Mostly Apolitical Thread for Discussing/Venting our Rational/Irrational COVID-19 Fears and Experiences in 2020

I'd say it's the Delta variant.

Yeah, my sister (UK, in her '40s, preggers) is pretty frustrated, because first they wouldn't give the vaccine to pregnant women, and now that she finally got the first jab she has to wait that extra bit for the second. But she's at least relieved she'll be fully vaxxed well before her due date.

apparently with Pfizer at least, it's only 33% effective against Delta variant after one dose, 88% after two. so that does seem to be the culprit.

The UK situation is certainly delta variant but a different dose strategy and/or more use of mRNA vaccines would have helped.

The US might (probably will tbh) see the same thing. Most people who got vaccinated here got a more effective vaccine with less delay, but fewer people are vaccinated and we’re just doing it and being legends wrt masks, reopening a etc.

Vaccine numbers for the us are wrong here (see thread) but delta is extremely here.

The delta (B.1.617.2) variant is clearly outcompeting alpha (B.1.1.7) in the US, d/t both enhanced transmissibility and immune evasion, on its way to becoming dominant
Our 2-dose vaccines provide powerful protection
But 42% no vaccination; 52% 1-dosehttps://t.co/vBFxb0SgaQ pic.twitter.com/JqMOs8kikX

— Eric Topol (@EricTopol) June 9, 2021

if it's 48% no vaccination, then "52% one dose" doesn't seem right?

or does he mean 52% of those who have been vaccinated have only gotten 1 dose?

I think I saw that Chicago is down to less than 100 cases a day, the lowest since the start of the pandemic. Fingers crossed.

this was his follow up, fwiw

That should be 48% Americans without any vaccination (not 42%)
Latest @CDCgov datahttps://t.co/xqLwtfAwQn pic.twitter.com/qepoTA87PF

— Eric Topol (@EricTopol) June 9, 2021

It's kind of creepy and predicable that even vaccination reveals a near 50/50 divide.

At least I can take some solace in my City being 70% fully vaccinated (85% with at least 1 dose) as of June 1st. One of the ways living in a liberal bubble helps, I suppose.

surprised nobody has devised a vaccine of pure COVID and people haven't defiantly infected themselves.

The US case numbers look like they've stopped their rapid decline and that feels like bad news -- I have truly been believing that the level of vsccination was such that even in the less vaxxed states we were just looking at questions about speed of decline. i.e. I thought we had a lot of cushion away from the tipping point. Hope that's true.

have they really? I think we are still looking at speed of decline.

The 7 day average for new cases definitely seems to have hit a sort of point where it just fluctuates between 14,000 and 15,000.

Yes that's what's bugging me.

Reporting on Memorial Day weekend stopped, and several states (like uh mine) have stopped daily reporting.

it may be plateauing or seeing a temporary rise, but really it's only gone back up in the last couple days after going steadily downward since mid April, so pretty hard to make any call on it at this point.

Maybe I'm a little unclear about how the reporting works, but if states have stopped daily reporting and the numbers are holding steady, isn't that kind of worse news? I mean, the cases are holding steady even without some states reporting their new cases, would that imply even more cases?

Well while we're irrationally venting, just saying that steady improvement followed by plateau would be exactly what you'd expect to see if the level of vaccine-induced immunity were plenty high enough to handle OG COVID but not enough to prevent resurgence of the more transmissible delta-variant, which is now at 6% of US infections and is only going to go up.

But you're right, the plateau is pretty short-duration so far and could easily have to do with reporting hiccups so who knows. Just keep encouraging and easing vaccination is all I'm saying.

True and, I mean, compared to anywhere we've been since March 2020, even 14,000 cases per day plateau is a marked improvement.

Memorial Day fucked the stats. Something like 5,000 cases reported that day as several states didn't report, and there were already several states who report much less/not at all on weekends, so the 7-day average dipped unnaturally low.

Likewise, one could surmise testing availability was much less on Memorial Day and that people weren't spending their holiday getting tested, so numbers stayed lower than normal for another day or so before they returned to normal.

Those artificially low days are now no longer in the 7 day average, so the average "jumped", but it's like the average was artificially low to begin with. I actually predicted that'd happen itt before Memorial Day!

The two week decreases in cases rose from like 35% to like 46%, which was a definite clue - case average rapidly went from like 21,000 to 17,000 over a matter of a few days which isn't normal.

I'd wager the numbers are closer to "correct" now this week (sans FL), but last week's were so low it makes for a poor comparison. Too soon by far to indicate any plateau. I'd give it until like next Monday to get a more accurate read.

Media mostly had done a good job of acknowledging this, but there's a stupid panhandle paper that reported an alarming 137% spike in FL cases as a headline, indicated the decline was over, and inexplicably in the next sentence acknowledged that week to week comparisons weren't accurate because of Memorial Day

Was just browsing Twitter and saw a post about Jeff Garlin on ESPN radio today, getting a little worked up about MLB players that are refusing vaccination. Probably should have expected it, but I'd say 90% of the replies were rabidly anti vaccination. It's sad on so many levels, not least because the type of person to respond to a tweet about sports is exactly the person most likely to be filling the seats in these stadiums now that capacity limits are being removed.

