Round 3 of Covid vs the timeline (2022 episode)

[Canoe]

LONDON (Reuters) - Infants under 12 months of age are proportionally more likely to be hospitalised with the Omicron variant of the coronavirus than older children but they do not become particularly sick, British researchers said.
[...]
The vaccination of over-12s might explain some of the proportional fall in older children going to hospital, Semple said, but it did not explain it all. Viner said the data was very early and could change.
https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/966629

With the large number of cases, there's an increase in severe numbers as it's not working out like above for the kids in Utah... They're considering if Omicron is hitting these kids differently.

Not so mild? Hospitalizations exploding among Utah infants, children with COVID-19′s omicron strain

• nearly 140 Utah children under age 15 who have been hospitalized with COVID-19 in the past two weeks as the number of serious infections explodes, especially among infants and kids younger than 5.
• For very young children, one pediatric specialist said, the omicron variant may not be so much “milder” than previous strains of the virus. “There is reason to think that omicron acts differently in younger children,” said Dr. Andrew Pavia, a pediatric infectious diseases specialist with Primary Children’s Hospital.
• infants are now being hospitalized with COVID-19 at a higher rate per capita than any other age group in Utah except those 65 or older.

https://www.sltrib.com/news/2022/01/21/utahs-covid/

RSA also shows more Omicron admissions in the under five years. Higher than any variant.
https://www.nicd.ac.za/wp-content/uploa ... y-2022.pdf
.

Covid-19 RSA admission rates by age by variant 2022-01-18.jpg

.
.
Are these Omicron hospitalization differences between older age groups and the under fives explained by who could be vaccinated and when?

[Canoe]

From 800K on the 21st, down to 312,314 Daily New Cases for the U.S. on the 22nd.
Hasn't been that low since late December as Omicron was surging.
Why suddenly so low?
Is it really down, rounding, or is testing overwhelmed or abandoned, or just noise/anomaly?

[Canoe]

If you work (or live) in a facility where they've been improving the indoor air quality over the years, as more recommendations on CO2, filtration & conditioning have been developed, with practical costs to implement, then you're ahead of the ball. Everyone else is scrambling to catch up - if they're even trying. (Come back to work - but the big bosses are still working remotely...)
Where it wasn't, due to implementation costs, you've got things like school boards ignoring or saying the air quality recommendations for Covid-19 aren't required, and governments above them are even pushing back where some boards have publicly stated what they have or are going to monitor, and what they're upgrading to.

A friend's duties includes managing the facility their org is housed in. Around 20 years ago, the building was purpose-renovated before they moved in, and to code and somewhat beyond, thanks to donations of cash from the public and in-kind from the various suppliers, as the facility provided services to vulnerable clients from toddlers to in their twenties. He's managed to get the money and has seen that the air supply filtration and ventilation has been upgraded to Best Practices along the way, including CO2 monitoring. That's left him with limited enhancements required for Covid-19, and is even now down to exploring placement of supply & exhaust vents for micro-managing airflow within daycares, classrooms & meeting spaces to identify & eliminate dead-air pockets and optimize exhausting exhaled air.

That friend found this on CO2 levels, meters and reporting...

Business owners in Japan are advertising the fact that they monitor CO2 levels in-store (keeping levels below 1000ppm) to encourage customers to visit their stores. They've even found a way to upload real-time store CO2 levels on Google Maps!

https://twitter.com/toshiakima/status/1 ... 2934777861

Some local governments in Japan are giving CO2 meters to offices, some to stores.

Covid deaths
- 1 in 444 (1m/2252.2)
- 1 in 6822 (1m/146.58)

Japan has an older population, median age
- 40
- 46

Japan also has a higher population density
- 275 ppl/km
- 347 ppl/km

Data check:
(Three guesses which country takes measures, like wearing masks, seriously...)

• U.K.: Total Cases 230,628 /million (1 in 4), Deaths 2247 /m (1 in 445), Active 52,249 /m (5.2 % of population)
• Japan: Total Cases 15,422 /million (1 in 61), Deaths 147 /m (1 in 6,812), Active 2,122 /m (0.21 % of population)
• U.S.A.: Total Cases 214,740 /million (1 in 5), Deaths 2,660 /m (1 in 376), Active 79,368 /m (7.9 % of population)
  Population Density is from 2018
  U.S.A. is 38 ppl/km, obviously higher in cities

France's recommended CO2 rates:

• Rate < 600 ppm eating
• Rate < 800 ppm meeting
• 800 ppm < Rate < 1000, not so good
• Rate > 1000 - get out!

https://twitter.com/herodote1789/status ... 1927568387

Covid-19 is airborne!

