I have fallen mildly ill, as have my wife and son. So far we don’t have a positive Covid-19 test, and everyone is maximally vaccinated, but given the timing the obvious conclusions do seem likely. Wish me well, and hopefully Christmas will not be cancelled and I can keep the posts mostly going. I do have winter break to help me out.
My anecdotal observations from the south west of UK: almost everybody I know is in a sort of self imposed “lockdown” so that they don’t get infected and have to miss Christmas with their families. Pub and eating out just isn’t worth it with a 10 day quarantine being likely over Christmas Day. Masks in the supermarket are back to almost 100% during the times I’ve visited, in the last week or two I’ve seen two people maskless with their silly landyards. People seem to be remembering to give lots of space again too, feels like people are back to taking it quite seriously.
I continue to be frustrated with the lack of anyone, almost anywhere, pushing for *much* stricter vaccine mandates. This was needed even before Omicron. Like, were we all just going to accept a long-term massive strain on the healthcare system? We were never going to resume elective surgeries? Were we going to let healthcare worker burnout compound until the whole thing collapses? Something like 80-90% of those covid beds are filled with unvaccinated people. Jab them. By force, if necessary. There are behaviours in our law books that cause far less harm to society that we respond to far, far more punitively. Get caught shoplifting? Men with guns can come and get you and lock you in a cage. How about if you refuse the vaccine without medical justification, men with guns can come and get you and take you to a health clinic? Seems more than fair to me.
At the very least there should be a strict mandate in all workplaces and all indoor public places, including transport like planes and trains. Like, no-brainer. Should have been done months ago, to tackle Delta. Stricter mandates and Paxlovid should be the number one and number two topics on everyone's lips for dealing with Omicron. At least America decided to go all in on booster availability.
Instead, here in British Columbia we refuse to administer the booster unless you're over 65 and at least 6 months past your second dose. They've refused to make rapid tests available while simultaneously ramping down testing centers, so the ones that remain are beyond capacity with cars lining up for hours (oh, and they are not accessible by foot). Plus, most vaccination centers are straight up closed for the holidays, not to open their doors again until sometime in the new year. Now that's what I call giving up on Omicron*.
(*We are, of course, implementing NPIs instead. Goodbye full capacity events, clubs, bars, sports tournaments, "all New Years events no matter the size", and interacting with anyone outside your bubble. Until at least January 31st!)
Anecdotal observation from London. Everyone is in a casual “lockdown” to avoid self-isolating over Xmas. Also, lots of fear over omicron because it’s so transmissible. Official case count is 1,686 per 100,000 in my local area and everyone I’ve spoken warns of people “dropping like flies”.
Anecdotal accounts from people (standing two metres away outside) of parties cancelled and parents staying away from parent-and-baby groups. Also, I’ve spotted the ‘sharing a thermos flask with friends’ crowd in the park.
Worth noting that the anecdote about the dude in Australia was in South Australia, whereas the plot you linked of case growth in the thousands (I'm the author of those plots) is for New South Wales. South Australia's outbreak has only taken off in the last couple of days and is at much lower numbers:
South Australia had no COVID until they opened their borders a few weeks ago, so this is a bit of a new situation regardless of which variant it is and they're still kind of scrambling with initial cases trying to limit the growth (though obviously it's pretty unlikely they'll succeed). Whereas New South Wales are very much not trying to contain anything. The politics in NSW are such that the leadership are also very opposed to imposing new restrictions (past restrictions were under a different leadership), whereas SA are somewhat more likely to consider them.
So just pointing out for what it's worth that they're different settings, with different politics and different levels of experience with COVID.
Thanks for the great post. The document by your research assistant looks quite interesting (why are newspapers not doing this kind of stuff?), especially seeing that high sampling rate corresponds to high R values (though causality could of course run both ways here in theory).
Speaking of sampling, the CDC Nowcast for the variant percentages has been updated … and it’s almost Omnicron (sorry for the pun). They also retroactively updated last weeks numbers (I guess the casting part of the Nowcast hasn’t been calibrated for such rapid takeovers, so it was quite off).
If the old antibody treatments are obsolete given Omicron, do the antibodies from the vaccines provide any protection (assuming you are in window when antibodies are active)?
This is from a few weeks ago, but probably worth mentioning in the "cool it with the totalitarian NPI's" section. Given the colonial history of Australia this is... an exceptionally bad look, even if it's not that bad from a myopic utilitarian perspective.
Hope you all feel better soon ❤️
Hope you get better soon! I'm also sick, possibly with the same thing. As long as we're putting on record seeing it coming, I claim some foresight from December 2020 https://howthehell.substack.com/p/how-the-hell-do-we-deal-with-the?r=5himy&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&utm_source=direct
My anecdotal observations from the south west of UK: almost everybody I know is in a sort of self imposed “lockdown” so that they don’t get infected and have to miss Christmas with their families. Pub and eating out just isn’t worth it with a 10 day quarantine being likely over Christmas Day. Masks in the supermarket are back to almost 100% during the times I’ve visited, in the last week or two I’ve seen two people maskless with their silly landyards. People seem to be remembering to give lots of space again too, feels like people are back to taking it quite seriously.
