I plan to write my own thoughts on this topic soon, but I’d be interested to read yours. Usual rules apply.
294 thoughts on “Living with Covid: Open thread”
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John Quiggin 
Geoff Miell,
Thank you. A good post. The real damages to people, economy and biosphere, are and/or will be vast on all three crisis fronts you mention. The age of consequences is upon us. One wonders how massive the damage has to become before people act. The three crises will also ramify and reinforce each other.
This ramifications will reinforce the “press-pulse” nature of the combined crisis. Press disturbance alters communities, biological and human, by placing long term, increasing stress on ecosystems and human systems. Pulse disturbances are sudden and catastrophic and can cause extensive mortality. Both are getting even worse under the current combined crises. The combination of press and pulse does the real damage over time. Sea level rise is press. Storm surge is pulse. Global rising air temperatures and rising atmospheric moisture are press. Droughts and floods are pulses. Accumulated Long Covid is press. High deaths at each pandemic wave peak are pulses. Then, when presses and pulses are reinforcing all over the place between the three crises we will see new crisis peaks like reinforcing waves on an oscilloscope.
You’ve hit the nail on the head. Lack of imagination which in turn is born of lack of education and being mired in simplistic, linear thinking. Sadly, wilful ignorance even plays a part. The lack of ability to comprehend exponentials and complex reinforcing interactions over time is a crucial issue.
That really is all you have. When asked to actually put money where your mouth is, all you’ve got is sledging. Go and find an alternative policy or get on board with the one we’ve got.
As to show Ikon’s “wilful capitulation and indeed cooperation with the virus. It is weak, defeatist, fatalist, callous, eugenicist and social Darwinist. It’s a base nadir of murderous immorality.”
… and Geoff’s “Yep. Ikonoclast, thanks for that. IMO, it also shows a lack of imagination, and is also cowardly.”
…”Sadly, NSW Health is today reporting the deaths of 21 people with COVID-19; 12 women and 9 men”(^1.) are seemingly proof of your statements.
Can’t we at least protect some of them? Or a good portion of them? Oh, personal responsibility. Ala Thatcher – no society. Jobs ‘n groaf. ^4. Dr H says “We have a currently dominant, ‘neoliberal’, ‘libertarian’ political movement across much of the developed world, which says society is just individuals and their freedom. No population or public is mentioned, replaced by…/9″(^4.) (Who is Dr H – RageSheen?)
^2.
“There were 75 deaths reported this week in people who died with COVID-19. Eleven of the deaths reported this week were in people aged under 65 years. Some deaths may not have occurred in the week in which they were reported.”
https://www.health.nsw.gov.au/Infectious/covid-19/Pages/weekly-reports.aspx
Of these below (^3.,) unreported until now deaths, the 66 who died at home would have been much more difficult to save than the 131 in aged care or 98 in public hospitals. (where is private hosp data?)
^3.
“NSW adds 331 deaths to Covid toll after data review
“The unreported deaths included 66 people who died from the virus at home, 131 in aged care facilities and 98 at public hospitals.”
Geoff, as you say, it shows a severe lack of imagination.
So we are always back to acceptable deaths.
The discussion now is a demand side – personal choice / responsibility – not a supply side – stop the spread – framing of communication.
And as I have not bothered with statistics lately, my searches reveal the government is doing a poor job.
Geoff, anyone, where are the best and or best communicated covid statistics please.
^1.
“COVID-19 (Coronavirus) statistics
14 April 2022
“Of the three people who died under the age of 65, one had received three doses of a COVID-19 vaccine, one had received two doses of a COVID-19 vaccine and one was not vaccinated. All three people had significant underlying health conditions.
…
“NSW Health expresses its sincere condolences to their loved ones. This brings the total number of COVID-19 related deaths in NSW since the beginning of the pandemic to 2,574.
“There are currently 1,582 COVID-19 cases admitted to hospital, including 71 people in intensive care, 23 of whom require ventilation.
“There were 17,856 positive test results notified in the 24 hours to 4pm yesterday – including 9,791 positive rapid antigen tests (RATs) and includes 8,065 positive PCR tests. The 8,065 positive PCR results were returned from a total of 46,535 PCR tests.
…
https://www.health.nsw.gov.au/news/Pages/20220414_01.aspx
*
^3.
“NSW adds 331 deaths to Covid toll after data review
“The unreported deaths included 66 people who died from the virus at home, 131 in aged care facilities and 98 at public hospitals.”
Qld;
“It comes as Queensland has moved to suspend surgeries in some hospitals, as they recorded three deaths and 10,722 new cases, with 14 people in intensive care.
“Health Minister, Yvette D’Ath, announced the suspension, saying the mounting number of health workers needing to quarantine or isolate was taking its toll.
“More than 3,300 health workers were currently furloughed, a figure that had more than doubled in the past week and a half.
…
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/apr/01/nsw-adds-331-deaths-to-covid-toll-after-data-review
*
This comment a bit wonkish, as is my Covid effected brain. My teenager had worse symptoms. But I definitely have brain fog.
***
^4.
Dr Henry weighs in…
💉💉💉 Dr Henry Madison@RageSheen
9h
It was mostly ignored by government, and its medical advisers. Even novelists and playwrights have vital insight into plagues, but again, are all ignored in favour of ‘making sure we have sufficient hospital capacity’ i.e. ‘we’ll let you all get sick’. /7
💉💉💉 Dr Henry Madison@RageSheen
9h
There’s an even more interesting thing to look at here though, for me, and I’ve Tweeted about it before too. These battles happen where the ‘individual’ meets the ‘population’, or the ‘public’. Public health people deal with the latter, medical doctors with the former. /8
💉💉💉 Dr Henry Madison@RageSheen
9h
That fault-line is central to our politics as well. We have a currently dominant, ‘neoliberal’, ‘libertarian’ political movement across much of the developed world, which says society is just individuals and their freedom. No population or public is mentioned, replaced by…/9
…
https://nitter.net/RageSheen/status/1515082982440456192#m
How many people died of suicide yesterday? Maybe we need to lock down until we reach suicide zero. Regardless of effectiveness
“Why are there so many voices trying to argue for a future of “LIVING WITH COVID” when all around the world we can see what a catastrophe it already is and when we know that will be nothing compared to the catastrophe of creating vaccine-resistant variants through allowing rampant transmission? Well, there are a few reasons, including:
– Poverty of aspiration;
– Poor reasoning ability;
– Ultra short-term thinking;
– Malign neo-liberal economic interests;
– Failure to understand basic scientific concepts;
– Active disinformation.” – Dr David Berger.
Maybe it’s just a much simpler reason: because it’s the only game in town. Certainly you’ve not proposed ny alternative which didn’t collapse under five minutes of scrutiny. Instead of complaining why not think of one? Make sure it’s not impossible though of course
Things are only going to get worse… a LOT worse
There is no end in sight to the exponential increase of this global COVID-19 catastrophe. This is the result of refusing to control it.
Australia is spending billions on COVID control every year for the foreseeable future. We will spend far more on COVID control than controlling any other bug for years to come. We just won’t adopt any unsustainable NPIs which would impose costs without creating lasting benefits.
