This chart shows the growth of COVID-19 in the United States since mid-December, when the Omicron variant started to spread. Cases are up by more than 3x; hospitalizations are up by 75%; and deaths haven't increased at all.
It's now been two weeks since the case rate started to spike. Will the death rate begin to follow soon?
Remains to be seen; however, I've noticed that our local sheriff's department/coroner has responded to 13 dead bodies in the past six days (not all of which are COVID of course) but it's much higher than "normal."
Nope
Omicron is weaker than previous variants
But THAT is not the point
The more people that get COVID the more the chances are that new variants form. Its what we said during Beta and Delta, and it's true.
This is why WHO was so adamant about vaccine distribution world wide BEFORE boosters were given.
The Biden administration is also beginning to see this, with several news outlets reporting they are signaling a change in their program. We SHOULD have enough vaccines for every living person on the planet by July. The problem will be distribution and administering of those shots
THIS is why Faucci said spring before a vaccine immunity evading variant would emerge. It happened much much sooner that everyone thought it would
Except…. Lots of people don’t want to be vaccinated and many more live in places where it is impossible due to war, poverty etc. There will, for years to come, several billion people unreachable by vaccines (or common sense). So I think is perfectly reasonable to give the complex mRNA vaccines to westerners willing to take them. If the US military has some other technology which travels better, then they should give it to Africa.
And then in the US we should build Covid specific hospitals to treat the unvaccinated so they don’t keep the rest of us from getting care. I know… it’s a fantasy.
Justin
Why not allow for the manufacture of vaccines in other countries. We have several vaccines that do NOT require special storage,
So why not produce the vaccine in the most modern country on your continent then ship it?
That’s what we are doing today. Pfizer ships vaccine to Africa. But if they shipped it all to Africa, it would go to waste because they can’t administer it. And lots of Africans aren’t interested.
My real point is that the idea of vaccinating these places making variants is not practical. I see why the WHO wants to skip the boosters, but the sad fact is that immunity seems to wane over time.
Everyone making vaccines today is trying to increase capacity. Even Pfizer has a deal with Biovac in South Africa for production. And back in November they told Pfizer to stop shipping because they had enough.
This is not as easy as many imagine. These are real challenges not excuses for inaction.
https://www.devex.com/news/pfizer-outlines-challenges-in-localizing-vaccine-manufacturing-102273
There's no doubt vaccines are hard to make.
But not every country on the continent is backwards Justin.
Heck we could LEAN on the Israelis to help out with making the vaccines.
There was some talk recently about making the vaccine in an intermediate stage and finishing it on the continent it would be used on.
According to WHO and the CDC we will have enough doses to vaccinate the world by June 2022. Why not start shipping it now?
Of course given the speed at which Omicron MUTATED, then spread we may be too late.
***********OFF TOPIC***********
I see Michele and Barack Obama sent out New Years wishes to all. They were going to relax in Hawaii. Can't wait for the conspiracy theorists to come out with BO wanted to make sure his long form birth certificate was locked away safe and sound
“There was some talk recently about making the vaccine in an intermediate stage and finishing it on the continent it would be used on.”
This is exactly what Pfizer is doing with Biovac in S. Africa. They are trying to do this all over. Also South America.
https://www.fiercepharma.com/manufacturing/health-group-picks-sites-argentina-and-brazil-as-regional-hubs-producing-covid-19
Usually takes 3-4 weeks. We will know by mid-January, though if hospitalizations spike in the next week I guess we will have our answer by then.
Since when are deaths and hospitalizations the measure of serious ness of a disease?
Does this mean FDRs polio was NOT serious?
No sorry.
If you get COVID you get COVID. Our response to covid is what matters. Vaccines provide some, SOME protection. It appears as though having had the first round of shot(s) or booster within the last 30 days is optimal but declines in effectiveness with time
Same with PI immunity. It declines with time which is one of the reasons antigenic sin has been relegated to the dust bin of history. Originally discovered or proposed in 1960 - by 1970 there was already enough evidence to make doctors realize that each of us responds differently and therefor antigenic sin cannot be relied on to fight another infection.
