Here are a few highlights in the ongoing story of the fight against COVID-19.
- Germany is presently experiencing its greatest spike in new cases of COVID-19 since the pandemic began. It is experiencing a slight increase in the number of deaths due to COVID-19 but nothing like the spike in new cases. Perhaps the spike in cases will lead to a spike in deaths in the future.
- The U. S. is presently experiencing a slight uptick in the number of new cases but no uptick in the number of new deaths. Will our experience follow Germany’s or are Germans paying the price for their earlier success?
- There is quite a bit of anxiety about new variants emerging in a number of places around the world including South Africa and Israel. Only the future will tell if those new variants will prove resistant to present vaccines and/or treatments
- The graph above depicts the donations of COVID-19 vaccines by “rich” countries. YMMV but what I see are a) something of a shortfall between promises and deliveries and b) Europe (in this case France and Germany in particular) are not doing their part. (a) could be explained by lag time. What explains (b)?
- Could someone explain the resistance to what seem like commonsense measures to reduce the spread of COVID-19 here in the United States to me? I can completely understand the reluctance to get children inoculated and even understand reluctance on the part of those under 30, I can’t understand reluctance on the part of those over 60. Yes, there are risks. There are risks in everything.
- I’m having even greater difficulty understanding the resistance to wearing masks in enclosed spaces. It seems pretty innocuous to me. Yes, the empirical evidence in non-healthcare settings can be questioned but what evidence we have looks pretty good. Why not?
- I do wonder whether prospective vaccine side effects are being masked somewhat by the much higher participation rates of the old and sick.
- I continue to be dismayed by the lack of epidemiological testing for COVID-19 here and elsewhere. It’s long past due.
- The FDA has not authorized the use of Paxlovid yet.
My personal status is that I’ve been inoculated against COVID-19 three times. I also continue to think we’ve been approaching COVID-19 wrong all along. It’s always going to be with us just as the seasonal flu is.
Update
An explanation that I’ve heard for Germany’s present surge of COVID-19 cases is “vaccine jingoism”, i.e. using the AstraZeneca vaccine rather than the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines. If true that would be additional evidence supporting my view that we’ll always have COVID-19 with us.
We still have the common cold, and that is a collection of coronaviruses. So, covid-19 will likely evolve into another of the common cold viruses.
As to vaccination resistance, there are a substantial number of anti-vaxxers who oppose every vaccine. Their views are reinforced by bloggers like Vox Day, who claim the mRNA vaccines are poisons that cause diseases themselves, especially heart disease. Today, Vox Day posts that in the test phase the Pfizer vaccine recipients had significantly higher death rates from all causes than did the controls, although not from covid. (I don’t know if his claims are true, but that is not the point.)
These kinds of claims are easily found on the internet, and almost everyone has access to them today. Moreover, government agencies, especially the CDC/FDA, and the MSM are widely disbelieved, so there is no one who can assuage the fears of the anti-vaxxers.
Beyond that, many people (myself included) are tired of the endless maskings, lockdowns, mandatory vaccinations, etc. Governments everywhere have run amok and caused severe damage to the world economy and to individuals. Australia today is an actual East German-style police state, complete with actual concentration camps and Stasi-style mass roundups. The sorts of things going on in Australia have not been seen since the days of Hitler and Stalin. And there are other countries doing the same thing. Europe in general has fallen back into its fascist past.
My wife and I and our families are vaccinated. I expect to get a covid shot along with my flu shot annually for some time. But the hysteria and the fascism have to stop.
There is a demand problem in Africa. Replete with jabs, South Africa now battles vaccine apathy:
https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20210819-replete-with-jabs-south-africa-now-battles-vaccine-apathy
CDC currently reporting 99.9% of those 65 or over have received at least one dose. So either older people are getting vaccinated or we don’t have reliable data on uptake by age cohort.
States with current mask mandates: Hawaii, Illinois, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon and Washington.
