Bad news for the the Get Lucky scenario

[solarbird]

From the Seattle Times yesterday:


Notice that 2.4% Delta peeking in? Delta's been at basically 0% for a bit. Not forever, but a bit.

Combine with this unfortunate (but small-numbers) study indicating that unvaccinated people who get omicron don't have the expected/hoped for immunoreaction to previous strains and you've got bad news for Get Lucky.

The story is very different if you were vaccinated already, of course. Nice immune response jump.

But I had written that that if we got lucky we might have a mass - if extremely shitty - pseudo-vaccination of the unvaccinated, via omicron.

That at very least, we'd have good groundwork for resistance.

But, well.

If the numbers from this small study hold up... then... I guess not. No Get Lucky scenario for us.

And what that's going to mean, given that we know there's a Delta reserve hanging around out there, is a brief return to lows followed by everybody shrugging off containment measures followed by Delta II: Even Deltier.

Goddammit.

Comments

Shrugging up containment measures started Monday.

[kathmandu]

My place of employment instituted a mask mandate in August, because the municipal new-case rates were getting up to 60 per week.
After the huge Omicron spike, public concern actually got to where many people came in already wearing better masks than the surgicals we give out free, and I only had to insist to a few people per shift.
Currently the new-case rate is considerably below the peak, so the town council has decided to lift the mandate. Even though new cases per week is still HIGHER than when we started with the mandate.

Re: Shrugging up containment measures started Monday.

[solarbird]

Yeah.

With the Republicans in full-bore sabotage-and-destroy-public-health mode there really isn't much to be done, frankly. Like I wrote before, it doesn't take that large a percentage of people to destroy any attempt to contain a plague, and they've gone all-in on spreading the plague as far and wide as possible.

And they've succeeded. They've damaged public health for a generation. It's arguable that the best thing to do at this point is give up, before they ban vaccines where they can entirely, eliminate all other childhood vaccinations as well, to bring back measles and polio. Because they will if they can.

They've made truly psychotic decisions which hopefully will condemn them in history, but until they start paying for it, they won't stop.

[melchar]

It might be worse than that. This links to an interesting, albeit nervous-making article - https://thetyee.ca/News/2022/02/14/Pandemic-Ghost-Russian-Flu/

[solarbird]

To clarify, if necessary: I did not mean to imply that Delta II: Even Deltier would be the end of it. I'm just saying that if this small-numbers study holds up across larger populations, that the Get Lucky scenario will be dead.

If it doesn't, then we need either a vaccine sequence which will protect us against those who refuse to take it - no, I mean it, as in, their participation doesn't have to matter to us - or it just goes until we get a shitty version of resistance through... you know. However many it takes.

[arethinn]

HOW MANY TIMES and we still haven't learned the lesson that you have to wait it out completely? That you can't stop just when things are maybe going down a bit? That if you give it the opportunity back then case numbers will go right back up again? I was appalled at my county's metric considering the 7 day average and not some longer span of time that would show a longer trend (and we're Santa Clara County - one of the most restrictive in California and the only one of the SF Bay Area counties who decided to keep a mask mandate past the 15th!). 7 days is barely enough to iron out the statistical errors.

[solarbird]

It isn't going to be learned. Not in the US. If there was a shot it could work - if we didn't have one of two major political parties actively working to make the plague worse and sabotage any response - then things might be different.

But there isn't, because there is, and so, it's not.

Stay caught up on boosters as they come out and avoid Long COVID, do what you can to protect the vulnerable that you can protect, and never forget the choices the Republican Party made here.

Ever.

[ckd]

"I'm still 1000 feet above the ground, but I'm not falling as fast. Guess I don't need this parachute any more!"

[solarbird]

Yeah, well, Republicans have succeeded in making COVID endemic, meaning we're never going to be fucking done with it - at least, not for years - and I can see an argument where it's better to say "fine. You win, you evil motherfuckers" in the hope of taking the steam out of them before they start banning vaccination entirely and bring back measles and polio.

Which they would do in a heartbeat if they thought it would get them more power.

It's sick, it's psychotic, it's grotesque, and it's reality. And until they are punished, they will keep at it. May as well try to deflate them on this, divert them away to try and salvage what's left of public health.

[rialian]

===Yep.

===I am expecting you are right. Folk who have had a covid version are getting other versions now...(I know of someone who had alpha in 2020, who got vaccinated ....well, their family got hit by omicron, and possibly Delta. Our area is one of those mixed areas, and I do not want to think of how the deer population reservoir is going to be a factor....)

===We are only at 32.4 Vax rate.

===We are desperately waiting for under age 5 vaccination.

===We are maintaining masking at the shop, of course.