outbreak! (ebola, sars, coronavirus, etc)

there was a lot of concern over the winter that ICU availability in california was 0%, but it wasn't obvious if that was a problem in practice at the time, or if it was just reporting artifacts (lots of places had plenty of availability according to the county but non according to the state, etc.)

it's now looking like a bunch of people in fact died because of lack of hospital capacity

In the two months before LA's massive COVID surge, 12% of COVID patients admitted to hospitals in L.A. County died. Between Nov. 3 and Jan. 20, that percentage had nearly doubled to 23%.

the latest from @ronlin and me https://t.co/5GhpHjTTvT

— Soumya (@skarlamangla) February 18, 2021

Good on Macron. (probably last time I type that!)

XP to Albert - deaths have pretty consistently lagged cases by a few weeks. It looks to me like San Francisco’s deaths are in fact now well past peak and dropping following case declines.

https://abc7news.com/feature/health/bay-area-covid-19-data-cases-deaths-vaccines-by-county/9891245/

...I'm having trouble finding any SF specific #s in your link (caveat: my browsers are all pretty locked down unless they're my own projects.)

Dr. Wachter who I referenced above is on a taskforce advising SF's city govt on guidelines/restrictions, not the Bay Area (which includes, yet is obviously a completely different animal than then the city of SF). Thanks though.

https://www.latimes.com/projects/california-coronavirus-cases-tracking-outbreak/san-francisco-county/

(which is where my chart clip came from)

ah sorry

well fwiw since you posted it the death rate is more clearly down a bit, and it defies logic that the case rate would fall and the death rate wouldn't follow.

but any claims about the death rate in SF county are going to be in the eye of the beholder because it's a very small community that regularly has 0 deaths in a day and you're dealing with small number statistics so the chart is a mess, even if you take the 7 day average.

and if you're not comfortable extrapolating from falling cases to falling deaths you can see ICU hospitalization falling very clearly too (down almost 50% from peack, although not falling as quickly as cases, which is normal). i guess that more than anything is probably why wachter seems less concerned about the unclear trajectory of the death rate.

Extremely good news

JUST IN: Pfizer's Covid vaccine stopped 89.4% of transmission in Israel, the first real-world sign that immunization will curb the spread of coronavirus https://t.co/8dswCcFo65 pic.twitter.com/yXRwe2i0SQ

— Bloomberg (@business) February 21, 2021

Give me more of this!

I just felt a jolt of happiness

Needed this news

fuckin' A

Good news apart from the fact that I'll probably get the shitty Union Jack British vaccine instead.

Think yourself lucky you're not getting one knocked up in his kitchen by Matt Hancock's five-a-side buddy.

WHO slams rich states for hogging vaccines

The World Health Organization on Monday blasted wealthy countries for not only hogging Covid vaccines but in doing so, hindering the pathway for poorer nations to get them too.

Global justice...next time

This is good and necessary].

Here’s my best attempt at summarizing what we know:

The Moderna and Pfizer vaccines — the only two approved in the U.S. — are among the best vaccines ever created, with effectiveness rates of about 95 percent after two doses. That’s on par with the vaccines for chickenpox and measles. And a vaccine doesn’t even need to be so effective to reduce cases sharply and crush a pandemic.

If anything, the 95 percent number understates the effectiveness, because it counts anyone who came down with a mild case of Covid-19 as a failure. But turning Covid into a typical flu — as the vaccines evidently did for most of the remaining 5 percent — is actually a success. Of the 32,000 people who received the Moderna or Pfizer vaccine in a research trial, do you want to guess how many contracted a severe Covid case? One.

Although no rigorous study has yet analyzed whether vaccinated people can spread the virus, it would be surprising if they did. “If there is an example of a vaccine in widespread clinical use that has this selective effect — prevents disease but not infection — I can’t think of one!” Dr. Paul Sax of Harvard has written in The New England Journal of Medicine. (And, no, exclamation points are not common in medical journals.) On Twitter, Dr. Monica Gandhi of the University of California, San Francisco, argued: “Please be assured that YOU ARE SAFE after vaccine from what matters — disease and spreading.”

The risks for vaccinated people are still not zero, because almost nothing in the real world is zero risk. A tiny percentage of people may have allergic reactions. And I’ll be eager to see what the studies on post-vaccination spread eventually show. But the evidence so far suggests that the vaccines are akin to a cure.

Offit told me we should be greeting them with the same enthusiasm that greeted the polio vaccine: “It should be this rallying cry.”

Except the polio vaccine patent rights were disclaimed by Jonas Salk for humanitarian purposes

sure, but $ is not the limiting factor in getting everyone vaccinated right now. i don't think people were celebrating his enlightened approach to intellectual property, they were celebrating not getting polio. same applies.

if the vaccine were owned by the federal government or just generally open for use, i daresay a lot of the issues we're running into regarding distribution would evaporate.

this winter storm slowing the pace of vaccinations in the US is very unfortunate (though those in Texas without water, that probably isn't the first thing on their mind atm).

re: lack of vaccine enthusiasm, I think a part of the issue is that people don't read cautionary news properly. when a healthcare professional says you having two shots of the vaccine doesn't mean you should go out clubbing again immediately or stop masking, they mean "we haven't determined yet if this actually stops or reduces transmission, and until then, to be on the safe side, we should continue as previously". the general public hears "this is a useless vaccine, because you can't merely resume your normal activities right after you get it". There was a meme circulating broadly saying exactly that a few weeks ago.

likewise, the moment news broke that it is possible that vaccines could be partially or fully neutralized by some or all of the variants, friends of mine began braying loudly that the vaccine didn't work against *any* variants...even the ones we now know it does work against with about the same success rate. any corrections or clarifications issued later are useless, the public often goes by what they heard first.

