lol Ray you're precious.

I'm picturing rays senile brain picturing him breathing heavily on her face every night before he goes to **** a hooker so they can get over this virus together.

Something that kinda worries me is the fact we have had 1-2k deaths in the US per day the last couple of weeks (obv some days under 1k from Google search with graph of # of deaths). You would think death #s would be way down since people can be vaccinated now (or atleast the people that want to be). It’s going to be really frustrating if numbers creep up again and the government has to shut stuff down (I know super unlikely) or take other measures. The fact we are having 1-2k people dieing in the US from Covid even though people are vaccinated is really worrisome. Think it’s more a sign that people are acting way too lax in regards to wearing masks / hanging out with people in big group settings etc.


We really should be getting close to the end of this due to vaccines but aren’t bc people aren’t getting vaccinated (I know people are still getting it yada yada but still everyone that can should get vaccinated).

I see on tv today some big music festival in Nashville with a huge crowd + no masks. From NY where I live, I see people posting vids on IG of packed bars for NYE celebrations. Not sure what is going on but I think things should be a little stricter. Even my gym- no enforcement of an indoor mask mandate. I know everyone is sick of wearing a mask but how can the state govt enforce a mask mandate and it not be followed by businesses with indoor activities?

Per a UK study published in the Lancet, Delta has twice the hospitalization rate of the ancestral variant, so if Omicron has a 80% lower hospitalization rate than Delta how did you arrive at Omicron being more severe than the original strain?

Per the South African study, the duration of hospitalization stay for Omicron is half that of Delta.

You state that South Africa has a large unknown prior infection rate and that prior immunity prevents severe disease, and also that they have a younger population - all implying that the severity stats in South Africa may not apply so favorably here in the USA. Yet in the USA, 98.5% of citizens 65+ have had at least one COVID shot. So why would the stats be worse in the USA? The higher-risk age group are heavily vaccinated and the younger group in the USA who are not would not be as affected by dint of their youth.

As for the 6th grade math, perhaps you can show me an equation that a simple-minded person like myself would understand that would explain why the hospitals will be overrun here in the USA but not in South Africa or UK, based on all the stats provided above.

You cant make that comparison because Omicron is impacting a community that has numerous waves of infection + vaccination, where as original strain was present in a community with zero immunity.

I agree, yet Omicron has spread throughout the entire world, with 20 countries currently reporting their highest infection rates ever yet there's not a single country or locale that has seen a large jump in severe illness, and esp not anywhere close to the ratio of Delta infections. So this is not just one data point vs another.

If we account for the usual few week lag between infection and progression to serious illness we're approaching the stage where we'll be able to definitively say that the pandemic is presently over and is presently in an endemic phase, where hopefully it will stay.

Eh it might be in an endemic phase, but there is no fundamental intrinsic endgame to Omicron, in that whatever range of attributes you attach to it, the possibility to mutate to something worse still exists.

The "mildness" of Omicron is fluke, not a result of linear progression.

That is why I included "presently" in the endemic categorization. There's no guarantee a future mutation wont return us back to a pandemic. But we've been rather fortunate in this regard with other viruses such as influenza, having only two moderate pandemics following the severe one in 1918.

It's quite possible the math will work out better once trying to adjust for factors like length of hospitalization, length of case rate peak, etc., but that's by no means clear yet and the blanket "it's 50-80% less dangerous!" is meaningless on its own given case counts.

The UK currently has more hospitalizations than Delta and case counts are still rising.

Hospitals and other infrastructure are already a problem in the U.S.: https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/01/healt...day/index.html

If we're "at the endemic stage" we're gonna have a bad time for the next few decades, with people constantly sick for 3-5 days and government/businesses unable to stay staffed. (We're not "endemic" yet of course.)

Why is it meaningless in that context?

The current number of UK hospitalizations is 1/4 the Delta peak and 1/2 the admission rate peak of Delta (source), even though the current number of cases is over 3x the Delta peak (source).

