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

#441

Post by JPKab » Thu, Dec 23, 2021, 3:06 AM UTC

SideburnsOfDoom wrote: post #187

toolz wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

South Africa is well under average vaccination rate globally. Also what do you mean by they've been exposed to the virus? Of course they've been exposed to the virus, that's exactly why it's interesting to see how their deaths follow cases. There's no indication that the first world, with much higher vaccination rates won't fare better than South Africa, which seems to be faring exceptionally well relative to other c…

> Also what do you mean by they've been exposed to the virus? "have been exposed to the virus" usually means something like "immune system isn't totally unprepared, but has had contact with this virus before (or a proxy via vaccination)". In South Africa, it is mostly via getting COVID-19 in the Alpha or Delta waves. Yes, over 70% of South Africans have had it: https://www.businesslive.co.za/bloomberg/news/2021-12-14…

So now we're going to suddenly admit that natural immunity is a thing.

The science has been super clear on this for a long time. The problem is that the CDC and NIH, the grand tradition of federally funded science, have chosen not to study anything that conflicts with the directives of their organizations. They haven't bothered to study natural immunity and have left it to other countries like Israel.

Instead they pretend like it doesn't exist and claim that they don't have science to support it (exactly like the federal government did with marijuana in the past) because they never bothered to fund studies.

When you factor in the percentage of the population that has been vaccinated, well over 70% of the US population has been exposed to the virus in one form or another.

I caught the virus in the alpha wave. It's been infuriating having the federal government pretend like t cell immunity isn't a thing. For my age group it absolutely is.

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

#442

Post by oneoff786 » Thu, Dec 23, 2021, 3:09 AM UTC

timdaub wrote: post #366

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,…

You're wrongly assuming that all incidence data of COVID-19 accurately represents its real spread. E.g. it may just be that beyond a point of exponential growth testing ceases to be accurate. The German Robert Koch institute has pointed out many times that there's a hidden incidence number of all actual cases and the official one that represents everyone tested and recorded.

This assumption isn’t critical to anything I have said

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

#443

Post by PraetorianGourd » Thu, Dec 23, 2021, 3:17 AM UTC

baxtr wrote: post #262

spookthesunset wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does it even matter? Covid is here forever. Doesn't matter if the next variant is "good" or "worse" or "horrible". It's here forever. We cannot continue playing this restriction / mandate game any longer. We have something like a dozen vaccines globally, multiple treatments, etc. We've had 2 years for government's to build healthcare capacity to handle any "surge" we get and it is no longer fair to the public to keep…

Thanks for expressing how I feel. Winter was always the worst season for me. With Covid it has become unbearable. I’ve lost 50% of my life quality.

I know how you feel buddy. I have really strict rules for myself around drug and alcohol consumption. For example, if a bottle of Scotch lasts less than 1 week, I am drinking too much and need to cut back etc. I've not broken that rule since I made it, except for this winter and last winter.

I was always not a fan of gloomy winters, but this on top of it has made it terrible. I am so over all of the panic and fear.

Hang in there!

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

#444

Post by fortran77 » Thu, Dec 23, 2021, 3:18 AM UTC

eropple wrote: post #392

fortran77 wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, "overweight" by CDCs definition (BMI > 25 == overweight). But there's a strong link between complications from COVID and Obesity. It's a shame nobody wants to make the obese pay for their externalities -- even the people who'd like to make the unvaccinated "pay" in some way turn a blind eye to this issue.

If you want to make "the obese" "pay for their externalities", I do hope you have a fantastic plan in place to break the backs of the Nabiscos of the world who literally-not-figuratively design for habituation and drum their marketing into every place they can. The situation was not caused by overstressed people going "you know, I really want to be fat".

> The situation was not caused by overstressed people going "you know, I really want to be fat".

I tend to think adults are capable of being responsible for their own decisions, including how much to eat.

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

#445

Post by ryanbrunner » Thu, Dec 23, 2021, 3:20 AM UTC

onecommentman wrote: post #394

throwntoday wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And all of the young "healthy" people who died had comorbidities like obesity and diabetws or some congenital issues unknown to them.

The most vulnerable “comorbidity” subpopulation rarely mentioned in popular social media are the immunocompromised https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/vaccines/blog/immunocompromised-... The title itself suggests the immunocompromised are acknowledged as an overlooked group. The CDC has some discussion at https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/duration-isola... From the link above, the immunocompromised are a reservoi…

For severely immunocompromised individuals (I'm a transplant recipient, so can speak to that), the CFR for COVID is anywhere between 20-35%. There's also a lot more attention paid to avoiding viruses even when there's not a global pandemic, so they are far more likely to be careful, and their IFR is probably much, much closer to their CFR due to being routinely monitored probably more than any other group (I have biweekly blood work and my blood is screened for some viruses every month, I take my vitals literally every day).

