Wizards Board COVID-19 Thread

[Kanyewest]

Florida Department of Health confirms Dr. Raul Pino put on leave for encouraging Orange County Department of Health employees to get vaccinated https://www.wmfe.org/pino-put-on-leave-for-encouraging-orange-county-department-of-health-employees-to-get-vaccinated/195298

[dckingsfan]

Conclusions and Relevance In this systematic review and meta-analysis, significantly more AEs were reported in vaccine groups compared with placebo groups, but the rates of reported AEs in the placebo arms were still substantial. Public vaccination programs should consider these high rates of AEs in placebo arms.

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2788172?resultClick=3

[Kanyewest]

Alabama tops 45% COVID positivity rate, among highest in nation. In some of the rural counties the rate is nearly 60%.

https://www.al.com/news/2022/01/alabama-tops-45-covid-positivity-rate-among-highest-in-nation.html

Alabama also has one of the lowest vaccination rates in the United States.

https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/public-health/states-ranked-by-percentage-of-population-vaccinated-march-15.html

Currently they have 6% of ICU beds remaining.

[nate33]

Alabama tops 45% COVID positivity rate, among highest in nation. In some of the rural counties the rate is nearly 60%.

https://www.al.com/news/2022/01/alabama-tops-45-covid-positivity-rate-among-highest-in-nation.html?utm_source=reddit.com

Alabama also has one of the lowest vaccination rates in the United States.

https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/public-health/states-ranked-by-percentage-of-population-vaccinated-march-15.html

Positivity rate is an utterly useless metric to compare different states because they test under entirely different circumstances. Here is the Johns Hopkins tracker on the matter. It's all over the place with no recognizable pattern.
https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/testing/tracker/positivity-comparison

Positivity rate is only useful within a jurisdiction once you've established a baseline on how test positivity correlates to infection rate within that jurisdiction.

[Kanyewest]

Alabama tops 45% COVID positivity rate, among highest in nation. In some of the rural counties the rate is nearly 60%.

https://www.al.com/news/2022/01/alabama-tops-45-covid-positivity-rate-among-highest-in-nation.html?utm_source=reddit.com

Alabama also has one of the lowest vaccination rates in the United States.

https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/public-health/states-ranked-by-percentage-of-population-vaccinated-march-15.html

Positivity rate is an utterly useless metric to compare different states because they test under entirely different circumstances. Here is the Johns Hopkins tracker on the matter. It's all over the place with no recognizable pattern.
https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/testing/tracker/positivity-comparison

Positivity rate is only useful within a jurisdiction once you've established a baseline on how test positivity correlates to infection rate within that jurisdiction.

See the last part of my edited post- 6% of ICU beds remaining in the state.

Also Alabama is currently 3rd per capita in deaths in the United States.

[Kanyewest]

Now what has happened is this most recent surge has occurred on top of what was already a relatively tight situation,” said Alabama Hospital Association President Dr. Don Williamson. “Yesterday had 2,566 individuals with COVID in the hospital, 496 were in the ICU compared to December 18 we had 129 people in the ICU so we have seen an explosion of COVID.”

https://www.wsfa.com/2022/01/19/only-seven-percent-icu-beds-alabama-remain-unfilled/

[nate33]

Alabama tops 45% COVID positivity rate, among highest in nation. In some of the rural counties the rate is nearly 60%.

https://www.al.com/news/2022/01/alabama-tops-45-covid-positivity-rate-among-highest-in-nation.html?utm_source=reddit.com

Alabama also has one of the lowest vaccination rates in the United States.

https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/public-health/states-ranked-by-percentage-of-population-vaccinated-march-15.html

Positivity rate is an utterly useless metric to compare different states because they test under entirely different circumstances. Here is the Johns Hopkins tracker on the matter. It's all over the place with no recognizable pattern.
https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/testing/tracker/positivity-comparison

Positivity rate is only useful within a jurisdiction once you've established a baseline on how test positivity correlates to infection rate within that jurisdiction.

See the last part of my edited post- 6% of ICU beds remaining in the state.

Also Alabama is currently 3rd per capita in deaths in the United States.

6% ICU beds is only barely below the Alabama baseline spare capacity for the pandemic. In every surge ICU capacity dropped below that:

Alabama:


Low single digit ICU capacity isn't all that uncommon. Most states hover around 12-18% spare capacity even when there is no Covid surge.

Kentucky was at 9% last week.
Rhode Island was at 8% last week.
Georgia is at 6% this week.

[Kanyewest]

Positivity rate is an utterly useless metric to compare different states because they test under entirely different circumstances. Here is the Johns Hopkins tracker on the matter. It's all over the place with no recognizable pattern.
https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/testing/tracker/positivity-comparison

Positivity rate is only useful within a jurisdiction once you've established a baseline on how test positivity correlates to infection rate within that jurisdiction.

