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Omicron Update, Dec 2

yourlocalepidemiologist.substack.com

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Re: Omicron Update, Dec 2

#81

Post by r00fus »

adam_arthur wrote: post #54
volta83 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good question. Excess mortality in the USA and the EU in 2020 were ~470k and ~580k deaths. The population of the USA and the EU in Jan 2020 was ~329 and ~447 million. The excess mortality in the USA and the EU in 2020 was ~143 vs ~129 excess deaths per 100.000 inhabitants. The USA had ~10% more excess deaths per capita than the EU. People living in the EU during 2020 had statistically a significantly better chance of…

I wouldn't call 10% difference significantly higher... more like within the margin of error. With such drastic policy differences you would expect to see a larger effect.

Well, I'd say the biggest difference was that in the EU, many countries would give you 80% unemployment to stay home for many months.

In the US, you'd get a few thousand $, many months later. So yeah, you might have had a similar chance to catch COVID but your livelihood and financial security were much more secure in Europe.

Policy-wise w/r/t COVID, EU and US are nowhere near NZ, Tiawan or China. Now that's containment taken seriously and it shows.

Re: Omicron Update, Dec 2

#82

Post by loeg »

beagle3 wrote: post #51
TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is nonsense. Vaccination stopped smallpox and polio. Failure at Zero Covid is the result of poor, anti-realistic policies and attitudes - like yours, for example. It's not because it's impossible, either economically or scientifically.

This is nonsense. Vaccination did not stop measles or whooping cough, and has not even reduced their spread (only their symptoms) despite decades of availability. Both of their vaccines are leaky - just like the Covid vaccine.

What? Measles is almost entirely constrained to the unvaccinated and we vaccinate babies for pertussis at 2 months.

Re: Omicron Update, Dec 2

#83

Post by pfg »

spurgu wrote: post #76
simonh wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Widespread vaccination dramatically reduces the rate at which the virus spreads, by more than 80%. It's not a binary does/doesn't stop spreading. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02054-z Vaccination rates in the US have been abysmal by developed world status, precisely because so many of you don't think vaccination works. It does work to dramatically slow spreading, but only if enough people take it up.

No it actually does not really stop spread to any significant degree (which is evident just by looking around what's going on everywhere). It just makes the symptoms milder. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3... https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanepe/article/PIIS2666-7...

I don't understand how you came to that conclusion based on the articles you linked.

The first study finds that "The SAR [secondary attack rate] in household contacts exposed to the delta variant was 25% (95% CI 18–33) for fully vaccinated individuals compared with 38% (24–53) in unvaccinated individuals" and "Fully vaccinated individuals with delta variant infection had a faster (posterior probability >0·84) mean rate of viral load decline (0·95 log10 copies per mL per day) than did unvaccinated individuals with pre-alpha (0·69), alpha (0·82), or delta (0·79) variant infections." (The study did not determine a meaningful impact on peak viral load and on the SAR in households when the index case was vaccinated.)

The second link is a letter that reiterates the fact that vaccinated index cases are just as likely to infect other household members and concludes with "It appears to be grossly negligent to ignore the vaccinated population as a possible and relevant source of transmission when deciding about public health control measures", which makes sense, but does not mean spread

When you say "which is evident just by looking around what's going on everywhere", it's important to point out that we're now dealing with a variant that is significantly more transmissible than previous ones, so we can't compare the numbers like-for-like.

Re: Omicron Update, Dec 2

#84

Post by junon »

spurgu wrote: post #78
junon wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Given that widespread vaccination does not stop infection from spreading There is not widespread vaccination, though. That's where your argument falls apart.

Are you serious? Most of Europe at least is at numbers that would've created herd immunity with the alpha variant (had the vaccine actually stopped transmission). I'd say that's pretty widespread.

I think you misunderstand what herd immunity is.

Re: Omicron Update, Dec 2

#85

Post by adam_arthur »

r00fus wrote: post #81
adam_arthur wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't call 10% difference significantly higher... more like within the margin of error. With such drastic policy differences you would expect to see a larger effect.

Well, I'd say the biggest difference was that in the EU, many countries would give you 80% unemployment to stay home for many months. In the US, you'd get a few thousand $, many months later. So yeah, you might have had a similar chance to catch COVID but your livelihood and financial security were much more secure in Europe. Policy-wise w/r/t COVID, EU and US are nowhere near NZ, Tiawan or China. Now that's containm…

Many in the US made significantly more on the combination of enhanced unemployment and stimulus checks than they had made working. Greater than 100% previous wage.

