COVID19

[cashead]

Yes, there will soon be 2 million cases per day.

2 million. per day.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/ ... dApp_Other

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It just feels that the numbers are a little off...

https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/cases
https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/healthcare

Hospitalisation rate compared to case rate...

Case rate is similar to eary Jan, hospitalisation 1/4.

potential good news.

It is what we've all been hoping for - a variant that's infectious, but a lot less serious, that will take over as the main variant. Too early to tell if Omicron is definitely the magic combo, but here's hoping.

Puja

The variants emerge as a result of chains of transmission. Each person that gets infected in the chain of transmission causes a slight change in the virus (it's also how we get genome sequencing, allowing investigators to identify likely sources and patient zeroes), and enough of those stack up, and presto.

It's also why it's absolutely vital to get as many people as possible vaccinated as soon as possible. Omicron spreads like wildfire, drowning out Delta? Hey great. Oops, here's the Pi variant and the Rho variant, and it's fucking our shit up!

[Stom]

It just feels that the numbers are a little off...

https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/cases
https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/healthcare

Hospitalisation rate compared to case rate...

Case rate is similar to eary Jan, hospitalisation 1/4.

potential good news.

It is what we've all been hoping for - a variant that's infectious, but a lot less serious, that will take over as the main variant. Too early to tell if Omicron is definitely the magic combo, but here's hoping.

Puja

It will keep mutating for as long as it is able to replicate in millions of people. It won't stay less serious for long.

Why? Doesn't the virus want to infect as many as possible but not kill them all? How do other pandemics fizzle out if they just mutate stronger again?z

[Son of Mathonwy]

It is what we've all been hoping for - a variant that's infectious, but a lot less serious, that will take over as the main variant. Too early to tell if Omicron is definitely the magic combo, but here's hoping.

Puja

It will keep mutating for as long as it is able to replicate in millions of people. It won't stay less serious for long.

Why? Doesn't the virus want to infect as many as possible but not kill them all? How do other pandemics fizzle out if they just mutate stronger again?z

The virus "wants" to infect as many as possible but it doesn't make too much difference to it whether the host lives or dies at the end of the process. In the long term there would be a small adaptive advantage to leaving the host alive (because it could be a host again in the future), but that would be a small advantage compared with the ability of the virus to replicate fast enough (which is by definition harmful to the host) to remain ahead of the host's immune response.

I'm not sure all pandemics do fizzle out in the way you suggest ... the black death was with us for centuries, still just as deadly. I think it was more a case of humanity evolving to resist the plague, rather than the plague evolving to be less deadly.

[padprop]

It will keep mutating for as long as it is able to replicate in millions of people. It won't stay less serious for long.

Why? Doesn't the virus want to infect as many as possible but not kill them all? How do other pandemics fizzle out if they just mutate stronger again?z

The virus "wants" to infect as many as possible but it doesn't make too much difference to it whether the host lives or dies at the end of the process. In the long term there would be a small adaptive advantage to leaving the host alive (because it could be a host again in the future), but that would be a small advantage compared with the ability of the virus to replicate fast enough (which is by definition harmful to the host) to remain ahead of the host's immune response.

I'm not sure all pandemics do fizzle out in the way you suggest ... the black death was with us for centuries, still just as deadly. I think it was more a case of humanity evolving to resist the plague, rather than the plague evolving to be less deadly.

The black death was a bacterial infection so had a much lower rate of mutation. It's still with us today and is still deadly (Mortality 11%), difference is now we have antibiotics and less fleas as vectors of transmission.

Regarding the seriousness potential future COVID mutations, it appears from my reading that the jury is still well and truly out. There's world renowned virologists and epidemiologists arguing both sides of the argument. We simply do not know enough about viral evolution to understand either way (e.g. there is still no commonly agreed explanation for why Spanish Flu pandemic ended, or if it even has ended!).

What we do in light of that uncertainty is the issue. If there was a even a 1% chance of COVID having Omicron's transmission rate but a mortality rate of 10%, then I think you could make a good case that we should be moving heaven and earth to reduce the chance of further mutations.