See the last part of my edited post- 6% of ICU beds remaining in the state.

Also Alabama is currently 3rd per capita in deaths in the United States.

6% ICU beds is only barely below the Alabama baseline spare capacity for the pandemic. In every surge ICU capacity dropped below that:

Alabama:


Low single digit ICU capacity isn't all that uncommon. Most states hover around 12-18% spare capacity even when there is no Covid surge.

Kentucky was at 9% last week.
Rhode Island was at 8% last week.
Georgia is at 6% this week.

And what was it like prior to 2020?

[Kanyewest]

Speaking of Rhode Island

https://www.wpri.com/health/coronavirus/biden-sending-medical-teams-to-ri-5-other-states-to-help-hospitals/

[nate33]

And what was it like prior to 2020?

It's hard to find data. Nobody obsessed about ICUs prior to Covid. I found this:

https://time.com/5107984/hospitals-handling-burden-flu-patients/

Currently, there is only 16.8% ICU capacity nationwide.

[Kanyewest]

Oscar nominated documentary First Wave dealing with the first 4 months available for free for 48 hours- I haven't watched it yet https://www.nationalgeographic.com/pages/topic/the-first-wave-documentary#a5db4430-f9c4-4729-bfa3-2ea08519b5be

[nate33]

Data from England and Wales. Only 3.1% of Covid deaths are attributable to people under 65 without comorbidities. It never made sense to shut them out of society or to mandate that they take vaccines.

Read on Twitter

/photo/1

[nate33]

From the UK Office of National Statistics.

Prior infection, even infection from Alpha over a full year ago, provides better protection from infection than any type of vaccine administered at any time, either 1st dose, 2nd dose, and is equivalent to a fresh 3rd dose.

Also, two-doses of vaccine 90 days old or older, provides virtually no advantage relative to unvaccinated without any prior immunity.



https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/conditionsanddiseases/bulletins/coronaviruscovid19infectionsurveycharacteristicsofpeopletestingpositiveforcovid19uk/19january2022

[nate33]

JAMA just came out with a new study of vaccine effectiveness with Omicron. Newsflash: it isn't. Well, at least two jabs aren't effective... at all:



Two jabs of the Pfizer vaccine is virtually useless once it is 3 months old and literally has negative effectiveness at preventing symptomatic infection after 7 months.

[DCZards]

Nate, we get it. The vaccine does not keep you from getting infected. (I should know. I got Covid after being boosted. But with mild, cold-like symptoms.)

The real question is whether the vaccine is effective at dramatically reducing your chances of being hospitalized or dying from the virus. And there is overwhelming proof that it is.

[Kanyewest]

Looks like the vaccine is one step behind the mutation. Delta developed in India where a large portion of people were unvaccinated - same thing happened with omnicron in Africa where 6 percent of the population is unvaccinated.

Still looks like hospitalizations are lower for those who are double vaxed towards the end of 2021. Although it does seem beneficial to get the booster as it is more designed to delta and lowers hospitalizations compared to those who are double vaxed.

[Kanyewest]

Nate, we get it. The vaccine does not keep you from getting infected. (I should know. I got it after being boosted. But with mild, cold-like symptoms.)

The real question is whether the virus is effective at dramatically reducing your chances of being hospitalized or dying from the virus. And there is overwhelming proof that it is.

Yeah latest CDC report still indicates that it is and the booster appears to be slightly more effective in regards to hospitals.

https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#covidnet-hospitalizations-vaccination

[dckingsfan]

↑↑↑↑ - same graph.

Under the heading of as a public policy it was highly effective against serious illness and hospitalizations - still, "it's hospitalizations stupid".

Read on Twitter

[dckingsfan]

Looks like the vaccine is one step behind the mutation. Delta developed in India where a large portion of people were unvaccinated - same thing happened with omnicron in Africa where 6 percent of the population is unvaccinated.

Still looks like hospitalizations are lower for those who are double vaxed towards the end of 2021. Although it does seem beneficial to get the booster as it is more designed to delta and lowers hospitalizations compared to those who are double vaxed.

Yes, variants could come from the unvaccinated but they could also come from vaccinated immunocompromised and the animal population.

A mini history lesson can be found here:
https://journals.lww.com/pidj/fulltext/2005/11001/history_and_recent_advances_in_coronavirus.12.aspx

[Zonkerbl]

Hm...

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2117608

My sister the pediatrician is visiting and says the latest data from COVID effectiveness is not great, I googled it and this is the first thing that came up