You have not shown that there is any alternative to this policy outside the policy amendments I recommended above.
It is living with Covid that is unsustainable. It is rapidly proving impossible to live with Covid. The world is finding that out. The health burden over the coming years will crumble nations. The R0 has to be reduced below 1 and kept there. It’s as simple as that. If we are spending billions and the R0 is above 1 then we are not spending enough and/or not targeting it well and/or not using all technically possible control measures, especially the inexpensive measures like masking.
But speaking of unsustainable.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/apr/16/vaccines-long-covid-science?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other
“From published data, the chances of long Covid in those who are vaccinated but suffer breakthrough infections may be halved, but when you apply this to the huge waves we’ve experienced – 3.5 million people infected at a given time – each 3.5 million cases becomes another 175,000 people with long Covid.
These waves have disproportionately affected primary and secondary schools, and many of the new sufferers are children. Sammie Mcfarland at LongCovidKids.org reports a constant stream of new members across its support services, many developing long Covid after two, three or four bouts of reinfection, having escaped it first time round.”
This is what is unsustainable. The current generation of vaccines are failing. Without a radically new and effective vaccine and/or without the full raft of Covid-19 control measures this crisis expands and expands until an unsustainable rate of deaths and Long Covid swamps every nation.
I’ve said again and again what the full raft of measures are. They are vaccines plus new vaccines (if possible) plus the full range of NPIs (TTIQM) plus as a last resort targeted lock-downs. I don’t resile from that. If it is argued that these measures are impossible, this argument really is saying that they are impossible politically and perhaps economically. This may be true in the current political economy climate. These measures are very unlikely to prove impossible technically. And if they are impossible technically, then we are absolutely doomed to collapse (when we add in the other problems we face like climate change).
Stopping Covid-19 is the same issue as stopping climate change. We have to stop them or we collapse our civilization and possibly even go extinct. Now, maybe we cannot do it. But we have to try. Failing to try guarantees failure.
As has been pointed out ad nauseum above, that policy agenda is either doomed to fail or lock us into an autocratic nightmare with negative consequences rivalling the worst dictatorships of the 20th century with no end. You’ve made no effort to contest this because it’s true.
I can play this game until J.Q. closes the thread. My ammunition is endless and fact based.
Lt ‘Suicide’ Fred. Hope all is well. You seem like you are a normal cogent comprehending human.
Yet here you are playing the suicide card -a seriously low and indefensible act “How many people died of suicide yesterday?”. Is that veterans or long Covid sufferers Lt Fred? The low card. Black. As in zero.
“ya mum suidiced cos of the lock downs” – is what your dog whistle infers.
Do you know or comprehend;
– trauma
– retraumatisation
– secondary or vicarious trauma
– grief
At least Ikon is hoping to avoid all those with his want of eradication or elimination.
And your constant absolutism:
“”We just won’t adopt”
“with no end”.
1) don’t include me in you ‘we’.
2) your brain exhibits fear. So does Ikon’s yet he continually attempts to gather data and even in his catastrophe tunnel, is not as black and negative and nay saying as you.
IDo you think you attitude will or is assisting Lt Fred? Keep it up for 1,000 years Lf Fred.
And you’ve said maybe with better medicines. Sad. Want me to go and reference your words? Yes, they do collapse all your comments to a null set.
Suicide card. No facts, no studies, no context, no decent cognition about life, others or the subject.
Just black.
*
Lt ‘Suicide’ Fred, Ikon, Geoff, there is a tradeoff between suppression, eradication and stringency measures effects. [ the “L” word not to be named]
I thought China would have lessened stringency such as Shanghai is experiencing currently, after the Olympics. Mass tresting and contact tracing & isolation yes, but full suppression no. I was wrong.
I also think it ironic aka Achilles heal, or your hest feature also being your worst potential feature, the CCP is setting themselves up for challenges. 25m people yelling and posting negative videos will be a kasting psychsocial imprint, and a chink in the party, forever.
Omicron is very hard – very very very – hard to suppress or eradicate.
Though within a 1,000 years we will sort it.
“Domestic support for a zero-Covid policy has worn thin in recent weeks as virus-related restrictions have triggered food shortages, family separations, lost wages and economic pain.”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/apr/16/china-tightens-controls-as-shanghai-reports-record-covid-cases
*
Ikon don’t stoop to ammunition analogies.
It is cooperation we need not conflict
“Findings From a total of 2100 studies identified, 57 studies” “Short-term and Long-term Rates of Postacute Sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 InfectionA Systematic Review” below. ^2.
Don’t you want long covid minimised? Therefore Covid minimised?
*
“What doctors wish patients knew about long COVID”
MAR 11, 2022
…
“There are three types of long COVID
“COVID-19 itself has direct cell damage because of the virus and this can cause lingering symptoms.”
…
“The second category of long COVID is when a person’s “symptoms are related to chronic hospitalization,” said Dr. Sanghavi. “…“There is inherent muscle weakness. There is inherent cognitive brain dysfunction. There is inherent psychosocial stress causing post-traumatic stress disorder-like syndrome, which we call post-ICU care syndrome,” he added.
“In a third category are those cases in which symptoms appear after recovery. “With COVID itself you see a variety of symptoms—a 30-year-old dying or a 70-year-old essentially being unscathed and symptomatic.”
“That’s because “there are various patient factors at play,” reflecting the “interplay with the immune system of a person, and then the impact that both those things have on the body,” he said. These “symptoms that linger on are produced after the recovery because of this interplay between inflammatory markers and the immune system.
“We are still trying to understand exactly how this interplay between immune system and inflammatory markers work, but there’s no doubt that that is a group of symptoms because of ramped up immunity or ramped up inflammatory system,” he added.
“Severity requires attention sooner
“… “So, something that is more severe will need attention sooner, while something that is more acute may need to be looked into” to determine if it is long COVID or a new condition.
“No organ system is spared
“… because it affects all organ systems,” said Dr. Sanghavi, noting that the basic systemic symptoms are “fatigue, post-COVID syndrome and post exertional malaise.
“You can have anxiety, depression, insomnia and what we call cognitive dysfunction or brain fog,” he added.
“There’s also loss of taste and smell.”
“Cardiac symptoms include “palpitation from tachycardia and bradycardia,” Dr. Sanghavi added.
“Respiratory symptoms are the most well-known and include “shortness of breath, which is a result of hypoxemia from damage to the lungs.”
“… loss of appetite from gastrointestinal symptoms and bowel issues like diarrhea, which can stay on,” he said. “From a kidney standpoint, patients have had acute kidney injury, which the kidneys probably don’t recover from.
“… chronic kidney disease may be pushed to getting long-term dialysis after COVID,” Dr. Sanghavi added. “As far as hematologic issues or concerns, we have seen patients who after initial recovery end up with a blood clot.”
“… skin conditions, “some patients have come up with hair loss and rashes as symptoms,” he said, adding that some endocrine patients have experienced sick euthyroid syndrome.
“There’s a whole slew of symptoms affecting a variety of organ systems,” Dr. Sanghavi said. “No organ system is spared from long COVID, just like how COVID affects all these organ systems during acute illness.”
