H5N1

The pandemic’s true death toll: Millions more than official counts

Via Nature: The pandemic’s true death toll: millions more than official counts. Excerpt:

Last year’s Day of the Dead marked a grim milestone. On 1 November, the global death toll from the COVID-19 pandemic passed 5 million, official data suggested. It has now reached 5.5 million. But that figure is a significant underestimate. Records of excess mortality — a metric that involves comparing all deaths recorded with those expected to occur — show many more people than this have died in the pandemic.  

Working out how many more is a complex research challenge. It is not as simple as just counting up each country’s excess mortality figures. Some official data in this regard are flawed, scientists have found. And more than 100 countries do not collect reliable statistics on expected or actual deaths at all, or do not release them in a timely manner.  

Demographers, data scientists and public-health experts are striving to narrow the uncertainties for a global estimate of pandemic deaths. These efforts, from both academics and journalists, use methods ranging from satellite images of cemeteries to door-to-door surveys and machine-learning computer models that try to extrapolate global estimates from available data.  

Among these models, the World Health Organization (WHO) is still working on its first global estimate, but the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation in Seattle, Washington, offers daily updates of its own modelled results, as well as projections of how quickly the global toll might rise. And one of the highest-profile attempts to model a global estimate has come from the news media. The Economist magazine in London has used a machine-learning approach to produce an estimate of 12 million to 22 million excess deaths — or between 2 and 4 times the pandemic’s official toll so far (see go.nature.com/3qjtyge and ‘Global toll’).

The uncertainty in this estimate is a discrepancy the size the population of Sweden. “The only fair thing to present at this point is a very wide range,” says Sondre Ulvund Solstad, a data scientist who leads The Economist’s modelling work. “But as more data come in, we are able to narrow it.”  

The scramble to calculate a global death toll while the pandemic continues is an exercise that combines sophisticated statistical modelling with rapid-fire data gathering. Everyone involved knows any answer they provide will be provisional and imprecise. But they feel it is important to try. They want to acknowledge the true size and cost of the human tragedy of COVID-19, and they hope to counter misleading claims prompted by official figures, such as China’s count of just under 5,000 COVID-19 deaths.

‘Crazy’ omicron surge could peak soon, but the virus is unpredictable as the pandemic enters its third year

Via The Washington Post: ‘Crazy’ omicron surge could peak soon, but the virus is unpredictable as the pandemic enters its third year. Excerpt:

The rapid surge of omicron infections in the United States may be relatively brief, measured in weeks rather than months, according to infectious-disease experts who have been astonished by the speed of the coronavirus variant’s spread — and who are hoping this wave ebbs just as quickly. 

The idea of a rapid peak and swift decline has a precedent in South Africa, the country that revealed the presence of omicron in late November. Cases there spiked quickly and then dropped with unexpected speed after only a modest rise in hospitalizations. An especially transmissible virus tends to run out of human fuel — the susceptible portion of the population — quickly.  

Some forecasts suggest coronavirus infections could peak by mid-January.  

“Omicron will likely be quick. It won’t be easy, but it will be quick. Come the early spring, a lot of people will have experienced covid,” William Hanage, an epidemiologist at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, said in an email Thursday.  

But this has always been an unpredictable virus, going back to when it first appeared two years ago, on Dec. 31, 2019. The virus had probably been spreading for a month or more, but that was the day infectious-disease experts around the world began hearing by email and text about an outbreak of a mysterious pathogen causing pneumonia-like respiratory infections in Wuhan, China.  

No one on that day could have known that this pathogen, initially called the “novel coronavirus” and later named SARS-CoV-2, would trigger the most brutal pandemic in a century. And no one today knows when it will be over.  

Forecasts of how the pandemic will play out have repeatedly been incorrect, to the point that some modelers have stopped trying to make caseload projections four weeks out, instead limiting their forecasts to one week ahead.  

Because beyond a week, who knows? How omicron is reshaping the pandemic Omicron is the fifth coronavirus variant of concern and is spreading rapidly around the world. 

Forecasts of the current winter wave, in which omicron has come riding in atop an existing delta wave, are somewhat more plausible. Columbia University researchers have a model that projects a peak in cases during the week beginning Jan. 9, with about 2.5 million confirmed infections in that seven-day period — and potentially as many as 5 million.  

