News roundup for Tue, Nov 30, 2021

30 Comments on News roundup for Tue, Nov 30, 2021
Is wind power currently the largest contributor to Turkey’s energy sector

The UK, EU, the US, Australia, Israel, Japan, and others have enacted various degrees of travel bans for fear that the Omicron will prove to be a dangerous variant. It will take weeks to know its properties for sure. The CDC says they have not detected any cases of Omicron in the US yet. Here’s a useful Omicron tracker from the BNO News Desk that shows where cases have been detected.

I understand why countries are reacting to Omicron with travel bans, but if travel bans aren’t ubiquitous, they can’t possibly be effective. If Omicron turns out to be as transmissible or more transmissible than Delta or even the wild-type virus, it will hit the US and the whole world quite quickly. Here’s a visual demonstration of what I mean:

Yet another atmospheric river is set to hit Canada and the Pacific Northwest. More flooding is certain:

https://twitter.com/PeterGleick/status/1464739798258647040?s=20

Meanwhile water scarcity is causing violent protests in Iran:

https://twitter.com/PeterGleick/status/1464738366902063107?s=20

Ammonia prices are spiking again. This makes fertilizer more expensive, sometimes prohibitively so, and that will decrease crop yields. Decreased food supply means more scarce and more expensive food:

In good news, wind power is now the largest contributor to Turkey’s energy sector—producing over 22 percent of electricity for the country.

The world has over 262.3 million COVID cases. The world has gained 4 million cases in the last week. There have been over 5.2 million deaths in total. The US has had a cumulative 49.2 million cases. The US gained about 500,000 cases in the last seven days. Over 800,000 Americans have died during the pandemic—over 5,400 in the last week. Deaths may be undercounted because of the Thanksgiving holiday. The US gained over 46,000 new cases on Sunday, and over 50,000 by late afternoon Monday. The US, Germany, UK, and Russia have had the largest case gains over the last week.

Molnupiravir is turning out not to be as effective as first hoped. Decreasing the severity of symptoms by almost a third is nothing to sneeze at, though, and there are other antiviral options out there as well. Yes, that sneeze pun was intentional…

Some preliminary data out of Israel show that vaccinated folks fare better with Omicron than those who are unvaccinated. It looks hopeful that Omicron is not a severe escape variant–again, take this news with a grain of salt until we know more.

States are fighting back against COVID vaccine mandates for health care workers, and some are winning the fight. I understand the states’ rights argument, but I view these mandates a little like I view conscription–sometimes necessary in times of war (in this case proverbial, though American losses nearing one million are not proverbial at all):

https://twitter.com/Breaking911/status/1465404077031010310?s=20

Stephanie Arnold | cosmicpixle

Stephanie Arnold is an advanced practice psychiatric nurse and a doctoral candidate in UA Tuscaloosa’s DNP program. Stephanie moonlights from time to time at UCLA teaching mental health nursing. She also likes making cold-process soap.

  • 30 Comments
    • Cia November 29, 2021

      I agree about conscription in time of war being necessary and taking precedence over individual rights. I don’t understand why you think travel bans would have to be ubiquitous to be effective. New Zealand kept Covid out with its strict measures and border controls. It was discussed in the comments how Hawaii was in a better position than most states because, as an island, it had considerable control over entry. And how states with long, permeable borders did less well. These are all examples of how political entities can control Covid within their borders even when others do not.

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      • Eric Cia November 29, 2021

        Regarding travel bans… I’m torn on this one. I agree with what you’re saying, that we need to block the flow of infection across our border. I also worry about the side effects. We literally just cut the supply lines to an important ally.

        Ideally, we’d setup mandatory quarantine on arrival rather than blocking travel entirely. If someone needs a week to figure out the details of that process, I would consider a one-week travel ban to be a good temporary measure until then.

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      • Stephanie ArnoldContributor Eric November 29, 2021

        It doesn’t make sense to me that we block travel from a handful of African countries that have had cases of Omicron when we don’t then block travel from 15 other countries that have known cases. Do you see what I mean?