Think of every person as a smoker.
And you have to avoid the smoke.
Ventilate!
Avoid people and crowded places!
Wear a mask!

And a full air exchange every ten minutes.

https://twitter.com/herodote1789/status ... 3352059911

[Canoe]

Just f'n ducky.
Omicron has three variants: BA.1, and now BA.2 & BA.3.

• BA.2 seen gaining ground (20 %) in some places where BA.1 was ~100 %, and it's starting to look like Omicron BA.2 might spread faster than Omicron BA.1.
  ...

(Now this is an example of why epidemiology is tricky.)

• Turns out that Omicron BA.2 has been detected as a mini surge within samples taken in Europe last July (2021).
  - As in, before "Omicron hit".
  - Significantly before it surged in South Africa and was reported to the WHO.
  - (Note that genome detection has a lot of lag in some countries. Even the U.S. has had detection lag of six months or more. The U.S. even had some variants local to the U.S., that fortunately haven't become 'Variants Of Interest'.)
• That July 2021 Omicron BA.2 surge in Europe was quickly run over by Delta. BA.2 down to insignificant or undetected. Nada. Gone.
• Since then, in pretty much in all regions, Delta has been thoroughly run over by a huge Omicron BA.1 spike, with meaningful numbers that started in December 2021.
  - It looked like Omicron BA.1 was ~100 % of new cases in most places.
• With more genome results completed, it become known that BA.2 had started showing up again in the fall of 2021 in some regions, with some interesting numbers (to ~20 %) starting in mid December to early January.
  - At least part of that Omicron spike was Omicron BA.2.
• With even more genome results completed, it's now known that BA.2 is making meaningful inroads over BA.1.
  - Some BA.2 "hit" regions in Europe are showing BA.2 exponential growth, with BA.2 at ~26 % to ~40 % of the detected genomes.
  - Strongly suggesting that BA.2 is indeed even more contagious than the super contagious BA.1.

What is reported above is based on incomplete data. As more genome results are completed, the epidemiologists et al will get us a better picture of what took place.

But it looks like: BA.2 beat by Delta, Delta beat by BA.1, now BA.1 getting beat by BA.2...
wtf
Is this a pandemic or square dancing meets tv-beat-down-wrestling?

[Canoe]

While the Omicron surge of new cases may or may not be rounding, but there's still those accumulated and accumulting cases to deal with...

In South L.A., busy hospital deals with more widespread but less severe COVID infections

Arriving at the emergency department of Martin Luther King Jr. Community Hospital, people are treated in field tents, hallways, cubicles, former administrative offices and ambulance bays. Many wait in the open air with coughs and sore throats to get tested for the coronavirus. Others come for all sorts of chronic diseases that perpetually curse South Los Angeles.

A year ago, MLK was arguably ground zero for hospitals besieged by a brutal COVID-19 winter surge. Today, it finds itself in a place both strange and familiar during this surge of the incredibly infectious Omicron variant: overcrowded, often frantic, but under control for an institution accustomed to dealing with the gusher-like confluence of social and medical woes.

https://www.latimes.com/california/stor ... old-rhythm

[Canoe]

Omicron BA.1 vs. BA.2

• - At least part of that Omicron spike was Omicron BA.2.
• With even more genome results completed, it's now known that BA.2 is making meaningful inroads over BA.1.
  - Some BA.2 "hit" regions in Europe are showing BA.2 exponential growth, with BA.2 at ~26 % to ~40 % of the detected genomes.
  - Strongly suggesting that BA.2 is indeed even more contagious than the super contagious BA.1.

• Omicron BA.2 has reached 50 % of New Cases in Denmark.
• Scientists in Denmark are warning Omicron BA.2 may result in as many hospitalizations as BA.1.
• As Omicron BA.1 has been rounding down, BA.2 as been going up. Omicron BA.2 over BA.1 shows a 90 % growth advantage in Denmark, and 120 % in England. Call it BA.2 has double the growth of BA.1.
  - Omicron BA.1 was 5 to 6 times faster than Delta.
  - That has Omicron BA.2 is showing as ~9 to ~13 times faster than Delta. (5 + 90 %, 6 + 120 %)
  - Still out on if BA.2 out-competing BA.1 is due to: more contagious or more immunity avoidance.
• Starting in early December, many jurisdictions stopped running Whole Genome Sequencing (WGS) for identifying Omicron and went with S-gene Target Failure (SGTF) to identify the Omicron variant.
  - An SGTF positive result is a reliable proxy for B.1.1.529 (Omicron) identification (98.9% sensitivity, 99.9% specificity, 99.5% positive predictive value, 99.7% negative predictive value).
• That's fine for BA.1. BA.2 evades SGTF.