Columbia epidemiologist Jeffrey Shaman said the infection numbers reported in recent days are already at the high-end of projections, and the peak could come sooner. Omicron is setting new daily records for infections with the virus. The seven-day average of new, officially confirmed daily cases soared to more than 300,000 Wednesday. Then came the eye-popping Thursday numbers from state health departments and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — 562,000 new cases, pushing the seven-day average to 343,000.  

The official number captures only a fraction of the true number of infections. People who use rapid tests at home may not report positive results. Many others never get tested when sick. And some people are infected but asymptomatic or pre-symptomatic.

German COVID incidence rate 2-3 times higher than reported - minister

Via Reuters: German COVID incidence rate 2-3 times higher than reported - minister. Excerpt:

BERLIN, Dec 29 (Reuters) - German Health Minister Karl Lauterbach said on Wednesday that the number of new coronavirus cases has been under-reported and the actual incidence rate of infections is about two or three times higher than the officially reported figure.  

Lauterbach said the under-reporting was due to fewer tests being performed at workplaces and at doctors practices during the holiday season, as well as only a few of those test results being submitted to authorities.

Lauterbach also expressed concern about a clear rise in cases of the Omicron variant and appealed to people to celebrate the New Year only in small groups.  

Hajo Zeeb of the Leibniz Institute for Prevention Research and Epidemiology also doubts the accuracy of Germany's reported figures for the coronavirus and the Omicron variant. 

"The figures now are certainly under-reported," he told the media group RedaktionsNetzwerk Deutschland.  

The Robert Koch Institute for infectious diseases on Wednesday reported 2,686 new cases of the variant, bringing the total number to 13,129. Four people have died with the variant.

The seven-day incidence rate, which has been a key metric for determining coronavirus policy, was reported as 205.5 cases per 100,000 residents, the lowest figure since early November.  

This translated into 40,043 new cases over the past 24 hours. In neighbouring France, by comparison, authorities on Wednesday reported 208,000 new cases.

A spokesperson for the German Health Ministry said earlier Wednesday that the government expects a clearer picture of the infection situation early next year.

Omicron 'going to get worse' as California hospitalizations up

Via The Los Angeles Times: Omicron 'going to get worse' as California hospitalizations up. Excerpt:

The number of COVID-19 patients hospitalized in California over the weekend reached levels not seen in months as the rapid spread of the Omicron variant caused major airline interruptions and sent throngs of people to testing sites.  

Officials said they expected Omicron’s spread to worsen in the coming weeks, with President Biden promising the federal government will do all it can to assist states facing surges in coronavirus cases. Biden acknowledged those who faced long waits for tests over the holiday and said his administration was seeking to alleviate the issue.  

“Seeing how tough it was for folks to get a test this weekend shows we have more work to do,” Biden said, “and we’re doing it.”  

There were 4,001 coronavirus patients hospitalized Sunday — California’s highest single-day total since Oct. 9 and a nearly 14% increase from last week.  

Some areas are contending with even sharper rises. Los Angeles County has seen a 30% bump in COVID-19 hospitalizations since last week. In Orange County, the patient count has swelled nearly 45% during the same period.  

Overall, the greater Southern California and Sacramento regions have posted a 20% jump in hospitalizations during the same span, while the San Francisco Bay Area has recorded a 13% increase.  

Officials and experts have long noted that hospitalizations are a lagging indicator of coronavirus spread, usually rising about two weeks after increases in infections.

That’s a potentially worrisome trend, given that California is battling a significant new spike that officials say is driven by circulation of the Omicron variant, perhaps the most heavily mutated and highly transmissible edition of the coronavirus.  

Over the last week, California reported an average of 11,914 new coronavirus cases per day, a 73% jump from two weeks ago, according to data compiled by The Times.  

The surge has been especially profound in Los Angeles County, which announced more than 20,000 combined new cases Saturday and Sunday — an eye-popping total officials say is actually an undercount because of reporting lags over the Christmas weekend.

COVID-19 on December 27: Are we just going through the motions now?

This morning's Johns Hopkins dashboard has more information than it seems to. We might settle for the big numbers at the top and click away to some other site.

Yes, we have a nice round 280 million cases, and 300 million will likely be the total in a few weeks. Deaths are at 5.4 million; we will hear a lot of comparisons to the Holocaust when the virus has killed 6 million.

But look at the US: over 4 million cases in the past 28 days, and over 1,000 deaths per day in that period. Perhaps the first year of the Trump response ensured that the Biden response would fail, but this badly? Many of these cases and deaths must be due to the active resistance to Biden's policies of many state governments and their Trumpist supporters.