[Stom]

Why? Doesn't the virus want to infect as many as possible but not kill them all? How do other pandemics fizzle out if they just mutate stronger again?z

The virus "wants" to infect as many as possible but it doesn't make too much difference to it whether the host lives or dies at the end of the process. In the long term there would be a small adaptive advantage to leaving the host alive (because it could be a host again in the future), but that would be a small advantage compared with the ability of the virus to replicate fast enough (which is by definition harmful to the host) to remain ahead of the host's immune response.

I'm not sure all pandemics do fizzle out in the way you suggest ... the black death was with us for centuries, still just as deadly. I think it was more a case of humanity evolving to resist the plague, rather than the plague evolving to be less deadly.

The black death was a bacterial infection so had a much lower rate of mutation. It's still with us today and is still deadly (Mortality 11%), difference is now we have antibiotics and less fleas as vectors of transmission.

Regarding the seriousness potential future COVID mutations, it appears from my reading that the jury is still well and truly out. There's world renowned virologists and epidemiologists arguing both sides of the argument. We simply do not know enough about viral evolution to understand either way (e.g. there is still no commonly agreed explanation for why Spanish Flu pandemic ended, or if it even has ended!).

What we do in light of that uncertainty is the issue. If there was a even a 1% chance of COVID having Omicron's transmission rate but a mortality rate of 10%, then I think you could make a good case that we should be moving heaven and earth to reduce the chance of further mutations.

The thing is… and purely from a selfish pov… the lifting and reinforcing of lockdown restrictions is starting to get to me. I just want to live life a bit. And I don’t personally know anyone who has got really sick from it in more than a year. It carried off some parents and grandparents that we knew last winter, but since then nothing.

And, as an example, a friend’s baby son stopped breathing. That’s not uncommon, it happened to me, but they’ve listed the reason it happened as Covid. I mean, yeah, sure, but you’d expect that to happen to a small number of baby boys anyway… and he’s fine. Just like I was. And a few others I personally know.

I’m not against the science of lockdown and vaccine, I was a big believer we should have had a hard, extremely strict lockdown right at the start. But I am very much against what we’ve ended up with and feel like there might be a time we have to simply give up on it. We can’t continue to live in such fear when the %ages are changing like they are.

When we should say duck it? I’m not the one to ask, I guess. But I feel like that time is getting close. People aren’t sticking to the rules anymore because it’s been too much. So maybe after winter they should be lifted… or lifted for the vaccinated…

[padprop]

The virus "wants" to infect as many as possible but it doesn't make too much difference to it whether the host lives or dies at the end of the process. In the long term there would be a small adaptive advantage to leaving the host alive (because it could be a host again in the future), but that would be a small advantage compared with the ability of the virus to replicate fast enough (which is by definition harmful to the host) to remain ahead of the host's immune response.

I'm not sure all pandemics do fizzle out in the way you suggest ... the black death was with us for centuries, still just as deadly. I think it was more a case of humanity evolving to resist the plague, rather than the plague evolving to be less deadly.

The black death was a bacterial infection so had a much lower rate of mutation. It's still with us today and is still deadly (Mortality 11%), difference is now we have antibiotics and less fleas as vectors of transmission.

Regarding the seriousness potential future COVID mutations, it appears from my reading that the jury is still well and truly out. There's world renowned virologists and epidemiologists arguing both sides of the argument. We simply do not know enough about viral evolution to understand either way (e.g. there is still no commonly agreed explanation for why Spanish Flu pandemic ended, or if it even has ended!).

What we do in light of that uncertainty is the issue. If there was a even a 1% chance of COVID having Omicron's transmission rate but a mortality rate of 10%, then I think you could make a good case that we should be moving heaven and earth to reduce the chance of further mutations.

The thing is… and purely from a selfish pov… the lifting and reinforcing of lockdown restrictions is starting to get to me. I just want to live life a bit. And I don’t personally know anyone who has got really sick from it in more than a year. It carried off some parents and grandparents that we knew last winter, but since then nothing.

