Covid-19 miscellany

[Toni]

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.

Conversely, unvaccinated countries could have very low infection rates because so many of them are DEAD.

Or never are diagnosed because they don’t have access to medical care or Covid testing….

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

A change in the number of deaths is the only way to really know.

 

[Angra Mainyu]

I am at a point where I will no longer work for a company/employer that I cannot trust, as I am past minimum retirement age too. So I understand perfectly your reasoning.

I can’t help but wonder how much of the employee shortfall is due to good workers refusing to work for an employer they don’t trust, or employers who don’t care how much their employees are endangered by working in unsafe conditions. I suspect this might be more the cause than the popular notions that vaccine mandates and stimulus money are the cause of not enough workers being available.

Ruth

I have questioned that too for quite a while now. Some industry claims that requiring vaccination will make it harder to fill open positions. I wonder if the lack of an employee vaccine requirement may be keeping even more people away. Even health care. If I was a health care worker i would NOT take a job where vaccination was not required

It's important to remember that vaccination isn't the primary issue with antivaxxers. They've all been vaccinated for other things. They all use seat belts and obey traffic signals, even drive on the right side of the road. Imagine that! Amazing! Their inability to recognize their antivaxxer idiocy is a symptom, the causes of which could fill every library on the planet. Having a rational, dispassionate discussion with one reveals that they lack the ability to recognize their inconsistent behavior. Maybe Dunning Kruger is the real reason. That's where I'd put my money.

No, no, earlier in the thread, several posters, (including one who otherwise insists on rigorous scientific evidence for claims about Covid, about masking, about vaccines, and about the flu) have), have used anecdotal evidence and perhaps some reading of news reports, and have demonstrated that many anti-vaxxers are intelligent folks. This same poster roundly ignored an apparently rigorous study, posted on this forum, that showed anti-vaxxers tend towards sociopathy. So maybe with the intelligent ones it's not so much Dunning-Kruger, as a sociopathic fuck-it mindset: a scintillating lack of empathy and recklessness.

Actually, what you call "anecdotal evidence" is in this case decisive, as one is to assess whether all anti-vaccers are stupid/not intelligent people. Certainly, that is not so, regardless of whether anti-vaccers are more likely to be less intelligent, all other things equal. As to whether they are more likely to be psychopaths all other things equal, that is not relevant with respect to how intelligent or unintelligent they are. By the way, also it is not true that all anti-vaccers have been vaccinated against other things. Some have, and some have not. Most have, but they are only anti-Covid-vaccers. The (intelligent) Greek guy I mentioned before has not, as far as I can tell, gotten any vaccines (as an adult, anyway), though he also does not eat processed foods, avoids other medicines, etc., so more than an anti-vaccer he seems like an anti-modern-tech-in-the-body kind of guy.

intelligent people can be sociopaths.

Sure. And they can be non-sociopaths too. You say "So maybe with the intelligent ones it's not so much Dunning-Kruger, as a sociopathic fuck-it mindset: a scintillating lack of empathy and recklessness.", but there is no good reason to believe that all or even most intelligent anti-vaccers are like that. Again, think of intelligent Christians, Muslims, Marxists, etc. Plenty of intelligent people fall for religious/ideological nonsense.

A scientific study cited earlier in the thread, and referred to in my first and dealing with Covid anti's purported to establish they had sociopathic traits. In the same post you quote, I wrote "an apparently rigorous study, posted on this forum, that showed anti-vaxxers tend towards sociopathy. " I invite you to check out the study please, and reframe your present, cherry-picked responses accordingly. You are studiously avoiding looking at this response.

I invite you to read my replies - which are not cherry picked - more carefully. Again, the study does not say that 'they' are sociopaths. Having on average more sociopathic traits does not entail that all or even most are sociopaths. ETA: if you want me to give you a more detailed reply, I would ask you for a link to the study, because with this new forum software - which I really, really dislike - I do not know how to find it.

 

[Angra Mainyu]

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.

Conversely, unvaccinated countries could have very low infection rates because so many of them are DEAD.

How would that result in very low infection rates? Anyway, the point is that it's not necessarily a big problem if they are highly vaccinated and what happens is that a lot of people do not get sick, and others get mild illnesses. That's a problem because all illnesses are, but not necessarily a big one.

 

[barbos]

Looks like GB daily infection rate jumped by 20K people in just one day, and then by 10K on top of it. Basically 50K extra infections in 48 hours, due to Omicron.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Looks like GB daily infection rate jumped by 20K people in just one day, and then by 10K on top of it. Basically 50K extra infections in 48 hours, due to Omicron.

