The Omicron Covid "Flu" Nightmare.

hey everyone kevin here this video is

brought to you by the daily upside more

information in the description down

below all right folks take a look at

this i'm going to show you a few things

here that are quite interesting about

the omicron first it's worth noting this

chart in fact i would potentially take a

picture of this little chart here

because look at this the detectability

of a covid or the omicron variant by a

pcr test really long tails beyond the

infectious period and this is creating a

lot of frustrations for a lot of people

who want to work who want to get back to

normal where they're testing positive

for omicron but they're not infectious

anymore in fact the infectious period

appears to be between day three and day

seven but people are still testing

positive frequently on eight nine ten up

to eleven that's an additional four days

of testing positive even though you

might not be infectious anymore

very interesting you also see that the

lateral flow tests

their detect detectability cuts off a

lot sooner which is much more in line

with the infectious period but the

problem is nobody can get freaking tests

anymore as people went around started

hoarding these things and then obviously

omicron came to america and started

going crazy and uh well now now you

can't you can't uber eats

the tests anymore even which i know a

lot of people were using those uh just

i'll deliver you some tests but anyway

so this is what's happening around our

country look at this we're supposed to

have a government that's supposed to be

leading to here i'll blow this up a

little larger we're supposed to have a

government

providing a more coveted testing and yet

this is what we've got we've got people

throughout not just the united kingdom

but the united states is the united

states united states people are lining

up for hours just to get tests i mean

honestly at this point it's kind of like

if you get sick you almost it you know

you almost may as well

just go you know what

it's omicron i'ma isolate for five days

and maybe then test or or whatever or

just isolate a little longer i mean it

is it's ridiculous to get tested right

now that people are waiting sometimes

two three hours even out here in

california we've got somebody who wanted

to uh to to come babysit our kids and uh

they they they were in line for two

three hours or something like that which

just crazy and this is uh despite the

fact that we've got a governor and

apparently a federal government that's

like oh don't worry don't worry we've

got plenty more testing capabilities

look at this

90 minute wait uh for testing here per

uh kutv

up from

a day earlier

and then here's some coronavirus

pictures as well in the united kingdom

of individuals uh showing pictures here

of arriving at 5 15 a.m for a kova test

at 8 am and you'll probably be in line

for a few hours just

nutty uh what we're seeing happening

right now with with the testing just

absolutely terrible but we do have some

news to hit and that's exactly what

we're going to talk about uh first and

honestly the cdc's quite frankly become

quite a bit of an eye roller here with

how many times they're either flipping

or just getting things wrong

but it is worth noting that right now it

looks like the us is seeing a higher

number of kids in hospitals as omicron

spreads

most of them are unvaccinated however

and this was a really good find new york

times actually pointed this out this

morning which i thought was incredible

from december today the 29th new york

times mentioned

even though pediatric hospitalizations

are up especially amongst the

unvaccinated children

regular seasonal

flu hospital admissions

are down substantially so it seems like

even though uh you know we're seeing

this this increase in hospitalizations

from children

if if we were in sort of a normal flu

season we'd actually be having a whole

lot more uh

kids essentially getting oxygen or

getting an iv because sometimes when

kids get sick they they don't eat or

they don't drink and then they need

fluids because they're essentially

dehydrating so on one hand this is bad

news with more children going to the

hospital but on the other hand we have

good news that we actually have less

children in the hospital than we would

during a normal flu season on top of

this a new study came out by a new south

african study by a virologist at the

africa health research institute and it

showed that being infected by omicron

actually protects against delta

which is really good we've been worried

that what if you catch omicron but it

actually doesn't protect you against

delta which is by all accounts a much

more severe disease

but according to this research omicron

is likely to push delta out and provide

protection against not just delta but

maybe even future mutations

very good now this study was only

conducted on 13 patients with very very

small preliminary findings preliminary

research six of them were vaccinated uh

sorry seven were vaccinated and six were

not but it's good to see that in this

independent study as well as independent

reviews of this study

scientists on both sides are optimistic

about these results so this is good so

the more omicron grows the less we see

delta and this is now being verified in

studies as well an epidemiologist at

yale said he is observing the same trend

in connecticut he says quote we're

seeing omicron exponentially rise while

delta cases are falling

the epidemiologist at yale envisioned

three different potential futures one

where covid mimics the flu or just

potentially is like a version a variant

of the flu another scenario where kovid

mimics a type of fever with several

variants coexisting in invading

antibodies leading people to get sick

every few years from them so this being

a little bit more of a severe style cold

where you're out with a fever and it's

sicker and the third which is most

desirable is one variant wins out and

then it becomes very easy to prevent the

virus because uh either through a

vaccination or we just we just deal with

it because it's not that big of a deal

and we don't have to worry about other

variants like the seasonal variant

that's like the flu that's constantly

changing not ideal our bodies don't have

that t cell response to being able to

recognize it we know the antibody

response does not last that long for

example individuals who had coveted

before omicron really only have about a

19 chance of not getting omicron if

they're exposed and unvaccinated just

having prior illness however if you have

double shot you're only you're barely

any better you're only at about 23 and

we've broken down all these statistics

uh in other videos as well but this is

just sort of a reminder of that prior

information that now i'm going to hide

myself here so we can more properly

explore the global situation here but oh

and just a quick note before we go

through some of these statistics which

are fascinating check out the daily

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kevin.com upside or use the link in the

