Coronavirus

[GeddyWrox]

In the early days of COVID, my company's CEO (a pretty conservative trumper-type guy) was very unhappy about having to allow everyone to work from home. He would send out monthly updates with his newest hope of when we would return to the office. You could just sense the disdain for Sam Page and STL County in the tone of his emails.

But a funny thing happened in 2020...... We had our best year ever. And we haven't had one of his seething covid updates in a long while. I think he might just decide to keep us mostly remote for the foreseeable future!

And I'm OK with that!

[InvincibleCakeEater]

Have you gotten a hefty raise from all the money the company is making and will be saving by not having a brick and mortar office?

[GeddyWrox]

Have you gotten a hefty raise from all the money the company is making and will be saving by not having a brick and mortar office?

Our company owns their building outright, and have for 20 years. In fact, we were almost completely out of space pre-pandemic. They still have some people who prefer to work in the office, so they're keeping it (to my knowledge).

Also, I got a much bigger bonus than normal at the fiscal year kickoff. Probably double or slightly more (I didn't do the math). And my salary was pretty good to start and I have gotten a 3% raise like clockwork every year I've been here. I actually have no complaints in that department. I do, however, push my CIO to give my employees better than 3% every year. Some years I win, some years I don't. But my company is much better about paying us what we're worth than a lot of other companies.

Before I worked here, I averaged about 18-24 months at a company. 3 1/2 years was my record. This job, I am going on 7 years now and am still quite happy. Remarkable when I think about it. I got really lucky.

But back to your point, I hope my employees get a better than average raise this year. We'll see!

[GeddyWrox]

New Study Estimates More Than 900,000 People Have Died Of COVID-19 In U.S.

A new study estimates that the number of people who have died of COVID-19 in the U.S. is more than 900,000, a number 57% higher than official figures.

Worldwide, the study's authors say, the COVID-19 death count is nearing 7 million, more than double the reported number of 3.24 million.

The analysis comes from researchers at the University of Washington's Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, who looked at excess mortality from March 2020 through May 3, 2021, compared it with what would be expected in a typical nonpandemic year, then adjusted those figures to account for a handful of other pandemic-related factors.

The final count only estimates deaths "caused directly by the SARS-CoV-2 virus," according to the study's authors. SARS-CoV-2 is the virus that causes COVID-19.

Researchers estimated dramatic undercounts in countries such as India, Mexico and Russia, where they said the official death counts are some 400,000 too low in each country. In some countries — including Japan, Egypt and several Central Asian nations — the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation's death toll estimate is more than 10 times higher than reported totals.

https://www.npr.org/sections/coronaviru ... -19-in-u-s

[AWvsCBsteeeerike3]

New Study Estimates More Than 900,000 People Have Died Of COVID-19 In U.S.

A new study estimates that the number of people who have died of COVID-19 in the U.S. is more than 900,000, a number 57% higher than official figures.

Worldwide, the study's authors say, the COVID-19 death count is nearing 7 million, more than double the reported number of 3.24 million.

The analysis comes from researchers at the University of Washington's Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, who looked at excess mortality from March 2020 through May 3, 2021, compared it with what would be expected in a typical nonpandemic year, then adjusted those figures to account for a handful of other pandemic-related factors.

The final count only estimates deaths "caused directly by the SARS-CoV-2 virus," according to the study's authors. SARS-CoV-2 is the virus that causes COVID-19.

Researchers estimated dramatic undercounts in countries such as India, Mexico and Russia, where they said the official death counts are some 400,000 too low in each country. In some countries — including Japan, Egypt and several Central Asian nations — the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation's death toll estimate is more than 10 times higher than reported totals.

https://www.npr.org/sections/coronaviru ... -19-in-u-s

Thanks for posting, I've been curious about this for some time. It would be nice if they could have shown a graph similar to what the CDC does for excess deaths but only do it globally. They broke it down into smaller regions and somewhat did it, but it lacked a comprehensive graph from what I saw. This isn't a complaint or even a criticism; as they note, it's a pretty massive undertaking with imperfect sources of data.

