How can we continue to let shit like this go unpunished, as if this is acceptable behavior from public servants?

The state of Missouri commissioned a study to see if mask mandates worked. When the results came in, showing they saved lives, the state blocked publication in order to maintain its attempt to force cities like St. Louis to end their mask mandates: https://t.co/nGon9yi7nC

— Timothy Burke (@bubbaprog) December 2, 2021

It's frustrating because it seems so simple to me.

Step 1: Vax/boost the heck out of everyone.

Step 2: not needed

That's it really. It won't be perfect, but it will turn this into the flu, not a world-stopping pandemic. Instead, we are taking half-measures that are keeping concrete shoes on the world economy and leading to more death and serious illness from the virus. All to protect the delicate feelings of the FreeDumbs crowd.

You don't like masks? Me neither! You want to be able to travel? Me too! You like going to sporting events? Hey, we have that in common! You want your grandmother to be alive? Sounds like we should start a club of people with common interests!

You know the deep, secret, insidious reason we pro-vaccine people want people to be vaccinated? So we can all get back to normal as quickly as possible. So we can have all of that good stuff that we lost.

And while I am a patient person, I am starting to run out of patience with the "I read something on FreedomEagle.Facebook.Russia that says that vaccines are bad" crowd.

A strong majority of Americans are vaccinated and believe in the germ theory of disease. Biden needs to turn the conversation away from mandates and toward putting the blame where it belongs.

We shouldn't need vaccine mandates in the same way we shouldn't need "don't pour battery acid in your eyes" mandates. Remind the country of who is keeping us in the mess.

Germany and Austria are doing what should have been done a while ago (tho Germany is going a step further with compulsory vaccinations coming up) and what we probably don't have the stomach or political structure to do at this point.

Look, you don't want to get the vaccine? I was about to say "fine, that's your right" reflexively, but, really, it's not that simple when we're talking about public health. Right to self harm, sort of, but this is harming others and we do have quite a few laws about that. You are the ones who are barred from doing things, not the people doing the right thing. Currently, those doing the right things and making the sacrifices are rewarded with having to be more cautious because of these plague rats. They can go ahead and be stuck at home, watching Netflix and getting takeout while the rest of us get back to life because we did what we were supposed to do to get back to living in a society. Instead, we're at "you have the right to sacrifice more because I refuse to make sacrifices", which is so backwards.

SI

Apparently, DeSantis wants his own private gestapo

DeSantis proposes a new civilian military force in Florida that he would control

Kindof surprised he didn't think of this sooner. Abbott has his watching for Jade Helm in Texas a few years back. How'd that go, anyway?

SI

I'm not for the Germany lockdown here in the US. I can see that if/when hospitalization & mortality get back up there. I am for allowing insurers not having to pay treatment costs or increasing premiums substantially.

Just got back from Paris. France has a 'Pass Sanitaire'. You need to be vaccinated to get one (or a negative COVID test can get you one valid for 3 days). You need to show it to get into restaurants/theatres/museums/sporting events/etc.

I wish we forced the unvaccinated to miss out on some of the benefits of living in a society.

How is it a lockdown? Unless I'm mistaken on how it works, people are allowed to do whatever they are legally allowed, provided they have a vaccine. Vaccinated or not, people can still go to work and get essential supplies and do what they need to. But you don't get to go do fun leisure activities unless you've taken precautions to stop harming those around you. Businesses are not closed, as far as I am aware.

Instead, here, we have the de facto inverse of that here where people who have done what they can are worried about those who aren't. So, of course, we're punishing those who do what's right and rewarding those who do what's wrong, creating a negative incentive. I am shocked, shocked that it's not working.

SI

This is what I read about Germany's lockdown.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/12/02/europ...ntl/index.html

Everytime I hear about the Omicron variant I think about Omicron Persei 8 from Futurama.

Well, you know what they say. Women are from Omicron Persei 7, men are from Omicron Persei 9.

SI

:D

You know things are bad when the biggest producer of homeopathic 'medicine', whose proponents very often denounce vaccines, are sposoring a big advertisement campaign in a dozen national papaers for Vaccination. Cynically one could ask if they are just afraid for their bottom line if too many buyers die. Or that government and regulatory bodies finally stop giving them special treatment if they aren't seen as quite so harmless now.

Chances are increasing that Omi is a dud relatively speaking.

https://apnews.com/article/coronavir...a972d7ebd9556b

Ideally, survival of the fittest dictates that you spread rapidly and in order to do that you don't kill the host. The end result hopefully is something that long term looks more like the common cold and less like something that kills indiscriminately.

Got an email from the middle school principle last night. 20 kids out in the last week and another 120 are in the process of being notified they have to quarantine. We dodged those bullets, but I am not hearing a rumor they are closing the school for 3 days.

My Dad is in the hospital for an infection. They are looking to discharge him today. He said a doctor told him they are trying to get ready for a surge, and that this wasn't a place you want to be right now.