Is there some memory? Of course but the strength of our immune system response to disease has shown to diminish with time and comorbidities. Vaccines protection diminishes over time as well and since we did NOT develop Delta specific vaccines we were "at a loss" when Omicron came around.
Anyone who has not been INJECTED or SICK within the last 90 days is at risk of getting COVID.
Will you get a serious case? Unknown but no matter what, by the time YOU know you're sick you've infected many MANY others.
Lets say you work in a factory with 3,000 other people. You get sick and 2 others do with serious conditions resulting in death but no one else gets it. OR you get sick with Omicron and give it to 2500 other employees who are not out of work for 5 days each over a 30 day period.
Which is worse? For the company its the 2500 sick employees out of work. For the workers it seems to be the 3 co-workers they lost.
YOU be the judge. But Omicron has infected the younger working class groups whereas Alpha started with the elderly who lived in close quarters.
ANYONE who is anti vax at this point needs to be banned from social media. There is NO REASON NOT to get vaccinated
Vog,
You seem to really not understand what original antigenic sin means. Please look up the definition.
I shall cheer on an increase in severe illness and deaths among the willfully unvaccinated. As such, I will just lay low while the angel of death passes over and checks vaccination records. (Get the biblical plague reference there?). 😇
Off topic. This is an interesting article about how the Chinese use twitter and Facebook against people. Could the republicans exact their revenge on us like this?
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/31/business/china-internet-police-twitter.html?
The Nazis used homosexual rights organizations' membership lists to find homosexuals to murder. There's a reason that revolutionary cells and criminal organizations decentralize and let each person know as little about other members as possible. Facebook is just a big centralized registry.
It's likely that the level of ICU cases might predict the trend in deaths, though perhaps acuity even in the ICU may be less with Omicron than Delta. In Florida, one of the harder hit states so far, the ICU admissions went from 337 to 530 between 12/24 and 12/31 (a 60% increase). I also think that while the younger, more mobile people have fueled this surge at its outset, it will work its way to the more vulnerable people in due time. In my area, cases are 3 times higher overall this week versus last week, but in people over age 70, it's 5 times higher. Doesn't tell us about acuity of their illnesses, but it's a worrisome trend. I think we will have higher death rates, but perhaps nowhere near what we've seen before.
Your data on hospitalization is distorted by holiday reporting. Hospitalization isn't that high and deaths didn't fall that low.
Why do you think hospitalizations are distorted too high by holidays? Don't get that.
Because there were 3 outright days of no reporting. It takes time for that to be filled in.
Well....
Deaths are up in IL and NY; may still be dropping in PA and CA, flat in TX and FL.
Death rate does not seem as high relative to hospitalizations as with earlier waves. And we are still seeing the effects of the delta wave ending while omicron takes off.
Hospitalizations in Chicago are almost at their highs, and numbers are going in in NYC. Deaths are going up, but don't seem to up nearly as much as expected.
One problem with looking at hospitalization trends is that some of them, like deaths , can be only " with covid" not " for covid" . Almost all hospitals now routinely test for covid abd they report anyone hospitalized who has covid whether or not it has anything to do with covid. This has been a factor previously for both reported deaths and hospitalizations, although many covid zealots ( including some here) seemed to want to deny any possibility that any covid deaths were overcounted.
But, with delta and original, it was a smaller issue as they were both less contagious and more virulent. So a lower percentage of reported covid deaths and hospitalizations and icu were for " with covid " instead of " due to covid " - although I note not always possible to tell for sure in individual case .
With omicron so much more contagious, you are going to have more cases of " with covid " than before, but as less virulent , the increase in cases " due to covid" will increase less or not at all. Thus the increase in reported deaths or hospitalizations, which include " with covid" now being a higher percentage, will overstate any true increase in deaths or hospitalizations due to covid.
Even fauci made that point re the oh so scary numbers of pediatric hospitalizations which were overblown as so many are " with covid there".
So , if hospitalizations and deaths are not going up as much with omicron, the real news is even better than just looking at reported numbers.
I suggest paying more attention to icu USAGE numbers instead of just reported number of icu cases that have covid. Any cases of just " with covid" will not inflate the icu usage stays. Unless they adjust the icu capacity to account for staff being out with mild cases of omicron .
