Covid-19 miscellany

[barbos]

looking at current numbers. Why is India doing so well now?

 

[Angra Mainyu]

looking at current numbers. Why is India doing so well now?

I don't know what their numbers are. Over here, things keep getting better, well sort of: in the past 14 days, we had a 60.2% increase in positive cases, but 17.7% decrease in fatalities, and that has been happening for a while. At first, both cases and deaths were falling, but several weeks ago iirc, cases begin to increase but fatalities continued to fall, and now cases are rising rather sharply, and fatalities (and serious cases) continue to fall at a good rate. Why? I don't know. But it's becoming increasingly mild here, at least going by the numbers.

 

[barbos]

looking at current numbers. Why is India doing so well now?

I don't know what their numbers are. Over here, things keep getting better, well sort of: in the past 14 days, we had a 60.2% increase in positive cases, but 17.7% decrease in fatalities, and that has been happening for a while. At first, both cases and deaths were falling, but several weeks ago iirc, cases begin to increase but fatalities continued to fall, and now cases are rising rather sharply, and fatalities (and serious cases) continue to fall at a good rate. Why? I don't know. But it's becoming increasingly mild here, at least going by the numbers.

India COVID - Coronavirus Statistics - Worldometer

India Coronavirus update with statistics and graphs: total and new cases, deaths per day, mortality and recovery rates, current active cases, recoveries, trends and timeline.

www.worldometers.info

Remarkable drop, considering that India has a reputation of overpopulated country where nobody complies with any rules.

And Argentina had a remarkable drop too, but it's increasing now again.

I look at countries with good vaccines "mRNA, AstraZeneca/Sputnik" and they are not doing particularly well in terms of spread. And countries with crappy vaccines seems to be doing better. I wonder if crappy chinese vaccines could be actually better in the long term. Especially with Omicron.

 

[Angra Mainyu]

looking at current numbers. Why is India doing so well now?

I don't know what their numbers are. Over here, things keep getting better, well sort of: in the past 14 days, we had a 60.2% increase in positive cases, but 17.7% decrease in fatalities, and that has been happening for a while. At first, both cases and deaths were falling, but several weeks ago iirc, cases begin to increase but fatalities continued to fall, and now cases are rising rather sharply, and fatalities (and serious cases) continue to fall at a good rate. Why? I don't know. But it's becoming increasingly mild here, at least going by the numbers.

India COVID - Coronavirus Statistics - Worldometer

India Coronavirus update with statistics and graphs: total and new cases, deaths per day, mortality and recovery rates, current active cases, recoveries, trends and timeline.

www.worldometers.info

Remarkable drop, considering that India has a reputation of overpopulated country where nobody complies with any rules.

And Argentina had a remarkable drop too, but it's increasing now again.

I look at countries with good vaccines "mRNA, AstraZeneca/Sputnik" and they are not doing particularly well in terms of spread. And countries with crappy vaccines seems to be doing better. I wonder if crappy chinese vaccines could be actually better in the long term. Especially with Omicron.

I don't know, though I think India used mostly AZ?
Here the most used vaccine is Sinopharm's, followed closely by AZ, followed closely by Sputnik. And here the number of cases is rising, as the number of serious cases and fatalities is falling. Omicron has arrived only recently, and I don't know what will happen with that one.

 

[barbos]

Omicron has a spike mutation, and all sophisticated vaccines target spike, whereas Chinese vaccines have wide and random target spectrum. Sophisticated vaccines could be completely ineffective or even worse than ineffective against Omicron.

Just imagine if that's the case. That would be a disaster.

 

[Angra Mainyu]

Omicron has a spike mutation, and all sophisticated vaccines target spike, whereas Chinese vaccines have wide and random target spectrum. Sophisticated vaccines could be completely ineffective or even worse than ineffective against Omicron.

Just imagine if that's the case. That would be a disaster.

Yeah, that is possible, though in that case I would expect people who got infected and recovered (many without realizing it) to probably have some good defenses against serious illness and death at least, unless Omicron is also too different from Delta or other variants they have in other parts of the virus. In any case, we'll have to wait and see. But Omicron does not seem to be killing many people so far, even in countries with mRNA vaccines.

 

[barbos]

Yeah, that is possible, though in that case I would expect people who got infected and recovered (many without realizing it) to probably have some good defenses against serious illness and death at least, unless Omicron is also too different from Delta or other variants they have in other parts of the virus.

Omicron is sufficiently different to be completely unknown as far as interaction with prior vaccination / infection.

In any case, we'll have to wait and see. But Omicron does not seem to be killing many people so far, even in countries with mRNA vaccines.

Death is not the only bad outcome.

 

[barbos]

Also I think highly vaccinated countries could have high infection rates because a lot of vaccinated show no symptoms while infected and infectious.

 

[TSwizzle]

But there is plenty of evidence that masks significantly reduce spread.

Not hardly. These are studies where conclusions (also known as wishful thinking) "suggest" wearing masks stop/reduce the spread. They are weak at best and downright telling fibs at worse. Look at the "studies", look at the method, littered with "self reporting. Not very scientific at all. There never ever has been a significant reduction in transmission where mask mandates have been set.

e.g. Van Dyke; Estimated case rate per 100,000 decreased by 0.08 in counties with mask mandates but increased by 0.11 in those without. Insignificant and really, no proof that the reduction is down to mask wearing.

So don't accuse me of not looking at the crap studies, I do. And it is as clear as a bell, mask mandates do hee haw to stop/reduce the spread.

The mask is an amulet, you wear it if you want. Nobody is stopping. I choose not to.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Also I think highly vaccinated countries could have high infection rates because a lot of vaccinated show no symptoms while infected and infectious.