“Long COVID affects children too
“While initial data was lacking, “now there’s clear evidence to suggest that there are a number of children who have long COVID symptoms and their symptoms are somewhat similar to adults,”
…
“Recent studies have shown that there is an increased percentage of females, as compared to males, who have long COVID syndrome,” said Dr. Sanghavi, noting “this is not specific to the Western world. This is across Asia, Europe and America, and similar trends are being seen.
…
https://www.ama-assn.org/delivering-care/public-health/what-doctors-wish-patients-knew-about-long-covid
*
^2.
“Findings From a total of 2100 studies identified, 57 studies with 250 351 survivors of COVID-19 met inclusion criteria. The mean (SD) age of survivors was 54.4 (8.9) years, 140 196 (56%) were male, and 197 777 (79%) were hospitalized during acute COVID-19. High-income countries contributed 45 studies (79%). The median (IQR) proportion of COVID-19 survivors experiencing at least 1 PASC was 54.0% (45.0%-69.0%; 13 studies) at 1 month (short-term), 55.0% (34.8%-65.5%; 38 studies) at 2 to 5 months (intermediate-term), and 54.0% (31.0%-67.0%; 9 studies) at 6 or more months (long-term). Most prevalent pulmonary sequelae, neurologic disorders, mental health disorders, functional mobility impairments, and general and constitutional symptoms were chest imaging abnormality (median [IQR], 62.2% [45.8%-76.5%]), difficulty concentrating (median [IQR], 23.8% [20.4%-25.9%]), generalized anxiety disorder (median [IQR], 29.6% [14.0%-44.0%]), general functional impairments (median [IQR], 44.0% [23.4%-62.6%]), and fatigue or muscle weakness (median [IQR], 37.5% [25.4%-54.5%]), respectively. Other frequently reported symptoms included cardiac, dermatologic, digestive, and ear, nose, and throat disorders.”
“Conclusions and Relevance In this systematic review, more than half of COVID-19 survivors experienced PASC 6 months after recovery. The most common PASC involved functional mobility impairments, pulmonary abnormalities, and mental health disorders. These long-term PASC effects occur on a scale that could overwhelm existing health care capacity, particularly in low- and middle-income countries.”
October 13, 2021
“Short-term and Long-term Rates of Postacute Sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 InfectionA Systematic Review
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2784918
THIS is the WORST virus… The Oxi(ford)-moron
[very long article ]
…”the Torysphere with an entertaining story, wrapped in Oxford-tutorial-level plausibility, larded with quips and selected statistics and appeals to ancient English traditions of liberty, Burke and all that.”
…
“A report by two parliamentary all-party committees would eventually call the government’s initial strategy of pursuing herd immunity and the consequent late first lockdown “one of the most important public health failures the United Kingdom has ever experienced”.
…
“Once Johnson belatedly focused on Covid-19, he kept trying to avoid lockdowns. After all, his caste expected maximum personal freedom
…
“Their lack of scientific training did not dent their intellectual confidence. “When we have herd immunity, Boris will face a reckoning on this pointless and damaging lockdown,” wrote Young in July 2020.
…
This February, the High Court declared Harding’s appointment unlawful, as the appointments process had failed to comply with equality legislation. Admittedly, Test and Trace produced some winners: notably, the outsourcing company Serco,”
*
“Why 1980s Oxford holds the key to Britain’s ruling class
“Simon Kuper’s ‘Chums: How a Tiny Caste of Oxford Tories Took Over the UK’ is published by Profile on April 28
Proles link:
https://amediadragon.blogspot.com/2022/04/bowral-browsing-why-1980s-oxford-holds.html
Upper classes link:
[Irony 1. It is in the ft.
Irony 2. It is behind a paywall – chuckle]
https://www.ft.com/content/2fa1e436-a5c7-43b1-9e5a-b1e1b43b8c3a
I have come to think that Oxford in the 1980s holds the keys to understanding this Conservative generation: from their grand project, Brexit, through Johnson’s reluctance to lock down Britain during the pandemic, to their characteristic organisational mode of chumocracy, the life-long experiential chasm that separates them from Britons who cannot afford fuel and food, and the Partygate scandal — Johnson and his Oxford-educated chancellor Rishi Sunak were fined by police this week for breaking Covid-19 laws. Ruling Britain was the prerogative of their caste.
They didn’t want outsiders from Brussels muscling in Had you asked Oxford students in the mid-1980s to predict the prime minister of 2022, the most common answer would probably have been Boris Johnson. In the Oxford Union, as later in the Tory party, politicos instinctively clustered around the most charismatic extant Etonian.
Johnson’s Oxford votaries included Gove, the student journalist Toby Young, now voice of the Tory right, and Guto Harri, now Johnson’s director of communications, who fondly recalls his boss’s “utterly hilarious” readings of minutes nearly 40 years ago.
The student Johnson was an old-fashioned Tory by instinct rather than theory. Gove and Rees-Mogg at Oxford had more developed Thatcherite views. Awkwardly, though, their heroine was fulfilling their policy desires. By the time Margaret Thatcher was done, in 1990, there wasn’t much room left for more privatisation or tax-cutting if Britain was to remain a recognisable western country. Then her main foreign enemy, the Soviet Union, collapsed. The Oxford Tories were headed for power but without a project.
They felt they had been raised to inherit greatness. For anyone able to gloss over the brutality of empire, the achievements of their tiny caste were breathtaking. Between about 1860 and 1960, British men who had attended private school or Oxbridge or both had sat atop the modern world. They had governed a quarter of the planet, and overseen victory in two world wars.
They created modern sports, Keynesianism, …
Once Johnson belatedly focused on Covid-19, he kept trying to avoid lockdowns. After all, his caste expected maximum personal freedom. Had he still been a columnist for The Daily Telegraph, he would surely have been warning the prime minister against imprisoning the nation over a flu.
Now that role was taken by other 1980s Oxford Tory journalists such as Toby Young, Julia Hartley-Brewer and James Delingpole. Their lack of scientific training did not dent their intellectual confidence. “When we have herd immunity, Boris will face a reckoning on this pointless and damaging lockdown,” wrote Young in July 2020.
He, Hartley-Brewer and Delingpole had inherited the role that Hannan, Gove and Johnson played over Brexit: a vanguard of wordsmiths can equip the Torysphere with an entertaining story, wrapped in Oxford-tutorial-level plausibility, larded with quips and selected statistics and appeals to ancient English traditions of liberty, Burke and all that.
A report by two parliamentary all-party committees would eventually call the government’s initial strategy of pursuing herd immunity and the consequent late first lockdown “one of the most important public health failures the United Kingdom has ever experienced”. Dido Harding didn’t pip other candidates to the post. There weren’t any other candidates. She was just handed the job The Good Law Project But in spring 2020, with death all around, Britain needed protective medical gear and Covid-19 tests. What to do? Cummings, running Downing Street for Johnson, despised Whitehall’s time-wasting procedures. It was time to move fast and break things.