And, as an example, a friend’s baby son stopped breathing. That’s not uncommon, it happened to me, but they’ve listed the reason it happened as Covid. I mean, yeah, sure, but you’d expect that to happen to a small number of baby boys anyway… and he’s fine. Just like I was. And a few others I personally know.

I’m not against the science of lockdown and vaccine, I was a big believer we should have had a hard, extremely strict lockdown right at the start. But I am very much against what we’ve ended up with and feel like there might be a time we have to simply give up on it. We can’t continue to live in such fear when the %ages are changing like they are.

When we should say duck it? I’m not the one to ask, I guess. But I feel like that time is getting close. People aren’t sticking to the rules anymore because it’s been too much. So maybe after winter they should be lifted… or lifted for the vaccinated…

It's a very difficult issue, as if left unchecked and a new strain does emerge with near 10% mortality, then the government wouldn't even need to impose a lock-down as hospitals would be so packed and the public would be so effected from a first-hand point of view that they would be reluctant to leave their home. You would have to be a brave person to leave your home if you knew you were dancing with death each time. I'm sure there would be some but they would almost certainly be in the minority. This is obviously the absolute extreme but cannot be dismissed as a possibility and needs to factored in to future decision making.

On the other hand, 91% of people in the UK have antibodies and herd immunity seems to be an impossibility at this point (120% of the population would need to be vaccinated against delta, a literal impossibility https://www.ft.com/content/4704f39b-fd1 ... cc84b6dd4e ). With that in mind, perhaps all we can hope for is making sure hospital bed pressure is kept at a manageable level and that high risk individuals and those looking after them have yearly booster jabs.

I think the proof will be in the pudding over the new few weeks when cases reach 100,000+ as there is usually a 2 week lag between cases rising and ITU beds being taken up. If the bed pressure remains low I would be optimistic for the future regarding future lock-downs. If not, I imagine winter will be a difficult period for the foreseeable future until better therapeutics are on the market.

[morepork]

Why? Doesn't the virus want to infect as many as possible but not kill them all? How do other pandemics fizzle out if they just mutate stronger again?z

The virus "wants" to infect as many as possible but it doesn't make too much difference to it whether the host lives or dies at the end of the process. In the long term there would be a small adaptive advantage to leaving the host alive (because it could be a host again in the future), but that would be a small advantage compared with the ability of the virus to replicate fast enough (which is by definition harmful to the host) to remain ahead of the host's immune response.

I'm not sure all pandemics do fizzle out in the way you suggest ... the black death was with us for centuries, still just as deadly. I think it was more a case of humanity evolving to resist the plague, rather than the plague evolving to be less deadly.

The black death was a bacterial infection so had a much lower rate of mutation. It's still with us today and is still deadly (Mortality 11%), difference is now we have antibiotics and less fleas as vectors of transmission.

Regarding the seriousness potential future COVID mutations, it appears from my reading that the jury is still well and truly out. There's world renowned virologists and epidemiologists arguing both sides of the argument. We simply do not know enough about viral evolution to understand either way (e.g. there is still no commonly agreed explanation for why Spanish Flu pandemic ended, or if it even has ended!).

What we do in light of that uncertainty is the issue. If there was a even a 1% chance of COVID having Omicron's transmission rate but a mortality rate of 10%, then I think you could make a good case that we should be moving heaven and earth to reduce the chance of further mutations.

We know shed loads about viral replication and mutation, which makes this sort of wishy washy policy bumfluffery so frustrating. Fucking COVID crossed the species boundary because of mutation. Spanish flu ended because infected people were isolated and weren't acting as vectors for very virulent variants. Seasonal vaccinations reduce replication and hence the probability of pathogenic mutations. The longer you fuck around with an entity that makes billions of copies of itself every day in a host, the greater the pathogenic probability. I say probability, not chance. Aint no fucking jury because it's molecular biology 101. It's so frustrating watching this level of ignorance at the highest levels of government.

