Transmission Yesterday in the BC blog post, I gave a bunch of evidence for Omicron being a very “pointy” wave, fast up and fast down. Wastewater evidence from the eastern USA is also pointing to fast-up/fast-down. From this tweet, the wastewater SARS-CoV-2 surveillance in Boston: And from this tweet, the surveillance in New Haven, CT:… Continue reading 2022-01-12 General
Category: Transmission
2022-01-11 General
Variants This preprint says that Omicron is less virulent than Delta: ~50% less likely to get admitted to hospital from the emergency room; ~75% less likely to go to the ICU; ~70% shorter hospital stay. Note that something I’m seeing is people not seeing a shorter hospital stay in the UK, e.g. in this tweet.… Continue reading 2022-01-11 General
2022-01-07 General
Vaccines This preprint from the UK found that boosters help against symptomatic infection, but also wane: dose1&2 dose3 VE at 2-4 weeks VE at 5-9 weeks VE at >10 weeks AZ+AZ Pfizer 62-65% 48% 32% AZ+AZ Moderna 62-65% 56% N/A Pfizer+Pfizer Pfizer 65% 49% 31% Pfizer+Pfizer Moderna 70% 57% N/A However, protection against severe disease… Continue reading 2022-01-07 General
2022-01-06 General
Variants This preprint looks at the effectiveness of a COVID-19 infection (as opposed to a vaccination) against future COVID unpleasantness: Variant against infection against hospitalization or death Alpha 90.2% 69.4% Beta 84.8% 88.0% Delta 92.0% 100% Omicron 56.0% 87.8% This preprint says that most people have a quite good T-cell response to Omicron after a… Continue reading 2022-01-06 General
2021-12-29 General
Variants There continue to be studies in test tubes and lab rodents which all show pretty convincingly that Omicron does not infect the lungs as well as previous versions. This preprint says that T cells from vaccination still have 70-80% of their protection against Omicron (which is probably why breakthrough cases are mild). Transmission This… Continue reading 2021-12-29 General
2021-12-25/26/27/28 General
Variants There has been difficulty figuring out how badly Omicron is going to hit the hospital system first because it is a lagging indicator, second because Omicron affects vaccinated and unvaccinated people so differently, and third because of poor-quality data around the holidays. Still, there are hints that, as this tweet from New York says,… Continue reading 2021-12-25/26/27/28 General
2021-12-14 General
Variants According to this Twitter thread, which reported on a press conference in South Africa, Omicron now accounts for 90% of the cases in South Africa. (Note: it might not be displacing Delta, there might still be just as many Delta cases as before — I don’t now — but a huge number of Omicron… Continue reading 2021-12-14 General
2021-12-11/12/13 General
Testing This report says that rapid tests are really inaccurate (they compared to PCR). This Twitter thread summarizes, but the brand I just picked up in the US misses half of symptomatic cases and a quarter of asymptomatic cases. (They say you should test multiple times, which if the failures are randomly distributed, should drop… Continue reading 2021-12-11/12/13 General
2021-12-08/09/10 General
I was out of town for a few days. I think this mostly catches up. Variants This press release from Pfizer says that three doses of Pfizer will give reasonable protection against infection with Omicron, but two doses isn’t enough. Two doses should still protect against severe disease. This Twitter thread on a report from… Continue reading 2021-12-08/09/10 General
2021-12-01 General
Transmission This article has some really cool pictures of some really really cool science. The study authors made a chemical/mechanical computer model of a virion inside an aerosol with water, lung fluid, mucous, and other crap that somebody might breathe out — 1.3 BILLION atoms worth — and then simulated it every millionth of a… Continue reading 2021-12-01 General