Luckily, the people in government knew exactly the people who could help. In fact, they had known them since Oxford. Dido Harding was an Oxford chum of Cameron’s, and a bigshot in British horseracing. She had run the telecoms company TalkTalk (albeit not very successfully), but none of her business experience had been in healthcare. Nonetheless, the government put her in charge of the NHS’s Test and Trace programme. An NHS official explained that “Baroness Harding was hired for her leadership, not her knowledge”.
Leadership”, of course, is British code for being upper-class. The non-profit Good Law Project noted: “Dido Harding didn’t pip other candidates to the post at the interview. There weren’t any other candidates. She was just handed the job.”
Harding was allocated £37bn. But Meg Hillier, chair of the Commons public accounts committee, said in March 2021: “Despite the unimaginable resources thrown at this project, NHS Test and Trace cannot point to a measurable difference to the progress of the pandemic.”
This February, the High Court declared Harding’s appointment unlawful, as the appointments process had failed to comply with equality legislation. Admittedly, Test and Trace produced some winners: notably, the outsourcing company Serco, whose share price soared on government contracts. Serco’s chief executive Rupert Soames — a former Oxford Union president and Bullingdon member — earned £4.9mn in 2020.
The former Australian prime minister Malcolm Turnbull, who had been active in the Oxford Union as a Rhodes Scholar in the 1970s, told me in December 2020:
“The handling of Covid in the UK, I guess, is an example of not handling administration competently or effectively.
The once-over-lightly debating chamber style — well, you can skate along for quite a long time, but then you end up with very serious consequences.” One appointment succeeded brilliantly. Venture capitalist Kate Bingham had decades of experience in biotech. Possibly it was irrelevant that she had been at Oxford with Johnson, and later married the Conservative MP Jesse Norman (Eton and Oxford). Johnson made her head of the Vaccine Taskforce, and Britain rolled out vaccines before any other western country.
Recommended Philip Stephens Philip Stephens: Becoming ‘normal’ again is going to be hard for Britain Then, this winter, the Partygate scandal broke:”
*
A very bad virus. Oxi(ford)-moron
Remind me again about news corpse propaganda department. The delivery mechanism of Oxi(ford)-moron.
This thread may already hold the longest thread trophy. It was London to a brick that I was going to be one of the culprits.
It’s all very well to spend four entire posts telling me I’m a terrible person. I honestly dont care. All I want is an alternative to our current dreadful apocalyptic policy that will inevitably cause human extinction now now now, which crucially isn’t impossible. That really is all I’m asking. Happy to keep asking. Aside from the one I absolutely demolished and ground to ashes I’ve yet to see one, leaving us with just the terrible dreadful awful policy that will kill us all any day now honest. Very simple. Find another one or accept the current one. Not an unreasonable request. Don’t need to see a thousand posts about how bad covid is or long covid is or capitalism is or I am or anything else is, I just literally need an alternative policy that isn’t impossible. Go for it.
I’m going for my 4th jab tomorrow, just in case.
Vaccination has dropped off the public health radar and it seems that getting Covid has become as innocuous as getting hayfever.
It’s the economy, stupid.
When a whole nation is infected and reinfecting each person at a rate of 3 weeks to 3 months between infections, what will the economy will look like then? What will individual health look like then?
What’s the alternative (that isn’t impossible)?
Lt. Fred,
While people believe and act as you do (and most of them certainly do) then there is certainly NO alternative. So, you are right. There is currently no alternative and there may never be an alternative now. So, no choice, no hope. Enjoy what little life is ahead of you as successive infections of COVID-19 destroy your T cells.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/williamhaseltine/2022/04/14/sars-cov-2-actively-infects-and-kills-lymphoid-cells/?sh=8fe2fdf86b89
Scimming the reporting about the current Chinese lockdowns, i can´t help but have the impression that this time it is different – in reporting – only because more privileged expacts have to pay a personal price. One could think Shanghai was and is the only lockdown in China and that China would suddenly stop surveilance or disregard for some lives without covid.
Situation in China is complex and deteriorating. China under-reports COVID-19 deaths even more than Western countries do on a percent basis (even though China do probably have a lot less deaths per capita). Let’s be honest, most Western countries under-report COVID-19 deaths a lot, anyway. A place like India is atrocious. African countries have no hope of even getting a remotely accurate count. So it goes.
Shanghai tested a form of “live with Covid”. It rapidly spun out of control and they spooked and went hard lock-down. China (apart from H.K.) still attempting zero Covid. Attempting to re-impose zero Covid in Shanghai too so far as I can tell.
I can’t predict outcome. We will have to wait and see. World will be in serious trouble if COVID-19 runs rampant in China. Global trade will collapse. Mutations will run wild. Could easily double global mutation rate. There’s no upside for anyone if China fails in control too. World system trending to catastrophic collapse IMHO.
Just a quick correction to Ikonoclast’s dishonest framing earlier. He insinuates that the reason we have adopted a living with covid approach is due to a choice. In reality it doesn’t matter how people believe, act, or otherwise. The reason he has not been able to identify any alternatives to our current policy is because there aren’t any credible ones. He’s completely free – and has been for weeks – to prove me wrong here. I have absolutely bent over backwards looking for an alternative. The reason he has not done so is because he cannot. Not a complicated issue.
Lt Fred says “Not a complicated issue.”
Eradication, elimination etc are NP problems…”and hence slow down the epidemic spread”^1.
In < 1,000 earth years Lt Fred.
*
^1.
"COVID-19 Optimizer Algorithm, Modeling and Controlling of Coronavirus Distribution Process
"The key priority is to contain the epidemic and reduce the infection rate. It is imperative to stress on ensuring extreme social distancing of the entire population and hence slowing down the epidemic spread. So, there is a need for an efficient optimizer algorithm that can solve NP-hard in addition to applied optimization problems. This article first proposes a novel COVID-19 optimizer Algorithm (CVA) to cover almost all feasible regions of the optimization problems. We also simulate the coronavirus distribution process in several countries around the globe. Then, we model a coronavirus distribution process as an optimization problem to minimize the number of COVID-19 infected countries and hence slow down the epidemic spread. Furthermore, we propose three scenarios to solve the optimization problem using most effective factors in the distribution process. Simulation results show one of the controlling scenarios outperforms the others. Extensive simulations using several optimization schemes show that the CVA technique performs best with up to 15%, 37%, 53% and 59% increase compared with Volcano Eruption Algorithm (VEA), Gray Wolf Optimizer (GWO), Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) and Genetic Algorithm (GA), respectively."
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32750974/
*
"P to the 7th = NP.
…
"It is easy to see that the complexity class P(all problems solvable, deterministically, in polynomial time) is contained in NP (problems where solutions can be verified in polynomial time), because if a problem is solvable in polynomial time then a solution is also verifiable in polynomial time by simply solving the problem. But NP contains many more problems,[Note 2]"…
wikipedia.org/wiki/NP_(complexity)
*
Not 1,000 years.
Slowing the spread doesn’t really matter though (assuming the health system is not completely overwhelmed, which they aren’t at the moment).
Even if we slow the spread to such a degree that it takes 10 years for everyone to get COVID-19 – spending untold hundreds of billions to do so – that would not generate lasting health benefit. In that scenario everyone would get it anyway and suffer the inevitable health costs no matter what. You’re left with an enormously expensive policy – crowding out and diminishing the health response to much deadlier diseases like heart disease and cancer and therefore costing thousands of lives – with literally zero lasting health benefit. What good is that?
