Six on History: The 'Rona (still)
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"COPENHAGEN — In a country that tracks the spread of coronavirus variants as closely as any in the world, the signals have never been more concerning. Omicron positives are doubling nearly every two days. The country is setting one daily case record after another. The lab analyzing positive tests recently added an overnight shift just to keep up.
And scientists say the surge is just beginning.
As omicron drives a new phase of the pandemic, many are looking to Denmark — and particularly the government institute devoted to testing, surveillance and modeling — for warnings about what to expect.
“The next month will be the hardest period of the pandemic,” said Tyra Grove Krause, the chief epidemiologist at Denmark’s State Serum Institute, a campus of brick buildings along a canal.
Ever since the omicron variant emerged in November, the best hope has been that it might cause less severe sickness than the delta version it is competing with, which in turn might make this wave more manageable and help the transition of covid-19 into an endemic disease. But Denmark’s projections show the wave so fully inundating the country that even a lessened strain will deliver an unprecedented blow.
“This will overwhelm hospitals,” Grove Krause said. “I don’t have any doubt about it.”
In her office building, where she works with a six-person modeling team, she tried to explain why omicron amounts to such a setback in the fight against the pandemic. She likened the virus to a flood, and she described how vaccines, under earlier variants, had acted like two barrier walls safeguarding the health system. One barrier resulted from the vaccines’ ability to reduce the probability of infection, keeping spread low. The other barrier stemmed from the diminished likelihood of severe sickness and death. Both barriers had some holes, but together, they ensured that the floodwaters never got too high.
But now, she said, the first barrier has been largely removed. Denmark’s data shows people with two doses to be just as vulnerable to omicron infection as the unvaccinated. Those who’ve received boosters have better protection — a sign of hope — but meanwhile, about 3 in 4 Danes have yet to receive a third dose, making the majority of the country vulnerable.
On her double-monitor computer, Grove Krause pulled up the institute’s latest projections, which scientists were still tweaking before releasing them to the public on Saturday. The range of possibilities is wide, but the very best scenario — which is unlikely, she said — shows daily hospitalizations matching the peak of last year. In most of the other scenarios, the numbers soar into the stratosphere.
Denmark’s hospitals have never had more than 1,000 covid 19 patients at any given time, last winter’s peak. But by early January, in a moderate scenario, hospitals could be seeing 500 new covid patients arriving every day. If omicron’s transmissibility winds up on the higher end, and it proves just as severe as the delta variant, with a strong ability to evade vaccines, daily admissions could reach 800.
And then there is the matter of infections. Before this wave, Denmark had never seen more than 5,000 cases in a day. On Friday, it logged more than 11,000 new cases. Within a week, in a moderate scenario, case numbers could hit 27,000. And into January? The institute’s estimates climb higher still, off the Y-axis.
With the surge coming into view, Denmark this month cut the opening hours for bars and restaurants, urged people to work from home, and closed schools seven days earlier than planned for Christmas break. Grove Krause cautioned that the projections didn’t take into account the government’s further moves announced Friday, which include the closure of cinemas and theaters. But even a full lockdown, she said, “won’t stop this from getting out of control.”
The system starts with testing: Denmark swabs more people than almost any other country — at a per capita pace seven times that of the United States. The tests, which are free for both citizens and travelers, then arrive at the State Serum Institute, as well as at a sister facility on the other side of the country. Lab technicians identify the positives within 24 hours. And by the following day, they know which variant is responsible for every case.
A portion of the positives are then fully genetically sequenced, delivering an extra layer of insight — allowing researchers not only to see mutations, but also to potentially understand who infected whom.
“We’re seeing things pretty much in real time,” said Arieh Cohen, head of development at the lab that processes test results and conducts the initial variant analysis.
Scientists have also identified how omicron was seeded throughout the country, first from travelers inbound from Africa, and then through several superspreader events. A just-published paper from the institute and other researchers described a Christmas party attended by about 150 people. Most were vaccinated. And yet 71 tested positive for omicron.
