7 ms·

Now we have large numbers of vaccinated out there I really think we should see a lot less of "new infections" type stats, and a lot more of "in hospitals" type

Now we have large numbers of vaccinated out there I really think we should see a lot less of "new infections" type stats, and a lot more of "in hospitals" type stats... in places with 90-95%+ vaccination rates THAT is the numbers that are important for things like opening up/locking down. Then break that down to "in hospital and vaccinated with X or having had a previous infection and recovered or unvaccinated and having had no previous infection." We're not seeing that here in Australia... its all just about the number of new infections. plus a bit of info about Delta/Omicron. it feels like fear mongering not information clarity.

heyitsguay 5y ago
Basically agreed, but to me whether "new infections" matters or not hinges on the long-term effects of these different variants in vaccinated people. What's the prevalence of "long COVID" if you're vaccinated? If you're vaccinated and boosted? Is there evidence of any more or less lasting lung damage in chest X-rays than in unvaccinated people? Hospitalization matters for short-term policy, but long-term damage could end up affecting long-term healthcare policy even more in the coming decades
- senectus1 5y ago
  oh long covid is another problem as well I agree, but I think the more immediate issue is checking to see if this new variant is so bad that we need to lock down (seems unlikely) or if we're now fortified enough to let it rip :-/
bluejekyll 5y ago
While I hope what you are suggesting is the case, “scientists say it is too early to draw firm conclusions” (from linked article). We just don’t know yet what the repercussions of the most recent infections are. It seems like a pretty big gamble to not be cautious. Masking, vaccines, and avoiding indoor crowds in poorly ventilated spaces seems to be helpful. Probably best to at a minimum continue to do that until we have more concrete evidence.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
Semaphor 5y ago
We are using hospitalizations here in Germany, but a) it's an even more lagging indicator than infections and b) as a person without a booster shot (I've only been eligible to register for one since today) I appreciate the infection rates.
- markvdb 5y ago
  You sound motivated to get your third vaccination early. Did you know that it has been possible for any EU resident to get a booster shot in Aachen, Nordrhein-Westfalen since two weeks at least, without an appointment? This might also hold true for other German Laender closer to you.
  - mschuster91 5y ago
    The booster shots are only after 5 or 6 months, depending on the state - and the bureaucracy "experts" have managed to turn people away because six hours (!) had been missing to make the six month spacing (e.g. https://www.waz.de/staedte/velbert/sechs-stunden-zu-frueh-keine-booster-impfung-fuer-80-jaehrige-id234003861.html https://www.waz.de/staedte/velbert/sechs-stunden-zu-frueh-ke...). Our bureaucracy and inability to improvise in times of need will kill us all.
    - Fnoord 5y ago
      My son (1, NL) got certain vaccines a few days too early (they should've noticed that when appt was made, and now he has to get the vaccines again, or he is not offficially vaccinated against them. Infuriating but otherwise where do you draw the line with exceptions.
    - rajup 5y ago
      The reason boosters are needed after 5 or 6 months is antibody levels apparently drop around that time, booster tops that up roughly speaking. Having a booster dose within that time period does not magically make you more immune.
    - qwerty456127 5y ago
thebigman433 5y ago
> Now we have large numbers of vaccinated out there I really think we should see a lot less of "new infections" type stats, and a lot more of "in hospitals" type stats... in places with 90-95%+ vaccination rates THAT is the numbers that are important for things like opening up/locking down. Exactly what should be done. Instead of reporting new cases most prominently, there should be reports on how cities like SF, with 80%+ vaccination rates, have 0, or single digit death averages over the last week. For massive population centers!
- adgjlsfhk1 5y ago
  The main problem with using hospitalization is that it lags cases by 1-2 weeks which means it's not ideal for policy making.
  - switch007 5y ago
