Tag: COVID

India’s Covid-19 crisis has gone from bad to catastrophic in just a fortnight

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://qz.com/india/1998394/how-indias-covid-19-second-wave-worsened-in-just-a-fortnight/

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In just two weeks, India’s second wave of Covid-19 has become disastrous.

The country, which was reporting less than 15,000 cases a day just last month, has been seeing over 200,000 Covid-19 infections a day since April 15. Yesterday (April 19), India reported 273,810 new Covid-19 infections and 1,619 deaths—both highest single-day spikes. That takes the active Covid-19 caseload tally up to nearly 2 million.

Author(s): Manavi Kapur

Publication Date: 19 April 2021

Publication Site: Quartz

The obscure maths theorem that governs the reliability of Covid testing

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/apr/18/obscure-maths-bayes-theorem-reliability-covid-lateral-flow-tests-probability

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This is important to know when thinking about “lateral flow tests” (LFTs), the rapid Covid tests that the government has made available to everyone in England, free, up to twice a week. The idea is that in time they could be used to give people permission to go into crowded social spaces – pubs, theatres – and be more confident that they do not have, and so will not spread, the disease. They’ve been used in secondary schools for some time now.

There are concerns over LFTs. One is whether they’ll miss a large number of cases, because they’re less sensitive than the slower but more precise polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test. Those concerns are understandable, although defenders of the test say that PCR testing is too sensitive, able to detect viral material in people who had the disease weeks ago, while LFTs should, in theory, only detect people who are infectious.

But another concern is that they will tell people that they do have the disease when in fact they don’t – that they will return false positives.

Author(s): Tom Chivers

Publication Date: 18 April 2021

Publication Site: The Guardian

In clinical and real world trials, China’s Sinovac underperforms

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2021/04/15/in-clinical-and-real-world-trials-chinas-sinovac-underperforms

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THE LATEST results for China’s CoronaVac vaccine, developed by Sinovac Biotech, a Beijing-based pharmaceutical company, were disappointing for the aspiring scientific and technological powerhouse. Phase-three trials, which were conducted on health-care workers in Brazil, yielded an efficacy rate of just 50.7% (with a 95% confidence interval of 35.7% to 62.2%), just barely above the 50% threshold set by the World Health Organisation for covid-19 vaccines (see chart). The results of a real-world trial released a week earlier were even worse: the vaccine was estimated to be just 49.6% effective (11.3% to 71.4%) against symptomatic covid-19 cases; when asymptomatic infections were included, this figure dropped to a dismal 35.1%.

The Chinese authorities’ reaction did little to boost confidence. After news broke of the discouraging results, Gao Fu, head of the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, admitted at a conference on April 10th that current vaccines “don’t have very high rates of protection”, and suggested that vaccines could be mixed to improve efficacy. Mr Gao later backtracked from the comments, claiming that it was “a complete misunderstanding”.

Publication Date: 15 April 2021

Publication Site: The Economist

Covid-19 Cases Rise in Parts of U.S. Even as Vaccinations Pick Up

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-faces-critical-weeks-as-covid-19-cases-rise-again-in-some-places-11618845433

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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Monday that the seven-day average of new Covid-19 cases is at more than 67,443, up 1% from the prior seven-day average of 66,702. Four weeks ago, the seven-day average was 53,000 cases a day, said Rochelle Walensky, director of the CDC, during a press briefing Monday.

The U.S. is in a “complicated stage” of the pandemic, Dr. Walensky said.

“The more people get vaccinated, the fewer infections there will be, which means fewer variants will emerge and fewer breakthrough infections will occur and the quicker we can get back to doing the things we love,” said Dr. Walensky.

More than a quarter of the U.S. population has now been fully vaccinated against Covid-19, according to CDC data. The country administered an average of 3.2 million doses a day over the past week, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of CDC data.

As of Monday, all American adults are eligible to receive a Covid-19 vaccine, with every state meeting the April 19 deadline set by President Biden.

Author(s): Melanie Grayce West

Publication Date: 19 April 2021

Publication Site: Wall Street Journal

The coming COVID-19 baby bust: Update

Mary Pat Campbell
The coming COVID-19 baby bust: Update

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From today’s vantage point, it looks more likely that unemployment will have risen by around 5.5 percentage points in the year following the start of the pandemic (April 2020 through March 2021) from 3.5 percent to roughly nine percent. This estimate is based on observed data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics for April through November and assumes little change in the next few months. Using this revised expected change in unemployment, we would predict a 5.5 percent reduction in births from the unemployment effect alone. Applying that to the number of births in 2019 (3.75 million) suggests 206,000 fewer births in 2021.

Our original forecast also incorporated an additional reduction in births coming from the anxiety and social conditions associated with the public health crisis. We incorporated this into our forecast by examining the experience of the 1918 Spanish Flu. Back then, every spike in the death rate attributable to the flu was associated with a dramatic reduction in births nine months later. We relied on that evidence to increase our forecast based solely on labor market conditions by one to three additional percent, or another 38,000 to 114,000 fewer births.

Author(s): Melissa S. Kearney, Phillip B. Levine

Publication Date: 17 December 2020

Publication Site: Brookings

Mortality with Meep: Location of Death Data for 1999-2020, Entire United States

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://marypatcampbell.substack.com/p/mortality-with-meep-looking-at-location

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For a few locations, it’s pretty clear that COVID explains almost all their excess deaths: inpatient healthcare facilities and nursing homes. Indeed, it looks like over 100% of the nursing home excess mortality came from COVID, which accords with what I see with excess mortality for older people.

However, there is a lot of excess mortality for people who died at home, and most of that is currently unexplained by COVID.

