9 ms·

Dr. Katelyn Jetelina, MPH PhD, has a nice substack from perspective of an epidemiologist. Two notable recent Omicron posts on that substack: The potentially s

by gz5 5y ago

Dr. Katelyn Jetelina, MPH PhD, has a nice substack from perspective of an epidemiologist. Two notable recent Omicron posts on that substack: The potentially scary aspects: https://yourlocalepidemiologist.substack.com/p/state-of-affairs-jan-4 https://yourlocalepidemiologist.substack.com/p/state-of-affa... The potentially good news: https://yourlocalepidemiologist.substack.com/p/there-is-good-news https://yourlocalepidemiologist.substack.com/p/there-is-good... Obviously it is still early, but imo those 2 posts give a decent lay of the land.

enragedcacti 5y ago
Thanks for this, just in those two blog posts she answered many lingering questions I had about how omicron has been changing things. the SEOd google results are always a flood of incomplete or speculative information when I try to find answers to covid questions so this is a dream come true. If anyone has any other sources like this that can find and interpret good data for covid I'd love to hear about them.
- bengale 5y ago
  I've also found this blog to be useful: https://thezvi.substack.com https://thezvi.substack.com
  - harpersealtako 5y ago
    Calling zvi's blog "useful" is an understatement, he's practically a lesser deity of covid-19 modeling.
    - toolz 5y ago
      I think thought-leaders and experts could use a whole lot less deification right now.
      - tharne 5y ago
        > I think thought-leaders and experts could use a whole lot less deification right now I'm not sure that's possible - the experts are more or less screaming into the wind at this point. The WHO and the CDC have been reduced to punchlines by liberals and conservatives alike. IMHO this scorn is well-deserved.
Mordisquitos 5y ago
Plus, to preemptively address any assumptions that Dr Jetelina may have an optimistic bias, compare her "There is good news" article from 5th January, which is based on what we now know, with her article from 26th November when Omicron (initially called "Nu") was first detected: "New Concerning Variant: B.1.1.529" https://yourlocalepidemiologist.substack.com/p/new-concerning-variant-b11529 https://yourlocalepidemiologist.substack.com/p/new-concernin... At the time, little was known about this new variant except that it was extremely different from all that we had seen before, which would very likely result in escape from prior immunity, and may even lead to more severe disease (or not?). The only definitive silver lining that she found at the time was that 1) the variant could be quickly detected with PCR thanks to its S-gene deletion, 2) it was detected early thanks to South Africa, and 3) vaccines could be quickly adapted if necessary, thanks to mRNA vaccine technology. However, in all other regards, the variant was still very concerning. In other words, do take her cautious optimism seriously. She's not a wishful thinker. Rather, she is a specialist in the field who works with the data as it becomes available and knows how to interpret it
- bengale 5y ago
  Yeah I've consistently found her writing to be good. She's one of the primary sources I use for keeping up to date with what's going on with covid.
- selimthegrim 5y ago
  There are S-gene silent Omicron subvariants in France (not sure if it is the same as the more concerning variant recently)
cmrdporcupine 5y ago
" We can easily see that in many graphs, but my favorite is below from New York City, showing a clear distinction in hospitalizations among vaccinated compared to unvaccinated people" I don't see this as much here in Ontario. Among the vaccinated as of today there is a 10.10/100k hospitalization status vs 16/100k for the unvaccinated (and 11.9 for one-dose). The hospitalization rate among the vaccinated is climbing quickly. Yes, there's still a gap, but yikes. ICU is better, though, with a 0.76/100k rate for the vaccinated vs 4.74/100k for the unvaccinated. This may have to do with different hospitalization and testing criterion, I don't know. But hospitalization here is in full exponential growth and not just among the unvaccinated. Obviously being vaccinated is still far preferable. I have had 3 doses (1 AstraZeneca and 2 Pfizer) FWIW.
- radioactivist 5y ago
  The Ontario science table dashboard has the hospitalization ratio for unvaccinated to vaccinated still at 5:1. Where are you getting that these rates have become nearly equal? edit: sorry had that written backwards
  - HWR_14 5y ago
    > Ontario science table dashboard has the hospitalization ratio for vaccinated to unvaccinated still at 5:1. Where are you getting that these rates have become nearly equal? If the rates are the same, and 5/6 people are vaccinated, we would expect 5/6 people admitted to the hospital to be vaccinated. In fact, 5/6 people are vaccinated in the 12-40 age cohort, with older (and more vulnerable) populations having at least 9/10 people vaccinated and quickly going to 19+/20. Therefore, vaccines prevent hospitalizations, as the average of all adults is greater than 5/6.
    - joshuamorton 5y ago
      You're misunderstanding. The dashboard is per Capita (so you don't need to account for the stuff you're describing), and shows 5x lower rate of vaccinated people hospitalized (and 10x lower ventilated). A far cry from the ~1.5x rate mentioned by ggp
zpeti 5y ago
Just a thought after reading the good news - ok this is great for the US and the west where there is decent vaccination. What the hell is going to happen with the omicron spread in countries with hardly any vaccination? I mean if it really is like measles, this could be terrible.
- barney54 5y ago
  Countries like South Africa? Steep increase in cases and now a steep fall in cases. Some increased deaths, but nothing like delta or alpha. https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/south-africa/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/south-afri...