We just got the email. Closed for three days. The email left it open to be closed more. My guess is we don’t go back until after New Years. Curios what they do with the high school and 4 elementary schools.

Wrong thread?

My 13-year-old son's school (grades 6-8, about 800 students) just sent home the entire 8th grade (his grade) until January. They only had this week and next week left before break, so it's 1 1/2 weeks of virtual instruction. WONDERFUL. My son continues to test negative, and he's pretty good about keeping his mask on, as much as that sucks. He said mask compliance has been slipping, and I understand from other parents that it's been basically non-existent at the local high school.

My daughter was informed that she was exposed, but she's fully vaccinated, so she doesn't have to quarantine.

Posted this in the school and covid, but I'm not sure which one will get a clearer answer:

So forgive my confusion to all of this:

My kids are now vaccinated, my wife and I are vaccinated (my wife already got the booster), my parents are vaccinated (and booster I believe)

Are the large majority of cases now for COVID, since I'm reading that there is a shortage of beds again with the winter surge, still unvaccinated people?

Because I am aware of breakthrough cases but they themselves don't seem to require hospitalization.

So why are wearing masks and trying to follow these guidelines for unvaccinated (and this is not against those who cannot vaccinate but those unwilling to)?

At this point, I'm no longer sympathetic to those unwiring to vaccinate, let them eat horse medicine.

Here are the cases / 100K in Ontario (Canada) stats for yesterday:
Unvaccinated: 15.3
Partially Vaccinated: 5.69
Fully Vaccinated: 4.47

87.4% of all 12+ people in Ontario are fully vaccinated

Now the telling stat is 69 unvaxxed in the ICU, and only 24 vaccinated in the ICU. So 13% of the population is putting 3x as many people in the ICU as the 87% vaccinated. The age is also important, I think there have only been 2 people under 60 that are fully vaccinated which have gone into the ICU to date.

I don't mind wearing masks if it means everything stays open.

Thank you. I too wear a mask mainly in public areas (which I must admit I rarely go to).

I scheduled my booster for today.

I just read that my son will have to play basketball with a mask on at the one school which district requires it. I'm sure there will be wailing and gnashing of teeth for some people, but me, . He's 9.

It proves a point there are many selfish stupid people out there, the COVID ain't making them smarter, but it is doing it's best to kill them.

As with so many things the answer is: It depends.

Now the much longer version than the one you likely wanted ;)

If you mean by "majority" the total number, then it largely depends on vaccine uptake and how it's distributed among age groups and other demographics (not very surprisingly poverty corelates with worse health and thus worth outcomes for this illness, same as many others). In regions with very high uptake you might actually have a majority of cases be vaccinated, in those with even higher uptake this might even be the case for Hospital Cases or even ICU or Dead.
This is the case, at least it was a few weeks ago, the case in the UK. Where you should not let the relatively "good but not great" total Uptake numbers fool you as 1) pretty much all groups 40+ are veeeery highly vaccinated and 2) the younger groups make up quite a seizable part of the population (for example 17 and younger, of which 0-11 isn't vaccinated and 12-17 the UK started very lare, are like 21.5% compared to 16.5 in Germany, won't be that different for 18-25 yo)

Any way, the short answer is: In these circumstances you might have a majority of even ICU cases be vaccinated, but the overall number will be lowish. The cutoff point is somewhere around 90ish uptake for 30+ adults and 95% for 60+.
So yes, of course vaccinated also get very sick at times. And cynically the protections is worst (which does not mean bad ! But slightly worse makes a difference) for those most likely to get very sick, meaning people with prior immune deficiencies or simply 80+ years old.

EDIT: As Mota demonstrated, many regions/cities/countries will have this data available if you look for it.

Almost everywhere i am aware of the Efficacy against preventing hospitalisation/ICU is somewhere around 85-90%. Meaning in most regions you end up with unvaccinated having like 9 times higher per capita Hosp/ICU cases.

With "cases" it depends on testing as well, as often vaccinated aren't required to test in as many situations and quite simply aren't seeing the need to as often, because the whole "not getting as sick" thingy applies to every subgroup pretty much (even those in the ICU are on average less sick if vaccinated and those simply having a mild/'mild' case tend to be less sick as well and recover faster. Remember the Vaccine's main trick really is giving the immune system a major headstart).

The problem re:shortages is (at least) fourfold:

1) It bears repeating: Covid19 is an absolute MF to treat. It takes a lot of time, effort, manpower and expertise. A friend of mine in hospital says at a minimum 1 Covid patient 'counts' as 4 average patients because they need at least twice as many people and they need treatment for twice as long. And that's a hospital where patients tend to skew more severe for other illnesses, this ratio will be even more extreme in other hospitals that don't usually have as many high-demand patients.
When you see these "but they are cutting hospital bed capacity in a pandemic ! It's all a hoax" things (dunno how prevalent in the US, it sure is in Germany), this is the explanation. The more Covid Patients a hospital gets, the lower it's overall capacity will drop. (and the reason it almost never is 0 is quite simply that you don't wait till that point because you always need to keep some beds free for people that need help immediately).

