Re: Coronavirus - Numbers and Statistics

[scotia]

Some more commentary on the latest ONS figures regarding the current UK wave -

This wave is so different to early in the pandemic -

The Covid waves we've had this year have infected incredible numbers of people.

Go back to January 2021 and the highest number of people infected in the ONS weekly surveys was 1.2 million.

Already this year we've had a wave cap out at 4.9 million at the end of March and now one at 3.5 million and climbing.

And yet we're seeing nowhere near the levels of severe illness.

The number needing ventilation in intensive care went above 3,700 in England alone in January 2021.

The equivalent figure now - in a much bigger wave - is just 274.

https://tinyurl.com/3sxxs7wn

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

Yes - the body's response to Covid now seems to be much less severe. Hence even the elderly seem to be much more relaxed about taking Covid precautions, in spite of the historically high infection rates. It certainly looks like the vaccinations combined with a possibly less dangerous Covid variant have made Covid no more to worry about than a common cold. But perhaps I should qualify that by saying - "for the majority of us" .
I see that an Autumn booster is now likely to be offered to an extended age range - but at this stage it has not been announced whether it will be one of the existing vaccines, or one modified to be more effective against the recent variants. Whichever it is, I'll be queuing up to get it - probably with my flu jab.

[9873210]

Yes - the body's response to Covid now seems to be much less severe. Hence even the elderly seem to be much more relaxed about taking Covid precautions, in spite of the historically high infection rates. It certainly looks like the vaccinations combined with a possibly less dangerous Covid variant have made Covid no more to worry about than a common cold. But perhaps I should qualify that by saying - "for the majority of us" .

An alternative explanation is that a fraction of 1% of the population are particularly susceptible to dying of COVID. Once they are dead the deaths stop. I describe that in a pure form, in real life multiple factors will interact, and it will be relative risks rather than certainty.

This theory does make a prediction that the eventual death toll in any area will depend on the susceptible fraction rather than the speed of response. In similar populations the eventual death tolls will converge over time. This outcome is not clearly ruled out by the current data from Australia and New Zealand. Perhaps the current elevated death rates continue for another year or so. Other countries, such as South Korea do not support this.

I will also add that if this is true IMHO it should be used to guide medical research for factors and prophylaxis and treatments, rather than a justification for social Darwinism.

[servodude]

Yes - the body's response to Covid now seems to be much less severe. Hence even the elderly seem to be much more relaxed about taking Covid precautions, in spite of the historically high infection rates. It certainly looks like the vaccinations combined with a possibly less dangerous Covid variant have made Covid no more to worry about than a common cold. But perhaps I should qualify that by saying - "for the majority of us" .

An alternative explanation is that a fraction of 1% of the population are particularly susceptible to dying of COVID. Once they are dead the deaths stop. I describe that in a pure form, in real life multiple factors will interact, and it will be relative risks rather than certainty.

This theory does make a prediction that the eventual death toll in any area will depend on the susceptible fraction rather than the speed of response. In similar populations the eventual death tolls will converge over time. This outcome is not clearly ruled out by the current data from Australia and New Zealand. Perhaps the current elevated death rates continue for another year or so. Other countries, such as South Korea do not support this.

I will also add that if this is true IMHO it should be used to guide medical research for factors and prophylaxis and treatments, rather than a justification for social Darwinism.

It's an interesting thought experiment.

What would be the possible mechanisms/causes by which a proportion of the population would be particularly susceptible to death by COVID?
from the data we have:
Age is a given
Being naive to the virus another
Being in general ill health (immunocompromised, weak respiratory health, blood disorders, obese, diabetic, etc)
Leaving the traditional kicker of "other": e.g. some genetic predisposition towards the effects of virus

And in reality these factors will work in combination

So I guess at one extreme if there was an genetic component that made death an absolute certainly upon contracting the virus the current holders of said condition would probably all be swept up pretty quickly (can't imagine that there's many people left who haven't been exposed?) and part of that would be we see a slew of paediatric deaths that fell away as they succumbed before they were able to pass on the susceptibility.
I think that would probably have shown up already: might be there if we were to look hard enough, but it would have to be very small numbers.

I do think the other contributing factors are salient; if you want to live longer and avoid succumbing to COVID try not to be fat and unhealthy - as people age they move in to these risk groups

And then there's the issue of whether repeat COVID infections could accumulate risk: https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-1749502/v1

-sd

[Julian]

Yes - the body's response to Covid now seems to be much less severe. Hence even the elderly seem to be much more relaxed about taking Covid precautions, in spite of the historically high infection rates. It certainly looks like the vaccinations combined with a possibly less dangerous Covid variant have made Covid no more to worry about than a common cold. But perhaps I should qualify that by saying - "for the majority of us" .