Relatively compliant in my neck of the woods, not really south of here. I basically conform to my surroundings.
re Germany — According to this week’s Irish Times podcast, the issues have to be understood in the context of its federalist system. Vaccination rates are lower in the South, particularly Saxony, and local governments have varied in their response. Areas near Austria are hardest hit. Plus, there is a strain of 19th century holism, mostly among higher socio-economic households that tend to view viruses as something you should let pass through (described as acupuncture meets scientology).
Dave wanted to know why people would want to resist. “common sense measures†to reduce the spread of COVID – meaning vaccination and wearing masks. The simple response is that many don’t see these measures as common sense approaches at all, but rather solutions created out of media fear-mongering, staged ideological-driven science, and manipulated data.
The CDC and WHO, along with the FDA, have been completely discredited in how they have redefined cause of death, herd immunity, changing PCR threshold cycles at will, discarded early treatment protocols, enormously overshot the virus’s lethality at the get go, and censored any and all who don’t agree with their medical guidance that, in most cases, has failed miserably, with lots of economical collateral damage in it’s wake. The FDA is now incredibly recommending that the data behind the Pfizer vaccine be held for 55 years before being publicly revealed!
Two web sites, though, that do deal with common sense realities are:
1. unityprojectonline.com Coalition of independent, diverse citizens whose mission is to stop the vaccine mandates for healthy children K-12.
2. globalcovidsummit.org. A large global group of physicians and scientists who have untethered themselves from corporate pharmaceutical companies, and openly discuss their concerns and first hand experiences with these vaccines.
As for the benefits of masks and social distancing – there is no scientific data showing much if any benefit to these measures. At most masks may give 10% protection if properly worn, while there is evidence masks can actually cause harm, including frequent cases of rashes on the face.
What masks and social distancing do accomplish is feed into a psychological pattern called Mass-Formation – a concept studied and written about by Dr. Mattias Desmet, a psychology professor at the University of Ghent in Belgium. What mass-formation does is create an almost hypnotic collective unconsciousness among masses of people confronted by a seismic event like this virus. They become socially isolated by mandates, masking, eliminating social groupings, lose social bonding, are unable to come to sensible conclusions, with many subject to free-floating-anxiety having no focal point or meaning in life. All this is churned 24/7 by the media, until a strategy is founded and pushed – vaccines. People latch onto this solution, life begins to have direction, creating a connectedness between all the vaccinated. In turn, it creates a wall of resistance to hearing anything that differs from this vaccine strategy being anything but “good†for the masses. In fact, mass-formation cultivates an intolerance for dissident voices – hence we now have so much censorship and punitive actions taken by vaccine compliant doctors and government entities to force vaccines on people – whether they want them or not.
And, this is how totalitarianism is birthed in once free societies……
There is a tremendous amount of solid evidence supporting the effectiveness of wearing facemasks including cloth facemasks in the healthcare setting and somewhat less evidence supporting the effectiveness outside that setting. The cost is nominal. It seems to me that any reasoned cost-benefit analysis comes down on the side of facemasks.
I think there are better arguments against vaccines and that people should be doing their own risk analyses on those. For me that analysis comes down on the side of inoculation but I can see how reasonable people (especially reasonable people under the age of 40) could come to other conclusions.
“I do wonder whether prospective vaccine side effects are being masked somewhat by the much higher participation rates of the old and sick.”
It would be odd if that was not true.
I don’t really see how the efficacy of masks can be demonstrated. Its the ultimate uncontrolled, multi-variable experiment. It seems we want to have rigorous experiments when convenient, and hunches when convenient. Give me a pile of data and I’ll show you that hopping on one leg, patting the head and rubbing the tummy is the way to go. And it will change next week.
Here in the SE you have only <5% wearing masks; maybe 2%. You have people packed into bars, restaurants, stores etc all over the place. No wave of cases. The best I think you can say is that if infected you shouldn't be hacking all over people all day. Don't see that very often. I think its a social convention.
Dave, I would like to see that solid evidence dealing with the benefits of wearing masks. The reason I ask is that so far I’ve only read opinions and studies that are far removed from any gold standard ones demanded of other protocols recommended to deter the effects of COVID.