2) With no real concerted prevention of Covid you also get a much higher number of patients with other communicable diseases that spread very similar. While Influenza still, best i can tell, isn't making a huge comeback, others are.

3) You also get all the deferred treatments/procedures, many regions likely never managed to work through their backlog. The UKs system is under pressure despite okish number of Covid patients (though that still adds up fast ...) because there are many millions of people on waitlists where now often you can't wait. Remember that for many individual hospitals "10% of beds free" can mean "1 bed free". Even in sizeable towns you don't have hospitals with dozens of ICU beds and those genereally take on the 'overspill' from smaller hospitals, many of whome are simply not equipped to treat Covid (same with other diseases/procedures. Most smaller hospitals will defer quite a few to bigger and/or more specialized hospitals).

4) Quite a few people will have quit, gone on medical leave, are sick themselves.

All of this also means that when hospitals are overloaded (to which the Unvaccinated contribute the single biggest factor above baseline...) this then bites everybody in the ass that is sick or needs a procedure. So unfortunately this can become a problem for anybody, regardless of getting Covid and/or being vaccinated or not against it. There's regions in Germany where i would not want to get hit with a health issue right now of any kind ...

Texas launches hotline to report 'illegal' vaccine mandate

Well, I hope this is filled with the same Shrek porn that the abortion reporting site crashed under.

(For those who forgot that story: TikTokers flood Texas abortion whistleblower site with Shrek memes, fake reports and porn | Texas | The Guardian )

SI

I thought the people who were against mask mandates were also against the government encouraging citizens to snitch on citizens in this way?

Wait, what? The people most against mask mandates appear to be the biggest bootlickers.

SI

Just got my booster. Will drink plenty of fluids this time and hope to avoid a repeat of symptoms from shot #2.

I tried this but only ended up with a massive hangover.

Just got back from Hawaii - definitely an interesting contrast from Idaho. Masks required everywhere, and vaccination cards required to dine anywhere in Honolulu. There's a whole system just to get there that involves proof of vaccination, registering on an app, etc.

Also stayed at the Navy Lodge in Ford Island in Pearl Harbor for the 80th anniversary (sponsored by a friend who is a Navy commander) and fended off a blizzard warning on the big island THEN a state of emergency flooding warning in Honolulu. I've traveled a few times since I was vaccinated but this was the first time I really out there doing stuff like I used to do. Was definitely great for my mental health. I know I have some super-cautious friends who probably were judging me in silence (I have a lot of friends who don't do indoor dining yet, let alone travel), but, anywhere is safer than Idaho probably.

You're supposed to drink water. :p

We're scheduled for 2 weeks in Kuaui end of June through early July and I'm hoping all of the restrictions are relaxed by then. I did manage to secure a reasonable rental car; now I just have to hope I'm not playing out the Seinfield "take the reservation/hold the reservation" scene.

Kauai is my favorite island, and the good news at least is there is so much outdoor stuff to do there, you hopefully won't be affected. Be sure to get in a tour of the Rum planation if you can

Basically, vaccinations didn't do that much to prevent infection. I don't think the article explicitly said that vaccinations help/reduced (or how much) the seriousness of the infection compared to non-vaccinated.

Surely there were non-vaccinated people that caught omicron and since there's been no deaths as a cause of omicron ... another piece of evidence that it's a dud.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/12/10/healt...cdc/index.html

Out of the 800k in the US that have died, 600k are in the 65 and older group. That means roughly 1% of that US demographic have died from Covid. That's absolutely insane.

It seems likely that Omicron is currently sweeping through the United States, right? The NFL and the NBA are getting tons of asymptomatic positives. And that's because they are testing everyone pretty much every day.

The good news is that is looks like these are mild cases--though the NFL/NBA population is vaxxed, so we don't really know for unvaxxed. If long COVID also isn't a thing with them, then Omicron + vaccines might be the key to "living with the virus."

I just read yesterday that they think approximately 30% of all COVID cases in Canada are already Omicron. Numbers are blowing up here for sure, the RT of Omicron here is 4.0 so far. The doubling number is 3 days, so it'll bump out Delta really quickly.

I've been as pro-vaxx and pro-mask as anyone (particularly someone who still considers themselves to be "conservative" (in the apparently ancient/irrelevant meaning of the term today)), but I'm struggling to understand what the go-forward strategy is for dealing with Covid. My assumption is that Covid isn't going away; we'll have multiple variants and the end state is likely a seasonal/ongoing flu-type infection.

So when I see things like the NBA canceling games between teams that are fully vaxxed (including many who have gotten the booster), I don't understand what is going on. These kinds of decisions seem to me to cut directly against the messaging that vaccines are safe and effective, and that by getting vaxxed, we can get back to normal life. If I'm a vaccine-skeptic, seeing this kind of decision tells me that is not true. Why get vaxxed if I'm still at risk for getting Covid AND activities are still going to be canceled/restricted regardless of whether I'm vaxxed?

