Coronavirus Sars-CoV-2/Covid-19 Megathread

[Richard Hakluyt]

It seems likely to me that there will be a short period, perhaps only a couple of weeks, when a ridiculous proportion of the population will be ill or isolating.....perhps as many as 25%. That being the case there will be irritating side-effects, stock shortages, bottlenecks....it is unfortunate that we have a government with no moral authority at such a time.

[Threviel]

TLDR: Sweden's response to Covid is not the murder suicide pact it has been portrayed as.

what about the proportion of people stuck with long covid?

I would guess that Sweden is fairly low-key there too, but I believe it will be years until all he data on that can be gathered.

[crazy canuck]

TLDR: Sweden's response to Covid is not the murder suicide pact it has been portrayed as.

what about the proportion of people stuck with long covid?

I would guess that Sweden is fairly low-key there too, but I believe it will be years until all he data on that can be gathered.

Yeah, it is going to take a while to analyze the data - the people who would normally do that are all busy trying to model the latest variant so could be some time before we get a scientific consensus on the issue.

[The Larch]

I'm in a massive outdoors queue right now to get a PCR test done in the only public spot available in my city to be able to travel over Christmas to go see my brother.  Thanks Austria for changing your requirements for entry in the last minute.

[Tamas]

Starting our Poland-Hungary holiday trip tomorrow. I must admit I am a bit anxious, especially with my wife have not been boostered since her 2nd Pfizer in August. It feels like the world is at the start of the "now absolutely everyone will catch it soon" phase and I am not looking forward to the possibility of either of us going through it in Eastern Europe, especially if it happens to any of us in the wrong-language country.

On the other hand, I am not sure about Poland but in case of Hungary I think we might arrive at the end of the post-Delta pre-Omicron lull. What little statistics they do release seem to clearly show the end of their last peak, but officially there's been only a handful (2, maybe 3?) Omicron cases reported in the country, so it most certainly was not the Omicron peak.

[Tamas]

BTW mayor of my home town and his wife are both in hospital in Covid (in Hungary). Neither of them are in the ICU, as I understand, though. The mayor is roughly my age, he is double vaxxed I believe, but it's been 8 months since his second shot allegedly. The wife (mid-30s ) is told to be an anti-vaxxer. If I understood the rumour right, the mayor has the worse metrics of the two but seem to be suffering less than the wife. I wonder if that's because the wife is still in earlier stages but already in worse shape because of the lack of immunity. Way too anecdotal to make any sense of it.

[Sheilbh]

I feel like this is good - and I'm glad Trump's desire to take credit has outweighed the rest:
https://twitter.com/NoSpinNews/status/1472983120601403400?s=20

Two things I find striking though. There are still people (people who have paid for tickets to a Trump/O'Reilly event) who boo Trump for taking the booster Also I find it weird how muted the crowd is about the vaccines but they cheer for therapeutics. I always slightly wondered if, given the polarisation in the US, it would have been good if Pfizer got approved before the election so that could be "Trump vaccine" and Moderna could be the "Biden vaccine". But it may just be polarising by Republicans/Trump supporters being really enthusiastic for therapeutics/drugs?

Edit:

It seems likely to me that there will be a short period, perhaps only a couple of weeks, when a ridiculous proportion of the population will be ill or isolating.....perhps as many as 25%. That being the case there will be irritating side-effects, stock shortages, bottlenecks....it is unfortunate that we have a government with no moral authority at such a time.

Yeah. Although I think this call is very difficult we've somehow managed with the worst of all worlds.

Also super early but worth keeping an eye on London case figures because it's early days and weekend numbers etc, but there's signs the rate of growth is falling quite rapidly. Which is what happened in Gauteng - it grew incredibly fast and then it stopped growing just as quickly. That's the thing I've not seen anyone have an explanation for because there's no reason why, say increased mildness, would cause that. It's very weird and there's very early (and not to be trusted) signs that something similar might be happening in London.

