8 votes

Weekly coronavirus-related chat, questions, and minor updates - week of May 30

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Tags: ask.survey, recurring.weekly, coronaviruses.covid19, coronavirus

This thread is posted weekly, and is intended as a place for more-casual discussion of the coronavirus and questions/updates that may not warrant their own dedicated topics. Tell us about what the situation is like where you live!

3 comments

  1. [3]
    skybrian
    (edited )
    Link
    COVID State of Affairs: May 31 (Your Local Epidemiologist) [...] Assuming that hospitalizations numbers were accurate and case counts were not, it seems like an enormous number of people in NYC...

    COVID State of Affairs: May 31 (Your Local Epidemiologist)

    United States

    Now, BA.4 and BA.5 are gaining traction very quickly and seem to be easily outcompeting the rest. Given recent lab studies, though, this isn’t a surprise. BA.4/5 are particularly good at escaping antibodies and reinfecting people previously infected with Omicron, as well as boosted individuals. Once BA.4/5 account for the majority of cases in the U.S., we should expect another (or extended) case surge.

    [...]

    Currently, we are in a massive case surge. We are averaging 110,000 cases per day, but we know cases are vastly underreported. Using my back-of-the-napkin calculations, the true wave looks something like the graph below. These rough calculations were confirmed more eloquently in a recent pre-print in which scientists estimated the true case counts in New York City from April to May 2022. They found true case counts were 31 times higher than the official reported numbers.

    Assuming that hospitalizations numbers were accurate and case counts were not, it seems like an enormous number of people in NYC were getting COVID recently without much risk of getting hospitalized?

    But hospitalizations are increasing now:

    Hospitalizations are certainly increasing and continue to lag case trends, but remain below all previous peaks. Nationwide, 26,804 people are hospitalized, and among these, 11% are in the ICU. (This is compared to the Omicron peak, in which 17% of reported cases were in the ICU.) Deaths have increased 22% in the past two weeks, which means 368 people are dying each day.

    Also Bob Wachter reports a surge in San Francisco:

    SF folks: it's now a big-time surge. No longer just cases (~500/d reported, so true # >2K, or ~250/100K/d). Also major uptick in hospitalizations: 98 in SF (vs 18 six wks ago).
    @ UCSFHospitals
    41 pts in hospital, twice April #.
    If you're trying to stay well, time to up your game.

    4 votes
    1. [2]
      bhrgunatha
      Link Parent
      Something on my mind recently. I've read that over time wide-spread viruses tend to become less deadly. It seems like omicron is following that path, but what about the timespan? We've just...

      Something on my mind recently. I've read that over time wide-spread viruses tend to become less deadly. It seems like omicron is following that path, but what about the timespan?
      We've just entered year 3 and new variants seem to take a few months to dominate, so when people say viruses tend be less deadly is that over a few years like this or a few decades, or longer?

      What's to stop a variant after omicron increasing in serious symptoms that significantly increase death/hospitalisation? Is that common?

      I assume it's not true to say it will only weaken in future even if that's the general trend.

      I know nothing about virus evolution, so if anyone can shed some light or educated opinions about this I'd appreciate it.

      1 vote
      1. skybrian
        Link Parent
        I don't think this trend (if there is one) about viruses becoming less deadly in general can be relied on for making predictions over a human-relevant timescale, during a pandemic. If other...

        I don't think this trend (if there is one) about viruses becoming less deadly in general can be relied on for making predictions over a human-relevant timescale, during a pandemic. If other viruses have sometimes evolved to become more mild (and not all of them have) it doesn't tell us much about what this one will do.

        Better to read about what scientists have learned by studying this virus.
        From what I've read from scientists studying Coronavirus evolution, there is a trend towards more infectiousness. New variants are outcompeting older ones due to becoming more infectious.

        At the same time treatments have gotten better, and most people have some immunity one way or another.

        There is also evolution towards "immune escape" where previous infections become less protective against another infection. It seems likely that people will get infected more than once and that new vaccines will be needed.

        Cross-immunity between variants gets lower but it still helps. It's not as bad as it was at the beginning with no protection.

        4 votes