Initial omicron cases in Denmark have been concentrated disproportionately among people in their 20s — an age group that normally has mild symptoms, and whose infections might be missed by countries that test less. Some scientists at the institute think Denmark’s wave is a week or two ahead of other Western countries. But others say many countries could already be experiencing the same pattern, with the young — who are most likely to travel and socialize — jump-starting community spread.
“There’s a chance that Denmark is capturing the spread that other countries are missing,” said Marc Stegger, whose team analyzes genomic data.
The government hasn’t implemented a comprehensive lockdown this time. But it has tried to be responsive to the emerging science. Still, the spread has continued apace. For early omicron cases, Denmark tried to quarantine not just close contacts, but contacts of contacts; the strategy was abandoned after nine days because it became untenable.
At the State Serum Institute, many scientists talk wearily about the pre-omicron days as if reflecting on another era, back when the pandemic was manageable and understandable. In the past several weeks alone, the testing lab has hired 100 new people. It bought 20 new PCR machines. It started dipping into its reserve stockpile of plastic lab parts and competing with other countries for supplies. The institute’s Christmas party, planned for last week, was canceled.
Scientists say they feel trepidation — and also a bit of awe — about what they are seeing: an incredibly fit virus, winning a turf war against delta. As of Monday — the most recent day with complete, publicly released data — omicron accounted for 26.8 percent of cases. A week earlier, omicron’s share had been 4.9 percent.
“It’s moving so fast,” Cohen said, as more swabs arrived at the lab below his second-floor office. He said his chief concern was to keep things running. He called himself a “lab guy,” and said thinking about the bigger picture was for the epidemiologists. But he ventured: “I can’t help but have a fatalistic opinion: that we’re all going to get this.”
For the moment, the full consequences of the omicron variant are still on the horizon — weeks away, on a computer screen, or part of government warnings. In Britain, the only country that can match Denmark’s variant surveillance, Prime Minister Boris Johnson has talked about a “tidal wave” of incoming cases. The variant is already dominant in London, and Europe’s center for disease control says it is likely to become dominant on the continent as a whole in January or February. The United States, too, is bracing for a big wave and swamped hospitals as early as next month.
But the models project only a few weeks into the future, and what lies beyond — after the omicron wave crests and dissipates — is left to the scientific imagination.
At the State Serum Institute, the man with the imagination is Anders Fomsgaard, one of Denmark’s best-known virologists. He’s a saxophone enthusiast with curly hair. His colleagues call him an idea man. And he works in a squat yellow building where researchers are growing omicron cultures.
He greeted a visitor at the entrance, under neon lights shaped like geometrical fragments, which he explained represent HIV.
“Another epidemic,” he said. “Still going on, by the way.”
Perhaps, he said, omicron’s origins are connected to HIV, as the virus could have come from an immunocompromised person whose body couldn’t kill off the virus, which was able to grow and change. Even in Danish hospitals, he said, there are people who have had the coronavirus for seven or eight months. In Denmark, the changes are being monitored; in most places, they are not.
“This could be one of the ways you create this resistant virus,” he said.
His goal, he said, is to help humanity finally get ahead of the coronavirus. And to that end, he’s leading all sorts of experiments. Among them is research on a vaccine that targets T cells. Such a vaccine wouldn’t protect against infection, but its goal would be to stop sickness. The advantage would be that it targets parts of the coronavirus that don’t seem to mutate.
“We are all the time responding,” he said. “We’re behind. We are five steps behind.”
He thinks the next month will be brutal, but after that? It’s hard to say. Infected people, and there will be many, could come away with a deepened protection — pushing the coronavirus into something less menacing. But he also said the virus is impossible to eradicate fully. Maybe it could jump into rodents. Then maybe back into humans, re-formed. He described the coronavirus as a “master mutator,” and clearly, with vaccination, humans are driving the virus into a corner, where it can either weaken or change.
“It could come out on the other end even weaker,” Fomsgaard said. “But that is risky business. It might hit another jackpot mutation.”
Read more:
By Max Strasser
Assistant Editor, Opinion
"Nothing boggles my mind — and makes me feel a combination of anger and guilt — quite like thinking about the global distribution of Covid vaccines.