WTF are we doing? There doesn't appear to be any kind of off-ramp or soft landing/next phase from the original view that any positive test is the next current crisis and requires drastic action, irrespective of any advancements we've made to cut down on the transmission and severity of Covid.

The Trump administration failed by ignoring Covid; the Biden administration is failing by not coming up with a logical roadmap that goes beyond the next quarter mile to communicate to people what the new normal is supposed to look like and that it started with vaccines.

It's tough, though, because the GOP has encouraged so much resistance. We're currently averaging 1270 deaths a day over the past seven days. We have states with only 50% of adults vaccinated. The exit ramp is that everyone gets vaccinated and boosted, but so many people refuse that I don't know how we move on other than just stop caring about deaths.

I think we're doing the same thing we do on many issues; taking actions based on perception, CYA, etc. at times to go along with the reasonable steps that happen.

There's a situation for example that I have knowledge of where a church board was concerned about mandating vaccines for a pastor who has medical conditions exempting them from both vaccines and masks-wearing. A legitimate concern on the surface. They voiced this concern to the next level up the hierarchy on a zoom call in which the lot of them were sitting shoulder-to-shoulder in a conference room. Not a one of them wearing masks. So it's like, you're worried about your pastor who is in the very small minority of people who can't take the vaccine, but you're not even doing your part?

My stance has been for a while that once we reached the point - last March or April - where the vaccine was widely available and anyone who wanted it could get it is the last point at which these kinds of measures made any sense. I think we'll gradually and eventually get past most of it just because people can only keep up the anxiety about it for so long, but some of it is just performative obeisance to the concept of doing everything you possibly can as a public figure to promote safety, even if what you're doing doesn't make any sense and doesn't actually serve public health.

At this point, I feel like the only people we should care about are the people who can't help themselves - the young, the old, the infirm. Protect them, fuck the rest, and penalize those who put those who need to be protected in harm's way. Everyone else should be free to live and take whatever additional precautions they feel are necessary (masking, virtual attendance, etc.) to deal with the unvaxxed assholes they unfortunately may come across in public.

I don't think its a matter of caring. We should care about all deaths. We should also accept that we cannot prevent all deaths, and that trying to do so can cause worse consequences.

The only thing that comes to mind is that hospitals need to be protected, since that impacts everyone. The easy solution to that is to not treat unvaccinated people at hospitals. Maybe they can have their own "Freedom hospitals" in docked ships or something.

Yep. At the very least, willfully unvaccinated people who get Covid should be put at the bottom of the pecking order for hospitals. Anyone who comes in with a broken arm gets served before all unvaccinated patients. If a bed is needed, kick an unvaccinated patient out. (The idea of entirely separate Covid hospitals sounds good. And insurance shouldn't cover trips to the Freedom Hospital. Freedom to not get vaccinated = Freedom to pay for your treatment yourself.)

I have a hard time caring about someone who willfully choses to put themselves at risk. If a drunk driver wraps their car around a telephone pole my only thought is glad they only killed themselves. I care about the kid who has cancer or the stroke victim who can't get the correct level of care because there anti vaxxers are overrunning hospitals once they realize prayers won't help them.

I think we're still in a bit of a transition period and that will, hopefully, end by the end of the school year.

While most adults could get vaccines by last summer, kids under 12 couldn't until less than a month ago. How do I know? We signed ours up the first week they were available and our 6 year old only gets to "full immunity" tomorrow (2nd shot + 2 weeks).

Once you get that huge population through the process, which should take a couple of months and also get us through this current wave, which will probably roll into early Spring, people will have their first real ideas of "what living with it" looks like. But we've seen on this board in the COVID and school- there are a lot of people who were not ready to even test some real level of normalcy until their kids were vaccinated.

Because of that, a lot of schools are living with rules that were made for months ago during the Delta surge, based on their experiences during the pre-Alpha and Alpha surges. I think next school year, schools will have a more "normal" way of doing things. And considering how kids are huge vectors for disease, these aren't the actions of insane people on school boards.

I think Biden was also hoping for more of an uptake with the mandates - get your vaccinated adult population up to 80%+, even if by force, so there's just less of a reservoir of unvaccinated to clog up hospitals. I also think he was trying to establish more of a framework to allow the unvaccinated to be excluded from activities.

Again, there's this stupid ass backwards perverse incentive system still in play. You don't want to get vaccinated, you can go almost anywhere in the US. You get vaccinated and are still concerned about your health, you're restricted.

A while ago, we decided that smoking sections are a load of crap - we all know how well smoking and non-smoking sections worked (i.e. didn't) and how one person's action actually did affect everyone around them. So, we said "for the greater good, the less desirable option is more difficult when in public". It's not that it's illegal to smoke and there are no restrictions in the privacy of your own home, but it's more expensive to do it and more expensive to get insurance. And if you want to do it out in public, you're the one going outside in the rain in front of the restaurant or during the play or whatever, not the people who you are affecting with your actions. This is how vaccine status should be.

