South Africa’s omicron coronavirus outbreak subsides as fast as it grew • Hacker News Board

Re: South Africa’s omicron coronavirus outbreak subsides as fast as it grew

#301

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Dec 22, 2021, 10:02 PM UTC

cdrini wrote: post #193

joshuahedlund wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> because it's so significantly more contagious, that even though a smaller percentage of infected people will require ventilators, the absolute number will be high enough to overwhelm hospitals. This is a legitimate theoretical concern, however empirically it looks like South Africa's hospitalizations are peaking at slightly more than half their previous wave, with deaths on pace to peak even lower[1][2] [1] https:/…

I believe the scientific consensus is that there isn't enough data to discount that theoretical concern. There's still too much uncertainty on how things will pan out, so the recommendation is boosters + some restrictions. They're not going to make a bet when people's lives are at stake, which seems reasonable to me. With more data coming out, I personally do hope we find that that concern is very unlikely. The situa…

[deleted]

Re: South Africa’s omicron coronavirus outbreak subsides as fast as it grew

#302

Post by oneoff786 » Wed, Dec 22, 2021, 10:02 PM UTC

ses1984 wrote: post #202

oneoff786 wrote: post #54

I’ve been tanking some downvotes for the past few days for saying this. Disease spread is only exponential for a brief initial period. It is not a good mental or even general model for how disease spreads. We have two years of observational covid data that shows this to be true. Spread slows down rapidly long before reaching 100%. People hear “5x as infectious” and reason that due to the nature of exponential models,…

Spread doesn’t have to get close to 100% for things to get really bad.

Indeed. That’s true. But thankfully that’s not in the table, or anything close to it. I only bring that up because it’s the natural conclusion of what will happen if you misunderstand how the exponential growth works.

Re: South Africa’s omicron coronavirus outbreak subsides as fast as it grew

#303

Post by jimkleiber » Wed, Dec 22, 2021, 10:02 PM UTC

spookthesunset wrote: post #288

dragonwriter wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> there would be a fairly standard treatment protocol that could be applied by people without 4-8 years of medical training No, there wouldn't, because, among other things, comorbidities that must be managed, especially in the population most COVID hospitalizations come from. > Combat soldiers learn basic emergency medical techniques, even to the point of running IVs Which allows them to serve as, basically, better-t…

> which is useful on the battlefield to keep people alive to get to proper medical care This is a battlefield. It's an emergency, remember? Do whatever it takes. We forced people to sacrifice their short-ass lives in lockdown so these people could figure it out. Where is the results? 2 years and these "experts" still want us to continue locking down to protect a healthcare system they had 2 years to build up specific…

Let's say it's 100% of the government's fault, which I don't believe, but let's just say it for argument's sake.

So why don't you run for office and do it differently?

Re: South Africa’s omicron coronavirus outbreak subsides as fast as it grew

#304

Post by C19is20 » Wed, Dec 22, 2021, 10:03 PM UTC

woodruffw wrote: post #46

nostromo wrote: post #13

The panic surrounding Omicron is absurd. Take a look at these two charts. Omicron cases spiked in SA. Deaths didn't budge. At all. https://i.imgur.com/TgRmz4F.png [1] Omicron is a good thing, if your baseline is Delta. But I'm still waiting for the US media stop hyperventilating about it. 1. https://graphics.reuters.com/world-coronavirus-tracker-and-m...

I am cautiously optimistic about the severity of Omicron. But as others have pointed out before: deaths trail infections by 2-4 weeks. Omicron was first reported to the WHO on 11/24 and wasn't categorized as a variant of concern until 11/26. It hasn't even been a month since it was acknowledged much less has become the dominant variant in most places.

Those dates'll be 24 November and 26 November for non-USA (etc) peoples. Thank goodness bad things didn't happen in the earlier-in-the-year months like 7/6 or 6/7, for example.

Re: South Africa’s omicron coronavirus outbreak subsides as fast as it grew

#305

Post by spookthesunset » Wed, Dec 22, 2021, 10:04 PM UTC

mardifoufs wrote: post #295

spookthesunset wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> makes those who refuse to work ICUs suddenly interested in the job Then fucking draft them into working in an ICU like you would draft somebody into a war. Build a second story on their house. I don't care. This shit is an existential emergency where we asked hundreds of millions of people to put 2 years of their life on hold to build healthcare up. Figure it out. If healthcare capacity was the reason we did all th…

Exactly. It's crazy how some people think that shutting down pretty much everything within days is a more viable alternative or even more doable than ramping up healthcare capacity in... 2 years. They'll usually wave away the massive repercussions that shutdowns cause but they will become very perfectionist when it comes to standard of care and how we need fully trained doctors and nothing less. It's an emergency, as…

I think what amazes me is how little it seems some people value their own time and life. Like, life is super short. I sacrificed a non-trival amount of it so these "experts" could build up healthcare capacity.

