WTF :2019-nCoV NovaCoronaVirus Thread

[Umfriend]

OK, that sounds promising.

On the general situation, BE and NL appear very similar then. Perhaps it is time Flanders splits off and joins us! (Although I would not mind taking a bit of the Ardennes as well).

[UtwigMU]

Good things are going well with father, hope you can make trip to Belgium soon.

[VJ]

He is back home, quite well.

Meanwhile, new variant of concern: WHO names the B.1.1.529 Covid variant Omicron, designates it as 'variant of concern'.

It already surfaced in Belgium (probably just at airports and stations, no way they can check the border everywhere*), sparking controls at the French border. If Germany labels Belgium as a region of concern, we would be very restricted for our return...

* For those who don't know Europe well: borders are very ill-defined on site: you travel between Belgium, France, Netherlands, Germany, ... without even barely noticing that you changed countries.

[Dr Mordrid]

He is back home, quite well.

EXCELLENT!!

Meanwhile, new variant of concern: WHO names the B.1.1.529 Covid variant Omicron, designates it as 'variant of concern'.

/sigh

Hopefully the new boosters have some cross effectiveness.

With Omicron sequenced it'll take a couple weeks to reprogram the mRNAs for it and likely 90-100 days to get an updated booster through the US approval process. Maybe.

[Dr Mordrid]

https://www.freep.com/story/news/health/2021/11/26/fast-spreading-and-mutating-covid-variant-south-africa-worrying-who-experts/8759122002/

>
Moderna's strategy involves three options for boosting COVID-19 vaccination, should omicron prove problematic for current vaccines.

The three options, according to a Friday release from the company: A higher dose booster, shots currently being studied that are designed to "anticipate mutations such as those that have emerged in the Omicron variant" and an omicron-specific booster — which is already in the works.
>

[UtwigMU]

Omicron will probably be a nothingburger like delta (a bit more virulent, less deadly).

There are new variants of common cold and flu every year and you never hear about them.

If the governments thought Omicron is significant, they would probably deploy army to US/Mexico, Mediterranean, Poland/Belarus and Greece/Turkey and give them orders to shoot on sight.

The main thing is probably population no longer cares about Covid. For example here bars are full, we had peak recently, people waiting in Covid test line to get your 2-day pass strike conversations with masks under chin and the student girls taking tests don't act like it's a deadly disease but more like they are doing questionnaires. So governments need to come up with something new to scare people so that they have excuse to borrow money which they can then pump into their friendly companies, electorate and sections of public sector and exercise sometimes unconstitutional (in Slovenia constitutional court, your supreme court for US friends, nullified some of government edicts and overturned fines) measures which turned out to hardly do anything.

Recently our finance minister said we would have less deficit if more people got vaccinated. All comments on pro-government news site were in line: quit spouting nonsense, who believes this crap.

EU is set to produce 3.5bn vaccine doses in 2022. Population of EU is 500M. That is 7 doses per pop which is already 67% vaccinated, excluding children who are not approved yet, likely more like 70-75%. Elderly who are at risk are even higher vaccinated than that. 21 autumn outbreak in many countries with 50-90% vaccination rates has been comparable or even higher to autumn of 2020 with no vaccinations. How are they going to sell population on 7 boosters without new "scary" variants?

Especially since now vaccines no longer prevent spread of covid but only decrease probability of hospitalization for vulnerable.
You can calculate your hospitalization or death risk here:

https://www.qcovid.org

Everyone anecdotally knows several vaccinated people who got infected. I know 4 cases in 2 cases whole vaxed families got infected. Recently some dumbass vaxed contractor came on site and infected a coworker.

Here everyone vaxed more than 6 months ago has been excommunicated from society by our covid czar and needs 3d booster. Israel is giving 4th boosters.

[Dr Mordrid]

>.
The main thing is probably population no longer cares about Covid.
>
So governments need to come up with something new to scare people so that they have excuse to borrow money which they can then pump into their friendly companies, electorate and sections of public sector
>

People here are also tiring of the govt. and agency overreaches, and MI's State Supreme Court has unanimously stripped Governor Whitmer (D) of her (illegally assumed) power to circumvent the 1976 epidemic law by edict - she must cooperate with the State legislature.

Updated vaccines and sensible precautions OK, but don't even think about another shutdown. As it is the 2022 mid-term congressional & state elections are going to be a slaughter.

As to the people's behavior; the attendance at today's University of Michigan - Ohio State University (US football) game, a massive rivalry, was 111,156 + more people having tailgate parties in the parking lot. So much for no crowds.

[Umfriend]

Omicron will probably be a nothingburger like delta (a bit more virulent, less deadly).

So, no surprise, I disagree with basically everything you say and imply but this piqued my interest. Is Delta less deadly then Alpha/Beta in itself or were we lucky vaccination was already underway when Delta came along? If you've got a link to info on the deadliness, I'd be thankful.