  - thebruce87m 5y ago
    Average age is in South Africa is 28 vs US 38 and SA still has higher excess mortality: https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/coronavirus-excess-deaths-tracker https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/coronavirus-excess-... Not an expert but comparing countries is hard, especially now that there are other factors such as how many people are vaccinated, boosted etc. I don’t think it’s obvious from one country how another will fare.
CPLX 5y ago
I'm not a big fan of this new trend of some random Twitter personality suddenly becoming the go-to source of information on COVID. Granted, it seems true that she's actually an epidemiologist, though not unusually notable as an assistant professor at a mainstream state school. As far as I know she doesn't have unusual access to information, or a hands on role, she's drawing from public sources and doing analysis. Which, is fine. But what makes me nervous about this trend is that she's now like almost a household name. She's built a personal brand around this image as being the up to the minute source of information, and the audience she's developed has a certain profile. They're basically looking for someone to tell them how bad everything is and how scary everything looks, backing it up with details so her audience can feel smart when they relay all this info to their friends. The minute that COVID isn't actually something to worry about her audience is gone and she goes back to being a random obscure civilian. Which is an incentive structure that makes me pretty sure I know what she'll be posting tomorrow, and a week from now, and so on. I realize the mainstream news media isn't any better. But still, it's an odd new development that people are mostly seeking out the level of fear/concern they want in their news rather than the other way around.
- paganel 5y ago
  If it matters almost the same thing has been happening in my country (Romania), only that around these parts of the world we have FB as a replacement for Twitter. I personally regard it as a coping mechanism for the people that follow these newly created Covid personalities, the bad thing is that in most of the cases the mainstream media copy-pastes those posts/messages and presents them as the truth, even though there are many devils hidden in the statistical details most of the time.
- JPKab 5y ago
  > though not unusually notable as an assistant professor at a mainstream state school. We really, really need to get away from this academic obsession with prestige. If she does solid analysis and communicates it effectively, with a record that looks increasingly good as time passes, she's already ahead of the curve. Meanwhile many other highly-credentialed, prestigious experts have been wrong over and over and over again in this pandemic. Academic/scientific institutions are polluted by the credentialisim/prestige focus. It's the ugliest aspect of the whole space.
timr 5y ago
From her "scary" post: > In certain jurisdictions, though, we’ve met or exceeded last winter’s hospitalization peak. We can see this in many states in the Northeast, including New York. When presented with a new source, I tend to judge people based on their perspectives on things I know about. This one is a case study in being misleading, while not technically lying. New York state has only "met" last winter's hospitalization peak if you look at trend lines. If you look at hospitalizations per day, we clearly haven't. Also, of course, "last winter's peak" was not really any sort of stress for the hospital system at all (compare to the spring 2020 wave, which was), and it happened at a time when things were much more restricted than they are now: https://covid-19.direct/state/36 https://covid-19.direct/state/36 The statement is more correct for NYC data, where hospitals have exceeded last winter's peak on a trend-line and per-day basis: https://www1.nyc.gov/site/doh/covid/covid-19-data-totals.page https://www1.nyc.gov/site/doh/covid/covid-19-data-totals.pag... ...but it's still misleading, because again, this is a fraction of previous waves in NYC, but also, a lot of these hospitalizations are going to ERs for testing. Government officials are pleading people to stop going to the hospital for trivial things: https://twitter.com/MarkLevineNYC/status/1478353835793997827 https://twitter.com/MarkLevineNYC/status/1478353835793997827 I don't know if she is intentionally trying to mislead, or just doesn't have a good handle on the data, but this is the sort of thing that makes me skeptical of a person's other claims.
- sterlind 5y ago
  > But it's still misleading, because a lot of these hospitalizations are going to ERs for testing. I don't think this is correct. Going to the ER is not the same as being admitted to the hospital. From everything I've read, ER visits are not counted as hospitalizations anywhere.
  - timr 5y ago
    Yes, they are. They count anyone admitted to a hospital in NYC, at any time, for any duration: https://github.com/nychealth/coronavirus-data/blob/ced762b251b424730e063712267ec4cd120e3e6d/totals/Readme.md https://github.com/nychealth/coronavirus-data/blob/ced762b25... > Hospitalization counts reflect the total number of people with COVID-19 ever admitted to a hospital, not the number of people currently admitted. If you go to the ER and make it to a treatment area, you're admitted. These are bright-line distinctions. Nobody is making judgment calls on the data ("did this person really get admitted, or is it just someone in the ER for an hour? Let me look at the chart!") at this level of analysis.
spurgu 5y ago
What are the "scary aspects" of that article? That Omicron is highly transmissible forcing people to take time off work?
- short12 5y ago
  It's been getting to the point or already is that you can't get treatment. Plenty of urgent care centers are simply closing down for now. Hospitals won't even treat covid. I'd call that pretty scary