They tried to create a similar framework and it has taken hold in a few places but judges have gotten involved and started treating unvaccinated people like a protected class in a lot of cases and that's made things more difficult.

SI

I hope the schools get it together. We had friends over Sunday night, our daughters are buddies. We were lamenting that the last normal year the girls had was kindergarten and now they are in third grade.

This year has been a pretty normal school year for us. Masks to begin the year but that was dropped and now if you're vaxxed and exposed, there's no quarantine required. As a parent, the main difference I've seen is a benefit - all event tickets are purchased online rather than requiring cash at the table. Masks are required at indoor events, but about 10% of the people wear them. Haven't had a single NTI day this year - that will likely only happen for a snow day.

What can schools do to "get it together" and be more normal?

EDIT: Not trying to be a smartass about this - but like schools in Texas have mostly been back to normal with optional masking and security theater-esque cleaning protocols. They pass out rare exposure emails like a week late but I don't even know if you have to take action anymore.

Of course, Texas stopped providing COVID data for kids because, if it you can't track it, it's not a problem: https://downloads.aap.org/AAP/PDF/AA....9%20FINAL.pdf

SI

Texas's data dashboard is (intentionally) just awful:
News Updates

They have a spreadsheet with very limited data and a couple of other sheets that look like they were put together by an intern.

Weirdly, they have an MIS-C dashboard, but not one for COVID itself.

You can dig in to a bit more data here:
Texas COVID-19 Data
However, they also mention that they migrated a bunch of their data into a new database back in July and somehow that's still not completed so the results aren't available...?

Again, it's almost as if they were trying to not provide the data.

SI

That's fine to say, but there are still almost 10k dying this week and that has to be dealt with in some manner. Given the opposition to public health restrictions, I think the only way out now is a variant that is more transmissible but less lethal. Maybe that's omicron.

Who are they though? Who makes up the current 10K deaths a week? According to the CDC, 87% of Americans aged 65 and older are fully vaccinated. So if the vast majority of deaths are 40-80 year olds who willingly won't get vaccinated, I think at some point we "deal with it" by moving on and letting them dig their own graves.

Yes, there will be some level of otherwise preventable deaths and also some level of deaths no matter what we do. But it feels like we're quickly approaching diminishing returns with no viable answer on how we get to a "comfortable" place where some variant of Covid is always with us.

Hospital beds are being filled, ventilators are being used, and costs have to be paid by someone. We're again seeing hospitals at ICU capacity and we know the trickle down effect that has on other procedures.

I share the frustration, but I don't think it's realistic at the moment to just ignore the carnage and move on.

Like with a vaccine?

I know some people take that view. To me it's an attack on our common humanity. If we are only going to empathize with people who make decisions we approve of, we are effectively saying it's ok to treat the Other as subhuman.

There are few things that I would spend more energy and time stridently opposing.

Decisions have consequences. Freedom cuts both ways. I am just giving them the same level of care they are showing themselves and others. Cutting these people any slack simply rewards bad, selfish behavior. Because while they have a choice, there's only one correct decision to make. So be free to die, and enjoy your choice while you still have time.

Yes. I'm in favor of more mandates, although that gets difficult because Trump appointees have shown they'll kill them. I'd also like to see Dems go much harder at the GOP for refusing to do what's needed.

My point isn't that we should coddle the unvaccinated, just that we can't realistically ignore them so long as the death and hospitalizations rates are so high. They're doing too much damage.

I don't see anything else that can realistically be done. There's better treatments on the way. Otherwise, this is what it is.

Or in other words: "Cut me some slack, Jack! Chump don' want no help, chump don't GET da help! Jive-ass dude don't got no brains anyhow! Shiiiiit."

Would you say the same thing about a mass shooter? What about someone who wants to dump some toxic waste in your drinking supply? Just curious where the line is drawn at people who are actively trying to kill others.

I doubt anything will work, but we won't get back to normal so long as deaths and hospitalizations are still so high. Morally people won't accept 10k dead a week and practically a lot of the vaccinated are at risk when hospitals are full.

I think they absolutely will. If we've learned anything from this pandemic, it's how little this country values human life.

Again, I ask - to whom? Mostly, to themselves I believe. I tried to parse through online data and it was nearly impossible to find something simple that would allow me to see the ages and vaccination status of Covid deaths for the past 3 months. But that's what I would like to see.

If you can deal with the weird music, someone on Reddit charted out some of the data you're asking about. The beginning shows the rates between vaccinated and unvaccinated. The end shows the rates of death by age.

[OC] U.S. COVID-19 Deaths by Vaccine Status : dataisbeautiful

It isn't about making decision we approve of, it is about making decisions for the common good.