description down below a couple days ago

we were wondering why the united kingdom

had this sudden decline in cases here

this may have just been an issue in

reporting and remember we expect a lot

of people are actually not reporting or

getting tested at all united kingdom

inflecting right back up united states

inflecting up but look at this germany

doing quite well and getting these cases

back down germany a little bit more

stringent in restrictions uh and the

netherlands have done the same thing so

what would be good is going ahead and

seeing if we can get the netherlands

just thrown up here as well just to see

here's the netherlands there you go you

have those lockdowns in effect and

you're really seeing that decline in

cases

in the netherlands as well if we can

let's see if we can throw in south

africa and south america here just to be

able to compare these two south america

barely just getting started with a

little bit of a movement here hopefully

we stay low here south africa that

continuation down is uh is remaining

strong which is very very good let's now

go ahead and jump on over to uh

hospitalizations

uh and the share of variants or of

omicron and so right now according to

our world and data we are somewhere just

about 40 dominant in the united states

the cdc says we're around 58 this is

revised down from the over 70 percent

cdc had a set uh once again cdc was

wrong

but uh what's worth noting here

is a hospital admissions and what we

really want to find is not just hospital

admissions but weekly new hospital

admissions

for

covid 19. very very important that's for

covid19 and so we are seeing these

hospitalizations continue to inflect up

in the united states

and in south africa which is quite

interesting given the fact that their

case count is rotating down but in

better news the united kingdom is

staying relatively flat and netherlands

and germany who have much more of that

lockdown mentality

are seeing a rotation down so hopefully

the precedent that germany and the

netherlands are setting is not a clue to

the united kingdom or the united states

that oh for some reason we need

uh

any kind of uh you know lockdowns here i

think that's the last thing that we want

if we look at icu patients at any given

time intensive care unit patients we are

seeing a slight uptick in the united

states

and relatively stable in the united

kingdom very good and then again a

decline here in germany in the

netherlands hopefully once again not a

signal that oh that's it we need uh we

need lockdowns

the share of delta though has

substantially plummeted here in most

areas if we look at the united states we

are dropping below 60 for the share of

delta and we're really seeing this very

very sharp plummeting here in other

variants and this is critical we do not

want to see other adel other variants in

fact what we really want to see

is all of this just become red see this

particular chart here is showing us the

share of cases uh based on all of the

different variants and we're zoomed in

here to december 27th which is from

monday just giving us a little bit of an

idea of the share you could really see

that germany is fighting this delta wave

they're locked down on the delta wave

and mostly the netherlands is as well

but the united states is sitting here

between the netherlands and germany and

so we still got a substantial portion of

delta we're hoping that we can crowd

this out just like south africa and the

united kingdom did you know keep in mind

and it is worth reiterating this because

i get asked this question every time i

mention that yeah south africa had a

whole lot more

prior immunity not because of

vaccination but because of prior

exposure a lot of folks get confused by

that because they hear me say that the

south african population is about by

median age about 10 years younger yes in

fact but they also have a lot more prior

immunity that's because even though

maybe only about 20 to 25 percent of

individuals in south africa prior to the

start of omicron were vaccinated

we expected that over 70 percent of

individuals who were not vaccinated had

some form of exposure to covet prior and

so combined we expected that uh

you know essential resistance to any

kind of omicron or

covet variant would be in that higher 90

percentile range whereas in the united

