What's the best way of dealing with COVID-19? Here's a series of charts which suggests that the obvious answer is probably also the right one.
I've chosen the six largest countries in Western Europe as comparisons. These countries are rich and have healthcare systems similar to ours. They're large, so they have the same necessity to deal with COVID via jumbo-sized bureaucratic programs. And they all probably have reliable reporting programs.
First off, here are the current case rates for the US and the other six countries:
The US is about middle of the pack even though we have a very high percentage of Omicron. This suggests that in terms of preventing transmission, we aren't doing too badly. Next up is hospital patients:
We're lapping everyone on hospitalizations. This suggests that even though our case rate is moderate, and our Omicron percentage is high, we nonetheless have more serious cases than our European comparison group. Next is ICU patients:
These are the most serious cases, and once again we're doing worse than the others. Next up is deaths:
These are obviously the most serious cases of all, and as of this week we're way ahead of everyone else.
In summary: we're moderate in terms of cases; high in terms of hospitalization and ICU patients; and really high in terms of deaths. We don't have more COVID than anyone else, but we have the worst COVID. Why? Is it lack of testing?
We could do better, and I assume these numbers don't account for at-home tests, but we seem to be about middle of the pack. And although testing has multiple benefits, the main one is probably to reduce transmission, not the severity of illness. So that leaves us with:
This is what fits the evidence. (And it doesn't really matter which measure of vaccine administration I use. We're bad at all of them.) In terms of the countermeasures that prevent transmission of COVID—masks, closures, testing, distancing, etc.—we're apparently performing at a roughly average level. But when it comes to the countermeasure that's most effective at preventing hospitalizations and death—vaccines and more vaccines—we're at the bottom of the pack.
I don't know what to do about that, but it sure seems that this is by far our biggest problem. It would be nice if more people wore masks and stayed away from others, but it's essential that they get vaccinated. This is what we should put our biggest effort into.
Testing doesn't do much on a societal scale unless it is paired with an EFFICIENT trace, quarantine/isolate program. Such programs are routine in Asia but none of the countries in your chart have them as far as one can tell from the news. What it does (potentially--if done early enough and with decent turnaround time!) is to give the signal for therapy (antibodies, Pfizer and Merck pills) early enough for the therapy to work. This will save lives but it benefits individuals, not the society as a whole.
Your point is of course straightforward and agrees with every expert advice I have heard.
Germany is suppose to have had a very good contact tracing program. Though it has recently been overwhelmed and failed in parts of the country. There's good reason to believe that omicron has the ability to overwhelm even the asian contact tracing programs.
Your problem is that you actually believe US reporting. It's nauseating BS.
There have been a lot of recent newspaper articles, posts, and academic articles
on the under-reporting problem.
A consortium, including folks from BU, Brown U, USAToday has been publishing articles. You can search for "USAToday underreporting", or click on
https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/news/nation/2021/12/22/covid-deaths-obscured-inaccurate-death-certificates/8899157002/
Synopsis: US cases are underreported in rural/red areas due to under-testing, biases in reporting by local officials, and the CDC's criterion that says you've
recovered from COVID if: 1. you survived 10 days; 2 no fever for 24-hours; and 3
improving COVID symptoms. Search on "He recovered from COVID but still died in the ICU. The BS in the US's COVID may be the worst political scandal in decades.
Note that this effect is worst in small rural/red counties. Folks would rather die
at home untested than drive 2 hours to a doctor. Rural coroners, i.e., elected officials are the worst offenders.
Sorry about the crappy formatting. I like to manage my own end of lines.
Is the inaccuracy in US COVID reporting really Trump's Big Lie?
The only number hard to fudge is "total" deaths. The CDC's tabulations
of "Excess deaths" is where to find the truth.
A related dashboard is here: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/index.htm. It has weekly death rates by state categorized
by COVID, total, percentage excess, total pneumonia, pneumonias and COVID, influenza, and influenza or pneumonia or COVID. Check out
Florida since the beginning of October. At the beginning of December,
the number of deaths from pneumonia, but not associated with COVID,
exceeded all the COVID-associated deaths. WTF? Where are the headlines screaming "Florida under pneumonia epidemic 50% more deadly than COVID".
This stuff needs to be spread far and wide.
I'm just a cricket, so don't lay any credit on me.
The one thing I can think of to get more people vaccinated is for daily publication of hospitalization and death statistics broken down by vaccination status. If the vast majority of people hospitalized and dying from the disease are unvaccinated, then publishing that every day would have the effect of giving confidence in the vaccine and making those who are reluctant to get it seem more foolish.
