breaking covid rules

[doug3030]

In Alberta, the rest of Canada, and the US, Covid appears to have morphed into an epidemic among the unvaccinated.

However, these statistics could be skewed because the vaccine is not evenly distributed among the population. More unvaccinated people might be catching Covid because they fall into a demographic which for various reasons is now more susceptible to exposure to the virus. While the original strain went through nursing homes etc and seemed to be hitting the older people harder, Delta, while still killing senior citizens, seems to be affecting younger people more. The younger ones are the ineligible cohort and are also more likely to be out and about doing essential work etc. Vaccinated people are still getting infected, admittedly at a far lesser rate than the unvaccinated but I believe more research would be needed to be certain of the reasons. Is it that they are unvaccinated or because they get exposed more due to age or other demographic reasons?

Meanwhile the Government is announcing more vaccines will be available and the younger people are now becoming eligible. Do not believe for a second that the Government tells us all that they know about what is happening.

A lot of people are concerned about the 50+ cases in Victoria yesterday and today, up from a run of mid-20's. Remember that the lockdown started on 5 August and several thousand people were declared close contacts at that time and ordered to get tested then isolate for 14 days. They got tested over a few days. This means that they all need to be given a second test on Day 13 after their first test. That's where all the extra cases are coming from. A lot of them will be the people who were tested as close contacts doing their day 13 tests after being infected but asymptomatic, sitting at home in isolation saying what a waste of time it all was. Now they have tested positive.

So those extra case numbers do not worry me because they will have been in isolation and will remain so until they test negative. What does worry me is that other countries are now requiring Delts strain close contacts to isolate for 21 days as the infection does not always show up in 14 days with Delta. But once our isolated contacts pass their 13 day screening they will be allowed back into the general population. Time will tell if some of them become contagious after the 14 day period.

[woodhog]

Wearing a mask worked fine for me last year and I never got sick.
I felt much better before the 1st and 2nd vaccinations. Was walking 1 -2 miles a day. Now I have much muscle and worse arthritis pain than before a few months later and can hardly perform daily activities.
I personally highly doubt I will get a booster vaccination until they say I cannot enter a grocery store without vaccination proof.
I did not name the vaccination manufacturer and will not.

[GraemeCook]

... In Alberta, the rest of Canada, and the US, Covid appears to have morphed into an epidemic among the unvaccinated. ...

... However, these statistics could be skewed because the vaccine is not evenly distributed among the population. ...

mmmmmmm! And where do QAnom supporters fit in this spectrum?

[ian]

Every trip to the supermarket involves one or two adults not wearing masks (presumably for "medical reasons", though the tattoos and looks on their faces often suggest "looking for an argument" is a more likely reason!) and a mass of mask-less kids running around touching everything in the store. I'm not an "expert", but I'd guess there might be a connection?

Very strange.
Up until July this year, you couldn't enter the supermarkets in the town (population about 15,000) where I have been Covid stranded for the past year and a half without wearing a mask. There was at least one person, ofttimes two, stationed at the door to make sure no one entered without a mask and although the supermarket might have had multiple doors only one set were unlocked. And once inside the store, arrows on the floor indicated the permitted (desired?) direction of movement and the desired spacing of shoppers.

During the period that mask were mandated I don't recall ever seeing a shopper inside the supermarket not wearing a mask.

[ian]

It's funny to contemplate the realities against the "announcements". If covid is spread via moisture in the breath, then the physical act of bumping in to someone is less important that the act of breathing what in Formula 1 parlance might be referred to as their "dirty air". On the other hand, my sister in the UK won't take anything (mail, deliveries, food, whatever) into her house without it first being sprayed with some form of kill-all, and then the item sitting in isolation in the shed for two days. Clearly it is her belief (which may or may not reflect the "official" view in the UK!) that physical contact is a big issue.

When the handwashing and masks were first suggested, the concept was that it was, ahem, "snot" being transferred that was the major issue. People wipe their noses with their hands, then touch things. The advice was therefore to avoid touching your face and to wash your hands frequently. There was lots of talk, at that time, of how long the virus could survive on various surfaces, but the concept was still snot-related. Obviously there is still a potential for people's clothes to be "contaminated" such that clothing to clothing contact could transfer the virus, so I'm not sure whether the "bumping in to people" was a metaphorical "bump" referring to physical closeness, or an actual bump.

