Coronavirus

[Swerd]

… I made this same case to a few people I know who are COVID skeptics, and always get the same answer. Silence.

To be fair, these people might not be plain ignorant or ornery. They might suffer from undiagnosed crainial-colonic inversion. They weren't ignoring you. What with their colon and other abdominal viscera wrapped tightly around their heads, they simply couldn't hear you.

 

[Swerd]

It is also curious how people beat their chest and proudly announce that they are not afraid of the virus, yet many of these same people seem to be terrified of the vaccine, and they also experience significant mental suffering when asked to wear a mask. No storming of the beach at Normandy for this crowd.

It's not just a fear of masks, they're scared of those needles and hypodermic syringes.

 

[Mr._Clark]

More than one person on news TV have suggested that wearing a mask in the winter might be a good idea for prevention of diseases other than COVID.

The government is not going to make everyone wear masks forever.

 

[Speedskater]

The government is not going to make everyone wear masks forever.

What does the government have to do with an individual choosing to wear a mask?

 

[Mr._Clark]

In the last year or so, more than 500,000 people in the USA died from Covid-19. And that was just counting deaths from confirmed Covid-19. Reasonable estimates suggest that as many as twice that number of deaths actually occurred. How many died from the flu last year?

During the 2020/21 flu season, there were a bit more than 2,000 cases of 'just the flu' in the USA – a very low number due to the shut-down, social distancing, and wearing masks. Compare that to the very large number (which I can't remember*) of Covid-19 cases in the USA during the same time.

* I just looked it up. As of 10 May 2021, in the USA, there were 32,779,262 confirmed cases of Covid-19, and 582,845 deaths confirmed as due to Covid-19. So, 2,000 flu infections vs. nearly 33 million Covid-19 cases. That 1 flu case for every 16,000 Covid-19 cases.

If nothing else, 1 flu case for every 16,000 COVID cases demonstrates that the coronavirus spread much more widely than the flu virus under similar conditions.

Assuming that masks and social distancing had a similar effect on the spread of the coronavirus and the flu virus, the number of COVID cases that would have occurred but for masks and social distancing would have been astronomical. For example, if there are 30 million cases of the flu in a typical year and if this was reduced to 2,000, assuming the same ratio (15,000) applies to the coronavirus, this implies that almost everyone in the U.S. would have gotten COVID if there had not been any measures to slow the spread. I realize it's not quite that simple because it's conceivable that masks and social distancing were more effective against the flu virus than the coronavirus. Also, there would have been some herd immunity prior to 100% infection, and it's also quite possible that people would have changed their behaviors on their own without mandates. It's not possible to know with certainty what would have happened in an alternative reality (i.e. no measures whatsoever), but I'd be willing to bet that the number of COVID cases and deaths would have been much higher.

 

[Mr._Clark]

What does the government have to do with an individual choosing to wear a mask?

What does a person on news TV suggesting that wearing a mask in the winter might be a good idea have to do with a person saying "Don't let the government know or they'll make us wear masks forever!"?

 

[GO-NAD!]

In Sweden going to work with clear symptoms of possible Covid-19 infections is cause for immediate dismissal, and in media there have been several reports of such dismissals.

I assume that in Sweden there is federally mandated sick leave?

There is no such policy in Canada. Over half of working Canadians have no employer-paid sick leave benefit and the vast majority of workers who don't have such a benefit are in low-paying jobs - precisely the people who can least afford to stay home sick. There have been many outbreaks traced to employees coming to work infected with COVID. If an employee can't afford to forgo the income, I can't judge them harshly.

The government brought in a temporary program - the Canada Recovery Sickness Benefit - specifically for the COVID-19 pandemic. But, employees have to apply for it, so there is a delay in receiving the lost income. When someone can't afford such a delay, the benefit isn't a big help. So, they go to work sick. To be effective, the benefit needs to be seamless, so that there is no interruption of income.

Some provinces, as a result of the pandemic, are finally initiating sick leave programs.

 

[Trell]

I assume that in Sweden there is federally mandated sick leave?