It appears Lt.Fred is not aware of the latest studies. People can and are catching COVID-19 multiple times. Data shows each time caught leads to a worse outcome, on average. Unlimited spread equals endlessly catching COVID-19 over and over and getting sicker and sicker over time. Lt.F. also not aware that sequalae of Covid-19 can be heart attacks plus lots of other bad health events. Heart attacks will rise. It’s a pity his endless COVID-19 disinformation continues.
However such misconceptions and misinformation are common, indeed rife in our society. So not only do we fail to lower COVID-19 disease incidence even a little, we increase it to the highest level possible. Never before have I seen that the answer to a dangerous disease is to increase its incidence. How bizarre.
Lt.Fred: – “Slowing the spread doesn’t really matter though (assuming the health system is not completely overwhelmed, which they aren’t at the moment).”
More baseless opinions from Lt.Fred without evidence/data. 🙄
England’s A&E departments are under enormous strain, with thousands of patients having to wait more than 12 hours to be admitted.
NSW COVID hospitalisations now plateaued around 1,500 cases, higher than the Delta wave peak of 1,268 on 21 Sep 2021. Matt @crudeoilpeak tweeted yesterday:
Lt.Fred: – “…crowding out and diminishing the health response to much deadlier diseases like heart disease and cancer and therefore costing thousands of lives…”
I’d suggest it’s already happening now. What good is that?
Per RACGP re ‘long-COVID’, dated 19 Jan 2022:
https://www1.racgp.org.au/newsgp/clinical/what-causes-long-covid
Current data indicates approximately one-in-five patients infected with COVID then go on to acquire ‘long-COVID’. If, as you say, everyone will get COVID eventually, then that means more than 5 million Australians will likely get ‘long-COVID”. What good is that?
And with recurring infections, the chances are that the ‘long-COVID’ sufferers cohort will grow. Zero lasting health benefits from your so-called “living with COVID”. It’s a rather grim advocacy from you for living and ultimately suffering/dying from COVID for everyone to look forward to in our much shorter lifespans, eh? 🙄
Okay, cool.
Let’s say we spent $1 trillion* reducing the rate of people getting COVID and then getting reinfected with COVID so that everyone gets infected in a decade rather than six months.
Everyone is still infected the first (most serious^) time in that decade. Many die.
Most people susceptible to being reinfected are infected twice or perhaps even more.
In terms of health benefits, every person who would have died of COVID dies of COVID. In terms of costs, we’re $1 trillion poorer. (This does not include the enormous costs of a decade of endless rolling lockdowns.)
And then what?
At that point we need to make the same decision we need to make today.
If we decided to end this policy – at last! – people would still have to endure the same risks of reinfection. Nothing has changed. Their risk is still 100%. It has not declined by 1%.
If not, that’ll be another $1 trillion, another decade of lockdowns, etc. We’re locked into this nightmare forever.
After spending a fortune delaying the inevitable, nothing has changed. No risks have been mitigated, probably not one death is avoided.
Just to reemphasise that point: there’s absolutely no lasting benefit for this TRILLION DOLLAR health expense, a number representing by far the biggest portion of the health budget#, which is devoted to directed to delaying universal infection by a single disease.
In conclusion: there is no policy open to us – aside from plans that collapse under a moment’s scrutiny – aside from treating COVID-19 as a normal disease and aiming to use ordinary health resources in a normal way to knock down its CFR.
A policy of DELAYING coronavirus infection would be extraordinarily costly and pointless because it creates no lasting benefit.
A policy of ELIMINATING coronavirus from Australia would be even more extraordinarily costly but still equally pointless because it creates no lasting benefit.
A policy of ERADICATING coronavirus in the world is just regular old impossible.
We have one option: living with the virus. Accepting that it will infect everyone, and soon, but investing our health resources – we apparently have ONE TRILLION DOLLARS to play with to deal with this one bug, so no shortage of resources here! – to vaccinating people before infection, detecting the virus early when they are and providing prophylactics for people who get sick and so on when they get the bug in order to get that IFR down, an objective that would by definition save more lives than any policy aimed at fruitlessly trying to delay inevitable infection.
The others in this thread have utterly failed to demonstrate an alternative to this policy, aside from policy choices that collapse under a moment’s scrutiny, like the above three. The reason none of this will be contested in an honest way, and others in this thread will instead deflect, distract and attempt to change the subject, is because it is true.
PS: This does not mean that I don’t think some REASONABLE infection control methods are a good idea. We should absolutely look at a range of sustainable policies – either those with a long-term benefit like improving ventilation, or which have a short-term benefit by a very low-cost like public masking in high risk places like public transport. These are not the main game though, and the reason we should do them is not because it would prevent COVID infections forever.
PPS: the bizarre and false allegation that Australia’s health system must be groaning under the weight of COVID-19 because the UK’s is, a false claim which is presented completely without evidence, is false.
“In 2020–21, 71% of patients were seen on time for their urgency category, down from 74% in 2019–20 but consistent with 2018–19 (71%). All patients in the most urgent category, ‘Resuscitation’, were seen immediately.”
https://www.aihw.gov.au/news-media/media-releases/2021-1/december/covid-19-continues-to-impact-public-hospital-emerg
PPPS: Reinfections tend to be much less severe than primary infections, by the way^ another thing you’re completely absolutely upside down backwards factually wrong about again. But you accuse me of disinformation!
* COVID cost Australia about $200 billion in its first year.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/may/11/federal-budget-2021-papers-reveals-huge-cost-of-covid-australian-government-economy-economic-stimulus-packages
# Australia’s health budget was about $185.4 billion in 2017, representing about $208 billion in 2022. I’ve halved it to represent a “COVID slow” policy, rather than a “COVID zero” policy.
https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports/health-welfare-expenditure/health-expenditure-australia-2017-18/contents/summary
@ Flu CFR is about 0.01%.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-03-03/omicron-is-40-deadlier-than-seasonal-flu-japanese-study-finds
^ https://theconversation.com/covid-reinfections-are-they-milder-and-do-they-strengthen-immunity-176592
“Reinfected patients were 90% less likely to be hospitalized compared to patients infected for the first time”
https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/covid-19-reinfection-less-likely-be-severe-cardiac-stress-test-useful-2021-11-29/
Annoyingly, I wrote an entire long thing here and then the system ate it.
Needless to say, this new plan to DELAY COVID-19 infections is no better than the house of cards that was the plan to ERADICATE it, or to ELIMINATE it in Australia.
Let’s first start with a few facts.
Is it the case that people who catch COVID twice tend to get “a worse outcome, on average” their second go?
No of course not, this is Ikonoclast we’re talking about, of course he got his facts wrong, don’t be silly.
https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/covid-19-reinfection-less-likely-be-severe-cardiac-stress-test-useful-2021-11-29/
https://theconversation.com/covid-reinfections-are-they-milder-and-do-they-strengthen-immunity-176592
Is it the case that Australia’s health institutions are (like England’s) groaning under the weight of COVID-19, so we need to delay infections to give them time to deal with the problem? Nope!
https://www.aihw.gov.au/news-media/media-releases/2021-1/december/covid-19-continues-to-impact-public-hospital-emerg
Lets finish by asking ourselves what good DELAYING a coronavirus infection does.
