Covid 19 CRISIS

[calvinhobbes]

Yes, but you could consider Norway, and Switzerland as international travel and that’s like comparing if I went to Toronto, which to me is like going to any other Midwestern major city. Except for the CN tower.

Exactly. For Americans, international travel to a country that doesn’t border the US means flying to at least the Caribbean or to Central America. For many Europeans, the equivalent is a short hop from Frankfurt to Milan or from Warsaw to Tallinn. It’s just not comparable.

 

[Dr_Grip]

While German media is busy reporting on upcoming Delta (plus) variant doom, they forgot to report that as of today, over 60% of adults in Germany received their first shot. That equals 51% of the general populace. Even if @narf 's projection currently looks a tad optimistic, we have a strong vaccination week ahead of us and I assume we'll end June somewhere close to the 70% of adults mark.

EDIT: Here's where the J&J delivery delay bites us - with 7 million extra doses from them, we'd have already crossed the 70% of adults line a week ago.

 

[CraigB]

A recent study of the, uh... waste treatment facility in Joplin shows that, of the COVID-19 detected, 70% is delta variant and 30% gamma. Fun stuff.

 

[93Flareside]

https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/doh/downloads/pdf/imm/covid-sex-guidance.pdf

 

[narf]

Even if @narf 's projection currently looks a tad optimistic

Yeah, I see multiple deviations from the plan:
- AZ underdelivering (as usual, none of the weekly numbers projected matches reality, both up and down but more down than up)
- JJ underdelivering (those millions of doses)
- Moderna underdelivering (KW23 shipment is missing)
- we're apparently either more careful wrt keeping buffers, or there's some bottleneck somewhere, or some reporting delays. Here's the total stock for every day so far:

Keeping more stock in absolute numbers when the rate of doses per week is higher makes sense, the bumps in stock during February and since Easter correlate with significant speedups in the campaign. However, the bump up in June doesn't really match up with a significant speedup... so maybe the powers that be took the increasing unreliability of all suppliers, now including even Biontech, as a reason to keep a bit more in stock to ensure no hiccups in the chain.

Also, July numbers are out - July is going to suck, relatively speaking. We're dropping back to 3M Bnt a week, and Moderna isn't picking up the slack yet. AZ & JJ are virtually irrelevant.

More positive news, the first shot fraction is going to go up again soon because the rise in 2nd shots is about five weeks ago.

Also positive news: 10 out of 14 reporting Länder have crossed over 80% first shot rate in the 60+ population, all 14 are above 50% fully vax'd. The effect of this is visible in the data too, the older population has had a significantly lower rate of new cases for months now.
Additionally, covid deaths from wave 3 are now reasonably visible, and muuuuuch lower than during wave 2. What changed? Group 1 vaccination.

Even more positive news: The RKI has done some statistical magic today based on cases of vaccinated people getting symptomatic covid, and estimate 97-98.7% real-world vaccination effectiveness against symptomatic covid.

 

[Dr_Grip]

Babies receive covid antibodies from recovered or vaccinated moms through breast milk, probably/possibly are protected.

Also, an interesting tidbit regarding the fight of vaccines vs. Delta:

Data from Helix2 on nearly 20,000 samples sequenced since April suggest that the Delta variant is spreading faster in US counties where less than 30% of residents have been fully vaccinated, compared to the counties with vaccination rates above that threshold.

Good, calm, in-depth article as usual for Nature.

Regarding this 30% threshold, most EU countries are above it, with the 12-week schedule ones like Finland being 5 to 6 weeks away. Regarding the UK I think this really is where the 28% difference in efficacy between AZ and Pfizer/Moderna comes into play: The US, as well as the EU, is mostly using the higher-efficacy mRNA vaccines, so they see a larger effect on transmission at a lower vaccination rate. I'd ballpark the UK needs a 20% higher vaccine coverage than EU/US to reach the same impact on transmission.

What I find interesting is that Beta and Gamma (South African und Brazilian Super Covid) seem to be able to outcompete Delta, while Alpha (Kent/UK) outcompeted them in Europe.

 

[Adunaphel]

Regarding the UK I think this really is where the 28% difference in efficacy between AZ and Pfizer/Moderna comes into play: The US, as well as the EU, is mostly using the higher-efficacy mRNA vaccines, so they see a larger effect on transmission at a lower vaccination rate. I'd ballpark the UK needs a 20% higher vaccine coverage than EU/US to reach the same impact on transmission.

Don't forget that the UK also prioritised getting a first shot into everyone over everything else, so they have a lot of first shots, but very few fully vaccinated people, also hampering the efficacy of the vaccines.

 

[Dr_Grip]

Further hammering home the "EU vaccination isn't going that badly" point - Germany (and I guess, the EU as a whole as well) will have overtaken the US in terms of first shots by Monday. And as far as I can tell, this will happen with a more even distribution of doses than in the US.

