Coronavirus Pandemic

[KlaxonCow]

Nah, my argument would be that we simply didn't know then, what we know now.

There was every possibility that Omicron was as lethal as delta - or even maybe worse than it - but that turned out not to be the case.

It's that "Pandemic Paradox" thing.

Like, doctors got worried about Swine Flu years back and nothing much came of it, and then folks were like "ah, you're over-reacting! It's nothing". But now we've had Covid and it's caused all this devastation, we can see that, yeah, they were right to be concerned that a pandemic was overdue. Eventually, that pandemic showed up and we can all see that, yes, it really is very serious - not just the deaths and illness, but the economic and social damage too.

So the "Pandemic Paradox" is that doctors and scientists say "do this to prevent shit hitting the fan" and people do it, so the shit doesn't hit the fan and then everyone's saying "well, that was pointless, because nothing happened".

But, like, did nothing happen because we all did the preventative thing - which stopped it - or was it nothing to begin with?

The other example, I guess, is the Y2K bug. Nothing happened when the clocks hit the year 2000. But was that BECAUSE so much effort had gone into checking "Y2K compliance" beforehand - and every important instance that could cause problems had been fixed in time - or was it because, ah, the Y2K bug was overblown and it was all an over-reaction?

Jimmy Carr had a joke in his stand-up - which I'll no doubt butcher here - but it was along the lines of asking the crowd if they thought all the Covid measures had been an over-reaction. And they cheered. And then he said "yeah, that's what all the Covid survivors say - the dead people not so much". Well, I can't deliver it the way Jimmy Carr did in text, but you can get the gist of the satire there.

Of course the folks who luckily dodged the worst of it are saying "what's all the fuss about?". Because they didn't die or, like me, spend most of 2020 fatigued and fucked in the head, with a rash on their arms, or any of the other twisted shit that Covid has wrought. Yeah, if you were safely tucked up at home, suffering nothing in lockdown but boredom, then of course it seems like an "over-reaction" to you. Because, as we took the preventative steps, there was nothing for you to personally react to. This was NOT the case for everyone. Far from it.

This isn't quite "the prevention paradox" but it's a variant of it, i feel. That, in hindsight, we can look back and say "well, maybe that wasn't as necessary as we though it was". But we couldn't know that before it had happened.

You've seen the massive, massive surge on the case graph for Omicron - I've posted them here - which dwarfed previous peaks, almost three times over. If Omicron had been as bad as Delta, and if it were better at evading jabs (and it was pretty good at doing that already, but if it really had major "vaccine escape" going on), then we would have been truly fucked.

That wasn't the case. We got "lucky". But we didn't know that back then and, therefore, had to do it. Just in case.

And you can't prove a "what if?", in that we don't know how much worse the graphs would have looked like if we hadn't done it. With jabs and Omicron's "mildness", things could definitely have been much worse. But we don't know what the graph would have looked like without that "boost" to 70% protection and reactivating people's antibody immunity. The NHS got stretched and is still stretched - so even a small change in the numbers could have broken the banks, and let the flood waters in. Because if capacity is breached, then the picture changes, as now you can't treat everyone and have to leave some people to natural fate. Camper beds in leisure centres, where people just wait to see if they live or die (or, you know, if not die, come away with, like, permanent lung damage or something).

It had to be done. As the saying has it, "hindsight is always 20 / 20 vision".

(And there's also the argument that the virus is mutating, so we honestly do need to keep people's immune systems up to date. As new variants will come, and if we build up resistance - and don't let it just wane - then a future "variant of concern" might not be able to grab a foothold, or less of a foothold. It might be "long-term needed", to keep up with an evolving threat, even if not-so-much "short-term needed".)

You get the gist. It was the right thing to do. Even if it turned out not to be quite so catastrophic as we feared it could be, there are still, you know, hundreds dying every day and thousands in hospital beds, and untold numbers suffering Long Covid and permanent loss / damage to their sense of smell and so forth.

As I've been trying to say, even if this thing hadn't killed a single person, then it's still a brutal disease and a major health issue regardless. Perhaps we've seen hundreds dying day after day too often now to be numb to it - but, like, 300 dead for 10 days is equivalent to 9/11. Happening again and again and again.

[Dio]

There was every possibility that Omicron was as lethal as delta - or even maybe worse than it - but that turned out not to be the case.