by gz5 5y ago

enragedcacti 5y ago

Thanks for this, just in those two blog posts she answered many lingering questions I had about how omicron has been changing things. the SEOd google results are always a flood of incomplete or speculative information when I try to find answers to covid questions so this is a dream come true. If anyone has any other sources like this that can find and interpret good data for covid I'd love to hear about them.

bengale 5y ago
I've also found this blog to be useful: https://thezvi.substack.com https://thezvi.substack.com
- harpersealtako 5y ago
  Calling zvi's blog "useful" is an understatement, he's practically a lesser deity of covid-19 modeling.
  - toolz 5y ago
    I think thought-leaders and experts could use a whole lot less deification right now.
    - tharne 5y ago
      > I think thought-leaders and experts could use a whole lot less deification right now I'm not sure that's possible - the experts are more or less screaming into the wind at this point. The WHO and the CDC have been reduced to punchlines by liberals and conservatives alike. IMHO this scorn is well-deserved.

Mordisquitos 5y ago

Plus, to preemptively address any assumptions that Dr Jetelina may have an optimistic bias, compare her "There is good news" article from 5th January, which is based on what we now know, with her article from 26th November when Omicron (initially called "Nu") was first detected: "New Concerning Variant: B.1.1.529" https://yourlocalepidemiologist.substack.com/p/new-concerning-variant-b11529 https://yourlocalepidemiologist.substack.com/p/new-concernin... At the time, little was known about this new variant except that it was extremely different from all that we had seen before, which would very likely result in escape from prior immunity, and may even lead to more severe disease (or not?). The only definitive silver lining that she found at the time was that 1) the variant could be quickly detected with PCR thanks to its S-gene deletion, 2) it was detected early thanks to South Africa, and 3) vaccines could be quickly adapted if necessary, thanks to mRNA vaccine technology. However, in all other regards, the variant was still very concerning. In other words, do take her cautious optimism seriously. She's not a wishful thinker. Rather, she is a specialist in the field who works with the data as it becomes available and knows how to interpret it