An alternative explanation is that a fraction of 1% of the population are particularly susceptible to dying of COVID. Once they are dead the deaths stop. I describe that in a pure form, in real life multiple factors will interact, and it will be relative risks rather than certainty.

This theory does make a prediction that the eventual death toll in any area will depend on the susceptible fraction rather than the speed of response. In similar populations the eventual death tolls will converge over time. This outcome is not clearly ruled out by the current data from Australia and New Zealand. Perhaps the current elevated death rates continue for another year or so. Other countries, such as South Korea do not support this.

I will also add that if this is true IMHO it should be used to guide medical research for factors and prophylaxis and treatments, rather than a justification for social Darwinism.

It's an interesting thought experiment.

What would be the possible mechanisms/causes by which a proportion of the population would be particularly susceptible to death by COVID?
from the data we have:
Age is a given
Being naive to the virus another
Being in general ill health (immunocompromised, weak respiratory health, blood disorders, obese, diabetic, etc)
Leaving the traditional kicker of "other": e.g. some genetic predisposition towards the effects of virus

And in reality these factors will work in combination

So I guess at one extreme if there was an genetic component that made death an absolute certainly upon contracting the virus the current holders of said condition would probably all be swept up pretty quickly (can't imagine that there's many people left who haven't been exposed?) and part of that would be we see a slew of paediatric deaths that fell away as they succumbed before they were able to pass on the susceptibility.
I think that would probably have shown up already: might be there if we were to look hard enough, but it would have to be very small numbers.

I do think the other contributing factors are salient; if you want to live longer and avoid succumbing to COVID try not to be fat and unhealthy - as people age they move in to these risk groups

And then there's the issue of whether repeat COVID infections could accumulate risk: https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-1749502/v1

-sd

There has been interesting research done on non-obvious genetic factors (as in those genetic differences not manifesting as a disease hence never having been tested for). One example that I have seen is a theory about an autoimmune reaction to certain type 1 Interferons being related to massive increases (> 10-fold) in the likelihood of a SARS-Cov-2 infection being fatal vs people without that autoimmune condition. The increase in relative risk of death is particularly marked in the subjects under 70 years of age because once one gets to over 70 years of age the chances of a fatal outcome because of other factors related to age increases regardless of their Interferon autoimmune status thus diluting the specific effect of any IFN1 autoimmunity.

The paper presenting that theory is here - https://www.pnas.org/doi/epdf/10.1073/pnas.2200413119 and a very long This-Week-in-Virology video that discusses the paper is here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ni6KtUtBZhk

I suspect there are plenty of other subtle genetic factors that might predispose a certain portion of the population towards severe and in some cases ultimately fatal Covid-19 outcomes. Having said that however 9873210's "alternative explanation" is one that has occurred to me in the past as well.

I suspect that the high levels of population exposure to the virus, either via vaccination or previous infection, has more to do with the seemingly less severe outcomes from an Omicron infection vs previous variants(*) rather than the Omicron variant of the virus being intrinsically significantly less deadly. It's highly likely of course that the current lower levels of hospitalisation and deaths relative to estimated infection rates is down to a combination of multiple factors but I do suspect that protection against severe disease from previous infection or vaccination (as opposed to protection against any infection which has been seen to wane quite quickly in the face of the latest Omicron strains) is a major factor driving what we are seeing now in terms of hospitalisations and deaths.

- Julian

(*) In most cases. Clearly some people are sadly still dying from Omicron infections.

[funduffer]

It's an interesting thought experiment.

What would be the possible mechanisms/causes by which a proportion of the population would be particularly susceptible to death by COVID?
from the data we have:
Age is a given
Being naive to the virus another
Being in general ill health (immunocompromised, weak respiratory health, blood disorders, obese, diabetic, etc)
Leaving the traditional kicker of "other": e.g. some genetic predisposition towards the effects of virus

And in reality these factors will work in combination

-sd

Another factor could be - prior infection by another coronavirus.

I suspect the very low death levels in the Far East are not just due to their exceptional public health responses, but also prior exposure to SARS/other coronavirus in the previous decade.

[scotia]

Another update from the most recently published data (extracted at around 11:30pm 22/7/22).
First we have the 7-day totals of Covid Hospital admissions in England.



Last weeks optimistic conclusion was that a peak appeared near in the English data - and this has been confirmed

I have given the same treatment to the Scottish Data, with the vertical multiplier a factor of 10 larger - to reflect the approximate 10:1 England to Scotland population.



The Scottish numbers continue to fall - possibly with an increased falling gradient.

So it looks like all good news.