This year we kill it: Corona Virus Thread Mark II

[pendell]

Well, we knew it was coming

In an effort to pump up business once Austria introduces a mandatory COVID-19 vaccine pass in the coming weeks, one enterprising palace of pleasure is putting its money where, well, it will surely pay off.

The FunPalast: Sex Star Sauna Club is offering a 30-minute voucher with the “lady of your choice” with every vaccine administered on site, which the club is offering every Monday from 4 to 10 p.m. until the end of November, when the vaccine rules take effect.

...

The Fun Palast said it saw a 50 percent decrease in clientele since the pandemic started, and is now hoping the new initiative will keep things up and running.

"Pump up business",
"Keep things up" -- heh heh. The writer of this article had fun with it.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[farothel]

I can only applaud their business acumen. And if it helps boost vaccination, why not.

[pendell]

Well, here's a weird one .

COVID-19 is practically a non-event in Africa, despite the fact that the vaccination rate is only 6%.

Let the speculation begin! There are a couple theories laid out in the article.

-- Spotty Data collection hiding the disease's true extent.
-- Genetic factors.
-- Lifestyle (third world country, a lot more time outdoors)
-- Population demographics (the median population age is in the 20s, much younger than in the first world).

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Peelee]

Well, here's a weird one .

COVID-19 is practically a non-event in Africa, despite the fact that the vaccination rate is only 6%.

Let the speculation begin! There are a couple theories laid out in the article.

-- Spotty Data collection hiding the disease's true extent.
-- Genetic factors.
-- Lifestyle (third world country, a lot more time outdoors)
-- Population demographics (the median population age is in the 20s, much younger than in the first world).

Respectfully,

Brian P.

https:///www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-54418613

Spoiler alert:
Reason #1: Governments acted incredibly swiftly and put the exact regulations in place to help contain spread.
Reason #2: The people acted incredibly reasonably and did exactly what they were supposed to (eg use masks and socially distance).

Maria Cheng and Farai Mutsaka: "What sorcery is happening on that continent?!"

[farothel]

If, as the article said, 80% of cases were asymptomatic, they surely have missed some, but then again, we miss cases here as well. The main problem with missing asymptomatic cases is that they can infect others, for the person in question it's not an issue.

It does prove that the simple solutions are often the best: wash hands frequently, avoid handshakes, keep distance, wear a mask, don't travel too much.

[pendell]

https:///www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-54418613

Spoiler alert:
Reason #1: Governments acted incredibly swiftly and put the exact regulations in place to help contain spread.
Reason #2: The people acted incredibly reasonably and did exactly what they were supposed to (eg use masks and socially distance).

Maria Cheng and Farai Mutsaka: "What sorcery is happening on that continent?!"

The article you quote also points to the younger population (point 3), and also to the fact that governments and people on the African continent are used to containing diseases (point 5). As mentioned, there are already on-site teams working to fight polio, so repurposing them to fight COVID as well was not a great leap.

Point 4 points to something I had not considered: COVID spreads best in low temperatures and high humidity, which apparently does NOT describe sub-Saharan Africa at all. Never been there myself, but I'll wager I can leave the winter parka at home if I do.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Peelee]

The article you quote also points to the younger population (point 3), and also to the fact that governments and people on the African continent are used to containing diseases (point 5). As mentioned, there are already on-site teams working to fight polio, so repurposing them to fight COVID as well was not a great leap.

Point 4 points to something I had not considered: COVID spreads best in low temperatures and high humidity, which apparently does NOT describe sub-Saharan Africa at all. Never been there myself, but I'll wager I can leave the winter parka at home if I do.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

Yes, there are several factors (and also more factors that are not even listed). I accurately listed the first two factors, which are biggies (and also representative of other regions that have low COVID cases and deaths).

[Tyndmyr]

https:///www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-54418613

Spoiler alert:
Reason #1: Governments acted incredibly swiftly and put the exact regulations in place to help contain spread.
Reason #2: The people acted incredibly reasonably and did exactly what they were supposed to (eg use masks and socially distance).

Maria Cheng and Farai Mutsaka: "What sorcery is happening on that continent?!"

Reason #1 is...not possible, I think.

Tanzania refused to acknowledge that Covid 19 was an actual disease for a full year. It seems clear that thousands there died from it, even though, according to official numbers, nobody did. This policy didn't end until the president himself died of a severe respiratory illness that sure looked a lot like Covid 19.