bengale 5y ago
Yeah I've consistently found her writing to be good. She's one of the primary sources I use for keeping up to date with what's going on with covid.
selimthegrim 5y ago
There are S-gene silent Omicron subvariants in France (not sure if it is the same as the more concerning variant recently)

cmrdporcupine 5y ago

" We can easily see that in many graphs, but my favorite is below from New York City, showing a clear distinction in hospitalizations among vaccinated compared to unvaccinated people" I don't see this as much here in Ontario. Among the vaccinated as of today there is a 10.10/100k hospitalization status vs 16/100k for the unvaccinated (and 11.9 for one-dose). The hospitalization rate among the vaccinated is climbing quickly. Yes, there's still a gap, but yikes. ICU is better, though, with a 0.76/100k rate for the vaccinated vs 4.74/100k for the unvaccinated. This may have to do with different hospitalization and testing criterion, I don't know. But hospitalization here is in full exponential growth and not just among the unvaccinated. Obviously being vaccinated is still far preferable. I have had 3 doses (1 AstraZeneca and 2 Pfizer) FWIW.

radioactivist 5y ago
The Ontario science table dashboard has the hospitalization ratio for unvaccinated to vaccinated still at 5:1. Where are you getting that these rates have become nearly equal? edit: sorry had that written backwards
- HWR_14 5y ago
  > Ontario science table dashboard has the hospitalization ratio for vaccinated to unvaccinated still at 5:1. Where are you getting that these rates have become nearly equal? If the rates are the same, and 5/6 people are vaccinated, we would expect 5/6 people admitted to the hospital to be vaccinated. In fact, 5/6 people are vaccinated in the 12-40 age cohort, with older (and more vulnerable) populations having at least 9/10 people vaccinated and quickly going to 19+/20. Therefore, vaccines prevent hospitalizations, as the average of all adults is greater than 5/6.
  - joshuamorton 5y ago
    You're misunderstanding. The dashboard is per Capita (so you don't need to account for the stuff you're describing), and shows 5x lower rate of vaccinated people hospitalized (and 10x lower ventilated). A far cry from the ~1.5x rate mentioned by ggp

zpeti 5y ago

Just a thought after reading the good news - ok this is great for the US and the west where there is decent vaccination. What the hell is going to happen with the omicron spread in countries with hardly any vaccination? I mean if it really is like measles, this could be terrible.

barney54 5y ago
Countries like South Africa? Steep increase in cases and now a steep fall in cases. Some increased deaths, but nothing like delta or alpha. https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/south-africa/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/south-afri...
- thebruce87m 5y ago
  Average age is in South Africa is 28 vs US 38 and SA still has higher excess mortality: https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/coronavirus-excess-deaths-tracker https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/coronavirus-excess-... Not an expert but comparing countries is hard, especially now that there are other factors such as how many people are vaccinated, boosted etc. I don’t think it’s obvious from one country how another will fare.