See https://web.missouri.edu/~segerti/3830/Pediatrics-2014-Nyhan-e835-42.pdf
I don’t know how that would translate to Covid. I’m sure the skeptical would remain so for a time. But over time I think. That would dissipate. The only. Place that I’ve seen that actually at least gives an idea about vaccine efficacy is Marin County. Their web site shows that over the last 90 days the unvaccinated have accounted for 7x more cases and 44x more hospitalization. It also indicates 24x more deaths. Marin County, as you may know, was a place that had a measles outbreak due to the type of thing in the study you linked.
The unvaccinated don't believe either government or media sources. They have made a conscious choice to get all of their information from professional liars.
A really excellent idea, and one which no authorities or media outlets seem to have put forward. Why not?
They would just call the unvaxxx'd v. vaxxx'd death rate #fakenews & #fuzzymath, or claim the alleged fatalities were fictions on someone's IMDB page.
John’s Hopkins shows a test positivity rate over 50% for the US, Netherlands slightly less; France and the United Kingdom are ~12 - 13%. There is an inexact trade off between case rate and positivity, which makes it likely that the US case rate is an underestimate. No data for Germany, Italy or Spain.
https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/testing/international-comparison
OT: Entitled assholes in the news edition -
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/07/world/canada/montreal-cancun-party-flight.html
https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/07/tennis/novak-djokovic-australia-protests-intl-hnk-dst-spt/index.html
Apparently Novax tested positive for COVID-19 last month, according to court papers filed. That means that under Australia's rules he is entitled to an exemption.
Nope, the tested positive within the last six months is good enough for the Vicotria government to grant a medical exemption, which is why he thought everything was fine, but that is not a valid medical exemption for the federal government, which is why he was denied the visa on arrival.
Thanks for clarifying. I was under the impression that it was for the federal government. If so, fuck him.
Seems that Tennis Australia is the one that really screwed up in their attempt to coddle Novak and get him to play at the Open. They were the ones who instead of asking him to vaccinate if he wanted to play, gave him the exception without clearing things with the federal authorities or adhering to the federal requirements.
Well. if vaccines are the answer, we are going to fail miserably. 35 percent or so of the country simply won't get a shot. So we will never be doing well.
There is a dependence on the efficacy and duration of post-infection immunity. Eventually ‘all’ the unvaccinated will be infected; some will be removed from the pool of potential hosts by death, others might be at least less likely to host the virus a second or third time. Maybe we will get more protective vaccines for a future round of boosters. But the experts seem to agree that Covid-19 will become endemic.
I think that's right. People are talking as if this is like chicken pox or something -- once you've had it you have lifelong immunity (although talk to somone who's had shingles about how that works out sometimes). It's not. It's like the common cold. We're going to have to be boosted against this thing probably forever unless we get super lucky and it eventually evolves in such a way as to naturally burn itself out. That could be by becoming so lethal it kills all its hosts (= we're all dead), or becomes so mild that we basically don't care if it circulates, like the common cold.
Did small pox ever evolve itself to naturlly burn itself out. Polio and spanish influenza evolved to become more deadly not less.
No. Smallpox was driven to extinction by vaccination.
A while back I saw a website that argued that smallpox did, in fact, burn itself out and that vaccines didn’t work. It occurred to me that there wasn’t anything that you couldn’t find someone believing. I tested my theory by typing into google “atom bomb doesn’t exist”. Sure enough I found a web site that touted that belief! It was filled with “facts” and videos “proving” the non-existence, and impossibility of the existence of atomic bombs. The web site is gone now but I believe there’s still a book on sale on Amazon.
Hiroshima is the Finland of Asia. It doesn't exist.
We're going to have to be boosted against this thing probably forever unless we get super lucky...
Nobody knows what's going to happen, of course, so there are no guarantees; but, while I do think an extended period (another 18 months? 2 years? 4 years?) requiring boosters is highly likely, that period—per my reading, at least—doesn't look terribly likely to last "forever." This would be consistent with what has transpired with coronaviruses in the past.
35 percent or so of the country simply won't get a shot. So we will never be doing well.
Eventually we'll be in a position to say we're "doing well"—perhaps several variants (of decreasing lethality) from now, and after a lot more immune system stimulation takes place among America's unvaccinated hordes. But the road to get there will obviously be paved with a lot of health problems, hospitalizations, deaths and elevated healthcare costs.