You cool with someone who drives drunk putting others at risk even though you disapprove of their behavior?

We can start treating covid like any other illness. If you have it you stay home from school until you are better, like strep, flu, etc...My son is on virtual for 2 weeks because of a close contact on the bus. He can't test back and he is vaccinated. He had a breakdown today because he is frustrated. Meanwhile a kid who goes home with symptoms can test negative and go back the next day.

At this point you are choosing to not get your kids vaccinated. I am sick of my kids education suffering because of it.

I'd say the same thing about anyone. There's no possible example of human depravity so extreme that I think it's appropriate for me to be indifferent to their fate. When it comes to that, it really comes down to understanding that it's extremely likely I wouldn't behave a lot better if I had their genetics, life experience, etc. People who do those things are not generally fundamentally different from me/you/us, and we're not 'better'. Disregarding anyone cheapens everyone, etc.


I'm not sure what you mean by 'cool with'. Do I like the fact that they do that? No. Do I oppose the behavior? Yes. Do I think it gives me any license or justification at all to not care if they die/other bad things happen to them? No.

I am not indifferent to their fate. I simply accept that they are indifferent to their fate.

On that we are in agreement.

"Stewardess, I speak jive"

SI

Yes, but from what I'm reading, 2 doses of a vaccine give you about 37% effectiveness against Omicron. The 3rd booster shot gets you into the 70'ish percentages. So it's not the endgame anymore, the game has changed.

Its still the end game, it's just a less definitive end game. The vaccine will be tweaked and onward we go.

Pro sports are at a real crossroads. Cases exploding in the NBA and NFL. Games being PPD. Curious to see what they will do.

I think the NHL and NBA need a bubble to get the season done (or shave about 20 games off the schedule) and the NHL at the Olympics is an absolute pipe dream at this point.

NFL can probably get through it with less travel and larger rosters if the players aren’t absolute morons, but I have no idea what you do if a team has an outbreak during the playoffs or even god forbid the week of the super bowl. Imagine trying to sell a SB game where both starting QBs are on the Covid list.

They'll eventually scale things back to where if you're asymptomatic and have had a negative test or two, you're cleared to play. I just think it's going to take 1 more season/year to get there, barring some super awful variant where mortality rates go up.

SI

Somewhat interesting read on Sinovac. Small sampling size but out of 25, none showed "neutralizing antibodies". So I guess this mean it'll be infectious as heck in China but assume still relatively mild outcomes.

From what I've read so far, omicron is no where near as bad as Delta in terms of hospitalization and mortality. But because it can infect so many more people, chances for more mutations is going to be a problem.

But then from prior reads (and posts), mutations are generally supposed to be less severe and lethal? Lots of science, immunology mumbo jumbo context that I'm sure we don't know about.

China's Sinovac vaccine 'inadequate' against omicron variant, study finds - MarketWatch

I suspect we'll settle into a rhythm where we see twice-yearly boosters to deal with the variants and the cadence will be similar to the flu, for those who routinely get vaccinated.

Pfizer's treatment drug is showing incredible efficacy, so once that's available widely we should stop seeing almost anyone who is vaccinated suffer severe consequences.

Probably for the next year we'll still see strain on the hospital system due to the unvaccinated, but eventually a combination of those people dying + those people building up some antibody load + the Pfizer drug will put this to bed.

It would, of course, be over a lot sooner if everyone got vaccinated, in fact there probably could have been a good shot at flat-out eradicating it, given the manufacturing capability Pfizer alone has shown, but this is not the world in which we live.

It's complicated, but generally the problem a more lethal strain of the same virus has is that it can't outcompete a less lethal strain for hosts. The less lethal strain has an easier time spreading because it a) doesn't kill so many of its hosts and b) a lot of its hosts don't even realize they're carrying the virus.

So basically you have a less lethal strain out there, infecting hosts left and right and causing those hosts to build up antibodies. Along comes the more lethal strain, encountering these hosts. It either a) loses against those antibodies and can't propagate or b) wins, but then kills the host and doesn't propagate as much.

This is to show how quickly it is changing from Delta to Omicron. Data is from Ontario Canada. They anticipate Omicron to be the dominant strain by January.

Date % Delta % Omicron
Sept 1 99.4% 0%
Oct 3 99.0% 0%
Nov 1 97.1% 0%
Dec 1 99.9% >0%
Dec 9 90% 10%
Dec 10 88.7% 11.3%
Dec 12 79.2% 20.8%
Dec 13 69.2% 30.8%
Dec 14 68.1% 31.9%

R(t) Delta = 1.10 R(t) Omicron = 4.29

And honestly, if I’m understanding this right it doesn’t really matter that Omnicron is less lethal than Delta if it’s infecting 4x the people. Hospitals are going to be completely overwhelmed just due to the sheer numbers - presumably it would need to be nearly 4x less severe/lethal to have no effect.