From PD’s linked article.
“Cases have declined among over-65s as a result of their high vaccination rates, with cases among those ages 65-74 going from 337 per 100,000 people in January, before vaccines were widely available, to 157 cases per 100,000 in early September during the delta variant surge and 64 cases per 100,000 as of November 6.
Deaths have gone down even more, particularly for those over age 75, going from 53.5 per 100,000 people in January to 15 deaths per 100,000 in September and 0.7 per 100,000 as of November.”
I think there may have a been a statistical glitch that gave us the 99.9% number but the rate is high on the over 65 group. As a result deaths are down a lot.
Under 30 the relative risk favors getting vaccinated since the risk of the vaccines is so low. The absolute risk remains fairly low. If you factor in the risk of spreading to others then it favors vaccination more.
The evidence for masks is pretty good. If you start at the lab testing level they clearly work well. It is easier to do studies on hospitals so there are more of those and they are generally positive. The better done studies favor masks outside of hospitals. Compliance is a major issue in whether or not they work and many studies confuse mask mandates with mask wearing.
Not sure about the new variant(s). Need to see results of studies in a couple of weeks to see if current vaccines have reduced efficacy.
There are tons of studies and surveys on physicians and hand washing. A surprisingly high percentage think it is over rated and many think it unnecessary when you wear gloves. This is especially true among older and male physicians. Rather than determine if hand washing is good or not based upon listening to a few physicians it is better to look at the evidence in the literature. That extends to medical care beyond hand washing.
Steve
“Compliance is a major issue in whether or not they work and many studies confuse mask mandates with mask wearing.”
This, of course, is a primary problem. The whole approach was wrong. Arrogant politicians and public health officials telling people what to do. They lost all their cred when they became the poster children for masks for thee, but not for me. Different types of masks. Stupid masks (not effective) Masks yes. Masks no. Masks here, but not there. (Seriously?)
Its a joke. If masks matter, its a third order effect. The public health administration apparatus needs to get their act together if they really care. They have failed. They don’t care. Its politics. They take orders. They cover their asses. The people see it. They are not stupid. And they are not in the DC bubble.
Seriously. I’m here in SC and no one wears a mask. No one wears one in FL. We are doing fine. I go to visit my daughter in DC or I go to NY and its mask city.
or deaths are down because the most susceptible have already died. I’m not sure how you’d disaggregate those.
We approach this much differently. You obsess over some errors and poor messaging by some public health people. I look at the literature and try to figure out what we should be doing based upon the best available evidence. That says that in some situations we should wear masks.
On compliance, we had a guy in the ICU who developed a brain abscess when he didnt take his prescribed antibiotics for a tooth infection. No one claimed antibiotics dont work. we have lots of people who dont take their blood pressure meds. Some then go on to renal failure. We dont then say that blood pressure meds dont work. We do lots of chemotherapy knowing that it often works only 40% of the time. But we uniquely, AFAICT, decide that if masks dont work 100% of the time or if people are not compliant then masks dont work.
Yup, no masks in Florida and much of the south. Remember how New York and New Jersey, really the NE corridor lead the country in covid deaths by a huge margin. Now Florida (and Texas too) have rocketed way past them same as most of those southern non masking states. Of course they dont like vaccinations either so that does confuse things.
“The people see it. They are not stupid.”
Which half of the people? We are divided in case you didnt notice. Anyway, dont wear a mask if you want. I’m not suggesting we go after people who dont wear them. It does get irritating when the non mask wearing, non vaccinated keep getting covid and show up in my hospitals and then we have to care for them. It would really be nice if the non mask/non vaccinated would stop being such assholes when they do end up in the hospital too. Regardless, we will keep treating these people.
Steve
This study is a review of the literature on the effectiveness of wearing facemasks in preventing COVID-19. It sub-categories the studies by setting, mask type, etc. It has tons of references. The studies are of varying size, quality, etc. but the bottom line is that wearing cloth masks is pretty effective.