Denial of the problem doesn't *seem* like an ideal strategy, and while of course not all countries behaved in this fashion...we can charitably say that mitigation reactions across Africa were at least as mixed as they were on other continents.

Younger population might be a far stronger factor....age is known to be an extremely strong factor for Covid.

[Peelee]

Reason #1 is...not possible, I think.

Tanzania refused to acknowledge that Covid 19 was an actual disease for a full year. It seems clear that thousands there died from it, even though, according to official numbers, nobody did. This policy didn't end until the president himself died of a severe respiratory illness that sure looked a lot like Covid 19.

Tanzania is one of many countries in the rather large continent of Africa, with all of six percent of the population.

[Liquor Box]

I think Africa has a much younger population than most countries. The median age there is 18.

I think it was also one of the last continents to get Covid - a month after places like North America and Europe and longer after Asia. So if African countries followed other countries in imposing preventative measures, it would have done much more quickly after the arrival of the disease.

[LeSwordfish]

I also saw an analysis that pointed out that, like south korea, several african nations have dealt with other pandemics recently and so treated it more seriously than european nations.

[sihnfahl]

I think Africa has a much younger population than most countries. The median age there is 18.

The average lifespan for Africa as a whole, regardless of sex, is about 63, which would mean less age-related complications that would impact COVID.

However, malnutrition, various parasitic infections and endemic diseases will weaken even the young. They estimate about 280 million people are malnourished in Africa; 1.2 billion people live on the African continent. So more than 20%.

You add in something like COVID....

Also, don't forget, antivaxxers have had huge inroads in African nations as it is. Even routine vaccines have been rejected, and WHO personnel assaulted, under the belief that vaccine drives are actually anti-population growth methods.

When the vaccines are actually available to be injected.

I also saw an analysis that pointed out that, like south korea, several african nations have dealt with other pandemics recently and so treated it more seriously than european nations.

Well, it doesn't hurt those nations already have the medical infrastructure in place to deal with mass outbreaks of any communicable disease. Other nations, that don't have such major outbreaks, would lack the infrastructure, which could lead to a delay of a few months while the resources are gathered, the necessary cooperation with the Governments solidified, transportation provided, and the infrastructure for delivery and treatment arranged.

[Liquor Box]

The average lifespan for Africa as a whole, regardless of sex, is about 63, which would mean less age-related complications that would impact COVID.

However, malnutrition, various parasitic infections and endemic diseases will weaken even the young. They estimate about 280 million people are malnourished in Africa; 1.2 billion people live on the African continent. So more than 20%.

With most illnesses I'd be inclined to agree that Africa's other health issues might counter-balance their youthful population.

But Covid correlates so much more sharply with age than other ailments (except for respiratory disorders), I don;t think it offsets it. 75% of all Covid deaths in US were people over 65yo, but in Africa only 3% of the total population is over 65.

[sihnfahl]

But Covid correlates so much more sharply with age than other ailments (except for respiratory disorders), I don;t think it offsets it. 75% of all Covid deaths in US were people over 65yo, but in Africa only 3% of the total population is over 65.

There was a study published back in July that looked at malnutrition's effects on COVID severity.

Kurtz, A., Grant, K., Marano, R. et al. Long-term effects of malnutrition on severity of COVID-19. Sci Rep 11, 14974 (2021).

I'll let you read it yourself, come to your own conclusions.

[Mystic Muse]

Got my booster and a flu shot today. Here's hoping it helps.

[sihnfahl]

Got my booster and a flu shot today. Here's hoping it helps.

Well, it couldn't hurt. Especially since there are a lot more people out and about nowadays, which allows influenza to spread, not just COVID. Well, just about any respiratory disease.

In other news, news outlets are reporting that the US has passed the number of deaths from COVID in 2020. Personally, I think we may truly never know, as there was a lack of testing and typing early in the pandemic. Still, over 771k deaths in the US from COVID is ... well.

[Tyndmyr]

Tanzania is one of many countries in the rather large continent of Africa, with all of six percent of the population.

That was simply one example of one county. If you'd prefer a statistical analysis of the entire continent, a recent survey on Statistica places the average doses administered for the entire continent at 16.1 per hundred. Further breakdown by country available at link.

Even if we are extremely generous and assume that every single vaccination was with single shot vaccines, that puts the average vaccination rate at far, far lower than a great many other areas.

Vaccination rate is an extremely implausible answer for Africa's low rates.