In NL, we're in "lockdown". We've never had a real lockdown and don't have it now but, aside from supermarkets and drugstores (which close at 2000 instead of 2200) everything needs to close after 1700 until 0500. Amateur sports included. Masks obligatory when seated as well as 1.5m distance, please, really please, work at home if possible.

It's really due, I think, because the government really wanted to open up end of September and instead of doing this piecewise and see what happens, we had a rather big bang (just like end of June which went horribly wrong). So the pattern that emerges here seems to be that we open up fast and rather wholesale but, when it does not turn out well, slowly close down again, each time with the hope that doing just a tad will help. This, of course, does not help the trust the public has in the government and the anti-vaxxers and corona-sceptics demand perfection or else it sucks, is a conspiracy or just plain nonsense. Last time we had a mask mandate, adherence was very good. Now, I estimate, about 60% in shops (still above 90% in public transports where the mask mandate wasn't abolished). Live saving operations are cancelled regularly and may be virtually nonexistent right now.

[UtwigMU]

As RNA replicates mutations may occur randomly. Some mutations might be good for environment, some might not survive. This is Darwin 101.

If virus randomly mutates to be more virulent, it will spread more. If virus mutates to be more deadly, it kills the host and can no longer spread. On one hand you have common cold and flu which are very virulent but not deadly. On other hand you have ebola, which is deadly but hasn't spread.

So viruses are evolutionary pressured to become more virulent and less deadly over time. This could be the case with Covid. I saw some scientist claims that Delta is more virulent and evolution and data seems to support that.

We had more hospitalizations in autumn 21 wave and also more virus in waste water as per official government data compared to autumn 20 but less deaths. This means we had more cases. Government case numbers cannot be compared year over year as this year we test 80k per day but last year we tested 30k per day. If you test more people you will get more cases. Tests were not mandatory and were more expensive last year. Nonetheless cases, sevage and ICU are higher, indicating more cases now than last year. Higher case number also supports more virulent less deadly hypothesis.

Reasons for less deaths could also be: During 2020 average age of all cause death went up by one year (official stat.si data). Virus spread through 90%+ nursing homes. Pool of population which is very vulnerable has seen many deaths and this year we have less vulnerable people to die from Covid or they have immunity through recovery or vaccine (nursing homes are highly vaccinated)

Another reason for higher spread could be no lockdown, but now we also have vax + mandatory 3-times a week testing for unvaxed.

TLDR. 2021 less deaths, more cases. Reasons for higher spread could be combination of more virulent virus, no lockdown. Reasons for less deaths with higher spread could be combination of less deadly virus, lesser pool of vulnerable people, immunity from recover, vax in vulnerable people.

Now other parts of my post.
EU to produce 3.5bn vaccines in 2022 source: Reuters, Ursula von der Leyen, head of EU Commission

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/eu-set-produce-over-35-billion-covid-vaccine-doses-2022-chief-executive-2021-10-28/

3.5bn/500M = 7 Note that USA, India, China and Russia are also producing their vaccines.

Our head of Covid advisory group said for national TV: "At the booster dose, the immune response is greater than, say, at the basic vaccination"

In Israel, the third dose has been shown to be effective

In Israel, where vaccination coverage is about eight percentage points higher than Slovenia (62.6%), a large observational study has already been conducted on the third dose, which she said showed that the third dose was very effective: " Infection compared with those who were only basically vaccinated, 11 times more, and prevented a severe form of the disease up to 19 times more often than if people were only basically vaccinated. to the improvement of the condition, to a smaller number of cases, mainly due to this very extensive booster dose vaccination in those who have otherwise been vaccinated . "

https://www-rtvslo-si.translate.goog/zdravje/novi-koronavirus/beovic-pri-pozivitvenem-odmerku-je-imunski-odgovor-vecji-kot-recimo-pri-osnovnem-cepljenju/602592?_x_tr_sl=sl&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=sl&_x_tr_pto=nui

She is speaking of introducing 3d booster to extend vax pass. This is EU-wide
A year ago 2 vaccines were 95-100% effective but now boosters are 11-19 more effective. Is it that 2 shots were only 5-10% effective or boosters are 1100%-1900% effective? The consensus among EU Covid decision makers seems to arrive to vax effectiveness waning after 6-9 months.

https://www.rtvslo.si/capodistria/radio-capodistria/notizie/slovenia/beovic-al-vaglio-l-obbligo-della-terza-dose-per-il-green-pass/602336

Beović, al vaglio l'obbligo della terza dose per il Green pass = Beović, evaluating mandatory 3d dose for Green pass

https://www.rtvslo.si/capodistria/radio-capodistria/notizie/slovenia/beovic-al-vaglio-l-obbligo-della-terza-dose-per-il-green-pass/602336

(Italian news section of national TV)

https://www.keeptalkinggreece.com/2021/11/25/eu-covid-travel-pass-expires-9-months/

Under the proposed amendment, the COVID pass — called the EU Digital COVID Certificate — will only be valid for travelling across the bloc during the nine months following the last vaccine dose of the so-called “primary series”: one dose for the Johnson & Johnson jab and two doses for the Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna and AstraZeneca vaccines.