It's not about the lethality from Omicron, just that the immune system seems pretty solidly OK to handle this thing once given a basic primer on it, and by the time the booster program was really spooling up that was already fairly evident.

I did say that the resources being directed into boosters would be better directed at the unvaxed at the start of the booster programme, so I at least can claim that hindsight has not changed my view.

[KlaxonCow]

It's not about the lethality from Omicron, just that the immune system seems pretty solidly OK to handle this thing once given a basic primer on it

That's a very arguable statement there.

I mean, the third "booster" jab was reckoned to bring efficacy to Omicron up to about 70% in studies. That really isn't that great, coming down from the 95% efficacy we had with Pfizer on the original virus.

Breakthrough infections have proved milder - with Delta and certainly Omicron - but there's no guarantees whatsoever here, as we're still registering ~300 deaths a day. And it's been consistently above 100 deaths a day (ironing out that it always dips on weekends) since July last year. Despite the "milder" moniker slapped on it, Omicron is killing people, including those who have been jabbed or suffered previous infection.

I mean, even in making this statement, you're rather heavily caveating it yourself, as "pretty solidly OK" is not exactly the most enthusiastic endorsement ever, is it?

The jabs do work. I can appreciate what you're saying in a relative sense - that the jabs have greatly reduced the problem - but the problem with relative measurement is that we can lose our grip on the absolute numbers.

Covid remains the leading cause of death. 300 deaths a day, for 10 days, remains the equivalent of 9/11.

This is still a really fucking big problem in absolute terms, even if, yes, in relative terms, the vaccination programme has made a very significant difference - turning "a catastrophe" into merely "a big problem".

Such relative measure can cause some real weird contradictions. We're acting grateful to be around ~80K cases a day, as if this isn't an issue, when that's significantly higher than peak cases in the second wave (~68K) and twice as much as those months (from July to December 2021) where we weirdly seemed happy to just coast on 30-40K cases every day (even that's more than the majority of the second wave, barring its peak "surge").

And, seriously, that observation really is a problem from an immunity standpoint. Whether you agree with the politics or not, the gist of why 30-40K cases were allowed to simply "brew" for about 5 months was that this was this "hybrid immunity" plan. That we'd get "herd immunity" from the majority of people being jabbed and, for those who haven't been jabbed or refuse it, then the government's plan was, well, to leave things brewing away at 30-40K cases a day, as that'll eventually get around to naturally immunising all the refuseniks.

Because, like, 30-40K cases a day for 5 months - which is roughly 140 days - is 4.2 to 5.6 million cases. That's a significant "natural vaccination programme" for the refuseniks. Especially because, like, that's "official cases" as well - folks who get it asymptomatically, or with "mild cold-like symptoms", are just suffering through it and never getting onto official stats. So, you know, bear in mind that these numbers are always an underestimate.

That was the plan. And it didn't bloody work, did it? Omicron's peak surged three times higher than any previous peak beforehand. Like a hot knife through butter, it barely registered any resistance at all as it raged. So much for that "herd immunity" plan, eh? Hmm, maybe that's why I've been saying all along that such a strategy is a high stakes gamble that has no guarantees whatsoever of actually working - a mutation or two can easily throw all that hard work out of the window in a heartbeat. Which is more or less exactly what Omicron did, so thank goodness that the variant has become less interested in killing people... or no health system anywhere on the planet could have coped.

You know, where the official stats are saying ~72K for yesterday, the Zoe Covid app people have an estimate of 176K. Because you simply don't get onto the official stats, unless you're getting a PCR or are in hospital. But Zoe's Covid app is modelled based on reported symptoms.

The majority are not - and never have been - getting onto the official stats. Because, in fairness, with this virus, it's always been the case that, even with the most vulnerable groups, the majority pulls through. Certainly in the younger age groups, folks are just suffering through "mild symptoms" and it never gets registered anywhere (except possibly the Zoe Covid app, if they have that on their phone, which is why their estimates are likely better - and they are applying machine learning and proper statistical analysis on their numbers too, to better iron out the accuracy of the estimates).

Things are much better. The jabs definitely work. But, like, that's measured relatively from the point of catastrophic crisis. It's still a fucking huge problem, in absolute terms. It's still competing with heart disease and cancer for that "leading cause of death" crown, even with jabs and Omicron not being as lethal.

