To Vaccinate or Not---The Rat Flu Odyssey Continues

[wooley12]

I recall telling my children at times "Wishing doesn't make it true."

Like I wish 3,022 didn't die from Covid that someone else infected them with by breathing on them yesterday.

edit to say the 3,022 is the one day tally from yesterday.

[bennymac]

That was quick. And predictable.

[wooley12]

^^See my post

[altasnob]

New study from meduni innsbruck. Omnicron antibodies dont protect against other variations. There goes the herdimmumity.
Now it is not over again.

I don't trust anything coming out of Austria ever since they made being unvaccinated a crime. The Nazis want this thing to last forever just so the police can beat on people.

[wooley12]

Take your hands out of your pockets

[altasnob]

Good stuff from Dr. Murray, director of IHME, which both the White House and Washington State have used to set COVID policy. He's one of the it's all over docs. Here's some exerts:

Q. What do you mean when you say that the end of the pandemic is near?

COVID-19 will be with us for many years to come as a recurrent disease, intensifying seasonally during the fall and winter months. As people’s immunity declines and new variants emerge, we’re also likely to see resurgences of COVID-19. But the current period of extraordinary social and economic disruption is likely coming to an end as COVID becomes a challenge that health systems manage, rather than a crisis that consumes society as a whole. I see reasons for hope.

Should you wear a mask?

for the first time in our models, we’re finding that the population effect of enhanced mask-wearing is quite small, about a 10% reduction in cumulative infection from omicron from now and forward. It’s still there, but in the grand scheme of things, it’s relatively small.

What about this asymptomatic issue we've been discussing?

for delta . . . about 40% symptomatic [meaning 60% are asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic], it appears the numbers are much higher for omicron in the category of asymptomatic or very mildly symptomatic [40% to 85%].

Why are you so cocky that this shit is in the past?

Basically, the group in the world who is at the greatest risk of a bad outcome, are the unvaccinated and the never infected. They’re what we call immunologically naive, meaning they’ve never seen the virus. . . .According to our modeling, there’s less than 5% of the world at the end of this omicron wave that are immunologically naive. So we don’t expect the outcomes to be the same, we expect them to be much better. Add on to that that we have a new tool in the COVID management strategy for these highly effective antivirals. As long as those antivirals can be scaled up and be made available widely for those most at-risk, we may still be able in a future wave to see greatly improved outcomes than what we have today. I think it’s that combination of more population-level immunity and access to antivirals that governments will likely not be putting mandates in place in terms of behavior going forward.

So by the end of February, when the Omicron wave is mostly done on Earth, only 5% of Earth will be immunologically naive, meaning unvaccinated and never infected. We're currently at about 62% of Earth with at least one dose. That shows you just how many people have already been infected.

https://www.healthdata.org/covid/vid...d-19-model-run

[bodywhomper]

Fuck me if I’m wrong, but I don’t see where the prediction of 5% naive would occur by the end of February in the blog posts. It’s interesting to skim the blog posts from October and earlier.

Also, ihme consistently moves their goal posts. I understand how modeling works, conceptually, but their modeled predictions have been wrong SO many times during this pandemic.

[MagnificentUnicorn]

I don't trust anything coming out of Austria ever since they made being unvaccinated a crime. The Nazis want this thing to last forever just so the police can beat on people.

You’re an idiot. This post highlights that


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[mcphee]

You’re an idiot. This post highlights that


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He’s doing a contrarianism, it’s just a prank bro


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[skaredshtles]

You’re an idiot. This post highlights that

Wait... so the Nazi's over here don't want ANY sort of mitigation for this disease... but the Nazi's over there want everything locked down for people not on-board with ending this disease?

Fuckin' Nazi's around the world should get their shit together, or people aren't going to take them seriously.

[altasnob]

Fuck me if I’m wrong, but I don’t see where the prediction of 5% naive would occur by the end of February in the blog posts.

You're right, he doesn't give a specific end of the worldwide Omicron wave. But cases are dropping in most countries. It appears the worldwide peak is on January 26, and the trend is now down, nearly across the board. In previous posts, he said "we expect that by March, Omicron will infect 60% of the world’s population." So end of February is a pretty good guesstimate for when things will be settling down worldwide.

The wild card is the COVID-0 countries, like China and New Zealand, and when exactly are they going to come to the realization they can't stay COVID zero. For China, he says, "we project that lockdowns will not eventually work in China, we have modeled out a major Omicron wave which will be peaking perhaps later in February and into March." A major Omicron wave in China, who's vaccines don't appear very effective against Omicron, will not be pretty (but who knows what the truth is because the bastards will lie).

