So far the BA2 vaccines have shown in preclinical setting significant less protection against BA5 which very likely will translate to significantly less protection against hospitalization and death
Given the effectiveness of pre-Omicron boosters against hospitalization and death from Omicron despite doing little or nothing to prevent infection, seems more like the opposite.
What’s the source of the map on the right?
CDC (pretty much hidden on their page) Eric Topol has written a few times (on Twitter and elsewhere) how the CDC uses a useless metric like Community Levels as their primary graph on their webpage but hide the much more meaningful data (like Community Transmission) on their pages
As discussed above, transmission is one of the three factors the CSC uses to calculate the community levels. Over 200, it’s medium or high, depending on what percentage of hospital beds are occupied by people with Covid.
High transmission per se isn’t of as much concern if it’s not putting people in the hospital. And currently only half the people in hospitals with Covid are there for Covid.
The CDC showed their work in how they came up with the community levels. It’s reasonable. Not that it matters much when most people behave the same regardless.
No, it is actually downplaying of the CDC of the severity of covid. It is telling (and not surprising that people like Bob Wachter and others complain about it) that you can easily access the left graph on the CDC page but not the right graph
The map on the right must be using different data or thresholds. Every county shown in green on the left has under 200 Covid cases per 100K. Why are those counties red on the right?
Please post a link to the map source.
The thresholds are different. The map on the right shows counties as red when cases per 100K in the past week were 100 or more (or 10% or more of NAATs tests were positive). So apparently a lot of counties currently have case rates between 100 and 199.99.
So long as hospitalization rates remain low and cases aren’t trending up, I don’t think case rates under 200 are cause for concern.
A map with higher break points, such as 100, 200, 300, and 400, or maybe a gradient, would be more useful for the current variants that are far more contagious but make far fewer people seriously ill. It would also be more useful if you could step back and forward through the weeks to see trends.
Around here, looking at the chart I make from the same data, it was obvious on April 21 that we were in trouble.
I rely on thoughts on people who are experts and deal with Covid like Bob Wachter and they made clear that BA5 is quite different beast than all other variants before and that the CDC is reacting way too slow (or tries to be not transparent with their data). The protection against BA5 from vaccines (including booster shots) and previous infections is significantly lower and so we see already an overall increase of hospitalization in the US - yes, it might be still on a lower level than some other spikes before but if we only react when the numbers are really high it is already too late. And BA2.75 (centaurus) looks even more fun.
Yes, absolutely. The almost all-red CDC map (that Honkman posted and linked to) is alarmist, in my view. BA5 might well be “quite a different beast”, as he put it, but there is still no indication that it’s more dangerous (in terms serious disease) than its recent predecessors, as you’ve been trying to point out.
There’s no evidence yet that BA.4 or BA.5 are making more people sicker than earlier Omicron variants. If they are, that should be absolutely clear within three weeks at most.
Probably we won’t have enough data to know whether BA2.75 is a bigger threat until after that.
Personally I’m taking no chances since transmission levels around here are still so high. Not doing anything unmasked inside except after everyone takes a rapid test.
I don’t think it is the right approach to downplay BA5 when all in vitro and in vivo data so far indicate that it is more infectious, much more immune evasive, likely will cause higher hospitalization rates, in vitro and in vivo experiments indicate that it also goes deeper in lung tissue and caused more severe diseases in animal - after all the mistakes made so far in the US with covid and how everybody downplayed it and tried to ignore it, it might be better to warn early that there might be something more serious coming - better save than sorry
1 Like
States and counties that had behaved responsibly for two years started pretending the pandemic was over after the Omicron peak in January. Something more serious got here in April and they haven’t done anything. High-risk groups are on our own.
Unless and until hospitals are overwhelmed again nobody’s going to do anything. Putting out premature warnings based on lab tests would just make people more determined to ignore public health experts.
I didn’t intend to downplay the fact that BA5 is very contagious and has a high level of transmission. I just don’t think that “crying wolf” in big, bold, red blaring terms, like publishing an all-red map showing that it’s spreading everywhere in the country, and fast, as the CDC has done, helps much. Not when it hasn’t yet been shown that it can seriously sicken people at a high enough rate to warrant hunkering down. Save it for when there’s a really, really dangerous new variant, like delta was.
We’re all eventually going to get some version of covid at least once, no matter how many layers of masks we wear and how much distance we keep from others. Knowing that BA5 is what’s now going around and in fact is now the most prevalent version of covid is worthwhile information – and by now I think anyone who looks at almost any media form knows that – but freaking people out doesn’t help anything. IMO.
For those who are concerned, wearing a mask will help protect others from getting the covid from them, if they’re infected, and also sort-of help them from getting it from others. Masks don’t offer 100% protection in either direction – except for the most elaborate (and uncomfortable) of them.
Unfortunately there still between 300-400 people dying everyday in the US because of covid and most of them easily preventable - odd that a country which “cares” so much about (unborn) babies seems to not give shit about people alive
1 Like
More than 800,000 people in the United States die from cardiovascular disease each year
That’s approaching 10 times as many deaths per day as from covid right now. People do care about keeping other people alive, but there’s only so much that can be done within rational limits.
That’s classical whatsboutism and has little to do with the covid situation. In addition, compared to covid with CVD the research shows more and more that beside your personal behavior a lot of the disease initiation, progression and ultimate outcome is genetically influenced and so you have little influence.