  [edit: from early December 2021]
  The new sub-lineage (putative BA.2) does not carry the spike:69/70del deletion and will thus not be detectable by SGTF (S-gene target failure).
  https://github.com/cov-lineages/pango-d ... issues/361

• It is believed that Omicron BA.2 is evading detection by PCR tests during the early days of a BA.2 infection, resulting in more false negatives with BA.2.
  - Health Care officials (and individuals) cannot rely upon PCR tests for early detection of BA.2.
  - People with BA.2 can be moving around in the population having relied upon a negative result.
  - If you have symptoms - isolate.
• Omicron has Immune Avoidance and provides little benefit against a re-infection of Omicron. It's thought that BA.2 can re-infect anyone that has had a recent BA.1 infection (or any prior variant); that anyone infected by the BA.1 surge/spike/wall can get "Omicron" all over again.

[Canoe]

Daily New Cases numbers down significantly for Saturday & Sunday.
Global shows 3,086,370 for Saturday, 2,398,744 for Sunday. Off from numbers in the 3.7 M range.
U.S. shows: 419,397 Saturday, 282,342 Sunday. Off from recent numbers above 600K.
(U.S. Saturday had shown 312,314, but catch up data raised that.)
(Let's hope this isn't due to delayed reporting due to a weekend with heavily long-time burdened health care systems. And that further catch up data for Saturday & Sunday don't blow those lowered numbers back up to prior high values.)

Global Deaths
Globally, deaths are down from its last peak in late August 2021 and still down, they're showing an up turn. An up turn is entirely expected given the timing of the Omicron spikes around the world. There's no meaningful character evident in the 7-day average curve. Except like prior surges in death, so far it's significantly less steep than that of the first surge of deaths that started back in March of 2020, but so far no reflection of that "less severe" Omicron.

In the U.S. deaths, there appears to be some character, showing a 7-day average slope that so far is distinctly less than prior surges. Despite recent highs above the prior peak back in mid September 2021, those could be just 'noise'. But that is highly unlikely given their timing vs. the spike/wall of Omicron. We can hope that the lower slope is both actual and reflective of a lower death rate, but due to reporting requirements (and possibly exacerbated due to a slammed & sapped health care system that hit that Omicron "wall"), there is a lag in the reporting of deaths.


The U.K. New Cases numbers appears to show the U.K. has had its spike of Omicron New Cases. Active Cases also appears to have started down from a peak. But with the 3-day average of New Cases showing a reversal to an up slope, hopefully that isn't the start of an Omicron BA.2 surge.

France seems to have a bit of lessening of their Omicron surge. Could be real, could be noise, could be wishful thinking. Deaths have been increasing at a gentle slope since early December 2021, but that slope doesn't yet show the typical lagged response to match France's huge Omicron spike.

Brazil's Omicron spike appears to be solidly in the 10+ fold increase range. Active Cases still climbing and above prior all time high, with the expected Deaths starting to tick up.

Australia's numbers are showing the results of their deciding to let it run. Where a surge of Daily Deaths in 2021 had tapered down into early December, it's really (for them) surging now, to an all time high of 93 deaths per day. Daily New Cases had recently hit 150K a day, but now show under 80K a day. Active Cases charted shows sideways movement along one million cases, with some very odd muddling noise. Makes me think their numbers may be reflecting a serious limitation in testing with people unable or choosing to not get tested, both of which have been reported.
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavir ... australia/

[Canoe]

... CO2 levels, meters and reporting...

... Some local governments in Japan are giving CO2 meters to offices, some to stores.

Covid deaths
- 1 in 444 (1m/2252.2)
- 1 in 6822 (1m/146.58)

Data check:
(Three guesses which country takes measures, like wearing masks, seriously...)

• U.K.: Total Cases 230,628 /million (1 in 4), Deaths 2247 /m (1 in 445), Active 52,249 /m (5.2 % of population)
• Japan: Total Cases 15,422 /million (1 in 61), Deaths 147 /m (1 in 6,812), Active 2,122 /m (0.21 % of population)
• U.S.A.: Total Cases 214,740 /million (1 in 5), Deaths 2,660 /m (1 in 376), Active 79,368 /m (7.9 % of population)

more on Japan and Covid-19
(cherry picking from)

What Japan Got Right About Covid-19
Hitoshi Oshitani, professor of virology at Tohoku University Graduate School of Medicine in Japan.

People should avoid the three C’s, which are

• closed spaces,
• crowded places and
• close-contact settings.