Over on the right, the weekly case count is now at 5.2 million, sharply higher than the previous 4.55 million. Forty-five thousand people worldwide have died, a slight drop from the previous week. Vaccinations have dropped also. It's not much more reassuring when you click on "28-day" and see the graphs for the last 4 weeks: cases and deaths were far worse a few days ago, but vaccinations have fallen sharply.

All of these numbers are likely severe undercounts, and all of them will be higher 28 days from now, when Omicron has made itself dominant around the world. Maybe I'm just tired after two years, but they suggest to me that most governments, from municipalities to nations, are just going through the motions. 

UK has Omicron Covid patients in hospital, government confirms

Via The Guardian: UK has Omicron Covid patients in hospital, government confirms. Excerpt:

People have been admitted to hospital with the Omicron variant in Britain, a government minister has confirmed, as a senior public health adviser said further curbs may be needed.  

The education secretary, Nadhim Zahawi, said he could confirm there were “cases in hospital with Omicron”. “We’ve been able to test people who are in hospital over the past two weeks, and so there is a lag to hospitalisation,” he told Trevor Phillips on Sky News.  

Speaking to the BBC, Susan Hopkins, the chief medical adviser of the UK Health Security Agency, said hospitals were diagnosing Omicron in an increasing number of people coming into emergency departments and that the numbers in hospital were expected to increase.  

No deaths have been reported so far from Omicron, although it is just over two weeks since the variant was first detected in the UK, and there is normally a time lag of three to four weeks between infection and death, should that happen. “I think it’s too early to make any assumption at this point in time,” Hopkins said.  

Hopkins said it was “inevitable that we’re going to see a big wave of infections” but that it was not yet clear how many of these cases would be severe.  

The reports follow a warning on Saturday from leading scientists that a failure to impose tougher Covid restrictions could lead to a further 25,000 to 75,000 deaths – or 175,000 to 492,000 hospital admissions – over the next five months. The researchers, based at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, predicted that a massive wave of infections was likely to sweep the nation in January.

Hong Kong: Centre for Health Protection strives to contribute to global fight against COVID-19

A news release: CHP of DH strives to contribute to global fight against COVID-19. Excerpt:

The Centre for Health Protection (CHP) of the Department of Health (DH) has been participating in the global fight against COVID-19 and strives to make a contribution by sharing with the international community Hong Kong's efforts in combating the pandemic, especially in response to the emergence of variant strains and timely reporting of findings on variants.   

The CHP has conducted a review on the epidemiology of confirmed COVID-19 variant cases reported in Hong Kong from December 2020 to June 2021 and public health control measures relating to COVID-19 variants. The findings have been released as a pre-print pending formal publication in IJID Regions, an official journal of the International Society for Infectious Diseases (doi.org/10.1016/j.ijregi.2021.11.002).             

Among the 5 609 confirmed COVID-19 cases reported between December 1, 2020, and June 30, 2021, a total of 393 cases were found to be variant cases (7.0 per cent), including 291 cases of Variants of Concern (74 per cent), 73 cases of Variants of Interest (18.6 per cent) and 29 cases of Alerts for Further Monitoring (7.4 per cent).             

The above epidemiological review has found that, unlike some places which saw surges of COVID-19 variants following their introduction, no widespread community outbreak of variant cases was observed in Hong Kong and sustained local transmission of COVID variants was absent. Among the 393 variant cases reported in the period under review, the vast majority of them were imported cases. Only three clusters involving local transmission of COVID-19 variants were identified, with two clusters linked to imported cases (first cases 11643 and 11902 respectively) while the source of the remaining cluster was unknown (first case 11852). Nearly half of the cases in these three clusters were identified during quarantine in quarantine centre. Further community spread was successfully contained.             

This success was found to be attributed to the strengthening of public health control measures against variants at various stages, including risk-stratified quarantine and testing requirements for inbound travellers, banning of flights from extremely high-risk areas, enhanced contact tracing and quarantine to 21 days, extensive community testing and enhanced laboratory surveillance. 

Hong Kong's control strategy has successfully limited the spread of COVID-19 variants from imported cases and prevented the occurrence of community-wide outbreaks, a spokesman for the CHP said.

South Korea: New cases, critical patients set new records as infections soar

Via Yonhap: New cases, critical patients set new records as infections soar. Excerpt:

SEOUL, Dec. 8 (Yonhap) -- South Korea's new coronavirus cases hit an all-time high on Wednesday as infections continued to surge around the country amid waning immunity and colder weather.  

The country confirmed 7,175 new COVID-19 infections, raising the total caseload to 489,484, according to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA).  