It is essential for people to get vaccinated because we all want the threat to go away. But it’s not going away until the whole world gets it and that will take years. Maybe the next variants are less severe and it simply goes away on its own. Who can say? Maybe the next variants will render the vaccine ineffective and kill billions.
Until then… I’m content to see the willfully unvaccinated (which unfortunately does not include the trump family) get sick and suffer / die. They want to own the libs by opposing vaccine? Don’t be owned. Celebrate their suffering. Cheer it on. Don’t be shy about it.
Are you just willfully ignoring the actual scientific evidence? The threat of covid is simply not ever going to " go away " , outside some major medical breakthrough. It is endemic. And that still would be the case if you had 100% vaccinated with this vaccine as omicron is dominant and pretty clear that the existing vaccine is only marginally effective at preventing infection and spreading, with maybe near zero effect after 3 months or so. And, to make it go away , you have to stop the spread and, right now, we cannot. No way are people getting boosted every 3 months and thar would pose significant other health risks as vog mentioned the other day .
Same for natural immunity from prior versions. Seems like the immunity effectiveness is in the same area as vaccine.
We do not know quite yet re what omicron immunity from an omicron infection will look like , and realize that for vast majority it will be second infection counting vaccine as an infection so original antigenic sin plays a role. But it would be a big surprise if that natural immunity is not significantly better than existing vaccine or prior version natural immunity once the immune system had exposure to the actual mutated omicron virus . And shocking if somehow that immunity is really long lasting like measles- we have seen nothing that should make us expect that .
So pretty clear we should expect omicron immunity from actual omicron infections to give pretty good immunity from infection and spread, but wear off over 6 months to year or so , leaving you with decent but not as good long term immunity ( NOT enough to really stop a new spread). So it will likely follow the flu pattern. A wave of cases each winter as weather makes spread easier and prior season immunity wears off . Which then builds up immunity until R below 1.0 and cases fall . And then waning natural immunity offset by better weather until next fall when cycle starts again.
But looks like long term immunity from a prior infection of a different strain or current vaccine is enough to reduce the severity of omicron , already less than delta, to a common cold level . And omicron long term immunity should be even better, maybe even to a WEAK cold. Way below what we have lived with our whole lives with the flu .
No I’m not ignoring anything. This is the range of options. It could evolve to not cause an illness. Maybe omicron is less dangerous even among unvaccinated. Or as I wrote, it could get worse and kill billions. We’re in agreement on that.
I’m just really thinking about how we respond. The mRNA vaccines aren’t going to end it. As you said, it is going to be with us for a while. I have no idea if people will get long lasting immunity after an infection. How can we possibly know that at this stage? A year ago we thought the mRNA vaccines were the final answer. Turns out… not really. A year from now another variant may infect people who are sick today. We’re all just guessing.
So I’m going to live my life. Go to work. Avoid crowds. Isolate when not feeling well. Get a 4th shot if it makes sense in the summer.
Five friends and family have been sick since mid December. All vaccinated and all have recovered or are past the worst of symptoms. This is not earth shattering.
I was responding to your first post when you said "it will not go away until the whole world gets it and that will take years " . In context, I took the " it" in that phrase to mean the vaccine and 100% of people getting the current vaccine and boosted will not be enough to make omicron " go away " even for a short period as omicron penatrates current vaccine immunity fairly effectively ( i.e. still leaving R above 1.0 at least after a short period). And, even if that would be enough if everyone was boosted every 3 months, just never happening in usa nor should it be ( as that does pose other health risks). And maybe we, along with other advanced nations can help give all people in the world access to double dose vaccination. But also continued boosters every 3, 6 or 12 months? No way.
But the immunity you get naturally from omicron infection is, at least for a while, enough to get to herd immunity. Otherwise the s African wave would never have ended and it did. And that is true of every viral infection where cases ever go down after a wave- i.e. always true and of course same with omicron.
How long that strong current antibody immunity lasts we do not yet know . If it lasts for 12 months, unlike what we saw with delta, I will be shocked. But when I say ' long term immunity " , I do not mean antibodies lasting. Most everyone will lose them a year after omicron infection and likely quicker. By long term , I mean what is left after you have no antibodies. The t cells and B cell memory of how to make antibodies. That will almost surely not be enough to keep R below 1.0 and make covid go away , but will give enough protection to make a subsequent infection just not that serious. A cold not even the flu. Possible that omicron , after natural immunity wanes from prior year wave , will still be infections enough that 90% of people will catch it again every single year , so more like a very prevalent cold . But viral and immunity dynamics will tend to mean that more contagious then less deadly. So a very common cold you cannot avoid but mostly causing what would be mild even for a cold .