Even though they shouldn't have to, it really does mean folks like the CDC, WHO, and other public speakers have to strongly caveat what they're saying - "this is just a precaution, it doesn't mean the vaccine doesn't work, but we want to err on the side of caution until we have stronger data regarding its effect on transmissibility".

if the vaccine were owned by the federal government or just generally open for use, i daresay a lot of the issues we're running into regarding distribution would evaporate.

Fauci sounded confident yesterday that the storm delays wouldn't be trouble after a few days.

I’m assuming you mean distribution inside the US there. It’s takes four months to make a batch of mRNA vaccine. No supply chain problems will ever evaporate given that lead time. We’re dependent on decisions made months ago.

I'm wondering if the flip side of the storm delays is that it kept lots of people stuck inside and slowed down transmission

true

Fun fact: the covid crisis has produced over 1200 new words in German over the past year. Personal favourites are coronamüde (tired of covid) & Impfneid (envy of those who have been vaccinated).

— Liz Hicks (@LizHcks) February 21, 2021

Impfneid is the name of my nu metal band

ride the impfneid

Impfneid to say goodbye and I choke, try to walk away and I stumble

Incredible what Chile is achieving in their vaccination rollout.

Within the last three weeks Chile overtook all EU countries.
Now they are catching up to the US.

[all our @OurWorldInData data on all countries https://t.co/7lOyDamxxx] pic.twitter.com/Bh8xZTu28v

— Max Roser (@MaxCRoser) February 22, 2021

Just re-upping this since there’s a new strange doubling down on one side of the “schools” debate. Here we see that moving from safe schools (hybrid/distanced) to 100% in-person has not worked well. Schools can be safe if you try. Here’s the opposite of try https://t.co/nlK358haQq

— Eli Perencevich, MD MS🧼 😷 (@eliowa) February 23, 2021

That's an insanely misleading tweet. The order didn't even go into effect until February 15.

so you're saying ... it's going to go up more?

If you want to show that schools increase the spread, you would have to (1) compare children in school to children not in school and (2) compare numbers of children positive before school to after school. This is really basic shit. You'd also have to look at the level of precautions taken. And ideally you'd want to look at other districts that have gone hybrid. Oh wait, we already have tons of those!

My district has been hybrid since October. We haven't seen massive numbers of child cases and there are no confirmed examples of spread in school (one possible). No clusters in school either. We don't have particularly large spaces either -- the district was actually due to for expansion when COVID hit because of overcrowding. It's ridiculous to just say, without context "X children got COVID, therefore school is dangerous"

*have gone full in-person, not have gone hybrid

i think it's a fair criticism that tweet involves some sleight of hand.

but if cases are already not low (i.e. those numbers) and then you open schools to in person instruction without precautions (which is what they're doing in iowa to own the libs) then what do you think is going to happen? it doesn't require a double blind analysis with control groups to answer this question btw. and i'm not saying most schools should not be open in some form.

if cases are already not low (i.e. those numbers) and then you open schools to in person instruction without precautions (which is what they're doing in iowa to own the libs) then what do you think is going to happen?

Doing it without a mask mandate is very dumb. However, are you assuming all kids are currently being held in individual plastic bubbles? Because what's actually happening is they are being exposed via friends and relatives and at daycare centers and activities. At least in school you have a controlled environment. I wouldn't assume you're going to see massive spikes just because more kids go to school.

“daycare centers and activities” are currently very much not happening in the uk fwiw

However, are you assuming all kids are currently being held in individual plastic bubbles? Because what's actually happening is they are being exposed via friends and relatives and at daycare centers and activities.

A modest proposal: every teacher in America should be vaccinated as a priority and schools should make that easy by having the ability to commandeer x-amount of vaccine, then offer cash incentivization with federal-sourced bonuses and anyone who can't/won't has to support hybrid learning.
Get your teachers both jabs and wait two weeks and put everybody who can be back in class with mandatory masks. Presto, schools are open no later than April.
I do not understand why this is not happening. Or rather I do understand why (unions, lack of infrastructure, no one's job to do it, lack of trust in the system and the science) but find it nuts.

Not sure how daycares are relevant here. Are you saying they are following different procedures and school age kids are getting it from younger siblings in daycare?
― 𝔠𝔞𝔢𝔨 (caek), Tuesday, February 23, 2021 3:25 PM (thirty minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

School aged kids get sent to childcare centers because their parents have to work. I know families who do this. It's not only the normal daycare aged kids.

and those are allowed to be open?? wtf!

doesn’t that defeat the point? it’s okay as long as they’re not learning any curriculum??

yeah i guess nurses' and grocery store workers' kids should just stay home by themselves

typically they do remote school from them

are schools in the us not open for children of key workers?

I don't know of any school where a distinction is made in schools for kids based on their parents' jobs.

Sorry, didn't mean that to be snarky at all! But no, as far as I know, schools don't make distinctions like that, which is why child care during COVID is an even bigger mess.