In Britain, where I live, there are plenty of jabs to go around. In the United States, where I’m from, overabundance and lack of demand are leading to some doses ending up in the trash. People in the U.S., Germany, France and some other rich countries are lining up for booster shots to prevent people who are unlikely to be hospitalized from getting sick at all. (I’ve even heard stories of healthy young Americans getting boosters just for their own peace of mind!)
Meanwhile, the citizens of poor countries are being forgotten. Covax, the global distribution program, is, as my colleagues Rebecca Robbins and Benjamin Mueller have reported, underfunded and ineffective. In much of South Asia and the Middle East, vaccination rates are near or even below the low double digits. In Africa, only about 2 percent of the population is fully vaccinated. In many countries, even medical workers are waiting to receive vaccines.
Here’s the thing: This isn’t just moral indifference; it’s also myopia.
It’s become something of a Covid cliché, but it remains a truism: None of us is safe until we all are. The Delta variant was first identified in India (which, as of now, has administered about 47 vaccine doses per 100 people, compared to 136 doses per 100 people in Britain). There’s every reason to think that the next variant will come from one of many places where vaccines are in short supply. I find it all-too plausible to imagine American teenagers in 2023 receiving yet another booster to prevent them from being sickened by an Omega variant that came from, say, Sierra Leone, where, as of now, just 0.4 percent of the population is fully vaccinated.
How is it possible we are getting this so totally wrong?
This has been the story of the pandemic all along, Tooze writes. It’s hard to disagree: A universal threat — sped up by globalization — was met by nationalistic squabbling. From the unseemly P.P.E. grabs in the spring of 2020 to the vaccines today, it’s been not just “America first,” but every country for itself.
Except, that is, when it came to propping up the global financial system. In that case, Tooze writes, central banks coordinated their policies, and governments agreed to engage in unprecedented spending. It worked — at least for some.
The global financial system didn’t collapse under the weight of the shutdowns, but some people benefited more than others: “When liquidity is flushed indiscriminately into the financial system, it inflates bubbles, generating new risks and outsize gains for those with substantial portfolios,” Tooze writes. “While tens of millions struggled through the crisis, trillions of dollars piled up in the balance sheets of the wealthy.”
Tooze is a major thinker, and this is a major essay. It sums up the biggest political and economic lessons of this ongoing crisis. The conclusions aren’t encouraging.
The worst part? The coronavirus pandemic isn’t, in the scheme of global disasters, all that bad. Worse pandemics are imaginable. The effects of climate change are already horrifically visible, but greater destruction and disruption are in store. If the past 18 months are any guide, it’s easy to envision how our systems, and our leaders, will respond. It’s also easy to envision who the winners and the losers will be.
The year 2020 gave us a glimpse of something radically new: tensions in politics, finance and geopolitics intersecting with a natural shock on a global scale.
By Adam Tooze
Opinion | What if the Coronavirus Crisis Is Just a Trial Run?The year 2020 gave us a glimpse of something radically new: tensions in politics, finance and geopolitics inter...
4) How dumb can a nation get and still survive? - By Eugene Robinson, The Washington Post
"T.S. Eliot wrote that the world ends "not with a bang but a whimper,” but I fear our great nation is careening toward a third manner of demise: descent into lip-blubbering, self-destructive idiocy.
Read the headlines and try not to weep:
Our elected representatives in the U.S. Senate, which laughably calls itself “the world’s greatest deliberative body,” agreed Thursday not to wreck our economy and trigger a global recession — at least for a few weeks. Republicans had refused to raise the federal debt ceiling, or even to let Democrats do so quickly by simple majority vote. They relented only after needlessly unsettling an international financial system based on the U.S. dollar.
The frequent games of chicken that Congress plays over the debt ceiling are — to use a term of art I recall from Economics 101 — droolingly stupid. In the end, yes, we always agree to pay our obligations. But the credit rating of the planet’s greatest economic superpower has already been lowered because of this every-few-years ritual, and each time we stage the absurd melodrama, we risk a miscalculation that sends us over the fiscal cliff.
