The World-O-Meter Thread

[Derec]

It was the city of Manaus that was thought to have herd immunity, not all of Brazil.

Loren said Brazil. In any case, "thought to be" implies some opinion that is generally held. Your link is a single paper from a preprint server.

It didn't.

Interesting, but I think a biased sample in that preprint study is more likely to be the culprit than that somehow herd immunity is impossible.
And one backwater city in a still developing country is rather limited nail to hang the "Doom and Gloom Talk" onto or the hopes of some posters that cases in Texas will explode now.

 

[Derec]

Derec HAS to misrepresent your statement to avoid confronting his error.

I am not misrepresenting anything. Politesse is refusing to confront his error about cases still rising, when in reality they have been falling.

Forgive and forget it. He hasn't even acknowledged missing his death rate prediction for March 1st by over 3x.

I have. Despite me being a bit overly optimistic though, both cases and deaths have decreased by a lot since January. Which is cause for continued optimism.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Look at Brazil--herd immunity wasn't enough to prevent another surge. Why should Texas be any different?

The two are not at all comparable. The level of natural immunity is lower, even if we give some wiggle room for likely lower testing rates in Brazil. Brazil has ~5% of the population as confirmed cases, Texas has ~9%. And Brazil is way behind on vaccinations too. In Brazil less than 4% of the population has received at least one shot, while in Texas that figure is >15%.

So yes, I do not see major surges happening anywhere in US, including Texas. Minor surges are possible of course, but I think overall trajectory will be down regardless.

I'm talking about Manaus, not the whole country. It was at herd immunity levels of infection--and had a surge anyway due to variants getting past the immunity.

 

[Derec]

I'm talking about Manaus, not the whole country. It was at herd immunity levels of infection--and had a surge anyway due to variants getting past the immunity.

Well, you said Brazil. The claim that Manaus was at herd immunity levels already is, from what I can see, based on a single study on a preprint server.

 

[Artemus]

It was the city of Manaus that was thought to have herd immunity, not all of Brazil.

Loren said Brazil. In any case, "thought to be" implies some opinion that is generally held. Your link is a single paper from a preprint server.

What part of Now published in Science doi: 10.1126/science.abe9728 (emphasis theirs) in the link can't you see?

Interesting, but I think a biased sample in that preprint study is more likely to be the culprit than that somehow herd immunity is impossible.

Or perhaps the problem is a biased reading.

Just do a web search. Top hits are The British Medical Journal, The Lancet, and Nature, some of the most prestigious journals available, all unanimous is pointing out the flaws of relying on herd immunity.

And one backwater city in a still developing country is rather limited nail to hang the "Doom and Gloom Talk" onto or the hopes of some posters that cases in Texas will explode now.

What possible difference could it make where the city is located? If you haven't noticed, this epidemic has little concern about geography.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Numbers continue to drop, maybe approaching pre-third wave. Internet know it all's pretty certain of this or that.

Vaccinations of those most at risk likely helping at some level. Possible herd immunity among the fucking idiots who got virus because of lack of precautions. Holidays, Halloween, campaigning are over.

Variants are late to the game and are increasing in transmission, but hopefully get shut out via vaccination. But some GOP run states are doing their best to give the variants the best shot they have at extending this pandemic.

What is nice in addition to the dropping death toll and new cases is not having endless tweets about the pandemic, the "Wuhan Flu", ungrateful states, etc...

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I'm talking about Manaus, not the whole country. It was at herd immunity levels of infection--and had a surge anyway due to variants getting past the immunity.

Well, you said Brazil. The claim that Manaus was at herd immunity levels already is, from what I can see, based on a single study on a preprint server.

I didn't remember how to spell the name, I figured people would know what I was talking about.

While the data leaves a bit to be desired the point is valid--even if the data is considerably off we still have the variants causing a surge amongst the survivors.

 

[Derec]

I didn't remember how to spell the name, I figured people would know what I was talking about.
While the data leaves a bit to be desired the point is valid--even if the data is considerably off we still have the variants causing a surge amongst the survivors.

There is some evidence that the Brazilian variant is able to evade natural immunity to some extent and also to reduce vaccine effectiveness to some extent. But certainly not to the extent to render the notion of herd immunity meaningless like the "doom and gloomers" here are claiming. I see no reason to trust the Manaus numbers.

 

[Derec]

Numbers continue to drop, maybe approaching pre-third wave. Internet know it all's pretty certain of this or that.

It wasn't a third wave. It was the first wave in some regions (mostly rural and smaller cities) and second wave in others.

Vaccinations of those most at risk likely helping at some level.

Vaccinations in general are helping case numbers go down, but vaccinations of those most at risk is helping with hospitalizations and deaths in addition to reducing case numbers.