[Which Tyler]

[padprop]

The virus "wants" to infect as many as possible but it doesn't make too much difference to it whether the host lives or dies at the end of the process. In the long term there would be a small adaptive advantage to leaving the host alive (because it could be a host again in the future), but that would be a small advantage compared with the ability of the virus to replicate fast enough (which is by definition harmful to the host) to remain ahead of the host's immune response.

I'm not sure all pandemics do fizzle out in the way you suggest ... the black death was with us for centuries, still just as deadly. I think it was more a case of humanity evolving to resist the plague, rather than the plague evolving to be less deadly.

The black death was a bacterial infection so had a much lower rate of mutation. It's still with us today and is still deadly (Mortality 11%), difference is now we have antibiotics and less fleas as vectors of transmission.

Regarding the seriousness potential future COVID mutations, it appears from my reading that the jury is still well and truly out. There's world renowned virologists and epidemiologists arguing both sides of the argument. We simply do not know enough about viral evolution to understand either way (e.g. there is still no commonly agreed explanation for why Spanish Flu pandemic ended, or if it even has ended!).

What we do in light of that uncertainty is the issue. If there was a even a 1% chance of COVID having Omicron's transmission rate but a mortality rate of 10%, then I think you could make a good case that we should be moving heaven and earth to reduce the chance of further mutations.

We know shed loads about viral replication and mutation, which makes this sort of wishy washy policy bumfluffery so frustrating. Fucking COVID crossed the species boundary because of mutation. Spanish flu ended because infected people were isolated and weren't acting as vectors for very virulent variants. Seasonal vaccinations reduce replication and hence the probability of pathogenic mutations. The longer you fuck around with an entity that makes billions of copies of itself every day in a host, the greater the pathogenic probability. I say probability, not chance. Aint no fucking jury because it's molecular biology 101. It's so frustrating watching this level of ignorance at the highest levels of government.

Any systematic review to confirm that? A quick google how "How did Spanish Flu End?" brings up 3 articles that each suggest antigenic drift, herd immunity and lockdown measures respectively. Intuitively I imagine it was a combination of all three. I would use PubMed examples there are a surprising lack of papers on the topic.

https://www.history.com/news/1918-flu-p ... ever-ended
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/hist ... oronavirus https://time.com/5894403/how-the-1918-f ... mic-ended/

[morepork]

The structure of DNA was presented in 1953 (yes, I know influenza and COVID genomes are RNA, but the central dogma of molecular biology....DNA makes RNA makes protein applies). PCR became available in the early 90's. High throughput sequencing technology became practical at the end of last century. These are the tools that allow us to track mutation. You wont see much in pubmed because these tools weren't available in 1918 and autopsy samples from the time are incredibly rare. The point is that intercontinental travel back then was difficult, and the only group of people that engaged in such travel at scale were troops, which unsurprisingly were the major vectors for spread, meaning the major resevoir for a rapidly replicating viral entity was troops and the most pathogenic cases arose in troop populations. Isolating these populations restricted spread and lessened the probability of mutation. A more recent example of the relationship between rate of replication and mutation is HIV, which surprise surprise was disseminated around the world by travel. PCR and sequencing technology has been able to identify geographic origins of various HIV strains, much as is done with COVID, and we have known for decades that the volume of viral genome replication is directly proportional to the frequency of mutation that gives rise to new strains. Flying vectors (people) around the globe increases the number of hosts available which increases the rates of replication, which ultimately increases the rate of antigenic drift. There is no getting around this fundamental facet of biology and the entirely predictable laws of probability that apply. You don't need a systematic review, you need a text book:

https://www.nature.com/scitable/topicpa ... ation-409/

This is undergraduate level stuff. Epidemiologists with an undergraduate biology degree know this. Those with an MBA do not. It is so frustrating for biologists to watch this cluster fuck of willful ignorance play out.

[Which Tyler]

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-03794-8

17 December 2021

How severe are Omicron infections?
As cases spread and countries plan their response, researchers await crucial data on the severity of the disease caused by the coronavirus variant.