Thank you for such comprehensive common sense. And I hope you and your family feel better!
I rely more on your cogent and meticulously reasoned summaries than any other source. Wishing you and your family a speedy recovery.
I continue to be frustrated with the lack of anyone, almost anywhere, pushing for *much* stricter vaccine mandates. This was needed even before Omicron. Like, were we all just going to accept a long-term massive strain on the healthcare system? We were never going to resume elective surgeries? Were we going to let healthcare worker burnout compound until the whole thing collapses? Something like 80-90% of those covid beds are filled with unvaccinated people. Jab them. By force, if necessary. There are behaviours in our law books that cause far less harm to society that we respond to far, far more punitively. Get caught shoplifting? Men with guns can come and get you and lock you in a cage. How about if you refuse the vaccine without medical justification, men with guns can come and get you and take you to a health clinic? Seems more than fair to me.
At the very least there should be a strict mandate in all workplaces and all indoor public places, including transport like planes and trains. Like, no-brainer. Should have been done months ago, to tackle Delta. Stricter mandates and Paxlovid should be the number one and number two topics on everyone's lips for dealing with Omicron. At least America decided to go all in on booster availability.
Instead, here in British Columbia we refuse to administer the booster unless you're over 65 and at least 6 months past your second dose. They've refused to make rapid tests available while simultaneously ramping down testing centers, so the ones that remain are beyond capacity with cars lining up for hours (oh, and they are not accessible by foot). Plus, most vaccination centers are straight up closed for the holidays, not to open their doors again until sometime in the new year. Now that's what I call giving up on Omicron*.
(*We are, of course, implementing NPIs instead. Goodbye full capacity events, clubs, bars, sports tournaments, "all New Years events no matter the size", and interacting with anyone outside your bubble. Until at least January 31st!)
Thanks for the post, and best wishes for a speedy recovery to you and your family.
Anecdotal observation from London. Everyone is in a casual “lockdown” to avoid self-isolating over Xmas. Also, lots of fear over omicron because it’s so transmissible. Official case count is 1,686 per 100,000 in my local area and everyone I’ve spoken warns of people “dropping like flies”.
Anecdotal accounts from people (standing two metres away outside) of parties cancelled and parents staying away from parent-and-baby groups. Also, I’ve spotted the ‘sharing a thermos flask with friends’ crowd in the park.
Hope you and your family feel better soon!
Worth noting that the anecdote about the dude in Australia was in South Australia, whereas the plot you linked of case growth in the thousands (I'm the author of those plots) is for New South Wales. South Australia's outbreak has only taken off in the last couple of days and is at much lower numbers:
https://www.reddit.com/r/CoronavirusDownunder/comments/rk92wa/sa_r_eff_as_of_december_20th_with_daily_cases/
South Australia had no COVID until they opened their borders a few weeks ago, so this is a bit of a new situation regardless of which variant it is and they're still kind of scrambling with initial cases trying to limit the growth (though obviously it's pretty unlikely they'll succeed). Whereas New South Wales are very much not trying to contain anything. The politics in NSW are such that the leadership are also very opposed to imposing new restrictions (past restrictions were under a different leadership), whereas SA are somewhat more likely to consider them.
So just pointing out for what it's worth that they're different settings, with different politics and different levels of experience with COVID.
Get well soon!
Since research became a profession, we find ourselves in such situations.
Thanks for the great post. The document by your research assistant looks quite interesting (why are newspapers not doing this kind of stuff?), especially seeing that high sampling rate corresponds to high R values (though causality could of course run both ways here in theory).
Speaking of sampling, the CDC Nowcast for the variant percentages has been updated … and it’s almost Omnicron (sorry for the pun). They also retroactively updated last weeks numbers (I guess the casting part of the Nowcast hasn’t been calibrated for such rapid takeovers, so it was quite off).
A speedy recovery to you and your family!
Can someone help me with a basic question?
If the old antibody treatments are obsolete given Omicron, do the antibodies from the vaccines provide any protection (assuming you are in window when antibodies are active)?
> Will the CDC label Omicron a variant of high consequence before 2022? 11% → 9%.
I think this should be dropping more, simply because there are now only 10 days left, where as before there were 15 days left.
Unless you think, per day, the chance of them declaring it has gone up.
This is from a few weeks ago, but probably worth mentioning in the "cool it with the totalitarian NPI's" section. Given the colonial history of Australia this is... an exceptionally bad look, even if it's not that bad from a myopic utilitarian perspective.
https://dailyexpose.uk/2021/11/22/breaking-australian-army-begins-transferring-contacts-of-covid-19-positive-cases-to-quarantine-camps/