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0 pointsjoshuahedlund4y ago0 comments

> because it's so significantly more contagious, that even though a smaller percentage of infected people will require ventilators, the absolute number will be high enough to overwhelm hospitals.

This is a legitimate theoretical concern, however empirically it looks like South Africa's hospitalizations are peaking at slightly more than half their previous wave, with deaths on pace to peak even lower[1][2]

[1]https://twitter.com/thehowie/status/1473642495095496704 [2]https://www.nicd.ac.za/diseases-a-z-index/disease-index-covi...

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cdrini4y ago

I believe the scientific consensus is that there isn't enough data to discount that theoretical concern. There's still too much uncertainty on how things will pan out, so the recommendation is boosters + some restrictions. They're not going to make a bet when people's lives are at stake, which seems reasonable to me. With more data coming out, I personally do hope we find that that concern is very unlikely. The situation is changing drastically day-by-day.

JoshuaDavid4y ago

They are going to make decisions based on incomplete information when people's lives are at stake, decisions where deciding wrong can have material consequences to lives and livelihoods, because choosing not to act is itself a decision.

I do think that the decision that was made to keep pushing boosters and basically do nothing else is probably the correct one, but not because it was the default thing to do and we have to wait until there's incontrovertible evidence that the default action will lead to ruin before doing anything else.

gammarator4y ago

SA severity may not be representative because of greater prior immunity and a younger age skew.

joshuahedlundOP4y ago

Exhibit B will be the UK. Their cases started spiking about two weeks ago. So far their hospitalizations haven't budged and are even a bit lower than they were a month ago, less than a quarter of their pandemic peak[1]

[1]https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/healthcare

rich_sasha4y ago

Hospital admissions are actually up a little: https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/ (parent link of the one you provided).

That said, deaths are still dropping, and have been dropping since November, which was a local minimum in case numbers.

The pertinent fact, I think, is that the UK is vaccinating like crazy, coming up to 1m boosters per day recently (total population just short of 70m IIRC), even 12-18 year-olds are getting jabbed now.

nooneisanon4y ago

If you're looking at the UK the daily numbers for London (which is ahead of the rest of England, and the rest of the UK) are here: https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/statistical-work-areas...

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bigodbiel4y ago

England had high prevalence during the Summer, so not even them, maybe Denmark

ChrisRR4y ago

That is skewed by the vaccinations of course.

abainbridge4y ago

Comparing SA with itself, omicron looks less severe than delta.

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