Covid-19 Politics

[filghy2]

Intially I stated I did not think this Pandemic would kill a lot of people, and I was wrong. I thought last year that as a SARS-variant virus, the same measures that controlled the first outbreak would be sufficient to control this one, and I was wrong.

Many people made mistakes early on. In my first post on this last January I said that we should keep it in perspective because loads of people die every year from regular flu. There's a world of difference between making mistakes in an unprecedented situation and refusing to learn from mistakes as more information becomes available. That's why it's so annoying when Covid minimisers argue that we should not listen to the experts because some early predictions were wrong or their initial advice was changed later (while ignoring their own poor record).

The vaccination program in Australia isn't expected to commence until March. As the virus is well under control there is not the same imperative to bypass the normal drug approval processes. That means we have the luxury of being able to assess what happens in other countries. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-01-...ation/13066948

We have had some restrictions being re-imposed in response to recent outbreaks in some cities (albeit minor by US or European standards). There's clearly a bit of fatigue, but public acceptance seems to be holding up and there's still generally bipartisan support apart from some quibbling at the margins. The key to success seems to be creating a virtuous circle, in which administrative competence, demonstrated success, political support and public support become mutually reinforcing.

[broncofan]

One doesn't have to be able to predict how many people will die to know something will be an issue governments have to prepare themselves for. I still am surprised by the complacency of most governments up until March because it did seem clear China was not able to contain the virus and nobody else was willing to take more extreme measures that they took. It turns out many of the measures they took probably weren't that effective but the effort was obvious.

Two personal anecdotes: In 2020 I had a lease in a crowded apartment complex with lots of common areas and the lease did not expire until May 1. On February 25th I signed a one year lease for a house because I thought if we ended up taking some lockdown measures I didn't want to get stuff delivered in the apartment I was in. I paid double rent in March and April and had a number of people I know tell me I was being unreasonable. I know many people wouldn't be able to afford to do what I did but plenty of people who could thought it was odd. It still is and my chances of being infected in the package room or the hallways of an apartment complex was not high.

On March 2nd I told the psychiatrist I had been going to that I was beginning to panic about "coronavirus" and that I was afraid it was going to spread and I would get sick. I also made the mistake of telling him I rented a house. He told me it was an exacerbation of my ocd and that my chances of getting sick with "coronavirus" were less than my chances of being shot. I'm sure this sounds cliche or made up but this was how the conversation went. And it probably was an exacerbation of my ocd but I still cancelled my next appointment with him and found someone else.

My point is that one doesn't have to know most things about a public health menace to be concerned. I don't understand the lack of strategy from officials either or the resignation from many that herd immunity by infection was inevitable and either happens now or five years from now. If we knew there were 15 plus vaccines being tested and that the first round of results could be obtained by the end of the year, why wouldn't the strategy be to limit deaths until the results give you a clue about whether there's light at the end of the tunnel or a potentially protracted problem? The only reason not to do this was because morbidity and lower quality of life from adhering to public health guidelines outweighed the benefit in mortality. There was comparative data very early on to say this wasn't the case.

I also got many things wrong and learned a lot this year. I'm disappointed the learning curve for Republicans and leaders in other countries was not the same.

[Stavros]

I think OCD is only a problem if it interferes with the way you live to the extent that you become a prisoner of process rather than outcome. In either an epidemic or a pandemic, the geography is shaped by space and time, so anywhere crowded becomes a threat to be avoided, that would include lifts/elevators and hallways. Obvious other factors would be chronically ill neighbours, feral children, low-income workers who cannot afford to self-isolate and so on. My brother-in-law has significant health issues so my sister has become OCD in her management of their immediate environment, but she had those tendencies to fuss over small things anyway, and I was told of a Great Aunt on my mother's side, whom I was too young to remember, who when she visited, brought a duster and cleaning fluids to wipe down chairs and tables where she was, something of an insult to my mother, but those Victorian women were often a bit strange anyway (my maternal grandmother whom I remember well was born in 1882).