And it does seem you agree with the vaccine skeptics in one way..at this point with omicron and current vaccine tailored for original, the effectiveness in stopping infection and infectiousness and preventing spread is marginal. But still pretty effective in stopping serious illness if infected anyway. Net result is that, contrary to delta, getting vaccinated does little harm to overall society and the vaccinated but can benefit the person vaccinated. So much less justification for vaccine mandates and best attitude is to just not worry about those who are not protecting themselves. Their decision their responsibility. You are there. But also means little reason to be upset at them anymore and descend into hate like you are want to do. Just let it go. It does not matter anymore. To YOU.
And does not matter all that much even to them . Because a large majority have had original or delta and almost all the rest will get omicron. Getting vaccinated was most relatively effective in going from no immunity never prior infected- to give your immune a first look at part of the virus. Once infected, getting vaccinated can boost immunity by reminding and scaring the immune system again but the relative benefit is less .
On future variants, I am quite optimistic re naturally occurring variants. Omicron really did develop some effective changes allowing it to be more infectious and get around part of vaccine and natural immunity from prior variants ( maybe to a lesser extent).
And successful new mutation had to be MORE contagious than omicron. That gets harder and harder once a variant like omicron has found most of the " good " mutation changes . And it would be especially unlikely that such a new variant would also be more deadly as generally finding ways to be less deadly enables a virus to be more contagious.
However, I do have a small worry that perhaps delta and even omicron were not naturally occurring mutations but were created in lab and some nefarious actor ( China #1 suspect but not only one ) is creating them. Both of them mutated more rapidly than expected and the timing is suspicious. Not likely but possible. If it is the case , all bets are off.
Note that original antigenic sin plays a role limiting how effective the immunity from an omicron infection can be if prior infected or vaccinated. This allows omicron to stay dominant more easily as resulting immunity is not as specifically keyed to omicron , thus leaving less room for a new variant to outcompete by finding a way around omicron specific immunity.
My guess is that there is only a small number, we'll under 10% who are unvaccinated and never infected before omicron , so the percentage of population immunity fully focused on omicron starts small.
But that changes over time . As newborns get infected with omicron first , the population immunity becomes more focused on omicron and its infectiousness declines. And that might give an opening for a new variant getting around omicron focused immunity. Who knows? It might even be some virus te evolving extinct by then delta.
Which could lead to a Spanish flu situation. With Spanish flu , those over 50 had significantly fewer deaths than adults under 50, who were most vulnerable. And consensus is that likely was due to a prior virus wave 59 years prior similar to Spanish flu and all those first infected with that still retained flu immunity focused on that.
So maybe 50 years from now , a delta like variant re-emerges as it gets around omicron immunity. But all those infected in their youth with delta are protected. With original antigenic sin, their immune system waited 50 years for delta to come back and prove them right for doing so.
Despite the fact that breakthrough infections are a real problem now, my contempt for the willfully unvaccinated will remain. It's not like I go around asking people if they have been vaccinated so my contempt for them is mostly private and occasionally expressed here. Why? Because they really are despicable people. Dumb, ignorant, willful, stupid... etc. It was a great IQ and character test and they failed. Their ignorance does matter to me. Their suffering and death does not. It's something to laugh about. I'm a terrible person that way.
There's a guy at work who hung a sign on his cube opposing the mandate. Now that I know that about him... I will never lift a finger to help him at all. And if I have a chance to stick it to him, I will take it. He's first class asshole. I guess that makes me one too.
Why do you assume only a winter outbreak. It seems like summer is a problem too.
Not assuming only a winner outbreak of cases, just only a winter wave in Northern states at least .
Just like the flu , which does not disappear in summer, just is greatly diminished, omicron will hang around in the summer with numbers going down . Until a combination of waning immunity and weather change brings R back above 1.0.
If omicron strong antibody immunity wanes much faster than the flu , and the seasonal effect is weaker, you could have TWO annual waves. A bigger one every winter when the summer wave immunity wanes accentuated by weather changes more favorable to the virus . And a small summer wave when larger winter immunity waning is offset by weather disadvantageous to the virus.