The daily tally was up by 2,221 from a day earlier, the biggest daily jump since the pandemic began early last year. The previous record of 5,352 was set on Saturday. The average daily infection cases were 5,012 for the seven days ending Tuesday.  

Infections were rising especially among older adults who suffer a drop in vaccine efficacy and children who have yet to receive their first shots, according to the KDCA.  

The number of critically ill COVID-19 patients also jumped to a record high of 840, up 66 from a day ago, putting further strain on the country's already overwhelmed health care system. More than 83 percent of them were aged over 60.  

The death toll rose 63 to 4,020, the third-highest daily figure after an all-time high of 70 on Saturday and 64 on Tuesday. The fatality rate stood at 0.82 percent.  

"In the capital area, where 80 percent of total cases are reported, we continue to add hospital beds with active cooperation from the medical community, but still it is tough to catch up with the pace of rising virus cases," Prime Minister Kim Boo-kyum said during the government's COVID-19 response meeting Wednesday.  

With rising patients, the bed occupancy rate of intensive care units at hospitals around the country reached at 78.7 percent. In the capital area, it rose to 84.5 percent. As of 12 a.m. Wednesday, 860 patients were waiting to be admitted to hospitals.  

As of 6 p.m. Wednesday, regional governments and health authorities had reported 3,631 new cases, down by 518 from the same time Tuesday.  

Daily cases are tallied until midnight and announced the following morning. South Korea has averaged 5,306 cases over the past seven days.

Germany records highest daily COVID deaths since February

Via Reuters: Germany records highest daily COVID deaths since February.

BERLIN, Dec 8 (Reuters) - Germany recorded the highest number of deaths from COVID-19 since February on Wednesday as it battles to stop a fourth wave of the pandemic.  

A total of 69,601 new infections were reported, 2,415 more than the same time a week ago, and another 527 people died - the highest number since Feb. 12 - to bring the total to 104,047, the German Robert Koch Institute for disease control said.  

However, the country's seven-day incidence rate of cases per 100,000 people continued to fall, declining to 427 from 432 on Tuesday.  

Experts have questioned whether the metric means Germany has passed the peak of this wave of the pandemic or whether the figures are unreliable because some health authorities are so overwhelmed, particularly in the hardest-hit areas.  

The country agreed last week to bar the unvaccinated from access to all but the most essential businesses such as grocery stores, pharmacies and bakeries and to ramp up the vaccination campaign.

ECDC epidemiological update: Omicron variant of concern (VOC) – data as of 6 December 2021 (12.00)

ECDC has published Epidemiological update: Omicron variant of concern (VOC) – data as of 6 December 2021 (12.00).

As of 6 December and since 5 December 2021, 30 additional SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant of concern (VOC) cases have been confirmed in the European Union and European Economic Area (EU/EEA), contributing to an overall total of 212 confirmed cases to date. Cases have been reported by 18 countries: Austria (11), Belgium (9), Czechia (1), Denmark (32), Finland (7), France (25), Germany (15), Greece (1), Iceland (12), Ireland (1), Italy (9), Latvia (2), the Netherlands (18), Norway (19), Portugal (34), Romania (2), Spain (7), and Sweden (7) according to information from public sources.  

One new EU/EEA country (Latvia) has reported the Omicron variant, and a number of probable cases are currently under investigation in several countries.  

Based on publicly available and restricted sources, the majority of confirmed cases have an epidemiological link to cases with a history of travel to African countries, with some of those having taken connecting flights at other locations between Africa and Europe. Several EU/EEA countries (Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Spain) detected cases without an epidemiological link to areas where community transmission of the Omicron variant is documented or presumed. This indicates that undetected community transmission could be ongoing in these countries. Finland reported cases with travel history within the EU/EEA (Sweden).  

All cases for which there is available information on severity were either asymptomatic or mild. No deaths have been reported among these cases so far. These figures should be assessed with caution as the number of confirmed cases is too low to understand if the disease clinical spectrum of Omicron differs from that of previously detected variants.  

Countries and territories outside of the EU/EEA have reported 693 confirmed cases. The 29 countries reporting confirmed cases are: Argentina, Australia, Botswana, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, Ghana, India, Israel, Japan, Malaysia, Maldives, Mexico, Nepal, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Singapore, South Africa, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Switzerland, Tunisia, the United Arab Emirates, the United States of America, the United Kingdom, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Overall, globally there have been 905 confirmed cases reported by 47 countries.