I bet that, coming month , any strains on hospital capacity will come less from new patients caused by serious covid illness, and more from reduced capacity due to staff being out with mild cases of omicron.
Why is this a 'problem'? I've long seen the anti-covid zealots make this point, but fail to explain why this matters.
Coming to the ICU with covid related lung problems is serious and requires a lot of hospital resources.
Coming to the ICU with a heart condition and also having covid is also a serious condition which requires more resources than if they didn't have covid.
If your trying to understand the extent of covid spread, both cases are identical.
If your trying to understand the hospital resource status, both cases are identical.
Divining which cases are are more important or impactful is guesswork with curious motives.
If you are sick enough to need ICU care, it doesn't matter which patients are soaking up the resources and staff that will be needed to keep you alive.
What is a anti-covid zealots???! Again, stop posting.
Because it distorts the picture. Someone who comes to the hospital " with covid" instead of " due to" covid would have come anyway for whatever underlying thing they came for and thus they would be hospitalized in any case.
You do have some point that perhaps having covid too, even asymptomatic, does require more hospital resources than if you did not have it. They might not need to treat the covid at all but still need extra precautions to prevent it spreading.
But even so have to subtract off the hospital resources they would have used anyway.
Consider that , maybe with delta , you would have 1000 total hospitalizations of which 100 were really due to covid . But the overall community prevalence was 2% so approx 18 extra covid cases ( 900 × 2%) were reported but they were only " with covid. The 818 reported cases are overstated by 18 if trying to determine hospitalizations due to covid . And maybe having asymptomatic covid too adds 25% to resources use so fair to maybe say a number of 804.5 represents real hospital burden.
Now omicron changes things . Case prevalence in the community shoots way up to 10%. But that 5 times increase actually only increases hospitalizations due to covid by 50%. Now you have a true number of 150 hospitalizations due to covid but 80 that are just with covid . The reported covid hospitalizations is 230 and that is overstated by 80. With usage you can fairly say 170 so overstated by 60.
With delta , the issue of with covid or due to covid was a real minor issue just slightly overstating numbers . With omicron , the overstatement is very significant and that is exacerbated when trying to determine the amount of incrsse from pre omicron .
Hope that let's you understand the point. And note that before omicron , this issue was really not one to make a big deal about. It was a somewhat bigger issue for deaths ( as any covid within past x period counted, the time period where a death could be falsely attributed is higher than hospitalizations based on right now. But not so much for hospitalizations except for very young . But omicron distorts it more significantly as so prevalent.
And one big caveat to the good news.
We are in the holiday distortion period and everything is affected by that . So do not give much credence to any conclusions on case or death numbers showing anything with confidence yet. But hospitalizations and icu numbers should be far less affected so is better to focus on them right now.
Nope, hospitalization declined then rose beyond the mean point due to data lags.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jan/02/britain-got-it-wrong-on-covid-long-lockdown-did-more-harm-than-good-says-scientist
I assume this applies to the US too. The good news is that we now endure these waves without “lockdowns” and no one really cares how many die.
Like lockdowns help. A infectious disease that spread blew that idea away a winter ago.
Ah yes. By not really putting an effort into lock downs, we convincingly showed that lock downs don't work.
I see the "word salad" crew is back
Oh the numbers seem bad
Don't look at this look at that
and I suggest paying more attention to......
The word salad crew is using bad dressing it seems
The increase in hospitalizations is still concerning, partly because any increase in death will follow the increase in hospitalizations, and partly because it opens the door to excess deaths for reasons other than covid due to lack of hospital space.
As RT points out above, we're not really dealing with the same data set variables this time, because everyone who gets hospitalized for any reason will likely be tested for COVID, and since Omicron is so infectious and widespread, we are going to get a much higher % of people "with COVID", and who may not have any COVID-related symptoms at all, let alone needing hospitalized care (although obviously any that do arise will need to be treated along with primary condition for being there).
So we can't just compare data sets side-by-side in that respect, and other suggestions above to focus on ICU are probably better (but still will have the "with COVID" potential qualifier).