So taking precautions in this pandemic is the right thing to do, and I regret to say in your case even more so in the USA. That said, John Harris in The Guardian has argued something like 90% of the British public have been obeying lockdown rules, and while we hear a lot from the 'Rejection Front' in the US, I wonder if the majority of Americans too are more sensible that we sometimes think. And anyway, costs aside, being in your own house must be safer than an apartment block.

My guess is that if something has changed that is going to be permanent, more and more people in European and North American cities are going to continue wearing masks for years to come, particularly on public transport, and maybe in Malls and shops too. It is common in Asian cities, and it makes sense, and you don't need to be OCD to wear one, now or in the future. From a practical point of view, I find in cold weather the mask protects my face from cold winds, and on my last trip to London, I found it easier to fall asleep on the train. Awareness of the risks of daily life is not OCD anymore, as there are good grounds for believing that we may be entering an age when viral outbreaks are more common than once they were, though we can only hope they do not break out of a locality to become global in their impact.

[filghy2]

One doesn't have to be able to predict how many people will die to know something will be an issue governments have to prepare themselves for. I still am surprised by the complacency of most governments up until March because it did seem clear China was not able to contain the virus and nobody else was willing to take more extreme measures that they took.

I think a big part of the problem is that most politicians didn't understand how exponential growth works, which meant that it was hard to convince them to act while case numbers were still relatively low. In terms of public messaging we went almost overnight from being assured that things were under control and we could go about our normal lives with a few precautions, to having significant restrictions on our activities.

The other element is a failure to understand risk management principles. There is a common, but fallacious, argument that we should avoid costly actions to avoid a future problem if there is considerable uncertainty about the extent of the problem (climate change is another issue where this argument is often put). But if there is a lag before those actions have an impact, and a risk of very bad outcomes, then it is worth incurring some cost to avoid that possibility. If you wait for more information it will already be too late to avoid the bad case scenario. I'm sure the people making this argument don't actually apply it to their own lives - for instance, the whole point of insurance is that you pay a certain cost to avoid any risk of very bad outcomes, even though the probability of those outcomes make be low.

[broncofan]

Vaccine distribution is picking up in the U.S. I can link an article later but probably better you just do a google search if you're interested. Moderna says it has tested whether its vaccine is responsive to the virus variants that have been found in UK and South Africa. It says people develop the same antibody response to the UK variant as to the most common one and that people have a reduced antibody response to the South African variant but they believe it will still be protective (I think they inferred this from comparing it to antibody levels of people with natural infection). In the meantime they want to develop booster shots more tailored to these variants to prevent waning immunity. Immunologists are treated it as mostly good news.

I want to say that although we're not out of this crisis yet and it will probably be a while before circulating levels of virus are low, there is a light at the end of this tunnel. Israel has some data on the people they've vaccinated and hospitalization rates are way down among people over 60. More vaccines are coming in the year ahead and although it's concerning any time there is a new strain of this deadly virus, there is reason to think innovation can outpace it now that we know people can be inoculated. Still, it's a challenge and we will likely know a lot more about 100 days from now when a larger proportion of the U.S. population is vaccinated.

[broncofan]

I know this is a press release from Eli Lilly but that is how most of these companies are releasing their data. The latest studies apparently show that monoclonal antibodies from Lilly reduce risk of hospitalization or death by 70%. As I suspected if they are only effective in early disease, which is what the data has shown, there would be logistical problems. But almost no effort has been made to make these drugs available to people in early disease. Unless the only people who qualified for monoclonal antibody treatment were Chris Christie, Ben Carson, Donald Trump, and Rudy Giuliani, all of whom either received Lilly or Regeneron's cocktail.

From what I've read the supplies of these drugs are not being used.

https://investor.lilly.com/news-releases/news-release-details/new-data-show-treatment-lillys-neutralizing-antibodies

[broncofan]

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/0...ariants-462425

Here's an article about the available vaccines and their effectiveness for the UK and South African variants. Moderna is testing booster shots for the South African variant even though antibody levels from the Moderna shot are thought to be protective against it (as I said above a lower antibody response might mean it's not effective against this variant for as long). Good to try to stay ahead of this although the scary thing is that if surveillance has not been good there might be other variants out there already.