I'm confident that the might "bump into someone" as stated by Gladys is the metaphorical bump. You, as the bumpee, primary goal is to avoid breathing in any of their "dirty air". A very difficult task given how poorly anything less than a medical grade N95 mask plus a face shield fits.


The Covid-19 virus is "similar" to the SARS virus. In fact I believe WHO's official name for Covid-19 is something like "SARS-Covid-19".
SARS is known to persist on hard surfaces for up to a week, so I understand your sister's caution.

[ian]

However, these statistics could be skewed because the vaccine is not evenly distributed among the population. More unvaccinated people might be catching Covid because they fall into a demographic which for various reasons is now more susceptible to exposure to the virus. While the original strain went through nursing homes etc and seemed to be hitting the older people harder, Delta, while still killing senior citizens, seems to be affecting younger people more. The younger ones are the ineligible cohort and are also more likely to be out and about doing essential work etc. Vaccinated people are still getting infected, admittedly at a far lesser rate than the unvaccinated but I believe more research would be needed to be certain of the reasons. Is it that they are unvaccinated or because they get exposed more due to age or other demographic reasons?

In the US the health system is admittedly dysfunctional. The US government has provided funding more than sufficient to allow all US residents -- not just US citizens or green card holders -- to become fully vaccinated. However, the correlation between the strength of a state's political affiliation (strongly republican vs not so strongly republican) and that state's vaccination rate is directly correlated with the number of severe Covid-19 cases presenting in each state. Low vaccination rates (in a strongly republican state) EQUALS a high severe Covid-19 rate in that state. High vaccination rates (in a not so strongly republican state or a democrat controlled state) EQUALS low numbers of severe Covid-19 cases.


f

Meanwhile the Government is announcing more vaccines will be available and the younger people are now becoming eligible. Do not believe for a second that the Government tells us all that they know about what is happening.

of course not.

realise that the 1 million Pfizer vaccine doses imported from Poland will all be shot into the arms of the some of the citizens of Western Sydney by mid October, well before their expire date of the end of November.
BTW, fully vaccinating the citizens of Sydney will require around 10 MILLION vaccine doses.


f

A lot of people are concerned about the 50+ cases in Victoria yesterday and today, up from a run of mid-20's. Remember that the lockdown started on 5 August and several thousand people were declared close contacts at that time and ordered to get tested then isolate for 14 days. They got tested over a few days. This means that they all need to be given a second test on Day 13 after their first test. That's where all the extra cases are coming from. A lot of them will be the people who were tested as close contacts doing their day 13 tests after being infected but asymptomatic, sitting at home in isolation saying what a waste of time it all was. Now they have tested positive.

So those extra case numbers do not worry me because they will have been in isolation and will remain so until they test negative. What does worry me is that other countries are now requiring Delts strain close contacts to isolate for 21 days as the infection does not always show up in 14 days with Delta. But once our isolated contacts pass their 13 day screening they will be allowed back into the general population. Time will tell if some of them become contagious after the 14 day period.

Gee wiz. 50 cases. SO WHAT ??
Alberta, the earliest Canadian province to remove "all restrictions" had over 800 cases on both Thursday and Friday -- i.e. more than 1600 cases. In another response I've given details of the percentage of Alberta's population that is fully vaccinated and the number of fully vaccinated Albertans who have Covid-19 -- about 1 in 20.


Unfortunately for Australia, the Delta variant of Covid-19 is now endemic. A border "wall" between WA and the rest of Australia may keep the disease at bay long enough to allow the WA population to become vaccinated, but even when the population is fully vaccinated -- a very unlikely scenario -- around 5% of the population will still contract Covid.

[Warb]

Very strange.
Up until July this year, you couldn't enter the supermarkets in the town (population about 15,000) where I have been Covid stranded for the past year and a half without wearing a mask. There was at least one person, ofttimes two, stationed at the door to make sure no one entered without a mask and although the supermarket might have had multiple doors only one set were unlocked. And once inside the store, arrows on the floor indicated the permitted (desired?) direction of movement and the desired spacing of shoppers.