It has been less than four weeks since the announcement that a mutation-laden coronavirus variant had been discovered in southern Africa. Since then, dozens of countries around the world have reported Omicron cases — including a worrying number of infections in people who have either been vaccinated or experienced previous SARS-CoV-2 infections.

But as political leaders and public-health officials try to chart a course through oncoming Omicron surges, they must do so without a firm answer to a key question: how severe will those Omicron infections be?

So far, the data are scarce and incomplete. “There is inevitably a lag between infection and hospitalization,” says infectious-disease epidemiologist Mark Woolhouse at the University of Edinburgh, UK. “In the meantime, policy decisions have to be made and that’s not straightforward.”

Article Continues...

Also

[Puja]

FHEkcRdXsAMqQh9.jpeg

[Which Tyler]

[Which Tyler]

https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details ... ame=London

Hospitalisations in London triple in 3ish weeks


http://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/232882/s ... a-england/

15% less likely to be hospitalised with Omicron; 40% less likely to stay long.
Which is good news, but way less than the increase in case rate, meaning hospitalisations are expected to increase - potentially massively.

[Which Tyler]

[Zhivago]

The structure of DNA was presented in 1953 (yes, I know influenza and COVID genomes are RNA, but the central dogma of molecular biology....DNA makes RNA makes protein applies). PCR became available in the early 90's. High throughput sequencing technology became practical at the end of last century. These are the tools that allow us to track mutation. You wont see much in pubmed because these tools weren't available in 1918 and autopsy samples from the time are incredibly rare. The point is that intercontinental travel back then was difficult, and the only group of people that engaged in such travel at scale were troops, which unsurprisingly were the major vectors for spread, meaning the major resevoir for a rapidly replicating viral entity was troops and the most pathogenic cases arose in troop populations. Isolating these populations restricted spread and lessened the probability of mutation. A more recent example of the relationship between rate of replication and mutation is HIV, which surprise surprise was disseminated around the world by travel. PCR and sequencing technology has been able to identify geographic origins of various HIV strains, much as is done with COVID, and we have known for decades that the volume of viral genome replication is directly proportional to the frequency of mutation that gives rise to new strains. Flying vectors (people) around the globe increases the number of hosts available which increases the rates of replication, which ultimately increases the rate of antigenic drift. There is no getting around this fundamental facet of biology and the entirely predictable laws of probability that apply. You don't need a systematic review, you need a text book:

https://www.nature.com/scitable/topicpa ... ation-409/

This is undergraduate level stuff. Epidemiologists with an undergraduate biology degree know this. Those with an MBA do not. It is so frustrating for biologists to watch this cluster fuck of willful ignorance play out.

This same emotion can be seen in the recent satirical film 'Don't Look Up', albeit with physicists in the role of frustrated powerless experts.

Given the interconnectedness of the modern global economy, and the priorities of the global political class, the only way to defeat covid will be to develop a global health infrastructure to aggresively fight it. That means investment in production capacity to identify new covid variants, test populations regularly for covid variants, and produce vaccines against new variants rapidly, and health capacity to innoculate the population rapidly to newly emergent strains.

The current political and economic system is not able to achieve this to a high enough degree on a global scale. Therefore, I cannot see us defeating covid any time soon. Some developed countries that have effectively functioning political systems might develop this capacity sufficiently, but if we want to get past this regime of testing, vaccinating, isolating, etc, then it needs to be achieved on a global scale.

[Donny osmond]

Britain failed in its response to COVID, says top epidemiologist. We shouldn't have locked down....

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/ ... dApp_Other

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[cashead]

Britain failed in its response to COVID, says top epidemiologist. We shouldn't have locked down....

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/ ... dApp_Other

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What a stupid load of fuck.

Can't possibly have anything to do with the government dithering before taking any sort of action to begin with, or choosing to go for the "blood sacrifice at the altar of capitalism" route when it came to ending lockdowns with their "open 'er up!" "freedom" days before COVID was under control. Nuh-uh, it's all dem lockdowns.