        Edit: I’d wager that it’s already here and we just haven’t detected it yet. The porous travel bans will buy a little more time and prevent a few more transmission hot spots. 

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      • Eric Stephanie Arnold November 30, 2021

        The travel ban is poorly designed, and probably ineffective. I like to see the threat being taken seriously. There are more effective changes that could have been made. Then again, one of those more effective changes is a vaccine mandate – the slow progress on which is a good indication of how much we can expect.

        And yes, it’s probably already here. Brace for impact.

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      • Cia Stephanie Arnold December 1, 2021

        It would still reduce the spread. And no, the US only pays hospital bills for those with Medicare or Medicaid. I wish it were different. But travel bans work: look at New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea, and  Vietnam for the first year. If the penalties for non-compliance were stiff enough, nearly everyone would comply. Singapore was giving ten years in prison for non-compliance with their mask mandate. I read that the US will require testing the day before travel and again on arrival. If they required quarantine for all arrivals as well, that would do it. The US had its first case of Omicron today: I don’t think that means that all is lost. It was not all lost with a few cases for the successful countries. It looks likely that Omicron is not dangerous. I wish they had taken extreme measures to keep Delta out. I would support extreme measures for Omicron until we know what we’re dealing with.

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      • Stephanie ArnoldContributor Cia December 2, 2021

        Travel bans do work when they are very strict, absolutely. Porous bans do not. California already had a case as early as Nov 22 (I’ll discuss it in Fri’s News Roundup), so the bans here aren’t doing much. 

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      • Cia Stephanie Arnold December 2, 2021

        I agree. Yes, if they’re worth doing, they should be strict. I saw that the first case in the US had traveled from South Africa Nov 23, last Tuesday. Had been double vaxxed with Moderna, not boosted. Symptoms started a few days later, positive a few days after that. Said to be mild, but he or she could still spread it to others, in whom it might not be mild. No indication of how strictly in isolation that person is now. So total fail for protective measures at airport. Until we find out how serious Omicron can be, or not, I think we should use strict measures.and yes, for all international travel. No one should take it personally. 

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      • Eric Cia December 2, 2021

        “could still spread it to others… No indication of how strictly in isolation that person is now.”

        They pulled out all the stops on contact tracing and tested all of that person’s close contacts on the same day. Everyone else tested negative. This particular ember has been stamped out.

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      • Cia Eric December 2, 2021

        That’s good. I guess the patient is in strict isolation now? He or she flew from South Africa last Tuesday, and I think the new variant was announced last Wednesday. Seems like longer. If it’s really mild, though super-transmissible, it may solve the whole problem.

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      • Eric Cia December 2, 2021

        Patient 1 was handled well. Despite arriving from South Africa a week ago, they were isolated and fully contact traced within a day of detection. One ember stamped out.

        Patient 2 was in Minnesota, and caught it at a recent convention in New York, likely a super spreading event. Five other cases have since been found all over New York. So patient 2 was actually an ember from a new spot fire that’s already burned out of control.

        Patient 3 was in Colorado, recently returned from South Africa. Maybe this ember will be stamped out too. I haven’t seen details on that yet.

        Looks like New York will be the next epicenter. It’s very hard to trace a convention outbreak. Hopefully the attendee list has been distributed to relevant state public health departments. Tracing is still worth the effort, as a delay measure, but this is what it looks like when containment fails. That didn’t take long.

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      • Cia Eric December 2, 2021

        Good thing it seems to be mild.

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      • Eric Cia December 2, 2021

        “Good thing it seems to be mild.”

        As with previous COVID variants, there is a huge range of severity. Some get mild illness. Others end up in the hospital. South Africa has had plenty of hospitalizations with their Omicron outbreak, and we’ll see the same here soon.

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      • M. E.Contributor Eric December 1, 2021

        I have long believed that travel bans are less about epidemiology and more about insurance and healthcare system impacts. If someone crosses a border and gets sick enough to require hospitalization, most countries will require their hospitals to take care of that person (as I believe they should). But few healthcare systems (in any country) have the resources needed to make that person (or their estate) pay the bill once they return to their home country or, if they die, to repatriate their remains (and then good luck covering the hospital costs). In a time of criss when resources are stretched to the limit, there might be something to be said for preventing additional strains on hospitals, and particularly strains that could bankrupt those systems (be they privately owned or state funded).  