Here in NSW we have one of those "modern" beliefs systems, whereby political correctness and avoidance of "insulting" anybody is paramount. As a result, even after mask wearing was made mandatory there were a fair number of exceptions. Children (which I imagine the "spirit of the law" intended to be ankle-biters but some people interpreted as "under 18") and people who cannot wear a mask for medical or mental health reasons are exempted, for example. There are also other exemptions for OH&S reasons, where the wearing of a mask would be a dangerous (very sensible, if applied correctly!). Unfortunately nobody could be asked to "prove" those medical issues, and as a result in my area a large number of people chose that option. More recently the rules have been changed, the first change was to make it mandatory for those medical/mental health exemptions to carry proof of their exemption in the form of a letter from their doctor (etc.). Unfortunately, once again political correctness prevailed and now a statutory declaration has been allowed, so those who are happy to lie just write one and get it stamped at the newsagent (who correctly state it is not their job to validate the contents of a stat dec, only to validate the signature on it). The result is that "kids" of secondary school age, and some adults, still roam the shops maskless.

It must be understood that there are certainly people who have a genuine inability to wear a mask for medical of mental health issues. Unfortunately around here it always seems to be the "usual suspects" who have added not wearing a mask to the long list of rules, laws and conventions that they don't wish to follow.

Edit: I forgot to mention that the act of wearing a mask is interpreted by some as "having a mask somewhere near your face". So; around the chin, over the mouth but not the nose, or even hanging from one ear are all seen as OK by some people. Also, wearing a mask (see definition above) until reaching the checkout, at which point it is removed to chat to the checkout operator, is also fine. Sometimes the checkout operator will ask the customer to wear the mask correctly, but that's a tough call for a 16year old girl facing a man who is looking for an argument!

On the other hand, on Wednesday I saw a guy in boots, full Tyvek ("spray painting") suit including hood, goggles and mask walking around the supermarket. I wondered if it was being done ironically or sarcastically, but I suspect not. Funny thing is he was wearing a very poorly fitting "nuisance dust mask" with huge gaps between the mask and his face..... People are strange!

[Warb]

Unfortunately for Australia, the Delta variant of Covid-19 is now endemic. A border "wall" between WA and the rest of Australia may keep the disease at bay long enough to allow the WA population to become vaccinated, but even when the population is fully vaccinated -- a very unlikely scenario -- around 5% of the population will still contract Covid.

Some people "guessed", within weeks of the initial outbreak in China, that this would be the case. It was patently obvious, though not universally accepted, as soon as the virus started taking hold around the world. Some countries, like the UK, initially went with the "endemic" view, trying to achieve herd immunity, until the sheer number of deaths and the lack of medical resources meant such an approach was unacceptable, both practically and politically. However they, and most of the rest of the world, has eventually publicly accepted it to be the case. I say "publicly" because I find it very hard to believe that it wasn't always privately accepted as such, but that knowledge was not released to the public for fear of panic.

Australia has done a very good job of controlling the disease, we have had very few deaths. The delta variant has changed that, but also it has put some impetus behind the vaccine rollout, which was previously stagnating, ironically due to the total lack of panic!

What is scaring me at the moment is that the state Premiers are, in some case, still arguing for zero covid transmission before they'll open up. That is unlikely ever to happen*, and if it does it will be a very short term zero - the disease IS endemic to the world. Waiting for zero before opening up and instantly getting more cases? I cannot see any logic in that! The concept is to keep the numbers under control to avoid the health system imploding until the population has sufficiently high vaccination numbers.

*There is one way that it could happen, and that is if they start adjusting what zero means, or refers to. So, for example, zero does not mean ZERO, it might mean zero new cases that are not linked to known cases that have not been "isolating" for the entire infectious period, and.., and,... AKA "zero by accountancy". A typically government method to make 1+1=0

[GraemeCook]

Thanks, Warb, for your consistent and well thought out posts on this topic.