New Zealand appears to be trying to ease their way through their own Omicron wave rather than follow Australia's let it rip plan.

You're also right about IHME's models being wrong. But they were always predicting massive deaths that never materialized, so I think it is telling he is saying the opposite will occur right now.

The big take away for me was just how many asymptomatic cases there are with Omicron compared to Delta and previous variants (40 to 85%). Crazy. He adds things like Seattle Childrens Hospital seeing a 10% positive rate for every patient they admitted, the vast majority of which were not being admitted for COVID (1 in 10 people just walking around with COVID not even knowing it).

[riser4]

Wait... so the Nazi's over here don't want ANY sort of mitigation for this disease... but the Nazi's over there want everything locked down for people not on-board with ending this disease?

Fuckin' Nazi's around the world should get their shit together, or people aren't going to take them seriously.

Heh.

[Adolf Allerbush]

You're right, he doesn't give a specific end of the worldwide Omicron wave. But cases are dropping in most countries. It appears the worldwide peak is on January 26, and the trend is now down, nearly across the board. In previous posts, he said "we expect that by March, Omicron will infect 60% of the world’s population." So end of February is a pretty good guesstimate for when things will be settling down worldwide, erring on the side of caution.

The wild card is the COVID-0 countries, like China and New Zealand, and when exactly are they going to come to the realization they can't stay COVID zero. For China, he says, "we project that lockdowns will not eventually work in China, we have modeled out a major Omicron wave which will be peaking perhaps later in February and into March." A major Omicron wave in China, who's vaccines don't appear very effective against Omicron, will not be pretty (but who knows what the truth is because the bastards will lie).

New Zealand appears to be trying to ease their way through their own Omicron wave rather than follow Australia's let it rip plan.

You're also right about IHME's models being wrong. But they were always predicting massive deaths that never materialized, so I think it is telling he is saying the opposite will occur right now.

The big take away for me was just how many asymptomatic cases there are with Omicron compared to Delta and previous variants (40 to 85%). Crazy. He adds things like Seattle Childrens Hospital seeing a 10% positive rate for every patient they admitted, the vast majority of which were not being admitted for COVID (1 in 10 people just walking around with COVID not even knowing it).

Thoughts:

1. If the Austria study is correct we should expect another wave? maybe reemergence of Delta even?
2. Asymptomatic cases and the non-reported self identified cases seem to be a big source of issues with any predictive modeling. This has been an issue since the start of the pandemic IMO...knowing who has had it and where.

The stuff on testing for COVID presence in wastewater seems to have some relevance to figuring out where cases are spiking.

[altasnob]

1. If the Austria study is correct we should expect another wave? maybe reemergence of Delta even?

The Austria study said if you are unvaccinated and get omicron you don't have good antibodies to the other variants. It found good antibodies for vaccination plus omicron and good antibodies with pre-omicron infection, plus omicron infection. So vaccine helps, as does pre-omicron infection plus omicron.

Regarding Delta, Dr. Murray says, "neutralizing antibodies are giving us the indication that omicron is providing good protection from delta." So I wouldn't worry about Delta coming back. And as Dr. Murry said, the current vaccine and antivirals will help us with future variants. Time to party.

[Adolf Allerbush]

The Austria study said if you are unvaccinated and get omicron you don't have good antibodies to the other variants. It found good antibodies for vaccination plus omicron and good antibodies with pre-omicron infection. So vaccine helps, as does pre-omicron infection.

Regarding Delta, Dr. Murry says, "neutralizing antibodies are giving us the indication that omicron is providing good protection from delta." So I wouldn't worry about Delta coming back. And as Dr. Murry said, the current vaccine and antivirals will help us with future variants. Time to party.

I hope Murray is right, but the Austria study is showing otherwise, and as others have pointed out, Murray has been wrong several times before.

[altasnob]

Look at this way, you're vaccinated and you probably got Omicron already (or at least 60% of all the vaccinated in the US got Omicron). So you're fine.

Did you see how Dr. Murray was discussing the Denmark data that suggest vaccinated are actually more likely to be infected with Omicron than unvaccinated? Someone posted the same phenomenon happening in the UK as well. I guess that's good news since you need vaccine plus Omicron to be golden, per the Nazi, er I mean Austrian study.