And this year will likely have more summer cases than future years as I expect immunity from vaccine and prior variant infection wanes quicker re omicron which will keep immunity waning more this year . Eventually almost all will have omicron as last infection and seasonal pattern will settle down . But coming year might be different than long term trend .
We just do not know exactly how much seasons affected covid. Clearly they had a big effect but mixed in with new variants coming at same time . So how much did weather play in this summers delta waves. Obviously a good bit as they hit south first and then north. But that was in context of new variant delta vs. Prior original or alpha herd immunity. So no " clean " covid example with constant variant yet.
It will be interesting if places like Florida will continue to show a larger summer than winter wave. Or, like with the flu, the interplay through travel from colder places makes winter still the bigger wave. And note fla is subtropical not really tropical. For most of fla , it gets just cold enough in say January to make November a better outdoor month.
Uh oh…
In rural Michigan, people with coronavirus symptoms have arrived at hospitals in recent weeks repeating the conventional wisdom that once you have had Covid, you are unlikely to contract it again quickly.
“A lot of them say, ‘It can’t be Covid, I just had it a few months ago,” said Dr. Mark Hamed, an emergency room physician in Sandusky, Mich. “Lo and behold, they test positive.”
Were they wearing Bad Idea Blue Jeans at the time?
That joke is too obscure for me to follow. I’m sure it’s funny though!
You vastly over estimate how much the vaccines waned. They went fri 89% real world efficacy to 80% at 6 months outside of Israel. (Israel completely screwed up their 2nd shots and no one else was what they saw).
Not sure I understand your post as I think you garbled lot of the words.
But I think you are referring to effectiveness before omicron and in the context of preventing illness not preventing infection and spread. And thus mostly irrelevant now.
As I have said before, my best estimate of two shot vaccine effectiveness for preventing infection BEFORE omicron is that it seems to slowly decline but hold up decently re delta for around six months but then appears to fall more rapidly as your antibodies disappear , and then settle into long term immunity without current antibodies which provides lessened but still significant protection from measurable infection ( maybe you do get infected but knock it out do quick really not measurable) and spread.
In contrast, natural immunity re delta seemed quite strong, stronger than vaccine, for first three months but wanes quicker s vaccine has an advantage after 3 months to maybe 6 months . After that, I think natural had some advantage over vaccine but not as clear. Note here talking natural immunity from a delta infection vs. Delta. From a prior original infection, less, though data less clear.
For omicron, it is quite clear from breakthrough cases and places where omicron waves start that , while natural immunity from a delta infection revising somewhat protective for 3 months or so, it declines to near nothing after that ( again infection and spread only). And vaccine now seems to drop off a cliff at 3 months too, not 6.
The threat of covid is simply not ever going to " go away " , outside some major medical breakthrough.
You don't know that. No one does. It is true to state SARS-CoV-2 is becoming endemic and won't ever "go away." It's pure guesswork on your part to state "the threat of covid" isn't ever going away. You may turn out to be right. But the two other endemic human coranaviruses pose virtually no threat at all to our species. They cause common cold. At one time they were probably deadly.
It is my (layman’s) understanding that the recurrence of influenza is not due to waning immunity, but to the rapidity with which the strains mutate. That is also why the efficacy of the vaccines varies considerably; the are most effective when the viruses mutate in the way that virologists expect.
Cuba vaccine success - 83 % population fully inoculated vs Covid_19 with homegrown vaccine >90% efficacy. Cuba is one of a few countries with highly centralized state planning and provides public health lessons Americans could learn from.
Pretty clear from worldometer that moicron has recetnly arrived in cuba. Interesting to see if they continue to avoid deaths.
There was no mandate in cuba. The people asked for them.
Has anyone considered that perhaps the SARS-CoV-2 bioweaponized lableak theory is correct, but it was Elian Gonzalez working in tandem with rogue elements in another communist state to avenge his capture by Janet Reno & forced relocation to Cuba?
You outdid yourself.
The US seems to want to be first at everything but vaccinating. Seems to be the red states, anti vexers, and the attitude of "you can't make me".
We will definitely lose this race. I will isolate, am vaccinated, mask, distance, and avoid this crowd. Let em die. Those who aren't vaccinated should not be allowed in hospitals. Die at home. Sorry, I have lost all patience and caring for them.
Harsh, but I feel the same way. To heck with them!
Agree 1000% percent.
And blue states should be passing laws absolving health insurers of financial responsibility for Covid hospital coverage for unvaccinated individuals.