While watching Cricket, the Indian internationals aren't having much in the way of crowds. England, full crowds for football. Indeed, being vaccinated makes it easier to spread if the person doesn't know they have it... and they interact with others like there is no problem.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

e.g. Van Dyke; Estimated case rate per 100,000 decreased by 0.08 in counties with mask mandates but increased by 0.11 in those without.

HOLY CRAP! That's a 37.5% relative increase. Thank you for that information.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Also I think highly vaccinated countries could have high infection rates because a lot of vaccinated show no symptoms while infected and infectious.

The real interesting thing is that in the "highly vaccinated countries", the spikes actually precede Omicron and are receding at the moment. England is an outlier as they have had a slowly gaining plateau for months.

And of course, in the vax'd countries, they also contain a lot of unvaccinated people that almost see getting Covid-19 as a badge of honor.

 

[crazyfingers]

But there is plenty of evidence that masks significantly reduce spread.

Not hardly. These are studies where conclusions (also known as wishful thinking) "suggest" wearing masks stop/reduce the spread. They are weak at best and downright telling fibs at worse. Look at the "studies", look at the method, littered with "self reporting. Not very scientific at all. There never ever has been a significant reduction in transmission where mask mandates have been set.

e.g. Van Dyke; Estimated case rate per 100,000 decreased by 0.08 in counties with mask mandates but increased by 0.11 in those without. Insignificant and really, no proof that the reduction is down to mask wearing.

So don't accuse me of not looking at the crap studies, I do. And it is as clear as a bell, mask mandates do hee haw to stop/reduce the spread.

The mask is an amulet, you wear it if you want. Nobody is stopping. I choose not to.

It's so cute that you chose to ignore that masking created a 70% decrease in risk on the Theodore Roosevelt and similar risk reductions from other studies noted. Do you have a puppy? I hope you don't have a cat. Cat's can catch Covid.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

But there is plenty of evidence that masks significantly reduce spread.

Not hardly. These are studies where conclusions (also known as wishful thinking) "suggest" wearing masks stop/reduce the spread. They are weak at best and downright telling fibs at worse. Look at the "studies", look at the method, littered with "self reporting. Not very scientific at all. There never ever has been a significant reduction in transmission where mask mandates have been set.

e.g. Van Dyke; Estimated case rate per 100,000 decreased by 0.08 in counties with mask mandates but increased by 0.11 in those without. Insignificant and really, no proof that the reduction is down to mask wearing.

So don't accuse me of not looking at the crap studies, I do. And it is as clear as a bell, mask mandates do hee haw to stop/reduce the spread.

Yup, that is why the spread in Texas and Florida dropped when mask mandates were put forth in schools, after being forced to not have them and seeing the rates of cases in children skyrocket much much higher than in other regions.

The mask is an amulet, you wear it if you want. Nobody is stopping. I choose not to.

People die in car crashes wearing a seatbelt too.

 

[Keith&Co.]

It's so cute that you chose to ignore that masking created a 70% decrease in risk on the Theodore Roosevelt and similar risk reductions from other studies noted.

That is so weird. What are the odds of being both a science denier AND a mask resistance warrior? The overlap of the Venn diagram must be razor thin....

 

[TSwizzle]

It's so cute that you chose to ignore that masking created a 70% decrease in risk on the Theodore Roosevelt and similar risk reductions from other studies noted.

No, I looked at that, saw the method was "self reporting" (LOL) and deemed it worthless. And if there was any worth to that study, shouldn't all the other studies show ~70% or similar decrease? No, we don't see anything like it. Now you've taken your best shot and failed.

You wear your mask if you like. I will not bother because it does hee haw to protect me or anyone else.

 

[lpetrich]

David Waldman-1, of Yorktown LLC™ on Twitter: "Wife of COVID patient in coma sues to get husband treated with ivermectin.

Doc gives him two doses, his condition immediately worsens, doc calls it quits & the guy dies days later.

Miracle drug! (link)" / Twitter
noting
Man who won a court battle to treat his COVID with ivermectin has died

 

[Angra Mainyu]

Omicron is sufficiently different to be completely unknown as far as interaction with prior vaccination / infection.

Immunity from prior infection, like immunity from Chinese killed-virus vaccines, does not target the spike protein only. It targets different parts of the virus, but which ones who knows. We do not know how different Omicron is in the parts that are targeted by the immune system of previously infected people. It might depend on which variant those people were infected with. And even then, there might be plenty of subvariants that have mutations in parts of the virus that are not being counted, so who knows?

As for previous vaccines, the data I've seen indicates a third dose of Pfizer works; two also work, but to a lesser extent if it's been more than 6 months, but that may be due to the reduced immunity as time goes by, rather than the mutations.

Death is not the only bad outcome.

True, though if the death rate really is lower, so would be the rate of serious cases.

Also I think highly vaccinated countries could have high infection rates because a lot of vaccinated show no symptoms while infected and infectious.

That's possible, but not necessarily a big problem.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Schools in the South exploded with cases, also hadn't allowed mask mandates. This study shows that schools with masks did better than without masks at the start of this school year.

 

[Angra Mainyu]

It's so cute that you chose to ignore that masking created a 70% decrease in risk on the Theodore Roosevelt and similar risk reductions from other studies noted.

No, I looked at that, saw the method was "self reporting" (LOL) and deemed it worthless. And if there was any worth to that study, shouldn't all the other studies show ~70% or similar decrease? No, we don't see anything like it. Now you've taken your best shot and failed.

You wear your mask if you like. I will not bother because it does hee haw to protect me or anyone else.

If a face mask is designed to stop viruses and lab tests show it stops nearly all viral particles, that is good evidence that if people put it on correctly, it protects them and others from COVID. And it is good evidence independent of studies about population impact - which involve also simple cloth masks, people who do not wear them properly, etc., or which might be improperly done.