It’s interesting that in Denmark already, according to the seroprevalence reports, the rate of omicron in the vaccinated is actually somewhat higher than the unvaccinated. It’s not probably statistically significant, or in other words they’re about the same. It may also have something to do with who is out getting exposed and who is going to higher-risk settings.

[Adolf Allerbush]

Look at this way, you're vaccinated and you probably got Omicron already (or at least 60% of all the vaccinated in the US got Omicron). So you're fine.

Did you see how Dr. Murray was discussing the Denmark data that suggest vaccinated are actually more likely to be infected with Omicron than unvaccinated? Someone posted the same phenomenon happening in the UK as well. I guess that's good news since you need vaccine plus Omicron to be golden, per the Nazi, er I mean Austrian study.

That's interesting for sure. I'm hoping Murray is right. Is he a Nazi?

[altasnob]

That's interesting for sure. I'm hoping Murray is right. Is he a Nazi?

No, no, no. Murray is from New Zealand and Minnesota. Nazis are from Austria and Pueblo, Colorado.

[old goat]

"It's tough to make predictions, especially about the future."

- Yogi Berra

Yep

When I was a resident I had an attending who would read an article describing a new treatment or operation and he had to try it. Sometimes things would work out, sometimes not. Which led me to the maxim--"Beware the person with one paper". (Actually, it was beware the "man" with one paper, but times have changed.) Medical knowledge depends on the accumulation of new data over time, paper by paper, study by study, case by case. It requires the synthesis of contradictory data, constant reassessment, and a willingness to change one's mind. Predicting the course of the pandemic based on the Austrian paper (a preprint btw) is a fool's errand.

[Todd Zander]

Did you see how Dr. Murray was discussing the Denmark data that suggest vaccinated are actually more likely to be infected with Omicron than unvaccinated? Someone posted the same phenomenon happening in the UK as well. I guess that's good news since you need vaccine plus Omicron to be golden, per the Nazi, er I mean Austrian study.

8 out of ten people agree with this part of your statement. Source : 80% vaccination rate.

Great job at math kiddo, 8 IS bigger than 5.

[altasnob]

8 out of ten people agree with this part of your statement. Source : 80% vaccination rate.

Great job at math kiddo, 8 IS bigger than 5.

I think you are reading the doctor's comment wrong. If we take 10 unvaccinated people in Denmark, and 10 vaccinated, and test their blood for Omicron, you will find that more of the vaccinated have Omicron in their blood than the unvaccinated. Anyway, it's a statistically insignificant difference between the two, and we all know that being vaccinated does not prevent Omicron infection. Although I am not sure I buy the doctor's possible explanation that vaccinated people are taking more risks out there. Seems the unvaccinated are wearing that badge loud and proud.

[wooley12]

Although I agree with your party hearty post vax mindset skewing the numbers but I still have to keep you on ignore.

[SumJongGuy]

Whoever is vaccinated, fully vaccinated and hasn't felt at least a little more comfortable out and about than they did before getting vaccinated raise your hand.

I remember gong to a concerts, movies, dining out at restaurants, etc all post 2nd dose.. I did NONE of that during the pre vax days...

Now, unvaxed folks claimed the wanted to do those things and were pissants about being told to wear the masks.. but once we were all allowed to do them.. who really stepped out more than they were before vax was available?? I'm gonna say vaxxed people did..

[oldnew_guy]

Oh god, are we going to rehash the numerator and denominator thing again?

[Adolf Allerbush]

If I remember correctly Wastewater serology said we were at ~35% infected in December 2020. Seems like shitty science.

Yeah, that use of it is idiotic...but wastewater analysis to figure out where the disease is prevalent seems useful since we can't test everyone.

I think you are reading the doctor's comment wrong. If we take 10 unvaccinated people in Denmark, and 10 vaccinated, and test their blood for Omicron, you will find that more of the vaccinated have Omicron in their blood than the unvaccinated. Anyway, it's a statistically insignificant difference between the two, and we all know that being vaccinated does not prevent Omicron infection. Although I am not sure I buy the doctor's possible explanation that vaccinated people are taking more risks out there. Seems the unvaccinated are wearing that badge loud and proud.

I meant to respond to this...if this ends up being the case, not just in this limited sample, and it is shown to be statistically significant, as the doc states there are a number of common sense reasons why this might be the case. Namely, people who are vaccinated in Denmark may be less inclined to take preventative measures, therefore exposing themselves to virus more often than the unvaccinated in Denmark. In the USA you're probably right...the unvaccinated are not taking precautions, so it would be great to repeat the analysis here if we could...but we can't because we don't test enough.