How do we know a pandemic's over?

[Pixel42]

It's not up to me.

It's not up to you to obtain freely available information you wish to know? Then who is it up to, pray?

I don't trust wikipedia.

Then obtain the information from a source you do trust.

 

[dann]

Australia: COVID-19 deaths five times higher than for flu in 2024 (Asia Insurance Review, April 4, 2025)
Five times as many Australians are dying from COVID-19 than influenza five years after the outbreak of the global pandemic, research published by the Actuaries Institute shows.

New analysis by the Institute’s Mortality Working Group of mortality between January and November 2024 found 3,676 people died from COVID-19 – 69% more than predicted. The COVID-19 deaths were five times more than the 728 recorded for influenza.​

COVID-19 deaths five times higher than for flu in 2024 (Actuaries Institute, Mar 20, 2025)

But what do actuaries know about COVID-19, right?! It's not their job to know about viruses, it's not their field of study, is it?!

 

[dann]

It's not up to you to obtain freely available information you wish to know? Then who is it up to, pray?

Then obtain the information from a source you do trust.

His question reminds me of tweets like these from antivaxxers:

Gary Orlando on X, Mar 29, 2025
You presume it's true.
It's not.
Pick one disease.
Show the cause.
Explain how the vaccine addresses the cause.

Gary Orlando on X, Mar 31, 2025
Did you ever think about what happened? do you know they planned it all out and it was a psychological operation? What was so different about it compared to the flu that everybody gets? When did they ever lock down mask and inject everybody before for the same thing?

Gary Orlando on X, Mar 31, 2025
You're just repeating what somebody said.
Nothing is contagious.
How do you prove contagion?
It's amazing you believe all the nonsense after all the moving goalposts.
"Virus stops with vax!" Then..Doesn't stop infection! Then. Doesn't stop transmission! Derp. You're dumb

Debating them is as pointless as explaining geography to flat-earthers.

 

[dann]

This is the thread where the focus on San Diego started, so I'm moving it back here (from Science, Mathematics Medicine and Technology) where I think it belongs:

So to recapitulate:
San Diego County Respiratory Virus Surveillance Report, June 30, 2024, to March 1, 2025 (SanDiegoCounty.gov, Mar 6, 2025)
COVID-19: Cases 24,320; Deaths 234
Influenza: Cases 35,086; Deaths 174
RSV: Cases 4,690; Deaths 6

1) So far, C19 has killed more people than the flu during the current flu season, i.e. since June 2024.
2) C19 and influenza both kill more old people than young.
And when we look at the number of cases and deaths caused by the two infectious diseases, it becomes clear that the case-fatality rate of C19 is much higher than the CFR of influenza.

San Diego County Respiratory Virus Surveillance Report, June 30, 2024, to Mar 29, 2025 (SanDiegoCounty.gov, April 3, 2025)
COVID-19: Cases 25,354; Deaths 248
Influenza: Cases 37,400; Deaths 197
RSV: Cases 5,403; Deaths 10

23 flu deaths and 14 C19 deaths in the past four weeks.
A conspicuous difference from the Australian numbers mentioned in post 1,302, but it's been summer there (moving into autumn now), so not exactly flu season yet.

 

[dann]

USA - currently pretty low. Beginning of a short thread:

JWeiland on X, April 5, 2025
April 4th update:Transmission is declining in most areas, and all regions are in the "Low" category except the South, which remains at moderate.
LP.8.1 is already mature at about 70%, and barely made an impact.
260,000 new infections/day
~1 in 127 currently infected

1 in 127 currently infected' is higher that I would have thought.

 

[dann]

UK, however:
tern on X, April 3, 2025
Are you ready.

 

[marting]

1 in 127 currently infected' is higher that I would have thought.

That's about right for a 10 day window after infection assuming their Y axis estimates are good.

 

[dann]

UK - and everywhere else:
A Comprehensive Beginners Guide to the Ongoing COVID-19 Pandemic (UK Edition) … or Why and How to Minimise Reinfection (WHN Science Communications, Mar 12, 2025)

Outline​

• Is the ongoing debate on COVID-19 a conspiracy theory?
• But hasn’t COVID gone away?
• Don’t previous infections and the vaccine make me immune to COVID?
• But isn’t COVID mild now anyway?
• Surely if all this was happening, I would see it around me?
• What about immunity debt?
• I always wash my hands, won’t that protect me?
• Do masks work?
• But if masks really work, why aren’t they still in hospitals?
• Can’t I just stay away from people who are obviously ill?
• Hasn’t the government and public health always worked to protect our health?
• If all this is true, aren’t there people trying to raise the alarm?
• What can I do to protect myself and others?

