COVID-19 Stuff Here

[waiopehu oldboy]

Well it's in Auckland, so of course they'll drop the hammer.

Didn't really even pick it up though, did they: inbound passengers now have to return a negative PCR test within 48 hours of boarding their flight (was 72 hours) & now have to spend a full 10 days in MIQ (was seven then three in self-isolation). Of course, that could all change when the case numbers increase (as they surely will) and/or the holiday period ends & people start taking notice of what's going on around them again.

 

[Pfitzy]

As per the previous situation: the governments have painted themselves into a corner reporting case numbers, rather than focusing on the point end of things i.e. hospitalisations and particularly ICUs.

A couple of weeks ago - before Omicron landed - the Victorian health guy (Sutton?) came out and said of the small number of cases in ICU, 93% had one dose of vaccine, and 88% had no vaccine. That is surely where things lie now i.e. get vaxxed, and if you feel like shit, stay away from other people.

Of course, the "stay home if you're not well" didn't really work during regular flu seasons for many people, but we showed what we can do if we wash our hands and use some common sense.

 

[Pfitzy]

Now we have the NSW Premier writing a fluff piece in the paper about hope and faith in dealing with this. Without trying to instigate a religious debate, I would prefer governing, rather than lay-preaching, to solve logistic issues.

And he's only got himself to blame for pulling back some initiatives that should have been gradually rolled back in an orderly fashion - not because it would have made any more sense scientifically, but because he looks a right dickhead for tossing masks and checkins straight away and then having to bring them back.

 

[waiopehu oldboy]

That seems inconsistent with the rapid infection rate. Digging in deeper though, reports suggest average onset is 3 days (quick) but can be 3-10 days. I guess NZ is worried about he 10 day side of things.

From recollection some states in Aus have used the available data to reduce quarantine. Compared to Delta where it was increased.

Interesting. A prominent NZ epidemiologist was on multiple media yesterday suggesting it may have a longer incubation/ infectious phase but tonight there's one from your side of the ditch saying the exact opposite. Our patient zero appears to have had a long incubation period, perhaps 12 days as he apparently didn't catch it in transit or MIQ; but patient two seems to have come down with it in three days at most.

Edit: just watching a news item wrt to ScoMos's response to Omicron which seems to boil down to making it harder to be classified a close contact & spending less time in isolation if you are. Seems odd to me.

 

[Pfitzy]

Interesting. A prominent NZ epidemiologist was on multiple media yesterday suggesting it may have a longer incubation/ infectious phase but tonight there's one from your side of the ditch saying the exact opposite. Our patient zero appears to have had a long incubation period, perhaps 12 days as he apparently didn't catch it in transit or MIQ; but patient two seems to have come down with it in three days at most.

Edit: just watching a news item wrt to ScoMos's response to Omicron which seems to boil down to making it harder to be classified a close contact & spending less time in isolation if you are. Seems odd to me.

Sample size too small to make meaningful relationships at this point I reckon.

South Africa also doesn't work well as a statistical base, because they had a lot of Delta through the joint, meaning more prior infections.

 

[formerflanker]

Obviously funding for PCRs has been curtailed behind the scenes - why else would pathology companies who have made fortunes from COVID PCR testing be shutting doors at midday in some clinics with hundreds waiting?

Clinics have been shut down not because of funding issues but because of backlogs at the pathology testing level.
Normally, batches of swabs have a portion of each swab mixed together and then tested. If a negative result is obtained, all swabs in that batch are assumed to be negative and the individuals are contacted to be told.
If however the result is positive, all individual swabs have to uniquely tested and the individuals contacted to be told of either a negative result or a positive result.
It's a routine process that works well when the probability of positive results is very low.
However with Omnicon being present in so many people, the number of unique swab tests has skyrocketed. That is the time consuming issue which has caused such long delays in getting results back after having the swab done.
Shutting clinics down allows the pathology lab to deal with fewer tests.

 

[The_Brown_Hornet]

As per the previous situation: the governments have painted themselves into a corner reporting case numbers, rather than focusing on the point end of things i.e. hospitalisations and particularly ICUs.

A couple of weeks ago - before Omicron landed - the Victorian health guy (Sutton?) came out and said of the small number of cases in ICU, 93% had one dose of vaccine, and 88% had no vaccine. That is surely where things lie now i.e. get vaxxed, and if you feel like shit, stay away from other people.

Of course, the "stay home if you're not well" didn't really work during regular flu seasons for many people, but we showed what we can do if we wash our hands and use some common sense.

I've long stopped paying attention to the case numbers. At this stage surely it's the hospitalisations and ICU admissions, especially among the unvaccinated that we should be looking at? Our premier doesn't see it that way, but we got a glimmer of hope when he made the remark that if the current outbreak (tiny that it is) were to really take hold and it was omicron then the Feb 5th border opening became moot. We'd might as well go the whole hog.