The overall numbers really haven't boomed that much in the U.S. yet. Maybe something to people not knowing they have it, whereas heavily tested populations like sports leagues see the bigger impact. I'm reading that all of those cases have mild or no symptoms.

The UK is seeing the case numbers boom - hospitalizations haven’t caught up but they are expecting them to.

DOLA - I’m also not sure we should take the status of 20-35 year olds who are among the .1% most physically fit population to be representative of what happens when this thing really hits the wild.

Hospitalizations usually lag 2 weeks behind the numbers. That's when we'll have a better idea. I'm of the belief that the infections aren't as bad, but with the sheer number of people that will be getting it, it will push any health dept to the limit.

The UK's ebbs and flows look a lot different than the U.S.'s. The U.S. had the Fall Delta boom and then dropped more than half going into early November, before creeping up again, and now actually going down slightly the last week or two. The UK never had that kind of drop, their new cases have been consistently high since July.

Maybe there's testing differences, or the U.S. had developed a hardy population of COVID survivors, and more of our most vulnerable killed off already.

I suppose the only way to argue against this is to claim it's all just made-up, bogus data? Or it's using selective Covid data for Dems but including every kind of death for GOP? Or that you don't care, if you're going to die, you'll die on your own terms 10-20 years ahead of your life expectancy, which is a right our forefathers fought the British for?

That’s one way to turn Texas blue, but I don’t support it. https://t.co/Bikrc7Nreb

— Eric Kleefeld (@EricKleefeld) December 16, 2021

‘Hamilton’ Is Latest Broadway Covid Cancellation – Deadline


We are supposed to go see Hamilton next Thursday. We are really looking forward to it and I suspect it may not happen. If it doesn't happen I'll be really bummed for my niece who we are taking. She is 22 and a student. Her mom, my sister, is a widow and dirt poor so she has never really done anything like this. We even rented a limo to take us in. Should be a great day, I hope it happens.

The UK will also run out of tests well before hitting peak infections. Also, re:mild. Figuratively half the country being laid low with 'only' flu like sysmptoms isn't exactly going to be smooth going, either. I mean, even with extra protection at work this will impact hospital workers as well. Meaning trouble even IF you go to crisis standards in terms of isolation measures for those infected.


1) Mutations are random. Entirely. It's literally the virus copying itself and screwing up. Some do it more than others (Measles almost none, HIV constantly). This one does it less than, say, Influenza, due to a rudimentary proof reading mechanism. But still plenty, aided by getting a billion chances.

The single most influential sets of mutations are those aiding spread directly. It could of course also be sth. indirect like causing less symptoms (people spread it more unwittingly), but more likely it's stuff like replicating better, replicating for longer, being better at 'docking' onto the next person etc. That's just the most logical advantage and (best i know) more likely simply due to a lot more available combinations of mutations. And remember that the 'base virus' and the first relevant variants already was extremely well adjusted for the whole "don't be too severe to spread" thing by having a pretty sizeable incubation period/pre-symptomatic viral load, lots of replication in the upper respiratory tract and illness progressing relatively slowly even in those then getting very sick (with Influenza you are bedridden within 2/3 days, with Covid a person entering Hospital today might have well been infected 2 weeks ago and doing just fine with a bit of a cough for days on end).

This article explains much of what i now have typed as well, silly me for not looking first ...

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/10/o...ve-milder.html

Since i got going now, my 2 cents on this and other stuff (and i am not privy to first hand knowledge ...). Overall i think it has been a great failure of most journalists/Media as well as PH communication not to explain some of the basics and instead going straight for, figuratively speaking, chapter 10 or just not explaining anything, dumbing things down beyond the point of actually teaching anything. There's a few exceptions of course (The Atlantics Ed Yong had a couple good explainer type articles for example, some scientists do great work on Social Media or some on Podcasts. In Germany the preeminent Scientist working on Coronaviruses, ever since the first SARS, has a hugely informative Podcast etc).

Anyhoo ...

2) The vast majority of mutations are meaningless, because they are in areas of the genome that play no part in interacting with us (not playing a role for infection, replication or pathogenicity). Many others are in these areas but still don't really change the overall characteristics. Others still are dead ends because their end result is being less good at spreading than others in the same region or rather being not good enough to sustain R>1 in the region under the given circumstances. Then there are those that do, these are the ones the public gets aware of, getting greek letters attached.
But there's been literally hundreds of lineages, not even counting individual mutations (a shit ton).

In case anybody wants to have a look:

Cov-Lineages

3) This virus is well good enough at sneaking in and out of hosts that there is very little difference killing the host or not makes. But ... Why would this be even remotely relevant for 21st century humanity anyway for a virus like this ? Unless dramatically different in the other direction (the Ebola route) ? Even if one wanted to go into some simplified modelling here: 99,9% of people that die are isolated to some extent (or contacts take extra precautions) many days before dying. You don't have people running around infecting people until they die. (Heck, even if they were: By the time people die many, especially the 'fitter' one before catching it, aren't even infectious anymore. Viral load is going like a Bell curve). I really don't think it makes a difference for the virus if it kills 0,05% or 5%. And as said, it already makes it's host most infectious when symptoms are still mild and pretty infectious even without/before symptoms. A variant evading immunity or being more infectious by producing more virus more quickly (Delta) has much more potential to set itself apart.