Possible herd immunity among the fucking idiots who got virus because of lack of precautions. Holidays, Halloween, campaigning are over.

Yes, a lot of people who put themselves at extra risk of being exposed either through their jobs or general carelessness are more likely to be immune now than general population. I have been pointing out that effect for a while.

Variants are late to the game and are increasing in transmission, but hopefully get shut out via vaccination. But some GOP run states are doing their best to give the variants the best shot they have at extending this pandemic.

It's not just GOP run states though. NY is going to allow 75% occupancy at restaurants for example. California (a virtual one party state) had relaxed many of the restrictions just before Southern California got hit bad last Fall. There is a general pandemic fatigue. We have been at this for over a year now.

 

[Derec]

What part of Now published in Science doi: 10.1126/science.abe9728 (emphasis theirs) in the link can't you see?

Must have missed it. Raises the question as to why you didn't link to that version to begin with.

Or perhaps the problem is a biased reading.

Or maybe healthy skepticism of supposed >70% infection rate in Mannaus. Note that it was not a random sample that was analyzed.
I wonder what Manaus numbers are right now. Worldometer does not break down Brazil numbers by state (Manaus is >50% of State of Amazonas population) or cities - do you know of a site that does?

Top hits are The British Medical Journal, The Lancet, and Nature, some of the most prestigious journals available, all unanimous is pointing out the flaws of relying on herd immunity.

I have no time to read those right now - can you sum their arguments up?

I think it is consensus that herd immunity is important. The math about effective R vs. R₀ is pretty clear. And both natural and vaccine immunity are now contributing to it. US has a vaccination rate of >2M/d right now and maybe 200-250k/d true cases so vaccinations predominate in adding to herd immunity by a factor of almost 10. That is a good thing.

Note that there was a rapid decline in cases starting in 2nd half of January. Nothing changed in the big pandemic picture since the Fall (no new strict lockdowns or anything) except that a lot more people got infected (natural immunity) and that vaccines started being administered (artificial immunity) which both

What possible difference could it make where the city is located?

Health system is less advanced in a place like Manaus. That means not as good quality of data about levels of immunity, but also when the 2nd wave hit, the less robust public health system means that fewer cases/day are enough to put a strain on the system compared to what would happen in a place like US.

If you haven't noticed, this epidemic has little concern about geography.

My point was not about that but it is pretty clear that more backwaterish areas generally got hit later. NYC got hit hard very early, places like Wisconsin or the Dakotas got hit hard many months later.

 

[barbos]

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1194939/rate-covid-vaccination-by-county-worldwide/
Israel is 96% vaccinated already?
And US is 27%?

 

[Politesse]

The U.S. is doing well, considering our very large and widely distributed population. Aside from the UK, proportionately more of our population is vaccinated than in any European nation, and we lead the pack in terms of very physcially large nations. You'll notice that in terms of vaccinating everyone it helps to be a tiny island nation... which we are not! I am fairly impressed with our drive to vaccinate, thus far.

That said, it is very unlikely that we will ever see a 96% vaccination rate.

 

[Derec]

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1194939/rate-covid-vaccination-by-county-worldwide/
Israel is 96% vaccinated already?
And US is 27%?

That's doses per 100 people, not percent vaccinated, since you need two doses of both Pfizer and Moderna.
As of today it's 98.51 doses/100 and 28.22 doses/100, respectively, according to Bloomberg's vaccine tracker,

As far as percent vaccinated, US is at 18.4% (at least one dose) and 9.7% (two doses). Israel is at 55.4% and 43.1%, respectively. So Israel is way ahead of us, but US is ahead of most others, including in Europe.

 

[barbos]

The U.S. is doing well, considering our very large and widely distributed population. Aside from the UK, proportionately more of our population is vaccinated than in any European nation, and we lead the pack in terms of very physcially large nations. You'll notice that in terms of vaccinating everyone it helps to be a tiny island nation... which we are not! I am fairly impressed with our drive to vaccinate, thus far.

That said, it is very unlikely that we will ever see a 96% vaccination rate.

Yeah, I am worried about Russia - only 5%. As I said I was vaccinated immediately after I called, and it does not appear there were lot of people rushing to vaccinate. I came and had to wait 15 minutes for vaccine to be unfrozen.
In Moscow there are long waiting lists, but not here in the middle of nowhere.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

The U.S. is doing well, considering our very large and widely distributed population. Aside from the UK, proportionately more of our population is vaccinated than in any European nation, and we lead the pack in terms of very physcially large nations. You'll notice that in terms of vaccinating everyone it helps to be a tiny island nation... which we are not! I am fairly impressed with our drive to vaccinate, thus far.

