Posted on 01/12/2022 7:26:00 PM PST by MinorityRepublican
Places with highest daily reported cases per capita
Seven-day average of daily new reported cases per 100,000 residents
“Deaths are a trailing indicator”
It seems that with Omicron, all of the lag times are significantly shorter - the doubling time, the time for a wave to peak, the time between infection and symptoms, the average time to get out of the hospital, etc.
In the London Omicron wave, the crest in new cases was followed almost concurrently by hospitalizations.
I expect that we will see the death rate follow the drop in cases more closely than past waves as well.
Oh, sure, if you then spit out totally bogus cost of living numbers, etc.
Too many real people in real life are getting crushed, economically.
As for COVID projections, I would not call even France a good model. A hazy predictor, maybe. As for seasons, other countries, and some US states have had summer surges. Humidity seems to be a big factor - COVID doesn't like dry air. Temperature variations (that humans will stay in) have little effect. "Distancing" seems to be the biggest factor. And again with SA, comparison with their previous wave, not their previous trough, is more illuminating. Not that I disregard the fatalities. Just to illustrate, a 3x reduction in lethality per case being overrun by a 10x increase in transmission is not exactly a rosy scenario!
It may be an incomplete assumption, but my point which I admit I made indirectly is that our public health policy program is not working as they said it would. Hopefully this strain is less deadly, and higher vaccination rates and better treatments end up reducing fatalities.
Thing of it is we’ll never really know. There is no control group. There is no way to gauge absolute risk with or without vaccines. It’s a strange virus in that large numbers never get any symptoms at all. Perhaps most would have survived without a vaccine anyway. Perhaps most would have had the same symptoms with or without vaccines. Any analysis will all just be post hoc analysis.
“when this is over in 4 - 6 weeks”
Immunity in the population should be broad and deep.
After most of the Delta wave at the end of October (the last published update), the CDC’s Nationwide Blood Donor Seroprevalence Survey showed that 92.9% of samples from blood donors 16 or older, had COVID antibodies. They estimated roughly 2/3 of that was from vaccination, and roughly 1/3 from natural infection. Vaccination has continued pretty steadily since then, and over 75 million (about 1/4 of the pop.) have gotten booster shots.
Not only will Omicron likely raise that 92.9 percentage significantly, it will also likely layer on stronger immunity to those previously infected or vaccinated, like a booster shot, but with the broader immunity to more features of the virus, that comes from natural infection.
Projections out of Europe anticipate that over half of their population will likely have been exposed to Omicron by the end of your 4-6 week timeframe. No doubt a good number of those, more than once.
In past waves, CDC estimated that only about one out four actual infections were actually officially recorded. Because Omicron is milder, fewer infections cause people to get tested. Some estimates indicate that the rate of asymptomatic infections is significantly higher than past waves (one I saw estimated up to 90% asymptomatic, in the USA, vs. 18% for the original strain). Positive results from the now common home tests are less likely to be reported. Given the high number of new cases now being reported, we could actually be having 1-2% of the population (or even more) exposed to Omicron every day.
We do seem to be hurtling toward the end of his pandemic.
Somewhat agreed. I just don’t know if testing (reported) is keeping up. Unlike another poster here, I don’t regard data inconsistencies of 10 or even 20% as particularly relevant (except for the individuals directly dealing with or sick with COVID!) But, if test capacity for entities that are expected to report is short by more than that, or tests shift dramatically to non-reporters, real problems in analyzing the situation arise.
Also, some other big states are question marks. Has TX peaked yet? Probably not. CA? Hard to say. Are mandates slapped on (many places) dropping the peak but likely to extend a somewhat elevated curve? (Seems likely.)
I guess I’m about a “5” on an optimism - pessimism scale of 10.
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