The Japanese government shared this advice with the public in early March, and it became omnipresent. The message to avoid the three C’s was on the news, variety shows, social media and posters. “Three C’s” was even declared the buzzword of the year in Japan in 2020.

The three C’s taught people what to avoid. How they do that may be different, depending on individual circumstances and risk tolerance. Some people may be able to stay home. Others may remain silent on crowded trains as they commute to work to avoid spread. Some people may dine out but avoid sitting immediately across from one another. Most people are likely to continue to mask.

When it comes to the numbers of cases and deaths, Japan has fared well compared to other countries. It has had about 146 deaths per million people in the pandemic so far. The United States has had about 2,590 deaths per million.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/24/opin ... covid.html

[Canoe]

Daily New Cases numbers down significantly for Saturday & Sunday.
Global shows 3,086,370 for Saturday, 2,398,744 for Sunday. Off from numbers in the 3.7 M range.
U.S. shows: 419,397 Saturday, 282,342 Sunday. Off from recent numbers above 600K.
(U.S. Saturday had shown 312,314, but catch up data raised that.)
(Let's hope this isn't due to delayed reporting due to a weekend with heavily long-time burdened health care systems. And that further catch up data for Saturday & Sunday don't blow those lowered numbers back up to prior high values.)
...

Updates to Sunday
Global: 2,398,744 to 2,730,539 Daily New Cases (still well down from the 3.7 M range)
U.S. from 282,342 to 461,772 Daily New Cases (a lot of correction, but still well below recent numbers above 600K)

For Monday UTC/GMT
Global 2,407,902 Daily New Cases (well down from the 3.7 M range)
U.S. 465,154 Daily New Cases (well down from above 600K)(as it's not a weekend, hopefully the updates will be less)

[Canoe]

Don't know where else to post this...

Visiting the unvaccinated
Just adding you to my contacts list...
.

Just visiting....jpg

.
... for the two in one hundred lottery.

[Canoe]

Omicron BA.2 has reached 50 % of New Cases in Denmark.

• Denmark is now reporting 65 % of New Cases is Omicron BA.2.
• Omicron BA.2 BA.2 has been found in Houston, Texas, and Washington state, U.S.A..
  Now out,

  Stealth Omicron Sub-Variant BA.2 Found in Almost Half of U.S. States
  According to the virus database GISAID, which scientists can use to share sequenced COVID samples from around the world, 92 BA.2 cases had been reported from the U.S. by about 5:15 a.m. ET on Tuesday.
  The cases were reported from about 22 states, including Arizona, California, Texas and Washington.
  https://www.newsweek.com/stealth-omicro ... ta-1672589

• Deaths graph showing, as expected, Denmark's deaths are lagging and occurring with Omicron.
• Still out on if Omicron BA.2 is the same as BA.1 for infectious vs. immune avoidance, and severity.
• England: Covid New Cases had rounded over in London, South East and South West. South East & South West have reversed and are increasing again, so far with a lower slope than the start of the Omicron surge. London stopped going down. These could be due to BA.2.
• England: Covid-19 hospital admissions for ages 6-17 are up and hit new record. Same for ages 0-5.
• U.K. Omicron BA.2 is now a variant "under investigation".

p.s.
That crash with the 100 monkeys where three escaped (later recovered), the monkeys were from Africa and had landed and were on their way to a quarantine facility. One of the bystanders said she had walked through their feces, now reported ill. CDC quickly on scene. Advising those present who where near the spilled crates or monkeys to "monitor their health".
PETA is not impressed https://www.peta.org/media/news-release ... statement/

[Canoe]

Omicron has Immune Avoidance and provides little benefit against a re-infection of Omicron. It's thought that BA.2 can re-infect anyone that has had a recent BA.1 infection (or any prior variant); that anyone infected by the BA.1 surge/spike/wall can get "Omicron" all over again.

quick reinfection has occurred in Norway with BA.1 followed by BA.2.

[Canoe]

No material changes. Numbers down from peaks, remains fairly good news.