That said, it is very unlikely that we will ever see a 96% vaccination rate.

Yeah, I am worried about Russia - only 5%. As I said I was vaccinated immediately after I called, and it does not appear there were lot of people rushing to vaccinate. I came and had to wait 15 minutes for vaccine to be unfrozen.

Not bad for Russia that time of year. In Minnesota, they need to wait three hours for it to thaw.

 

[Elixir]

The U.S. is doing well, considering our very large and widely distributed population. Aside from the UK, proportionately more of our population is vaccinated than in any European nation, and we lead the pack in terms of very physcially large nations. You'll notice that in terms of vaccinating everyone it helps to be a tiny island nation... which we are not! I am fairly impressed with our drive to vaccinate, thus far.

That said, it is very unlikely that we will ever see a 96% vaccination rate.

Yeah, I am worried about Russia - only 5%. As I said I was vaccinated immediately after I called, and it does not appear there were lot of people rushing to vaccinate. I came and had to wait 15 minutes for vaccine to be unfrozen.

Not bad for Russia that time of year. In Minnesota, they need to wait three hours for it to thaw.

I wonder if their propaganda efforts might be backfiring.
Russian intelligence reportedly used fake news sites to spread misinformation about coronavirus vaccines

Apparently those efforts are attempting to discredit the "western" (Pfizer, Moderna. J&J) vaccines, while promoting their "Sputnik" product. But the Russian people are less that enthusiastic even about their own vaccine, if reports are to be believed.

As an aside, it is kind of funny/sad to see them recycling the Sputnik name. I still remember sitting in my third grade classroom where we had all been trained how to hide under our one-piece desks when the atomic bombs began to fall, and the anxiety on the teacher's voice as she explained that the dreaded Russians now had an object traveling over our heads that we couldn't do anything about. (The fact that all it did was go "beep beep beep" was little consolation.)

That was probably the last time that anything "The Russians" did actually provoked that kind of response, at least in me. Yeah, the Cuba thing was kinda scary, but at least it seemed like something we could act against.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Indeed. While I don't have an anti-vaxxer bone in my body, and while Russians have made great contributions in science, I'd have reservation with the Russian vaccine, especially the incredible speed it was sent out into arms. I doubt Putin is trying to poison everyone, but the Russians and margins of error have known to clash.

 

[Elixir]

On another front... what's up with Nebraska?
They seem to have decided that if they simply don't report any cases, the problem doesn't exist. Two out of the last three days, no reports whatsoever despite the known fact that their meat packing plants are staffed by laborers among whom the disease is running rampant. I would be dumbstruck to learn that their (lack of) reports are accurate. In fact, I find the numbers coming from red states in general to be suspect.

 

[bilby]

Not bad for Russia that time of year. In Minnesota, they need to wait three hours for it to thaw.

I wonder if their propaganda efforts might be backfiring.
Russian intelligence reportedly used fake news sites to spread misinformation about coronavirus vaccines

Apparently those efforts are attempting to discredit the "western" (Pfizer, Moderna. J&J) vaccines, while promoting their "Sputnik" product. But the Russian people are less that enthusiastic even about their own vaccine, if reports are to be believed.

As an aside, it is kind of funny/sad to see them recycling the Sputnik name. I still remember sitting in my third grade classroom where we had all been trained how to hide under our one-piece desks when the atomic bombs began to fall, and the anxiety on the teacher's voice as she explained that the dreaded Russians now had an object traveling over our heads that we couldn't do anything about. (The fact that all it did was go "beep beep beep" was little consolation.)

That was probably the last time that anything "The Russians" did actually provoked that kind of response, at least in me. Yeah, the Cuba thing was kinda scary, but at least it seemed like something we could act against.

Sputnik isn't just a proper noun, and doesn't just refer back to the early Soviet space program, although the overtones of "technical excellence" are certainly there.

It's an old Russian word for a travelling companion, someone who joins you on a journey for mutual support and protection. As such, it's a good name both for an artificial satellite, and for a vaccine.

Obviously it has very different connotations to Americans, particularly those old enough to remember the artificial satellites and the Cold War; But Americans aren't the intended audience, and aren't as important as they like to think, so nobody cares.

 

[barbos]

Antivaxing is a western invention. There are not that many crazy anti-vaxers here.
And considering western press trashing of russian vaccine I see no problem with Russia doing the same.

Sputnik V is just more sophisticated(better) version of AstraZeneca. Sputnik use human variants of the viruses (instead of monkey one) and it is also a combination of two different instead of one - two different shots.

Name "Sputnik V" is clear reference to space race, there can't be any doubt about that. Official name in papers is different though.

As such, it's a good name both for an artificial satellite,

It's a name for natural satellite as well. The moon is a sputnik.