And, yeah, you say "It's not about the lethality from Omicron". But, well, it kind of ultimately is, isn't it? I mean, if this thing hospitalised and killed no-one, then we'd treat it as "just another 'flu" and move on. So, again, in a relative context, yes, I see what you're saying. But, in absolute terms, no, this very much is ultimately all about the hospitalisations and deaths. That's the thing we're desperately trying to prevent. That is the essence of why this is catastrophic and has demanded lockdowns and restrictions and everything.

I get that you're saying "it's not so bad, and there's a route out of this ahead of us" and, sure, but let's not be so casual as to fail to acknowledge that we're still knee-deep in the shit here. And, yes, it used to be neck-deep, so knee-deep is a significant improvement, for certain. But, like, we are still standing knee-deep in shit - and the smell remains atrocious.

[PFVA]

And the unusual continues happening here.

We're having elections today and people are supposed to wear masks when voting. Some woman refused to wear a mask, and they refused allowing her in. With her threatening to take the things to court, there is been some question that it's not constitutional to refuse to allow someone to vote they finally found a way to settle the question. She voted from the outside, by the window, without mask. The room had windows right the voting sections, the table members went to the window took the stuff, did all the ritual, she voted on the outside of the window and placed the vote in the box thru the window.

(TV was there by the time)

[Dio]

It's not about the lethality from Omicron, just that the immune system seems pretty solidly OK to handle this thing once given a basic primer on it

That's a very arguable statement there.

It's self-evidently true. If it wasn't then based on case #s there'd have been 50k+ people in hospital in December and probably 200k now. And it wouldn't be the case that 95% of the people in ICU are unvaccinated.

[The ghost of raids past]

The worry is that the large population of infected people allows a mutation to occur that has the transmissability of Omicron with the disease causing part of Delta.

[Dio]

That in itself is not a major concern. The key question is whether a variant emerges that can cause serious illness in people who are vaccinated or previously infected.

But as it is impossible to eliminate covid, given the easy mild reinfection of people immune to serious disease, the total impossibility of the worldwide coordination and will to impose multiple years of severe lockdowns required to stamp it out, and the availability of large proven animal reservoirs likely making any such efforts futile... really, there's a pretty limited set of actions we can take.

(There's a few trivial things like mandatory wearing of masks on public transport which currently make sense and eventually probably don't. But beyond that, we're well into the just-get-on-with-it phase now).

[matt303]

Well that's another otherwise normal person I know gone off the rails thanks to the internet, a year ago they would be happily posting about EVs or motorbikes, now every post on social media is anti-vax or conspiracy stuff. Today they hit the limit where I un-friend them after they posted a holocaust picture of Jews wearing stars in reply to a post about a vaccine news item.

That's two people (one a friend since I was in my 20s) that have basically gone mental by going down conspiracy rabbit holes on the internet, one of them works in digital forensics for the police so you'd think they'd know better.

[merman]

In a superb twist of fate, the Education Secretary has tested positive just days after he exposed schoolchildren to an increased risk of catching it.

[gilesgoat]

Well that's another otherwise normal person I know gone off the rails thanks to the internet, a year ago they would be happily posting about EVs or motorbikes, now every post on social media is anti-vax or conspiracy stuff. Today they hit the limit where I un-friend them after they posted a holocaust picture of Jews wearing stars in reply to a post about a vaccine news item.

That's two people (one a friend since I was in my 20s) that have basically gone mental by going down conspiracy rabbit holes on the internet, one of them works in digital forensics for the police so you'd think they'd know better.

There should be some "psychological study" about WHY is this happening ? Maybe titled "What's wrong with people ?".

Fundamentally we see some sort of this happening :

1. there's an enormous DISTRUST of "institutions" ( government , etc. )
2. there's the feeling that "governments/politicians don't care about us, all the want is to CONTROL us"
3. "the worst you hear on the internet, the more probable is true".
4. "corporations are super evil are there to spoil the world/people"
5. "if it's on the internet and looks bad enough it MUST BE the ABSOLUTE TRUTH".
6. whoever dares to say anything opposite to that CLEARLY is trying to HIDE THE TRUTH


So let's try to reason .. "in an abstract sense", up to a point I'd dare to say that "points 1 .. 4 sound quite true", I mean you get the overall feeling that politicians and such are not there "for the good of the people" but more "for the gain of themselves" and when presented with situations rather than "being honest/being clear/say things as they are" they seem more into "panic shit control mode" an unable to present a coherent response to the fact.

