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

Post by jefftk » Thu, Dec 23, 2021, 9:09 PM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #490

jefftk wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1.5k nursing home workers out of a total of about 600k. That's 0.25%. Across the whole population, we've had 810k deaths out of 330M, which is also 0.25%. So we still have the same number of nursing home workers per capita. Except that, considered per nursing home resident, it's an increase, because the rate of nursing home residents dying has been much higher than the general population.

That's true, but it is an excellent advertisement for the risks of the job to others who may not have thought about this beforehand. So one person may die and a multiple may walk.

Post by jefftk » Thu, Dec 23, 2021, 9:26 PM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #492

jefftk wrote: post #491

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is it an excellent advertisement for the risks of the job, when it is the same level of covid risk experienced by the population at large?

Because it is not the same level of risk. This can be trivially seen by comparing the percentage of health care workers that ended up with severe cases of COVID (or that died) compared to the regular population. Especially in the beginning of the pandemic when it wasn't really clear what we were dealing with and how it was spreading a lot of health care workers got very high doses and ended up in serious trouble. Thi…

Post by jefftk » Thu, Dec 23, 2021, 9:37 PM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #494

jefftk wrote: post #493

Earlier quoted context omitted.

com2kid gave 1.5k for the number of US nursing home worker deaths [1], which is the same 0.25% as the general population. [2] I could definitely believe that more american healthcare workers are dying than the general population, but what stats is this coming from? [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29656232 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29656471

The thing to look at is when those deaths happened. And when they did they were disproportionate. Once personal protection for health care workers became widespread those severe cases and deaths dropped to much lower levels.

Post by oneoff786 » Thu, Dec 23, 2021, 9:46 PM UTC

clairity wrote: post #489

zuminator wrote: post #461

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you. I've seen the phrase "effective R0" used, for example, here [0], but I can see that you are correct that R(t) is the generally accepted epidemiological term. [0] https://labblog.uofmhealth.org/rounds/how-scientists-quantif...

this is a mathematical convention, not simply an epidemiological term. the 0th term of any function, like R0, is generally understood as the initial condition constant (at time t=0). R(t) is a function of time and R0 is the value of R at time 0, the initial condition. R0 tells you exactly nothing about the future, it only pins down the starting point (which is important information, but not the be-all-and-end-all of…

Post by bufferoverflow » Thu, Dec 23, 2021, 10:45 PM UTC

jonnycomputer wrote: post #345

bufferoverflow wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're mistaken. There's no disease on this planet that infects 100% of people, even when constantly exposed. Our immune systems are quite amazing.

Who hasn't had a cold?