 

[dann]

In post 1,302, there was a link to a report on the death toll of C19 in Australia in 2024 made by actuaries.
Another one, based on estimates made by actuaries but about the expected death toll in the USA:

Mike Hoerger on X, April 8, 2025
Do you remember #DuringThePandemic when an American was dying of Covid every 3 minutes and the economy was in freefall?
I do. Because it is today. See next Tweet.
1/3

Mike Hoerger on X, April 8, 2025
The wisest actuaries at a company worth >$16 billion that has been in business 161 years and *insures the insurance companies* against catastrophic losses like wildfires and terrorist attacks suggest 175,000 Americans will die of Covid in 2025.
2/3

Mike Hoerger on X, Mar 31, 2025
PMC Update on #ExcessDeaths
09,000-175,000 people in the U.S. are expected to die as a result of COVID in 2025, based on estimates derived from Swiss Re
COVID deaths expected to be on par with lung cancer in the U.S. in 2025
Death data added to the dashboard

(With a 15-minute-long video)

Mike Hoerger on X, April 8, 2025
175,000 U.S. Covid deaths in 2025. Do the math.
That's 479.5 deaths/day
20.0 deaths/hour
1 death every 3.0 minutes
3/3

 

[marting]

Hmm. So the burden on the Social Security system could drop a bit. It depends on the excess death age distribution but seems likely . Can't find a study that goes into that.

Hey, just trying to look at "the glass is half full"

Seriously though, C19 Sequelae is nearly as severe as the acute phase.

One can also see excess deaths in the CDC data from 2020 on by comparing excess deaths v Covid-19 deaths each month/year.

Provisional COVID-19 Mortality Surveillance

National Center for Health Statistics

www.cdc.gov

 

[dann]

UK:

NHS warning as Covid cases jump to 'highest level of 2025' (MyLondon, April 3, 2025)
Flu and norovirus levels are also higher than usual for the time of year
The number of people in hospital in England with winter viruses remains higher than usual for the time of year, despite the recent warm and sunny weather, new data shows. Norovirus and flu levels have yet to drop as low as is typical for this point in spring and the amount of Covid-19 patients being treated on wards are at its highest so far in 2025.
(...)
An average of 839 hospital beds were filled each day last week by patients with norovirus symptoms. This is down from 903 the previous week, but well above the equivalent total at this stage in 2024 (533) and 2023 (374).
A further 979 beds were filled each day last week on average by patients with flu - again, down on the previous week's total of 1,044, but higher than at this point last year (837) and in 2023 (274).
(...)
An average of 1,174 hospital beds were filled last week with patients who had tested positive for Covid-19, up from 1,050 the previous week and the highest number since the end of December.

 

[Clutch Cargo]

How do we know a pandemic's over?​

What's the correct answer? Sweden generally knows.

 

[dann]

What's the correct answer? Sweden generally knows.

Clutch Cargo has been lying, repeatedly, about Sweden's pandemic response since 2020.
And so has Anders Tegnell, who was Sweden's state epidemiologist at the time.
Anders Tegnell: The rise and fall of an emperor with no clothes in Sweden (Foreign Policy News, Jan 3, 2021)

 

[dann]

Apparently good news, at least for the time being.
Interesting thread:

JWeiland on X, April 15, 2025
Variant Evolution Rate Since 2020
We witnessed a huge weekly growth advantage in new variants for the first year after Omicron arrived, and then to a lesser extent after Pirola. Now we have 9 months of the lowest growth advantages since 2020.

JWeiland on X, April 15, 2025
So what do the trends suggest is ahead of us? In my opinion, the diversity of antibodies today in the population are high enough that we probably won't see another Omicron event. But we could see more Pirola like events. It's hard to predict how often that may occur.

JWeiland on X, April 15, 2025
But for now, the virus seems somewhat boxed in to a local optimum for the Pirola derivatives. It'll need to jump again to restart the growth advantage chart back up.