European Comission

https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_21_6186

Taking into account all those factors, the Commission is proposing a stronger focus on a ‘person-based' approach to travel measures and a standard acceptance period for vaccination certificates of 9 months since the primary vaccination series. The 9 month period takes into account the guidance of the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) on the administration of booster doses as of 6 months, and provides for an additional period of 3 months to ensure that national vaccination campaigns can adjust and citizens can have access to boosters.

Israel is preparing for 4th dose Bloomberg:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-09-12/israel-preparing-for-possible-fourth-covid-vaccine-dose

[UtwigMU]

As per less deaths in autumn wave, here is graph by our covid tracker which correlates cases, hospitalizations and deaths. We had less deaths relative to hospitalizations and cases in 2021 compared to 2020

https://covid-19.sledilnik.org/embed.html#/en/chart/MetricsCorrelation

Case numbers are also higher now but we also do more daily tests. HAG tests are mandatory for unvaxed and free so up to 4.5% of population test daily. 65% of adults are vaxed, higher in elderly.

I test ~4 times a week, 3 times at work and then when I want do stuff other than groceries. In 2020 I never tested.

[Umfriend]

Right, so the big difference, I think, is that with Delta we also have substantial vaccination. To argue that delta is less deadly you'd have to show that under the unvaccinated, death rates are lower while other circumstances are rathr similar and, well, I don't think so.

The idea that virus-evolution is driven by more transmission and lower severity, i.e., hosts not dying, that is just part of the analysis. Yes, you do not want the host to die before you spread but once you have spread (and assuming no emotional attachment etc), you do not care, especially if/while you can not remain in the host for a long time. Covid is one of the few instances were the host spreads before becoming ill. _That_, I think, is the great success factor of Covid-19: It spreads before the host fights the infection.

I'm not going to address it all but the 3.5bln doses are a great idea. First, the Chinese and Russians either have not the efficacy or production capacity. There are billions not yet vaccinated. As the article notes, most is for exports. It is not like they plan to produce 3.5bln annually. Another positive is that it would be great to have this kind of production capacity should a new virus surface. 1.5 years ago we were complaining about Just-in-time management/supply chains, now we're complaining about abundant supply? Imagine a capacity of just 1bln and then a new 3-shot formula needs to be made. You'd want to wait for 1.5yrs??

[VJ]

It is interesting to compare Belgium and Poland. Currently, Belgium has much more cases proportionally than Poland, but Poland has much more deaths proportionally. And Belgium has a much higher rate of vaccination (88% vs 60-70%)... Coincidence? Amazing how many anti-vaxers there are here in Poland...

[Dr Mordrid]

>
Amazing how many anti-vaxers there are here in Poland...

Same here, but the US has a long history of it. It took a 1905 US Supreme Court ruling to give states the power to require smallpox vaccines under their police powers (Jacobson v. Massachusetts), Still, we've had anti-vaccine advocacy by quack doctors, celebrities, and gadflys like Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (Bobby's son) for over 20 years.

But...it's debatable if the Federal govt. has such authority. The issue is that the 10th Amendment of the US Constitution cedes powers not granted to the Feds to the States.

So far the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals has held if States have the vaccine mandate power granted to States in Jacobson the Feds don't. This definitely ends up at the US Supreme Court.

The fight is less about vaccines than Federal overreach, many of the states involved have pro-vaccine policies.

5th Circuit: Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi, but >23 other states have joined in.

[UtwigMU]

https://twitter.com/BBCPolitics/status/1465346793793802253

Minimum dose interval for booster jabs to be halved from 6 months to 3 months and all adults to be offered booster Covid vaccine, Health Secretary Sajid Javid confirms

Take your booster. 2 weeks to flatten the curve. Trust the plan.

[UtwigMU]

Did some research on age:

Average age of Covid death in Slovenia as of today:
All 80 years
Men 77,7 years
Women 82,2 years

Average age of death in Slovenia 2019
Men 73,9
Women 82,1

The average age of Covid death is higher than all-cause average age of death.

Sources: stat.si and sledilnik.org

Total Covid deaths 0-64 401 or 7,24% of all (5540) Covid deaths. 93% of Covid deaths are ages 65+
About half (2456 or 44%) deaths are 85+

Traffic deaths 2019 93, 2020 79, 2021 109
Traffic deaths 0-65 are around 85% of all traffic deaths.

So if you are aged 0-65 you are about 2,5 times more likely to die from Covid than in traffic accident in a given year.

risk of dying in traffic: 1 in 22'000
risk of dying from covid: 0-64 1 in 9'000