states we might be closer to that 78 to

80 percent where maybe around 20

ish percent of our population or around

66 to 70 million people according to npr

uh may have no protection at all

against omicron now again fortunately

study after study indicating uh that

that we are seeing uh less severe

circumstances or outcomes with omicron

however we are starting to see uh issues

in in our economic data from this for

example jpmorgan as reported by behrens

this morning indicated that credit card

transaction data is starting to fall as

even though there are a lot of people

who are very

uh

dare i say sort of uh

hey you know what i'm gonna i guess i

can't think of the word but very uh i'm

gonna go have fun anyway yeah i'm not

gonna let the omicron stop my life we're

still seeing overall average credit card

transaction data inflect down which does

indicate that we could see some sort of

weight on the back of our gdp in q1

especially as we get to peak omicron

cases over the next couple weeks

now

following the cdc's move to reduce

isolation periods for asymptomatic

individuals from 10 days to 5 days

medical experts have a lot of mixed

feelings about this

to paraphrase an associate professor a

professor from harvard he said to me

this feels more about economics than

about science the professor suspects

what it will result in is ultimately

more infectious people unisolating

that potentially people who say they're

asymptomatic might not even report that

they have omicron or quite frankly might

not even get tested i mean

to some degree

at this point if tests are so impossible

to get why would you even get tested if

you're not having symptoms in which

because the test might not be available

and you're not going to wait in line for

hours for not even having symptoms

unless of course for some reason you had

to

uh and so we might not even be able to

identify asymptomatic people anymore but

anyway there's some concerns that this

could lead to more cases but hey

i think a lot of people at this point

have sort of resigned to the fact that

we're probably all going to get the army

and everybody's just like well buckle up

let's get through it and then can we go

back to winter and go skiing again and

and get back to normal

now uh another thing that we're noticing

is that the price of n95 masks continues

to go up so for example if if you are

traveling and you want to at least

minimize your chance of getting sick i

know a lot of people like yeah whatever

if i'm going to get it i'm going to get

it

i understand that

but we are seeing the price of n95s bump

a little bit we're over about a buck a

mask now on the box of 20s

but it does look like they just brought

the box of 50s back in for the

honeywells these are the ones that i

purchased you'd actually see here

december on uh christmas eve but anyway

these these get you under a dollar so

you can get 50 for 36 bucks over here

although most people hate wearing masks

so i think most people are kind of tired

of this stuff i i haven't actually gone

out to have a chance to use mine yet i

know lauren has but i haven't

anyway

another thing that we have is that right

now we're noticing that in portugal 88

of adults are double vaccinated yet

we're still seeing a resurgence in cases

there with omicron expected to be

doubling at a rate of every eight days

there the united kingdom denmark france

greece and italy have all set at daily

records and case counts the united

states has hit a record in case counts

as well we are now clearly uh growing at

an exponential rate uh we are uh well

well above the current measure of 267

thousand uh as reported by the new york

times some uh indicate some indicate

that

we are probably over 400 000 uh cases of

positivity now and you do have the new

york times tracker here though uh again

most people say this is um

way behind the curve here in fact if you

just do a quick search of google in most

of our states you're seeing this

exponential explosion here of cases and

if we zoom in here uh as of yesterday

evening we're getting this reporting

here this usually comes through at about

7 p.m pacific time but anyway we're

seeing this about 380 000 it's almost

400 000 cases here and you can really go

to individual states here and you're

really going to see it everywhere i mean

look at the line we're seeing here in

california for example we went from

