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Musings Report 2021-4 1-23-21 The Super-Covid Tsunami Is Coming
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For those who are new to the Musings reports: they're a glimpse into my notebook, the unfiltered swamp where I organize future themes, sort through the dozens of stories and links submitted by readers, refine my own research and start connecting dots which appear later in the blog or in my books. As always, I hope the Musings spark new appraisals and insights. Thank you for supporting the site and for inviting me into your circle of correspondents.
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The Super-Covid Tsunami Is Coming
We're in the brief interlude of false confidence where the water is receding from the beach and the conventional crowd declares the last big wave was the tsunami and now the risk has passed.
Nobody's better at declaring that the worst is past than Wall Street: Wall Street Declares "The Beginning Of The End Of The COVID Crisis"
But the tsunami has yet to hit, and all those who listened to the soothing claims that the risk has passed will soon find they cannot outrun the tsunami, which arrives with breathtaking speed and force, sweeping all before it.
The tsunami analogy isn't mine; Danish authorities used it to describe the rapid spread of the U.K. variant: "This period is going to be a bit like a tsunami, in the way you stand on the beach and then suddenly you can see all the water retracts," as cases drop, Krause said. "Afterward, you will have the tsunami coming in and overwhelming you."
Denmark is sequencing all coronavirus samples and has an alarming view of the U.K. variant
But the British variant is spreading so quickly that Danish authorities project it will be the dominant strain of the virus in their country as early as mid-February.
Danish officials say that as a result, daily coronavirus cases there could quadruple by the beginning of April. Charts from the public health institute project that in the worst-case contagion scenarios, even with a strict lockdown in effect, cases would skyrocket.
The tsunami speeding toward us is powered by the Super-Covid variants, of which there are currently three: the one devastating the U.K. (B.1.1.7), the one that originated in Brazil and the one in South Africa.
Each variant has gained function: they are much more contagious, may well be deadlier, may afflict younger people and may evade the highly touted vaccines that are currently being presented as the sure cure for Covid.
There are many disturbing dynamics in these variants; here are a few of the most potentially consequential:
1. Measures that limited the spread of the initial Covid strains no longer work on the Super-Covid variants.
The New COVID-19 Variant Sends Britain Into a Crisis.
World Braces for Surge of Coronavirus Variants:
That is a disturbing possibility in the United States, which has long had the world’s largest coronavirus outbreak and is in the midst of a post-holiday surge. On Friday, federal health experts warned in dire terms that B.1.1.7 would most likely be the dominant source of infection in the country by March.
But the British variant is spreading so quickly that Danish authorities project it will be the dominant strain of the virus in their country as early as mid-February.
Danish officials say that as a result, daily coronavirus cases there could quadruple by the beginning of April. Charts from the public health institute project that in the worst-case contagion scenarios, even with a strict lockdown in effect, cases would skyrocket.
2. These three variants will not the last mutations. All organisms respond to selective pressure. Viruses that get wiped out by robust immune systems don't have time to generate enough mutations to escape the immune response.
Trevor Bedford on Twitter: "Hints that these emergence events are related to chronic infections come from multiple sources."
But viruses in patients with chronic viral infections have plenty of time to respond to the selective pressure by generating mutations that evade antibodies and other immune responses.
The more people who are chronically infected with Covid, the more "petri dishes" there are for Covid mutations that gain function--become more contagious, become better at evading vaccines and antibodies generated by previous Covid infections, etc.
Thus these three variants won't be the last new strains of Covid; they are likely the first of many more variants, some of which could be even more consequential than the Super-Covid variants now spreading globally.
3. The variants appear to be following a path of convergent evolution, meaning that are evolving along similar pathways to evade antibodies and thus vaccines.
This suggests that the Covid virus has tropisms for mutation pathways that increase its contagiousness and weaken the efficacy of antibodies and vaccines that generate antibodies.
New UK variant 'may be more deadly'
Why new COVID-19 variants are on the rise and spreading around the world
4. The Super-Covid variants spread faster than our systems can distribute vaccinations. Yves Smith of nakedcapitalism.com has done a superb job of tracking new developments in the pandemic/treatment/vaccine space.
Here is her response to the notion that Biden's team has 3-6 months to do a better job of managing the pandemic:
Yves: "Not sure he has even that much runway, with the Super Covid strains expected to create a contagion blowout by mid-March. That will force even more stringent lockdowns. But if you don't restrict interstate travel, which only the Feds can do, it's not clear that even that would be adequate. What happens if/when we have even more essential workers sick than last year, with resulting breakdowns in food supply, and many hospitals so overwhelmed that they won't be able to handle ER arrivals from people suffering strokes and heart attacks, or smashed up in car crashes? As we said in our post on the incoming CDC chief, the Biden administration is acting like it is fighting yesterday's war, and that getting enough people vaccinated will dampen down the Super Covid wave to a manageable level. I wouldn't bet on that, particularly with vaccinations prioritizing old people who are already not getting out much, while the new strains are much harder on young people."
5. The real-world efficacy of the mRNA vaccines is not yet fully known. Some studies have found it's about 50% effective after the second shot, but the three-week lag time between shots means many people who received the first dose have yet to get the second shot.
The vaccine trials are not as conclusive as they're being presented: What Vaccine Trials? (via Jeremy B.) The most important, meaningful phase of CV-19 vaccine trials has barely begun, let alone been completed.