 

[narf]

And as far as I can tell, this will happen with a more even distribution of doses than in the US.

At least for the metrics where I have data, data agrees. If we ignore the first and last state as outliers, the remaining 14 Länder are spread between 49.3% (Bavaria) and 56.1% (Schleswig-Holstein) for first shot rates of all people, that's a very tight corridor. The two outliers I ignored (Sachsen bottom, Bremen top) are just +/- 3 percentage points away, still decent. 2nd shots are in a similar tight corridor.
Age distribution is kind of obvious, top heavy from the intended prioritization.
I don't have data on wealth or migration background though, so it is possible that some sub-communities are "missing". This could leave that part of the herd vulnerable even if the overall herd has achieved immunity... but, the good geographic distribution dampens any such effect.

 

[Perc]

Things were going so well, but as sports is more important than oxygen to some people, a bunch of football fans just had to go to Russia and bring back some fresh covid. They have testing at the border but they weren't prepared for the football tourism and eventually had to let people through untested. Last I heard, nobody wants to take responsibility for this blunder. Travelers even claim they "weren't informed about quarantine upon return" as if they didn't ing know how things work by now?

To make things worse, some of the football fans that skipped quarantine went straight to a 5000 people strong midsummer festival to get shitfaced. Yes, apparently thousands of people can gather again. I had no idea. It sounds like it won't last.

One of the tabloids interviewed a 20 year old shit-for-brains that admitted to visiting Russia and then skipping quarantine because he couldn't be arsed. The paper is keeping his name secret of course. I'm fairly sure he would be tracked down and beaten up if they didn't.

Coronavirus blog

This article brings you the latest updates on the coronavirus pandemic in Finland.

yle.fi

THL: More than half of Finland's cases linked to St. Petersburg returnees

While he did not consider the current situation to be the beginning of a major crisis, Salminen emphasised how important it was for the football tourists to get tested.

yle.fi

 

[gaasc]

I will be framing this article and showing it to people in Latin America who think the Nordics are Ubermensch, thanks for that.

My parents have been vaccinated, more data to follow.

 

[narf]

Something's off with the German vaccination campaign

Over the past five weeks, the weekly minimum stockpile has continued to go up a *lot*. It used to be fairly stable at around 4M doses, or just under a week of buffer. It's now at 8.4M ? what do we need more than double the buffer for? Why aren't those additional 4M shots going into arms, keeping a buffer that's worked well for months?

For scale, that's roughly all 12-15y people getting one dose, those folks that used to be excluded but are cleared since this month... and folks that have the highest remaining covid infection rates.

 

[DanRoM]

12-15y people [...] used to be excluded but are cleared since this month...

In theory - it all depends on the doctor. Because there is no official recommendation to vaccinate 12-15yo, many doctors don't do it and the vaccination centres don't do it neither. ?

I had to tell my sister to basically bother all the doctors she knows, not only the family GP, to get a shot for the younger daughter. Well, at least she'll turn 16 in September, but I'd feel much better if she were able to return to school after the summer holidays with at least the first shot administered well before then.
On the other hand, the older daughter (18yo) already had her first shot in the first week after the priority scheme fell, as a leftover from the vaccination centre at the town where she goes to university.

 

[loose_unit]

Something's off with the German vaccination campaign

Over the past five weeks, the weekly minimum stockpile has continued to go up a *lot*. It used to be fairly stable at around 4M doses, or just under a week of buffer. It's now at 8.4M ? what do we need more than double the buffer for? Why aren't those additional 4M shots going into arms, keeping a buffer that's worked well for months?

For scale, that's roughly all 12-15y people getting one dose, those folks that used to be excluded but are cleared since this month... and folks that have the highest remaining covid infection rates.

I think they are all about to be opened up, I know a few people that were told they wouldn't get shots but now have been scheduled for early July?

I know my doctor said it was very frustrating not being able to get doses and guarantee injections for people ... It's probably significantly more efficient to line up 100 people at a doctors office and inject them all than schedule 20, have 11 doses turn up and waste everyones time?

 

[narf]

It's probably significantly more efficient to line up 100 people at a doctors office and inject them all than schedule 20, have 11 doses turn up and waste everyones time?

That's what the vaccination centres are for - they do line up hundreds of people every day, get their doses as planned, and just do shots shots shots. None of the centres are running at capacity, they could all do more... giving GPs doses in the first place is what makes this inefficient.

 

[Dr_Grip]

@narf - I am not sure how much of this stockpiling is down to inefficency - reports start to pop up from Saxonia, from Brandenburg, even from Berlin, that a lot of booked appointments are being missed. I've heard rumors that in Dresden you can get walk-in vaccinations without an appointment by driving to Neo-Nazi areas where no one wants a shot.
What we are seeing, as to be expected at 60+ percent of adults vaccinated, is people prioritizing their summer holidays, their precious immune system, or their fear of the jew/Bill Gates above getting a shot.