... Australia has done a very good job of controlling the disease, we have had very few deaths. The delta variant has changed that, but also it has put some impetus behind the vaccine rollout, which was previously stagnating, ironically due to the total lack of panic! ...

I put on my economists hat and, as the profession constantly reiterates, run the numbers.

Australia, principally NSW and to a lesser extent Victoria, has never had a worse situation as regards the covid infection rate. The Daily New Cases are presently higher than in the second wave in July-August last year.

Covid - Aug - 1.jpg

However, the death rate has not increased in proportion to the infection rate. As of last night, a total of 978 people had died from covid, but the cumulative death rate as of 31-12-2020 was 909. This means than only 69 people have died this calendar year in spite of the high infection rate from the delta variant. (I know, early days, the infection rate is still accelerating.)

So far the evidence seems to be that the delta variant is significantly more contageous, but also somewhat less deadly.

Covid - Aug - 2.jpg

[GraemeCook]

... Unfortunately for Australia, the Delta variant of Covid-19 is now endemic. A border "wall" between WA and the rest of Australia may keep the disease at bay long enough to allow the WA population to become vaccinated, but even when the population is fully vaccinated -- a very unlikely scenario -- around 5% of the population will still contract Covid....

This seems to be a horribly pessimistic projection, Ian, and I hope that you are wrong. But ....

Arguably, the US has performed abysmally in the managing of the covid epidemic and their cumulative infection rate is now 11.5% - but still rising! Will it peak at, say, 15% - who knows?

But if 80% vaccination rate is achieved and the vaccine is 60% effective against the delta strain and there is a "natural infection rate of 15% then we run the numbers:

• Unvaccinated: 20% of population, 15% infection rate => 3% infected.
• Vaccinated: 80% population, 60% imune, 40% exposed, 15% infection rate => 4.8% infected. [80*(1-0.6)*0.15]

Your 5% is then not unrealistic.

But if the vaccine effectiveness is actually 90% then the infection rate for the vaccinated drops to about 1.2%. Time will tell.

[Warb]

So far the evidence seems to be that the delta variant is significantly more contageous, but also somewhat less deadly.

I would be tempted to agree, but also somewhat wary of the change in circumstances. The biggest numbers of covid deaths were initially in the elderly and infirm. Those people have also been the target audience of the vaccine rollout, at least in the early stages, so the numbers of un-vaccinated "easy targets" now make up a much lower proportion of the whole. To accurately compare the death rate of delta vs. the earlier form(s) of covid, you would therefore need to work by age-group and only in the un-vaccinated - "total" numbers are bound to be skewed by the different levels of vaccination rates in the various age groups.

As I said in an earlier post, Victoria is worried that so many new cases are in the young, but this might be explained the same way - the elderly and infirm are vaccinated and so far fewer are being infected, becoming very sick and dying (the vaccines seem to reduce not only the chance of infection but also severity of symptoms and the mortality rates). As the death rate in younger people has always been far lower than in the elderly, this could go a long way towards explaining why delta "appears" less deadly than the earlier strains.

Whilst it is obviously the case that the death toll in Australia is so low as to make any analysis somewhat arbitrary, it is also worth noting the numbers of deaths amongst the vaccinated vs. the unvaccinated. I haven't checked in the last couple of days, but before that I recall only 1 death being of a fully vaccinated individual and (sad as it may be) in that case it was a very elderly - 90something - person in palliative care....

[ian]

This seems to be a horribly pessimistic projection, Ian, and I hope that you are wrong. But ....

Arguably, the US has performed abysmally in the managing of the covid epidemic and their cumulative infection rate is now 11.5% - but still rising! Will it peak at, say, 15% - who knows?

But if 80% vaccination rate is achieved and the vaccine is 60% effective against the delta strain and there is a "natural infection rate of 15% then we run the numbers:

• Unvaccinated: 20% of population, 15% infection rate => 3% infected.
• Vaccinated: 80% population, 60% imune, 40% exposed, 15% infection rate => 4.8% infected. [80*(1-0.6)*0.15]

Your 5% is then not unrealistic.