cases of somewhere around uh you know

few thousand eight thousand to ten

thousand to now fifty thousand all of a

sudden we go to uh just new york

individually and uh you're you're really

going from you know twenty thousand

thirty thousand fifty thousand to uh now

is as high as uh well yeah 48 000

actually uh the peak we're measuring

right here kind of running off the chart

a little bit there but uh yikes big big

pay

big spikes in case counts but you know

that based on what we've talked about in

our prior videos only about one in ten

individuals right now is actually

testing positive who actually has

omicron so there could be a whole lot

more people with omicron out there now

nationwide there were an average of 1200

children hospitalized each day by covin

infected children still remain far less

likely to become ill compared to adults

and need hospitalizations but we are

averaging right now about 71 000

hospitalizations a day the good news is

and this is still well below our peak

level in the united states in saudi

arabia starting february 1st

you will now be required to show a

booster shot or proof of booster shot

it's not like you're going to show a

syringe proof of booster shot before

you're going to be able to visit stores

malls and restaurants singapore also

charged a man who is accused of letting

someone else use his vaccination card to

enter a bar

if convicted he could face up to five

years in jail

and bloomberg it reported an outlook on

the european union which is something

that we could look at as

potentially an indicator of what we

might expect to see in the united states

and the suggestion a suggestion here is

uh that

we are

seeing a lockdown free london right now

but we are seeing an economic forecast

of a growth of just 0.7

in q4 down from the 1.3 percent forecast

we had in q3

q1 forecasts are also being revised down

by both jp morgan and barclays and we're

expecting a lot more analysts to also

revise down their q1 forecasts but then

they're expecting q2 to actually be a

little bit of a resurgent quarter where

we get a little bit of a boost again in

q2

in france uh gdp growth has been

forecast for uh q4 of just point nine

percent that's down from three uh

three percent gdp for germany 1.1 down

from 1.7

and of course a lot of this is due to

potentially people self-isolating we're

just straight up being sick for for you

know a little over 10 of the month if

you think about it there are uh 30 days

a month and you're you're sick for three

days even and you stop spending money

for three days that's that's ten percent

that uh potentially that you are

spending uh or ten percent of the days

that you're spending less money on

whether it's food going out starbucks

restaurants malls

whatever unless of course you're at home

on amazon and you're actually spending

more money

anyway also a little bit more research

out of

oxford university according to john bell

a professor at oxford omicron as we

expected much less severe but also

patients do not seem to be requiring a

high flow oxygen and the average length

of stay is only about three days in the

hospital he says this is very different

from the disease that we saw a year ago

hospitalization stays are substantially

shorter and this is critical i mean we

were looking at seven to 14 days for

people when they were getting ventilated

with prior forms of covid which was

terrible three days fluids little oxygen

and you're out

knock on wood that it continues to stay

this way because that's good you know

not that anybody going to the hospital

is good but again oh that's geez all

right the study also shows that 14

people have died in the united kingdom

within 28 days of an omicron diagnosis

this does not necessarily mean that they

died from omicron it's right now still

evidence that they're just dying with

omicron so tbd but based on the case

counts in the united kingdom

we uh we expect that 14 deaths in the

united kingdom is a

very tiny percentage of individuals who

are passing away from this uh and again

of those who are actually passing away

from omicron solely we expect that

number to be another fraction of that so

anyway this is a complete update on

omicron for you if you found this

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thanks so much for watching and folks

we'll see you next one goodbye