Updates to Sunday
Global: 2,398,744 to 2,730,539 Daily New Cases (still well down from the 3.7 M range)
U.S. from 282,342 to 461,772 Daily New Cases (a lot of correction, but still well below recent numbers above 600K)

Global: 2,781,087
U.S.: 461,766

For Monday UTC/GMT
Global 2,407,902 Daily New Cases (well down from the 3.7 M range)
U.S. 465,154 Daily New Cases (well down from above 600K)(as it's not a weekend, hopefully the updates will be less)

Global: 2,424,437
U.S.: 466,141

[Canoe]

Examples of Deaths/100K: Unvaccinated, Vaccinated, Boosted

Switzerland: Covid-19 weekly deaths /100,000 people, by vaccination status, all ages, Jan 8, 2022

• Unvaccinated: 11.56 (deaths 165 times greater than fully vaccinated & booster)
• Fully Vaccinated, no booster: 0.89 (13 times greater than fully vaccinated & booster)
• Fully vaccinated & booster: 0.07

United States: Covid-19 weekly deaths /100,000, by vaccination status, all ages, Dec 4, 2021

• Unvaccinated: 9.74 (deaths 97 times greater than fully vaccinated & booster)
• Fully Vaccinated, no booster: 0.71 (7 times greater than fully vaccinated & booster)
• Fully vaccinated & booster: 0.1

[Canoe]

Florida@GovRonDeSantis
Without a shred of clinical data to support its decision, the Biden Administration has revoked the emergency use authorization for lifesaving monoclonal antibody treatments.
https://twitter.com/GovRonDeSantis/stat ... 7808033796

At this time, for treatments that do not work on Omicron.

As the DeSantis administration rails against the FDA decision to limit use of monoclonal antibody treatments made by Regeneron and Eli Lilly, worth noting both companies say they agree with the feds that these drugs aren’t effective against omicron.

It does not work against the Omicron variant in lab tests, which tells that it is also not going to work in people who are infected with this variant. According to the CDC, over 99% of Covid-19 cases in the U.S. are now caused by the Omicron variant, and thus the FDA's decision to amend the Emergency Use Authorization was appropriate at this time.

Lilly and the FDA agree that it is not medically appropriate, at this time, to threat patients with mild to moderate COVID-19 with bamlanivimab and etesevimab together in the U.S. Evaluation of both pseudovirus and authentic virus confirm that they are not effective at treating the currently predominant Omicron Variant. Authorization status will change as needed, depending on the prevalence and trends of variants of concern.

https://twitter.com/ddale8/status/1486036940638019584

So who is more likely to know the effectiveness of these meds: the FDA & the companies that produce them and have tested them, or the governor of Florida who's prior decisions has caused and continues to cause the preventable deaths, Covid damaged bodies, Long Covid & the financial devastation of thousands of Floridians.

[some seeing eye]

If you are interested in US cycles

Trevor Bedford Twitter thread

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1483 ... 51936.html

[Canoe]

threadreaderapp isn't showing the graphs for me, which I find key
like here https://twitter.com/trvrb/status/1483996707276791811

I took a look at GISAID yesterday, but what I found is lumping Omicron BA.1 and BA.2 into BA.*.

[Canoe]

An interesting view of examples of Hospitalizations, ICU and Confirmed Deaths, for Israel, Germany & the U.S..
.

Covid affects I, G, U, to Jan 24 2022.jpg

.
Then their vaccinations. Israel had very early adoption. And the U.S. was close behind, but only to ~40 %, then shortly to ~50 %, with a steady slope up since then. Germany, like many, was fairly close behind.
In the chart above, with antibody levels & their effectiveness both waning, with the recent surge we see the consequences of reduced boosted rates (~= reduced effective immunization), Germany with delayed boosted and the U.S. with delayed and half the boosted, on Hospitalizations, ICU and Confirmed Deaths?
.

Covid sel vax 25 02 2022.jpg

[Canoe]

Then there's Confirmed Deaths and Excess Deaths.
Puzzled with how the U.S. is so much higher, yet had a meaningful vaccination rate (if delayed or refused by parts of the population), although recently it lags in boosted. There is:

• Israel & Canada have universal health care access.
• Germany has a two-tier system. You can pay for faster access. As in, if you haven't got the money, you'll have some delays accessing health care.
• United States... multi-teir? Special? Hodge podge? Multi-teir with no access? ________?

.

deaths &amp; excess deaths C, G, I, U to Jan 25 2022.jpg

[Canoe]

Graphs illustrating how this round of Covid19 is hitting kids.
These graphs don't shed light between earlier claims:
- significantly more children hospitalized, but for shorter times with fewer severe (noted early data), vs.
- significantly more children hospitalized and severe (also noted early data)
.

Covid19Kids E, F, S into Jan 2022.jpg

.

Covid19Kids U.S. into Jan 2022.jpg

[Canoe]

Funny how that works
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has been discouraging masking and downplaying Covid vaccines -- the best, most effective way to protect people from Covid -- and has instead suddenly started urging Floridians to use Regeneron's very expensive monoclonal antibody treatment after getting infected.
You'll be amazed to learn that the second-largest investor in Regeneraon is Citadel Investment Group - whose billionaire CEO, Ken Griffin, just happens to be Ron DeSantis's NUMBER ONE POLITICAL DONOR.

