2019 Novel Coronavirus Covid-19 Discussion

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Mad Scientist
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#2841227 1-Jan-2022 10:13

https://www.stuff.co.nz/world/africa/300489054/omicron-has-passed-peak-in-south-africa-causing-relatively-few-deaths-and-hospitalisations-authorities-say

Sup

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#2841314 1-Jan-2022 11:06

tdgeek:

If EVERY country told the people that in one week (so they can grocery up) all countries go into a 4 week lockdown. No travel of any sort. Armed forces/Police are mobilised to manage hospital travel. Given that the world has been in and out of lockdown forever, one month to stamp it out, seems an efficient choice.

100%. But as with Sup's post, its what could happen if it was globally coordinated, just a theory.

I am glad someone got my post. It was a hypothetical thought experiment of how to end a hypothetical pandemic situation, and had nothing to do with what would happen in reality in the world and political climate we live in.

The main point I was trying to get across is that we do actually have the tools, however we have zero chance of using them.

If you consider that India with waived patents and financial support from the G8 could make enough Paxlovid for the planet to have a world Paxlovid day....then yes, there are ways this thing could be shut down.

Will it happen?

Well 99.9% of the time you would say not.

However what will make all things possible, is bodies in the street and power outages/disruption of strategic assets, some trouble with drinking water etc.

A 30% killer like MERS with a slower transmission speed than omicron (slow enough to see the train coming and have time to do something...but not slow enough to stop the train without radical coordinated global cooperation),

In this thought experiment, the one in three of us dead scenario, would we expect all measures including force on the table of Govts? Since pandemics could impact the human race to the extent of partial and temporary civilization collapse....this disease X idea the WHO play around with when they have 'what if' discussions....would we still expect to see the status quo of ineptitude and inaction when a super powers millitary machine is being culled by a third?

In such a dystopian nightmare, at a minimum antivaxx protests would be met with rubber bullets and in many countries led.

In this type of scenario, no measure nor spending behavior, would be off the cards.

This kind of event will come. How we survive it will depend on our ability to stop saying it cannot be done. And fear is a powerful motivator, most citizens would comply in that scenario and do everything possible to get vaccinated. In that type of plague, most of the morons would actually die, including inept leaders, and the world would move on.

Having said all of that, I hope this post is not read as scare mongering, it is like the ole rock from outer space thingy....we know they exist and hit earth...we know a highly lethal pandemic is coming....talking about it might be smarter than trying to have happy talk so no one has to deal with it, no one has to prepare for it, and no one lobby's leaders to get prepared...and the WHO is never overhauled in the wake of Covid.

Just keep swimming...

MikeB4

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#2841315 1-Jan-2022 11:17

Handle9:
MikeB4:
It is easy to be glib about living with Covid as some are here when Covid is not a death sentence.

What is your solution?

Nothing personal but I am simply not getting into that on here.

Handle9

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#2841317 1-Jan-2022 11:23

MikeB4:
Handle9:

What is your solution?

Nothing personal but I am simply not getting into that on here.

Then living with Covid is what will happen. There’s not another option.

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#2841318 1-Jan-2022 11:25

And that was not what I alluded to and highlights why I won’t get into it.

Handle9

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#2841327 1-Jan-2022 11:40

MikeB4: And that was not what I alluded to and highlights why I won’t get into it.

It’s impossible to understand what you want to happen. You are talking in riddles.

gzt

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#2841332 1-Jan-2022 12:01

Batman: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/dec/31/germany-buoyed-by-data-from-abroad-amid-omicron-spread

Germany’s leading coronavirus expert has expressed optimism that his country could expect a “relatively normal” winter in 2022....

.. Christian Drosten, who heads the institute of virology at Berlin’s Charité hospital, said on Friday that data from other countries suggesting Omicron infections were milder could take the pandemic into an “endemic situation” more comparable to a common cold or flu virus.

I'm going to put this in the same basket as all the other optimistic predictions since the start of the pandemic.

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Benoire

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#2841351 1-Jan-2022 12:53

gzt:
I'm going to put this in the same basket as all the other optimistic predictions since the start of the pandemic.

Indeed. I think watching the UK/US will be a good measure of how Omicron is working out. UK has relatively high levels of vaccine protection but a poorly controlled population, while the US has relatively low levels of vaccine protection AND a poorly controlled population. NSW will be a good watch for what happens if you relax while trying to control spread.