Plus they seem to be bickering all time, at best, throwing shit to each other and filling people up with balooney and empty promises.

So .. "you can see why one starts inclined to think in certain ways".

I mean really no kidding "when there's someone like BJ or DT doing all that they been/are doing" FUCK ME THE SITUATION IS REALLY BAD !

"How can people believe better ?" .. they can only believe worse .. and they do.

Then there's I think in part a "negation factor" as "this thing is so shit there's really NO OTHER alternative but do something I feel weird" that ANY OTHER ALTERNATIVE for as much banana as it can be sounds better, for them.

And then there's this idea that "internet is pure freedom is the real voice" .. forgetting the fact that "yes is so much freedom that can EASILY be full of even more lies/baloonies/crap that you can't really know unless you start reasoning more and try to check what you really are listening to".

I said "try" because not always you can reach to the truth/evidence of things so "you have to take all with a grain of salt".

Then I think there's really "mass histeria/euphoria" ... again more like a "I don't want at all to accept this situation" so "any alternative will do".

I think overall is true "we are surrounded by SO MUCH SHIT, constant and in constant INCREASE" .. that people ARE really getting bananas, those that are not bananas already.

It's a societies problem, clearly we are into some sort of "Koyaanisqatsi" ( i.e. "life out of balance" ) and again yes "the root of all that is capitalim" and "a weird life of always things going up" ..

Crypto, bubbles, social media frenzy, work more, earn more, buy more, money never enough, show this, show that, tiktok, internet challanges, Facebook, Metaverses, Fortnight, games that sucks, super heroes in the movies, corporations in the ads, "guys with weird hair in politics", sex all over the places, networks at work, keepin' people calm, Ya know they said some shit, and tried to blame it on Islam ...

.. I am waiting to hear the shots coming ...

It's time to STOP .. all this must end ..

Disconnect the plug.

"Too much noise around".

[PFVA]

BA.2? Subvariant of Omicron. I was just reading about it. It's increasing in Europe. Apparently it could be 1.5 times more contagious than the original Omicron, the BA.1.

However vaccines would still prevent more serious illness and deaths.

[KlaxonCow]

The key question is whether a variant emerges that can cause serious illness in people who are vaccinated or previously infected.

But the thing is, whilst Omicron did not cause as much serious illness as previous variants, it absolutely smashed through our "immunity wall", like a hot knife through butter.

It did this to a population that, in majority, is vaccinated and which, earlier in the pandemic, had amongst the worst infection rates on the planet:



That surge at the end of the graph is insane. It towers above the earlier waves, making them look like they weren't much of a big deal.

The previous wave peaks were, at most, ~50K. This one happily peaked at over 200K. Four times worse than we've previously seen.

And it did that to a population that's 80% jabbed and 75% double jabbed (and now some 60% triple jabbed). Which, as you can see on the graph, was - under Boris's "hybrid immunity" plan, which basically means obtaining "herd immunity" by jabs... and if you refuse a jab, then they were basically encouraging people to go out and catch it, via "Freedom Day" - infection rates almost as bad as the previous peak continuously for 5 months.

So, a population that's well jabbed. Which had some of the worst infection rates in the world - and certainly in Europe - throughout most of this pandemic, and a country that declared "Freedom Day" (in England), to attempt to build "herd immunity" amongst the unvaccinated.

So our "previously infected" rates are some of the best in the world. Fifth on the world league table. France has since beaten us to claim 4th. And the top 3 - the US, India and Brazil - have vastly bigger populations than we do. When normalised for population, we have previously won "the worst infected country in the world" crown earlier on.

A well-vaccinated population. A nation that has had amongst the best "previously infected" rates on the planet. And which, look at the graph, "experimented" with this "hybrid immunity" plan for 5 long months, from "Freedom Day" to Christmas, to actually encourage the unvaccinated to get out there and catch it.

And look at that surge. Omicron was not even phased in the slightest. Like a hot knife through butter, cutting through the population at rates four times worse than it has ever been, in a matter of weeks.

We rolled the lucky dice here.

Because, yes, the corresponding death graph, in comparison (and at the same horizontal scale) barely registers that Omicron ever happened:



Four times more cases, but a tiny uptick in deaths, just big enough to barely poke its head up above natural fluctuations and error.

We got lucky, because Omicron really seems deeply uninterested in killing people.