Meanwhile, Germany, France, Poland, Russia continue to slow down.

South Africa data is a bit iffy day to day. The 7-day average is the sharpest incline since the beginning. In about 20 days, 80x. The UK isn't anything like that yet, about 1.5X in two weeks.

My question is, can someone with Delta get Omicron at the same time.

 

[barbos]

Looks like GB daily infection rate jumped by 20K people in just one day, and then by 10K on top of it. Basically 50K extra infections in 48 hours, due to Omicron.

Meanwhile, Germany, France, Poland, Russia continue to slow down.

That's irrelevant, once omicron gets there, infection rates will jump as it did in UK.

South Africa data is a bit iffy day to day. The 7-day average is the sharpest incline since the beginning. In about 20 days, 80x. The UK isn't anything like that yet, about 1.5X in two weeks.

You need to look at the last 2 days.

My question is, can someone with Delta get Omicron at the same time.

There are no laws of nature which prevent that. If you go out and have contacts with 2 people - one with delta another one with omicron you will get infected both.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Looks like GB daily infection rate jumped by 20K people in just one day, and then by 10K on top of it. Basically 50K extra infections in 48 hours, due to Omicron.

Meanwhile, Germany, France, Poland, Russia continue to slow down.

That's irrelevant, once omicron gets there, infection rates will jump as it did in UK.

Will it? Omicron is battling it out with Delta. UK has been a steady stream of cases of Delta for well over a month. So more people recently sick (possibly immune?). Omicron did manage to become more prevalent in London though, real quick.

South Africa data is a bit iffy day to day. The 7-day average is the sharpest incline since the beginning. In about 20 days, 80x. The UK isn't anything like that yet, about 1.5X in two weeks.

You need to look at the last 2 days.

I did.

My question is, can someone with Delta get Omicron at the same time.

There are no laws of nature which prevent that. If you go out and have contacts with 2 people - one with delta another one with omicron you will get infected both.

I think that hypothesis will be tested in the US and UK. South Africa lacked the Delta/Omicron overlap. Currently, hospitalizations in UK are flat.

Omicron appears to be one step in the right direction for severity. Of course, one more mutation could utterly mess that up.

 

[TSwizzle]

Doomsayer Neil Ferguson (the guy that has never been right) is predicting up to 5,000 deaths a day in the UK unless more stringent lockdown measures (of course) are implemented. According to him, vaccination and prior immunity is pretty much useless;

Gloomy modelling by 'Professor Lockdown' today suggested there could be up to 5,000 Omicron deaths per day this winter as he called for restrictions to be tightened within a fortnight. Neil Ferguson and his team at Imperial College London found 'no evidence' the variant is less severe than Delta but estimate it is five-and-a-half times more likely to re-infect people and make vaccines significantly weaker. In a best case scenario, Imperial said without further curbs there could be in the region of 3,000 daily Omicron deaths at the peak in January — significantly higher than the previous record of 1,800 during the second wave.

DailyMail

It is beginning to look like the vaccine is a bit of a bust.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Doomsayer Neil Ferguson (the guy that has never been right) is predicting up to 5,000 deaths a day in the UK unless more stringent lockdown measures (of course) are implemented. According to him, vaccination and prior immunity is pretty much useless;

Gloomy modelling by 'Professor Lockdown' today suggested there could be up to 5,000 Omicron deaths per day this winter as he called for restrictions to be tightened within a fortnight. Neil Ferguson and his team at Imperial College London found 'no evidence' the variant is less severe than Delta but estimate it is five-and-a-half times more likely to re-infect people and make vaccines significantly weaker. In a best case scenario, Imperial said without further curbs there could be in the region of 3,000 daily Omicron deaths at the peak in January — significantly higher than the previous record of 1,800 during the second wave.

DailyMail

It is beginning to look like the vaccine is a bit of a bust.

Vaccine did its job. People who didn't vaccinate were the bust.

 

[TomC]

It is beginning to look like the vaccine is a bit of a bust.

I have no idea who Mr. Ferguson is or why you think his opinions important. I still remember President Donald J Trump announcing that C19 is no worse than a cold and he'll have the USA open again in a month.

What I'm seeing here in your post is excruciating partisanship. Once again, the long term effects of a decidedly Republican policy gets blamed on a Democrat.
Tom

 

[barbos]

I did.

last 2 days jump is Omicron. it doubles every day they say.
so UK progression is:
Day 1: 58K
Day 2: 78K
Day 3: 88K
Day 4: 93K

 

[Elixir]

It is beginning to look like the vaccine is a bit of a bust.