There is no such policy in Canada. Over half of working Canadians have no employer-paid sick leave benefit and the vast majority of workers who don't have such a benefit are in low-paying jobs - precisely the people who can least afford to stay home sick. There have been many outbreaks traced to employees coming to work infected with COVID. If an employee can't afford to forgo the income, I can't judge them harshly.

The government brought in a temporary program - the Canada Recovery Sickness Benefit - specifically for the COVID-19 pandemic. But, employees have to apply for it, so there is a delay in receiving the lost income. When someone can't afford such a delay, the benefit isn't a big help. So, they go to work sick. To be effective, the benefit needs to be seamless, so that there is no interruption of income.

Some provinces, as a result of the pandemic, are finally initiating sick leave programs.

Yes, there is sick leave, that is now more temporary generous than earlier even towards the employer that pays much less of the sick leave. In Sweden the employer pays for the first two weeks, and then the state takes over. The sick employee get 80% of salary up to about medium/average national salary (to the level of paying state tax), as before, but earlier the employee did not get any payment for the first sick day.

You bring up important point of people, for economic reasons, can't stay at home. There are many in Sweden that falls through the gap by only holding temporary/irregular jobs, or jobs that have too few weekly hours. One such group is people that works in various nursing homes on an hourly basis, housecleaning for (elderly, typically) infirm people at home. The new pandemic laws tries to take some of this into account, and shines a spotlight on the working conditions for many.

The first two weeks the salary will be payed out as usual, except that for the first day you'll have to apply (an automatic process).

 

[TLS Guy]

I fear there is trouble on the horizon, even though things have been going really well.

The problem is the Indian variant: - B.1.617.2 In India it has been hard to come by reliable data.

However there I now problems with it in the UK. The UK has declared it a variant of serious concern. Boris Johnson has declared the situation serious. He says local lockdowns may be required. The trouble started in Blackburn and Derwent. Cases there are doubling fast. There is also serious trouble in Bedford, and as of writing cases are being detected in Northwest London. Serious illness, and deaths are already showing an early rise again, having been dropping spectacularly fast.

What we know.

The strain previously thought to be less infectious than the UK variant is in fact more infectious and causes more severe disease.

It seems able to cause more serious disease in the younger population and under 25s are at least half the cases. In Bedford and Boulton/Derwent the new stain is over half the cases and nearly 60% of cases on the that area. Here is a map of the affected areas, although it was drawn before the London cases.

The degree of vaccine resistance is not well known at this time. However there does appear to be a degree of vaccine resistance.

The response of the UK government has been surge testing with genome decoding in the affected areas. There is also surge vaccination for all over 18 in those areas. Plans for lockdowns are under consideration.

This is clearly a rapidly evolving serious situation that should concern us all. It seems to show why the problem in India is so catastrophic.

In the US this variant is spreading in the San Francisco Bay area. The CDC says it is not of concern. They had better start getting concerned really fast, before the US is caught on the backfoot yet again.

 

[Mr._Clark]

According to this blog, vaccination rates are lower among people with lower income and lower levels of education. This isn't surprising, but it is interesting how pronounced the trends are (the blog post is dated 3/25/21, and it is based on survey data collected March 3-15, so it's not clear if these trends still exist).

COVID-19 Vaccination Rates: State-level and Subpopulation Evidence from the Household Pulse Survey - Update 4

Update 4: March 3 to March 15 Newly available COVID-19 vaccines promise to help protect individual Americans against infection and eventually provide population-level herd immunity. The pace of COVID-19 vaccination rollout in the United States has picked up after an unsteady rollout earlier in...

www.shadac.org

 

[TLS Guy]

I fear there is trouble on the horizon, even though things have been going really well.

The problem is the Indian variant: - B.1.617.2 In India it has been hard to come by reliable data.

However there I now problems with it in the UK. The UK has declared it a variant of serious concern. Boris Johnson has declared the situation serious. He says local lockdowns may be required. The trouble started in Blackburn and Derwent. Cases there are doubling fast. There is also serious trouble in Bedford, and as of writing cases are being detected in Northwest London. Serious illness, and deaths are already showing an early rise again, having been dropping spectacularly fast.