They have a moral obligation to not waste my life... which they completely did. Why there aren't riots on the street over the fact that the public is still being blamed for not "taking this seriously" is beyond me. Get fucked, dudes--y'all had 2 years to figure this out.

Re: South Africa’s omicron coronavirus outbreak subsides as fast as it grew

#306

Post by oneoff786 » Wed, Dec 22, 2021, 10:04 PM UTC

erichocean wrote: post #254

oneoff786 wrote: post #54

I’ve been tanking some downvotes for the past few days for saying this. Disease spread is only exponential for a brief initial period. It is not a good mental or even general model for how disease spreads. We have two years of observational covid data that shows this to be true. Spread slows down rapidly long before reaching 100%. People hear “5x as infectious” and reason that due to the nature of exponential models,…

> Presuming data about lower severity holds, it would be surprising to me if hospitalization or deaths aren’t noticeably lower than delta; which, in turn, was noticeably lower than the original. Well, that should always be true: the people that are most at risk are already dead from earlier variants, and our treatments are light years ahead of where they were 18 months ago, reducing hospitalizations (and death) for e…

I’ve seen a lot of people saying this. Again, it’s not wrong that deaths are a factor here. But by far, FAR, the largest factor is vaccinations. We should acknowledge this.

Re: South Africa’s omicron coronavirus outbreak subsides as fast as it grew

#307

Post by oneoff786 » Wed, Dec 22, 2021, 10:07 PM UTC

Retric wrote: post #294

specialp wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A place where it hit exponential levels with really bad results is here in NY at the beginning. We had no precautions, testing, or vaccines in place yet, and hospitals were overwhelmed. It was honestly a scary time. That was where we started "flattening the curve". Now with vaccines available if there are surges and they are not literally building hospitals on fields like they were near me that is something we have t…

We are currently sitting at at total of over 800,000 COVID deaths in the US and 1,500 COVID deaths per day, which is roughly where it’s been since September 1st. That’s approximately an additional half a million dead people per year. So yes the vaccine has already saved million of lives, but I sure hope that this is not the new normal this winter or we are going to cross 1 million deaths fairly soon.

It would be surprising if we didn’t cross 1 million deaths this winter.

Re: South Africa’s omicron coronavirus outbreak subsides as fast as it grew

#308

Post by spookthesunset » Wed, Dec 22, 2021, 10:07 PM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #300

spookthesunset wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> which is useful on the battlefield to keep people alive to get to proper medical care This is a battlefield. It's an emergency, remember? Do whatever it takes. We forced people to sacrifice their short-ass lives in lockdown so these people could figure it out. Where is the results? 2 years and these "experts" still want us to continue locking down to protect a healthcare system they had 2 years to build up specific…

> This is a battlefield. No, it's literally not. > It's an emergency, remember? Yes and all battlefields are emergencies but not all emergencies have the same conditions (and thus make the same measures expedient) as battlefields. > Do whatever it takes. Sure, but what you are suggesting is not what it takes, or something that would be reasonably expected to be useful and effective. > 2 years and these "experts" stil…

So you are totally okay with the government flushing 2 years of your incredibly short life down the drain to "flatten the curve to build up supplies and healthcare" with zero results? In fact, so little results that many places are locking down yet again like it was march of 2020?

Do y'all not value your lives or short time on this earth at all? You should be furious the government is still playing the "protect healthcare capacity" card. They literally wasted 2 years of your life. No results. And they have the audacity to blame you and the rest of society for their failure!! How on earth is that excusable?

Re: South Africa’s omicron coronavirus outbreak subsides as fast as it grew

#309

Post by jcadam » Wed, Dec 22, 2021, 10:08 PM UTC

com2kid wrote: post #235

spookthesunset wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If hospital capacity is such a concern, why has there been just about zero effort in spinning up some kind of capacity to deal with Covid? Wasn't that the entire rationale of these lockdowns in the first place? To build capacity for covid? Like, it's been 2 years. We shouldn't be doing any of these restrictions at all. We should be angry at our governments wasting 2 years of our non-refundable time on this earth whil…

> If hospital capacity is such a concern, why has there been just about zero effort in spinning up some kind of capacity to deal with Covid? The first wave of COVID killed a bunch of doctors and nurses, and burnt a lot more out. Then Delta made a bunch more doctors and nurses quit, with wide reports right now that 20% of nurses are looking to up and leave their job. Talking to my friends who are nurses, they are shor…

Are we just ignoring all of the doctors and nurses who were fired for refusing vaccinations? They don't count?

Re: South Africa’s omicron coronavirus outbreak subsides as fast as it grew

#310

Post by WalterBright » Wed, Dec 22, 2021, 10:08 PM UTC

It's Farr's Law in action.

"Farr's laws is a law formulated by Dr. William Farr when he made the observation that epidemic events rise and fall in a roughly symmetrical pattern. The time-evolution behavior could be captured by a single mathematical formula that could be approximated by a bell-shaped curve."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farr's_laws