The P&R Plague Thread (Covid-19)

[Dr. Strangelove]

Just posting this for the conservative members of this board. I want to thank you for voting for Trump, you really are the best. 

 

Here's Dr. Brix objecting to Dr. Atlas's, who Trump leaned on for advice, approach to COVID:

 

"I can't be part of this with these people who believe in herd immunity and believe we are fine with only protecting the 1.5M Americans in [long-term care facilities] and not the 80M+ with co-morbidities in the populations included in the unacceptable death toll among Native Americans, Hispanics, and Blacks," Birx wrote

[Jason Sitoke]

13 minutes ago, Scarlet said:

They also have a younger population and more prior exposure to Covid in general and higher, more recent exposure to Delta.  

 

It does look encouraging.  Coupled with the study out of Hong Kong that indicates Omicron does not infect the lungs as readily as Delta maybe we'll come out it decent shape. 

 

The problem I see is that some people are already banking on Omicron being less virulent so they're doing next to nothing to mitigate their chances like vaccination and boosting.  I have two guys at work who had prior infection with COVID but won't get vaxxed because "natural immunity is always better.". The dead dude in Texas highlights that risk.  

It is arguable whether they've had more or less exposure, or recent exposure, to Delta.  But you're right, they're significantly younger than us.  At this point, the 30% cannot be helped.  There no longer exists vaccine hesitancy.  There is only vaxxed, and staunchly, proudly unvaxxed.  How we got here has been a truly perplexing, frustrating journey, but I'm all out of outrage.  Omicron is here to give everyone a taste, and hopefully it's more bitter than deadly.

[nic]

33 minutes ago, Jason Sitoke said:

It is arguable whether they've had more or less exposure, or recent exposure, to Delta.  But you're right, they're significantly younger than us.  At this point, the 30% cannot be helped.  There no longer exists vaccine hesitancy.  There is only vaxxed, and staunchly, proudly unvaxxed.  How we got here has been a truly perplexing, frustrating journey, but I'm all out of outrage.  Omicron is here to give everyone a taste, and hopefully it's more bitter than deadly.

South Africa is around 26% fully vaxxed last time I checked. As someone here pointed out hospitalizations from omicron are treading very low so far. Lots of other factors at play though. I assume the US beats most countries in obesity for example. I could stand to lose 15 pounds myself.

[Scarlet]

 

 

https://www.statnews.com/2021/12/22/a-computational-biologist-weighs-in-on-omicron-the-future-of-vaccines-and-the-cdcs-variant-forecast/

 

Quote

If you calculate the case-hospitalization ratio as something like one-third or one-half of Delta, I still think this is entirely consistent with many more cases, if not most cases, being reinfections or breakthrough infections and immunity being the thing that is driving the decrease in severity.

The average case in South Africa and the average case in the U.S. and the average case in Denmark will all be less severe than the average case of Delta, just because of [immunity in the population].

 

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/12/the-south-africa-omicron-wave-is-already-peaking-why.html

 

Quote

Whether what we’re seeing reflects immunity or reduced severity.
But in some sense, it doesn’t really matter. This is going to be less severe, either because of immunity or intrinsic severity or both. What matters much more than what drives that reduced severity is how reduced it is. People are arguing about those factors like, if it is intrinsically less severe, that means we don’t need to worry about it.

 

[NM11046]

1 hour ago, Dr. Strangelove said:

Just posting this for the conservative members of this board. I want to thank you for voting for Trump, you really are the best. 

 

Here's Dr. Brix objecting to Dr. Atlas's, who Trump leaned on for advice, approach to COVID:

 

"I can't be part of this with these people who believe in herd immunity and believe we are fine with only protecting the 1.5M Americans in [long-term care facilities] and not the 80M+ with co-morbidities in the populations included in the unacceptable death toll among Native Americans, Hispanics, and Blacks," Birx wrote

This made me sick to read.  She knew.  And she absolutely cost lives with her lack of courage to speak up.  Choosing to hide instead of telling and educating.  What an embarrassing lack of leadership and courage.

[Archy1221]

1 hour ago, Jason Sitoke said:

I would think South Africa would be a much better indicator, as they have a much lower vax rate than the US.

Good point and being weeks ahead of us with Omicron gives a good comparison as we go through it 

[Scarlet]

25 minutes ago, nic said:

South Africa is around 26% fully vaxxed last time I checked. As someone here pointed out hospitalizations from omicron are treading very low so far. Lots of other factors at play though. I assume the US beats most countries in obesity for example. I could stand to lose 15 pounds myself.