What we know.

The strain previously thought to be less infectious than the UK variant is in fact more infectious and causes more severe disease.

It seems able to cause more serious disease in the younger population and under 25s are at least half the cases. In Bedford and Boulton/Derwent the new stain is over half the cases and nearly 60% of cases on the that area. Here is a map of the affected areas, although it was drawn before the London cases.

The degree of vaccine resistance is not well known at this time. However there does appear to be a degree of vaccine resistance.

The response of the UK government has been surge testing with genome decoding in the affected areas. There is also surge vaccination for all over 18 in those areas. Plans for lockdowns are under consideration.

This is clearly a rapidly evolving serious situation that should concern us all. It seems to show why the problem in India is so catastrophic.

In the US this variant is spreading in the San Francisco Bay area. The CDC says it is not of concern. They had better start getting concerned really fast, before the US is caught on the backfoot yet again.

I watched the BBC news at noon, 6:00 PM there. Scientists are meeting as we speak. The UK is due to release a lot of restrictions on Monday. Boris Johnson is taking urgent advice as to whether that should go ahead. Almost 70% of the adult UK population have had at least one vaccine dose, and very nearly 40% have had two doses.

The epicenter of this Indian variant outbreak seems to be Bolton/Derwent area. The case rate in the UK has doubled week on week, for the first time in a long time. However hospitalizations are going down. So it is unclear why there has been a recent rise in deaths. There is scan data on the proportion of new cases in the area affected by the variant, as to the proportion vaccinated. However The UK has been vaccinating down the age range, and only recently started vaccinating those below 30. So this would be an explanation as to why over half of these new cases are in under 25 year olds.

Another piece of fall out. Portugal who have done a good job of infection control was to open its borders to tourism May 17. Now it is put back to May 31 at least.

Portugal is one of the few countries on the UK green list for travel. So many have booked flights, now I suspect they will have to cancel and likely loose a lot of money.
So the economic fall out continues.

Hopefully we will know more from the UK over the next three to four days.

This requires watching carefully, as I expect we will see the same issue, and it could be we already are and don't know it. Our genome testing is not nearly robust enough at present, and this could lead us into serious trouble.

 

[TLS Guy]

Well we seem to be in an information surge from the UK

The x axis is days since first recoded case. Intervals are 0, 50, 100 and 150 days. On the Y is cases per 1000. Intervals are 10, 100 and one thousand. The red line is the Indian variant the blue/green SA and the mauve Brazil.

This is the latest map of spread in the UK.

Unfortunately that looks like a fire taking off to me. So unfortunately we have another fast moving story bringing more bad news in this dreadful pandemic.
The UK are correct to be anxious about this serious development.

 

[Swerd]

Thanks for all that news about the Indian variant spreading rapidly in the UK. It looks like it's growing fast on a logarithmic scale – very ugly. It will soon be in North America in larger numbers.

Although the degree that the Indian variant resists the presently available vaccines is not known, we know it's spreading fast in the UK. As you mentioned, roughly 70% of the population has had a single dose of one of the vaccines. We already know a single vaccine dose can provide reasonable protection against some of the variants, but not very well against the South African variant. So it's safe to assume that a single vaccine dose protects very poorly, if at all, against the Indian variant.

 

[Speedskater]

So the US CDC just did a U-turn on masks. Last week they posted a cautious statement on masks outdoors.
Today's statement in short: If you are fully vaccinated, indoors or outdoors no mask is needed.

 

[TLS Guy]

Thanks for all that news about the Indian variant spreading rapidly in the UK. It looks like it's growing fast on a logarithmic scale – very ugly. It will soon be in North America in larger numbers.

Although the degree that the Indian variant resists the presently available vaccines is not known, we know it's spreading fast in the UK. As you mentioned, roughly 70% of the population has had a single dose of one of the vaccines. We already know a single vaccine dose can provide reasonable protection against some of the variants, but not very well against the South African variant. So it's safe to assume that a single vaccine dose protects very poorly, if at all, against the Indian variant.