The graphs are not evidence at all. If one does with them for France or the UK what Kevin does for the US - compare their lines to the average - one would reach a very different conclusion. Vaccinations are not the magic bullet they were supposed to be. Can't we just admit it? They work somewhat, yeah. But I'm double-vaccinated and I feel only "somewhat" protected, and also only "somewhat" less likely to spread Covid than others, and even that only temporarily. Whereas I feel absolutely protected against polio and so on.
I would modify what you said in this way if you mean you are double vaccinated from months ago in spring or summer but not boosted . And talking about omicron.
You are maybe weakly protected from being infected and possibly not protected at all with zero difference from being vaccinated . And somewhat protected from being infectious and infecting someone else as , even if infected, your long term vaccine immunity allows you to beat it faster and reduce your infectious period.
But for preventing serious illness, long term vaccibe immunity or natural immunity from prior variants still works pretty well.
If unvaccinated with no prior infection and you get infected with omicron , your immune system has to start from ground zero in figuring out the virus and then producing antibodies. Which gives omicron more time to reproduce a lot and maybe cause serious illness . Still for almost all , they do not get seriously ill anyway. Once the immune system figures the virus out , any non damaged immune system takes care of any version of covid. The only real risk of serious illness is where covid spreads too quick before the immune system can .
If had any prior infection or vaccination, the immune system gets a nice head start on omicron . Even if you have no current antibodies and the vaccine antibodies it first produces are not so effective against omicron , the immune system has a decent template that it just has to modify , not invent from nothing.
And that makes a big difference as greatly reduces the chance that omicron infection will get serious before the immune system comes up with a good antibody.
And consider your comparison with polio. Our immune system has evolved to be pretty darn effective in keeping us alive. It is a miracle in a way that any high order complex animal can exist with things like viruses around . Our immune system generally knows what it is doing.
And the immune system can theoretically make antibodies forever against any single virus that ever infects it, creating true permanent immunity. But it cannot do so for ALL , it does not have infinite capacity and needs to pick and choose where it devotes its resources.
The immune system generally produces antibodies long term against those viruses for which that is needed, those that pose a real significant threat if reinfected so need current antibodies. Such as polio.
But, for viruses that the immune system feels it can beat easily enough of reinfected, even with a mild sickness, it lets antibodies die off from initial infection. It is not worth the resources to continually produce antibodies and better to wait until infected.
So really was a good sign that our covid antibodies waned so fast . That meant likely a second infection of covid was unlikely to be serious.
Note with things like the flu ,almost our entire experience is with being infected with long term immunity . Only time anyone ever catches the flu with zero immunity is the FIRST time they get it when very young and immune system healthy and designed to learn new things. If the flu had first evolved in 2020 and hit the population with no immunity at all, it would have been deadlier than anything we have seen with covid. Look what it did to amerindians in the 1500s.
When people said covid was deadlier than the flu , really just saying FIRST infection of covid deadlier than SECOND infection of the flu. Covid in any version is actually less deadly than flu compared on an equal basis .
Vaccines work by producing cells that can make antibodies at a moments notice. They don;t work by haveing sustained antibodies floating around in your system. Antibodies are in fact bad for you. They bind equally to the virus but also the signaling molecules that nature gave you to activate the receptors.
I have never been under the impression that the Covid vaccines were magic bullets that made the vaccinated 100% immune from harm. They were certainly never sold or marketed as magic bullets that granted total immunity.
Nearly all effective health and safety measures are only 'somewhat effective' if by that term we mean anything less than 100% success/protection.
Other than polio, what else is included in the 'so on' at the end? Hard to come up with many things where we have complete and total immunity from harm.
The graphs do appear to show a correlation between vaccinations and a reduction in harm. Uncertain why you feel the graphs show no evidence. Motivated reasoning?
It's very doubtful that polio vaccines, even after 4 doses are 100% effective against infection or transmission. The small pox vaccines are only around 90% and yet allowed compete eradication of the virus. Vaccines work best not by directly protecting you but by eliminating the chance that your neighbor gives you the disease.
"Vaccines work best not by directly protecting you but by eliminating the chance that your neighbor gives you the disease."
This, exactly.
That's what "herd immunity" really means - vaccination that is effective enough and prevalent enough in the population to eventually reduce the risk of exposure, even for those who can't be vaccinated, to near-zero.
And yet the covid vaccines have minimal different efficacy than the small pox or polio vaccines after two doses.