And the risks are low to non-existent. I think there are so many greater risks for creeping fascism than wearing facemasks to prevent COVID-19 I don’t actually know how to respond to that claim. The greatest risks for creeping fascism IMO are advocacy journalism and governing by edict regardless of the motives or effectiveness of the edicts, defended by advocacy journalists.
New York and New Jersey remain in the top 10 of states in rankings by death per million population due to COVID-19. To my eye the rankings in death per million population are more closely related to percentage black, Hispanic, and/or Native American population than to government policies on mask wearing, vaccinations, or much of anything else. In turn I can’t disaggregate those from increased risk due to obesity. I’m not sure how we would go about disaggregating risk due to race from risk due to obesity since blacks, Hispanics, and Native Americans have much higher rates of obesity. My intuition is that when you control for obesity, income, and immigrant/native status a lot but not all of the variances by race disappear.
Asymptomatic people mandated to wear masks, against a virus that is smaller than most mask fibers are able to filter out, makes no sense.
Universal vaccination mandating an injection having no long term studies completed for adverse effects, using a spiked protein to invoke an immune response, with no assurances of stopping infectious transmission, is considered a “leaky†vaccine, whose efficacy wanes in a matter of months without anotherâ€booster shot,†cannot be called a legitimate vaccine. It’s really only a lucrative money-maker for those manufacturing and hawking it.
What is so puzzling to me is why some people have relaxed their critical thinking apparatus, been blinded by fear and the need to acquiesce to a remedy without first questioning it’s merit and/or listening to medical debate that is cautioning against taking the jab. Also, isn’t it strange that any opposition to these “vaccines†is instantly shut down or disparaged, with all kinds of gimmicks, bribes and now punishments rolled out to get people on board with these vaccinations? Where in history has universal vaccination been used in a public health crisis? Even in attempts to stem measles – a much more infectious virus – vulnerable children were the target of vaccinations, not adults.
A small correction to Germany and vaccine jingoism.
Germany (and the EU) largely ostracized the usage of AstraZeneca vaccine in favor of Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. BioNTech is German while AstraZeneca is a UK and AstraZeneca became unpopular in Germany and the EU partly due to Brexit and the hard feelings that resulted.
It’s been raised in the UK why the UK has achieved a plateau (albeit high) while everyone else (Germany, US, Singapore, etc) have gotten a huge pandemic wave with the Delta variant. The speculation is because the UK used AstraZeneca as its main vaccine unlike the rest of the world.
Dave- You miss the point that New York and New Jersey started out way ahead. They had the bulk of their deaths in the first few months when the death rate was twice what it is now. Now other states have caught tup and passed them.
Delaware, Maryland (2nd least white state) and Virginia are top ten in percentage black population but way down the list on death rates. Take NY and NJ, cut their rates in half to account for the early deaths. Then every state in the top 15 is pretty red. West Virginia is the 3rd whitest state in the country but high up on covid death rate. New mexico and Hawaii have the lowest percentage of whites but are pretty far down the list of covid deaths. There is a much better correlation between political affiliation which correlates well with mask use and vaccinations.
Steve
Full disclosure, my whole family is vaxxed. My 11yo son got his first shot a week ago. The rest of us are waiting for boosters. I ensured my sister who lives in a memory care facility, is fully vaxed as well.
There are several studies on the CDC website that show the efficacy of masks really depends on the type of mask and how well it is worn. As someone who wears glasses, I knew this intuitively since any leakage at the top of a mask results in foggy glasses.
The vast majority of people I see wearing masks do not have glasses and even in health care facilities, I can see the huge gaps around the nose and on the sides from just about everyone who wears them. In other words, they are acting more like snot catchers than any kind of filter.
One also has to consider time. Even with 80-90% filtration effectiveness from everyone wearing proper, well-fitted masks, enough virus will leak through over time to still cause infections. As PD once said, they are not a force field.
That’s not to say that masking is worthless or shouldn’t be done in the right contexts. But I don’t think we should kid ourselves that masks are much more than a speed bump.