        As for mandatory quarantines: It has been proven again, and again, and again, that people can and will break quarantine and that there are not enough resources to enforce them. We can’t even get people to stop wearing masks as chin hammocks!  So it sounds nice – “Come on in but stay in your hotel for two weeks!” – but the kind of people who will stay in quarantine are the same kinds of people who were already likely to have taken enough precautions to be less of an exposure risk anyway.  Everyone else is likely to say, “Well I flew all the way over here to have fun with my friends and I’m sure it will be fine…..” 

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    • Cia November 29, 2021

      I just looked at the Venn diagram again. It’s not just that Omicron has been identified in all of the countries at the top, but that it has only been identified in only a few in each country. In South Africa there have been hundreds identified, so there you could assume that the horse is out of the barn. Most occurred in those traveling from South Africa except for one woman who had traveled in Egypt and Turkey. All of those identified in non-African countries are being isolated hoping to slow down the spread. It’s reasonable to try to do so. If it’s like Alpha, delay is all to the good, even if that’s all we can do.  Alpha killed thousands in the UK, but didn’t last long when it got here. 

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      • Eric Cia November 29, 2021

        Good point regarding Alpha. It arrived in USA after we had vaccinated enough people, so it fizzled out quickly. That would have been a much larger spike if it had arrived 1-2 months earlier.

        What will we do with the extra time before Omicron arrives? Ramp up contact tracing? Mass vaccination and boosters? N95s for everyone with donning/doffing training on cable news? Air purifiers in every grocery store? There are many ways we could use that time. I wish I had more confidence that some of these would happen. But I can still hope.

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      • Cia Eric November 30, 2021

        I was mistaken about all cases outside Southern Africa being linked to travel. As of several days ago, there were four Israelis diagnosed with Omicron not linked to travel. I love Israel. They took it very seriously indeed, isolated them, and were talking about banning all departures from Israel in order to protect other countries. Eight cases in Portugal because one player on a soccer team had been in Africa and gave it to other team members. A case in Canada who got it when he was in Nigeria. I hope all of them are in isolation now.

        We know how disease transmission occurs. I think sealing borders is a good idea, though one of ours would be harder than others. A mandatory quarantine for several weeks would be a possible alternative. Mandatory enforced isolation of all positives.

        But the time to do it is now. Buying time is the best thing we can do right now. As of yesterday, no case had been identified in the US. Obviously that won’t be true for very long, but it means we still have time to prepare to act quickly to contact trace, quarantine, and isolate possibles and positives. 

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    • brownfox-ffContributor November 29, 2021

      What you can do about it:

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    • Hardened November 30, 2021

      > I view these mandates a little like I view conscription–sometimes necessary in times of war (in this case proverbial, though American losses nearing one million are not proverbial at all)

      Yes, well written!

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    • Karl Winterling November 30, 2021

      BioNTech says they think vaccines will protect against severe disease and death. Moderna’s CEO says the scientists he’s talked to think there will be significant reductions in vaccine effectiveness. The FDA can approve a new vaccine quickly once data are out but it will take until the Summer before Moderna will have “billions of doses” ready. He also said there’s risk involved in Moderna devoting all of its vaccine development resources to omicron because another variant could emerge. My thinking is that even if your hospitalization risk is only cut by 50% or 30%, a vaccine is worth it.

      So far, Omicron’s hospitalization curve in South Africa is consistent with previous waves. SA infections are doubling every 3-4 days, but we’ll have to see how the wave goes.

      Israel reported community transmission involving two people who both had 3 shots of Pfizer. Both have fairly mild symptoms.

      If scientists have preliminary results about efficacy, they will tell governments but won’t make results public until after the experiments on serum. Israel says they will return to a “zero COVID” strategy if vaccine efficacy significantly drops. I still think a return to March/April 2020 restrictions in the US is unlikely because people wouldn’t comply with the restrictions.