We took the lockdown route, and we've got 10 deaths per 1000000, vs Sweden's 1410 per 1000000. Woolhouse can suck the shit directly from my ass with a straw.

[Stom]

Here's some nice supidity here in Hungary.

So, for starters, no-one believes anything is done for our benefit, it's all about someone making profit. Which is fair, considering the vaccines available for booster jabs are the ones that were bought by Meszaros' (Orban's money launderer) company.

Then, if you get ill, you can be sick from work as normal and get paid 70% of your wage. Or you can get tested and if you're positive, you get 50% of your wage...so no-one wants to get tested.

And if you have children and test positive, so you need to look after them as they can't go to school and you're in quarantine...50% of your wage again.

So no-one has any personal incentive to get tested.

Couple this with suppression of numbers for cases, and labeling every death as covid-related, and you've got a stupidly high death to case ratio. That does nothing except confuse.

The signs are promising with Omicron, though. Seems like it is milder.

[Son of Mathonwy]

Britain failed in its response to COVID, says top epidemiologist. We shouldn't have locked down....

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/ ... dApp_Other

Sent from my CPH2195 using Tapatalk

What a stupid load of fuck.

Can't possibly have anything to do with the government dithering before taking any sort of action to begin with, or choosing to go for the "blood sacrifice at the altar of capitalism" route when it came to ending lockdowns with their "open 'er up!" "freedom" days before COVID was under control. Nuh-uh, it's all dem lockdowns.

We took the lockdown route, and we've got 10 deaths per 1000000, vs Sweden's 1410 per 1000000. Woolhouse can suck the shit directly from my ass with a straw.

Agreed. Total bullshit attempt to rewrite history and justify the deadliest strategy. Just compare Sweden's deaths per capita with its immediate neighbours Norway, Finland and Denmark.

[Which Tyler]

[Son of Mathonwy]

Scary stuff. I need to spend a while reading through this. Just one of the posts links to this paper in the Lancet:
https://t.co/OZT2JEEGP3
which shows significant cognitive deficits in those recovered from Covid compared with non-sufferers.

Deficits were apparent no matter the severity of the disease, although they were greater for more severe cases. Those hospitalized (but not ventilated) showed deficits similar to those in the same population who had previously had a stroke. Those ventilated showed greater deficits than those in the same population who had reported a previous stroke or learning difficulties, a loss which equates to 7 IQ points.

The cognitive deficits showed no improvement since infection (for the data this means up to 9 months after infection).

[Which Tyler]

NB: The following is cut-and-paste of the abstract. Talking about the performance of elite footballers (young, healthy, no co-morbidities, access to the very best medical knowledge etc etc) after their return to play post-covid. Data collected before the Omicron wave.

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused economic shock waves across the globe. Much research addresses direct health implications of an infection, but to date little is known about how this shapes lasting economic effects. This paper estimates the workplace productivity effects of COVID-19 by studying performance of soccer players after an infection. We construct a dataset that encompasses all traceable infections in the elite leagues of Germany and Italy. Relying on a staggered difference-in-differences design, we identify negative short and longer-run performance effects. Relative to their pre-infection outcomes, infected players’ performance temporarily drops by more than 6%. Over half a year later, it is still around 5% lower. The negative effects appear to have notable spillovers on team performance. We argue that our results could have important implications for labor markets and public health in general. Countries and firms with more infections might face economic disadvantages that exceed the temporary pandemic shock due to potentially long-lasting reductions in productivity.

Full paper can be downloaded from here: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/T ... ing-papers

[Zhivago]

Australian gov looking a bit tyrannical if they contrive another reason to invalidate Djokovic's visa.

[Sandydragon]

Australian gov looking a bit tyrannical if they contrive another reason to invalidate Djokovic's visa.

According to Djokovic's mum, he has suffered torture. Possibly a lot over the top but I agree that it seems that this is no longer a legal discussion but a political pissing contest.

For the record, he should be vaccinated to travel and I find the "i caught covid so Im exempt' excuse a bit too convenient. But if those are your laws then you can't just change it on the fly because you don't like the outcome.