Today’s trench-warfare political tribalism makes that peril greater than ever. An intelligent and reasonable Congress would eliminate the debt ceiling once and for all. Our Congress is neither.
In other news, Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) was speaking to a crowd of Republicans at a country club in his home state Saturday when he tried, gently, to boost South Carolina’s relatively low rate of vaccination against the coronavirus. He began, “If you haven’t had the vaccine, you ought to think about getting it because if you’re my age — ”
“No!” yelled many in the crowd.
Graham retreated — “I didn’t tell you to get it; you ought to think about it” — and then defended his own decision to get vaccinated. But still the crowd shouted him down. Seriously, people?
Covid-19 is a highly infectious disease that has killed more than 700,000 Americans over the past 20 months. The Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson vaccines all but guarantee that recipients will not die from covid. I have, or had, an acquaintance who refused to get vaccinated, despite pleas from his adult children to protect himself. He got covid-19, and it killed him. Most of the deaths the nation has suffered during the current delta-variant wave of the disease — deaths of the unvaccinated — have been similarly needless and senseless.
Why would people not protect their own health and save their own lives? How is this anything but just plain stupid?
We are having other fights that are, unlike vaccination, partisan and political — but equally divorced from demonstrable fact.
Conservatives in state legislatures across the country are pushing legislation to halt the teaching of “critical race theory” in public schools. I put the term in quotes because genuine critical race theory, a dry and esoteric set of ideas debated in obscure academic journals, is not actually being taught in those schools at all. What’s being taught instead — and squelched — is American history, which happens to include slavery, Jim Crow repression and structural racism.
I get it. The GOP has become the party of White racial grievance, and this battle against an imaginary enemy stirs the base. But the whole charade involves Republican officials — many of them educated at the nation’s top schools — betting that their constituents are too dumb to know they’re being lied to. So far, the bet is paying off.
And then, of course, there’s the whole “stolen election” farce, which led to the tragedy of Jan. 6. Every recount, every court case, every verifiable fact proves that Joe Biden fairly defeated Donald Trump. Yet a sizeable portion of the American electorate either can’t do basic arithmetic or doesn’t believe that one plus one always equals two.
How dumb can a nation get and still survive? Idiotically, we seem determined to find out."
"The Covid-19 outbreak has been hard on us all. So please: as we slowly return to our in-person office jobs (assuming we do at all), don’t make it any harder than it already is by dressing like you’re still working from your makeshift at-home “office.”
“The coronavirus pandemic has boosted Americans’ love of comfort wear, accelerating a trend toward wearing athletic attire — also known as ‘athleisure’ wear — at all hours of the day,” reports CBS News. “Since the beginning of the pandemic, sales of formal attire have slumped as stuck-at-home workers prioritize how they feel over how they look.”
It’d be one thing if America was actually embracing a life of vigorous activity. But an American Psychological Association survey finds that “42 percent of U.S. adults reported undesired weight gain” to the tune of 29 pounds on average during Covid, while a Twitter user who reported that repetitious sweatpants-wearing caused him to “forget how to use buttons” suggests the new style trend heavily favors “leisure” over “athletics.”
It’s not as if the fashion world was really at the top of its game before the pandemic struck. In 2019, for instance, singer Halsey showed up to a fancy red carpet event in a get-up she described as “kind of naked, kind of classy.” Wonderwall.com’s description of her outfit is worth a thousand pictures: “[The creation] paired black undergarments with a sheer red dress dotted with floral appliques, all held in place by a thick belt.”
Since then, Covid’s stay-at-home orders and remote work allowances have been all but the stiletto heel in our society’s sartorial coffin. Take this year’s 2021 Fashion Awards at Albert Hall, where most of the men stood on the red carpet of the glitzy gala in tennis shoes and baggy pants. Model Winnie Harlow took leisurewear to a whole new level by wrapping herself in what appeared to be the actual duvet from her bed and walking out the door in it.