COVID hospitalizations in the USA have been a rolling problem for quite a while because of Delta (source), which according to the CDC still makes up 41% of COVID positives (source).

Omicron has already peaked in South Africa - the outbreak looks to have lasted about 4-5 weeks (source). Based on a rate of new high-fitness variants occurring once every 8 months this is what endemic looks like - people getting sick approximately every year.

Delta is July onwards, not the big one in January 2021.

Don't know what the dictionary definition of "endemic" vs. "pandemic" is, but as far as "an acceptable equilibrium for the rest of humanity's time here" goes, I'm pretty sure healthcare workers miserable and quitting in droves, elective surgeries delayed, hospitals being too full, critical infrastructure shutting down due to illness, and 1/10th of people you encounter silently carrying a highly contagious illness that has a 10% chance of giving you symptoms that last > 2 months is not quite it yet.

We may well be at an acceptable "endemic" stage after this wave (variant burns itself out, everyone has immunity to serious illness, most people have antibodies to infection for a few months), but we are not there right now.

not my prediction. and idk how great uni of washington institute for health is... but 50k would be about half the deaths we had last january

this quote was from an article about omicron is raging out of control, so they'd probably try to find numbers on the high side


remembering back to last jan, we had no vaccine, and it was a very scary time. i was basically just hiding alone in my apartment day after day.

...and now you are not?

****er!

Prediction: At least 10 United States Senators come down with Covid this month. If this happens this can lead to some interesting Votes including filibuster reform depending on which party has more positive cases.

I should say 10 more since Senator Portman reported being covid positive today.

prediction:

in usa the crest of the wave will be in this coming week

Cases or Deaths peak?


Personal note: I personally know way too many people that have passed away from Covid since the start of 2022. It's been crazy in the area I live. 2020 was my uncle's passing well, 3 of them 2021 a random person here and there. Mostly friends Mother's and Father's 2022 Neighbors, people in my pool league, Friends brothers and sister, Friend's parents, Peeps I would drink with from time to time and ages trending between 40-60 I will note. All unvaxxed!

Thanks Obama.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-59948920

Baby brain: Omicron is 70% milder, nothing to worry about

Big brain: You have to consider it from a societal standpoint, 5x-10x the cases while 70% milder is still much worse overall

Galaxy brain: Actually this matters for the individual too, 5x greater chance of catching it (which is low if you're not taking precautions) times 70% milder on average is still worse on average

Vince McMahon Brain: It will be gone in a couple/few weeks after high point.

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.

Source: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1...045v1.full.pdf

Calculations from above data:
62% reduction in hospitalization admission
69.6% reduction in hospitalization duration
74% reduction in ICU admission
100% reduction in mechanical ventilation
91% reduction in mortality

On a hospitalization-load benchmark I agree with you. However if we use mortality as our benchmark, a 5x increase of Omicron cases vs Delta cases results in a 50% decrease in mortality from Omicron vs Delta. A 10x increase of Omicron cases vs Delta cases results a 0% change in mortality from Omicron vs Delta.

Going further, if we account for the reduction in both hospital admissions and hospitalization duration then even the hospital-load difference between Omicron and Delta is rather small even with a 10x increase in cases. Let's take the following sample infection numbers and assume for Delta a 1% hospitalization rate and 5 day hospital stay duration - the actual real-world % and duration for Delta doesn't matter since all the calculations for Omicron are scaled relative to Delta:

Delta:
100,000 Cases
1,000 Hospitalizations (1% of cases)
5 day average stay per hospitalization
Total hospitalization days: 5,000

Omicron:
1,000,000 Cases (10x delta)
3,800 Hospitalizations (1% Delta rate * 62% reduction in Hospitalization rate vs Delta)
1.52 average stay per hospitalization (Delta duration * 69.6% reduction in Hospitalization duration vs Delta)
Total hospitalization days: 5,776

So a 10x increase in Omicron cases vs Delta results in only a 15% increase in total hospitalization days vs Delta.

got this one right. i wish crypto was this easy