They get into all the outlying factors in the report which is awesome. Unfortunately they don't have much data worldwide or even in developed countries that is needed to precisely calc some of this stuff. Referencing the CDC excess deaths charts I mentioned earlier, it's pretty easy to see that the reported Covid 19 death totals were much lower than the excess deaths in any given state and it's easy to believe that the reported counts are low. At first I thought, well, maybe that's because other causes (drugs, suicide, etc) represent a significant amount of deaths. But, that was early on and there is a (to my untrained eye) clear correlation between increase in cases in a region and increase in death. This may sound obvious, but if Covid through factors other than direct infection was killing people (drugs, suicide, missed dr appts, whatever), the correlation proves it did so minimally compared to what the actual virus did. And, that seems to be what they found as well noting some of these items were present but the percentage it contributed was pretty small. (Verbiage from the report in the spoiler below)

Regardless, if you look at the CDC, the US from the week of 3/28/20-3/6/21 has seen ~655K excess deaths when comparing the reported deaths (all causes) to the average expected deaths (all causes). The official death tally from Covid is somewhere around 600K up through today. If you add in the ~50K deaths still unaccounted for on the CDC's list (3/6/21-5/7/21), that bumps the excess deaths up to probably right around 700K most likely. So, the 900K the IHME reports seems a bit high, but they also address that somewhat in the outlying reasons as people that would naturally die are dying of covid and that needs to be accounted for as well.

Not to make light of the situation because it's abhorrent, but I imagine this report is a statistician's wet dream.

[SHOW]

As noted above, excess mortality is a function of six potential drivers, the most important of which is the total COVID-19 death rate. Deaths that are directly due to COVID-19 are likely underreported in many locations, particularly in settings where COVID-19 testing is in short supply. Most excess mortality is likely misclassified COVID-19 deaths. An analysis by the Netherlands statistical agency suggested that all excess deaths in the Netherlands were directly due to COVID-19.2 In fact, their analysis actually suggested that direct COVID-19 deaths may be higher than estimated excess deaths because deaths due to some other causes have declined during the pandemic.

The second driver of excess mortality is reduced health care utilization for many causes;3 however, the impact of reduced health care use on health outcomes is harder to prove. Many mechanisms have been proposed, including reduced vaccination rates and reduced births in hospital.4 Demonstrated increases in cause-specific mortality related to these causes, however, have not yet been verified. The impact of changes in health care utilization on excess mortality may be observed in later years, rather than in 2020 or the first quarter of 2021.

Third, convincing evidence has been found that rates of anxiety and depression have increased, which might in turn lead to increases in deaths from suicide.5 To date, the evidence on increased suicide is very limited.6 Opioid deaths, on the other hand, have clearly increased7 in the United States. Compared to past trends, opioid deaths increased by around 15,000 since March 2020. Evidence on whether this has also occurred in other countries awaits further study.

Fourth, we reviewed the evidence on decreases in injuries as a result of reductions in mobility. We analyzed data from 12 countries that provide cause of death data by week or month, which allows us to test whether some causes decreased significantly during 2020 and whether that decrease was related to the decreases in mobility that have been reported. This analysis suggests that globally, injury mortality decreased by 5% in 2020 due to reductions in mobility. At the global level, this translates into a reduction of approximately 215,000 deaths.

Fifth, some infectious causes of death may have declined during the pandemic due to the behavioral changes associated with control of the pandemic, including mask use and reduced contact with others. Causes that have clearly declined are influenza,8,9 respiratory syncytial virus,10 measles,11 and possibly other respiratory viruses and viral diarrheas. For example, influenza cases in the United States declined 99.3% from the winter season of 2019–2020 to the winter season of 2020–2021. Combining the reductions reported in different countries in influenza, respiratory syncytial virus, and measles, the global reduction in mortality from these causes may be larger than 400,000 deaths.

Sixth, deaths from some chronic conditions such as ischemic heart disease or chronic respiratory disease declined in some months of 2020, most notably in May and June in Europe. These declines were most likely due to the fact that frail individuals who died from COVID-19 earlier in the year would otherwise likely have died from these chronic conditions. The strongest evidence for this effect is that excess mortality was negative in some countries in Europe in June when the reported COVID-19 death rate was very low. In aggregate, this effect likely reduced mortality by only 2% based on our analysis.

[GeddyWrox]

People vaccinated against Covid-19 can go without masks indoors and outdoors, CDC says

(CNN)People fully vaccinated against Covid-19 do not need to wear masks or practice social distancing indoors or outdoors, except under certain circumstances, the director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced Thursday.