[Canoe]

Global & U.S. Daily New Cases is heading back up again.

Two days ago:
- Global 3,531,644
- U.S. 516,157
- France 501,635

Yesterday:
- Global 3,631,591
- U.S. 533,313
- France 418,008

Denmark has really been hit with its Omicron BA.1 & BA.2 surge. It's reached 260,445 cases /million population (U.S. 222,054 /m), and 1 case in every 4 people, 1 death in 1,585 (U.S. 1 case in 5, 1 death in 372). Denmark has just under a half million active cases with a populatin of 5,824,186, for 8.46 % infected (U.S. 27,856,405 Active, for 8.34 % infected).

New Cases /7day
- Global 23,497,818 /7day, prior 21,702,530 /7day, up 8 %.
- U.S. 4,295,605 /7day, 5,269,264 /7day prior to that, - 18 % (but after a few low days, Daily is heading up again.).
- Brazil up 61 %
- France up 14 %
- Germany up 60 %

Confirmed Deaths
- U.S.
-- At 898,680 Confirmed Deaths, the U.S. is poised to go above 900,000.
-- Yesterday had 3,143 with 3,003 the day before. A similar day today, and it's over.
-- 15,998 Confirmed Deaths in the last seven days. (up 18 %)
-- 13,563 Confirmed Deaths in the prior seven days before that.
-- (Plus, CDC's latest U.S. Excess Deaths is 987,456, around 10% more than COVID-19 Confirmed Deaths.)
- Global Confirmed Deaths are also up, from 52,006 /7days to 59,586 /7days, up 15 %.
- Brazil from 1,508 /7day to 2,580 /7day, up 71 %.
- France from 1,564 /7day to 1,878 /7day, up 20 %.
- Germany's deaths /7day is down 20 %.

[Canoe]

Children benefit from vaccinated parents by Indirect Protection

Vaccination with BNT162b2 reduces transmission of SARS-CoV-2 to household contacts in Israel
https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abl4292

Indirect protection of children from SARS-CoV-2 infection through parental vaccination

We studied two periods separately– an early period (January 17, 2021 - March 28, 2021, Alpha variant, two doses vs. no vaccination) and a late period (July 11, 2021 - September 30, 2021, Delta variant, booster dose vs. two-vaccine doses). We found that having a single vaccinated parent was associated with a 26.0% and 20.8% decreased risk, and having two vaccinated parents was associated with a 71.7% and 58.1% decreased risk, in the early and late periods, respectively. To conclude, parental vaccination confers substantial protection for unvaccinated children in the household.

https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abm3087

[Canoe]

On Omicron vs. Delta severity

Clinical outcomes among patients infected with Omicron (B.1.1.529) SARS-CoV-2 variant in southern California

Results
Our analyses included 52,297 cases with SGTF (Omicron) and 16,982 cases with non-SGTF (Delta [B.1.617.2]) infections, respectively. Hospital admissions occurred among 235 (0.5%) and 222 (1.3%) of cases with Omicron and Delta variant infections, respectively. Among cases first tested in outpatient settings, the adjusted hazard ratios for any subsequent hospital admission and symptomatic hospital admission associated with Omicron variant infection were 0.48 (0.36-0.64) and 0.47 (0.35-0.62), respectively. Rates of ICU admission and mortality after an outpatient positive test were 0.26 (0.10-0.73) and 0.09 (0.01-0.75) fold as high among cases with Omicron variant infection as compared to cases with Delta variant infection. Zero cases with Omicron variant infection received mechanical ventilation, as compared to 11 cases with Delta variant infections throughout the period of follow-up (two-sided p<0.001). Median duration of hospital stay was 3.4 (2.8-4.1) days shorter for hospitalized cases with Omicron variant infections as compared to hospitalized patients with Delta variant infections, reflecting a 69.6% (64.0-74.5%) reduction in hospital length of stay.

Conclusions
During a period with mixed Delta and Omicron variant circulation, SARS-CoV-2 infections with presumed Omicron variant infection were associated with substantially reduced risk of severe clinical endpoints and shorter durations of hospital stay.

[Edit: BA1. vs. BA.2? includes]
We validated the concordance of SGTF with Omicron variant identification by tabulating the number of Omicron and non-Omicron variant infections identified over this period using whole genome sequencing and viral lineage designation among cases whose tests did or did not exhibit SGTF.

https://doi.org/10.1101/2022.01.11.22269045

First long Competing Interest Statement I've seen.