It's depressing as fuck, not just for COVID, but to think that this will be what we go through for every other newly developed vaccine moving forward.

by 2071, there will be 70 people left in the world.

Also jfc at how many of these "vaCCINATiON IS A peRsoNAl CHOice, YOu can'T foRce me" people are also rabidly fucking pro-life.

50% of most developed countries with a growing fascist undercurrent can have their politics simply boiled down to "don't tell ME what to fuckin' do"

Also get the fuck out of here with these "well, if you're vaccinated you have nothing to worry about so don't tell me what to do". Except, fucking no, it's not that easy.

And I realize I'm not posting anything new or particularly insightful here, but this is just really getting under my skin today when coupled with the slowing vax numbers.

Starting to really feel lately like the human race doesn't make it another hundred years as a viable species. Largely because a sizable % of the population so desperately yearns for that result.

no it's because we will be ruled by Aquaman

'ruled by a Q man' I believe u mean

Lololol

a sizable % of the population so desperately yearns for that result

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMKSwcZNpd8

Texas appears to be one of the main culprits in the (probably unnatural) plateau/"increase" in cases.

Texas has had data anomalies on back to back days, reporting over 13,000 new cases on Wednesday/Thursday (their usual 7-day average had been 1,500). Our World in Data usually handles these anomalies by spreading the backlogged cases over several days in their data which causes their 7-day average to be less affected by severe data anomalies (but on the flipside, it means they alter past data after the fact, so previous 7-day averages sometimes change after they're published, which...isn't great).

NYT on the other hand just uses the data as reported and labels it a data anomaly. so yesterday, it appeared there was a severe spike up to 22,000 new cases, and the 7-day average went up, but they labeled both days a data anomaly for Texas. Our World in Data, on the other hand, shows the 7-day average continuing to decline, and only reported 14,000-ish cases.

that plus Florida only releasing data once a week is making data hella difficult to analyze atm. I suspect Texas probably released a glut of Memorial Day-ish cases.

Some people ITT really desperate to find bad news

Was just browsing Twitter and saw a post about Jeff Garlin on ESPN radio today, getting a little worked up about MLB players that are refusing vaccination. Probably should have expected it, but I'd say 90% of the replies were rabidly anti vaccination. It's sad on so many levels, not least because the type of person to respond to a tweet about sports is exactly the person most likely to be filling the seats in these stadiums now that capacity limits are being removed.

It's depressing as fuck, not just for COVID, but to think that this will be what we go through for every other newly developed vaccine moving forward.

― a superficial sheeb of intelligence (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Wednesday, June 9, 2021 3:47 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

what makes me extra infuriated are people abroad suffering and dying and how 2021 will be worse in sum than 2020 and just the sheer gall, selfishness, plain boneheadedness in vaccine refusal, it boggles my mind. our reputation is completely deserved

Some people ITT really desperate to find bad news

― longtime caller, first time listener (man alive), Thursday, June 10, 2021 10:15 AM bookmarkflaglink

great contribution

if that was at me, then i really don't know what thread you've been reading, cos I've been captain optimist for months

otm, it's so disheartening global.

I don't see folks looking for bad news, I see most people itt being cautiously optimistic but rightfully angry about how many damn refuseniks populate our country.

After 5 (acute) years of stressing myself out over their bullshit I'm pretty tired of giving them any of my energy or attention.

Sure, I get that impetus without a doubt. It's just harder to let the guard down when you still have someone unvaccinated in your household, so you do take the fluctuations a little more seriously and get a little more irate about the dumb holdouts.

Some people ITT really desperate to find bad news

― longtime caller, first time listener (man alive), Thursday, June 10, 2021 10:15 AM bookmarkflaglink

you misunderstand me. i think it's good that cases are growing exponentially in the UK.

Fewer people at the pub!

i think the issue is vaccination isn't going that quickly for younger people and the variants going around. i got my first jab in canada - which had seemed a bit of a vaccine laggard - before most of my friends got theirs in the uk.

Biden now says 500 million doses of Pfizer are getting donated to struggling countries.

Some people ITT really desperate to find bad news

illustration from the CDC's website of how much 'backlog' data is still impacting the numbers: https://i.ibb.co/bHz234H/6-11-2021-8-10-16-AM.jpg

I don't believe the CDC includes historic cases in their average, so you'll see it's somewhat not impacted, but the New York Times and John Hopkins does.

second jab yesterday, ears ringing like a bastard.

second jab yesterday, ears ringing like a bastard.

Tried to eat oatmeal this morning and, yet again, damn spoon went immediately to my forehead.

On the plus side, I don't misplace my keys as often as I used to.