[georgie_leech]

That was simply one example of one county. If you'd prefer a statistical analysis of the entire continent, a recent survey on Statistica places the average doses administered for the entire continent at 16.1 per hundred. Further breakdown by country available at link.

Even if we are extremely generous and assume that every single vaccination was with single shot vaccines, that puts the average vaccination rate at far, far lower than a great many other areas.

Vaccination rate is an extremely implausible answer for Africa's low rates.

You appear to have changed arguments there.

https:///www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-54418613

Spoiler alert:
Reason #1: Governments acted incredibly swiftly and put the exact regulations in place to help contain spread.

That's not saying vaccination specifically. That's things like restrictions on gatherings, mask mandates, social distancing. There were plenty of regulations to be made before any vaccines were available.

[Tyndmyr]

You appear to have changed arguments there.



That's not saying vaccination specifically. That's things like restrictions on gatherings, mask mandates, social distancing. There were plenty of regulations to be made before any vaccines were available.

There doesn't appear to be much continent-wide data on most of those things. There is on the vaccination portion, so that can be verified and used as a proxy for general effectiveness of large scale policy. The article offers as its only evidence a telephone poll that is over a year old, and when looking at the source itself, it only appears to have any data at all from about half of African countries, and the telephone poll cited in the infographic does not appear to be available. Certainly searches on the site such as "telephone poll" return zero hits.

Even if we skip over noncompliance, and just assume that early rules in place always work, we have countries there that were extremely rules averse, and the article cites no sources for its claims here, instead making vague claims such as "most African governments." Arguments advanced without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.

The article's answers seems to be mostly conjecture. We have solid evidence from multiple sources as to the difference in the case rates...but not as to the reason why.

Some of the conjecture appears reasonable enough. Lower public transport is definitely the case in Africa, and public transport has been a disease vector elsewhere, so it's a fair enough projection. Crediting health systems and policy seems less reasonable when those two things are, by all measurable metrics, far more underdeveloped in Africa than on other continents.

[Peelee]

Vaccination rate is an extremely implausible answer for Africa's low rates.

Considering I never said word one about vaccination rates, I fail to see how this is any sort of rebuttal against anything I've said.

You appear to have changed arguments there.



That's not saying vaccination specifically. That's things like restrictions on gatherings, mask mandates, social distancing. There were plenty of regulations to be made before any vaccines were available.

Aye.

As for it being conjecture, I would trust the "conjecture" of statements and information by the Partnership for Evidence-based Response to COVID-19, as well as the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, both of which were heavily cited by the rather reputable British Broadcasting Corporation, over conjecture by some guy in Maryland who tries to shift towards vaccination rates instead of anything the article actually discussed.

ETA: Especially when such "conjecture" is literally the easiest and cheapest things possible which are known to work, eg distancing, washing hands, refraining from extraneous contact, masking, etc. Which has also notably worked in countries like South Korea or Japan well before the vaccines were released.

[Tyndmyr]

As for it being conjecture, I would trust the "conjecture" of statements and information by the Partnership for Evidence-based Response to COVID-19, as well as the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, both of which were heavily cited by the rather reputable British Broadcasting Corporation, over conjecture by some guy in Maryland who tries to shift towards vaccination rates instead of anything the article actually discussed.

That is, given a lack of data, nothing but an appeal to authority.

The article literally shows a picture of a vaccination team, and explains that they switched to covid instead of polio. This is part of their argument that it results from good health teams in place.

It does not seem likely that Africa, as a continent, has more health care available than say, Europe, America, Australia, etc. On objective measurements like doctors or hospital beds per capita, African countries do not score well.

I certainly believe that health care workers there switched to focus on covid, but not that it was unique. Health care efforts *everywhere* did that. It is an extremely poor explanation for why Africa did better.

ETA: Especially when such "conjecture" is literally the easiest and cheapest things possible which are known to work, eg distancing, washing hands, refraining from extraneous contact, masking, etc. Which has also notably worked in countries like South Korea or Japan well before the vaccines were released.

Sudan, Eritrea, and Somalia still neither require nor even recommend masks at this very late date. Most of the articles' examples are too vague to specifically check. They do, however, mention Nigeria, a country that had such difficulties with mask use that it became the subject of an NIH paper earlier this year.

It doesn't matter if the mitigation works if you don't actually do it.

For the sake of comparison, Nigeria has over 200million people, and under 3k reported covid deaths.
The US has over 300 million people, and about 775k reported covid deaths.