"Immunocompromised" as a category includes a very wide range of people, and someone who's on a small temporary prednisone prescription is far less immunocompromised than a chemotherapy patient, solid organ transplant recipient, or HIV+ individual.

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

#446

Post by dpark » Thu, Dec 23, 2021, 3:33 AM UTC

School-Cotton wrote: post #412

dpark wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From what you’ve said, you don’t live there any more. But this doesn’t seem constructive so we can let this go.

It confused me as well, but I think the “one of them” isn’t bound to the same specific one as “any of them”. E.g. “I’m from New York. If any of New York, Chicago, LA, Atlanta [etc.] shut down, I’ll move back to New York and [etc.]”

I guess? That’s just such a bizarre statement. But based on the rest of the thread that could indeed be the intent.

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

#447

Post by sjg007 » Thu, Dec 23, 2021, 3:41 AM UTC

afrodc_ wrote: post #432

sjg007 wrote: post #430

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hospitals are packed... idk what you are talking about.

Where are they packed? Genuinely curious to see some data about this.

I don't think you are genuinely curious at all. And if you were actually genuinely curious you could do a cursory Google search or even read a major newspaper. Instead you sit waiting on someone else to deal with your asinine request.

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

#448

Post by zuminator » Thu, Dec 23, 2021, 4:08 AM UTC

oneoff786 wrote: post #437

zuminator wrote: post #397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is anyone even seriously claiming that a disease that spreads twice as fast is going to infect twice as many people? As long as the effective R0 of a disease remains greater than 1, it's eventually going to infect the same amount of people — everyone (over the long term). Greater R0 rate just means it spreads faster. The real concerns about omicron are that: 1) A rapid initial spread will overwhelm the healthcare sys…

Nope. You’re still making the same mistake. That is not how R0 works. You are falsely assuming that the exponential growth period of the virus stays the same forever. The virus does not reach 100%. R0 as a general trait of a disease assumes everyone is susceptible. That is not how diseases work. There are many diseases with R0 > 1 and guess what? Not everyone got them. I know you’re caveating “effective R0” but frank…

> the point I am making which is that it won’t keep growing.

And what I'm saying to you is that nobody believes otherwise. It's all known that diseases are self-limiting, and infection rates follow an s-curve and eventually drop off. This isn't a groundbreaking revelation.

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

#449

Post by chaostheory » Thu, Dec 23, 2021, 4:14 AM UTC

afrodc_ wrote: post #432

sjg007 wrote: post #430

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hospitals are packed... idk what you are talking about.

Where are they packed? Genuinely curious to see some data about this.

West coast, Midwest, and north east: Ohio, Rhode Island, Alaska, Iowa

Providence hospitals on the west coast are overwhelmed

Hennepin hospitals are overwhelmed in Minneapolis

Trinity Health with hospitals in 25 states is also getting overwhelmed

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2021/12/21/1066093...

“ The troops deployed to hospitals will include doctors, nurses, paramedics and other personnel during January and February as needed, the senior administration officials said. The White House is also deploying six emergency response teams to Michigan, Indiana, Wisconsin, Arizona, New Hampshire and Vermont, the officials said.”

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cnbc.com/amp/2021/12/21/omi...

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

#450

Post by eropple » Thu, Dec 23, 2021, 4:22 AM UTC

fortran77 wrote: post #444

eropple wrote: post #392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want to make "the obese" "pay for their externalities", I do hope you have a fantastic plan in place to break the backs of the Nabiscos of the world who literally-not-figuratively design for habituation and drum their marketing into every place they can. The situation was not caused by overstressed people going "you know, I really want to be fat".

> The situation was not caused by overstressed people going "you know, I really want to be fat". I tend to think adults are capable of being responsible for their own decisions, including how much to eat.

The reality of food scientists designing these things to feel good and to habituate in a world of constant stress with few affordable and time-permitting outlets is a pretty obvious problem with this sort of claim. So is the fact that these bastards push to kids, and a reasonable person might find it a little odd that, at best and most generously, you want to punish people for the outcomes of inadequate parenting.

But it's much easier to blame fat people than the pushers, and it feels so much more satisfying to break out the hauteur about them as opposed to the businesses that tech people with tech salaries might someday seek to emulate, so--I guess I get it.