Reads as, this study found:

• Omicron hospital admission rate is 48 % of Delta's
• Omicron Symptomatic hospital admission is 47 % of Delta's
• Omicron ICU admission rate is 26 % of Delta's
• Omicron mortality is 9 % of Delta's

Study doesn't attribute how much of the reduction is related to:
- waning in effect for Delta
- % vaccinated in time for Delta,
- vaccinated/boosted in time for Omicron.

While less severe, #Omicron is much more transmissible & we are seeing the unprecedented impact.

Over 1M cases in a day, 99% of counties with high transmission & strained healthcare systems.

Protect against #COVID19: get vaccinated + boosted, wear a mask & stay home if sick.

[Canoe]

South Africa, in the past six weeks has seen Covid-19 cases go down, but in that time BA.2 is 58 % of new cases and is increasing. May or may not surge.

Denmark is 65+ % BA.2.

R0:

• Wuhan had natural R0=2.7
• Delta was 5
• Omicron likely 8
• Omicron BA2 could be 12

Besides the 50+ mutations, Omicron just behaves differently:
1) Location: 70x faster replication in airways, 10x slower in lungs.
2) Symptoms: far less common loss of taste/smell and shortness of breath, more common sore throat, headaches.
3) Severity: Lower (acute) severity for adults, though long covid risk unknown.
4) Incubation: Early indications of faster incubation time than prior variants.
Seems different enough to be designated a new strain.

Claim - UNVERIFIED - COVID-19 is the #1 disease cause of death in children in the US.
The stillborn rate in pregnant women with Covid was higher than normal (about 2x more), and the rate in those getting vaccinated when pregnant was the same as normal.

[Canoe]

On Omicron vs. Delta severity
...
Reads as, this study found:

• Omicron hospital admission rate is 48 % of Delta's
• Omicron Symptomatic hospital admission is 47 % of Delta's
• Omicron ICU admission rate is 26 % of Delta's
• Omicron mortality is 9 % of Delta's

Study doesn't attribute how much of the reduction is related to:
- waning in effect for Delta
- % vaccinated in time for Delta,
- vaccinated/boosted in time for Omicron.
...

More warnings going around regarding Omicron severity. Omicron appears less severe due to fewer severe cases, due to the larger numbers of people vaccinated or boosted, so those people have less severe covid, knocking the number of severe cases down - all under the Omicron counts. Need to look at the counts and rates for vaccinated vs unvaccinated.

which leads to...

More warnings reminding people of the Base Rate Fallacy regarding vaccines.
- More severe cases are vaccinated than unvaccinated!
- True. IF enough of the population are vaccinated.

Example: New severe covid cases in Israel from Aug 21-25 2021, age 60+

• Severe: Unvaccinated:Vaccinated, six:nine.
• But, 90 % of the 60+ population was vaccinated.
• For every 10,000 adults age 60+ during that time frame:
  . 9,000 were vaccinated
  . 1,000 were unvaccinated
  . 9 severe cases per 9,000 vaccinated; 1 per 1,000; 0.1 % severe case rate
  . 6 severe cases per 1,000 unvaccinated; 1 per 166; 0.6 % severe cases rate
  . Severe Case Rate was 6x higher in the unvaccinated population.

p.s.
If no vaccinations or totally waned vaccinations (~=unvaccinated), that would have been ~60 severe cases per 10,000, instead of the 15 per 10,000 they had with 90 % vaccinated.

Similar misrepresentations occur with case rates, lumping unvaccinated & vaccinated numbers together, or showing vaccinated numbers without disclosing the unvaccinated numbers...
.

Weekly cases per 100K, Vaccinated, vs Unvaccinated.jpg

[Canoe]

Confirmed Deaths
- U.S.
-- At 898,680 Confirmed Deaths, the U.S. is poised to go above 900,000.
-- Yesterday had 3,143 with 3,003 the day before. A similar day today, and it's over.

Blew over.
U.S. Confirmed Deaths reported (so far) with 3,124 that day to 902,929, and 2,372 today to 905,661.

Various Base Rate Fallacy examples flying around twitter. Some on Severe, some on Deaths.
Here's an example of both.
https://twitter.com/NickEvershed/status ... 3554308097

[Canoe]

A paper claiming that Long Covid in children is rare and of short duration is attracting a lot of criticism.

Including

What are the circumstances that allow these types of methodological errors to go unchallenged before publication? You'd think that a system designed to weed out these types of weaknesses (i.e. peer review) would throw up more red flags.