Lets imagine the life of a 60 year old lady, called Old Mate.
Being triple vaccinated, Mrs Mate has about a 0.014% chance of dying from coronavirus, similar to her chance of dying from the flu*.
Mrs Mate would have got COVID-19 on July 1 2022 – BUT the Australian people decide they want to adopt a policy of delaying the day everyone has had COVID-19 their first time. This policy costs about $100 billion per year, about half the amount the initial 2020 COVID response cost.
Being a sensible person, Mrs Mate keeps up her vaccination regime – but still contracts the bug on July 1 2023 (remember, this is a policy of DELAY, not ELIMINATION). She has a 0.014% chance of dying from coronavirus, but her number is up and she dies in hospital. Some people have no luck.
This is Australia’s most expensive single health expenditure. It requires routine, rolling lockdowns, permanently eliminates scores of significant cultural institutions forever, closes Australia’s pub and restaurant industries forever, its music industry and its festival sector forever and so on. It costs far more than every emergency room, cancer centre, GP and nurse. What good did it do Mrs Mate? She lived one more year, which she spent virtually locked up indoors 24 hours a day, and died anyway. IFR reduction of zero.
You might say – aha Lt Fred! But what about reinfection?
Firstly, as shown above, Ikonoclast was either lying or ignorant when he falsely said that secondary infections are worse than primary. (Quick aside: how dare he say I’m the one spreading misinformation when I’ve refuted virtually every word he’s said for weeks? And not once has he ever acknowledged being wrong, either, no matter how demonstrably he is so; he distracts, delays, deflects, then makes some new claim. Some people are just liars I suppose. Anyway, moving on).
Let us imagine Mrs Mate’s husband, Mr Mate. He is 71, and has a 0.18% chance of death from coronavirus.
He gets it on July 1 2023 too, but as a result of his multiple vaccinations, he survives.
But due to Australia’s policy of DELAYING COVID-19 infections, he is not reinfected. (His risk of death after reinfection is perhaps 0.02%).
However.
After ten years and $1 trillion, in 2031, the government reassesses whether it really should be spending more money on the handful dying of a single virus than the hundreds of thousands dying from every single other health concern put together.
At this point, the government needs to make a choice.
Either it continues this enormously expensive policy for another decade, locking Australian society for another 10 years into a nightmarish unending fascist nightmare of endless jail-like restriction for every single member (with Ikonoclast cheering along). At which point they need to make up their minds again. And then again. And then again.
Or it will drop this policy.
On July 1 2032 the policy is canned. After a decade without going to the opera – which, being a former professional opera singer, he cherishes more than anything – a decade of paying enormously greater tax rates, of enduring a decade without seeing friends or family, a decade without Christmas, Easter, birthdays or holidays, Mr Mate is now 81 and has 100% of the risk of death through reinfection that he would have endured on April 18 2022, about 0.02%. He spent a decade of his life and hundreds of thousands of dollars on this health solution and his risk of death has declined by 0%.
Mr Mate has been unable to meet a new partner to replace Mrs Mate, being banned from leaving home, and he has gone deaf. In fact, Mr Mate has spent a decade alone. His children no longer know him and he has no grandchildren because they have been locked indoors as he has and unable to meet partners.
But for Mr Mate, the hard-won benefits of this policy don’t last a day after the policy is dropped. He gets reinfected on July 2, 2033 and survives easily, but his life is over.
That is because DELAYING the inevitable does not have any lasting health benefits.
A policy of DELAYING COVID-19 infections is just a milder version of a policy of ELIMINATING COVID-19 infections. It has all the same pitfalls of the latter policy. In the real world, all the people who would die of COVID-19 when they are inevitably infected by it the first time would still die. And the enormously expensive benefits of preventing health costs caused by reinfection would not be lasting.
In conclusion: we have one option.
DELAYING COVID-19 infections would be extremely expensive and pointless, because even the very modest health benefits achieved at this great cost would not be lasting a day beyond the end of the policy.
ELIMINATING COVID-19 in Australia would be even more extremely expensive and pointless, because even the very modest health benefits achieved at this great cost would not be lasting a day beyond the end of the policy.
ERADICATING COVID-19 around the world is simply impossible.
However a policy of devoting resources to reducing the IFR of those infected with coronavirus WOULD have lasting health benefits because the policy is sustainable. If you develop a sustainable way of cutting IFR that means fewer fatalities – forever! Backed by an extremely strong vaccine program in order to keep vaccine protection at its maximum level forever, COVID-19 fatalities would be lower AND Mr Mate would be able to go back to the opera and live his life. Not only is this policy cheaper – which means not crowding out treatment for people suffering mere minor disorders like cancer and heart disease – it’s also sustainable forever. This is not hard to do. After all, we have a TRILLION DOLLARS to devote to hiring and training clinicians to treat this single virus, apparently. Our health services will be lined with gold!
The reason nobody in this thread will respond with any sensible, rational response refuting this claim is because it is true. The reason these supposed alternatives collapse under a moment’s scrutiny is because they are not true alternatives, which is the same reason they will never never never be adopted.
* https://www1.racgp.org.au/newsgp/clinical/covid-19-chart-updated-with-omicron-risk-of-death
I’ve actually been very generous here by not assuming that antibodies from infection are persistent which they probably aren’t. If they aren’t your position is even more embarrassing
Lt Fred, I’ll be singing siin. Don’t get too cocky – “If they aren’t your position is even more embarrassing”.
Hint. Have you located and read the ‘study’ – oops – in your Reuters link. Yes or no? Any rebuttal? Is a news articke also lying like you illogically say of Ikon? Are you able to tell if you can’t see the news articles reference materials. Tricky!
And that comment was your best too. Argument, reference, ad hom on Ikon, repeat. So the inclusion links to your basis of your arguments was great. Thanks.
I was almost impressed.
“The dogs may bark [Reuters ] but the caravan moves on [later better studues of new varients [.” PJK
Have you read it? Let me just quote a couple of times from that Reuters story.
“The odds of developing severe disease were 88% lower for people with second infections”
“Reinfected patients were 90% less likely to be hospitalized compared to patients infected for the first time, and no one in the study with a second infection required intensive care or died”
“The risk for severe illness in people who had been infected before was only about 1% of therisk associated with initial COVID-19 infections, the researchers estimated.”
To quote the study directly:
“Reinfections had 90% lower odds of resulting in hospitalization or death than primary infections.”
This is a study from December 2021, barely four months old.
A few simple points.
The reason you have not cited any “later better studues of new varients” is because they do not exist.
Indeed, the reason you have provided no evidence for Ikonoclast’s false claim is because it is false.
The reason nobody has responded to this utter demolition of your case, as I predicted above – again, for the nth time! – by attempting to contest it in any rational or credible way is because it is true.
The reason your claims collapse under the slightest scrutiny is because they are false.
Lt Fred. Fell. Right. In.
