also be a function of X percentage of the population being prone to severe infection due to a co-morbidity. You're looking at the ration of severe infection to infection, not severe infection to total cohort. So if you have x people in that group who are likely to have severe infection, regardless of previous infection/vaccination, the ratio will be higher if there are fewer overall infections in the cohort.

Sure it could just be a statistical anomaly. But it's a pretty significant difference that's contrary to what you'd expect given that people with comorbidities and that are more prone to severe disease after being infected are vaccinated at a higher rate than the general population.

And it's potentially explainable based on demographic makeup of the groups. Throughout the pandemic, the Arabic and Ultra-Orthodox populations in Israel have had a lower risk ratio for testing positive via PCR compared to the general Jewish population while having a significantly higher risk ratio for mortality. That implies a pretty significant undercounting of cases among those groups, which would skew this paper's data given that they make up a significant and outsized portion of the Recovered group.

[looooob]

* I realize a single day, or even a small set of days is not a meaningful trend- particularly on weekends when testing is down in general ** but anyways 187 cases reported today, I think (may have missed some data points somewhere ) that is as low as its been in about 4 months?

[TorqueDog]

Hospitalizations have continued to decline consistently, down nearly 200 hospitalized cases since a month ago. ICU has held below 100 since the 17th of November.
Active cases are trending downward overall. Calgary's overall numbers have leveled out at the moment due to some localized outbreaks in the SE that appear to be trending downward now.

Things are looking really promising right now if we can keep trending in this direction and 5-11s getting their shots.

[Fuzz]

Ya, looking good. I hear numbers are rising in Ontario and Quebec...hopefully we avoid that.

[blankall]

Originally Posted by opendoor

Sure it could just be a statistical anomaly. But it's a pretty significant difference that's contrary to what you'd expect given that people with comorbidities and that are more prone to severe disease after being infected are vaccinated at a higher rate than the general population.

And it's potentially explainable based on demographic makeup of the groups. Throughout the pandemic, the Arabic and Ultra-Orthodox populations in Israel have had a lower risk ratio for testing positive via PCR compared to the general Jewish population while having a significantly higher risk ratio for mortality. That implies a pretty significant undercounting of cases among those groups, which would skew this paper's data given that they make up a significant and outsized portion of the Recovered group.

Once again, the biggest factor is likely just that some people will get severe disease no matter what due to co-morbidities. For example, my aunt has Lupus and has been vaccinated, but cannot produced anti-bodies because she's on immune suppressing drugs.

So if you have X percentage of the population that is going to get severe disease, the more effective the immunity, the higher the percentage of people who do get a breakthrough case that will become severe. For example, if you had extremely effective vaccine you would see fewer breakthrough cases in total and, therefore, a higher proportion of those breakthrough cases would have those co-morbidities that always lead to severe cases.

[V]

Originally Posted by opendoor

And it's potentially explainable based on demographic makeup of the groups. Throughout the pandemic, the Arabic and Ultra-Orthodox populations in Israel have had a lower risk ratio for testing positive via PCR compared to the general Jewish population while having a significantly higher risk ratio for mortality. That implies a pretty significant undercounting of cases among those groups, which would skew this paper's data given that they make up a significant and outsized portion of the Recovered group.

Just my anecdotal experience, but I know a lot of Covid-deniers, and not a single one of them got tested when they had Covid. It makes sense, the average Covid-denier thinks Covid is nothing but the flu, so why would they get tested? The only time you would catch them up in the data is when they end up in the hospital.

[opendoor]

Originally Posted by blankall

Once again, the biggest factor is likely just that some people will get severe disease no matter what due to co-morbidities. For example, my aunt has Lupus and has been vaccinated, but cannot produced anti-bodies because she's on immune suppressing drugs.

So if you have X percentage of the population that is going to get severe disease, the more effective the immunity, the higher the percentage of people who do get a breakthrough case that will become severe. For example, if you had extremely effective vaccine you would see fewer breakthrough cases in total and, therefore, a higher proportion of those breakthrough cases would have those co-morbidities that always lead to severe cases.

If that's what was driving it, then you would expect the booster group to have a high ratio of severe cases since a) it provides superior protection to immunity from infection (at least within the time window of this study), and b) it's very heavily slanted towards people with comorbidities. Yet despite that, the ratio is virtually identical to the 2-dose group (3 dose vs 2 dose):

16-39: 0.087% vs 0.052%
40-59: 0.64% vs 0.62%
60+: 6.2% vs 8.1%

The effect V mentions above matches my personal experience too. The 10-15% of the population who remains unvaccinated at this point are far less likely to seek testing for mild cases than the rest of the population.