    Policy shouldn't be quick, rash judgements. It's got a bigger scope than that. We need longer-term strategies. Quick judgements should be made within an existing policy. And laws, which take time, for good reason, to propose, debate and pass. We can't run a country with by changing direction every time case numbers of one particular virus go up or down
ggm 5y ago
There was a Qld newspaper report today proposing some state health departments want to focus on hospitalisations as a functional measure of stress on the system. I also heard anecdotal suggestions that contact tracing was going to be dropped as too unwieldy in the face of ubiquitous infection. I find that very scary, close to a "giving up" mentality. The hospitalisations measurement, is I think sensible. I still think underlying case rate means something.
- lettergram 5y ago
  Covid is endemic and increasingly less scary. > I find that very scary, close to a "giving up" mentality. Everyone can have a vaccine, there are multiple highly effective therapies and even the risk of death without intervention to the majority of people (under 55) is already astronomically low. To put it in perspective, if you’re under 30 with asthma, your risk of death from the original covid variant (not the less lethal variants) is the same as being struck by lightening. We haven’t given up, we’ve successfully mitigated fatalities until we have effective treatments and a vaccine. Now it’s time to move on.
  - spockz 5y ago
    I think dying from COVID is the least scary part. The long COVID is way more common in my area. People stay ill for longer or lose fitness. We have one acquaintance that now has issues finding the right words. Personally I lost a few points of eye sight in just the three weeks. (Coincidentally we measured just before I got ill.) other friends just are tired quickly all the time. So I think preventing all that loss of quality of life is also worthwhile.
    - nradov 5y ago
      How do you propose to prevent it? The virus will be around forever and everyone will occasionally be exposed. https://www.medpagetoday.com/opinion/vinay-prasad/94646 https://www.medpagetoday.com/opinion/vinay-prasad/94646 https://www.businessinsider.com/delta-variant-made-herd-immunity-not-possible-astrazeneca-developer-2021-8 https://www.businessinsider.com/delta-variant-made-herd-immu...
lettergram 5y ago
You actually need to go further, many people are not hospitalized FOR covid. You need those numbers. Further, we couldn’t contain delta. If Omicron is 10x more virulent (as claimed), then we have no hope. Masks didn’t help, Lockdowns didn’t help. Luckily, these illnesses are treatable with the plethora of therapeutics that were discovered. Plus, the strains have become less lethal over time. It is fear mongering on the part of media (to make money) and governments (to seize power).
- nyokodo 5y ago
  > If Omicron is 10x more virulent I think you mean “10x more infectious” as virulence is how serious/deadly/damaging the infection is. Omicron is no more virulent and maybe considerably less virulent than previous strains.
  - asimpletune 5y ago
    So I was a little confused about the definition myself, because when I looked it up a while back my iPhone dictionary suggested both as a definition. Is the key difference that in an infectious disease expert context, virulent means severe and infectious means contagious? I always thought virulent was ability to spread because that’s what viruses do, but that was way before the pandemic.
    - sterlind 5y ago
      correct. it's confusing terminology, but virulent means severe. so MERS is very virulent (30% mortality) but not very infectious (R0<1). SARS-COV-2 is the opposite.
  - lettergram 5y ago
    You’re correct, brain was working a bit slower late at night -_-
- ako 5y ago
  How do you know the masks and lockdowns didn't help? Things might have much worse if not for the masks and lockdowns?
dukeofdoom 5y ago
Ontario provides a breakdown of the data. If you go to the the third graph, click on the cases, you will see a worrying trend. The vaccinated cases are growing exponentially. 2997 vaccinated cases vs 905 unvaccinated cases in the last week. https://covid-19.ontario.ca/data?fbclid=IwAR2pRUq9GN9EEoDTm0OetspYalQy0Otcc41JS6b-L9BnzLOdhl1eZ1L4FHg https://covid-19.ontario.ca/data?fbclid=IwAR2pRUq9GN9EEoDTm0...
- senectus1 5y ago
  jeez those stats are not as great a result as what I was hoping for. thanks for the link
  - dukeofdoom 5y ago