“The reason your claims collapse under the slightest scrutiny” is because you still haven’t found the actual ‘study’. Shhhh…
Slowly slowly catch the monkey.
Provide evidence for your claims or go away.
Provide evidence for your implicit claims or go away.
Provide evidence.
Lt. Fred (and others),
I did provide evidence at Ikonoclast April 17, 2022 at 10:55 am. Fred ignored it or did not read it. Here it is again.
Some key quotes:
“COVID: Reinfections: 31% INCREASED risk of Hospital Admission Says Massive New Study—HUGE 8X INCREASE IN REINFECTIONS when Omicron became dominant”
‘These data suggest that re-infection with SARS-CoV-2 occurs regularly and can amount to significant population level’
“A massive new study by researchers at the University of Michigan has shown the dire consequences of herd immunity delusion—demonstrating using a massive databank of patient records from the U.S. Veterans Administration (VHA)…that reinfections were more severe than first ones in terms of hospital admission—and also occur frequently.”
“For 1st infections they found 19% of cases were associated with hospital admissions,for 2nd 17% (not that different from 1st), however, upon 3rd they found a staggering 25.9% of case associated with admission–a 31% increase in admission from the 1st infection…”
Also, these probabilities are additive. That means they ADD UP for an individual.
1st infection at 19% chance of hospitalization plus 2nd infections at 17% = 36% chance of a double infected person being hospitalized at least once.
That plus a 25.9% chance of a 3rd infection hospitalization = 61.9% chance of a thrice infected hospitalized being hospitalized, at least once.
There are actually some nuances to this calculation which I haven’t fully thought through but the basics are there. The study means n infections are possible over time (meaning 1, 2 , 3 or more infections over time). Each time a person gets infected this adds another chance of hospitalization. These chances add up.
In Lt. Fred’s model (tolerate endless infection and endless reinfection) every one’s chances of hospitalization over multiple infections will add up and eventually approach 1 (certainty) for each person. Is this a situation we want to live in? Some kids and other people are now re-catching Omicron variants as little as 4 weeks apart each time.
Now, as little as 6 months ago, I simply was not aware that this could or would happen. Nor was anybody else. I believed my first two vaxes would keep me and most people very safe and that reinfection would be very rare. However, this has not come to pass. We have to adjust to the new empirical research findings. The new normal is leaky, failing vaccines and potentially endless reinfections with additive probablity dangers of illness, hospitalization and long Covid. Herd immunity is not happening and cannot happen when reinfection with new Omicron variants can happen within 23 days (known minimum) or more. And what will happen if a worse major variant arrives after Omicron? Answer, catastrophe.
“Yikes, that’s a national positive result of about one in three:
pic.twitter.com/IOwuBrTpNU
“Australian Government Department of Health(@healthgovau)
“This daily 📅 infographic provides a quick view of the current coronavirus (#COVID19) situation in Australia 🇦🇺
“Find out more here 💻https://t.co/YcsPBOUfPb
pic.twitter.com/IOwuBrTpNU
April 19, 2022”
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/live/2022/apr/19/australia-politics-live-updates-election-2022-scott-morrison-anthony-albanese-coalition-labor-liberal-power-prices-nsw-qld-vic-covid-coronavirus-katharine-deves-warringah?page=with:block-625e57d38f086dda4ef5f5dd#block-625e57d38f086dda4ef5f5dd
Unfortunately, your study – which is unpublished and not peer-reviewed – does not measure severity of disease at all.
To quote:
“It is too soon to reliably measure the burden of disease among these patients.”
It simply measures the number of people diagnosed by the VHA system with COVID-19, and the number of that group who were later hospitalised. They may have been hospitalised in a car accident, or a heart attack. This is not clear. (It also measures the rate of increase of reinfection – a rate that will inevitably climb no matter what, if people continue to get infected for the first time!).
One explanation for this result is that fewer people are getting tested for COVID-19 – and that this group is made up disproportionately of the most severe cases. Perhaps the VA closed several public COVID testing clinics in 2022*? This is certainly borne out in the numbers cited. Of their 308,051 tests, just 18% are secondary infections, and just 0.06% tertiary.
Other studies cited above suggest later infections are likely to be much less severe than the first. This study does not refute that.
To be clear:
This is not a “huge study”. Their tertiary infected group has fewer than 200 data points. It’s also a biased group. It is not peer reviewed. It is from a single source and does not involve a control of any sort.
Is does not say anything at all about the risk of hospital admission; that’s just false. It explicitly denies this in the study. Did you read it?
“It is too soon to reliably measure the burden of disease among these patients.”
The study does not say that “these probabilities are additive. That means they ADD UP for an individual.” This is false. The study says nothing about this. It does not compare early and later disease burden, at all.
“1st infection at 19% chance of hospitalization plus 2nd infections at 17% = 36% chance of a double infected person being hospitalized at least once.” This is false. The study does not say this.
“That plus a 25.9% chance of a 3rd infection hospitalization = 61.9% chance of a thrice infected hospitalized being hospitalized, at least once.” This too is false. The study does not say this either.
By contrast, if we read research that actually does make an effort to investigate reinfection severity – I’m not criticising the study here, it’s a very short desktop study that does exactly what it sets out to do, it’s just that that’s just not what Ikonoclast is looking for – it’s clear that, yes, antibodies do work actually.
The reason Ikonoclast has made no effort to refute anything else in my very long details refutation of his central thesis because it is false.
* https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/30/us/covid-vaccine-testing-states.html
Lt. Fred,
What you don’t appear to grasp is that the virus is evolving and the pandemic is evolving, very rapidly. In such a rapidly evolving situation, the virus and the pandemic change greatly in the time it takes to do a longitudinal study. The situation can even change greatly in the time it takes to get such a study peer reviewed. This is not an argument against longitudinal studies or peer reviews in this situation. It is an argument that findings and early indications from even just months ago need to be read in the context of the rapidly evolving and escalating situation.
In such a situation, the first signs of new problems have to be taken very seriously. Measurements of new problems like immune escape, vaccine escape, breakthrough infection and multiple breakthrough infection have to interpreted not for their current levels but for their (exponential) trend indications. On a graph this means not the height of the data points (which may still be low early on) but the trend line which can be drawn trough the data points. One also has to place each study in the context of other more recent studies and reports to get a sense of where things are heading.
This pathogen and pandemic are evolving so rapidly that even two weeks is a long time. New studies arrive on a weekly basis which can change our assessment of the virus. This introduces a quandary. Do we wait for peer reviews before taking new data and indicators seriously? Where treatment is involved the answer is probably yes. Where preventative measures are involved and the precautionary principle is involved, the answer is probably no.
Fauci warned on April 6, 2022 about waning vaccine immunity. Others have been warning for months but Fauci seems to wait until the evidence is incontrovertible. That is how he is trained and even he in all his professional life has never seen a pathogen and epidemic spread and evolve so fast as this.
“Unfortunately, Fauci explained, there’s only so much this immunity can do—because it isn’t long-lasting. “One of the things that people need to realize is that [COVID] immunity wanes, so it isn’t like measles,” he told Westin. “If you measure someone and take a look at their immunity to measles, that lasts a lifetime. The immunity to COVID … is something that wanes over a period of months.”
