Covid 19 CRISIS

Sitting here recovering from covid like

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At least this time I'm sure it was covid. extremely contagious, persistent cough, sudden onset fever. It went through my family over the past three weeks.

The fun up part is that two weeks ago, while having a very mild cough, I inquired on Dr_Grip about mix and matching booster vaccines and asked him about the possible side effects if I did have covid. I guess I have firsthand confirmation now. :p
 
Oooooooof. Get well soon, gaasc!
 
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Since subnational numbers are hard to come by, here's week over week data on Uusima (Helsinki region) covid I cobbled together in Excel.
One-day peak was 5383 on January 4th, with a significant drop in week over week cases starting a week later, on the 11th.
I'll be bold and pre-date Omicron kickoff for the Helsinki region to somewhere around Dec. 13th, so we are within the four to five week window that has been expected.

ICU occupancy is down (from a high of 33 to 22), but normal wards are up (360 from 348) since Friday.

National numbers meanwhile are constant 22.217 over last weekend, 22.520 this weekend, so the wave is clearly moving northwards.

EDIT: Of course this is Week 2 vs. Week 3, Week 4 just started today.
 
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To be honest the whole quarantine thing doesn't seem to work. Same situation with the in laws. MIL had it. FIL didn't. Since vaxxed (nevermind MIL also) he could just around and do whatever he wants. Doesn't make any sense - at least it's communicated so badly that nobody understands.

Which leads to...
people just not giving a shit: neighbours have it, dad & son, mom doesn't. Nonetheless, dad & son constantly out and about playing outside, running around. Quarantine where?

edit: got too annoyed - best wishes to everyone!

That Quarantine stuff is bullshit anyways. If you have it, don't go shopping or meet people, sure.
Going for a walk alone outside where nobody else is to get fresh air or go to my mailbox in the evening with a mask.........you bet I'd do it.

I thought we had it (flu symptoms, sweating at night, coughing) but all antigen tests negative and can't have a free PCR without positive antigen. Whatever.

Munich has second or third highest cases in Germany and honestly, I don't care any more. Deaths are down, hospitalisation is down, it's Omicron in full swing. Just let it run now and maybe we are done with this shit at some point. (Hospitalisation top right, deaths low right)

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You can sense here people are done with Covid, rules are being shit again as usual:

Museum: 2G+ (2x Vaccinated + test, Recovered + test, 3x vaccinated without test) and FFP2 Mask, limited capacity
Restaurant: 2G (2x Vaccinated or recovered with no test and no mask at table), has to shut down at 10pm
Bar: Closed completely
 
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The CDC released a study last week regarding protection against the Delta variant. This study was done before boosters(So, "Vaccinated" means 2 doses of Pfizer, for example) were widely applied and before Omicron touched down.

Results: Vaccinated w/ previous infection > Unvaccinated w/previous infection > Vaccinated > Unvaccinated

I would be interested to see what the results will be once the boostered and Omicron are added to the mix. Also, I wonder if this will lead to the US acknowledging recovered individuals(like Europe); thus far the US seems to only be concerned with vaccinated and unvaccinated.

CDC Study
Reuters talking about the study
 
The CDC released a study last week regarding protection against the Delta variant. This study was done before boosters(So, "Vaccinated" means 2 doses of Pfizer, for example) were widely applied and before Omicron touched down.

Results: Vaccinated w/ previous infection > Unvaccinated w/previous infection > Vaccinated > Unvaccinated
I'd like to point out that this is about protection from "any infection". In terms of protection from hospitalization or death, vaccination comes ahead of "no immunity" still, so picking up covid to gain immunity while unvaccinated is quite a gamble. "Super immunity" that protects you from any likely or even possible variant for at least a year can be obtained from the combination of natural infection and double mRNA vaccination, ideally with the vaccination first to reduce risk of hospitalization and death.

Data for Omicron is available from Britain, basically "prior infection" with another variant is a washout as is vaccination with a non-mRNA vaccine. Detailed data is somewhere downthread, search for my posts...
 
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I'd like to point out that this is about protection from "any infection". In terms of protection from hospitalization or death, vaccination comes ahead of "no immunity" still, so picking up covid to gain immunity while unvaccinated is quite a gamble.

Yep, it is a big gamble and I'm not suggesting that anyone should purposely get infected(even though some have done so to avoid mandates). However, this does give both the unvaccinated/infected and vaccinated/infected some good news.

Also, as I said in the original post, I wonder will this lead to the US recognizing recovered individuals.
 
Also, as I said in the original post, I wonder will this lead to the US recognizing recovered individuals.
They should. Over here at least, it's advised to wait a while after infection before you vax, so it kinda follows from that to give previously infected people some vax-like status - at least until vaxing isn't advised against.
 
