Mega-Thread: Coronavirus Pandemic

[Zython]

No it's not. The realization will seep in a couple of months for the rest of the world.

If we do one thing right - it is healthcare. You can bet it's not "political BS" reaction, it's simply what people who did a pretty good job so far came to decide based on their data.

The US is one of the only nations too incompetent to implement universal healthcare.

- - - Updated - - -

I have seen the headlines, but are they true?
There's an increasing birth rates in other countries - like Germany; https://www.dw.com/en/baby-boom-or-b...tes/a-58028699
And in the US there are indications it was a decline followed by an increase - https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...rticle/2780572

And then there's a separate issue whether declining fertility rates are actually good or bad.


That study was from June 2020; and stated that Europe could have policies driving R below 1.

In hindsight that was at best an optimistic estimate - but in reality it is just debunked bad science; https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-3025-y


Science-speak for: we don't know what works and you mangled your data too hard.

(due to the pooling-part of the model) Science-speak for: your analysis stinks.


They more importantly state that you don't have to have lockdowns (unless you think it sounds cool) but targeted interventions.

Limiting restaurants to outdoor seating (or seating capacity) doesn't sound like "lockdown"; neither is avoiding full arenas at football games.

Does it still have some economic impact? Yes.
Does it limit the spread of the disease to some extent? Yes, likely.
With higher vaccination rates (primarily in parts of the developed world - I still don't know what will happen in Japan and Australia) it seems even more unrealistic to go back to discussing full lockdowns.

- - - Updated - - -


Spoiler, the 11th country (noted above) that didn't fit into the flawed model from Imperial College without some seriously bad handling was: Sweden.

Wait, what? Sweden had a Covid death toll of about 14 people per 10,000 which, while better than US and UK's ~20 per 10k, was worse than even other European countries (Germany's at ~10 per 10k), and way worse than countries that actually did lockdowns (Vietnam, for example, is at 0.2 per 10k).

[Forogil]

Wait, what? Sweden had a Covid death toll of about 14 people per 10,000 which, while better than US and UK's ~20 per 10k, was worse than even other European countries (Germany's at ~10 per 10k),

The countries in the study were Austria (~12), Belgium (~22), Denmark (~4), France (~17), Germany (~11), Italy (~21), Norway (~1.4), Spain (~17), Sweden (~15), Switzerland (~13), uk (~19). EU-average is ~17.
(From https://ourworldindata.org/covid-deaths )

The point was neither that Sweden did remarkably well - nor that it fared exactly as well as other countries, but that the reality of stopping the spread is a lot more complicated than "lock-down" being the only statistically significant change as the flawed study found.
It doesn't mean that a lock-down doesn't do anything, but only that other policies - and possibly more - also matters.

So with high vaccination the choice between lock-down and nothing seems even more like a false dichotomy.

As previously noted it's also easier to have stricter lockdowns in authoritarian one-party states like Vietnam and China. However, Vietnam recently had a rise in cases and deaths - the cases might have stabilized, but it could also be that cases are currently test-limited and will be overwhelmed. (China only reports a rise in cases so far; and are using massive testing - we will see if that works.)

- - - Updated - - -

New study finds that long covid is actually rare in children; and decreasing with decreasing age.

The more interesting finding is that long covid isn't that unique - as non-covid cases (who likely had other diseases cold, flu) also had similar long-term effects, and although it was a smaller percentage of those children (0.9% vs 3-5% for covid-cases after 4 weeks; and then decreasing), but in terms of seriousness:

the symptom burden in children with what has been termed long COVID-19 was not greater than that in children with long illnesses due to causes other than SARS-CoV-2 infection.

So we might start talking about "long cold" and "long flu" in the future.

https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/long...223032960.html
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/l...198-X/fulltext

[Twdft]

It's quite strange to see Sweden as an example so often. Yeah, they didn't have mandated counter measures in the beginning that went over trying to protect the elderly in care homes. But most citizens thought a minute about the situation and voluntarily had fewer contacts etc so there was no real need to come down with the official ban hammer. Didn't work as well as they hoped so they official measures later too.

[Rasulis]

New study finds that long covid is actually rare in children; and decreasing with decreasing age.