Long COVID Part 1: This problematic paper

This paper by Borch et al is getting a lot of attention and is being cited as evidence that LongCOVID in kids is rare and of short duration. I don't think that's what it shows.
(1/23)

[edit: selected points]
- What we have here is a comparison of the prevalence of individual symptoms in children who have had COVID to the prevalence of those symptoms over the last year in children who have not had COVID but may or may not have had other illnesses during that period. I hope it is clear why this is a flawed comparison just based on this major limitation of symptom ascertainment in the control group.
- And the appropriate analysis would be to look at clusters of co-occurring symptoms, not the prevalence of individual symptoms.
- This paper is not about LongCOVID, it is about the comparative prevalence of individual symptoms that have been noted to be persistent after COVID infection.

https://twitter.com/HZiauddeen/status/1 ... 5638584322

Long COVID Part 2: The concept of syndromes

This is about a major conceptual problem in the study of LongCOVID, which is one of the important sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 infection. This conceptual problem appears to be a major obstacle in understanding & studying LongCOVID.
(1/25)

https://twitter.com/HZiauddeen/status/1 ... 2719597569

Going to say this again because it's important.
Case-control studies to determine prevalence of long COVID are completely flawed science, but are often presented as being scientifically robust.
This is not how we can define clinical syndromes or their prevalence!
(1/21)

[edit: includes]
- the completely flawed approach to determining long COVID prevalence as prevalence of any symptom in cases minus prevalence of any symptoms in control. This is absolutely incorrect, and would abolish the signal for most syndromes.

https://twitter.com/dgurdasani1/status/ ... 0508694529

[Canoe]

30 January 2020 - two years ago today, WHO declared a Public Health Emergency of International Concern to alert the world to the dangers of #COVID19.
A Public Health Emergency of International Concern is WHO’ s highest level of alert under international law.

https://twitter.com/WHO/status/1487780031728431114

(Worldmeters) COVID-19, Global, so far...
Total Cases: 373,666,199
Deaths: 5,677,638
Active Cases: 72,951,664
Daily New Cases, yesterday: 2,658,117 (a weekend, data still catching up)
Daily New Cases, two days ago: 3,479,527

U.S., so far...
Total Cases: 75,481,122 (over 22 % of population)
Confirmed Deaths: 906,861
Recovered: 45,882,520
Resolved Cases: 46,789,381
Death Rate: 1.938 %
Active Cases: 28,691,741 (8.6 % of population)
Can't meaningfully apply the U.S. gross Death Rate to the current Active Cases, as the Death Rate: for the unvaccinated is significantly higher, for the vaccinated is lower, and significantly lower for vaccinated & boosted.

At this time, for the chart of U.S. Daily New Cases, its charted values, 3-day average and 7-day average, all support the U.S. having rounded over its peak. Over 28 million Active Cases still to be resolved (Recovered or Death, with Recovered including COVID-19 damage and Long Covid).
Global might be just after its peak. Too early to call.

[Canoe]

Many jurisdictions around the world, and the world numbers, showed reduced Daily New Cases over the weekend. In the past, this has occurred on weekends and numbers later caught up. We'll see what happens this time.
Global showed 2,795,754 for Saturday, then 2,176,866 for Sunday. Would be a continuation of rounding.
The U.S. showed 192,028 for Saturday, then 96,954 for Sunday. Would be a great improvement if those hold anywhere near those.
Deaths are up in a fair number of places, but that's expected and lags the infection surge.

Weekly Trends, 7-days data, are more interesting and less subject to noise like variable weekend reporting. Compare the most recent 7-days with the prior 7-days.
Globally, Daily New Cases for the 7-days shows down 6 %, supporting rounding.
The U.S. is down significantly, - 38 %.

For the top 20 countries in Total Cases, 7-days new cases show meaningful or even significant changes.
"Up": Brazil is up 26 %, Germany is up 46 %, Russia is up 106 %, Turkey is up 18 %, Japan is up 73 %, Netherlands is up 34 %, Portugal 16 %, Poland 63 %, Denmark up 18 %.
"Lowered": U.S. -38 %, France -6 %, India -19 %, Italy -18 %, Spain -17 %, Argentina - 38 %, Israel -13 %, Australia -34 %, Belgium -2 %, Peru -18 %.
The next 10 countries also show a mix if up and down, again some significantly.

21 of the top 30 in Europe show an increase.
Europe as a total shows +9 %, to 10,526,623 in the latest 7-days.
North America shows -36 % to 3,524,499, Asia +2 % to 4,698,584. South America -5 % to 2,565,067. Africa -11 % to 238,601. Oceania -33 % to 320,609.
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavir ... ekly_table