I don’t think it will be — I think we will find those excess diabetes, heart attack, and ‘unintentional injury’ deaths will have been at home, and because of lockdowns there weren’t other people around to get these people to treatment before they died. This accords with what Emma Woodhouse saw for Illinois – that pattern holds for the entire U.S., it seems.

Author(s): Mary Pat Campbell

Publication Date: 20 April 2021

Publication Site: STUMP at substack

Continuing COVID hangover would see pension liabilities drop

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.actuarialpost.co.uk/article/continuing-covid-hangover-would-see-pension-liabilities-drop-19483.htm

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Only in the event of a tragic Covid-19 scenario, seeing continued substantial additional deaths for many years would there be a significant reduction in UK DB scheme liabilities, according to a new report from LCP.


While LCP believes that the financial impact on DB schemes of direct deaths from the first two Covid-19 waves is likely to be marginal, it outlines several other scenarios around the pandemic’s longer-term impact on mortality rates and scheme labilities. The range of outcomes illustrates the challenges of choosing an appropriate mortality assumption at the current time, with much uncertainty over how Covid-19 will play out.

Author(s): Chris Tavener

Date Accessed: 20 April 2021

Publication Site: Actuarial Post (UK)

Massachusetts COVID-19 Vaccine Tracker

Mary Pat Campbell
COVID-19 Vaccine Tracker

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COVID-19 vaccination, particularly the disparity of rates between racial and ethnic groups, takes up much of the current talk about the pandemic. The Massachusetts Department of Public Health (DPH) publishes vaccination data every day, for municipalities, tracking rates by age group, racial and ethnic groups, and by gender.

Pioneer is proud to present a new vaccine tracker, the newest tool in our COVID-19 tracking project. Pioneer distilled the vaccination data down to those who are either fully vaccinated or partially vaccinated, by all the demographic categories published by the DPH. Use the new tool below to compare rates among groups, by municipality and by county. We will update the data every week.

Date Accessed: 20 April 2021

Publication Site: Pioneer Institute

What Makes You More Likely to Get Side Effects From COVID Vaccine?

Mary Pat Campbell
What Makes You More Likely to Get Side Effects From COVID Vaccine?

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Chicago’s top doctor, Chicago Department of Public Health Commissioner Dr. Allison Arwady, broke it down Thursday, saying in Facebook Live that younger people are more likely to experience side effects “because younger people have more robust immune system broadly.”

And, according to Loafman, the body’s immune system is what creates the symptoms.

“That’s simply a reflection of the immune response, just the way we have when we get ill,” he said.

Publication Date: 13 April 2021

Publication Site: NBC Chicago

Prolonged brain dysfunction in COVID-19 survivors: A pandemic in its own right?

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://theconversation.com/prolonged-brain-dysfunction-in-covid-19-survivors-a-pandemic-in-its-own-right-158743

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One in three survivors of COVID-19, those more commonly referred to as COVID-19 long-haulers, suffered from neurologic or psychiatric disability six months after infection, a recent landmark study of more than 200,000 post-COVID-19 patients showed.

Researchers looked at 236,379 British patients diagnosed with COVID-19 over six months, analyzing neurologic and psychiatric complications during that time period. They compared those individuals to others who had experienced similar respiratory illnesses that were not COVID-19.

They found a significant increase in several medical conditions among the COVID-19 group, including memory loss, nerve disorders, anxiety, depression, substance abuse and insomnia. Additionally, the symptoms were present among all age groups and in patients who were asymptomatic, isolating in home quarantine, and those admitted to hospitals.

Author(s): Chris Robinson

Publication Date: 15 April 2021

Publication Site: The Conversation

Vaccine Efficacy and the Immunity Time Spans

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://polimath.substack.com/p/vaccine-efficacy-and-the-immunity

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Let’s refer back to the Pfizer study submitted to the FDA. In that study, 18,555 people were vaccinated and 18,533 people received the placebo injection. In these groups, 7 days after the second dose was administered, we saw that the vaccinated group got infected at only 5% the rate that the placebo group was infected.

Furthermore, this is the number of cases we see over the course of a two month study. So those 9 people out of 18,555 were not symptomatic and infectious that whole time, but only for a few weeks.

So, to take CNN’s example and re-imagine it for the reality we have with this data.

Let’s say 1 million people are travelling. If everyone is unvaccinated (and the window of infection is roughly one week), there will be about 1,100 infected travelers.

If, however, everyone is vaccinated, there will be about 60 infected travelers and their chance of infecting you (my dear vaccinated friend) is reduced substantially.

Author(s): PoliMath

Publication Date: 13 April 2021

Publication Site: Marginally Compelling on substack

J&J Covid-19 Vaccine Pause Driven by Risk of Mistreating Blood Clots

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.wsj.com/articles/j-j-covid-19-vaccine-was-paused-over-blood-clot-treatment-concerns-11618777554

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U.S. health authorities came close to simply warning about a blood-clotting risk from Johnson & Johnson’s Covid-19 vaccine, but they decided to recommend pausing use out of concern doctors would improperly treat the condition, people familiar with the matter said.

Over the previous four weeks, U.S. health officials had become alarmed about similar blood-clotting conditions in Europe involving a Covid-19 vaccine from AstraZeneca PLC, the people said. The officials dug into a U.S. vaccine safety database and identified the cases of great concern, but they debated what action to take.

By the night of April 12, the officials resolved that urgent action was needed, the people said. Four of six women in the U.S. who developed the clots days after vaccination had initially been given blood thinner heparin, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Its use could have worsened the patients’ condition, the people said.

Author(s): Thomas M. Burton and Betsy McKay

Publication Date: 18 April 2021

Publication Site: Wall Street Journal