Otherwise, until we get through it, we don't really know, aside from positive data trending from South Africa, UK, and other locales, with the UK being a relatively similar demographic and vaccination/prior infection status group.
My own prediction is we'll have some upsurge from the remaining unvaccinated, but even for them this will be slightly less lethal, not only because of Omicron-related characteristics (relative to lungs), but because we just know how to treat COVID now better too, and have better options, so mortality rates in 2020 can't really be compared to 2021 and either of those likely not to 2022, and the public health emergency will be over by this spring (we don't spend billions and trillions of dollars to inoculate/vaccinate against mild-to-moderate symptoms).
Having said that, we should finish the current job and help vaccinate the world, to avoid any further complications down the road, it's in our common interest to do so (e.g. it's a good cause, but it's also in our self-interest).
Yes generally agree.
But would add that I think the unvaccinated will do more than just slightly better with omicron. And it will be due less to new treatments, or the lower virulence of omicron ( which we are not even sure of how much ) and more to the fact that a huge majority of unvaccinated have some natural immunity from prior infections and ( as I tend to harp on as people are not considering) micro infections.
If you were not vaccinated all through this pandemic and were living life outside of extreme isolation, you very likely were infected at some point. If not before delta, delta was too damn contagious to avoid if cases were at all prevalent. Maybe a small handful managed to stay totally uninfected without vaccination through delta in places like say VT where the delta wave had not yet hit hard before omicron , but very few in a place like fla .
We will never know for sure now as no way to really figure out if someone got covid in the past with no symptoms and fully recovered and their antibodies have waned. Or is there? Can a more sophisticated expensive test determine if you have residual long term immunity? If so , is anyone doing those tests randomly?
If you ever had covid or were vaccinated ever , even if your antibodies have waned to zero , your immune system will still have seen the virus and have some memory of it. Might do nothing to stop you getting infected, but the immune system will be better able to gear up to fight it off quickly enough to prevent bad illness and death.
And be prepared for possible future statistical data that shows the vaccine as actually increasing the chance of illness and death. Possible we will see some of that eventually. But it will prove nothing of the sort . All that might show is that those who were vaccinated did have some larger percentage who did manage to never catch covid and thus are relying only on long term vaccine immunity are not as immune as those with long term natural immunity, which is predictably possible as onicron mutations target the spike .
If 99% of unvaccinated have natural immunity of some sort by say March and only 85% of vaccinated have some natural immunity, and those with serious outcomes are ranked first unvaccinated with no natural immunity ( that last 1% of them) , and then vaccinated with no natural immunity, simple comparisons will show that vaccinated group get serious illness more often and die . But that will only be because the vaccine did its job in the past and stopped you getting infected before omicron.
I'm not so sure about that natural exposure protection, unless you had actual symptomatic case which resulted in t-cells and b-cells creation. I went and got an antibody test week before Christmas, and I basically had zero antibodies (the CVS nurse claimed to see the faintest line, which was likely from my J&J shot in late April), and I literally work nearly every day in various Las Vegas sports books, so am constantly exposed to people from every part of the United States.
Maybe I'm different, but I've been overtly exposed in public (and often without a mask because eating and drinking), and have no hint of prior infection (as far as antibodies). One caveat here is that I was at Mardi Gras in 2020 and very well could have been one of the first carriers, and did have a night after I returned where I was quite sick similar to the night of my vaccination, so potentially already have the t and b cell memory cell protection (which would have been amplified with the J&J vaccine in late April, which was about 2 1/2 months later).
Overall though, I'm sympathetic to the reasoning that people will prior symptomatic infection should be treated as if they were vaccinated. I know this is a sensitive subject for some, but there isn't much evidence or rational reason to believe that vaccination is more powerful than recovery from actual disease, and of course this should be qualified with actual diagnosed symptomatic disease and then potentially subsequent antibody test, but with that should be likely be considered for next 6 months as good as vaccination (for legal purposes as far as attending events, going to restaurants, etc.).
If not for this pandemic go-around then the next one, we should be learning from all these experiences, especially the more traumatic ones, so future generations will be able to adapt better, without having had that same hard learning experience.