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#2841448 1-Jan-2022 14:20

Handle9:
MikeB4: And that was not what I alluded to and highlights why I won’t get into it.

It’s impossible to understand what you want to happen. You are talking in riddles.

It is quite simple I have no intention of getting into a debate about what we should be doing. Those discussions become way too toxic and I am not going to go down that track.

Jase2985

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#2841484 1-Jan-2022 17:06

MikeB4: It is quite simple I have no intention of getting into a debate about what we should be doing. Those discussions become way too toxic and I am not going to go down that track.

you already did by opening the door

i know its likely related to your medical condition, and others like you that are more susceptible to covid.

as much as you dont want to hear it elimination is not going to be possible unless they find a drug that will do this for us or the virus eliminates itself, finding the best way to live with it will need to be what people look/work towards.

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#2841494 1-Jan-2022 17:33

Queensland is back to mandatory masks in basically anywhere that isn't your home or seated to eat

Sup

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#2841675 1-Jan-2022 21:17

Oblivian: Queensland is back to mandatory masks in basically anywhere that isn't your home or seated to eat

Quite cynical how they have left this determination till they are well on the path to exponential growth. I get that they needed to move into a living with...from a closed state model...but yeah they have been a bit of a U turn state with strong messaging about spread being good.

Our experts in NZ have said we will not understand Australia till the end of January.

Whatever. I understand what they mean, they area talking about enough time to watch very big numbers for a sustained period week on week.

However we are clearly learning lots and very quickly from NSW. We can see the outbreak of omicron is many times worse in terms of spread than even the most dire Australian modelling estimates which talked about 25K cases come the end of January.

In the mean time the US is seeing a return to days where mortality highs hit 2000 in a single day.

New York is seeing five times kids admission rates and the rest of the US is seeing a fifty percent rise in kids in hospital. There is a lot of debate about how many of these kids were already in hospital for something else.

Yet again we see people missing the real point. If kids having Covid and a broken leg cause a fifty percent increase in admissions for hospital care it is a duality problem clearly evident in the stats....Pediatricians are obviously wanting to observe the Covid kids who have Covid plus one....this in of itself is a problem.

Back to Australia....the NSW figures are truly weird, every second day there is a tiny rise, or even a small drop...day three it doubles....what is going on there?

Just keep swimming...

Batman

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#2841677 1-Jan-2022 21:33

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/covid-19-new-studies-reveal-why-omicron-variant-is-less-severe/RFXA5HBCL4NJXYCWEH3KOCHUTM/

Sup

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#2841685 1-Jan-2022 22:10

Batman:

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/covid-19-new-studies-reveal-why-omicron-variant-is-less-severe/RFXA5HBCL4NJXYCWEH3KOCHUTM/

Interesting reading, it lines up with the early in vitro studies which showed an affinity for upper respiratory tract cells versus the lower tract deep lung tissue.

The increased transmission thing is being hotly debated by some very serious heavy weights in the virology metaverse.

Many scientist think this is wrong, it is not more infectious, it is just better at evading immune defenses...so an immune escape thing rather than a transmission thing.

The scientists who disagree with the increased transmission theory point out that no virus known to mankind has ever become more transmissible in a measurable way.

In fact some scientists make jokes about increased transmission, and they use memes with light sabres claiming my metachlorians are stronger than yours....the main point they are making is that proving increased transmission versus evolutionary fitness through escape mechanisms is impossible.

It is an esoteric never never argument.

Well whatever is happening, omicron is bad news in some systems under some conditions, like when you add it to a Delta riddled forty million unvaccinated US context and it kills a chunk of two thousand people in a day and smashes hospitals, and it causes five times the rate of admissions for kids in an epicenter like New York.

I think we have seen enough to understand that omicron whether milder or not, represents the worst threat of the entire pandemic to NZ health care and our antivaxxers....and our unvaccinated children.

Just keep swimming...

gzt

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#2841689 1-Jan-2022 22:37

Another end of the pandemic is soon from NZHerald:

NZHerald: Despite the less than optimal start to 2022, however, health experts both at home and abroad have suggested the new variant – and the next 12 months – could finally signal the end of the coronavirus pandemic's two-year reign.

Australian article quoting Australian experts. I'd like to think it's true. Imo there's just too much possibility for mutation and retransmission in many parts of the world. Covid has been full of surprises. Imo this next round will be no exception.

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