Again, none of this is anything happening by design but is a numbers/odds game more than anything.

4) Actually there isn't ANY reliable and relevant info on severity yet, except some early ones from the UK and DK, which were super small sample size yet for severe cases. All else we have is annecdotal data (yes, "less total patients" in South Africa, where hospital cases are flying up though now btw, is also annecdotal).
We had the exact same dance with Delta, with hot takes taking lower total numbers early and lesser percentages of severe cases (due to increased testing compared to earliest waves and of course then Vaccines/Immunity) as proof of decreased pathogenicity.
You need a significant amount of data points in a country equipped to collect and calculate that data by also looking at demografics, immune status and health records. If the UK or similar (Canada also does a good job with these analyses, also Denmark though the lower total numbers, as a small country, mean it takes longer) says it's milder across demografics and immune status based on their data, then we'll know.

5) There is no question it will be milder on average per infection because again a lot more people are protected to some degree (it would need to evade that by a whole damn lot to be otherwise given the increase in vaccination and esp. in the UK Infections). But that is not the same as the variant itself being milder than another variant (mostly Delta) is right now in the same population with the same protection or lack thereof.

6) And yeah, as said by others: If instead of 20% now 50% get infected over the Winter, that's a whole other cruel math exercise unless it's spectacularly less severe than Delta (and the odds for that are stupid low imo).
The same issue we have with Influenza btw: the different strains ('variants') and viruses (it's not just 1) aren't all that different in terms of pathogenicity (best i know at least), but you have seasons with many cases and those with few cases, based on the 'rythm' of the dominant strains/viruses, the amount they change (and evade prior immunity/vaccines) and how well the vaccine fits the bill (essentially you need to guess in advance based on early data from the early weeks of the waves on the other hemisphere, i.e. the US vaccine is based on the data from f.e. Australia in March/April, then produced for Sept/Oct), which of course also effects outcomes.
But the same is true here: If VE against severe disease were to drop from 90 to 75% this would mean more than twice as many severe cases. Despite obviously still protecting well more people than not.

This is also another great piece by Ed Yong, looking at things more broadly and expanding on the disconnect between individual (could have been plenty worse) and collective ramifications, that have been the crux of the matter ever since the start. It is going to be just fine for most people, but not enough to not be felt collectively and then trickle towards more people suffering indirectly.

America Can't Beat Omicron One Booster at a Time - The Atlantic

To show how quickly Omicron is changing things in Ontario since my update yesterday...
Date % Delta % Omicron
Dec 1 99.9% >0%
Dec 9 90% 10%
Dec 10 88.7% 11.3%
Dec 12 79.2% 20.8%
Dec 13 69.2% 30.8%
Dec 14 68.1% 31.9%
Dec 15 47.0% 53.0%

R(t) Delta = 0.97 R(t) Omicron = 4.55

Just saw on the ticker WFT has 21 players on the virus list including 12 starters.

I get the 'we don't have enough information to know' part, and that makes sense - unfortunate that there's as much jumping to conclusions as is happening from some outlets in that case. But I'm curious why you think the odds are stupid-low for it to be a lot less severe. It seems clear that it's a lot more contagious, why is it unlikely to have a similar severity shift?

One thing that I saw today is that Omicron is 70 more times likely to spread in the Bronchial tubes then Delta, which is mostly lungs. It's when COVID gets in the lungs is at it's worst.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...onchial-tissue

I was reading up on it some more, and the hospitalizations in Europe seem to be tracking evenly with cases. We're still early in the trending, but it does seem to indicate that it's not "just a bad cold".
Our science table which does the evaluations predicts that at best it is 25% less severe, but 4x more infectious, so they think this will be the worst wave of them all.

Looks like they're moving in this direction in the NFL. They already were clearing players fairly quickly - TJ Watt tested positive on Monday and was back by Sunday's game 6 days later. Now, after this weekend's games, as soon as a vaccinated player who tested positive then tests negative once, they're back the next day, if they have no symptoms.

Would even 10% less severe have a huge impact on hospitalization rates? Expecting COVID not to keep mutating doesn't seem realistic. I get that we might well be headed toward yearly boosters.

I found the CDC site - particularly this page - rather helpful in making my decision to have the third booster (had it today).

CDC COVID Data Tracker

Given these numbers, though, I don't understand why the NFL has a COVID protocol anymore. These are young, healthy people who have unusual access to medical care and can choose vaccination. They stand a much larger chance of being in a serious auto accident than being hospitalized for COVID. Is there something I'm missing here?

Perception and liability

Protip: Make sure you get the booster when you don't have to work the next day. It is not fun.

I was totally fine...