They should. Over here at least, it's advised to wait a while after infection before you vax, so it kinda follows from that to give previously infected people some vax-like status - at least until vaxing isn't advised against.
We'll see what happens. I would be very interested in an accurate number of how many people an official recovery certificate would apply to in the US. Hmm, I'll look into it when I have some time.
 
GREAT NEWS from Nature!
Researchers in Israel report that people who have had both SARS-CoV-2 infection and doses of Pfizer–BioNTech vaccine were much less likely to report any of a range of common long-COVID symptoms than were people who were unvaccinated when infected. In fact, vaccinated people were no more likely to report symptoms than people who’d never caught SARS-CoV-2. The study has not yet been peer reviewed.
 
That’s all well and good (excellent even, if/when confirmed), but what about the Dacia Sandero?
Here we have to keep in mind that while chrome bumpers are antiseptic and prevent infection, plastic bumpers actually increase your infection risk.
 
Mother fucker has filed two batches of lawsuits because schools dare try to keep both adults and kids safer. Missouri, as fucked sideways as that state is, deserves better than this asshole.

 
Numbers are finally starting to drop down here. Nice. (Still bad, but nice.)
 
Early bird gets the worm.

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Third week of significant decline almost over here. Even with the BA.2 turbo Omicron maybe causing another smaller spike (60+% of people probably having been infected already, and 85+% of them developing lasting immunity means the new turbo Omicron has a much smaller pool of hosts) we are getting out of the woods-ish.
 
Yes, we are Covid tests. We exist.

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Since subnational numbers are hard to come by, here's week over week data on Uusima (Helsinki region) covid I cobbled together in Excel.
One-day peak was 5383 on January 4th, with a significant drop in week over week cases starting a week later, on the 11th.
I'll be bold and pre-date Omicron kickoff for the Helsinki region to somewhere around Dec. 13th, so we are within the four to five week window that has been expected.

ICU occupancy is down (from a high of 33 to 22), but normal wards are up (360 from 348) since Friday.

National numbers meanwhile are constant 22.217 over last weekend, 22.520 this weekend, so the wave is clearly moving northwards.

EDIT: Of course this is Week 2 vs. Week 3, Week 4 just started today.
Excel update!

As you can see, some 800 cases were added to last week's tally in the meantime. And as you can see, numbers are still dropping.

Hospital load is at an unchanged 22 in ICUs and a drop to 307 (-15%) in normal wards.
Nationwide numbers also are down by almost a third, with "only" 14,439 new cases reported over the weekend.

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EDIT: That means that 3% of Helsingians have been PCR-confirmed positive since after Omicron peak. Now remember we are only catching 20% of cases or less according to estimates...
 
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People on twitter who use phrases like "herd death" claim that a new paper proves there is no immunity from Omicron, and we will all die. Sadly, this has been picked up by news organizations including Finland's YLE.
So, I read the paper, not the tweet. And while I don't understand shit of immunology, that is clearly not what the paper says.

Yes, it says that:
Neutralizing antibodies in Delta and Omicron breakthrough infections increase overall, but the relative magnitude of increase is greater in more clinically severe infection and against the specific infecting variant.
So more mild cases in Omicron mean more people make lower levels of antibodies.
Not because Omicron is a sinister, evil, variant, but on the contrary, because it has more milder cases. Also, as we have already seen, previous infection with Delta does not protect from Omicron.

And this means that while:
Sera from patients with Omicron breakthrough infections can enhance Delta virus neutralization to a limited extent (4.4-fold), [meaning that] breakthrough infection from Omicron may enhance cross-protection against Delta, and vice-versa, inasmuch as there is a sufficiently large increase in baseline neutralizing immunity, which appears to be related to the clinical severity of the infection.
But still
Omicron-induced immunity may not be sufficient to prevent infection from another, more pathogenic variant, should it emerge in the future. [This] also highlights the continued importance of vaccine boosters in enhancing immunity, as breakthrough infection alone may not be reliable in eliciting protective titers against re-infection or future infection from different variants.

And most importantly:
Thus, Omicron breakthrough infection resulted in ~90% of individuals having neutralizing antibodies to Omicron [...], comparable in proportion to those having neutralizing antibodies to Delta.
Note that this figure is five percentage points higher than my earlier estimate of 85% of people infected gaining immunity - which again shows I am not an immunologist.

EDIT: To me it seems like the same tropes of "no immunity" and "immediate reinfection" are being played out with each new variant, as if we did not learn anything about the Coronavirus in the last two years.
 
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