The more interesting finding is that long covid isn't that unique - as non-covid cases (who likely had other diseases cold, flu) also had similar long-term effects, and although it was a smaller percentage of those children (0.9% vs 3-5% for covid-cases after 4 weeks; and then decreasing), but in terms of seriousness:


So we might start talking about "long cold" and "long flu" in the future.

https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/long...223032960.html
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/l...198-X/fulltext

That may be true of the earlier variants of Covid. It looks like Delta is changing the narrative.

Florida children’s hospitals see pediatric COVID cases soar amid delta variant surge

Only Texas reported a higher total number of pediatric patients in hospitals with confirmed COVID-19 on Tuesday — 142 children — compared to 135 in Florida.

The hospitalization rates are 4.5 per 100,000 children for FL and 2.2 per 100,000 for TX, and rising. The actual numbers would be higher since they are only looking at a single day. For comparison, hospitalization rate for fully vaccinated segment of the population in the US is less than 1 per 100,000 of fully vaccinated. In the Bay Area we are looking at around 0.3 per 100,000 of those fully vaccinated.

At South Florida children’s hospitals in recent weeks, emergency room doctors have seen more symptomatic children than they did during the surges in spring and summer of 2020, said Dr. Ronald Ford, chief medical officer for Memorial Healthcare System’s Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital in Hollywood.

“In our previous iteration of the pandemic, it was more they’re positive but they’re not sick or minimally sick,” Ford said of the pandemic’s changing impact on children. “This is different. ... There’s a much higher percentage of pediatric patients becoming infected and symptomatic.”

The number of patients presenting at Memorial Health and Joe DiMaggio Children’s emergency rooms with COVID also has exploded, Ford said, from 23 in June to 240 in July, a nearly 1,000% increase.

Yeah. That study is outdated.

COVID and kids: Pediatricians in Palm Beach County seeing 'alarming rise' in children being hospitalized

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the state averaged 32 new pediatric COVID hospitalizations from July 24 to 30.

To the south, doctors of another practice, Palm Beach Pediatrics, reached out to their 20,000 families to say they too were seeing a surge.

After months in which COVID was responsible for only about 5% of the illness among their sick-kid visits, that has skyrocketed in the past two weeks to between 20% and 40%.

In the week ending Aug. 1, the practice reports testing 51 children who came in with the tell-tale signs of a viral infection from fever to vomiting, and 14 tested positive. The week before a dozen proved infected by the coronavirus. That was a leap from a month earlier, when the tests were finding a handful at most and sometimes none at all.

Schools will reopen in FL next week. No mask mandate. DeSantis is using FL children in a real life Covid test case of a magnitude that can't be matched by any other controlled case studies.

[Ursus]

The annual Sturgis Motorcycle Rally and Superspreader Event starts today. I wonder how many COVID cases it'll lead to this year.

[Forogil]

That may be true of the earlier variants of Covid. It looks like Delta is changing the narrative.

Florida children’s hospitals see pediatric COVID cases soar amid delta variant surge

The study was about long covid in children - not child covid in general, so I don't see it disproved in any way.
There might also have been some Delta-patients in the study as well (and if the study continues there will clearly be Delta-patients included).

However, what is odd is that Florida is reporting this massive rise in young cases due to Delta-variant - but the uk didn't report such a massive increase and neither did India - despite both having a massive rise in overall infections due to the Delta-variant. One simple explanation is that there is a massive surge of covid-cases overall in Florida and even if children are less likely to be severely ill there's still a risk, and with enough cases the pediatric clinics will also be over-burdened. It may also partially be selective reporting.

The pediatric clinic reports 6 times as many sick kids compared to a month ago; but the overall reported cases in Florida also increased by a factor of 6 during that time.

Simply put: I don't know how and why Florida has messed it up that badly.

[Belize]

Simply put: I don't know how and why Florida has messed it up that badly.

I can't possibly put my finger on any reason.

Not one, certainly not a Republican science denying, fact ignoring death cult.

[Tuor]

Quoted from the olimpics thread...

Also, if you have to hold an Olympic during a global pandemic, there is no better place to do that than in Japan. The IOC could not have asked for a better host country.

And you think they are happy? New cases in Japan more then doubled during the games, and their startegy of contact tracing is no more...

[Edge-]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...-delta-variant

And we're back at 100K daily cases. Wear your fucking masks. Get your fucking shots. Tell people who don't that they're fucking Death Cultist morons.

[Nurasu]

Quoted from the olimpics thread...