That’s especially important to consider as we face the rise of the BA.2 Omicron subvariant. As Fauci noted in his Balance of Power interview, BA.2 already accounts for 75 percent of cases in the U.S. and is even more infectious than the already highly contagious BA.1 Omicron variant. Many virus experts and health officials believe that the country’s positive trajectory will soon be thwarted, with former Food & Drug Administration (FDA) commissioner Scott Gottlieb, MD, saying in an April 5 CNBC interview that BA.2 will cause a “national wave” of new COVID cases.” – from “Dr. Fauci Warns That Vaccinated People “Need to Realize” This Now: You may feel protected from COVID, but the truth is more complicated.” – Best Life, Richard Evans.
“In the Balance of Power interview, Fauci said that a “very high percentage of the population” has been vaccinated and/or infected with COVID, with as many as 90 percent of Americans having some level of immunity to the virus. But because of waning immunity, the percentage of Americans who currently have a high level of protection is almost certainly much smaller.” – op. cit.
So, you see, we have reached a new phase where waning natural immunity, waning vaccine immunity and new strains are showing that “herd immunity” (so-called) is just NOT happening. The evolving virus is escaping all infection and immune bounds. Without other measures the pandemic gets exponentially worse from this point on current trends.
“New studies are finding that Omicron variants may not have the same protective qualities that were with previous COVID variants.” – according to new reports. That is to sa,y little to no natural immunity may be arising from Omicron infections. Again, the “may” arises because the situation is evolving so rapidly. The virus and pandemic are evolving faster than we can study them and respond. I predicted an aspect of this earlier on, in this and other threads, namely that viral evolution to new variants would outpace production and distribution of new variant specific vaccines. This is exactly what has happened and is happening. We are way behind now. A new variant of concern which then takes over is being discovered nearly every week!
“People who are unvaccinated are unlikely to develop an immune response to other SARS-CoV-2 variants, even after infection with the Omicron variant, according to findings from a new study undergoing peer review at Nature Portfolio. This means that even if you were infected with Omicron, you still may not be protected from new variants.
As reported by Reuters, antibodies induced by the Omicron BA.1 or BA.2 variants “do not neutralize other versions of the virus,” which differs from the antibodies that are induced by COVID-19 vaccines and infections with previous COVID variants. Researchers determined this by analyzing blood samples from participants after Omicron infection.
In a joint email to Reuters, study authors Karin Stiasny, PhD, professor of virology, and Judity Aberle, MD, associate professor of virology, at the Medical University of Vienna, said that without vaccination or pre-Omicron natural infection—both of which “prime” immune systems to recognize COVID–the antibodies that these individuals had after Omicron infection were “very specific for the respective Omicron variant,” indicating BA.1 or BA.2. The researchers added, “We detected almost no neutralizing antibodies targeting non-Omicron virus strains.”” – Yahoo Life.
It even seems that earlier Omicron strains confer no immunity (which would soon wane anyway) to later Omicron strains. Though it is, as usual, too early to tell because the whirlwind of new variants is happening too rapidly to study. The entire situation is spinning out of control. Without full controls which go far beyond mere leaky and failing vaccines we cannot control this pandemic. Full controls (you know the ones I mean) are absolutely necessary and our only hope. If they fail or cannot be made to work then too bad for us, we are doomed anyway. The more we let this pandemic take total hold over our whole population, the more trouble we will have coming back from the brink of catastrophe.
Of course, Lt. Fred, I will never convince you. I do not argue to convince you. I use you as a prod to my own research. I write for others who are not so obdurate at denying all evidence of trends and who do not lack an understanding of the powers of exponentials and evolution as you do.
So lets just pause to reassess here.
Ikonoclast claims the virus is causing a measurable increase in CAR ACCIDENTS. I prove this false. He gives up and moves on without changing his mind about the central issue.
Ikonoclast claims the virus can be ERADICATED. I prove this false. He gives up and moves on without changing his mind about the central issue.
Ikonoclast claims that a useful strategy would be to ELIMINATE the virus. I prove this false. He gives up and moves on without changing his mind about the central issue.
Ikonoclast claims that the virus gets worse the second time. I prove this false. He gives up and moves on without changing his mind about the central issue.
Ikonoclast claims that a specific study says the virus gets worse each time you get it, a claim his own study explicitly denies. I prove this false. He gives up and moves on without changing his mind about the central issue.
Ikonoclast claims a strategy of DELAY of universal COVID infection would be a good one. I prove this false. He gives up and moves on without changing his mind about the central issue.
He then claims it’s too HARD for him to provide evidence of this latest claim about the virus – it’s evolving don’t you know? Unfortunately it wasn’t too hard for me to do so. (Secondary COVID infections are far less deadly than primary, like all coronaviruses. This is not some magical unique virus that behaves completely opposite to human experience).
Each time he hurls insults, he chucks in some Gish Gallop nonsense – but ultimately when pressed on the specifics, he’s nowhere to be found.
What does he actually want to do? What actual strategy could we implement – which isn’t impossible? – that would meet his extraordinarily high standards?
We’re left with this, his entire strategy in its entirety:
“Full controls (you know the ones I mean) are absolutely necessary and our only hope.”
Does he mean ERADICATION? Surely not since he knows that is impossible.
Does he mean short-term ELIMINATION? Surely not, since he knows the benefits don’t last after the policy is dropped.
Does he mean short-term DELAY? Again, same problem as ELIMINATION.
Does he mean a permanent lockdown forever? Is that what he means? Just permanent complete bans on everything forever?
This is what I think he means. Lockdown not to zero, lockdown even beyond zero. Lockdown to eternity.
Lt.Fred,
You are deluded. You haven’t proved a single thing in the whole debate. You assert something and deem it proved. Hilarious.
But I am interested.
(a) How are you living your life at the moment? You have said you are vaccinated. How many shots? (Disclosure: I have had 3 shots so far. 4th booster due, permitted, about 1 July for me.)
(b) What is your age? (Disclosure, I am 67, male. Average health, no serious preconditions… yet)
(c) Do you wear a mask, if so what rating and in what situations? (Disclosure: I wear a Level 2 mask on the very, very few occasions I go anywhere.)
(d) Have you reduced your circulation in society in any way? (Disclosure: I keep myself locked-down all the time and live on deliveries except for a few absolutely necessary errands e.g. dentist for a filling. Even then such visits are timed for peak immunity window after a shot.)
(e) Have you caught COVID-19 yet, once or multiple times? (Disclosure: I have not yet but I know even with my measures I could.)
Just wondering if you walk the walk. Logically, you would be doing what you like and living your life unchanged. It will be intriguing to see what happens to you over time. Multiple infections look assured if you are taking no measures, other than the vaccine. I am just trying to gauge when you might change your tune or when alternatively you might disappear. Of course, I could disappear first. I am not that safe either despite all my measures. This virus is absolutely everywhere now, the vaccines are failing and it is highly dangerous and still evolving rapidly to escape current vaccines. Nobody is safe.
I haven’t got time to referee this one, so I’m closing comments.