    In ontario the unvaccinated as a group have to do rapid antigen testing 2 or 3 times per week testing to keep their jobs. So much more likely to report a positive. The "doctors" on 4chan think it's ADE in the vaccinated.
    - senectus1 5y ago
      ADE?
      - nradov 5y ago
        Antibody dependent enhancement. There are some infectious diseases for which the antibodies created by vaccination actually make it more likely for patients to get infected by the actual virus. There is no reliable evidence of this happening with COVID-19. https://www.nebraskamed.com/COVID/antibody-dependent-enhancement-in-vaccines https://www.nebraskamed.com/COVID/antibody-dependent-enhance...
- nawgz 5y ago
  But these are case numbers and not hospitalization numbers… which is the parent’s point, Ontario ICU numbers are stable since nov 20 even with all this omicron news and increased case count
heavyset_go 5y ago
It's the earliest indicator of all COVID-related trends, and it's the variable the that others depend on. Every new infection results in rolling the evolutionary dice a few hundred billion times, and is how we get diseases that evade our defenses, and new diseases in general. Also, being hospitalized isn't the only bad thing about COVID.
- kkjjkgjjgg 5y ago
  "Every new infection results in rolling the evolutionary dice a few hundred billion times, and is how we get diseases that evade our defenses, and new diseases in general." That frames it as if that was a new and scary thing and not something that has been going on for millions of years.
landemva 5y ago
It will be interesting to see if this data is collected, '... having had a previous infection and recovered'. And then did not vax. It is the control group of the natural circumstance.
top_post 5y ago
We don't have 90-95% vaccinated in Australia or any state of Australia. It's of the eligible population and it's excluding the under 12 year olds. The whole covid is mild in children argument aside, the fact is the population simply is not 90+ vaccinated.
- jen729w 5y ago
  Ahem from the ACT where our 16+ double-dose rate is “>99%”. [0] I’ll give you the technicality that you said “state” but still, we’re doing pretty good here in the territory! I had my booster yesterday morning. I’m 45. [0]: https://www.health.gov.au/sites/default/files/documents/2021/12/covid-19-vaccine-rollout-update-jurisdictional-breakdown-20-december-2021.pdf https://www.health.gov.au/sites/default/files/documents/2021...
  - top_post 5y ago
    16+ is not the whole ACT population and was my point. Undoubtedly 99% are great numbers for 16+… but an entire cohort is excluded from vaccination statistics of which are vulnerable to infection.
    - jen729w 5y ago
      Ah, gotcha. Still, with our 12-15 at ~97% you’d have to think that we’re a good city to watch. Nowhere else in the world is this vaccinated. If Omicron takes hold here, we’re all buggered. Thankfully, so far it doesn’t seem to be.
phillc73 5y ago
Austria is using ICU bed occupancy as a key metric now. This was used to justify the most recent lockdown. The publicised critical point is 33% of ICU bed capacity occupied by COVID patients. This page has the data [1]. What I now believe is missing, and would like to see, is the number of ICU COVID patients who are vaccinated and unvaccinated, as well as an age group breakdown. This is the type of data required to make informed decisions. If I had a teenage child, I’d be wanting to understand the true likelihood of them contracting COVID and ending up in an ICU bed, in order to make a decision about vaccinating them against it. [1] https://covid19-dashboard.ages.at/dashboard_Hosp.html https://covid19-dashboard.ages.at/dashboard_Hosp.html
rsynnott 5y ago
> Now we have large numbers of vaccinated out there I really think we should see a lot less of "new infections" type stats, and a lot more of "in hospitals" type stats... in places with 90-95%+ vaccination rates THAT is the numbers that are important for things like opening up/locking down. So, the trouble with that is that hospitalisation is a lagging indicator. By the time hospitalisation starts rising rapidly, you could lock everyone in their houses and it would still rise rapidly for another week or so. Which will probably overwhelm your hospitals. Even in places with 95% vaccination, case counts are still _generally_ a reasonable indicator of where hospitalisation is headed; some fraction of those cases will convert to hospitalisations due to that vulnerable 5%, and due to people for whom the vaccination doesn't work very well (immunocompromised and extremely ill people, generally).