And you think they are happy? New cases in Japan more then doubled during the games, and their startegy of contact tracing is no more...

Pretty much cemented the WHO as a farcical organization when Ghebreyesus stood there talking about how many people were dying that very minute while also endorsing a global super-spreader event.

[Rasulis]

Quoted from the olimpics thread...

And you think they are happy? New cases in Japan more then doubled during the games, and their startegy of contact tracing is no more...

Canceling the Olympic may be the right decision. However, I stand by my post, if you are going to do it, regardless of consequences, Japan is the best country to do that.

- - - Updated - - -

I can't possibly put my finger on any reason.

Not one, certainly not a Republican science denying, fact ignoring death cult.

Norwegian Cruise Line Asks Judge to Block Florida Passenger Vaccine Law so Ship Can Sail

Norwegian Cruise Line called the sharp increase in COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations in Florida "scary" and asked for a federal judge to block a law that prevents cruise companies from demanding proof of vaccination from passengers before boarding.

- - - Updated - - -

https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...-delta-variant

And we're back at 100K daily cases. Wear your fucking masks. Get your fucking shots. Tell people who don't that they're fucking Death Cultist morons.

The ability to freely spread communicable diseases is a constitutional right.

[Svifnymr]

The study was about long covid in children - not child covid in general, so I don't see it disproved in any way.
There might also have been some Delta-patients in the study as well (and if the study continues there will clearly be Delta-patients included).

However, what is odd is that Florida is reporting this massive rise in young cases due to Delta-variant - but the uk didn't report such a massive increase and neither did India - despite both having a massive rise in overall infections due to the Delta-variant. One simple explanation is that there is a massive surge of covid-cases overall in Florida and even if children are less likely to be severely ill there's still a risk, and with enough cases the pediatric clinics will also be over-burdened. It may also partially be selective reporting.

The pediatric clinic reports 6 times as many sick kids compared to a month ago; but the overall reported cases in Florida also increased by a factor of 6 during that time.

Simply put: I don't know how and why Florida has messed it up that badly.

I'd be curious if there's a way to track how actually serious the cases were. A coworkers baby daughter had a fever so they admitted her. Not COVID, she was in for a day, then released with "come back if it gets worse". I know most of the cases I'm personally aware of from say, 4-5 years ago, they'd just give you some tylonel and say "come back if it gets worse". Are they admitting kids out of an abundance of caution that they'd otherwise have just told you it's nothing? Having COVID is having COVID, not doubting the numbers, but curious as to how much the numbers actually mean.

It's mostly South Florida, and there's a lot of tourists here now. Usually the tourism slows down in June/ July by this point, but the crowds continue.

[Easo]

Quoted from the olimpics thread...

And you think they are happy? New cases in Japan more then doubled during the games, and their startegy of contact tracing is no more...

It was raising even before the Olympics, IIRC. At worst Olympics might have exacerbated it but it was not the major factor, have to be realistic.

[Forogil]

It was raising even before the Olympics, IIRC. At worst Olympics might have exacerbated it but it was not the major factor, have to be realistic.

You are right that it looks like it is primarily a matter of making it worse not creating the situation; although it didn't start increasing that much before (increasing again a week or two before) so some might be due to preparations for the Olympics.

However, the main issue isn't what happened, but how it will be perceived. Since Japan has a quite elderly population, and the vaccination effort has just begun it can go bad - and when things go badly and there's an obvious thing to blame people don't normally care so much about the details.

[Easo]

You are right that it looks like it is primarily a matter of making it worse not creating the situation; although it didn't start increasing that much before (increasing again a week or two before) so some might be due to preparations for the Olympics.

However, the main issue isn't what happened, but how it will be perceived. Since Japan has a quite elderly population, and the vaccination effort has just begun it can go bad - and when things go badly and there's an obvious thing to blame people don't normally care so much about the details.

True true. Honestly I am torn between cancelling games once more or giving people some sense of normalcy. Though unless you can put all athletes and whole supporting personell on an uninhabited island for a month and just deliver them supplies without contact you probably can't avoid incidents of transmission.
At least Japan are not doing big ceremonies with rule breakers, those are simply sent home straight away + the opening ceremony was obviously done to cut involved people count down to minimum.

