Coronavirus Sars-CoV-2/Covid-19 Megathread

[Sheilbh]

God this wave has been awful in CEE - Czech Republic has now suffered more deaths per capita, almost entirely in this second wave, than France:
https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus-data-explorer?zoomToSelection=true&country=AUT~BEL~FRA~DEU~HUN~NLD~POL~ESP~GBR~ITA~CZE&region=World&deathsMetric=true&interval=total&hideControls=true&perCapita=true&smoothing=0&pickerMetric=location&pickerSort=asc

It looks like something similar may be happening with Hungary - although Tamas will know more about how reliable these figures are.

It's really sad because so many of these countries had really successfully squashed and avoided the first wave. I wonder if it was fatigue after those lockdown measures plus a bit of complacency given their success then that led to taking this wave less seriously until it was too late?

[Tamas]

I have read of 4 iconic Hungarian rock/pop musicians in their 70s (in one case 81) dying the last 3 weeks or so. Only the 81 years old was admitted of having died of covid but it's a bit coincidental to have all of them dropping like flies. Some other well-known musicians/vips are also in hospital/intensive care, or were and now have been released.

Seem to be wreaking an absolute havoc among people who refused/couldn't isolate.

One of the more recent data oddities I have seen highlighted is that number of positive cases have been rising steadily rapidly the last several weeks (even if with highly suspect numbers as per my previous post on this), BUT the number of covid cases in ICU care have stagnated for 2-3 weeks now. So people were trying to figure out is it because:

a) Almost none of the new cases end up in ICU
b) If somebody is admitted straight to ICU with covid symptoms they might not get officially tested and don't appear in the records (with conditions in the hospitals a lot of people wait until they are literally on the brink of dying before seeking medical help)
c) ICU capacity has topped and so the numbers shown are the max available

It's anybody's guess because the government and the health authority sure as hell won't tell you.

[Legbiter]

I just saw it's been approved by the FDA today and from everything I read it's going to be approved by the EMA on 29 December. But it just feels like surely if there's a time to use emergency procedures - it's during a global pandemic. And given the EU is doing some centralised vaccination procurement it doesn't feel like it would necessarily stand in the way of making sure all EU states got a fair amount. Or am I missing something?

Yeah if the UK managed to vaccinate all the oldsters in care homes by the end of December for instance that would seriously dent the potential CFR in late January/early February. Here we're planning to vaccinate around 90% of the total population over a 2-3 day period for round 1, once we get the vaccines. We're substantially oversubscribed for 3 different types. If they arrive in dribs and drabs, we'll start with health care workers and the elderly and go down the list from there.

[Grey Fox]

Looking at the Quebec priority list, I expect I'll get a chance at getting vaccinated in August. Maybe earlier in late July if I get a chance at the same time than my asthmatic SO.

[Sheilbh]

Yeah if the UK managed to vaccinate all the oldsters in care homes by the end of December for instance that would seriously dent the potential CFR in late January/early February. Here we're planning to vaccinate around 90% of the total population over a 2-3 day period for round 1, once we get the vaccines. We're substantially oversubscribed for 3 different types. If they arrive in dribs and drabs, we'll start with health care workers and the elderly and go down the list from there.

My understanding is if the UK vaccination program works, given the number of doses and the priority list that should cover about 40% of the demographics of fatalities so far by the end of January. By the end of the priority list it will cover 99% after which me and garbon get a jab

That's why I find right now so infuriating and people being put at risk. It feels like as pointless as those deaths in WW1 in the five hours between the armistice being signed and the 11th hour of the 11th day. If we can just get to the end of January a huge swathe of at risk people will be safe. If we can get to spring (based on my understanding of when new doses become available) basically the at risk people will be safe.

[Tamas]

I agree, the news of start of vaccinations should have been used to say "right, people, we are almost set, so for the final two months you are not allowed to huddle up inside".

Instead we got: "You can have Christmas, just make sure to carefully plan family visits around this complicated set of extra rules"

[Sheilbh]

Yes. Although that is the argument I tried to make to my mum and she said having seen me only a couple of times in a year that she would drive up and kidnap me if I didn't make some plans to go for Christmas

We compromised on me going into isolation for 10 days (so starting yesterday), then she will drive to me and pick me up, and we stay for Christmas with no outside visits/socialising and I then leave on the 27th.