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      • Karl Winterling Karl Winterling November 30, 2021

        The most common symptoms so far are: sudden fatigue, headaches, body aches, sore throat, and dry cough. There doesn’t seem to be a strong increase in something like shortness of breath or other scary symptoms in young and healthy people (so far, at least).

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    • Rubber Duckie December 1, 2021

      ❤ the “sneeze” pun! 😀 Stay safe everyone 😷

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    • Greg P December 1, 2021

      Obviously the COVID 19 crisis is front and center, but I thought the bit about water protests in Iran was, in some respects, more worrisome.  It is only an early shot in a war that will only continue to escalate if climate change isn’t  addressed more forcefully and faster.  As a former resident of Colorado I believe that a major battle will be waged in that part of the country.  At some point Colorado will thumb its’ nose at the water agreements and tell Arizona, Nevada and California to go and (engage in a solo act of unnatural carnal knowledge)  themselves.  This will impact millions of people and farming activities.  

      What can you do?  Echoing brown fox – figure out a way to capture rainwater.  I have had a barrel myself for a few years.  I’m not the handiest guy, but a diverter on my downspout was a snap.  We currently use the water for our landscaping.   This fall when we added on to our plantings, my wife indulged me & we added an apple tree and some berry bushes.  Pretty to look at & should be producing this next year. 

      Stay safe everyone!

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      • Stephanie ArnoldContributor Greg P December 2, 2021

        Absolutely. Water wars are coming (are here, really). Protracted drought in the Western US… You’re right!

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    • Rui Liu December 5, 2021

      Perhaps we are going to face another COVID surge during holiday season. I guess a 4th dose of vaccine will be only be a matter of time. The houses in America are actually better suited for a lockdown policy than the apartment halls in China, but it seems people here in America just cannot stop the spread. Honestly, I don’t think the virus will magically disappear if people keep doing things half-mindedly.

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      • Cia Rui Liu December 5, 2021

        Ari thought in August that a Delta (etc.)-specific vaccine would be introduced after the third dose, maybe by the end of the year. Maybe by March 1. 

        I want to see if it’s true that those who have gotten the vaccine x number of times have good protection against serious disease or death. Also how much protection a natural course of x variant gives. Between the two kinds of protection, we should be substantially protected. Over 83% of adults have gotten at least one dose, over 70% both, and about 30% of adults have gotten the third dose. We’ll see how serious Omicron turns out to be. Right now it looks like not very. It’s early days, but still no deaths from it have been reported. I’d like to know how many of the deaths we’re still seeing are in the unvaxxed.

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      • Rui Liu Cia December 6, 2021

        I agree that vaccines are effective, but we still need to stop the spread.

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      • Cia Rui Liu December 6, 2021

        I think most Americans are burned out. We still wear masks when out, but most people are not. And I don’t see how anyone could persuade them when there’s no end in sight. Nearly everyone has taken several vaccines and masked for a long time, but that still didn’t do it. Omicron may turn out to be mild, but crowd out Delta. We’ll have to hope so, because I can’t see forcing more onerous measures on people at this point.

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      • Greg P Cia December 7, 2021

        I know that I’m preaching to the choir here, but it seems to me that the world has to accept that there are certain measures that are permanent.  

        1) Crowding into small, confined spaces with a bunch of folks who are not vaccinated simply has to stop.  

        2) Stop coming to work/school if you are sick.  Last winter the number of influenza cases were down by more than 98%!  How did we do that ? – you don’t have to lock down, but masking, distancing and washing your hands makes a  huge difference.

        3)  Get immunized.  Unfortunately, it appears that it will take 2(?) years or more to get the world to herd immunity.  

        Do I think 1-3 are going to happen?  Regretfully, I don’t.  Best case scenario, enough people survive infection and/or die so COVID becomes endemic before the global healthcare system crashes.

        Closer to home, I have real concerns about the viability of the American system.  I stopped working at the hospital about six weeks ago & don’t plan to go back for another 6-8.  I’m at the point in my life where retirement is a viable option & burnout is pushing me in that direction.

        Stay safe & I would encourage you all to learn some first aid.

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