But look at the graphs - the real numbers, not the political narrative that you're regurgitating dutifully here - the jabs and the previous infection didn't actually halt Omicron cases at all, really. It blasted through the population with little resistance. Like a hot knife through butter.

It had significant "vaccine escape", as it was estimated that getting your booster would bring your protection up to 70%. That's not great. That's 30% - almost 1 in 3 - "not protected". And that's after being "boosted" up to better protection, and kicking your waned antibody back into action.

(And reports of "BA.2" is that it's more infectious and has learnt even more "vaccine escape" tricks in the meantime.)

Giles asked about the psychology of human greed on another thread, and I posted that video about the research project into this with a rigged game of Monopoly. And, when the rich player inevitably won the rigged game, they all reported what they had done to win the game. They tried to rationalise their success from their actions, even though it was blatantly obvious from the incredibly skewed rigged rule set that they were playing with, that it had absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with any action anyone took. The game was rigged. The win was inevitable (and, indeed, the rich player NEVER lost in any of their experiments - not once, because it was a foregone conclusion, completely divorced from any action that the rich player took).

I feel we're similarly flattering ourselves.

The graphs do show that the jabs worked. The peaks of the deaths graph shows this, as the third wave there is significantly lower, even before Omicron showed up (and Omicron, not going for blood, barely made a dent on the numbers).

But in terms of preventing infection, we can look up to the cases graph, and that shows Omicron blasting through a vaccinated / previously infected population - amongst the best on the planet for both of those things, weirdly enough - like a hot knife through butter, barely touching the sides.

We want the narrative of vaccine success to flatter ourselves and to believe our actions made a difference. But, like, show me where on the cases graph, there's any hint of that whatsoever.

We got lucky. Omicron is not interested in killing. Though, boy, it's very, very keen to infect people.

I feel you're reporting the narrative - what we're supposed to think. But I'm trying to report the actual numbers - what the reality actually says.

I don't believe you're fundamentally wrong in what you're broadly saying, but it's far too optimistic and dismissive of what the numbers are actually saying.

Bottom line: Omicron, in terms of cases, happily smashed through our "immunity wall" without blinking. The saving grace is that, by all the deaths graphs I can find, Omicron really wasn't remotely interested in killing anyone.

We did not repel it with a robust "immunity wall". It simply spared us.

Future variants might not be so kind. We have to hope that there won't be any regression of that "more transmissible, less hospitalisations and deaths" trend that this variant is following.

We did not win. The virus called a truce, and got interested in a different target. And let us hope that it's not just a temporary armistice, but the prelude to the final end of the war - as it seeks equilibrium with us.

As usual with human beings. Lessons learnt: None.

[tufty]

If you look at the UK numbers, KC, you can only really say 2 things about Omicron*.

1 - it's very contagious, and infects vaccinated and unvaccinated people regardless, something which Delta did not do
2 - It kills unvaccinated people far more than it kills vaccinated people.

To say that it's less lethal than, for example, Delta, you have to look at the data from countries that are not highly vaccinated.

I'm not saying you're wrong, it would certainly appear to be (thus far) less lethal than Delta in all cases, but you can't get that from the UK figures alone.

* which I refer to as "it", but there are at least 2 omicron variants out there, and given that AIUI BA.2 appears to be able to reinfect those who have had BA.1, we're not necessarily out of the woods yet.

[Dio]

I feel you're reporting the narrative - what we're supposed to think. But I'm trying to report the actual numbers - what the reality actually says.

I don't believe you're fundamentally wrong in what you're broadly saying, but it's far too optimistic and dismissive of what the numbers are actually saying.

Once more I'd ask you to be a bit more polite in the terms that you use when replying to me. I am reporting what I am seeing in the hard data, I have three Excel sheets that I maintain on a daily basis that assist me in my analysis and projections.

Yes, that comes through my own filter and yours comes through yours. The data (and time and skills) available to us amateurs don't support hard conclusions. But the idea that you are looking at the data with some magic eye and I am not? That's just rude. Feel free to give your view of things, but please consider basic politeness when calling other people idiots. One mistake of this kind could be carelessness, and I took it as such last time, but two requires a stronger response.

I may think you are wrong, you think I am wrong. But I don't say you're wrong because you're a dimwit and ignoring the data.

[merman]

Here’s hard data for you.
600,000 cases added to the totals - because reinfections were not being counted.