[Tamas]

Yes. Although that is the argument I tried to make to my mum and she said having seen me only a couple of times in a year that she would drive up and kidnap me if I didn't make some plans to go for Christmas

We compromised on me going into isolation for 10 days (so starting yesterday), then she will drive to me and pick me up, and we stay for Christmas with no outside visits/socialising and I then leave on the 27th.

I think that's a pretty safe plan.

[alfred russel]

It's really sad because so many of these countries had really successfully squashed and avoided the first wave. I wonder if it was fatigue after those lockdown measures plus a bit of complacency given their success then that led to taking this wave less seriously until it was too late?

It was both 100% predictable and predicted. Not only were the rules too strict to be sustainable, the more effective a jurisdiction was at preventing spread over the spring and summer the less immunity is present in the population resulting in faster spread.

[Sheilbh]

It was both 100% predictable and predicted. Not only were the rules too strict to be sustainable, the more effective a jurisdiction was at preventing spread over the spring and summer the less immunity is present in the population resulting in faster spread.

Yeah I thought at the time some places were going in too hard too soon and you needed a number of cases for full lockdown or it wouldn't be sustainable.

I'm not so sure about the sort of herd immunity side because in Europe the worst his country in spring was Belgium which has also been one of the worst hit this time - and from what I've read there's no indications the spread was at all big enough even in places like London or Madrid to materially affect the spread in this wave.

[alfred russel]

I'm not so sure about the sort of herd immunity side because in Europe the worst his country in spring was Belgium which has also been one of the worst hit this time - and from what I've read there's no indications the spread was at all big enough even in places like London or Madrid to materially affect the spread in this wave.

That doesn't seem accurate. For countries around 1,000 deaths per million, if we assume 0.5% mortality, that implies approximately 20% of the population has been infected.

A 20% reduction in the rate of transmission is a significant reduction. It could even be higher because it seems reasonable the people infected in earlier waves would belong to groups that are infected/infect at higher rates than the general population.

Obviously you can overcome a 20% advantage, as some locations may be demonstrating right now.

[Sheilbh]

Yeah - I mean I think from the big antibody surveys the highest levels of infection were in London and Madrid with about 15-20% (except for a small part of Northern Italy which had reached like 40%). Which should have some effect but from what I've read it's not showing up in London at least.

I suppose one point could be if it's in a different section of the population. So the ONS survey data at the minute shows the rise is really happening in under 16s through schools which is fine because they're relatively low risk (except for the fact they'll probably see the grandparents for Christmas) but that might represent a really different population than the first time when it got into hospitals and care homes etc? I think there's some stat in the UK that in the first wave they estimate that something like 40% of the transmission took place in hospitals.

[crazy canuck]

First recipients are being inoculated today in BC. 

[alfred russel]

Yeah - I mean I think from the big antibody surveys the highest levels of infection were in London and Madrid with about 15-20% (except for a small part of Northern Italy which had reached like 40%). Which should have some effect but from what I've read it's not showing up in London at least.

I don't see why it would be concluded not to be "showing up"....you don't have that many documented cases of reinfections. Whatever caused a place like Belgium to have a bad outbreak in the first half of the year is probably still in place--same population and same cities, modes of transport, etc. If they have 20% of their population with some level of immunity there is certainly no guarantee that would keep them from a bad second outbreak, even if it would be worse without that level of immunity.

[Sheilbh]

I don't see why it would be concluded not to be "showing up"....you don't have that many documented cases of reinfections. Whatever caused a place like Belgium to have a bad outbreak in the first half of the year is probably still in place--same population and same cities, modes of transport, etc. If they have 20% of their population with some level of immunity there is certainly no guarantee that would keep them from a bad second outbreak, even if it would be worse without that level of immunity.

As I say this is just from what I've read but there's no observable evidence that the rate of infection in the first wave is having an effect on the second wave. It's not that there's reinfections but the population immunity isn't showing up in transmission rates yet. This is different than what some epidemiologists like Sunetra Gupta were predicting would happen.