So of course, our completely apolitical, non-partisan, non-ideological Supreme Court is set to decide that a Democratic President, d'oh, the Executive Branch, is overreaching by setting rules for endemic administration of vaccines, because according to our completely apolitical, non-partisan, non-ideological Supreme Court that's a job best accomplished through fast, targeted, comprehensive, reality based Congressional legislation, which is exactly what will happen with an opposition party as reality based and laser focused n the common good as the Republican Party.
Let's just be clear - the entire Republican/conservative apparatus - including the Supreme Court of the United States - is so mired in its seething, delusional ressentiment they will sentence Americans to disease and death.
Several of them will do this on the basis that no legislation specifically permits the executive to do this completely ignoring that the occupational health and safety act of 1871explicitly endorses vaccinations to protect work place safety.
Sorry 1971 not 1871
contortionist reasoning
"These countries are rich and have healthcare systems similar to ours." No they don't. They have very good healthcare systems. Except for the UK which had a mediocre health care system that is still far superior to the US.
Thought exercise: Who do you think would push back if Biden announced a national triage mandate putting unvaccinated people at the back of the line -- conservatives, liberals, civil liberty groups, healthcare groups?
You mean, take the Republican line of "personnel responsibility" seriously?
Probably the Politicians Wearing Robes on SCOTUS. You know, the ones about to undo Biden’s attempts at increasing vaccinations at the workplace. I’m guessing the pricks are fully vaccinated themselves. I like how Kevin opines on how “we” need do better at vaccinating when half of our country’s two party political system is dead set against Covid vaccines.
Now if you really want to watch SCOTUS heads spin, present a case with a business owner who wants to deny unvaccinated customers services or entrance based on his religious “feelings” on being unvaccinated. Their heads might explode. SCOTUS is little more than a joke, a windsock placed outside Fox News headquarters.
And on hyperbole too it would seem. “Lapping” ?? France at roughly 325 is being “lapped” by the US at roughly 375?
I didn't realize that the U.S. was lagging those western European nations in administering booster shots. Even a state like New York doesn't seem to have done better than 25 boosters per 100 residents, while France is above 35.
I still have to point out that the United States was suffering a much higher death rate at the end of October than most of those big countries of western Europe. and this is before they started outstripping the U.S. in booster vaccinations. At that time France and New York were about on a par for fully vaccinated persons, at about 68% of the population. Why was New York's death rate so much higher than France's already?
"This is what we should put our biggest effort into."
Actually, since the Venn diagram of the unvaccinated and those would would throw away our democracy at the altar of the Orangeutan is roughly a Unity, we're actually on the right path.
The Supreme Court is about to take away one of Biden's major attempts to get people vaccinated. As the hospitalizations and deaths follow, Biden should relentlessly attack the Court and put the blame on them. Every time somebody asks him about covid, he should say "ask the Court". Soften them up on this, and then democrats should run against the Court in 2022 when they overturn Roe. Democrats need a focused enemy for the midterms, and the Court fits the bill.
Dahlia Lithwick, an astute observer of the SCOTUS, says that the questions being asked by Alito and even Roberts suggest that they too are being influenced by anti-vax misinformation. No one can overstate the hideous implications of this. This is what trump hath wrought -- or, to go a little deeper, what the Hillary haters who stayed home or voted for Jill Stein in 2016 hath wrought.
Anti -vax?ll nope. Dialectics.
+1
Are government vaccine mandates even being litigated at all in other rich countries? My sense is elsewhere, courts aren't nearly as drunk on their own power as ours is. USSC simply cannot resist the urge to meddle. They're about as qualified to decide public health policy as I am to decide what make a good ballet.
The Supremes, explaining the Rona is just a flu, from their Zoom conference, necessitated by profound worry over "a Wuhan flu".
Good charts, all. But what on earth is up with the Netherlands? Did they just NOT get the memo on vaccines and are just now catching up? Or is there something about Amsterdam that they just decided not to report anyone getting the shot? That just looks like a really weird curve in that last chart.
Cyprus Finds Covid-19 Infections That Combine Delta and Omicron,
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-01-07/omicron-may-mark-end-of-pandemic-south-african-researchers-say?sref=ctSjKj2N
Just in time for the Olympics!
DELCRON 3030.
I am mystified to see the link I thought I'd put in there yesterday leads to something entirely different.