[Zython]

The countries in the study were Austria (~12), Belgium (~22), Denmark (~4), France (~17), Germany (~11), Italy (~21), Norway (~1.4), Spain (~17), Sweden (~15), Switzerland (~13), uk (~19). EU-average is ~17.
(From https://ourworldindata.org/covid-deaths )

The point was neither that Sweden did remarkably well - nor that it fared exactly as well as other countries, but that the reality of stopping the spread is a lot more complicated than "lock-down" being the only statistically significant change as the flawed study found.
It doesn't mean that a lock-down doesn't do anything, but only that other policies - and possibly more - also matters.

So it didn't even bother to compare it against states that did actual lockdowns. How is this relevant to your point again?

[PACOX]

"I'm young, I won't die" crowd was annoying but they are reaching a whole new w level now. They are filling hospitals and doctor offices, which as state, is taking a heavy toll on the all parts of the healthcare system and turning normal treatable ailments into deadlier ones.

People can't be treated for things you need to have looked at but don't normally kill you because hospitals aren't packed. People are being forced home or wait to be treated in tents/parking lots Nurses, doctors, assistants, secretaries, emts, dispatchers, even the custodians are pushing their bodies and minds to the limits to keep the 'I'm young, it's just the flu."" I'll don't need a shot" "I've been sick before" "I need to have fun" crowd alive. We're actually lucky the mRNA vaccines were made in America because we were scheduled to look as bad as India was.


In other news, it's sort of an open secret where I work that booster shots are coming. It's let's of an 'if' but how will the logistics be handled.

[Rasulis]

I'd be curious if there's a way to track how actually serious the cases were. A coworkers baby daughter had a fever so they admitted her. Not COVID, she was in for a day, then released with "come back if it gets worse". I know most of the cases I'm personally aware of from say, 4-5 years ago, they'd just give you some tylonel and say "come back if it gets worse". Are they admitting kids out of an abundance of caution that they'd otherwise have just told you it's nothing? Having COVID is having COVID, not doubting the numbers, but curious as to how much the numbers actually mean.

It's mostly South Florida, and there's a lot of tourists here now. Usually the tourism slows down in June/ July by this point, but the crowds continue.

It is not mostly South Florida. Texas is having the same problem with their pediatric hospitals acute and ICU beds.

Infant with COVID airlifted to hospital 170 miles away because of Houston bed shortage

Healthcare workers in Texas airlifted an 11-month-old infant with COVID-19 to a hospital more than 100 miles away because beds in the pediatric unit are scant.

None of the hospitals that specialize in children’s health had any beds available, the system said.

A medical helicopter flew the infant to a hospital in Temple, Texas, about 170 miles away.

The same goes for Arkansas, Georgia, Tennessee.

BTW, the average age of hospitalization in Harris County, TX is now 20. This is no longer a disease of the old.

[Zan15]

It is not mostly South Florida. Texas is having the same problem with their pediatric hospitals acute and ICU beds.

Infant with COVID airlifted to hospital 170 miles away because of Houston bed shortage

The same goes for Arkansas, Georgia, Tennessee.

BTW, the average age of hospitalization in Harris County, TX is now 20. This is no longer a disease of the old.

Hey but don't worry it has a 99999.99999% survival rate right?
or is that the bill they will get at the end of it $99999.99

https://www.khou.com/article/news/he...f-5e7a6c2beb72

I think you meant the average age of hospitalization is Judge Hidalgo explained the average age of COVID patients is 20 years younger than before. They are starting to see patients in their 30s and 40s.

8/5- Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner said the Texas Medical Center hospitals admitted more than 300 new COVID patients in the last 24 hours.
Dr. David Persse says the healthcare system in nearing a "breaking point" as cases continue to surge.


Well so what? What does everyone else have to worry for? Houston’s public health authority said at the start of this press conference, one out of every four HFD ambulances were waiting to offload patients at full emergency rooms.

“This weekend, we transferred a patient from the Houston area…do not fall out of your chairs…to North Dakota!” Dr. Persse said.

Dr. Persse said between 85 to 95 percent of covid patients in local hospitals are unvaccinated.



Oh and texas keeps denying request from local area hosptials for emergency staff...cause....reasons...


p.s a quick google shows texas is hardly by itself in disaster zone. few other states are at capacity or the breaking point in their health care systems

[Masark]

https://www.riverfronttimes.com/news...cinated-riders

No, that headline does not say "unvaccinated".