Which is why I am for vaccinating kids and keeping things open even if case numbers go up once everyone who wants got their second shot - panicking and talking about lockdowns hands conspiracist vaccine refusers the key to society. They can enforce the "covid dictatorship" they believe is happening simply by not getting a shot and keeping case numbers up.

We have a choice as a society - is covid so bad we have to keep numbers down at any cost? Then we have to make vaccination mandatory. Or is it okay to leave getting a shot a matter of choice - then it can't be bad enough to close parts of society down. You can't have both.

So regarding @Perc 's remark about "thousands of people gathering again". I agree it's too early since not everyone got their shots yet. But once they did, and in Finland according to polls we'll be able to cover 80+ of the populace, there's no reason to not gather any longer.

EDIT: On an unrelated note, Delta now outcompetes Beta in South Africa. Meaningful immune escape seems to be not easy to achieve for covid without transmission penalties that even at 70+ percent of people having antibodies higher transmission outcompetes partly immune escape.

 

[narf]

@narf - I am not sure how much of this stockpiling is down to inefficency - reports start to pop up from Saxonia, from Brandenburg, even from Berlin, that a lot of booked appointments are being missed. I've heard rumors that in Dresden you can get walk-in vaccinations without an appointment by driving to Neo-Nazi areas where no one wants a shot.
What we are seeing, as to be expected at 60+ percent of adults vaccinated, is people prioritizing their summer holidays, their precious immune system, or their fear of the jew/Bill Gates above getting a shot.

That may be a small factor, but if the stockpiling is unintentional then supply to GPs should have shot up in the past weeks, letting GPs work off their waiting list. My GP group started accepting priority 3 people onto the waitlist now, so there's plenty of willing arms to get shot there... they'd just need to adjust the distribution. Same story with vaccination centres here, my sister is on the newly changed appointment list for a few weeks now and hasn't gotten one from the centre yet so they're not drowning in doses either.

Granted, that's both in a distinctively not-Brandenburg area ... but as we can see from the data, Brandenburg already does receive fewer doses than other Länder to avoid regional oversupply.
Based on the data, Bavaria is the problem. They have as many doses in stock as NRW and BW combined, despite having half as many people.
Sachsen is present in that issue too, but on a smaller scale. They have as many doses in stock as Lower Saxony, despite having half as many people... but are smaller in general.

The data:

 

[Dr_Grip]

So, as Germany's 7-day covid incidence drops from 5.6 to 5.4, politicians are already doubling down on speculating about the next Lockdown being just around the corner because of soccer and the Delta variant.

I find this irresponsible as it plays into the tinfoil hat "covid dictatorship" storyline.

 

[loose_unit]

So, as Germany's 7-day covid incidence drops from 5.6 to 5.4, politicians are already doubling down on speculating about the next Lockdown being just around the corner because of soccer and the Delta variant.

I find this irresponsible as it plays into the tinfoil hat "covid dictatorship" storyline.

Meanwhile in Holland there is no mask requirement any more ... I was there on the weekend, so what's the point in us having one...

 

[Misrabelle]

So, Sydney and surrounds and Darwin and Perth, I believe, are in lockdown again, due to an unvaccinated transport driver who got it from an airline crew, and then spread the delta variant around. 141 cases now linked back to him.

A party in Sydney was attended by 40+ people, of which 24 so far are confirmed positive, and 6 didn't contract it because they were healthcare workers who have already been fully vaccinated. Would love to know how many of those who DID contract it were actually eligible to receive the vaccine currently. My bet is not many.

The government announced it at a press conference, and told everyone to go get vaccinated. Which would be great, except currently the only people eligible to receive it are those over 50, medical and aged care workers, frontline essential staff, and people with certain pre-existing conditions.
People 40 and over can register their interest in booking an appointment for such time as the next phase of the roll-out commences (exact date unknown).

Australia has fully vaccinated just over 4% of its population, compared with more than 46% in the US and 47% in the UK, according to Our World in Data.
Australia will also be phasing out the AstraZeneca vaccine by September/October, and replacing it with the yet to be approved (in .au) Moderna vaccine.

I managed to get a letter from my Father's doctor, stating that he is high risk, and that I live with and care for him, while also working as a bus driver. With that, I was able to go to the NSW government portal, and make both my appointments at the mass vaccination centre near me, for the Pfizer shots. Otherwise, it could have been sometime near or after Christmas before I would have been able to get it, if I had to wait for my age group.

Now there are unofficial reports that they will allow anyone to get the AZ shots, after signing a waiver regarding the chances of clotting, however many doctors are waiting until there is an official announcement before deciding to offer it to under 60s, as per the current advice.

Also:
"Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce, has been issued a $200 fine by NSW Police for not wearing a mask while paying for petrol in Armidale. He was inside for less than a minute, spotted by a member of the public who called Crime Stoppers. Police went and checked CCTV and issued the fine." Hehe.