But if the vaccine effectiveness is actually 90% then the infection rate for the vaccinated drops to about 1.2%. Time will tell.

Graeme
I wish I could be more positive, but based on Canada's experience to date, I believe the numbers I'm suggesting are realistic.


As to the US infection rate, back in early March 2021 serum testing in LA county (population 10 million) was indicating that between 1 in 4 (25%) and 1 in 2 (50%) of the county's population had been exposed to the virus. At the time, the best guess estimate was the mid-point of the range 37.5%, or 3 in 8 people. And that was after excluding the 2 million people who at that time had already been vaccinated.
Data from late March is not as positive suggesting that the "have been exposed to Covid-19" cohort could be as high as 55%.
Importantly, 40% of people who have the disease have no symptoms and perhaps don't even present for testing or, if they do, test negative.

Extrapolating the LA county data to the whole of the US might very much be "an excessively bold move", but if you do, the US is approaching the cusp of achieving effective "herd immunity" through a combination of existing exposure to the virus and vaccination.


Australia in many respects is similar to Canada.
Achieving a vaccination rate of 80% in Australia is probably not achievable, especially given that around 10-15% of the population are kids under 12 who are too young to receive "the jab". I think that Australia will likely top out with around 75% of the population vaccinated against Covid.

Re-running the AUS numbers using the exposure data from LA county

• Unvaccinated: 25% of population (6.5 million), 50% infection rate (in LA county, in late March, it was 55%) => 3.25 million infected, around 40% of which (1.3 million) don't know they are infected so don't get tested. !!
• Vaccinated: 75% of population (19.5 million), 50% exposure rate (9.75 million), of which 85% are either asymptomatic or sufficiently immune that their illness doesn't requite hospitalisation => 1.46 million who might require a hospital bed.

I think my estimated numbers are about right. But please correct me if I have erred.

[Lappa]

After listening to Dan and Gladys lately, I believe that the only Premier who believes we can achieve the magical ZERO figure is the WA Premier.

I stated graphing the NSW figures for some time and chose to also graph them over a fortnight spacing. Since June, the cases have been doubling each fortnight and the worrying stat is that, going by the graph, they shouldn’t have reached 800 cases until next Saturday

[Bushmiller]

As I said in an earlier post, Victoria is worried that so many new cases are in the young, but this might be explained the same way - the elderly and infirm are vaccinated and so far fewer are being infected, becoming very sick and dying (the vaccines seem to reduce not only the chance of infection but also severity of symptoms and the mortality rates). As the death rate in younger people has always been far lower than in the elderly, this could go a long way towards explaining why delta "appears" less deadly than the earlier strains.

Warb

Agreed.

I think that if the object of vaccination is to minimise serious illness and death, then even the slow uptake of the vaccination will tend to safeguard the groups most at risk. It just means that even with vaccination taking place at well below optimum speed it is having a benefit.

The incidence of younger people contracting the Delta strain is still worrying, but at least we have to assume their younger, bodily defence mechanisms are better able to cope. So again it gives the appearance of being less serious: Not necessarily the case.

Also, have we learnt our lesson and are we prepared for another variant? Or will it be back to square one as far as quarantine is concerned?

Regards
Paul

[doug3030]

I think that if the object of vaccination is to minimise serious illness and death, then even the slow uptake of the vaccination will tend to safeguard the groups most at risk. It just means that even with vaccination taking place at well below optimum speed it is having a benefit.

The incidence of younger people contracting the Delta strain is still worrying, but at least we have to assume their younger, bodily defence mechanisms are better able to cope. So again it gives the appearance of being less serious: Not necessarily the case.

I agree that any level of uptake of vaccination is going to be beneficial, but there is also the downside, and teh Delta strain is going to accentuate that downside. Vaccinated people are still able to become infected and they can infect others, just less likely to do so. They are also more likely to be asymptomatic, so as the vaccination takeup gets larger so does the chances of asymptomatic infected people being active in the community and not getting tested. This will mean an increase in unlinked mystery cases. Contact Tracers will find themselves having to work harder because they will be doing more tracing upstream instead of being able to concentrate primarily on downstream.