omicron mysteries
Why is omicron spreading so fast and well? We don't know the whole story, and the Hong Kong report of "70x more bronchial virus" raises the possibility it spamming way more. But other studies are suggesting it's not intrinsically more infectious than Delta, it "just" bypasses old school antibodies. Most people don't seem to have internalized that, so... imagine March 2020, but without anyone changing behavior at all, and how fast covid have ripped through a population. Then crank that up because Delta is more infectious than the original strain, and *speed* it up since omicron's generation time is shorter. Voila!
Some places still have some mitigation measures, including masking. The parts of Canada I've been in have been pretty good about that. So why are their curves just as bad? Well, I also know people have been filling restaurants and bars, where people eat and *talk* unmasked. It's like wearing a condom whenever you have sex... except for orgies at the anonymous sex club. Wearing a mask 23 hours a day doesn't protect you if you if you take it off while infected people talk at you.
That makes sense. But where I get worried is, there are a few places -- too few IMO -- that have been going further. Portugal closed bars Dec 25. Quebec closed restaurants Dec 31. The Netherlands have closed restaurants from Dec 19. So we should be seeing a difference in such places, right? Well, maybe not Portugal, closing bars but not restaurants may not do much.
Graphs of Quebec, and Netherlands. Quebec does have a sharp spike down, but what looks like the beginning of a bounce up. Netherlands does have a late December decline -- though when Delta was maybe still dominant -- but is bouncing back up.
Granted, the holidays just happened, and lots of people were probably mingling all on their own. But still, the data isn't supporting my model well.
Ontario closed indoor dining too, but only Jan 5, so it's too soon for my data sources to see effect there.
On the flip side is this thread suggesting that covid can spread between apartments, like through dried drains, or poor ducts, or gaps in apartment envelopes, or just through the hallway. (Not to mention breathing hallway and elevator air.) So as someone who could have rented a laneway ADU but is in a downtown condo, that's terrifying. (I have taken some measures: blocking the bottom gap of the door, though I can't when I leave; having windows open (and checking that air is blowing in, not out), and running water on the lesser-used drains to make sure the trap stays full.) See the
DW comments at https://mindstalk.dreamwidth.org/591824.html#comments
Some places still have some mitigation measures, including masking. The parts of Canada I've been in have been pretty good about that. So why are their curves just as bad? Well, I also know people have been filling restaurants and bars, where people eat and *talk* unmasked. It's like wearing a condom whenever you have sex... except for orgies at the anonymous sex club. Wearing a mask 23 hours a day doesn't protect you if you if you take it off while infected people talk at you.
That makes sense. But where I get worried is, there are a few places -- too few IMO -- that have been going further. Portugal closed bars Dec 25. Quebec closed restaurants Dec 31. The Netherlands have closed restaurants from Dec 19. So we should be seeing a difference in such places, right? Well, maybe not Portugal, closing bars but not restaurants may not do much.
Graphs of Quebec, and Netherlands. Quebec does have a sharp spike down, but what looks like the beginning of a bounce up. Netherlands does have a late December decline -- though when Delta was maybe still dominant -- but is bouncing back up.
Granted, the holidays just happened, and lots of people were probably mingling all on their own. But still, the data isn't supporting my model well.
Ontario closed indoor dining too, but only Jan 5, so it's too soon for my data sources to see effect there.
On the flip side is this thread suggesting that covid can spread between apartments, like through dried drains, or poor ducts, or gaps in apartment envelopes, or just through the hallway. (Not to mention breathing hallway and elevator air.) So as someone who could have rented a laneway ADU but is in a downtown condo, that's terrifying. (I have taken some measures: blocking the bottom gap of the door, though I can't when I leave; having windows open (and checking that air is blowing in, not out), and running water on the lesser-used drains to make sure the trap stays full.) See the
DW comments at https://mindstalk.dreamwidth.org/591824.html#comments