It is not too late, however! I implore you, dear Spectators, no matter how comfy those oversized fleecy pants appear to be, or how convenient those skintight stretchy leggings are for work and play — resist! It is imperative that you make a spectacle of yourself this season and save civilization!
The holidays are, after all, the perfect time to go full glam with gusto. Puttin’ on the ritz in December has historically been, at least until the advent of “remote Christmas parties” (really? Can’t we all just go home and drink alone like we do every night?), an occasion for women to splurge on new dresses, handbags, shoes, jewelry, and manicures, while men celebrate by wearing their special Christmas ties. ‘Tis the season of rich velvet, sophisticated silks and satins, luxurious cashmere, dazzling diamonds, eye-catching sequins, finely woven woolens, and luxe furs. Make the most of it! Present yourself this year as you would a Christmas present (none of this lame “gift bag” crap!): carefully covered in something exquisite that’s folded and fitted and trimmed just right.
The Yuletide is also the perfect time to refine one’s appearance, because we’re assailed by inspirations of sophistication at every turn. It’s helpful that the best, most popular Christmas music has remained — thank goodness — relatively inert since the 1960s. When you hear Bing Crosby crooning “White Christmas,” or Nat King Cole’s irresistible smoker’s voice soothe your soul with “The Christmas Song,” you’re whisked away to another time and place that drips with elegance. You can bet Burl Ives wasn’t wearing a graphic T-shirt and ripped jeans that showed off tacky tattoos when he wished us all a Holly Jolly Christmas.
There are the movies, too, that have somehow survived the ages. Everyone, even during the Great Depression, has a set of “Sunday best” clothes in It’s a Wonderful Life. Violet Bick, down on her luck and enduring hard times, comes to beg George Bailey for a loan in an extravagant fascinator and a matching suit that fits her like a glove. (There’s a reason she gets the loan.) All the ladies and gentlemen in Miracle on 34th St., Holiday Inn, and White Christmas have as their everyday attire what would amount to an extravagant prom ensemble by today’s standard. Even Ralphie, in A Christmas Story, wears a necktie and blazer to make a good impression when he visits Santa Claus at the department store before being booted to the bottom of the slide.
“It might be said that society speaks through the clothing it wears,” said Pope Pius XII. “Through its clothing it reveals its secret aspirations and uses it, at least in part, to build or destroy its future.” What, then, does athleisure tell of our secret aspirations and the type of future we’re building (or destroying)? Currently, it appears to be a lazy ethos that prioritizes “me time” with clothing that waffles between thinking about going to the gym and ending up on the couch.
A century ago, fashion was functional, and people’s outfits served a specific purpose. Think Downton Abbey. Lady Mary is rarely seen in the same costume twice: she has duds designed for breakfast, a suit to go hacking in, that is, of course, separate from her foxhunting habit, something to wear while taking the train that’s different from what she wears to afternoon tea and is certainly set apart from evening wear. There’s also a dress that’s set aside in the event of a really fancy ball.
Of course, the elite of society will always be an extreme example, but it’s not too much to ask that the average person employ one type of attire for work and another for idling. It’s a matter of respect to present oneself in a way that says: “I put some thought and effort into my appearance today, for you, the public.” It’s also science: the Wall Street Journal reminded us last year, at the height of the work-from-home phenomenon, of a 2012 study on what Northwestern University researchers termed “enclothed cognition.” “What you wear while working actually matters,” reported the Journal. “Your clothing choices at home can affect productivity and performance.”
While it’s a little more complex than wear a suit, be successful, it’s clear that “clothes systematically influence wearers’ psychological processes.” I can attest to this truth with extra authority, as this year I was able to partake in four costumed affairs: two roaring ‘20s parties, one Founders’ Day event that had me in something chic from the 1770s, and another old-timey reenactment that had me playing a pioneer. Let me tell you: wearing a sheath dress covered in gold beads and a headband sprouting feathers, or a perilously cumbersome, form-fitting, floor-length frock (near a roaring fire) causes you to carry yourself and behave in a manner altogether different from how a pair of leggings and a hoodie prompt you to act.