 

[dru]

Interesting. A prominent NZ epidemiologist was on multiple media yesterday suggesting it may have a longer incubation/ infectious phase but tonight there's one from your side of the ditch saying the exact opposite. Our patient zero appears to have had a long incubation period, perhaps 12 days as he apparently didn't catch it in transit or MIQ; but patient two seems to have come down with it in three days at most.

Edit: just watching a news item wrt to ScoMos's response to Omicron which seems to boil down to making it harder to be classified a close contact & spending less time in isolation if you are. Seems odd to me.

I think things can be asymptomatic rather than slow. And then others are saying average 2.5 days but up to 10.

ps Aus has lost control. It was planned that way just with no immediate expectation of something like Omicron. It now plays out. Let's hope they were right. ScoMo's push is in line with a highly vaccinated population and nil constrained ability to trace. It's not making me feel comfortable right now.

 

[Pfitzy]

ps Aus has lost control. It was planned that way just with no immediate expectation of something like Omicron. It now plays out. Let's hope they were right. ScoMo's push is in line with a highly vaccinated population and nil constrained ability to trace. It's not making me feel comfortable right now.

Timing was shit, too - Omicron landing in the holiday period was hardly ideal.

 

[Pfitzy]

A few people are anxiously reporting the positive rate in testing e.g. it was 14.25% positive yesterday after the early days of Delta being low single digits.

I find this a bit of a wobbly number TBH because you're not testing the whole cohort every day. We know Omicron is more transmissible to start with. Additionally we've just had a period of relative freedom where Omicron was probably circulating along side Delta.

The percentage of hospitalisations is of more interest to me - and against the total case count, it is pretty flat by the looks (green line below). Of course, hospital beds (blue line graph 2) don't give a fuck about percentages because they're a constraint parameter.

At the same time, I think we need to stop pretending the world is going to end because we're seeing unprecedented case counts - at this point it could just mean the virus has hit a vulnerable population that it couldn't reach in lockdown, whether Omicron, Delta, or otherwise.

What we're seeing in the bottom graph is that vaccines work. Compared the green peaks during winter (low vaccination levels) versus what is happening now in a general population with more coverage. Would love to see hospitalisations versus vaccine status. That could tell a story all its own.

All data NSW only.

 

[The_Brown_Hornet]

Yeah I can't see how any other outcome was going to happen once the virus mutated to be considerably more contagious. If we trust the vaccines (and we have good reason to do so) then we have to let it play out at some point. I've looked at the stats for other countries like the UK, Israel, Sweden and Italy where they have high vaccination rates and they all show escalating infections but no significant increases in deaths or severe cases. I don't know that there's much more we should be doing at this point.

 

[cyclopath]

Yeah I can't see how any other outcome was going to happen once the virus mutated to be considerably more contagious. If we trust the vaccines (and we have good reason to do so) then we have to let it play out at some point. I've looked at the stats for other countries like the UK, Israel, Sweden and Italy where they have high vaccination rates and they all show escalating infections but no significant increases in deaths or severe cases. I don't know that there's much more we should be doing at this point.

But hospitalisations and ICU admissions are rising, albeit slowly so far, but that could change as the curve steepens with regard to new cases. As I have mentioned before, the numbers in hospital and / or ICU are important, but the other important number, which is completely ignored in the media, and usually by pundits on social media, is the number of hospital staff who are exposed and self-isolating. I was talking to an ICU nurse earlier today when at my local bottle shop, and she stated that they are struggling to cover shifts right now - at a tertiary referral teaching hospital in Sydney. It's not just people being sick or not with COVID, it's people being unable to work in critical care areas. There is not a massive surplus pool of ICU level nurses. We could see some squeeze in the next week or two if the current trajectory continues.

 

[Derpus]

But hospitalisations and ICU admissions are rising, albeit slowly so far, but that could change as the curve steepens with regard to new cases. As I have mentioned before, the numbers in hospital and / or ICU are important, but the other important number, which is completely ignored in the media, and usually by pundits on social media, is the number of hospital staff who are exposed and self-isolating. I was talking to an ICU nurse earlier today when at my local bottle shop, and she stated that they are struggling to cover shifts right now - at a tertiary referral teaching hospital in Sydney. It's not just people being sick or not with COVID, it's people being unable to work in critical care areas. There is not a massive surplus pool of ICU level nurses. We could see some squeeze in the next week or two if the current trajectory continues.

I assume they are isolating because of exposure outside of work? I'm curious how it works for ICU and other nurses. Presumably they are regularly exposed to the virus as they are treating patients with it right?

 

[dru]

Yeah I can't see how any other outcome was going to happen once the virus mutated to be considerably more contagious. If we trust the vaccines (and we have good reason to do so) then we have to let it play out at some point. I've looked at the stats for other countries like the UK, Israel, Sweden and Italy where they have high vaccination rates and they all show escalating infections but no significant increases in deaths or severe cases. I don't know that there's much more we should be doing at this point.

Yes, we do have good reason to trust the vaccines. Unfortunately there is some follow up info starting to come through wrt Omicron.