[Sheilbh]

This feels more definitively positive from a paper today:

Prof Francois Balloux
@BallouxFrancois
Great work by @GuptaR_lab and colleagues on Omicron suggesting:
- High escape from NAbs
- Reduced spike cleavage efficiency
- Lower infectivity of lung cells
- Similar/higher infectivity of epithelia
- Impaired fusogenicity / ability to form syncytia
1/


What does it mean in lay terms: Omicron's ability to (in part) bypass its host's immune recognition likely came at a cost in terms of replication ability and pathogenicity.
2/
Basically, this is the 'very lucky scenario' I mused about in this thread I wrote last month ...
/3
This may all make sense, but then how does the Omicron variant still manage to spread so effectively? The answer to that probably resides in its shorter intergenerational interval (i.e. less time between successive transmissions by the same lineage).
4/

Basically this as well as the bronchus rather than lung point and the not fusing to damage cells all feels like it sits together and explains why it re-infects so well but seems to be milder. It looks possible that it replicates less well in host cells which causes less damage, but where it is replicated is in the bronchus and the upper airways which are not very well protected by vaccines (and why there's always been an argument beyond ease for a nasal spray vaccine).

And I wonder if that also help explains that sudden rise and then sudden deceleration in Gauteng - see the latest R number estimates for South Africa:


Also big study (of delta, unfortunately so it probably doesn't matter any more) from UK public health authorities which shows boosters are around 99% effective against hospitalisation.

[mongers]

Also I find it weird how muted the crowd is about the vaccines but they cheer for therapeutics. I always slightly wondered if, given the polarisation in the US, it would have been good if Pfizer got approved before the election so that could be "Trump vaccine" and Moderna could be the "Biden vaccine". But it may just be polarising by Republicans/Trump supporters being really enthusiastic for therapeutics/drugs?

I think in part it comes down to a primitive 'belief' in potions and other magical cures vs big government imposing big dangerous universal medicine on the population.

Far better to seek out secret knowledge, find a sage/witch-doctor and buy the special magic potion (possible snake oil) instead.

That's why lots of these people will see on youtube that a aubergine paste will cure skin cancers and believe or that you shouldn't wash off the toothpaste from you teeth as that means the calcium can get into them. 

[Sheilbh]

Maybe it's weird because they are cheering pills that are likely to be approved very soon in the US by some of the exact same big pharma companies that made the vaccines.

So it's not like they're excited about herbal remedies or something, they're excited about the Pfizer pill and the Merck pill.

It seems really weird to me that they've somehow decided that's the Republican option and vaccines are liberal.

[Grey Fox]

Maybe it's weird because they are cheering pills that are likely to be approved very soon in the US by some of the exact same big pharma companies that made the vaccines.

So it's not like they're excited about herbal remedies or something, they're excited about the Pfizer pill and the Merck pill.

It seems really weird to me that they've somehow decided that's the Republican option and vaccines are liberal.

Treatments are reactive and vaccines are proactive. Republican mindset is always reactive.

[Richard Hakluyt]

Maybe it's weird because they are cheering pills that are likely to be approved very soon in the US by some of the exact same big pharma companies that made the vaccines.

So it's not like they're excited about herbal remedies or something, they're excited about the Pfizer pill and the Merck pill.

It seems really weird to me that they've somehow decided that's the Republican option and vaccines are liberal.

Treatments are reactive and vaccines are proactive. Republican mindset is always reactive.

They should be in favour of abortion then 

[Sheilbh]

I've mentioned before the very rapid decline of omicron in Gauteng - it's now across South Africa. I don't understand this and it seems really weird to me. There wasn't a lockdown in South Africa. Omicron arrived, grew incredibly quickly and became dominant and, while it's still early days, now appears to be declining just as quickly:


I'm sure there's some epidemiological explanation of a virus it's just striking how different it looks compared to previous waves - both the incredible growth but then seeming to peak very quickly

There are early signs that something similar is starting to happen in London (it's far too early to say) where it emerged so quickly, became the dominant strain in 8 days. Since then the growth rates declined very quickly and it now looks like case numbers are starting to fall.

[Tamas]

Isn't it possible that simply everyone in regular contact with other people have already caught it? We have had vaccination and several waves already, so there has to be a reduction of number of severe cases from the fresh wave, and even in a country with excellent testing like the UK you are bound to miss a lot of cases.

[Richard Hakluyt]

Yes, there may have been a massive number of asymptomatic cases..........which would be great news if so