While we must guard against excess vanity, we can’t sit idly by and watch our sense of style descend from sharp to slob without putting up a fight — preferably a duel, fought in a perfectly tailored set of togs, with an engraved, exotic walking stick used on Christmas Day to rap the hands of relatives opening any gift made with spandex."
"After an FDA advisory panel authorized Pfizer/BioNTech’s pediatric dose for kids ages 5–11 in a 17–0 vote (with one abstention), USA Today (10/28/21) responded with the headline, “Weighing the Risks of Vaccines for Kids: Unknowns Will Make It a Tough Decision for Some.”
In its online version (10/27/21), the paper phrased it: “Covid Vaccines for Kids Aren’t as Clear-Cut as for Adults: Five Factors for Parents to Consider.”
The clear message in either case was that parents would need to navigate a high degree of uncertainty about whether they should vaccinate their children.
The problem with that message is that the public health consensus is in fact clear: The risks of vaccination are far lower than the risks of Covid, so children should be vaccinated. (Beyond the FDA’s expert panel approval, see, for example, the American Academy of Pediatrics, 8/5/21; Time, 10/30/21; Johns Hopkins, 10/27/21.)
USA Today‘s Karen Weintraub introduced the article by contrasting adult vaccination, for which “the evidence…is clear,” with vaccinating the 5–11 age group, for which “the story…isn’t as clear-cut.” Vaccination makes an adult six times less likely to contract Covid, Weintraub explained, and 11 times less likely to die from it.
Without offering an immediate contrast with outcomes for children that would explain why the story is less clear-cut, Weintraub went on to note that the FDA advisory panel “concluded the benefits of vaccination outweigh the risks for this age group.”
parents are likely soon to be faced with a choice: Would they rather take the small chance of their child falling seriously ill from Covid-19, or the even smaller chance that they will be harmed by the shots intended to protect against it?
USA Today is here “to help with that decision,” the article continued, offering a wide array of information about Covid and vaccination in kids, including several points that seemed intended to support the argument against vaccination, like “even without vaccination, it’s possible to protect children by wearing masks indoors and vaccinating the adults in their lives,” and “every vaccine brings some risks.”
Under a subsection titled, “Factors to Consider,” the article noted that “a vaccine provides more predictable protection than infection, but an infection may offer broader protection against variants, studies in adults have shown”—as if it’s an either/or choice. (To suggest that parents might choose infection with Covid, which has killed 177 children in the US between 5 and 14 years old, as an alternative to vaccination is shockingly irresponsible.)
Online, USA Today (10/27/21) said that “Covid Vaccines for Kids Aren’t as Clear-Cut as for Adults”—but acknowledged 18 paragraphs in that “the risks are theoretical.”
Four paragraphs from the end, Weintraub wrote, concerning “a parent’s anxiety level”: “There are no known serious risks from vaccination and its effectiveness is clear, so a parent who would feel better if their child is vaccinated can easily justify their decision.”
In other words, the scientific consensus—that the vaccines are safe and effective—becomes, in USA Today‘s telling, not the main takeaway and the foundation for parental decision-making, but something that’s primarily relevant only to those who are anxious about Covid.
For those less concerned, Weintraub gave the lone abstaining FDA panelist the last word:
While there are clearly high-risk groups in the 5–11 age group for which the vaccine would significantly reduce serious disease, I do not expect protection from infection to last more than a few months, and this may negatively affect public perception of vaccines.
Public perceptions of vaccines are largely shaped by the information they’re given about them. Surveys show that up to two-thirds of their parents are reluctant to vaccinate their kids when the shot becomes available. It’s a major information gap that credible news media should be working to overcome, not to reinforce.
Please tell USA Today that its reporting on child Covid vaccination should lead with the fact that “there are no known serious risks from vaccination and its effectiveness is clear.”
CONTACT:Michael McCarter
Managing Editor for Standards, Ethics & Inclusion
Email: mmcc...@gannett.com
Twitter: @therealmccarter
Remember that respectful communication is the most effective. Feel free to leave a copy of your message in the comments thread."
