Northern Europe during Pandemic -- Summers 2020 & 2021 & onwards

[Montanan]

Report 49 - Growth, population distribution and immune escape of Omicron in England | Faculty of Medicine | Imperial College London Report 49 - Growth, population distribution and immune escape of Omicron in England

Researchers from the Imperial College London COVID-19 response team found that vaccine effectiveness against omicron is between zero and 20 percent for those who have been fully vaccinated with two doses of vaccine. That effectiveness range, zero to 20 percent, may sound dismal. But for those who also received a booster shot, the findings for vaccine effectiveness against omicron were much, much rosier. Specifically, those who had received three shots — meaning the two-dose vaccination plus a booster shot — saw a vaccine effectiveness of between 55 percent and 80 percent against the omicron variant.

The vast gulf between the two ranges suggests that a booster shot is crucial to protection against the omicron variant. The findings also reinforce the public statements of some public health experts, including former FDA commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb, who have stated that they believe the COVID-19 vaccine should be a three-dose, not a two-dose shot.

. . .

Additionally, the Imperial College London COVID-19 response team had other intriguing findings regarding the omicron strain's potential to reinfect. Indeed, their study suggests that people who were infected by the omicron strain are 5.4 times more likely to get reinfected than people who were infected by the delta strain. Hence, scientists say that past omicron infection provides little protection from reinfection. Notably, the study did not indicate that omicron could cause more severe illness than delta.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/med...?ocid=msedgntp

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by Montanan

Report 49 - Growth, population distribution and immune escape of Omicron in England | Faculty of Medicine | Imperial College London Report 49 - Growth, population distribution and immune escape of Omicron in England

Researchers from the Imperial College London COVID-19 response team found that vaccine effectiveness against omicron is between zero and 20 percent for those who have been fully vaccinated with two doses of vaccine. That effectiveness range, zero to 20 percent, may sound dismal. But for those who also received a booster shot, the findings for vaccine effectiveness against omicron were much, much rosier. Specifically, those who had received three shots — meaning the two-dose vaccination plus a booster shot — saw a vaccine effectiveness of between 55 percent and 80 percent against the omicron variant.

The vast gulf between the two ranges suggests that a booster shot is crucial to protection against the omicron variant. The findings also reinforce the public statements of some public health experts, including former FDA commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb, who have stated that they believe the COVID-19 vaccine should be a three-dose, not a two-dose shot.

. . .

Additionally, the Imperial College London COVID-19 response team had other intriguing findings regarding the omicron strain's potential to reinfect. Indeed, their study suggests that people who were infected by the omicron strain are 5.4 times more likely to get reinfected than people who were infected by the delta strain. Hence, scientists say that past omicron infection provides little protection from reinfection. Notably, the study did not indicate that omicron could cause more severe illness than delta.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/med...?ocid=msedgntp

I read this, and there is not too much to be happy about in it.


Strong evidence of immunity evasion. No evidence from this particular data that Omicron is milder than Delta. Low hospitalization from this data set is exactly what would be expected from Delta given the age distribution in the data set.


We have other reasons to believe that Omicron is milder, but not this study. "Our analysis reinforces the still emerging but increasingly clear picture that Omicron poses an immediate and substantial threat to public health in England and more widely" God help us if Omicron is really as lethal as Delta, and that much more infectious.


The principle author is Neil Ferguson from Imperial College, the author of the alarming, and as it turned out wildly overly pessimistic study on the dynamics of the pandemic published at the very beginning of the pandemic, upon which many probably bad policy decisions were based, and the author of another way off study on mad cow disease years ago. We can hope, I guess, that this one is off too, but you can't just discount it -- it's hard science and there is nothing obviously wrong with it. I think we have to take it seriously.


The literally only good news in the study is that a triple dose of an mRNA vaccine is pretty effective against Omicron. Natural immunity from past infection, and immunity from a double vaccine, is not effective. That may be comforting to those of us with three mRNA doses, but we are a small minority in the world. God help us.

[Anders]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

The literally only good news in the study is that a triple dose of an mRNA vaccine is pretty effective against Omicron. Natural immunity from past infection, and immunity from a double vaccine, is not effective. That may be comforting to those of us with three mRNA doses, but we are a small minority in the world. God help us.

Not only those that where lucky to receive 3 doses of Pfizer but the vaccine effectiveness are good even for those of us unlucky enough to receive the AZ vaccine with a Pfizer booster. Once the current vaccines are tweaked the effectivness should improve dramatically.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by Anders

Not only those that where lucky to receive 3 doses of Pfizer but the vaccine effectiveness are good even for those of us unlucky enough to receive the AZ vaccine with a Pfizer booster. Once the current vaccines are tweaked the effectivness should improve dramatically.