Personally, I am glad to wear masks where I’m required to, and I do it anyway in places where it seems to be a social expectation even if I realize it’s pointless. But I find them to be very annoying because I have yet to find one that doesn’t fog my glasses after a minute or two of wear.
I also am kind of annoyed that so much of this involves a lot of handwaving. There still does not seem to exist any kind of specific criteria published for the specific circumstances when masks (as people actually wear them) will be most effective. The CDC just puts out vague advice that you should mask indoors in counties with “high” transmission, which is currently almost the entire country.
The question I have is, how does this end? If the goal is to do everything possible to minimize risk, then the obvious thing to do is mandate masks 100% of the time. Because they can also help with flu and other things. But most people don’t want that. At some point diminishing effectiveness isn’t worth the hassle.
Re masks — to be really effective governments need to mandate/advise masks in the home. There are multiple studies showing about half of transmission occur at home.
On which states are doing better/worse, I will bring some data. This is all using data from worldomaters.com.
First, most states are clustered around the national average in deaths per capita. Fully 39 of the 50 states have deaths per capita within +- 40% of the national average.
Second, there is a cluster of 8 states that have significantly lower (> 50%) deaths per capita then the national average. They are, New Hampshire, Washington,
Oregon, Alaska, Utah, Maine, Hawaii, Vermont. What’s in common between those 8 states?
Third, using Germany as an example. Never trust state differentials vis-a-vis COVID will last. Until the pandemic ends, there’s always another wave that could prove one’s priors wrong.
“to be really effective governments need to mandate/advise masks in the home. There are multiple studies showing about half of transmission occur at home.”
The problem with that is the time variable I mentioned. Masks are a delaying action – the longer you’re in proximity of someone with Covid, the less effective they are in preventing transmission.
There are some older flu studies on wearing masks at home. Results were mixed. I dont think it is likely to work well. First, there really isn’t much use suggesting something you know most people wont/cant adhere to very well. Kids just wont. Second, looking at the lab studies which show masks are effective what that really means is that they decrease the amount of virus not block everything. The longer you are in area with someone who has covid and masked the more virus will escape and build up. In the room for half an hour? It probably helps. 8 hours? Better wear an N 95 or higher.
Also, remember that even though we know there is aerosol spread that is not the only method. There is still droplet spread. For that masks are better. So they help but probably in the 25%-30% range and are really best as part of a mitigation plan that would include avoiding large indoor groups.
I wear glasses. Wear a mask almost 100% of the time at work. There are brands of masks that have a foam layer for insulation and a wire to hold shape so that you dont fog.
“The question I have is, how does this end?”
I think we are looking pretty good for therapeutics and vaccine effectiveness. I think we arent that far away from just having yearly boosters like the flu and therapeutics for rescue. At that point give up masks and other mitigation efforts. Individuals will probably keep masking when local rates are high. People in some areas will wear a mask if they feel sick but have to go to work, like much of Asia.
Steve
They’re the states with the lowest black and Hispanic populations.
What’s your data source? I was using this and it looks like West Virginia has fewer of those minorities and there are quite a few lower than Oregon and Washington. Also, Puerto Rico should be on that list. Pretty sure they have lots of Hispanics.
https://www.governing.com/archive/state-minority-population-data-estimates.html
Steve
Hipshot.
Basically, any Google search will reveal any number of sources. For example, this one shows that all of those states have less than 5% black population.
Conversely, the states with the highest mortality from COVID-19 also tend to be among those with the highest percent of black population. Top states are (descending order): Mississippi, Louisiana, Georgia, Alabama.
You’re right about West Virginia, though. Have you ever been there? I have. Suffice it to say I’m not a fan.
Today, even statistics can be racist.
Dangerous times.
My son lives in Maryland on the West Virginia border so we have been there several times recently. Did some hiking there in the past. Really pretty in places but agree would not want to live there. I like small town life but I got the same vibes I did from Central Florida where I would also not want to live. (OK, pretty much not anywhere in Florida. Did not like the climate.)
Steve