Vaccine did its job. People who didn't vaccinate were the bust.

Right wingers remain willing to die to "pwn teh libs".
Effin' maroons are leading us to yet another lockdown situation right now.
The good news is that after a few more years of their stupidity, we will probably end up with an endemic variant that causes little or no symptoms and we will just live with it. That is 100% going to be how it goes because YOU CAN'T FIX STUPID.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

I did.

last 2 days jump is Omicron. it doubles every day they say.
so UK progression is:
Day 1: 58K
Day 2: 78K
Day 3: 88K
Day 4: 93K

Or about 1.5X as opposed to the 80 or so X in South Africa (which wasn't endemic). Omicron is growing, but to get to 80X, the daily cases would need to be through the roof.

 

[Elixir]

It is beginning to look like the vaccine is a bit of a bust.

Vaccine did its job. People who didn't vaccinate were the bust.

Right wingers remain willing to die to "pwn teh libs".
Effin' maroons are leading us to yet another lockdown situation right now.
The good news is that after a few more years of their stupidity, we will probably end up with an endemic variant that causes little or no symptoms and we will just live with it. That is 100% going to be how it goes because YOU CAN'T FIX STUPID.

This is an accurate representation:

 

[ZiprHead]

‘Unprecedented political interference’: Bombshell House report finds Trump Admin ‘undermined’ COVID response

A massive, bombshell report published Friday by the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis reveals the Trump administration engaged in "unprecedented political interference" in the work of scientific experts, including at CDC, and "was responsible for a series of critical failures...

www.rawstory.com

A massive, bombshell report published Friday by the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis reveals the Trump administration engaged in "unprecedented political interference" in the work of scientific experts, including at CDC, and "was responsible for a series of critical failures that undermined the nation’s ability to respond effectively to the coronavirus pandemic."

One heading from the 46-page report reads: "The Trump Administration’s Persistent Political Interference in the Pandemic Response Contributed to One of the Worst Failures of Leadership in American History."

In a devastating revelation the report adds that "Trump Administration officials purposefully weakened" CDC's "testing guidance to reduce the amount of testing being conducted and obscure how rapidly the virus was spreading across the country."

The Select Committee finds administration officials "championed a dangerous 'herd immunity' strategy inside the White House—including by arranging a roundtable event between then-President Trump and a fringe group of herd immunity proponents—that would have placed millions of lives at risk."

 

[Loren Pechtel]

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.

Look at the demographics of the countries using it.

and? Demographics can affect death rate, but not the spread. If anything, young people are more careless.

The countries involved don't have enough testing to know the true number of cases. The only real data is hospitalizations and deaths--and countries with a younger demographic will fare better because of it given the same number of cases.

 

[barbos]

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.

Look at the demographics of the countries using it.

and? Demographics can affect death rate, but not the spread. If anything, young people are more careless.

The countries involved don't have enough testing to know the true number of cases. The only real data is hospitalizations and deaths--and countries with a younger demographic will fare better because of it given the same number of cases.

Are you implying that India did not have a spike which they say they had?

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I make no claim to the effectiveness of Ivermectin for covid, but is a safe, non-mutagenic drug at human sized doses

Ivermectin plays havoc with sperm production. That won't harm a guy but it's worrysome if he were to impregnate a woman while taking it.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

No, Australia have never had high and sustained infection rate to contrast to. And there were no total lock-down there. China would be better example of that but who knows about China?

China has extensive social media. We can see what's happening.

What I say is that, relatively short but total and simultaneous lock-down could eliminate this virus. I am talking about 2 weeks probably even less than that attempt.
All you need to do is prepare for it (food and supplies for 2 weeks) and then execute it nazi style. Only 2 weeks.
My understanding Delta is pretty short time infection unless you go to hospital.
And Omicron is even shorter than Delta.

Explicit experiment within one small country could change people's minds about it.

Two weeks won't do it--you would have to follow that up by a test. Otherwise you would have asymptomatic cases that weren't caught.

We have practical data on this from China--their quarantine system of incoming travelers. In the real world there are occasional leaks. Before Delta they were quite able to ring fence the occasional leakers and maintain a basically zero level. They were having some trouble with Delta but there's so little reporting on it in English that it's hard to keep up with exactly how it was going. Omicron looks even worse--there appears to have been a case contracted while in quarantine that was only discovered after the person took a domestic flight. If he was infectious while on the plane they've got big trouble.

The ring fencing isn't remotely secret, everyone caught in the ring fence knows it. If they were saying zero cases in a city yet there was a ring fence thousands of people would know something's fishy. You can't keep a secret when thousands of anonymous people know it.