There is more in the thread. I have skipped some of the posts and graphics.

 

[marting]

Apparently good news, at least for the time being.

Yeah, quite curious. Something I've noticed is that there are always new variants. I've been expecting that one or more of the variants from 2+ years ago would come back assuming that immunity is supposed to be less than a year. Could it be that immunity is highly specific but longer lasting than is generally assumed?

 

[dann]

I don't think so. For the most part, I think the early variants have gone extinct.
However, in recent months it was mentioned that one fairly old variant had returned. I think it had combined with a newer variant, and IIRC it was assumed to have survived as a persistent infection in somebody with Long Covid.
I don't remember where I saw it mentioned, so I'm not sure that I can find a reference.

 

[dann]

UK (Wales):

Cat in the Hat on X, April 17, 2025
On 13 April 2025, at least 81% of all inpatients with Covid in Welsh hospitals had caught Covid SINCE BEING ADMITTED!
Frustratingly, hospital-acquired Covid infections are no longer tracked in England but I suspect it’s a similar story here, if not worse…

 

[dann]

Canada:
T. Ryan Gregory on X, April 17, 2025
Quick update status of SARS-CoV-2 in Canada. Wastewater for the past 12 months and in context of entire pandemic. Also, currently circulating variants (note low sampling for this though). LP.8*, MC.1*, and XEC* are all descendants of BA.2.86 (Pirola).

T. Ryan Gregory on X, April 17, 2025
When I pointed out the brief relative low back in summer 2023 and said that would be a good time to do things you may have been putting off because rates would be going back up, people got very mad at me. Anyway, currently the lowest relative low since then.

T. Ryan Gregory on X, April 17, 2025
I don't have a prediction for rates going back up at this point. We're still in the variant soup phase with descendants of Pirola and the next major new lineage hasn't arrived yet. There are some highly divergent variants out there evolving within individual hosts, so we'll see.

 

[dann]

COVID-19 doesn't exist, and China did it!!!

Trump administration replaces COVID websites, takes down COVID signage (CBS News, April 18, 2025)
The Trump administration has moved to take down COVID-19 signage from federal agencies and replace websites that had previously offered health information and access to tests and treatment for the virus, swapping them out with a page titled "Lab Leak: The True Origins of COVID-19" published by the White House.

 

[dann]

I don't think so. For the most part, I think the early variants have gone extinct.
However, in recent months it was mentioned that one fairly old variant had returned. I think it had combined with a newer variant, and IIRC it was assumed to have survived as a persistent infection in somebody with Long Covid.
I don't remember where I saw it mentioned, so I'm not sure that I can find a reference.

I found it, i.e. stumbled on it:

Ryan Hisner on X, Mar 12, 2025
Do you remember BA.3—the weakling cousin of BA.1 & BA.2 that seemed to take the worst from each & had weaker ACE2 binding than even the ancestral Wuhan Virus?
After 3 years, BA.3 is back.
And it is transmitting.
Who saw this coming?
1/13

Ryan Hisner on X, Mar 12, 2025
While the full extent of the new BA.3’s spread is not known, it’s been detected in 2 different South African regions through regular (not targeted) surveillance by @Dikeled61970012, @Tuliodna, & the invaluable South African virology community.
2/13
BA.3 saltation with 57 spike AA mutations, South Africa #2909 (Mar 10, 2025)

Ryan Hisner on X, Mar 12, 2025
After nearly 3 years of intrahost evolution in a chronically infected person, the new BA.3 is almost unrecognizable. It has ~41 spike AA substitutions (4 of which are 2-nuc muts) to go with 14 AA deletions (∆136-147+∆243-244). We’ve seen nothing like this since 2023.
3/13

(...)

Ryan Hisner on X, Mar 12, 2025
It’s been a year and a half since we’ve seen a truly novel variant spread & just saw the weakest winter Covid wave ever. I suspect JN.1 variants have become weaker over time, forced into acquiring infectivity-reducing spike mutations to evade broadening antibodies.
12/13

Ryan Hisner on X, Mar 12, 2025
If the new BA.3 circulates long enough to pick up some transmission-enhancing mutations (think BA.2.86 getting L455S to become JN.1), it could be the next big thing. Or not. Time will tell.We should see it in other countries pretty soon if it’s the real deal.
13/end