Coronavirus 4 - Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

[Pies4shaw]

Also, I suppose I should add that you're committing that timing fallacy, again - I don't know why, because I have explained it several times to you. The deaths from the last 800,000 (at least) or so cases are not yet known.

[Pies4shaw]

A correction and update, as today's reported deaths increase - for the first time, Australia records 600 COVID deaths in a week.

In context, the highest weekly "grade 5 adverse event" count in 2020 was 155 and the highest weekly "grade 5 adverse event" count in 2021 was 107.

So, as of now, the Omicron case explosion has resulted in almost 4 times as many deaths in the last week as occurred in any week before the start of 2022 and nearly 6 times as many deaths as occurred in any week during the Delta event.

This is not, of course, some statistical quirk. Counting back from today, the consecutive weekly totals of deaths have been 616 (week commencing 24 January 2022), 435 (week commencing 17 January 2022), 301 (week commencing 10 January 2022) and 108 (week commencing 3 January 2022). Thus, every week for the last 4 weeks, the number of deaths has been both higher than during any 7-day period in 2021 and progressively worse, week on week.

Unsurprisingly then, half of all Australian COVID deaths have been reported since 11 November 2021.

Looking to assess the danger presented by the Omicron variant when compared to prior versions of COVID, it is notable that almost all (all but 7 out of 196) COVID deaths in Queensland have happened since 6 January. None died there during the Delta event (the 7th death was recorded in April 2021). In Tasmania, most of the deaths occurred during the early stages of COVID (the outbreak was seeded by infected people returning to Tasmania from NSW during that cruise ship debacle) - 13 of 18 deaths in Tasmania occured by the end of April 2020 and the other 5 deaths have all occurred in the last 10 days. South Australia had 4 deaths by 12 April 2020, then none until 27 December 2021. South Australia has now had a total of 112 deaths - 90% of them have occured since 7 January 2022.

Omicron is less likely to kill any particular person who is infected but vastly more transmissible than all prior versions of the disease. Consequently, it is doing way more damage, nationwide, than any prior version of COVID, even though almost everyone is now fully-vaccinated and many of the adult population have now had their "booster". Our governments have started reporting an even more transmissible Omicron variant. Looked at in the recent context - that is not good news.

[stui magpie]

You are determined, I'll give you that.

Hospitalisations and ICU cases remain the best predictor of future deaths. Despite the massive (recorded) case numbers which are likely the tip of the iceberg, hospitalisations and ICU cases have plateaued short of predictions and seem to be receding. Daily deaths is following a similar trajectory.

Cases and deaths continue to follow the familar demographics. Vast majority of cases are under 40, vast majority of deaths are over 70.

While we don't know details, some assumptions are safe to make.

The elderly, the unvaccinated, and those with pre-existing medical conditions are the most prone to dying of Covid, very similar to the flu.

By all means preach caution. Wearing masks when appropriate and social distancing, but with the exception of WA (with their buggered health system) we have agreement among the states on the way forward.

Take sensible precautions but get on with life. Covid is rapidly becoming Endemic, don't live in fear.

[Pies4shaw]

Who’s living in fear? Not me, that’s for sure. I just like to temper the triumphalist “it’s all over with” nonsense with what’s actually happening. It remains that cases, serious illness and deaths are all at record levels. Deaths in Australia are presently running at a rate 6 times higher than in any given week in 2021.

This variant will pass - but they’ve already detected a new one in NSW, QLD and Victoria. And it won’t be the last. A sensible, precautionary public health message wouldn’t be a bad thing. It could take the place of the Coatsworth preselection-driven lunacy message of “It’s just a bad cold”.

As for being determined, it was always obvious from the European experience of Omicron that what’s been happening in Australia was going to happen. Yet, it seems to have taken an unusual degree of persuasion to get people to focus on what the statistics show, rather than on what they’d like the statistics to show. All of the key numbers are up. We can debate sensibly what it means that all of the key numbers are up. What we can’t do is have a useful conversation about whether they’re actually down. Because that’s been beyond silly.

[stui magpie]

What's beyond silly is clinging to a doomsday mentality and claiming that numbers going down, don't exist.