CPLX 5y ago

I'm not a big fan of this new trend of some random Twitter personality suddenly becoming the go-to source of information on COVID. Granted, it seems true that she's actually an epidemiologist, though not unusually notable as an assistant professor at a mainstream state school. As far as I know she doesn't have unusual access to information, or a hands on role, she's drawing from public sources and doing analysis. Which, is fine. But what makes me nervous about this trend is that she's now like almost a household name. She's built a personal brand around this image as being the up to the minute source of information, and the audience she's developed has a certain profile. They're basically looking for someone to tell them how bad everything is and how scary everything looks, backing it up with details so her audience can feel smart when they relay all this info to their friends. The minute that COVID isn't actually something to worry about her audience is gone and she goes back to being a random obscure civilian. Which is an incentive structure that makes me pretty sure I know what she'll be posting tomorrow, and a week from now, and so on. I realize the mainstream news media isn't any better. But still, it's an odd new development that people are mostly seeking out the level of fear/concern they want in their news rather than the other way around.

paganel 5y ago
If it matters almost the same thing has been happening in my country (Romania), only that around these parts of the world we have FB as a replacement for Twitter. I personally regard it as a coping mechanism for the people that follow these newly created Covid personalities, the bad thing is that in most of the cases the mainstream media copy-pastes those posts/messages and presents them as the truth, even though there are many devils hidden in the statistical details most of the time.
JPKab 5y ago
> though not unusually notable as an assistant professor at a mainstream state school. We really, really need to get away from this academic obsession with prestige. If she does solid analysis and communicates it effectively, with a record that looks increasingly good as time passes, she's already ahead of the curve. Meanwhile many other highly-credentialed, prestigious experts have been wrong over and over and over again in this pandemic. Academic/scientific institutions are polluted by the credentialisim/prestige focus. It's the ugliest aspect of the whole space.

timr 5y ago

From her "scary" post: > In certain jurisdictions, though, we’ve met or exceeded last winter’s hospitalization peak. We can see this in many states in the Northeast, including New York. When presented with a new source, I tend to judge people based on their perspectives on things I know about. This one is a case study in being misleading, while not technically lying. New York state has only "met" last winter's hospitalization peak if you look at trend lines. If you look at hospitalizations per day, we clearly haven't. Also, of course, "last winter's peak" was not really any sort of stress for the hospital system at all (compare to the spring 2020 wave, which was), and it happened at a time when things were much more restricted than they are now: https://covid-19.direct/state/36 https://covid-19.direct/state/36 The statement is more correct for NYC data, where hospitals have exceeded last winter's peak on a trend-line and per-day basis: https://www1.nyc.gov/site/doh/covid/covid-19-data-totals.page https://www1.nyc.gov/site/doh/covid/covid-19-data-totals.pag... ...but it's still misleading, because again, this is a fraction of previous waves in NYC, but also, a lot of these hospitalizations are going to ERs for testing. Government officials are pleading people to stop going to the hospital for trivial things: https://twitter.com/MarkLevineNYC/status/1478353835793997827 https://twitter.com/MarkLevineNYC/status/1478353835793997827 I don't know if she is intentionally trying to mislead, or just doesn't have a good handle on the data, but this is the sort of thing that makes me skeptical of a person's other claims.

sterlind 5y ago
> But it's still misleading, because a lot of these hospitalizations are going to ERs for testing. I don't think this is correct. Going to the ER is not the same as being admitted to the hospital. From everything I've read, ER visits are not counted as hospitalizations anywhere.
- timr 5y ago
  Yes, they are. They count anyone admitted to a hospital in NYC, at any time, for any duration: https://github.com/nychealth/coronavirus-data/blob/ced762b251b424730e063712267ec4cd120e3e6d/totals/Readme.md https://github.com/nychealth/coronavirus-data/blob/ced762b25... > Hospitalization counts reflect the total number of people with COVID-19 ever admitted to a hospital, not the number of people currently admitted. If you go to the ER and make it to a treatment area, you're admitted. These are bright-line distinctions. Nobody is making judgment calls on the data ("did this person really get admitted, or is it just someone in the ER for an hour? Let me look at the chart!") at this level of analysis.

spurgu 5y ago

What are the "scary aspects" of that article? That Omicron is highly transmissible forcing people to take time off work?

short12 5y ago
It's been getting to the point or already is that you can't get treatment. Plenty of urgent care centers are simply closing down for now. Hospitals won't even treat covid. I'd call that pretty scary