Here is the real link,
Cyprus Finds Covid-19 Infections That Combine Delta and Omicron,
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-01-08/cyprus-finds-covid-19-infections-that-combine-delta-and-omicron
One thing to ponder is why the MAGAs are still fighting against vaccines even though their godling has embraced them. Political scientists and pundits are writing many words about this. But I think it's always wisest to look for the most banal of explanations.
In this case, I propose this: Biden and the Democrats urge vaccination; therefore, vaccinations must be opposed. Simple as that.
Errr, what?? Anti-vax hippies have literally stalled injections in 11 Democratic run states. Are you that stupid?? A nostril rip and pain you deserve.
"Worst person you know makes a good point".
Let's try this:
Quebec Health Minister Dubé announced on Thursday that, effective Jan. 18, a vaccine passport would be required to shop in person at Société des alcools du Québec (SAQ) stores and Société québécoise du cannabis (SQDC) outlets. Dubé said the decision to impose a vaccine passport requirement at the alcohol and cannibis locations was triggered by the continued surge in COVID-19 cases due to the highly contagious Omicron variant.
He also said a vaccine passport would eventually be required for other “non-essential” services, but he did not immediately specify when and where the policy would go into effect.
Dubé noted that half of the province’s hospitalized COVID-19 patients are unvaccinated even though they represent just 10 per cent of the population.
The daily average for first dose vaccine appointment requests had been about 1,500; that number soared to 6,000 on Thursday.
In most situations, 5 anythings per MILLION would be considered a rounding error.
We're #1 !!!!! We're #1 !!!!! We're #1 !!!!! We're #1 !!!!!
American exceptionalism!
Having grown up in the South, I'm well familiar with a culture that lives in a burning barn (like the horses that want to return to it as the 'safety' they know) and glorifies the wonders, the wonder, the nobility of their burning barn. Now that fire has spread to the rest of America.
Dig the hole deeper.
Considering 74% of adults have one set of shots or shot, a vaccine mandate is a waste.
With Omicron cresting, will anybody care by March 1st???
Daily deaths per million (running average) is once again back in favor. https://jabberwocking.com/cumulative-covid-19-deaths-in-the-us-and-europe/
On a less snarky note, comorbidities might be involved?
Here's a suggestion: Do what Quebec has done. I think it would work wonders here in the US of A...
Quebec Health Minister Dubé announced on Thursday that, effective Jan. 18, a vaccine passport would be required to shop in person at Société des alcools du Québec (SAQ) stores and Société québécoise du cannabis (SQDC) outlets. Dubé said the decision to impose a vaccine passport requirement at the alcohol and cannibis locations was triggered by the continued surge in COVID-19 cases due to the highly contagious Omicron variant.
He also said a vaccine passport would eventually be required for other “non-essential” services, but he did not immediately specify when and where the policy would go into effect.
Dubé noted that half of the province’s hospitalized COVID-19 patients are unvaccinated even though they represent just 10 per cent of the population.
The daily average for first dose vaccine appointment requests had been about 1,500; that number soared to 6,000 on Thursday.
Although vaccine refusal is still a problem, another problem is simply making shots widely available. I was ready to boost by the start of December, but was unable to schedule an appointment until the end of December to receive the booster at the beginning of January.
If anything is now obvious to those who have the (1) requisite analytical ability) and (2) have been paying attention with a mind that is even partially open to new learning, its how absolutely ridiculous anti-vaxxers are.
Its not that a given vaccine needs to be tested for side effects, that's obvious, and they are in fact tested.
Its that I don't think that the anti-vax crowd even understands how vaccines work, which you would think would be kind of a prerequisite to be against them.
Its turns out for us non-doctors, that all these viruses and bacteriological infections are out there, and a vaccine does not operate as some sort of magic Marvel Cinematic Universe shield where, say the virus in question approaches you like being out on a walk and giving the yard with the angry Doberman a wide berth.
No ... you actually get infected, by any reasonable lay person's understanding of that term, the virus gets into your bloodstream, the difference is the vaccinated have such a prompt and strong response that (a) you take care if it without symptoms, and (b) depending upon what the infection is, you may not build up enough of it to transmit it to others, or at least your own transmissibility goes down.
Its a whole eye opener to realize that all these viruses and bacteria are out there, always have been, and always will be.
Our immune system has evolved to handle most of them, or at least "handle them" enough to ensure the species survives.
But vaccines are nothing less than an absolute wonder. They are totally saving the world's bacon right now, because there is no way any health system could have handled an unvaccinated pandemic without WWII like hits to society.