You can see the aggregate personal income data here: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/PI

Re: Omicron Update, Dec 2

#86

Post by MagnumOpus »

adam_arthur wrote: post #54
volta83 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good question. Excess mortality in the USA and the EU in 2020 were ~470k and ~580k deaths. The population of the USA and the EU in Jan 2020 was ~329 and ~447 million. The excess mortality in the USA and the EU in 2020 was ~143 vs ~129 excess deaths per 100.000 inhabitants. The USA had ~10% more excess deaths per capita than the EU. People living in the EU during 2020 had statistically a significantly better chance of…

I wouldn't call 10% difference significantly higher... more like within the margin of error. With such drastic policy differences you would expect to see a larger effect.

The EU didn’t act as one entity in the epidemic/lockdown/furlough policies. In particular Eastern European countries went with US-like policies (and less vaccine provision and even more anti accents) and and suffered more than the US.

The Nordics, France and German-speaking countries have half the death rate of the US or less, in some cases even negative excess deaths.

Re: Omicron Update, Dec 2

#87

Post by spurgu »

junon wrote: post #84
spurgu wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you serious? Most of Europe at least is at numbers that would've created herd immunity with the alpha variant (had the vaccine actually stopped transmission). I'd say that's pretty widespread.

I think you misunderstand what herd immunity is.

Huh? The point where R0 dips below 1?

Re: Omicron Update, Dec 2

#88

Post by simonh »

adam_arthur wrote: post #74
simonh wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Were demographically and geographically completely different. Our population is much denser, more like a populous US state than a sprawling continental giant. People used to compare virus control in the US to places like Singapore and New Zealand, as though their ability to control the virus has any lessons that are realistically applicable. We were hammered early on because we are very highly connected with the rest…

Yes, vaccines mitigate the impact of the virus on individual health outcomes. They likely also have some marginal impact on transmissibility. But the data shows pretty clearly that the effect on reduction in transmissibility is quite low, or else there would be an obvious relationship in the data in infection rate vs vaccine uptake... Which clearly there isn't. If you believe otherwise, please share data proving some…

It's true that vaccines are less effective at slowing down delta. They slowed previous variants down by 80% or more. They still slow it down, but not as much. But in the UK we had high vaccination rates before delta hit and in the first 6 months of the year this saved a _lot_ of lives. It's still saving lives by reducing transmission, but now mainly by simply protecting us from the worst effects of the virus.

Re: Omicron Update, Dec 2

#89

Post by junon »

spurgu wrote: post #79
taylodl wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lockdowns were implemented to prevent the collapse of the medical system. Lockdowns have been repealed with the advent of vaccines. Why? Because those vaccinated who get COVID get much milder cases and don't typically require hospitalization, and for the few that do, they don't require ICU. Lockdowns weren't implemented to reduce case counts per se, they were implemented to prevent medical system collapse. The vaccin…

Hospitals have never been anywhere near collapse in most places though. Currently in Finland for example there's currently hysteria about the hospital capacity, whereas in actuality the issue is that some non-critical surgery would need to be postponed. It's far from "collapsing".

Uh. my home state in the US had to call in the military to mediate the ER since people were starting fights because people having e.g. severe heart attacks were just turned away with a "sorry".

Italy had severe shortages of medical supplies that led to many medical workers on the frontline to die of infection.

Your personal life bubble does not reflect the rest of the world. Asserting "most places" weren't under collapse is quite strange given that it's patently false.

Re: Omicron Update, Dec 2

#90

Post by spurgu »

pfg wrote: post #83
spurgu wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No it actually does not really stop spread to any significant degree (which is evident just by looking around what's going on everywhere). It just makes the symptoms milder. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3... https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanepe/article/PIIS2666-7...

I don't understand how you came to that conclusion based on the articles you linked. The first study finds that "The SAR [secondary attack rate] in household contacts exposed to the delta variant was 25% (95% CI 18–33) for fully vaccinated individuals compared with 38% (24–53) in unvaccinated individuals" and "Fully vaccinated individuals with delta variant infection had a faster (posterior probability >0·84) mean ra…

> vaccinated index cases are just as likely to infect other household members

> It appears to be grossly negligent to ignore the vaccinated population as a possible and relevant source of transmission

You're going to have to dumb it down for me as to how this doesn't refer to spread.

> we're now dealing with a variant that is significantly more transmissible

And yes, agreed. Many are still focused on data from the previous variants though, whereas the thinking will need to change.

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