When is the best time to get a booster? Dr Norman Swan talks through the data on boosters

Trusted and independent source of local, national and world news. In-depth analysis, business, sport, weather and more.

www.abc.net.au

Norman Swan is usually pretty good, though I note the study he talks about are early (and incomplete in terms of hospitalisation). My wife and I got the first shot literally as soon as it was available, ditto the second. We took the advice of getting AZ. And apparently are now unprotected from catching Omicron as it goes crazy. We also had the booster booked as soon as it was available, and have brought it forward as the timing dropped to 4 months.

All the same we will be VERY careful around distancing etc and won't return to the workplace until a week after we get the booster. Scary stuff.

 

[cyclopath]

I assume they are isolating because of exposure outside of work? I'm curious how it works for ICU and other nurses. Presumably they are regularly exposed to the virus as they are treating patients with it right?

Largely, yes. Exposure like any group of 20-30 somethings. But the implication is worse. No work from home option. Work related exposures exist but are a smaller number due to proper PPE.

 

[The_Brown_Hornet]

Yes, we do have good reason to trust the vaccines. Unfortunately there is some follow up info starting to come through wrt Omicron.

When is the best time to get a booster? Dr Norman Swan talks through the data on boosters

Trusted and independent source of local, national and world news. In-depth analysis, business, sport, weather and more.

www.abc.net.au

Norman Swan is usually pretty good, though I note the study he talks about are early (and incomplete in terms of hospitalisation). My wife and I got the first shot literally as soon as it was available, ditto the second. We took the advice of getting AZ. And apparently are now unprotected from catching Omicron as it goes crazy. We also had the booster booked as soon as it was available, and have brought it forward as the timing dropped to 4 months.

All the same we will be VERY careful around distancing etc and won't return to the workplace until a week after we get the booster. Scary stuff.

Point well made, though I have some skepticism about Norman Swan, as I've felt he's veered closely to hysteria at times.

That said, Mrs TBH has had her booster this week and I'll likely be doing the same soon enough.

 

[cyclopath]

Point well made, though I have some skepticism about Norman Swan, as I've felt he's veered closely to hysteria at times.

That said, Mrs TBH has had her booster this week and I'll likely be doing the same soon enough.

Norman is a seasoned journo who did a medical degree a long time ago. His medical expertise is seriously overstated.

 

[dru]

Point well made, though I have some skepticism about Norman Swan, as I've felt he's veered closely to hysteria at times.

That said, Mrs TBH has had her booster this week and I'll likely be doing the same soon enough.

Norman is a seasoned journo who did a medical degree a long time ago. His medical expertise is seriously overstated.

cyclo, I said earlier that I think on the whole Swan should be considered respected.

However, Hornet made no comment on Swan's expertise. He commented on his interpretation of Swan's actions "at times". [Straw man]
Also, while having knowledge and expertise should certainly be influential on our assessments, it doesn't mean that an authority can't be wrong. [Appeal to ignorance].

I like Swan. I also recognise that medical professionals like yourself will generally have opinions based on solid grounds. In this case though, Swan doesn't seem to have thoroughly identified the report, he quotes one report only, it doesn't appear to have been reviewed. Conclusions are incomplete. And so far the voiced opinions from the public health authorities that are meant to have full access to all the relevant data are NOT making any similar claims.

It is really easy to "veer to hysteria" (though I'd say something like "focus on theoretical downsides" by things like looking at exponential projections without considering mitigating factors. It happens over and over by experts in the debate.)

That said, I've been watching the debate closely for some time and it is the first time that I have felt let down, having done all of the recommendations as early as utterly possible and not being permitted to bring forward either the second shot (thought it sensible when we were about to travel through remote areas and spend time in indigenous communities - but denied), nor the booster. Until now. And that won't happen until 4-1-22, leaving me unprotected until around 11-1-22 - according to Swan. With the "O" going gang busters.

Swan has left us concerned and I'd really like to see further review on more data by others. IMO Hornet's input was not out of context.

 

[Pfitzy]

the other important number, which is completely ignored in the media, and usually by pundits on social media, is the number of hospital staff who are exposed and self-isolating.

Mrs Pfitzy works in aged care - they had already lost about 30% of their home services staff during The Great Resignation due to covid-based pressures and aging workforce. Now workers are being isolated by positive COVID results, which is frustrating given the number that are asymptomatic and therefore dangerous but still capable of working.

This is just adding more pressure, particularly where family are simply not able to fill in. Or unwilling... those who barely want anything physical to do with their parents' care are quite quick to hop on the phone thinking there is an army of workers just waiting to parachute in.

The residential care situation is also under deep stress.

A mate of mine has family in the clinical labs area - they're paying people $25/hr off the street if they can handle a pipette.

 

[cyclopath]

Now they are stating the intention that frontline health care workers who are close contacts can have their isolation period shortened at the discretion of "managers" if they are deemed essential. And you know the "managers" are nowhere near a frontline.
Nothing weird here, no mixed messages in "make this shit up on the run" times...