Yes, but how long will that take? If O is really as lethal as Delta, a lot of people will die in the meantime.

[Zippee]

Over time it's fair to say that we now understand the importance of withholding judgement until we have some consensus of good and well designed AND peer reviewed studies.

In this VERY fast moving situation, many studies are preliminary and subject to error and unintentional bias. That is true of this preliminary Ferguson study, not peer reviewed - quoting the study itself:

"We find no evidence (for both risk of hospitalisation attendance and symptom status) of Omicron having different severity from Delta, though data on hospitalisations are still very limited.

There are several limitations of this analysis. While case numbers are increasing quickly, there are still limits in our ability to examine interactions between the variables considered. The distribution of Omicron differed markedly from Delta across the English population at the time this analysis was conducted, likely due to the population groups in which it was initially seeded, which increases the risks of confounding in analyses.

SGTF is an imperfect proxy for Omicron, though SGTF had over 60% specificity for Omicron over the date range analysed in the SGTF analysis (and close to 100% by 10th December). Intensified contact tracing around known Omicron cases may have increased case ascertainment over time, potentially introducing additional biases."

What we are faced with is an explosive situation with very insufficient data. Earlier one-offs (not peer reviewed) reached "mild" conclusions. Thus we must take extra care to NOT reach premature conclusions, and should consider either minimal or labeling such studies for what they are: full of potential contradictions or biases.


It's hard, but we must be patient for another few weeks. The good news is that this explosive growth will lead to more reliable conclusions much sooner than Delta.

[bil56]

here in France by govt
https://www.gouvernement.fr/info-cor...tor=SEC-3-GOO-[]-[511792643932]-S-[corona%20virus]
(translate by google for ex, not the english page)

coming to France:
https://www.diplomatie.gouv.fr/en/co...ar_mode=calcul

we are not out of this s...!
./.

[Exile]

Originally Posted by Anders

Not only those that where lucky to receive 3 doses of Pfizer but the vaccine effectiveness are good even for those of us unlucky enough to receive the AZ vaccine with a Pfizer booster. Once the current vaccines are tweaked the effectivness should improve dramatically.

Originally Posted by Dockhead

Yes, but how long will that take? If O is really as lethal as Delta, a lot of people will die in the meantime.

Perhaps not as long as earlier reports suggested.

https://www.reuters.com/business/hea...nt-2021-12-22/

[Zippee]

A final thought for today. Here in the US it was considered a peak when daily new cases approached 100,000 per day. It was just announced - and please clip yourselves to your lifelines - it was announced that we may expect approaching 1,000,000 cases a day!

It was observed that the true test of Omicron would be in the US due to our abysmal level of vaccination, and the large percentage of folks who refuse to believe in either Covid or any vaccine. In my medium sized city alone - 1200 nurses tested positive last week alone. That from a "few cases" just a couple weeks ago.

Omicron is truly unbelievable. At this rate we will soon have plenty of data, and only then find out whether we reach a generally mild herd immunity, whether even vaccinated will endure long haul effects, or whether mostly the unvaccinated will suffer and die. In any case, the hospitals and airlines simply cannot operate. The US is really the acid test.


Patience.

[Exile]

Patience yes, but not panic. Which is only reinforced by reaching conclusions about Long Covid, for example, based on anecdotes and data from prior variants which have not yet been proven applicable to Omicron. The lack of data goes both ways, and the actual evidence thus far points to large numbers of infections (that may peak relatively quickly) and a relatively small percentage (but potentially large numbers) of those requiring hospitalization.

For example, a comparison of rates (per 1M) of new cases, hospitalizations, ICU admissions, and deaths from a sample of countries who have already been hit with Omicron (as of 12/23).

https://ourworldindata.org/explorers...ry=GBR~DNK~ZAF

As for the US and its lower vaccination rates, my understanding from the science thus far is that the vaccines/boosters do not generally protect from infection, only severity. But I'm not aware that being unvaccinated in and of itself increases this likelihood of severe illness. Instead, it appears to be unvaccinated people with co-morbidities and other vulnerabilities that present the highest risk -- to themselves but also to health care systems and others who they provide services to. Did I get this wrong??

This is obviously not to be minimized, but several recent posts -- in my opinion -- fail to make the distinction between the consequences of becoming infected on its own (vaccinated or not) vs. the likelihood of hospitalization and the consequent threats to both individuals and societies as a whole from overburdened health care systems. The former may prove to be unavoidable, but how the latter plays out presents the most serious risk. This likely justifies some of the more restrictive and cautionary measures being taken in many countries, but doesn't necessarily justify some of the hysteria and panic which can just as easily shut down airlines and hospitals if their otherwise healthy employees are afraid to show up for work.