 

https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2021/12/17/1065315661/omicron-may-be-less-severe-in-south-africa-that-may-not-be-the-case-for-the-u-s

 

Quote

As a country, South Africa had already gone through three massive COVID surges, as vaccination rates there remained low, compared to the U.S. and Europe.

 

So, while only about a quarter of South Africans had been vaccinated when omicron finally arrived, the vast majority of residents had likely already been infected with previous variants of SARS-CoV-2. (Scientists have predicted this based on the excess mortality rate observed in the country through the pandemic.) Given this history, scientists say most South Africans already probably had some level of immune protection generated by these prior infections.

 

"Thus, omicron enters a South African population with considerably more immunity than any prior SARS-CoV-2 variant," concluded Dr. Roby Bhattacharyya, an infectious disease specialist, and epidemiologist William Hanage in a recent paper published online.

 

[BigRedBuster]

 

[Jason Sitoke]

31 minutes ago, Scarlet said:

 

https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2021/12/17/1065315661/omicron-may-be-less-severe-in-south-africa-that-may-not-be-the-case-for-the-u-s

 

 

The estimate of 20% of Americans being infected seems ridiculously low.  There have been over 51 million CONFIRMED cases in the country, which is just short of 16% of the population.  Obviously there are reinfections in place, but I wouldn't expect those to be the majority.  Do we really believe that we've only missed ~15 million cases of COVID since March 2020?

 

Here's another study that estimates that 1/3 of Americans had COVID by the end of 2020:

 

One in Three Americans Already Had COVID-19 by the End of 2020 | Columbia Public Health

[Guy Chamberlin]

I've moved into the camp of We're All Going to Get It, and I'm taking all the optimism possible from the pattern in South Africa.

 

But we did cancel our small New Year's Eve party, and almost everyone we know has scaled back travel and socializing plans for the next few weeks. Seems like a big step back, but I think we might get to a better future quicker. I'm not quite ready to get COVID on purpose to speed things up. 

[BigRedBuster]

Why are some people freaking out about Omicron?  
 

 

[Archy1221]

16 minutes ago, Jason Sitoke said:

The estimate of 20% of Americans being infected seems ridiculously low.  There have been over 51 million CONFIRMED cases in the country, which is just short of 16% of the population.  Obviously there are reinfections in place, but I wouldn't expect those to be the majority.  Do we really believe that we've only missed ~15 million cases of COVID since March 2020?

 

Here's another study that estimates that 1/3 of Americans had COVID by the end of 2020:

 

One in Three Americans Already Had COVID-19 by the End of 2020 | Columbia Public Health

I fall in your camp.  Along with the 1/3 of infected for 2020, it’s reasonable to assume another 20% minimum were infected in 2021 given the January/Feb peak plus Delta.   Combine that with almost 80% of age 12 and older having at least one shot gives a wide scope of at least limited immunity for US.  

[FrantzHardySwag]

6 minutes ago, BigRedBuster said:

Why are some people freaking out about Omicron?  
 

 

Even if there are hospitalizations, if they are low acuity that would be huge. We can hook you to O2 and monitor you, hell we can even send you home on O2 and monitor you remotely. What we don't have is ICU staff and vents. I remain hopeful with the Omicron variant. 

[nic]

50 minutes ago, Scarlet said:

 

https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2021/12/17/1065315661/omicron-may-be-less-severe-in-south-africa-that-may-not-be-the-case-for-the-u-s

 

 

What is US at? 73% fully vaccinated? Plus all those folks that won't get vaccinated because they had it already. Below is an article from CNN discussing this topic. I am gonna be optimistic and say omicron will usher in the end of the pandemic and we can put this thread out to pasture. 

 

https://www.cnn.com/world/live-news/omicron-variant-coronavirus-news-12-22-21-intl/h_1f5455659b28ab31299cd991544d8e32

 

[BigRedBuster]

Well....a big surprise happened.

 

I have an employee who is an extreme MAGA head.  I would not be surprised if she wasn't a believer in Qanon.  It's that bad.  When Biden was inaugurated, she was literally freaked out that day because she thought bombs were going to start falling.

 

Well....she also believes all the fake news about vaccines.  She was adamant that she would NEVER get vaccinated because she likes her DNA the way it is....bla bra bla.....

 

So....now I find out she's getting vaccinated tomorrow.  The turning point?  Her MIL was in the hospital with it and almost died.  The Drs said she would have died if she wasn't vaccinated.

 

But...here's the kicker.  I'm told she absolutely doesn't want anyone to know she's vaccinated because she doesn't want to hear the "backlash" she's expecting from everyone around her.