There's a whole bunch of variables that need to be taken into account when comparing experiences. Australia in summer to Europe in Winter (and vice versa) isn't a great one.

You've been consistently incorrect with your doom and gloom predictions, but by all means keep thinking you're correct.

[What'sinaname]

For most people, this is just a bad cold.

[stui magpie]

Most fully vaccinated people wouldn't even know they had it if they didn't test positive, they'd just think they were having a couple of off days at worst.

[Pies4shaw]

For most people, this is just a bad cold.

That's true - but it is strikingly irrelevant to any public policy question. Like almost everything you post on this subject.

We've known for at least one a half years that COVID doesn't kill many people (the CDCs pegged the unvaccinated 0.25% death rate very early) and that it isn't serious in most instances. The public health policy concern had always been that it would get out of control and run rampant. It has now got out of control and run rampant. New case numbers have settled reasonably quickly - because most sane people in the large Australian population centres started behaving like they were in lockdown, despite the governments pretending it wasn't necessary - but will ramp again when people start moving and interacting in large numbers without significant precautions.

You don't have to care how many people die from COVID if you prefer that people die in significant numbers because it suits your convenience - all you need to do is say up-front and directly that you don't care how many people die of COVID. Just don't keep pretending that what's happening now is somehow OK according to the rules by which we were formerly governed during the pandemic, when it plainly is not. If the aim of our public health policy in Australia on COVID was to avoid having mass infection, choked hospitals and significant numbers of deaths, the period since last June has been a hopeless failure. It's been exponentially worse since Omicron ramped. Selling snakeoil that Omicron is a "good turn of events" is, frankly, both dangerous and shameful, in equal measure.

[Dave The Man]

They say the Person who Died has Tested Positive to Covid but did not say IF they died of Covid or Something Else

[eddiesmith]

They say the Person who Died has Tested Positive to Covid but did not say IF they died of Covid or Something Else

Which is where the difference with comparisons to the flu is, the flu deaths are people who died of the flu, there is potentially another 3-4,000 who die due to complications from the flu such as pneumonia but aren't counted as flu deaths.

[eddiesmith]

For most people, this is just a bad cold.

Yep, I played cricket with someone who tested positive less than 2 weeks ago, wouldn't even know it!

I don't know if NSW always provide the information but the only day I listened, everyone who died under 65 had serious underlying health issues

[eddiesmith]

For most people, this is just a bad cold.

That's true - but it is strikingly irrelevant to any public policy question. Like almost everything you post on this subject.
New case numbers have settled reasonably quickly - because most sane people in the large Australian population centres started behaving like they were in lockdown, despite the governments pretending it wasn't necessary - but will ramp again when people start moving and interacting in large numbers without significant precautions.

Yep, those full houses at the soccer and tennis last few days are clear signs of people thinking they are still in lockdown...

[Pies4shaw]

Have you not seen those reports about people movement in Melbourne that show it dropped to almost lockdown levels when the case numbers erupted earlier in January?

[Pies4shaw]

For most people, this is just a bad cold.

Yep, I played cricket with someone who tested positive less than 2 weeks ago, wouldn't even know it!

I don't know if NSW always provide the information but the only day I listened, everyone who died under 65 had serious underlying health issues

They’re not really dead then, I guess?

[eddiesmith]

For most people, this is just a bad cold.

Yep, I played cricket with someone who tested positive less than 2 weeks ago, wouldn't even know it!

I don't know if NSW always provide the information but the only day I listened, everyone who died under 65 had serious underlying health issues

They’re not really dead then, I guess?

4,000 Victorians die every single month. Covid is 1900 in 24 months?

But maybe it's just me, I've had very close relatives with comorbidities die in recent years and I haven't thought, oh if only we locked up all of Victoria so that virus never got in to the nursing home...

It's unfortunate but it's a fact of life, a lot of the Covid deaths in 2020 were people already in palliative care. People with severe health issues can take precautions to protect themselves, I won't visit my grandmother as she won't get vaccinated. But is it any reason for healthy people to stay home? No.