In short, it may be time to accept the inevitability of getting infected with Omicron, and re-focus efforts on preparing to treat those who are most vulnerable, whether vaccinated or not. I also don't quite understand why so many in the US refuse vaccination, but it's not likely to change appreciably at this point, mandates or not. In fact, mandates may worsen the problem if already short-staffed hospitals and other critical industries have to fire critical employees. So maybe best to accept this reality, keep calm, and continue to carry on.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by Zippee

Over time it's fair to say that we now understand the importance of withholding judgement until we have some consensus of good and well designed AND peer reviewed studies.

In this VERY fast moving situation, many studies are preliminary and subject to error and unintentional bias. That is true of this preliminary Ferguson study, not peer reviewed - quoting the study itself:

What we are faced with is an explosive situation with very insufficient data. Earlier one-offs (not peer reviewed) reached "mild" conclusions. Thus we must take extra care to NOT reach premature conclusions, and should consider either minimal or labeling such studies for what they are: full of potential contradictions or biases.

It's hard, but we must be patient for another few weeks. The good news is that this explosive growth will lead to more reliable conclusions much sooner than Delta.

Indeed.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by Exile

. . . As for the US and its lower vaccination rates, my understanding from the science thus far is that the vaccines/boosters do not generally protect from infection, only severity. But I'm not aware that being unvaccinated in and of itself increases this likelihood of severe illness. Instead, it appears to be unvaccinated people with co-morbidities and other vulnerabilities that present the highest risk -- to themselves but also to health care systems and others who they provide services to. Did I get this wrong??

Generally right, but based on my reading I would say that vaccination DOES reduce the risk of any infection, and reduces the risk of symptomatic infection, not just severe cases. To varying degrees depending on the variant and the vax.



Not only people with co-morbidities get seriously ill, and die. Some apparently healthy people also get very sick, and even die. One of the people I knew personally who died from covid was in his 40's and apparently in perfect health. Obviously co-morbidities greatly increases the risk, but no one is entirely safe.

Originally Posted by Exile

This is obviously not to be minimized, but several recent posts -- in my opinion -- fail to make the distinction between the consequences of becoming infected on its own (vaccinated or not) vs. the likelihood of hospitalization and the consequent threats to both individuals and societies as a whole from overburdened health care systems. The former may prove to be unavoidable, but how the latter plays out presents the most serious risk. This likely justifies some of the more restrictive and cautionary measures being taken in many countries, but doesn't necessarily justify some of the hysteria and panic which can just as easily shut down airlines and hospitals if their otherwise healthy employees are afraid to show up for work.

I agree completely.

[Montanan]

Well 2022 looks like it will be coming in like a tiger as it relates to Covid with omicron. So what letters of the Greek alphabet will the next variant of concern be called? Hope you all stay healthy.

[Stu Jackson]

Originally Posted by Montanan

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...not unlike my wife who became infected with polio as a one month old infant in 1952, two years before the vaccine was available and she has endured her entire life the physical damage caused by the virus to her left leg and the surgeries required to compensate for its lost growth and muscle development. My wife's good leg needed to be shortened by upwards of four inches to be the same length as her disease damaged leg so as to have even hip height.

Viruses can induce a great deal of damage to many parts of one's body and mind. Hope you all stay healthy.

Sorry to hear about your cousin and hope she & her family work it all out.


My mother's younger sister got polio when she was a kid in the 30s. Her left shoulder and hand were withered and clawed, respectively. She was an unusually sunny and optimistic person, and later in life came to live with us after her husband died on Halloween Day in 1957 of an totally unexpected heart attack.



When the sugar cubes and then shots came out for polio, NO ONE said "No!" No one. Why would anyone wish that kind of suffering on anyone?


Now we have idiots who see conspiracies behind everything trying to keep THEM safe and healthy.


Two years ago we were all hoping for vaccines. Now we have them and there are still people who refuse them, or demand them when it is altogether too late, or remain deniers until their last gasping dying breath.


The stupidity is mind-boggling.

[Montanan]

I recall the long lines and no fear even by the youngest.

[Exile]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

Not only people with co-morbidities get seriously ill, and die. Some apparently healthy people also get very sick, and even die. One of the people I knew personally who died from covid was in his 40's and apparently in perfect health. Obviously co-morbidities greatly increases the risk, but no one is entirely safe.

He died from the Omicron variant? I should have been more clear that my comment was directed to Omicron and not the prior variants. Even so, we cannot draw conclusions just yet but the actual evidence from S. Africa, UK & Denmark looks promising thus far.