"If you are fully vaccinated, you can start doing the things that you had stopped doing because of the pandemic," Dr. Rochelle Walensky said during a White House Covid-19 briefing. "We have all longed for this moment when we can get back to some sense of normalcy."

Calling it an "exciting and powerful moment," Walensky said the science supports the updated CDC guidance that "anyone who is fully vaccinated can participate in indoor and outdoor activities -- large or small -- without wearing a mask or physical distancing."

She cited three studies -- one from Israel and two from the United States -- that show vaccines work.

The Israeli study, which was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, showed the vaccine was 97% effective against symptomatic Covid-19 and 86% effective against asymptomatic infection in over 5,000 health care workers.

There have been reports of "breakthrough" infections among vaccinated people in the United States -- a small number among more than 117 million people in the United States who are now fully vaccinated. Walensky noted that "the resulting infection is more likely to have a lower viral load, may be shorter in duration, and likely less risk of transmission to others."

Walensky's announcement has a few caveats. She warned that people who are immune compromised should speak with their doctors before giving up their masks.
The requirement to wear masks during travel -- on buses, trains, planes and public transportation -- still stands, Walensky said. Guidance for travel will be updated as science emerges.
She also said that "the past year has shown us that this virus can be unpredictable, so if things get worse, there is always a chance we may need to make a change to these recommendations."

People who develop Covid-19 symptoms, even those who are vaccinated, should put their mask back on and get tested, Walensky said.

The science is clear, too, for unvaccinated people, Walensky said: "You remain at risk of mild or severe illness, of death, or spreading the disease to others. You should still mask and you should get vaccinated right away."

But once someone is fully vaccinated -- two weeks after the final dose -- "you can shed your mask," she said.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/05/13/health/c ... index.html

[Popeye_Card]

While promising, I have no idea how we'll keep up with that. What is to prevent people who have not been vaccinated (and are likely anti-maskers over the past year) from just saying they've been vaccinated?

I still plan to wear mine in public settings, if for nothing else to set an example.

[AdmiralKird]

They can't enforce enforce only the vaccinated being allowed to be maskless, because they dropped the ball with issuing some form of vaccinated ID. Which means people who already haven't taken the pandemic seriously and/or won't get a vaccine will just not wear as mask as well. So now no one will wear a mask.

It's possible we can still get to herd immunity. ~50% of the country is vaccinated with once shot so as long as more time passes for the vaccinations to vest and people get their second doses, that means we'd be about 20% shy of herd immunity. Vaccinating kids for another 10% and finding more people to vaccinate as adults for another 10% might get us there, but it's gonna be close, and that's if 70% does it.

In any case, why drop the mask requirements (which probably boosts the effective vaccination rate 5%-10% itself by reducing spread), when you're a month or two away from getting there? I hate to make a declaration based on such limited information versus the policy makers, but given what we know this seems pretty bat- [expletive] stupid.

[GeddyWrox]

At the risk of sounding crass... At this point anyone choosing not to get a vaccine is just nominating themselves for a Darwin award. I'm still uncomfortable in crowded indoor spaces and I'll abide by whatever mask rules businesses put up, but I'm not worrying about the unvaxxed anymore. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

[cardinalkarp]

At the risk of sounding crass... At this point anyone choosing not to get a vaccine is just nominating themselves for a Darwin award. I'm still uncomfortable in crowded indoor spaces and I'll abide by whatever mask rules businesses put up, but I'm not worrying about the unvaxxed anymore. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

I think that’s a pretty [expletive] comment to make. I have no intention on getting the vaccine (and no, I’m not an anti-vaxxer or anti-mask) unless I’m absolutely forced to because of my work. For everyone to blindly put their faith in an experimental vaccine created by pharmaceutical companies that have TERRIBLE track records of having zero concern for public health or safety isn’t exactly making me line up to get a vaccine. I have no issues w/ anyone who does/doesn’t get it, it’s a personal choice. There is so much more known about the virus and being a healthy adult in his 40’s I’ve weighed the risks of the disease against the potential unknown risks of the vaccine.

I’ll continue wearing my mask outdoors and in public, but to say I’m ignorant or “deserving of a Darwin Award” because I’ve chosen not to get it is insulting.