I do see what you're saying; something that allows more mild cases while retaining protection against severe disease will tend to have a lower rate of severe cases vs. something that provides high protection for both. But I think the demographic and test-seeking behaviors of the groups are too different to not play a role in the outcome. The data from the entire pandemic illustrates that.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by Azure

https://www.jpost.com/health-and-wel...the-flu-687924

All of the Omicron good news seems to quote the same two or 3 people quoting the same pieces of incomplete data. Hopefully it stays positive because of Omicron isn’t 10 times less deadly we are in trouble. The rate of spread is crazy. Gauteng has a 25% positivity rate

[djsFlames]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

Ya, looking good. I hear numbers are rising in Ontario and Quebec...hopefully we avoid that.

Thankfully we're still on the decline it appears. But what happens east of us eventually happens here.

I am wondering whats taking us so long to drop below that elusive 300 case/day mark though. Every valley between waves to this point has seen daily cases drop much lower than this and more quickly, and now we have a large contingent of the population fully vaxxed. Doesnt seem to add up, outside of winter playing in.

Edit- looks like we're in the mid 200s now. Thats good.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by djsFlames

Thankfully we're still on the decline it appears. But what happens east of us eventually happens here.

I am wondering whats taking us so long to drop below that elusive 300 case/day mark though. Every valley between waves to this point has seen daily cases drop much lower than this and more quickly, and now we have a large contingent of the population fully vaxxed. Doesnt seem to add up, outside of winter playing in.

Edit- looks like we're in the mid 200s now. Thats good.

Essentially people behaving as if there are zero restrictions other than masks and Vax passports. This is the least growth we have scene while under the least restrictions. I’m between the other waves as son as restrictions lifted we started the weekly 5-30% growths.

We have been hanging slightly below an rT of 1 so shrinkage is really slow. Hopefully getting kids vaxxed will help keep it flat.

[Flamescuprun2018]

Wastewater CoV spiked on Dec 1 reading (triple the previous reading).

Source: https://covid-tracker.chi-csm.ca/

Likely bottoming out now locally. Not surprising given the onset of winter and 90+ days from prior peak (120-150 day waves).

Omicron numbers still in single digits at least within Calgary.

[opendoor]

Originally Posted by GGG

All of the Omicron good news seems to quote the same two or 3 people quoting the same pieces of incomplete data. Hopefully it stays positive because of Omicron isn’t 10 times less deadly we are in trouble. The rate of spread is crazy. Gauteng has a 25% positivity rate

Mostly conjecture on my part, but I wonder if any mildness we're seeing is actually just prior immunity helping protect against severe disease. While South Africa's official COVID case numbers and death toll aren't all that high, their excess death numbers through the pandemic are exceptionally high, at nearly 0.5% of the population. Given their young population and what you'd expect the IFR to be for their demographics, it's quite possible that a huge majority of their population has some form of immunity.

That would make the virus appear to be milder, when it really could just be an immune escape variant whose severity is mitigated by cellular immunity in the vaccinated and previously infected. That would also line up with the ages of hospitalizations that they saw in the 2nd half of November:





Because of vaccinations, the older groups are likely to have more widespread immunity (either vaccination or recovery boosted by vaccination) than the younger groups which is why their hospitalizations are relatively lower than in the Delta wave.

[Azure]

None of the 100-plus partygoers who caught Omicron at a Norwegian Christmas party believed to be the world's biggest coronavirus super-spreader event have fallen seriously unwell.

Doctors involved in tracing the outbreak say the infected are so far only suffering very mild symptoms like fevers, coughs, headaches and tiredness following the festive do on November 26.

The development lends weight to the theory that Omicron might be weaker than past variants, and is consistent with reports from doctors in ground zero of the outbreak in South Africa.

Norway's state epidemiologist, Frode Forland, told The Telegraph that if this turns out to be true, it could signal the beginning of the end of the pandemic.

'That is the hope. That is the best scenario we can have,' he said. 'That it's getting minder, most people will get it, and they will get a natural immunity.'

However, all of the infected are believed to be relatively young and most will be vaccinated - a combination that typically leads to milder symptoms.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...ailonline&s=03

[GGG]

Does it lend weight to the theory? Or is it actually worse?

Could Omicron be infecting people who weren’t being infected with Delta and instead getting them sick mildly and then by the same token be just as deadly as before to the delta groups. This would result in mass spread which would show lower hospitalizations and ICU per case but the rapid onset of cases still crushes the healthcare system.

Until we have good data on the age adjusted severity in the unvaccinated we don’t know how this is going to go. From a selfish perspective the under 40 double vaxxed/boosted still looking mild is good news considering we are all getting this varient