We can't possibly have enough data, and even enough time since the start of the pandemic to come to this conclusion. To know if something is seasonal, we must first let a couple of years pass and measure and compare the numbers with previous years, no?
Disclaimer: I am not an expert. I believe in science, and its conclusions. All I wanted to know is if there's enough data points to plot a long-term trend.
It’s well into summer in the northern hemisphere and the virus is still spreading as rapidly as ever, so that would be pretty good reason to think it’s not seasonal like the flu, which dies down a lot in the summer.
It actually is winter in half the world and it's as bad as everywhere else. Makes me think weather doesn't play a factor, just people and the degree of protection they collectively take.
Problem is in Winter you also have normal flu season, pressure on hospitals is higher, etc.
The reason the UK locked down was to "protect the NHS". The lockdown worked - dramatically, spread was cut to almost zero overnight, the extra hospitals that were built weren't needed.
South Africa, Cape Town high of 19, Joburg high of 18, similar to Glasgow in Summer.
South America? Yes it's chilly in Southern Chilie. There's barely anybody living there. Same in Argentina - Ushuaia has a population of 130k and a high of 6C today. Arkangel is 3 times the size and has an average high of -9C in winter. Fairbanks population about 100k and high of -17 in the winter.
The population south of Viedma, Neuquén and Valdivia (highs today of around 13) is well under 3 million, with towns mostly less than 100k.
Santiago's high today is 33. BA has a high of 15. That's not the same as a northern winter.
Compare with Beijing, population 20 million, average highs of 2C in winter. Chicago, 1C, 9 million. Moscow -4C, 12 million.
Comparing a Southern winter with a Northern winter is disingenuous - it's milder, there's far fewer people, and far smaller cities with far lower density.
There's no link between absolute temperature and temperature dependent diseases (or at least for rhinovirus which is the most studied).
Instead, the replication of rhinovirus depends on if the air temperature in the nasal cavity is above or below 33-35C[1]. The winter in most temperate regions gets low enough to trigger that.
Current high temps is a weird focus. (Hobart gets pretty chilly in winter; I've personally experienced snow in Ballarat. Meanwhile, in snowy upstate NY, I've also personally experienced a 70 degree F Christmas Eve. Temps vary!)
The key point is this: Australia's winters get cool enough to have a distinct cold/flu season every year.
I always think of Brazil as hot and humid but I have never been there. How cold does it get in southern Brazil? I also never realized how large some countries are as far as population.
We've had -3ºC these weeks, which is about as cold as it gets here. It snows in some regions but it's a bit rare, once in a year in some places, once in a decade in others.
virus has died down in Europe and Asia, although may be upticking in Europe again.
Seems clear it's not heat related though - In Europe when people socially distanced there were few cases. As people are more blasé about it cases start to tick back up.
I can’t speak for all of Europe, but in the U.K. we still have lots of business shut down, like swimming pools and cinemas (at least in Scotland). Masks are mandatory in supermarkets. Nurseries are returning next week. We have just enforced quarantine if you return from Spain and it’s islands due to a spike there. We are also doing local lockdowns in certain cities due to.
So it has died down, but that’s due to the measures we have enforced. The fact that localised spikes are happening I think proves that it’s not “run its course”.
In the UK mask adherance in supermarkets is spotty at best, but when I say "died down" that's because we've been following social distancing measures. The feeling I get is that the public
However high density mass transit in cities is still empty on the most part (there's always exceptions) - most "knowledge workers" (the ones that cram into cities on overcrowded peak trains every day) are remaining at home. Those working in factories, warehouses and shops tend to drive there, so there's less opportunity to spread. Johnson is trying to get people back to offices to save share prices of Starbucks and Pret. I get the feeling it's that, combined with fewer people out at pubs, that's keeping it at bay.
We've expected to see increases ever since the VE Day conga lines, the Bournemouth Beaches, the BLM protests, and the pubs reopening, and on the whole we haven't seen it. I certainly don't think it's run it's course, but aside from local outbreaks which seem linked to poor factory conditions (the meat packing industry especially seems vulnerable), Leicester sweat shops) it does seem to be rumbling on without the exponential growth we saw in March.
yeah this is a no-brainer, though I did think flu+covid would be bad... the masks/social distancing (as much as we have anyways), may actually quell a bad flu season, unfortunately covid is 10x more transmissable so it's like trying to get rid of a squirrel vs an army of ants coming in every door and under the floor boards.
In summertime many people can go to their vacation homes with gardens far from the cities, and work remotely, so it's much harder to keep distance in the cold winter.
I expect the winter being worse for the countries that weren't hit that hard in the summer.
You're right, we won't know if this is an nadir or not in the whole thing, but she seems to be warning against the idea that this is the off season and we don't have to worry about it.
I can't figure out who the target audience is for - the people who have written off COVID also seem to have written off the WHO, and those who haven't see that there's still a major ongoing problem.
I don't trust the WHO but I have certainly not written off COVID. I think the WHO has too much China influence but I think they may still have some accurate information.