heyitsguay 5y ago

Basically agreed, but to me whether "new infections" matters or not hinges on the long-term effects of these different variants in vaccinated people. What's the prevalence of "long COVID" if you're vaccinated? If you're vaccinated and boosted? Is there evidence of any more or less lasting lung damage in chest X-rays than in unvaccinated people? Hospitalization matters for short-term policy, but long-term damage could end up affecting long-term healthcare policy even more in the coming decades

senectus1 5y ago
oh long covid is another problem as well I agree, but I think the more immediate issue is checking to see if this new variant is so bad that we need to lock down (seems unlikely) or if we're now fortified enough to let it rip :-/

bluejekyll 5y ago

While I hope what you are suggesting is the case, “scientists say it is too early to draw firm conclusions” (from linked article). We just don’t know yet what the repercussions of the most recent infections are. It seems like a pretty big gamble to not be cautious. Masking, vaccines, and avoiding indoor crowds in poorly ventilated spaces seems to be helpful. Probably best to at a minimum continue to do that until we have more concrete evidence.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

Semaphor 5y ago

We are using hospitalizations here in Germany, but a) it's an even more lagging indicator than infections and b) as a person without a booster shot (I've only been eligible to register for one since today) I appreciate the infection rates.

markvdb 5y ago
You sound motivated to get your third vaccination early. Did you know that it has been possible for any EU resident to get a booster shot in Aachen, Nordrhein-Westfalen since two weeks at least, without an appointment? This might also hold true for other German Laender closer to you.
- mschuster91 5y ago
  The booster shots are only after 5 or 6 months, depending on the state - and the bureaucracy "experts" have managed to turn people away because six hours (!) had been missing to make the six month spacing (e.g. https://www.waz.de/staedte/velbert/sechs-stunden-zu-frueh-keine-booster-impfung-fuer-80-jaehrige-id234003861.html https://www.waz.de/staedte/velbert/sechs-stunden-zu-frueh-ke...). Our bureaucracy and inability to improvise in times of need will kill us all.
  - Fnoord 5y ago
    My son (1, NL) got certain vaccines a few days too early (they should've noticed that when appt was made, and now he has to get the vaccines again, or he is not offficially vaccinated against them. Infuriating but otherwise where do you draw the line with exceptions.
  - rajup 5y ago
    The reason boosters are needed after 5 or 6 months is antibody levels apparently drop around that time, booster tops that up roughly speaking. Having a booster dose within that time period does not magically make you more immune.
  - qwerty456127 5y ago

thebigman433 5y ago

adgjlsfhk1 5y ago
The main problem with using hospitalization is that it lags cases by 1-2 weeks which means it's not ideal for policy making.
- switch007 5y ago
  Policy shouldn't be quick, rash judgements. It's got a bigger scope than that. We need longer-term strategies. Quick judgements should be made within an existing policy. And laws, which take time, for good reason, to propose, debate and pass. We can't run a country with by changing direction every time case numbers of one particular virus go up or down

ggm 5y ago

There was a Qld newspaper report today proposing some state health departments want to focus on hospitalisations as a functional measure of stress on the system. I also heard anecdotal suggestions that contact tracing was going to be dropped as too unwieldy in the face of ubiquitous infection. I find that very scary, close to a "giving up" mentality. The hospitalisations measurement, is I think sensible. I still think underlying case rate means something.

lettergram 5y ago
Covid is endemic and increasingly less scary. > I find that very scary, close to a "giving up" mentality. Everyone can have a vaccine, there are multiple highly effective therapies and even the risk of death without intervention to the majority of people (under 55) is already astronomically low. To put it in perspective, if you’re under 30 with asthma, your risk of death from the original covid variant (not the less lethal variants) is the same as being struck by lightening. We haven’t given up, we’ve successfully mitigated fatalities until we have effective treatments and a vaccine. Now it’s time to move on.
- spockz 5y ago
  I think dying from COVID is the least scary part. The long COVID is way more common in my area. People stay ill for longer or lose fitness. We have one acquaintance that now has issues finding the right words. Personally I lost a few points of eye sight in just the three weeks. (Coincidentally we measured just before I got ill.) other friends just are tired quickly all the time. So I think preventing all that loss of quality of life is also worthwhile.
  - nradov 5y ago
    How do you propose to prevent it? The virus will be around forever and everyone will occasionally be exposed. https://www.medpagetoday.com/opinion/vinay-prasad/94646 https://www.medpagetoday.com/opinion/vinay-prasad/94646 https://www.businessinsider.com/delta-variant-made-herd-immunity-not-possible-astrazeneca-developer-2021-8 https://www.businessinsider.com/delta-variant-made-herd-immu...

lettergram 5y ago

You actually need to go further, many people are not hospitalized FOR covid. You need those numbers. Further, we couldn’t contain delta. If Omicron is 10x more virulent (as claimed), then we have no hope. Masks didn’t help, Lockdowns didn’t help. Luckily, these illnesses are treatable with the plethora of therapeutics that were discovered. Plus, the strains have become less lethal over time. It is fear mongering on the part of media (to make money) and governments (to seize power).

nyokodo 5y ago
> If Omicron is 10x more virulent I think you mean “10x more infectious” as virulence is how serious/deadly/damaging the infection is. Omicron is no more virulent and maybe considerably less virulent than previous strains.
- asimpletune 5y ago
  So I was a little confused about the definition myself, because when I looked it up a while back my iPhone dictionary suggested both as a definition. Is the key difference that in an infectious disease expert context, virulent means severe and infectious means contagious? I always thought virulent was ability to spread because that’s what viruses do, but that was way before the pandemic.
  - sterlind 5y ago
    correct. it's confusing terminology, but virulent means severe. so MERS is very virulent (30% mortality) but not very infectious (R0<1). SARS-COV-2 is the opposite.
- lettergram 5y ago
  You’re correct, brain was working a bit slower late at night -_-
ako 5y ago
How do you know the masks and lockdowns didn't help? Things might have much worse if not for the masks and lockdowns?