The US recommended face masks on Apr 3rd, Nigeria did not until Apr 14th.

It seems absolutely impossible that Nigeria's numbers arise from faster face mask recommendation.

[NichG]

There seems to be a pretty scary spike in South Africa as of yesterday, though it's the kind of increase that makes me question whether it could be a data artifact.

From 300 cases per day last week and ~600/day earlier this week to 18000 cases yesterday.

[sihnfahl]

From 300 cases per day last week and ~600/day earlier this week to 18000 cases yesterday.

Or someone intended to hit 1800, but ...

[NichG]

Or someone intended to hit 1800, but ...

One would hope though it's 18586... Edit: removed incorrect numbers.

[pendell]

Link , please? Because that's not what I'm seeing . The numbers are going the wrong way, to be sure, but it's at 15% of the peak.

Also, The Atlantic notes that we are moving on to the 'endemic' phase of Covid and ask what is our plan for dealing with COVID on a non-emergency basis, since it's not going away. They point to Denmark as one possible model, which has hyper-focused its efforts on the most vulnerable population rather than trying to achieve 100% protection across the entire population.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[NichG]

Link , please? Because that's not what I'm seeing . The numbers are going the wrong way, to be sure, but it's at 15% of the peak.

From the graph you get by searching:
https://www.google.com/search?q=sout...ca+covid+graph

which is supposed to display data from:
https://github.com/CSSEGISandData/COVID-19

But yeah, worldometer shows different numbers, so probably an error somewhere...

[Tyndmyr]

They point to Denmark as one possible model, which has hyper-focused its efforts on the most vulnerable population rather than trying to achieve 100% protection across the entire population.

That is probably reasonable, given the extreme mortality differences for at risk populations vs the general population.

100% protection for everyone definitely seems unrealistic, especially with the continued cycle of new variants. Omnicron is out, and apart from sounding like a transformer, it's...apparently reasonably contagious. Existing cases appear to be all/mostly fully vaccinated people, so early data indicates that the vaccines do relatively little to stop it. Early data is, of course, quite possibly incomplete, etc.

Given its discovery is in South Africa, perhaps that lends a little bit of context to the spike. ABC is reporting that SA is hitting 3200 new cases daily. That particular source has some conflicted information in it. If the virus does indeed have 30+ changes to the spike, allowing it to potentially avoid natural immunity, then one would expect the same risk for vaccinated immunity. Also, we have empirical evidence of it spreading quite rapidly on aircraft, and those passengers are all fully vaccinated. So, definitely some cause for concern. Perhaps that person is just being hopeful, or perhaps more data will contradict that.

[Bartmanhomer]

That is probably reasonable, given the extreme mortality differences for at risk populations vs the general population.

100% protection for everyone definitely seems unrealistic, especially with the continued cycle of new variants. Omnicron is out, and apart from sounding like a transformer, it's...apparently reasonably contagious. Existing cases appear to be all/mostly fully vaccinated people, so early data indicates that the vaccines do relatively little to stop it. Early data is, of course, quite possibly incomplete, etc.

Given its discovery is in South Africa, perhaps that lends a little bit of context to the spike. ABC is reporting that SA is hitting 3200 new cases daily. That particular source has some conflicted information in it. If the virus does indeed have 30+ changes to the spike, allowing it to potentially avoid natural immunity, then one would expect the same risk for vaccinated immunity. Also, we have empirical evidence of it spreading quite rapidly on aircraft, and those passengers are all fully vaccinated. So, definitely some cause for concern. Perhaps that person is just being hopeful, or perhaps more data will contradict that.

Oh no. Delta has evolved into Omnicron.

[pendell]

There's a lot of unknowns. We're currently trying to find out if Omicron can evade vaccines

There's also a question of it's severity. The original reporter stated the symptoms seemed mild . Although it is apparently driving a rise in hospitalizations .

A vaccine tailor-made for Omicron will take 100 days .

So then what? We go through another year, rinse and repeat for the next variant? That isn't a solution.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[NichG]

I didn't find getting a booster to be that big of a deal, so getting variant-specific vaccines yearly doesn't seem particularly unreasonable to me. Better by far than e.g. getting COVID every year.

As far as a full on solution? We missed the boat on that two years ago when it was initially spreading. One way or another we're at best going to be carrying a bunch of inconveniences forward for the rest of our lives such as occasional travel disruptions, yearly boosters, etc.