I'm not quite that pessimistic. The huge bias of this outbreak towards the young would point to significant vaccine effectiveness in my view. The UK has only just started giving first doses to individuals 30 and younger.

Scientific activity in intense right now in the UK as you might expect. I think we will have more solid information next week. I certainly hope so, as models from the university of Warwick show an appalling outcome should this variant be significantly vaccine resistant. This is a nasty scare for sure, and just drives home the point that we need all hands to the pump to get the whole world vaccinated as soon as possible. This will require a giant mobilization the like of which we have never seen. I see lots of talk, and no really solid urgent plans for the mobilization required. History will judge us very poorly if we fail in this task.

 

[Mr._Clark]

A letter posted at the Science website today states that, with regards to the origin of COVID-19, both lab escape and zoonotic spillover are viable. Scanning the credentials of the authors, this does not strike me as being a group of crackpots.

>>>Theories of accidental release from a lab and zoonotic spillover both remain viable. . . . As scientists with relevant expertise, we agree with the WHO director-general (5), the United States and 13 other countries (6), and the European Union (7) that greater clarity about the origins of this pandemic is necessary and feasible to achieve. We must take hypotheses about both natural and laboratory spillovers seriously until we have sufficient data. A proper investigation should be transparent, objective, data-driven, inclusive of broad expertise, subject to independent oversight, and responsibly managed to minimize the impact of conflicts of interest. Public health agencies and research laboratories alike need to open their records to the public. Investigators should document the veracity and provenance of data from which analyses are conducted and conclusions drawn, so that analyses are reproducible by independent experts.<<<

Science | AAAS

science.sciencemag.org

 

[Mr._Clark]

It's also funny they call people that don't believe the same thing as them sheep. All the while baaaaaaing all the way. The complete lack of self awareness in these people is amazing.

You do realize that's just the chip implanted with the vaccine talking, right?

 

[Verdinut]

It's also funny they call people that don't believe the same thing as them sheep. All the while baaaaaaing all the way. The complete lack of self awareness in these people is amazing.

Well, they are not alone. In the Beauce region of our Quebec province, there is a good percentage of the citizens who have the same attitude. The pandemic strike will surely last longer in that area. What a bunch of idiots!

 

[jinjuku]

Well there is no more mask mandate... and I quote from CNN:

"But the new CDC policy also raises the possibility that those Americans who have long chafed at mask wearing and have no intention of getting the vaccine -- often conservatives -- will take off their masks as well. And that could lead to further circulation of the virus. "

This is a really easy one to solve: If you stop wearing a mask and aren't vaccinated and you get covid your treatment comes directly out of your pocket. Funny thing I notice working the pointy tip of the spear: Many of them were dumb beyond belief, lacked any critical thinking skills, or ability to think a week ahead about decisions they made now, but soon as you mentioned money escaping their wallet they were all the sudden PhD's.

 

[cpp]

If nothing else, 1 flu case for every 16,000 COVID cases demonstrates that the coronavirus spread much more widely than the flu virus under similar conditions.

Assuming that masks and social distancing had a similar effect on the spread of the coronavirus and the flu virus, the number of COVID cases that would have occurred but for masks and social distancing would have been astronomical. For example, if there are 30 million cases of the flu in a typical year and if this was reduced to 2,000, assuming the same ratio (15,000) applies to the coronavirus, this implies that almost everyone in the U.S. would have gotten COVID if there had not been any measures to slow the spread. I realize it's not quite that simple because it's conceivable that masks and social distancing were more effective against the flu virus than the coronavirus. Also, there would have been some herd immunity prior to 100% infection, and it's also quite possible that people would have changed their behaviors on their own without mandates. It's not possible to know with certainty what would have happened in an alternative reality (i.e. no measures whatsoever), but I'd be willing to bet that the number of COVID cases and deaths would have been much higher.

I can bet ya, that since the limitation on mask wearing is pretty much gone, just watch the FLU cases go up. But I can also see covid cases going up as well in those that had refused to get the shot and the younger age groups. Like in my state " executive order May 3 that suspended all local COVID-19 restrictions in the state, including mask rules, effective immediately. ".