I don't know if its seasonal or not yet although I could see experts could start making predictions already. To me though it is not one big wave. Watching the numbers in the USA and other countries it appears that as restrictions are lifted cases rise. When they rise we add restrictions and they go down at a much slower rate. Its many smaller waves.
The fact that restrictions are effective or cause rate changes has nothing to do with the seasonal behavior of virus. The fact that restrictions don't cause immediate drops is pretty obvious A) there is time lag and B) no restrictions are 100% effective. It takes time for a change in the rate of spread to compound into reductions.
"many smaller waves" does not seem relevant to understanding the virus and in fact is what they are warning against. Where I live, if you dig down, "waves" appear to be simple thing, super spreader events at essential businesses and churches.
> WHO officials have been at pains to avoid describing a resurgence of COVID-19 cases like those in Hong Kong as “waves” as this suggests the virus is behaving in ways beyond human control, when in fact concerted action can slow its spread.
Yeah, the relationship I implied doesn't actually work both ways - but anyone who has written off the WHO is sure not to take their advice, and I have a hard time seeing anyone who hasn't written off WHO ignoring COVID. But people who have written off the WHO could still not write off COVID.
And based upon your assessment, you'd seem to agree with her point - "It’s going to be one big wave. It’s going to go up and down a bit. The best thing is to flatten it and turn it into just something lapping at your feet"
Covid-19 hardly mutates and people who were exposed to SARS 17 years ago have immunity to covid today. So yes, it’s pretty safe to say there won’t be a second wave of any significance. This was known since Februari and I don’t understand why you would think this disease will be seasonal when it isn’t anything like the seasonal viruses we know that mutate and don’t trigger good immune responses.
(It is seasonal in the sense that the R0 is higher in the winter when people are cooped together, but once you've got sufficient exposure in the community a second wave won't happen regardless)
> Covid-19 hardly mutates and people who were exposed to SARS 17 years ago have immunity to covid today.
Citation, please. Any credible sources that I could find say that protection correlation with SARS is not clearly established and antibody levels to SARS fall off between 2-3 years after infection.
> there won’t be a second wave of any significance
There will or will not be but certainly not for the reasons you mention. Unlike flu and older coronaviruses, SARS-Cov-2 R_t seems to be driven exclusively by containment measures, not by seasonality, at least not at the present.
> once you've got sufficient exposure in the community a second wave won't happen regardless
We are nowhere near the "sufficient exposure" and it is already the most impactful pandemic in the last 100 years.
> Any credible sources that I could find say that protection correlation with SARS is not clearly established and antibody levels to SARS fall off between 2-3 years after infection.
It was T-cell immunity, not humoral immunity like with antibodies. Absence of antibodies != absence of immunity.
I think there is enough information/data to be gained from the virus itself to determine if it has the same or similar characteristics of other corona viruses (like influenza) to support seasonality or season-less continuity.
> We can't possibly have enough data, and even enough time since the start of the pandemic to come to this conclusion.
For, Pro, Against, Anti, WHO, CDC, vaccine, masks, orders... etc etc etc... I’ve been thinking this same thing since March. I’m absolutely fine being cautious and doing the right thing, but I think everyone pretends “the science is settled” on these things and it changes weekly - and it should because a lot of it is new - but now that’s used as a weapon by everyone invoked. Kinda sick of it.
It should be totally OK to say “we don’t know, so we won’t guess”.
We don't know, we won't guess, but we have to have a policy, and that policy is based on what we do know. If what we do know changes, we change the policy.
The problem with that is that policy changing every week is not something that western populations can deal with, so policy changes have to be dampened somewhat.
It wasn’t on westerners radars until February in any serious way.
It spread through Winter 2019, Spring 2020, and is spreading during Summer 2020 when trying to “re-open.”
Pretty sure measurable science to support the idea exists. Oh sure that trend may change, but come on, RIGHT NOW it’s literally showing no signs of fading away if we “live normally.”
Why do you need 18 more months of plotting data to decide on what’s literally happening right before your eyes?
It just that we were measuring a lot many more people now. But it is true that in June there were fewer cases than today, but by far the most cases were in the Winter.
How else would be in the situation where 10% of population is already seropostive and at least as many don't develop antibodies since their symptoms are mild, thus we are probably over 20% of people having had the disease.
> The modeling from IMHE shows that in March the number of daily new infections were above 250K whereas today are about 120K.
Yeah, but the IHME model is also extremely bad. It consists almost entirely of fitting a Gaussian to the number of cases over time. It’s mathematically impossible in their model for the case count to not go down.
I am not sure I follow. For any epidemic that is well underway it is impossible for the number cases not to go down over time, it is only the time frame that is under question perhaps.
Not sure what you are getting at. The original post is on the topic of whether there are more or fewer infections in the Summer, which it looks to be the case.
The biology of the virus may not have a “weak phase” just because transmission rates went down. We load balanced transmission rates with distance.
That doesn’t mean the virus got weaker. Rates go up as soon as distance is removed? Doesn’t seem like the virus wants to slow down as a matter of its “real” physical properties
Disclaimer: I am not an expert. I believe in science, and its conclusions. All I wanted to know is if there's enough data points to plot a long-term trend.