dukeofdoom 5y ago

Ontario provides a breakdown of the data. If you go to the the third graph, click on the cases, you will see a worrying trend. The vaccinated cases are growing exponentially. 2997 vaccinated cases vs 905 unvaccinated cases in the last week. https://covid-19.ontario.ca/data?fbclid=IwAR2pRUq9GN9EEoDTm0OetspYalQy0Otcc41JS6b-L9BnzLOdhl1eZ1L4FHg https://covid-19.ontario.ca/data?fbclid=IwAR2pRUq9GN9EEoDTm0...

senectus1 5y ago
jeez those stats are not as great a result as what I was hoping for. thanks for the link
- dukeofdoom 5y ago
  In ontario the unvaccinated as a group have to do rapid antigen testing 2 or 3 times per week testing to keep their jobs. So much more likely to report a positive. The "doctors" on 4chan think it's ADE in the vaccinated.
  - senectus1 5y ago
    ADE?
    - nradov 5y ago
      Antibody dependent enhancement. There are some infectious diseases for which the antibodies created by vaccination actually make it more likely for patients to get infected by the actual virus. There is no reliable evidence of this happening with COVID-19. https://www.nebraskamed.com/COVID/antibody-dependent-enhancement-in-vaccines https://www.nebraskamed.com/COVID/antibody-dependent-enhance...
nawgz 5y ago
But these are case numbers and not hospitalization numbers… which is the parent’s point, Ontario ICU numbers are stable since nov 20 even with all this omicron news and increased case count

heavyset_go 5y ago

It's the earliest indicator of all COVID-related trends, and it's the variable the that others depend on. Every new infection results in rolling the evolutionary dice a few hundred billion times, and is how we get diseases that evade our defenses, and new diseases in general. Also, being hospitalized isn't the only bad thing about COVID.

kkjjkgjjgg 5y ago
"Every new infection results in rolling the evolutionary dice a few hundred billion times, and is how we get diseases that evade our defenses, and new diseases in general." That frames it as if that was a new and scary thing and not something that has been going on for millions of years.

landemva 5y ago

It will be interesting to see if this data is collected, '... having had a previous infection and recovered'. And then did not vax. It is the control group of the natural circumstance.

top_post 5y ago

We don't have 90-95% vaccinated in Australia or any state of Australia. It's of the eligible population and it's excluding the under 12 year olds. The whole covid is mild in children argument aside, the fact is the population simply is not 90+ vaccinated.

jen729w 5y ago
Ahem from the ACT where our 16+ double-dose rate is “>99%”. [0] I’ll give you the technicality that you said “state” but still, we’re doing pretty good here in the territory! I had my booster yesterday morning. I’m 45. [0]: https://www.health.gov.au/sites/default/files/documents/2021/12/covid-19-vaccine-rollout-update-jurisdictional-breakdown-20-december-2021.pdf https://www.health.gov.au/sites/default/files/documents/2021...
- top_post 5y ago
  16+ is not the whole ACT population and was my point. Undoubtedly 99% are great numbers for 16+… but an entire cohort is excluded from vaccination statistics of which are vulnerable to infection.
  - jen729w 5y ago
    Ah, gotcha. Still, with our 12-15 at ~97% you’d have to think that we’re a good city to watch. Nowhere else in the world is this vaccinated. If Omicron takes hold here, we’re all buggered. Thankfully, so far it doesn’t seem to be.

phillc73 5y ago

Austria is using ICU bed occupancy as a key metric now. This was used to justify the most recent lockdown. The publicised critical point is 33% of ICU bed capacity occupied by COVID patients. This page has the data [1]. What I now believe is missing, and would like to see, is the number of ICU COVID patients who are vaccinated and unvaccinated, as well as an age group breakdown. This is the type of data required to make informed decisions. If I had a teenage child, I’d be wanting to understand the true likelihood of them contracting COVID and ending up in an ICU bed, in order to make a decision about vaccinating them against it. [1] https://covid19-dashboard.ages.at/dashboard_Hosp.html https://covid19-dashboard.ages.at/dashboard_Hosp.html

rsynnott 5y ago

> Now we have large numbers of vaccinated out there I really think we should see a lot less of "new infections" type stats, and a lot more of "in hospitals" type stats... in places with 90-95%+ vaccination rates THAT is the numbers that are important for things like opening up/locking down. So, the trouble with that is that hospitalisation is a lagging indicator. By the time hospitalisation starts rising rapidly, you could lock everyone in their houses and it would still rise rapidly for another week or so. Which will probably overwhelm your hospitals. Even in places with 95% vaccination, case counts are still _generally_ a reasonable indicator of where hospitalisation is headed; some fraction of those cases will convert to hospitalisations due to that vulnerable 5%, and due to people for whom the vaccination doesn't work very well (immunocompromised and extremely ill people, generally).