[Stavros]

I had a sms from my GP on Tuesday afternoon asking me to go online and book my Covid-19 Vaccination, which I did. I had the jab on Wednesday evening before 7pm. The vaccine was administered high up on my left arm close to the shoulder, was painless, with no bleeding. I was told the after effects might be -a sore arm, which I have not noticed; a head-ache, which I have not had; and feverish or 'flu like symptoms, and though I have not had that either, I have spent most of Thursday asleep in bed. So no complaints.

The AstraZenica vaccine I have had is at the core of a row between the UK and the EU. The UK both validated the AstraZenica vaccine and ordered it before the EU, which has yet to authorize its use though is expected to this week. The EU is claiming that as the funding was shared between the EU and the UK the factories in Belgium and the Netherlands ought to be distributing it within the EU -AstraZenica is making most of its UK vaccine in the UK. If you want to read more about this row there are two links below.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-55822602

https://www.euronews.com/2021/01/27/...-war-warns-mep

What it proves, to me, is that the lack of a co-ordinated response for what is, after all, a Pandemic, has caused more problems than it needed to, and that goes for the EU as well as the UK where there has been no attempt to co-ordinate a National Response across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

A broader analysis by Lee Jones in the Telegraph, for once not hidden behind a paywall, argues that the structural changes made to the State since Thatcher, have effectively removed from Central Government the control over both policy-making and delivery that it used to have, largely because Margaret Thatcher was instrumental in arguing, as Ronald Reagan did, that 'Government is the problem, not the solution' -his article may be challeged on his concept of the 'regulatory state' but it is worth reading, and begins thus:

"Why has Britain fared so poorly with Covid-19? Although blaming this or that minister or official offers an easy answer, the deeper causes lie in the transformation of the British state.
Britain inherited from World War II a “command and control” state; a state that could govern. Whitehall was well-practised in strategic planning, good at the rapid and efficient mobilisation of resources and people, and it regularly took authoritative, direct action to meet society’s needs.
Back then, the state could deliver what democratically elected politicians asked of it – to build the NHS, for instance – because it retained the powers, people and resources to do so.
Today, after 40 years of reform, the “command and control” state has been replaced by a “regulatory state”. Decision-making has shifted from parliament to an archipelago of some 400 “arms-length” quangos, employing more than 278,000 people and costing £205 billion per year. Moreover, the state’s assets – its capacity to execute policy on its own accord – have been outsourced or rationalised.

As the regulatory state has grown, its ambition has shrunk. Politicians no longer offer grand visions of the future, just technocratic tweaks. Having dismantled or sold off the levers of power, they downplay public expectations, insisting there is no alternative.
The outsourcing of responsibility and decision-making is clear with respect to the NHS. After successive reforms under governments of all stripes, the Department for Health and Social Care no longer has operational control. Responsibility has been outsourced to dozens of quangos and local commissioners, operating within a fragmented internal market, with scant strategic oversight."
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-h...ed-regulatory/

[broncofan]

That's interesting Stavros. I'm glad you got your first shot and had no major complications. When do you go back for your second shot?

My Dad got the Moderna vaccine about a week ago. My Mom got her shot two days prior and it was the Pfizer shot. Both of them had sore arms but no other side effects. They were advised that people sometimes get more side effects after their second shot as the immune system recognizes the antigen and mounts a more serious response. Interestingly, people who have been infected earlier in the pandemic are reporting the side effects on their first shot, which would be the second time their immune system sees the spike protein.

Anyhow, I've told my parents that for their vaccines studies don't show any immunity until two weeks after the first shot so not to be complacent. I'm glad to hear you got the shot!

[blackchubby38]

Because of my job, I was able to get my first dose of the Pfizer vaccine today. If everything goes according to plan, I should be getting my second dose on February 22nd.