And the number of people who are dying after receiving the vaccine is far higher than the number who die after getting a flu shot:
Update from the @cdcgov vaccine reporting system: "148 post-#Covid deaths were reported as of last Friday. Deaths are now running at ~120x reported flu vaccine deaths per-dose."
6. How far and fast the Super Covid variants have spread in the U.S. is unclear due to the haphazard way the U.S. sequences Covid samples, and the modest number of samples being sequenced.
"The United States is sequencing 0.3 percent of cases, ranking it 43rd in the world and leaving it largely blind to the variant’s spread."
It's difficult to contain an infectious disease you know very little about.
7. The mainstream discussions about Covid focus exclusively on the death rate, ignoring the evidence for long-term chronic consequences that are potentially devastating in terms of long-term care required, lost months of work and earned income and human suffering.
My 'Long Covid' Nightmare: Still Sick After 6 Months: A Times reporter caught the coronavirus during the New York City outbreak last April. But the acute phase of the illness was just the beginning.
8. Given that the U.S. is unprepared to deal with fast-spreading Super-Covid variants, the new variants could be the dominant strains within 4-6 weeks (mid-March). The number of people who will have received their second shot of vaccine is unlikely to be even 10% of the U.S. population by that date.
9. How long the natural immunity of those who caught the early variants of Covid is unknown; some studies suggest natural or vaccine immunity might only last 5 to 6 months. Again, how effective the new variants might be at evading antibodies is unknown.
The current thinking is T-Cell immunity is more important than antibodies, but re-infection of people who had earlier versions of Covid would still have potentially serious consequences in terms of Covid becoming a chronic infectious disease which cannot be eliminated and which mutates effectively enough to keep re-infecting human hosts who already recovered from previous variants.
What's worrisome is that convergent evolution might lead to new variants faster than we can generate new vaccines, mass produce them and inject them into billions of humans.
If the vaccines prove to be only 50% effective in the real world, what have we gained? If variants arise faster than we can counter them, then where does that leave the promise of a "return to the Old Normal by mid-2021" and a new economic boom?
10. I have been discussing second-order effects from the very start of the pandemic. First order effects, every action has a consequence. Second order effects, every consequence has its own consequence. This comment by Virologist Christian Drosten outlines a few of the potential second-order effects few others are even discerning as possibilities.
Put another way: just because we didn't anticipate negative second-order effects doesn't mean they won't happen. Furthermore, these second-order effects may reinforce each other in a feedback loop which triggers non-linear dynamics that will break down systems we reckoned were robust and immutable.
Interview with Virologist Christian Drosten "I Am Quite Apprehensive about What Might Otherwise Happen in Spring and Summer"
Drosten: "Once the elderly and maybe part of the risk groups have been vaccinated, there will be immense economic, social, political and perhaps also legal pressure to end the corona measures. And then, huge numbers of people will become infected within just a short amount of time, more than we can even imagine at the moment. We won't have 20,000 or 30,000 new cases a day, but up to 100,000 in a worst-case scenario. It will, of course, be primarily younger people who are less likely than older people to have severe symptoms, but when a huge number of younger people get infected, then the intensive care units will fill up anyway and a lot of people will die. Just that it will be younger people."
My view is being aware of the possibilities is not being alarmist, it's simply being practical.
A note of appreciation for correspondent C.A. who has kept me well-informed on Covid related developments globally.
Highlights of the Blog
Podcasts:
Salon #35: The problem is that nobody knows what "Kuleana" means
Posts:
How the Fed Fails 1/22/21
The Dangerously Diminishing Returns on Monetary and Fiscal Stimulus 1/20/21
A Few Notes on Deflation/Inflation 1/18/21
Best Thing That Happened To Me This Week
I know this sounds awfully mundane, but it was such a relief to file all the tax documents that have a January 31 deadline. Everything becomes more complicated, whether it's on a sheet of paper or a screen...
From Left Field
Musings of an anonymous, pissed off virologist. --file under "hmmm"...
How COVID-19 Hollowed Out a Generation of Young Black Men
'Close To A Worst-Case Scenario'--Former CDC Director Issues 'Horrifying' Outlook For New Covid Strain
'Pre-existing weaknesses' hindered the U.S. pandemic response, researchers find.
The digital Yuan and China's potential financial revolution: A primer on Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) -- DBI... dull but important...
After 50 years, the Pentagon Papers give up their final secrets-- reporter had to fool the whistleblower to release all the goodies...then as now, whistleblowers face extreme consequences for revealing the dirty realities...
Cleveland is still suffering from the last recession. It can't afford another (via Maoxian) Austerity feeds on the US's unique form of urban decline. To understand how, just look to Northeast Ohio.
We Need a New Media System: If you sell culture war all day, don’t be surprised by the real-world consequences.
Big Tech Isn't As Clean As You Think-- it's dirtier than the planet can afford....
The Great Reset: The Western Path to Dekulakization
Nate Hagens: The Collision (1 hour)
Music–color associations are mediated by emotion -- interesting...
"Don't bend; don't water it down; don't try to make it logical; don't edit your own soul according to the fashion. Rather, follow your most intense obsessions mercilessly." Franz Kafka
Thanks for reading--
charles |
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